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THE
REVIVAL OF POPERY
A SERMON
PREACHED BEFORE
THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD,
AT ST. MARY'S,
ON SUNDAY, MAY 20, 1838.

BY
GODFREY FAUSSETT, D.D.
HI
OF MAGDALEN COLLEGE,
THE LADY MAHGAREt''s PROFESSOR OF DIVINITY.

SECOND EDITION. '¦c'w^^Ol^H-

OXFORD,
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, FOB THE AUTHOR.
SOLD BY JOHN HENRY PARKER:
AND BY J. G. AND F. BIVINGTON, ST. PAUl's CHURCHYARD
AND WATERLOO-PLACE, LONDON.
1838.

\v

TO
THE JUNIOR STUDENTS
OF
THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD,
THIS SERMON
IS INSCRIBED
BY THEIR FAITHFUL FRIEND,
THE AUTHOR.

PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION.
oOME strictures on my sermon having appeared in a
letter from the Rev. J. H. Newman, a brief reference to
them may be required on my part. Brief however it
ought to be, inasmuch as the letter is any thing but a
regular answer to the sermon, and should seem to have
been written without any complete perusal of it, in
cluding of course the Notes and Appendix. Hence, I
presume, it is, that I am supposed to make assertions
without proof (p. 6.), — and am presented with a long list
of exemplary divines, who observed the Christian prac
tice of occasional fasting and humiliation, in obedience
to the rules of the Church, (p. 93.) as the principal
answer (for mere etymology does not prove that St.
Paul bruised his body, p. 92.) to what I had said of the
gloomy views of sin after baptism, and of those rigid
mortifications and painful penances, that abasement of
mind and body and utter renunciation of the world which
are suggested to the sinner as the means of blotting out
eternal torment by temporal affliction. (Sermon, p. 17. and
Appendix.) Some oversight of the same kind, I suppose, has led
Mr. Newman to complain of the application (p. 5.) of
the terms "combination" and "conspiracy'" to Mr.Froude
and his friends, though the expressions in my pages
(pp. 13. and 52.) are closely connected with their justifi
cation. Mr. Froude himself was not so nice ; — he can
didly avowed himself "an ecclesiastical agitator;'''' — and
expressed his fear that his correspondent and others
" were going to back out of the conspiracy!" (Remains,
vol. I. pp. 258. and 377.)
Equally hasty, and still more unfortunate, is the at
tempt at direct contradiction to my statement, that the
term altar, as synonymous with the Lord''s table, does

not appear to have been adopted till about the end of
the second century. With an air of somewhat unseemly
triumph, four passages from Ignatius are brought for
ward, of which however not one goes to the extent of
proving that by the term altar (dva-MOTqpiov) is meant
the material table at which the communicants partook of
the Eucharist ; — and two at least, have no more refer
ence even to a material altar, than the ordinary phrase
" within the pale of the Church" has to a material
fence, (p. 40.) However, not merely to assert my own
judgment in opposition to Mr. Newman's, I subjoin in
a note that of Abp. Usher''. The references to Scrip
ture (Matt. V. 23. and Heb. xiii. 10.) are as little to the
purpose ; the word in the first passage meaning the
Jewish altar ; in the other, figuratively, the great atone
ment. (Vide Sohleusner in voc. OvcriacrTrjpLov.) (p. 42.)
The enumeration of a dozen Fathers from near the end
of the second to the end of the fourth Century, who
called the Lord^s Table the altar, proves no more than
was already acknowledged. In fact nothing could be
a TidvTes uis eh, els rhif yahv 0eoO (rvj/Tp4xere, ais hrl ^v dvcriaffT'fjptov.']
Anglican. Omnes ut in unum templum coucurrite Dei, ui in unum altare.
Ubi observa, i/obv icaX BvinaiTT'l}piov rem unam et eandem denotare. Unde
in Polycarpi ad PhiBppenses, et Ignatio ad Tarsenses tributa Epistola,
Svffiao'T'fipLov &eov, a vulgato Latino Interprete sacrarium Dei recte est
redditum. Usser. in Ignatii Epist. ad Magnus. §. 7. Cotelerii Patres Apo-
stolici, vol. II. p. 56. Edit. Amstelced. I'J'H.
Ita supra in Epistola ad Ephesios idem : 'Eav ju^j ns iyrhs p tov Bvfft-
aa'TTjpiov, v(rrep€iTat tov &pTou tov 0eou. Nisi quis intra altare sit, pri-
vatur pane Dei : hoc est, intra sacrarium, de quo vide supra in Epist. ad
Magnesianos, vel intra coetum fidelium, de quo Clemens Alexandrinus, lib. 7 _
Stromatum : 'Effrl yovv rb Trap t]^v Bvo'tao'T-fjpiov iyTavda rb i-Triyeiov, Th
&dpoifffta Twv TOis evxals avaKeifi^yuv, fj.iav Sktit^p exou ^uiv^v tV koivtiv,
Koi fdav yvd>^T]V. Est igitur altare illud quod apud nos hie est in terris,
coetus ille eorum, qui hie precibus dicati sunt, unam quasi vocem communem
habens et mentem unam. Ibid, in Epist. ad Trail. §. 7. Ibid. p. 63.
Altare apud Patres, mensam Dominicam passim denotat : apud Ignatiura
et Polycarpum sacrarium quoque. Vide supr. in Epist. ad Magnesian. et
ad Trail. IhUl in Philadelph. §. 4. Ilnd. p. 76.

VI

more natural, than for Jewish and Gentile converts,
with their old religious associations, to apply the term
altar, though in no strict or proper sense, to that which
they found under their adopted profession to bear' the
nearest analogy to it. — Just in the same way the term
altar, though excluded from our formularies at the Re
formation, has survived in the language of the people,
and may innocently continue to do so, unless injudicious
men revive the idea of its connexion with a proper sacri
fice. Mr. Newman appears to misapprehend my remarks on
the Crucifix. Indeed he has completely mystified my lan
guage by wresting the word " reverence^'' from its mean
position between " worship'"'' and " religious interest,'''' and
translating it as simple respect. — I, on the other hand,
am at a loss to understand what idea he attaches to that
" use of the Crucifix'" which he admits to prevail to a
certain extent ; — what " emblem or symbol,^'' he would insi
nuate, that we may " bow down to,'''' as God''s appoint
ment ; and as the worship of images, which " G-od has
" not appointed,'''' is confessed to be idolatrous, in what
crises, or " given individuals^ it could possibly cease to
be so. (p. 25.)
I shrink from characterizing the feeling, or the want
of it, which can exult in the offensive display of the extra
vagancies of Sectarian interpretation of Prophecy against
our (and Mr. Newman''s ?) venerated Church, as a fair
set-off" against the Protestant view of its application to
the Church of Rome. (p. 31 — 37.) However, lest any
one should take fright at the tremendous alternative of
our " coming from the synagogue of Satan,'''' and having
" the DeviFs orders,'''' I simply urge, in the words of an
ingenious writer, " That the succession of Church offices
" is no more affected by the errors of Popery, than a man's
" pedigree is affected by his bodily distemper, or the dis-

Vll
" tempers of his parents ; — and if the man, by alteratives
" and restoratives, is cured with the blessing of God, he
" returns to the state of his purer ancestors of a remote
" generation '».''''
His infelicity in referring to Scripture in support of
an argument of his own on this subject, goes a step be
yond that already noticed in his reference to Ignatius.
His argument in short depends, I will not say for its
soundness, but for its bare pretence to plausibility, en
tirely on the supposition of the word Rome being literally
found in the Apocalypse, whereas it is not there at all !
(p. 38.) — I would observe, however, that this avowal of
his opinion on the prophecies relating to the great Apo
stasy, completely bears out my inference, (Sermon, p. 26.)
that the decided advocacy of the Church of Rome, which
some persons now adopt, is quite inconsistent with their
having identified her with the mysterious " Babylon f —
that consequently, if our best interpreters of Prophecy bo
not wholly mistaken in their views, (and, in main points
at least, I confess that I see not how they are to be con
futed,) these persons are doing their best to blind the eyes
of thoughtless people, and at a most inauspicious period,
to a danger of awful magnitude. If the future fulfil
ment of Prophecy be, in its detail, confessedly beyond our
penetration, it is but the more imperatively required of
us " not to be high-minded, but fear,'''' lest haply, when
the day of destruction cometh, " London'" herself, (ac
cording to Mr. N€^vman''s flippant suggestion,) " with
" her ships and sailors, merchants and merchandise," be
actually found within the devoted precinct.
The determination to maintain the comparative inno
cence of Popery before the Council of Trent, is even more
decisively evinced in Mr. Newman's letter, than in the
b " Short View," &c. Scholar Armed, vol. II. p. 57.

VIU

instances to which I have already adverted. While the
force of plain historical truth compels the confession,
that Image-worship was sanctioned at the second Coun
cil of Nicsea, (why not add A. D. 787 ?) and Transub-
stantiation at the Fourth Lateran, (why not add A. D.
1215 ?), and that other abuses (no date given) preceded
the Council of Trent, it is declared of these notorious
and inveterate corruptions that they were for the most
part " in the Church, but not of it C— fixating opinions
" and practices," (p. 13.) — "doctrines (^m5^m% broached
" orfactiously defended;" " the private and unresolved
" opinions of some certain only;'''' (p. 15, 16.) — and that
" if Rome has apostatized, it was at the time of the
"Council of Trent." (p. 14.) — On the other hand, a
sort of merit is made, of one of the " Tracts for the
" Times" having declared in large letters, to draw atten
tion, that " while Rome is what it is, union with it is
" impossible ;" (p. 18.) — and of Mr. Fronde's calling the
Council of Trent " atrocious," and " wishing for the
" total overthrow of the system, which is built upon it."
(p. 12.) — But who, let me ask, is to be deceived by all
this ? and where lies the doubt, as to the wished-for
inference with regard to Rome, as she tvas before the
Reformation ? Let Mr. Froude, who is happily some
what more given to plainness of speech than his abettors,
be permitted to speak out for himself and them, and tell
us why he hated the Council of Trent, and Rome as she
is. " I shall not," says he, " ever abuse the Roman
" Catholics, as a Church, /or any thing except excommmii-
" eating W8." (Remains, p. 395.) "  admits, that if
" the Roman Catholics would revoke their anathemas, we
" might reckon all the points of difference as theological
" opinions. This totto? is a good one." (Ibid. p. 320.)
Mr. Newman asks, (p. 42.) " In what sense do you
" mean that the tvriters of the Tracts appeal to the

IX
" Lutherans, when not the writers, but only Bp. Cosin in
" the Tracts, appeals, not to the Lutherans, but the
" whole Protestant world f — This is utterly uncandid,
and must not be allowed to pass. — The Tract, No. 27,
is a Treatise of Bp. Cosin's; but being adopted as a
Tract, becomes from that moment, every letter of it, the
avowed language of the Tract writers. They do appeal
distinctly to the Lutherans (the known supporters of Coti-
substantiaiion) and to the whole Protestant world, at a period,
unluckily, when a belief in the real presence, closely bor
dering on Consubstantiation, was widely prevalent. (See
Note 0. Appendix.) England notoriously presented no
exception to this, in the age of Laud and Cosin, (the
pattern age of Mr. Froude and the Tract writers.)
Cosin cites Bilson and Andrews, as arguing thus with
the Papists. " Christ said, ' This is my body ,-' in this,
" the object, we are agreed with you ; the manner only
" is controverted. We hold by a firm belief, that it is
" the body of Christ ; — of the manner how it comes to be
" so, there is not a word in the Gospel." (Tract 27.
p. 4.) — Bramhall, as cited by Mr. Newman, (p. 20.) says,
" Abate us Transubstantiation, and those things which
" are consequent of their determination of the manner
" of presence, and we have no difference with them (the
" Romanists) in this particular."
A reluctant admission that Mr. Froude allowed, in
some sort, a local presence of Christ's human nature in
the elements, (p. 51.) is followed by a singular attempt
(p. 53-63.) to shew, by a subtle distinction, that Christ's
body may be locally in heaven, yet at the same time really,
though not locally, here. " But it is idle," says Professor
Hey, " to use words, and by limitations to take away
" their customary meaning. As words are arbitrary
" signs, they depend for their meaning on custom wholly.
" What signifies talking of a body not present as to place?
b

" That which is not present in such a sense as to occupy
" a place, is not body, in human language '^." Our con
gregations must be treated as people of plain under
standings. If Mr. Newman addresses his with subtle
ties of the kind now adverted to, the}- will either believe
in both the real and the local presence ; or, remembering the
caution of our Church, that " the natural body and blood
" of our Saviour Christ are in heaven, and not here ; it
" being against the truth of Christ's natural body to be
" at once in more places than one ^ ;" they will believe
neither the one nor the other. In the first case, as to a
most important article of their faith, they will become
Papists ; in the other, they will inevitably take him for a
Papist, and respect his ministrations accordingly. In
the mean time, what becomes of the creed of the Pastor
himself? The much vaunted " via media" is after all
but a treacherous and slippery path, and it is clear enough
on which side lies the declivity.
An ambiguous phrase or two in the Formularies or
Homilies of our Church, such as, " verily and indeed
" taken and received,"^ — ^" no untrue figure of a thing
" absent," &c. (p. 46.) depending entirely for their mean
ing on the idea attached to the real presence, and deci
sively explained by her more cautious language elsewhere
adopted, such as that just now referred to, afford no
decent pretence for the assertion, that she countenances
such views as those of Mr. Froude, or the writers of the
Tracts. The " glowing thoughts," and eloquent expres
sions of Hooker, judiciously qualified as they are, by his
" causes instrumental," — " as touching efficacy, force, and
" virtue^'' &c. will not bear them out (p. 67.) ; and if they
did, be it remembered, we do not swear by Hooker, any
more than we do by the rhetorical figures of Chrysostom,
<; Hey's Divinity Lectures, vol. iv. p. 352.
iJ Protestation at the end of the Communion Sei-vice.

(p. 80.) or the superstitious credulity of Cyprian, (p. 78.)
whose belief in the miraculous sickness of the child at
the sacrament is as Httle calculated to do credit to his
judgment, as the avowed adoption of it is to raise the
reputation of Mr. Newman.
With reference to the profane Corinthians, it is argued
that " the phrases ' eating and drinking judgment unto
'¦ himself, as not discerning the Lord's body,' and ' being
" guilty of the body and blood of the Lord,' certainly do
" seem to imply some special act of blasphemy, of which
" the doctrine of the real presence does, and the doctrine
" of mere appropriation does not supply a sufficient ex-
" planation." (p. 83.) Now, not to waste time on an
argument from which piety at once recoils, it is a sin
gular fact, and the coincidence is most instructive, that
this is the identical argument of the avowed Papist Dr.
Wiseman, who remarks that " St. Paul characterises
" the transgression, just as he would transgressions
" against the real body of Christ if present, but in words
" totally inapplicable to the Eucharist, if these be absent
" from if." I would not insinuate that Mr. Newman
has actually borrowed his weapon from the armoury of
the enemy, but merely that having both of them, in every
practical view, the same cause to defend, they have with
instinctive sympathy caught up the same sophistry. It
is a mere delusion to imagine that the denial of transub
stantiation is the denial of the Popish doctrine. The
gross fable has long since found more or less of a spiritual
interpretation among the more intelligent of the Papists
themselves ; — but a belief in a real presence still remains,
which quite as effectually deifies the elements, and sus
tains the idolatries of the nmss.
After all, however, the prominent feature of Mr. New-
e Wiseman's Lectures on the Real Presence, &c. p. 266.

xu

man's Letter is its constant appeal, page after page, to
a confused and wearisome medley of human ana tradi
tional authority, coupled with the comparative neglect of
that imerring rule which can alone decide the points at
issue. It seems the inveterate habit of his mind, im
parting a tone and colour to his ordinary phraseology,
even where no direct appeal is thought of. Thus we are
recommended to " throw ourselves into that system of
" truth, which our fathers have handed down even
" through the worst of times ;" (p. 98.) — we are re
minded of " the pleasant and fair pastures of Catholic
" doctrine, which are our heritage ; " (p. 71 .) — of " the
" spirit, the truth, the old Catholic life and power which
" is in" certain opinions ; (p. 4.) — and we are exhorted
to " live up to the creeds, the services, the ordinances, the
" usages of our own Ghwrch ,-" (p. 98.) — but why not up
to the precepts of the Gospel also ?
Much in the same spirit, and under what influence no
one doubts, the British Critic, referring to my Sermon,
-says, that " at this time of day the word of no one man,
" unsupported by argument or appeal to authority, can
" stop the course of thought in the University, or deter
" inquiring minds from following the paths of Hooker, An-
" drews, and Bull, or of their masters Irenceus or Cyprian^.''''
But what, it may be asked, " stopped the course of" the
sentence, in its natural ascent to the masters of these
masters, the inspired Apostles and Evangelists of Jesus
Christ?
Oxford, July 13, 1838.
f British Critic for July, 1838, p. 232.

Revelation xviii. 4.
Come out of her, my people, that ye he not par
takers of her sin, and that ye receive not of her
plagues.
X O the sincere and reflecting members of our
Reformed and Apostolical Church, grateful
for her emancipation from the spiritual thral
dom and degrading superstitions of former
centuries, and cherishing the hope of her pre
serving, through the Divine blessing, the pure
light of Gospel truth to the end of time, few
subjects can appear more calculated to awaken,
if not absolute and immediate alarm, yet at
least anxious thought and gloomy forebodings,
than the rapid revival of the tenets and the
influence of Romanism, which it is our lot to
witness. Neither can it be supposed to allay
their apprehensions, still less to afford them
consolation, to be convinced, as they can
scarcely fail to be, that the unwonted impulse,
which has been given to this insidious and
encroaching system, is the result of our own
preposterous impolicy.
Experience, the never-failing and effectual
guide of individual conduct, seems to be lost
to the observation of communities. In spite
of all the lessons of history, occupying, as it
may be said to do, the place of national ex-
B

perience, men appear still prone to pursue in
their collective capacity the same blind course
of folly and improvidence and failure, ultimately
and providentially leading, through discipline
and affliction, to repentance and recovery ;
and, allowing for a few minor modifications
arising from times and circumstances, to be
carried on in a perpetually revolving circle of
causes and consequences to the same inevit
able results. The recorded conflicts and suf
ferings and deliverances of our Church and
nation, have faded from the memory of suc
ceeding generations, leaving the impression
rather of fable than of fact. The Popery of
the present day is no longer regarded as the
same Popery which kindled the fires of the
Marian persecution, revelled in the tortures of
the Inquisition, and overspread the face of
Europe with devastation and massacre ; — or
if it be admitted that her principles are noto
riously unchanged, and avowedly unchang-
able, the guarantee of increasing intelligence
and civilization on the one hand, and of the
decline of the temporal power of Rome on the
other, is confidently appealed to as ample
security against every recurrence of barba
rous , atrocity ; and political power is once
more rashly committed to those hands, which,
to say the least, never employed it, and can
never be expected to employ it, but to perse
cute and oppress the advocates of a purer faith.

Moreover, as though our own power were
far above the danger of assault, and our own
religious principles beyond the reach of per
version or alloy — and we regarded with equal
contempt the superstition and the dominion of
Rome — every facility for the dissemination of
her tenets is allowed to exist among us. In
the plenitude of our infatuated liberality we
connive at the revival of monastic establish
ments ; and even those societies, which are so
notoriously objectionable as to find no rest
for the sole of their foot in a neighbouring
country, though professing allegiance to the
Papal See, obtain a sure refuge in this com
mon and undisturbed receptacle of all that is
religious or irreligious — all that worships God
in truth or in heresy — all that forgets or
denies him ^. And the consequences are such
as it required no prophet to foretell. In an
important portion of our empire Popery once
more rears her mitred head ; re-assumes, in de
fiance of violated law, her dignities and titles
of honour, re-erects the Cathedral and the
Palace, and anticipates — and who shall say
without some grounds for such anticipation? —
the early prostration of the Protestant esta-
a It appears that there are now in England no less than
eighteen nunneries, and that a society of Trappists (who are
understood to have been refused a settlement in Normandy)
are established near Ashby-de-la-Zouche. L'Ami de la Re
ligion, Journal EccUsiastique ; Paris, Mardi, 9 Mai, 1837.
B 2

blishment under her own restored supremacy''.
In our own land, too, her seminaries and places
of ''worship have been rapidly multiplying
around us, and the tide of Papal superstition,
which at its lowest ebb was overlooked as in
significant, and in a measure forgotten, is so
obviously rising on us, that men of seriousness
and reflection are already, " musing in their
hearts" what chastisements may yet be in store
for this Church and nation, the meet reward
of an ungrateful insensibility to past deliver
ances and present blessings.
One thing at least is certain, that a revival
of the contest between the Churches of Eng
land and of Rome has become inevitable, or
rather that it has actually commenced; and
that, inasmuch as it has fallen on us almost by
surprise, it has found us very imperfectly pre-
^ " It is some consolation to reflect that the legislative axe
" is laid to the root of the Establishment. The pruners of
" the Ecclesiastical vineyard have not read the Roman history
" in vain, and already ten of the lofty plants, which poisoned
" by their narcotic influence the wholesome vegetation, are
" laid low. This, doubtless, is a prelude to a further and
" more enlarged process of expurgation. With every successive
" measure of reform, existing abuses will be removed, until, it
•' is to be hoped, not a vestige of the mighty nuisance will
" remain." Letter from Dr. M'Hale to the Bishop of
Exeter. — Times, August 9, 1833.
0 There are now 430 Roman Catholic chapels in England.
That of Moor Fields, which at the beginning of the century
had within its district a population of 5000 or 6000 Roman
Catholics, has now 30,000. L'Ami de la Religion, Journal
Ecclesiastique ; Paris, Mardi, 9 Mai, 1837-

9
pared for our defence ; — it has overtaken us
when labouring under the weakness conse
quent on almost unexampled disunion, both
civil and religious ; a disadvantage of the most
formidable character, when our adversaries
are at once subtle and insidious in policy, and
united in purpose.
It is not however my object to invite your
attention either to that large and respectable
class of persons, who, with an unafflscted
though misguided liberality of feeling, com
mitted the grievous error of mistaking a reli
gious question for one of a simply political
nature ; or to that, it is to be feared, still more
numerous band of the profane and licentious,
the indifferent and sceptical, who could not
but regard with utter contempt the principles
to which I am adverting. A sad experience
is rapidly curing the one, and the other are,
for the most part, hopelessly inaccessible to
religious considerations. But it deeply con
cerns us to direct our serious thoughts to the
condition of the really religious sections of
our community, to their views and principles,
and to the false and unfavourable position oc
cupied by some among them with reference
to the impending struggle.
Now there are notoriously existing among
us a large and influential body of Christians,
consisting, chiefly, of the dissenting Sects,
which fell into schism at or near the period of
the Reformation ; of those other denomina-

10
tions which have more recently seceded from
the Church; and, unhappily M^e may add, of
those also, who, though nominally members
of the Church of England, have in some mea
sure adopted Sectarian views. All these per
sons, however widely they may differ from
each other on many points, naturally consti
tute but one class, as far as concerns the mat
ter now before us ; viz. that of those who
despise or lightly regard Ecclesiastical Au
thority and Christian Unity, the claims of an
Apostolical Episcopacy, the Divine commis
sion of the Christian Priesthood ; who neglect
the guidance of their appointed Pastors, put
no faith in their exclusive importance as the
Ministers and Stewards of God's holy myste
ries, and, by a chain of consequences as
necessary as it is deplorable, degrade the Sa
craments themselves to a corresponding level ;
either regarding them merely as initiatory and
commemorative rites, or, at the best, losing
more or less of their implicit reliance on them
as the seals of the Christian Covenant — the
efficacious means of grace and salvation. On
the other hand, while they thus undervalue
the authority and importance of the Church,
they as proudly exalt their own, claiming the
unlimited exercise of private judgment in the
interpretation of Scripture, and maintaining
the undoubted capacity for such judgment in
all ordinary Christians.
With what prospect of success, it may well

11
be asked, could the advocate of such views
as these enter the lists of controversy with
the subtle Romanist? Amid all the errors
and corruptions of Popery, enormous as they
are, she has not absolutely failed to retain a
portion of truth ; and this truth, abused though
it be in her hands to the purposes of sacer
dotal influence, and disguised and distorted
by superstition, is precisely that which, when
skilfully displayed, is calculated to put to
shame and confusion the impugners of Eccle
siastical authority, the despisers of the Minis
terial functions, and the desecrators of the
Sacraments. In fact, the arrogant claims to
independent judgment in religious matters,
however vaunted in theory, are ever repu
diated by the general practice of mankind,
and are utterly inconsistent with the wants
and weaknesses of our common nature. The
great bulk of every community notoriously
consists of those who, from youth, or defective
education, or weakness of judgment, or en
grossing avocations, or other causes which
need no farther enumeration, are utterly in
capacitated for originating and completing
their religious inquiries for themselves. Au
thority of some description or other is their
sole dependence : — in matters of such high in
terest as the awful alternatives of a future
state, they cannot rest till they have reposed
their confidence somewhere. And if the legi
timate claim to their religious trust be coldly

12
withheld, or, at the most, indecisively proposed
to them, their most natural refuge is in the
bosom of that which assumes to itself the cha
racter of an Infallible Church.
The folly and the danger of the latitudina-
rian and schismatical irregularities thus un
happily characteristic of our Church and
Country, have been from time to time pow
erfully exposed by the zeal and learning of
her members, and sounder views of Christian
Unity, Ecclesiastical Subordination, the Minis
terial Office, the Sacramental Ordinances, and
other strictly Catholic principles, have been
in some degree rescued from the almost gene
ral neglect and obloquy to which the spirit of
a thoughtless and licentious age had consigned
them. And still more recently it has fallen
to our lot to witness — and God grant, that not
withstanding present untoward appearances,
we may even yet deem it our happiness and
privilege to have witnessed — a combination of
talent and learning and industry, directed to
the same important objects with a zeal and
devotedness worthy of the purest ages of
Christianity. It has become, however, no
longer possible to disguise the painful fact,
that the hopes thus excited have been suc
ceeded by at least a temporary disappoint
ment, and by a feeling of suspicion and even
alarm, which the most candid and dispas
sionate observers no longer pronounce to be
either vague or indefinite or unfounded ; that

1.3
the zealous efforts to revive a due respect for
Ecclesiastical and properly Catholic princi
ples, have been far too little connected with the
requisite caution regarding their inveterate
abuse by the Church of Rome ; and that
amidst much of important truth elicited and
displayed, an alloy of Popish error and super
stition has undeniably insinuated itself'^.
The general object being at once so de
sirable and so ably pursued, a few unguarded
statements, the result probably of individual
haste and indiscretion — and it might have
been hoped, abandoned on reflection by the
authors themselves — it would have been pre
mature, it might even have been injudicious,
to notice with any severity of censure. But
when they assume more and more unequivo
cally the marks of deliberation and design,
the evidence of numbers and of combination ;
when the most plausible palliations of Ro
mish corruption, and the most insidious cavils
against the wisdom, and even in some mea
sure the necessity, of the Reformation, find
their way into the periodical and popular and
most widely disseminated literature of the
day ; — when the wild and visionary sentiments
of an enthusiastic mind, involving in their
<= This has at length become so notorious, that the Roman
ists themselves, not in this country only, but on the conti
nent, are deriving hope and encouragement from our pre
sumed change of views and principles. See Appendix,
note A.

J4
unguarded expression an undisguised prefer
ence for a portion at least of Papal supersti
tion, and occasionally even a wanton outrage
on the cherished feelings of the sincere Pro
testant — his pious affection for those venerated
names which he habitually associates with the
inestimable blessings of the Reformation'* —
are dragged forth from the sanctuary of con
fidential intercourse, and recommended to the
public as " a witness of Catholic views," and
to " speak a word in season for the Church of
" God'';" as "likely to suggest thoughts on
" doctrine, on Church policy, and on indivi-
" dual conduct, most true and most necessary

d " As to the Reformers, I think worse and worse of them.
" Jewell was what you would in these days call an irreve-
" rent dissenter. His Defence of his Apology disgusted me
" more than almost any work I have read." Remains of the
late Rev. Richard Hurrell Froude, M.A. Fellow of Oriel Col
lege, vol. I. p. 380.
Also, " Why do you praise Ridley ? Do you know suffi-
" cient good about him to counterbalance the fact, that he
" was the associate of Cranmer, Peter Martyr, and Bucer ?
" N. B. How beautifully the Edinburgh Review has shewn
" up Luther, Melancthon, and Co. ! What good genius has
" possessed them to do our dirty work ?  Pour moi, I never
" mean, if I can help it, to use any phrases even, which can
" connect me with such a set. I shall never call the Holy
" Eucharist ' the Lord's Supper,' nor God's Priests, ' Min-
" isters of the Word,' nor the Altar, ' the Lord's Table,' &c.
" &c. ; — innocent as such phrases are in themselves, they
" have been dirtied; a fact of which you seem oblivious on
" many occasions." Ibid. p. 394, 395.
^ Preface to Froude's Remains, p. xxii.

15
" for these times," and as " a bold and com-
" prehensive sketch of a new position" for the
Church of England ^ ; — and this too under cir
cumstances which imply the concurrence and
approval, and responsibility too, of an indefi
nite and apparently numerous body of friends
and correspondents and editors and reviewers ;
— who shall any longer deny the imperative ne
cessity which exists for the most decisive lan
guage of warning and caution, lest these rash
projectors of "a new position" for our Church
should be unwarily permitted to undermine
and impair her old and approved defences?
The leading particulars in which this in
creasing aberration from Protestant principles
has displayed itself, may perhaps be consi
dered as the following : — a disposition to over
rate the importance of Apostolical Tradition,
and the authoritative teaching of the Church ;
— exaggerated and unscriptural statements of
doctrine with regard to the two Sacraments ;
— and a general tendency on the one hand to
depreciate the principles of Protestantism and
the character and conduct of the Reformers,
and on the other, not indeed absolutely to
deny the grosser corruptions of Popery, but
so far to palliate her errors, and display in the
most favourable light whatever remnant of
good she still retains, as to leave it in a man-
f British Critic for January 1838, p. 225.

16
ner doubtful to which side the balance of truth
inclines, and to banish from the mind of the
unwary Protestant every idea of the extreme
guilt and danger of a reunion with an Idol
atrous and Antichristian Apostasy.
With regard to the Traditions of the Church,
as an authority distinct from Holy Scripture,
independently of the vast extent of the subject,
there are obvious and special reasons why I
must on this day s decline to enter on their
consideration. Suffice it to say, that within
due limits, and on certain subjects, and in
legitimate subordination to inspired truth, the
principle is not merely useful, but necessary,
being dangerous only by excess or abuse, or
when not scrupulously disengaged from those
polluted channels, in exploring which, ex
treme distrust is natural, and extreme caution
indispensable. The discussion of Baptismal Regenera
tion also would carry us far beyond the limits
of the present opportunity ; not to mention
that the gloomy views of sin after Baptism,
now professed by some persons, which have
chiefly called forth animadversion and com
plaint, are no direct revival of Popish error,
though it must be admitted that they have
unhappily found a natural and easy con
nection with those rigid mortifications, and
S The day on which one of the Bampton Lecture Sermons
on the same subject was also preached.

17
self-abasements, and painful penances '', which
call us back at once to the darkest period of
Roman superstition ; and which have an evi
dent tendency hopelessly to alarm and repel
those abettors of low and rationalistic views
of the Sacramental Ordinances, whom it is our
especial object to win and persuade to a sav
ing faith in their genuine and inestimable im
portance. The Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, how
ever, both with reference to the superstitions
notoriously engrafted on it by the Church of
Rome, and the gradual and near approxima
tion towards the same superstitions recently
observable in the views of some members of
our own Communion, requires a more distinct
and particular consideration. Of all the pe
culiar tenets of Romanism, none probably can,
to common apprehension, appear less recon
cilable to reason or Scripture, or more worthy
of those ages of intellectual darkness during
which it acquired its ascendancy, than that
of Transubstantiation. It is probably as dif
ficult for my present hearers to understand
our Saviour literally, when he said, " This is
" my body," " This is my blood," as when,
on other occasions, he described himself as
" the door of the sheep'," or " the true vine''."
It is equally incredible, or rather absolutely
^ See Appendix, Note B. i John x. 7. ^ John xv. i.

18
impossible, that the Apostles should have
imagined that the very same body, in which,
in its full integrity, their blessed Master stood
visibly before them, was also in his hands,
and offered to them to be eaten. We know
in fact, that they had no idea of such a mar
vellous transformation ; that they considered,
that when Christians " ate of that bread and
" drank of that Cup, they shewed" (KarayyeX-
Aere, ye declare or commemorate) " the Lord's
" death','' representing by visible symbols
his absent body and blood : and moreover,
that when, in obedience to his commands, they
" did this in remembrance of him," " the cup
" of blessing which they blessed, and the
" bread which they brake," were effectually
made to them " the communion" (Koivuiv'ia, com
munication, participation) " of his body and
" blood'"," of the benefits of his sufferings
and death.
The case of the profane Corinthians" is a
suflicient proof that they had never heard of
Transubstantiation. Had St. Paul inculcated
upon them that doctrine, or any other modi
fication of the real presence of Christ's body
and blood in the elements of bread and wine,
their conduct would have been not simply in
credible, but morally impossible. It is no less
evident that they ate at a table, not at an altar.
1 I Cor. xi. 26. ™ I Cor. x. 16. '^ i Cor. xi.

19
Indeed the term altar, as synonymous with the
Lord's table, does not appear to have been
adopted till about the end of the second cen
tury ; and then merely in a figurative sense,
and out of a spirit of accommodation, as it
should seem, and with a view to conciliate the
prejudices of Jews and Pagans, who habitu
ally reproached the Christians as having nei
ther altar nor sacrifice ". The early Fathers
constantly designate the bread and wine as
" signs," " symbols," " figures," " sacraments,"
— not indeed as empty signs, but as attended
by the blessing of Christ who instituted
them, and as efficacious to the worthy re
ceiver. It would be tedious, as it is unnecessary, to
trace the progressive encroachments of Super
stition to its final triumph over plain Scrip
ture and right reason. The gross idea of the
corporal presence in the Sacrament was not
of very early growth in the Christian Church.
Its origin is generally assigned to the eighth
century, and its decided adoption by the
Church of Rome to the eleventh p: — but from
that moment she became fully sensible of its
o Justin Martyr, Apol. 2. Origen, contra Cels. lib. 8.
P Berenger's recantation of his opposition to this doctrine
was forced on him by pope Nicholas II. and the Roman
Council A.D. 1058. Mosheim, Eccl. Hist. vol. II. p. 561.
It was finally established by Innocent III, and the 4th Late
ran Council A.D. 1215. Ibid. vol. III. p. 243.

20
paramount importance to her views and in
terests. Investing the priesthood with a cha
racter almost superhuman, and with an in
fluence proportionably unbounded over an
ignorant and credulous age, it became the
corner-stone of that spiritual despotism which
she erected upon the liberties and consciences
of mankind : and, strange as this may now ap
pear to those whose minds have never been
subjected to the overwhelming prejudice, it
was, of all the superstitions of Romanism, the
one from which the Reformers found the
greatest difficulty in emancipating themselves.
The actual worship, the absolute deification
of the Sacramental elements which the Church
of Rome maintained, had habituated pious and
humble minds to such a devout reverence for
them, that they could not approach the consi
deration of the sacred subject of the Eucharist
without such impressions of awe as necessa
rily disturbed the calm exercise of their rea
soning powers. It is notorious, that Cranmer
himself had been for many years engaged in
forwarding the English Reformation before
he could succeed in reforming his own con
victions on this point. Luther indeed, and
many other of the German reformers, may
fairly be considered never to have fully
escaped from the inveterate prejudice. In spe
cious opposition indeed to Popery, they took
refuge in what has been termed Consubstan-

21
tiation, thereby adopting a distinction without
any practical difference. For if, in denying
the gross, organic, and tangible change, a real
and substantial presence of the body and
blood of Christ be still admitted to be com
bined ivith the bread and wine — if the subtle
refinement still leaves behind and involved
in the consecrated elements a present body
and present Deity — it would be difficult to
assign a reason, why the elevation and wor
ship of the host, and the whole train of at
tendant superstition which followed the Popish
version of the doctrine, may not as naturally
be deduced from this also.
I have been thus particular in calling your
attention to this marked feature of the early
days of the Reformation, that you may the
better appreciate the alarming fact, that it is
to those half-converted German Reformers,
and to the strong and unguarded expres
sions which their works supply, that appeal
is now made by members of our Church, for
their statements of the doctrine of the Eu
charist ; such as, " that the bread and wine are
" not the signs of the absent body and blood
" of Christ" — " that the true body and blood
" of Christ are truly presented, given, and re-
" ceived together with the visible signs of
" bread and wine ;" " that Christ in his holy
" Supper gives us the true and proper sub-
c

22
" stance of his body and blood'." Now granting
that these expressions may be, and indeed are,
generally qualified by assigning to them a spi
ritual sense — this is obviously insufficient. The
Papist himself, when not too closely pressed
by the decrees of his Church, is occasionally
found to admit that the presence is not strictly
corporal. The distinction required clearly
lies between the body and blood of Christ
being spiritually included in the elements,
and spiritually received by the faithful ; or, as
Bishop Taylor explains it, " We by the real
" spiritual presence of Christ do understand
" Christ to be present, as the Spirit of God is
" present in the hearts of the faithful, by
" blessing and grace'."
The naked and unqualified and therefore
ambiguous expression real presence, now so
systematically and studiously adopted by
some persons, is highly objectionable and
dangerous : and there is but too much rea
son to apprehend that some of those who
employ it are far even from intending the
supposed qualification. Those at least cannot
intend it who advance the startling position,
q Tracts for the Times, vol. I. No. 27. See Appendix,
note C.
r Bishop Taylor of the Real and Spiritual Presence of
Christ in the Holy Sacrament. Section I. See Appendix,
note D.

23
" that the power of making the body and
" blood of Christ is vested in the successors of
" the Apostles ^ ;" who pronounce the expres
sion " Lord's table," authorized as it is by
Scripture and our Church, to be so polluted
by Protestant use, as to be no longer fitted
to designate the altar^ ; who are become so
sensitive with regard to the altar itself, as to
attach importance even to the situation of a
pulpit, lest it stand in the light of what " is
" more sacred than the Holy of Holies'^;" and
who with reference, no doubt, to the " sacri-
" fice of praise and thanksgiving," and other
well-guarded language of our Liturgy, declare
our present Communion-service to be " a
" judgment on the Church ''," and point out
the advantage of " replacing it by a good
" translation of the liturgy of St. Peter y."
s " I should like to know why you flinch from saying that
" the power of making the body and blood of Christ is vested
" in the Successors of the Apostles.'' Froude's Remains,
vol. I. p. 326.
t Ibid, ut supra.
" " If you are determined to have a pulpit in your church,
" which I had rather be without, do put it at the west end of
" the church, or leave it where it is : every one can hear you
' ' perfectly, and what can they want more ? But whatever
" you do, pray don't let it stand in the light of the Altar,
" which, if there is any truth in my notions of Ordination, is
" more sacred than the Holy of Holies was in the Jewish
"temple." 76irf. p.372.
^ Ibid. p. 410. y Ibid. p. 387.
c 2

24
To affirm that these persons are strictly
Papists, or that within certain limits of their
own devising they are not actually opposed
to the corruptions and the Communion of
Rome, would, I am well aware, be as un
charitable as it is untrue. But who shall
venture to pronounce them safe and consist
ent members of the Church of England ? and
who shall question the obvious tendency of
their views to Popery itself? For if by some
happy inconsistency they are themselves, and
for the present, saved from the natural conse
quences of their own reasoning, what shall we
hope for the people at large, should these de
lusive speculations (which God in his infinite
mercy forbid) extend their influence beyond
the circle (and it is hoped not yet a very ex
tensive circle) of educated men, to which they
are at present limited ? If such should become
the ordinary instruction of the unwary pastor
to his credulous flock, what shall preserve
them from all the fascinations and idolatries
of the Mass, or from welcoming with open
arms those crafty emissaries who have already
succeeded to such a fearful extent in reim-
posing the yoke of spiritual bondage on the
neck of our deluded countrymen ?
In the more general tendency to depreciate
the principles of the Reformation and palliate
the errors of Romanism, to which I have be-

25
fore adverted, the most marked and striking
feature is the studious attempt to draw a
broad line of distinction between Popery be-
fore and Popery since the Council of Trent ;
to maintain that the religion of Rome, " so
" far as relates to those particulars in which
" it differs from our own, is in strictness a new
" religion, having its origin with that ever-to-
" be-lamented Council ' ;" and we are told in
plain terms, that " for this, Christendom has
" to thank Luther and the Reformers"." And
what is the natural and inevitable inference ?
— that the Reformation, which in all the
blindness of Protestant prejudice we grate
fully regard as the very chiefest of blessings, —
as the revival of pure religion after ages of
superstition and idolatry, — was for the most
part unnecessary, and of course a flagrant
and unjustifiable breach of Catholic commu
nion. ^ " We commonly but carelessly acquiesce in the notion —
" fatal as, were it true, it would prove to the Catholicism
" of our English Church — that the religion now taught by the
" Church of Rome, was the religion once spread over Western
" Europe, our own island included, and that our Protestant
" doctrines are comparatively new among us. Whereas the
" fact is, that the religion of existing Rome, so far as relates
" to those particulars in which it differs from our own, is in
" strictness a new religion, having its origin with the ever-
" to-be-lamented Council of Trent." British Critic, for Jidy
1836, p. 52.
a Froude's Remains, vol. I. p. 307. See Appendix,
note E.

2(j
How far this novel view of History, and, I
may add, of Prophecy too, may have made
men the apologists of Popery, as though she
were unjustly calumniated and defamed, or
how far, on the other hand, an admiration for
some of her principles may have made them
desirous of casting a veil of oblivion over the
rest, it is not possible precisely to determine.
These views, indeed, may in all probability
have exercised a reciprocal influence on each
other. But we can scarcely be mistaken in
assigning the larger share of the supposed in
fluence to the latter. How indeed else can
we account for the prejudice which can over
look the idolatries and superstitions of her
early career, the superadded impostures and
cruelties of succeeding ages, and the portent
ous accumulation of abuses in faith and prac
tice, which, when finally viewed by the light
of reviving intelligence, absolutely compelled
the Reformation ; — or which can fail to recog
nise in them the clear fulfilment of those
memorable prophecies of the great Apostasy,
of which few indeed, with the exception of
the Papists themselves, have for centuries past
denied the obvious application ?
These persons at least can scarcely be suppos
ed to have identified the mysterious "Babylon,"
" the mother of harlots and abominations of the
" earth ''," " the woman sitting on the seven
*> Rev. xvii. 5.

27
" mountainsS" " the great city which reigneth
" over the kings of the earth''," with idolatrous
and Papal Rome ; or to recognise in her Com
munion those who " give heed to doctrines of
" demons" or souls of departed men ; " forbid-
" ding to marry, and commanding to abstain
" from meats'^ ;" — to have discovered in St.
Paul's " Man of Sin, who opposeth and exalteth
" himself above all that is called God, or that is
" worshipped, so that he as God sitteth in the
" temple of God, shewing that he is Godf,"
the blasphemous titles and assumptions of the
supreme head of the Romish Church — or his
" signs and lying wonders with all deceivable-
" ness of unrighteousness 8^," in the shameless
impostures and lying legends, with which she
has for ages deluded her enslaved and credu
lous votaries. Least of all can they appre
hend the awful and sudden destruction which
has been prophetically denounced against
her'', or be giving heed to the timely warning,
" Come out of her, my people, that ye be not
" partakers of her sins, and that ye receive
" not of her plagues'." It is, however, at all
events, not too much to assume, that, making
due allowance for diffisrences of opinion as to
the minute interpretation of particular points,
such is the prevailing belief of English Pro-
c Rev. xvii. 9. "^ Klv. xvii. 18. « i Tim. iv. 1, 3.
f 2 Thess. ii. 3, 4. f; 2 Thess. ii. 9, 10. ^ Rev. xviii. 8.
' Rev. xviii. 4.

28
testants ; and that, supposing even but a fair
probability of its general truth, it merits the
most serious consideration in times like the
present''. But as Idolatry (spiritual fornication) is the
head and front of her offences, as it is that
sin for which, of all others, we have inspired
authority for anticipating the severest ven
geance of Heaven ; and which is the most
distinct characteristic of the predicted Apo
stasy ; — as, nevertheless, the Church of Rome
endeavours to evade the charge by explaining
her image-worship as a merely representative
and commemorative system, a few moments'
attention to this point may be required. So
early did the symptoms of Idolatry develope
themselves in the Roman Church, that instead
of a novelty, they may be in some sort re
garded as the continuation, or at the least the
very early revival under a new form, of the
inveterate usages of Paganism. No sooner
had Imperial authority declared Christianity
to be the Religion of the State, than worldly
views rather than sincere conversion brought
numerous adherents to her Communion ; and
the compromising policy of the Roman Bishops
led them in some measure to indulge those
Heathen predilections for visible objects of
worship which they could not wholly eradi
cate. The sacred cross — the tombs and relics
k See \ppendix, note F.

29
of martyrs — the pictures and images of Apo
stles and Saints — gradually became objects of
religious veneration ; the veneration thus na
turally excited insensibly advanced to actual
worship ; and the simplicity of primitive
piety, the reasonable and spiritual service of
the Almighty Creator and Redeemer and
Sanctifier of mankind, was superseded by the
invocation of Saints ; accompanied, no doubt,
in the vulgar mind, with as abject a homage
to their images of wood and stone as ever was
paid to the idols of Paganism.
In fact, independently of the connexion be
tween Pagan and Popish Idolatry observable
in this particular case, it is by no means easy
to trace the moral discrimination between
them, either in their origin or in their effects.
The hero of Heathen Antiquity and the Ro
mish Saint arrived at the honours of worship
by a process completely similar ; and the ex
cuse of a merely commemorative intention is
quite as reasonable in the one case as in the
other. The educated Pagan was not likely
to have confounded the image with the abso
lute Deity any more than the Papist himself.
But who, under either system, shall limit the
tendencies of popular superstition ; — of that
tendency chiefly by which the visible image
insensibly supersedes, in the estimation of the
ordinary worshipper, the being whom it is
supposed to represent ? For without some idea

30
of peculiar sanctity attached to an image, as
such, how shall we account for the crowds of
pilgrims who flock to certain favourite shrines
of the Virgin or other Saints, when the pre
sumed object of their mistaken devotion might
have been worshipped without toil or expense
at home?
He who " knoweth what is in man" has pro
hibited the " graven image," not of false gods
alone, but of the one true God himself ; there
is neither exception nor reserve even for the
image of the Incarnate Word. Will it then
be credited by any one not already cognizant
of the fact, that the crucifix, the effective en
gine, the notorious emblem of Romish super
stition, is once more becoming, with some pro
fessed Protestants, an object, not indeed of
worship — scarcely let us hope even of rever
ence — yet at least of religious interest. " The
" beginning," as " of strife," so of every other
evil, "is as when one letteth out water""." It
is an experiment full of fearful hazard, yea
rather of awful presumption. Pride, the pri
meval curse of man's race, still pursues him.
God issues a prohibition ; man comprehends
• " Take ye therefore good heed unto yourselves ; for ye
" saw no manner of similitude on the day that the Lord
" spake unto you in Horeb out of the midst of the fire : lest
" ve corrupt yourselves, and make you a graven image, the
" similitude of any figure, the likeness of male or female."
T>eut. iv. 15, 16.
™ Prov. xvii. i.

31
not its reason or its purpose ; he longs for
clearer apprehensions of things unseen ; it is
a thing " to be desired to make one wise "."
Vain man would be wiser than his God.
Idolatry, then, the leading characteristic of
religious apostasy, was widely prevalent in
the Roman Church at least as early as the
sixth and seventh centuries " ; and in the
eighth the conscientious, though unsuccess
ful, opposition of the Eastern Emperors only
served to confirm its uncontrolled dominion ;
while the corrupt decrees of the second Ni-
cene Council p invested it with the high sanc
tion of acknowledged authority. The whole
train of superstitions and abuses now followed
in rapid succession ; monastic austerities, cle
rical celibacy, the systematic imposture of
pretended miracles, the portentous delusions
of Purgatory 1 and Transubstantiation, and
the especial worship of the Virgin Mary ^ ;
in short, almost all the well known attributes
" Gen. iii. 6.
" " The use and even the worship of images was firmly
" established before the end of the sixth century." Gibbon,
Decline and Fall, vol. IX. p. 1 18. .
P A.D. 787.
•J " The doctrine of Purgatory was carried to a great
" height in the tenth century." Mosheim, Eccl. Hist. vol. II.
p. 417.
r " The worship of the Virgin Mary also, which had been
" previously carried to a great degree of idolatry, received
" further accessions in the tenth century. Her rosary and
" crown may be traced to this age." Ib'id. p. 429.

32
of Popery, attained their full developement
in the eleventh century; and even at this
early period had aroused the first display of
that strenuous opposition, which, afterwards
designated by the name of Protestantism, has
ever since resisted her pretensions ^
Two glaring abuses were yet wanting to
complete the dreadful catalogue; the prohi
bition of Scripture, and the establishment of
the Inquisition *. They were adopted indeed
for the very purpose of maintaining her inve
terate corruptions, and persevered in with a
skilful ness of policy and a remorseless energy
of purpose, which enabled her to ward off" for
three full centuries, and eventually to render
incomplete, the triumph of the Reformation ; —
though at the same time she effected this
through deeds of cruelty and slaughter, and
a reckless destruction of human life, which
cast into the shade even the blood-stained
records of Pagan persecution, realizing the
most revolting feature of her prophetic por
trait — " drunken with the blood of the saints"."
s " A religious sect at Orleans, in 1017, and another in
" Flanders, in 1025, opposed Transubstantiation, the Invo-
" cation of Saints, and other Popish doctrines and practices.
" The first were burnt for their supposed heresy; the others
" were persuaded to recant." Dupin, Histoire de I'Eglise en
abrigi. III. 187, 188. Paris, 1726.
t These originated in the daring and skilful policy of In
nocent III. at the beginning of the thirteenth century.
^ Rev. xvii. 7.

33
In defiance, as it were, of these the plainest
facts of history, the fatal Council of Trent is
now declared to have made the Church of
Rome what she is, and to have " given her a
" new character, which has in a great mea-
" sure disqualified us from passing an accu-
" rate judgment upon her old one''." It has
indeed, in one sense, given her a new and
most awful character. Through an infatuation,
bearing to human apprehension the fearful
aspect of judicial blindness, it has pledged
and committed the Papacy to continue, under
the light of improved intelligence, every cor
ruption of faith and practice, which had
marked her course through ages of darkness
and superstition ; it has set the seal of immu
tability on the abominations of previous cen
turies, cutting her off" even from the power of
repentance, and from every apparent hope of
escaping that dreadful doom which has been
denounced on her persevering apostasy.
But are we required to infer from hence,
that before the Reformation, though corrupt
indeed and superstitious, she was compara
tively free from many of her grossest abuses ?
— that but for the unreasonable violence of the
Reformers, her Communion might by possibi
lity have been maintained? — that consequent
ly these Reformers were the authors rather of
^ British Critic for July 1S36, p. 53.

34
evil than of good ? — Surely, however, little short
of this can be intended by that systematic ad
vocacy of the Romish Church with which we
are now assailed ; — by the growing disposition
to palliate her errors, and even to commend
and admire and imitate a portion, at least, of
her system and practice. We are called upon
to regard her as " God's favoured instrument
" of good^;" as " the chosen method in the
" Councils of Providence for keeping Christi-
" anity in reverence^;" as " playing an im-
" portant part as the conservator of Christian-
" ity ;" as " our. spiritual parent, over whose
" errors in her earlier days we should duti-
" fully mourn *." We are reminded, that " the
" vaunted antiquity, the universality, the una-
" nimity of their church, puts the Papists
" above the varying fashions of the world, and
" the religious novelties of the day ''."
On the other hand, our understandings, as
well as our feelings, are outraged by insinua
tions against " the so called Reformers '^," and
the error of those who speak of the " blessed
y British Critic for July 1836, p. 79.
z Ibid. p. 80.
a Ibid. p. 82.
*> Tracts for the Times, vol. I. No. 20. p. 3. See Appen
dix, Note G.
<^ " The glory of the English Church is, that it has taken
" the Fia Media, as it has been called. It lies between the
" (so called) Reformers and the Romanists." Ibid. No. 38.
p.6.

35
" Reformation ''." We are even reproached for
our " odious Protestantism ^ ;" for " regarding
" the Papacy as a devastating phenomenon ;
" for fixing as well as we can the exact epoch
" of its appearance, and for reckoning up the
" years that have since elapsed, as though won-
" dering that the continuance of such a pest
" through so lengthened a period should have
" been foredoomed in the Councils of Heaven f."
Again, it is rashly — let us hope not insidiously
—suggested, that we are " a Reformed, not a
'¦'¦Protestant Church^;" and the eager desire
is expressed to " unprotestantise^" us, at the
very moment when the corrupt and debasing

^ " J shall beg them to reproach me not with Popery, but
" with Protestantism, and to be impartial enough to assail
" not only me, but ' the blessed Reformation,' as they often
•' call it, using words they do not understand." Ibid. p. 8.
e " I must go about the country to look for the stray sheep
" of the true fold ; there are many about, I am sure ; only
" that odious Protestantism sticks in people's gizzard."
Froude's Remains, vol. I. p. 322.
f British Critic for July 1836, p. 55.
S " The English Church, as such, is not Protestant, only
" politically, that is, externally, or so far as it has been made
" an establishment, and subjected to national and foreign
" influences. It claims to be merely Reformed, not Protest-
" ant, and it repudiates any fellowship with the mixed mul-
" titude which crowd together, whether at home or abroad,
" under a mere political banner." Tracts for the Times, vol.
III. No. 71. p. 32.
t " I wish you could get to know something of S. and
" W. and un  ise, un- Protestantise, un-Miltonise them."
Froude's Remains, vol. I. p. 332.

36
system against which it is our wisdom and our
piety to protest, is once more spreading its
toils around us; when, so far from decrying
and weakening the honest and Protestant, but
somewhat dormant prepossessions of our coun
trymen, we should raise the warning voice,
should " cry aloud and spare not''," lest they
" be destroyed for lack of knowledge'."
The world, in its present condition, if we
regard the forms of religion professed, and
the insignificant proportion even of the name
of Christianity ; and the sweeping deductions
which we must thence make for corruptions
and heresies, superstitions and idolatries, and
the various departures from the " truth as it is
" in Jesus," affords to the eye of human reason
a prospect rather of despair than of cheering
hope, not merely for Catholic Communion,
but even for the success of the Gospel itself
But He is faithful who has promised, that
there shall at length be " one fold and one
" Shepherd ''." The good seed has been sown
in the unprecedented dispersion of the Scrip
tures ; let us wait in faith and hope for the
predicted harvest. Above all, let us not,
through impatient zeal, and the premature
and vain expectation of realizing Catholic
views in the midst of the surrounding desola-
^ Isaiah Iviii. i.
i Hosea iv. 6. See Appendix, Note H.
k John X. 1 6.

37
tion, incautiously entangle ourselves in those
mysteries of iniquity, from which God's mercy
has once granted us so signal a deliverance.
If we desire to be hereafter Catholic, not
merely in theory and in prospect, but in happy
experience, let us be assured that we must
be strictly Protestant now ; that we must zeal
ously cultivate Gospel truth in our own Com
munion, and dream neither of fellowship nor
compromise with those subtle and encroach
ing adversaries, who would finally involve us
in the awful destinies of Rome.
And now, in the impressive language of
Ezra — so appropriately cited by an eminent
Prelate of our Church ', for a similar purpose,
but with prospects far less imminently ha
zardous and threatening than our own — " see-
" ing that thou, our God, hast punished us
" less than our iniquities deserve, and hast
" given us such deliverance as this ; should
" we again break thy commandments, and
"join in affinity with the people of these abo-
" minations, wouldest not thou be angry with
" us till thou hadst consumed us, so that there
" should be no remnant nor escaping "' ?"
1 Bishop Newton on the Prophecies ; ad finem.
11 Ezra ix. 13, 14.

D

APPENDIX.

Note A. p. 13.
" JLiA France n'est pas la seule oii se manifeste ce re-
" tour eclatant de notre siecle vers les doctrines et les
" institutions de I'Eglise catholique. Le mouvement
" que je signale est Europeen, et c'est son etendue qui
" atteste sa profondeur. En Angleterre, les ouvrages
" du docteur John Lingard et de Cobbett ont prelude a
" la reaction catholique qui s'opere dans ce pays et
" excite si violemment la rage des torys. Je ne vou-
" drais pas m'en rapporter a mon propre jugement sur
" un sujet oil il est si facile de prendre ses desirs et
" ses esperances pour des realites, si je n'avais le te-
" moignage meme d'un savant Anglais, M. le docteur
" Wiseman, qui a preche a Londres, il y a deux ans, des
" conferences catholiques dont le suoces n'a ete egale
" que par celles de M. Tabbe Lacordaire a Paris. M.
" Wiseman, recteur du college des Anglais a Rome, a
" lu cette annee, a Tacademie catholique de cette ville,
" une longue et curieuse dissertation sur VEtat actuel du
" Protestantisme en Angleterre. Les faits nombreux cites
" dans ce travail nous montrent chez les esprits les plus
" eclaires de la Grande-Bretagne, non seulement Taban-
" don des prejuges les plus inveteres contre le catholi-
" cisme, contre la cour Romaine, mais un retour decide
" vers les doctrines de TEglise. C'est surtout au sein de
" la celebre universite d'Oxford que se manifestent ces
" symptomes de reaction, et M. Wiseman cite pour
" preuve un recueil de dissertations publie par les pro-
" fesseurs de cette universite, sous le titre de Traites
" pour les temps presens.'''' — Introduction par M. Alexandre
de Saint-Cheron, a V Histoire de la Papaute par M. Leo
pold Ranke. p. 15, 16. Paris 1838.

39
" L'universite d'Oxford est celebre par le savoir de
" ceux qui la composent, par leur attachement a Feglise
" Anglicane, et par leur zele pour son ancienne doctrine.
" lis ont consigne leurs opinions dans une suite de dis-
" sertations intitulees Traites pour les temps presens, dont
" ils viennent de publier le troisieme tome. II est cu-
" rieux d'observer les aveux qu'ils rendent a la verite.". .
 " II ne faut pas s'eton-
" ner que ces dissertations aient ete denoncees par beau-
" coup de protestans comme prouvant une defection
" totale des doctrines de la reforme, et un rapproche-
" ment trop manifeste de la croyance catholique." —
L'Ami de la Religion, Samedi, 13 Janvier, 1838.
Note B. p. 17.
'' He (Tertulhan) thus at last timidly, or rather reve-
" rently, advances to set forth God's last provision
" against the malice of Satan, repentance after Baptism.
" ' God providing against these his poisons, though the
" door ot full oblivion (ignoscentiae) is closed, and the
" bolt of Baptism fastened up, alloweth somewhat still to
" be open  Full confession (exomologesis) is the
'' discipline of prostrating and humbhng the whole man ;
" enjoining a conversation which may excite pity ; it
" enacts as to the very dress and sustenance — to lie on
" sackcloth and ashes : the body defiled, the mind cast
" down with grief: those things, in which he sinned,
" changed by a mournful treatment : for food and drink,
" bread only and water, for the sake of life, not of the
" belly : for the most part to nourish prayer by fasting :
" to groan ; to weep ; to moan day and night before the
" Lord their God ; to embrace the knees of the Presby-
" ters and of the friends of God ; to enjoin all the bre-
" thren to pray for them. All this is contained in ' full
" confession,' with the view to recommend their repent-
" ance ; to honour the Lord by trembling at their peril ;
" by pronouncing on the sinner, to discharge the office
d2

40
" of the indignation of God ; and by temporal affliction, —
" I say not to baffle, but — to blot out etertial torment.
" When therefore it rolls them on the earth, it the ra-
" ther raises them : when it defiles, it cleanses them :
" accusing, it excuses them : condemning, it absolves
" them. In as far as thou sparest not thyself, in so far
" will God, be assured, spare thee.'
"It is not of course the outward instances and ex-
" pressions of grief, of which TertuUian speaks, which
" one would contrast with our modern practice ; al-
" though most sincere penitents will probably have found
" it a great hinderance to effectual repentance, that they
" were obliged to bear about the load of their grief in
" their own bosoms ; that they might not outwardly
" mourn ; that they must go through the daily routine
" of life without unburdening their souls by a public
" confession ; that they could not, without the evils of
" private confession, obtain the prayers of God's ser-
" vants ; that their outward, must needs be at variance
" with, thwarting, contradicting their inward, life." —
Tracts for the Times, vol. II. No. 67. p. 60, 61.
" ' Since,' says St. Hernias, ' God knew the thoughts
" of the heart, and the weakness of man, and the mani-
" fold wickedness of the Devil, whereby he devises mis-
" chief against the servants of God — therefore the mer-
" ciful Lord had mercy on the work of his hands ; and
" he assigned that repentance, and gave me power over
" that repentance. And, therefore, I say unto you, that,
" after that great and holy calling, (Baptism,) if any be
" tempted by the Devil and sin, he has one repentance.
" But if he sin again, and repent, it will not profit the
" man who doth such things, for hardly will he live to
"God.'  This passage of St. Hernias is the
" more remarkable, since he lays down the principle,
" upon which more than one repentance after Baptism
" would probably be very rare, if not altogether liope-
" less, coinciding with the known teaching of the Apostles,

41
" and with subsequent experience, although limiting very
" awfully what their written teaching has left undefined."
 " ' As there is one Baptism,' says St. Am-
" brose, ' so also one repentance — one, I say, public re-
" pentance — for we ought to repent of our daily sins ;
" but this repentance is for lighter offences, that for
" heavier  The world must be renounced. Sleep
" itself must be less indulged than nature requires, must
" be interrupted with groans, must be sequestrated for
" prayer. We must live so as to die to this life. Man
" must deny himself, and be wholly changed.' " Ibid.
p. 67, 68, 69. Note 0. page 22.
" So then, none of the Protestant Churches doubt of
" the real (that is, true and not imaginary) presence of
" Christ's Body and Blood in the Sacrament ; and there
" appears no reason why any man should suspect their
" common confession, of either fraud or error, as though
" in this particular they had in the least departed from
" the Catholic faith." 
" As for the opinion and belief of the German Pro-
" testants, it will be known chiefly by the Augustan Oon-
" fession, presented to Charles the Fifth by the Princes
" of the Empire, and other great persons. For they
" teach  ' that the Body and Blood of Christ
" are truly present, and distributed to the Communi-
" cants in the Lord's Supper.' 
" The Confession of Wittemberg, which in the year
" 1552 was propounded to the Council of Trent, is like
" unto this : for it teacheth that ' the true Body and
" Blood of Christ are given in the Holy Communion ;'
" and refutes those that say, ' that the Bread and Wine
" in the Sacrament are only signs of the absent Body
" and Blood of Christ.' 
" Bucerus, in the name of all the rest, (the divines
"of Basil and Strasbourg,) did freely answer 
" ' that the true Body and Blood of Christ was truly

42
" presented, given, and received together with the visible
" signs of Bread and Wine'  and did also main-
" tain this doctrine of the blessed Sacrament in pre-
" sence of the Landgrave of Hesse and Melancthon, con-
" fessing ' that together with the Sacrament we truly and
" substantially receive the Body of Christ.' 
" ' The Son of God (says Calvin) offers daily to us in
" the Holy Sacrament the same body which he once
" offered in sacrifice to his Father, that it may be our
" spiritual food.'  He asserts as clearly as any
" one can, the true, real, and substantial presence and
" communication of the Body of Christ, &o." Tracts for
the Times, vol. I. No. 27. p. 3-9. (viz. Bp. Cosiiis History
of Transubstantiation.)
 " Berengarius was commanded presently with-
" out any delay to recant in that form prescribed 
" by Cardinal Humbert ; which was thus : ' I Berengarius,
" &c., assent to the Holy Roman and Apostolic See, and
" with my heart and mouth do profess that I hold that
" faith concerning the Sacrament of the Lord's Table,
" which our Lord and venerable Pope Nicholas, and this
" sacred Council, have determined and imposed upon
" me by their evangelic and apostolic authority ; to wit,
" that the Bread and Wine which are set on the altar,
" are not after the consecration only a sacrament, sign,
" and figure, but also the very Body and Blood of our
'• Lord Jesus Christ ;' (thus far it is well enough, but what
" follows is too horrid, and is disowned by the Papists
" themselves ;) ' and that they' (the Body and Blood) ' are
" touched and broken ^^'ith the hands of the Priests, and
" ground with the teeth of the faithful, not sacrament-
" ally only, but in truth and sensibly.'" Ibid. No. a8.
(viz. Bp). Cosin continued.)
It will be difficult to imagine that those who adopt
the views of Bishop Cosin fall much, if at all, short of
what has been commonly termed Consitbstantiation. And
be it observed, that the more reasonable of the Papists

43
practically recede from the grossness of strict Transub
stantiation. For (as Mr. Perceval remarks) " the defi-
" nitions of the Council of Trent will upon examination
" be found to be so vague, so inconsistent, so self-con-
" tradictory, as to afford latitude for almost any expla-
" nation ; and in point of practice, the most different
" opinions upon the point have been broached and openly
" maintained by different individuals in the Roman Com-
" munion. Thus while Harding the Jesuit contends
" that Christ was twice immolated; has twice shed his
" blood, once in the Eucharist, and once on the cross ;
" and that the sacrifice of the Eucharist is a reiteration of
" that upon the cross ; — while Le Quien maintains that
" the sacrifice of the Eucharist is a real sacrifice, and a
" continuation of that upon the cross ; Cardinal Perron
" declares that the Christian sacrifice is a, figure or pat-
" tern (figure ou exemplaire) of that upon the cross ;
" Cassander, that Christ is there offered by mystical re-
" presentation and commemoration.'''' The Roman Schism
illustrated, by the Hon. and Rev. A. P. Perceval, p. 338.
Note D. p. 22.
"It is observable that the doctrine of the Fathers
" with regard to Consecration was much the same in
" relation to the waters of Baptism, as in relation to the
" elements in the Eucharist. They supposed a kind of
" descent of the Holy Ghost, to sanctify the waters in
" one, and the sjanbols in the other, to the uses intended ;
" and they seem to have gone upon the general Scrip-
" tural principle, (besides particular texts relating to
" each Sacrament,) that the Holy Ghost is the immediate
" fountain of all Sanotification. I believe they were right
" in the main thing, only not always accurate in expres-
" sion. Had they said that the Holy Ghost came upon
" the recipients, in the due use of the Sacraments, they
" had spoken with greater exactness ; and, perhaps, it
" was all that they really meant. They could not be
" aware of the disputes which might arise in after-

44
" times, nor think themselves obliged to a philosophical
" strictness of expression. It was all one for them to
" say, in a confuse general way, either that the Holy
" Ghost sanctified the Beceioers in the use of the outimrd
" symbols, or that he sanctified the symbols to their use; for
" either expression seemed to amount to the same thing,
" though in strictness there is a considerable difference
"between them. What INIr. Hooker very judiciously
" says of the real presence of Christ in the Sacrament,
" appears to be equally applicable to the presence of the
" Holy Spirit in the same ;" — " It is not to be sought for
" in the Sacrament, but in the worthy Receiver of the
" Sacrament.'''' Waterland on the Eucharist, p. 126, 127.
edit. 1737.
We need not therefore be surprised to find that those
wlio hold the doctrine of the real presence, without re
gard to this essential distinction, become dissatisfied
with the service of our Church, and betray an apiproxi-
ination, at least, to the superstitious views of Popery. —
Thus :
" I am more and more indignant at the Protestant
" doctrine on the subject of the Eucharist, and think
" that the principle on which it is founded is as proud,
" irreverent, and foolish, as that of any heresy, even
" Socinianism." Froude''s Remains, vol. I. p. 391.
" By the bye, vide Bull's Works, vol. II. p. 225. ' we
" are not ignorant that the ancient Fathers generally
" teach that the bread and wine in the Eucharist, by or
" upon the consecration of them, do become and are
" made the Bodyand Blood of Christ.' " Froude's Remains,
vol. I. p. 363. Note E. p. 25.
" Rome, stung by this rejection (viz. by our Thirty-
" Nine Articles) of doctrines in \\'hich the credit of her
" existing authorities was involved, adopted the bold —
" the unprecedented — step of formally incorporating
" these doctrines so completely with her religion, as to

45
" make the reception of them a necessary condition for
" participation in her communion. And this step it is
" which virtually separates us from that communion at
" the present hour. We commonly think and speak of
" our Reformers, as though they had separated them-
" selves from the Church of Rome, and put her to the
" ban. But such is not the fact ; for aught that they
" have done, we could communicate with her now ; —
" but we know, that should we attempt to do so, she
" would put forth this list of novel dogmas of faith, and
" call upon us either to subscribe it, or to depart from
" her altars." British Critic, for July 1836. p. 52.
" By incorporating, at Trent, her prevalent errors into
" the essence of her faith, Rome underwent, at that im-
" portant crisis, an absolute change of position." 
" In such a position the Papacy has, as far as its own
" internal character has been concerned, from that period
" remained. Nor of that position, would we — durst we —
" become the apologists. Our quarrel with it, as it now
" is, is as deep as can be that of the most fiery champion
" among the ranks of protestantism." Ibid. p. 82.
Note F. p. 28.
If the Roman Church be really that predicted Apo
stasy, which the most approved interpreters of Pro
phecy unanimously maintain, we may rest assured, that
every encouragement afforded to a system thus offensive
in the sight of Heaven, whether by the grant of political
influence, or by any general disposition to relapse into
her errors, or even to relax from that strenuous resist
ance to her power and principles, which was esta
blished at the Reformation, is a national sin, for which
the severest national chastisement may be reasonablyanti-
cipated. This was precisely the view taken by the late
excellent Bishop Van Mildert, when, in his place in the
House of Lords, he joined in the ineffectual opposition
to what was called " Catholic emancipation."

46
" Convinced, too," said he, " as I am, (and that upon
" no light or superficial grounds, but after many years of
" studious consideration and inquiry,) that the religion
" of Popery is distinctly and awfully pointed out in
" Scripture, as the one great apostasy from the truth,
" the declared object of Divine displeasure, I feel that
" I should not be discharging the duty I owe to a
" far higher tribunal than your Lordships', if I as-
" sented to any thing which I believed to have a ten-
" dency to strengthen or uphold such a corrupt and
" erroneous system  I dare not be instrumental
" in uniting Popery with Protestantism, nor in destroy-
" ing or weakening the distinction between idolatrous
" superstition, and the pure worship of God in spirit and
" in truth." Memoir of Bishop Van Mildert, prefixed to
his Sermons and Charges, p. 103.
Note G. p. 34.
The growing disposition to advocate, as far as may
be, the cause of Popery, to excuse her errors, to admire,
and even in some points to adopt, her principles and
practice, is seen in numerous instances. A few speci
mens are the following : —
" Those who have not leisure or inclination to investi-
" gate the subject, find it convenient to view the doctrines
" of Transubstantiation, Purgatory, Image-worship, and
" the like, as though incorporated with each other, and
" with the Papal dominion in an essential unity 
" Whereas the fact is, that for the origin of most of
" these abuses the Pontiffs are not in any degree re-
" sponsible." British Critic for July 1836. p. 73.
" Although the details of the early ritual varied in
" importance, and corrupt additions were made in the
" middle ages, yet as a whole the Catholic ritual was a
" precious possession ; and if we who have escaped from
" Popery, have lost not only the possession, but the

47
" sense of its value, it is a serious question whether we
" are not like men who recover from some grievous
" illness with the loss or injury of their sight or hear-
" ing ; — whether we are not like the Jews returned from
" captivity, who could never find the Rod of Aaron or
" the Ark of the Covenant." Tracts for the Times, vol. I.
No. 34.
We have afterwards specimens of services from the
Roman Breviary, and even a design for a service for
March 21st, the day of Bishop Ken's death, as though he
were selected as a candidate for a place in the Romish
Calendar. The addresses to the Virgin are explained
to be in general comparatively modern ; but for one or
two confessedly ancient we find this singular defence. —
" As to the Confession at Prime and Comphne, in which
" is introduced the name of the blessed Virgin and
" other Saints, this practice stands on a different ground.
" It is not a simple gratuitous Invocation made to them,
" but it is an address to Almighty God in Ms Heavenly
" Court, as surrounded by his Saints and Angels, an-
" swering to St. Paul's charge to Timothy, ' before God
" and the Lord Jesus Christ, and the elect Angels,' and
" to Daniel and St. John's address to the Angels who
" were sent to them. The same may even be said of the
" Invocation ' Holy Mary and all Saints, &c.' in the
" Prime Service, which Gavanti describes as being of
" very great antiquity." The Confession however stands
thus: " I confess before God Almighty, before the blessed
" Mary, Ever -Virgin, the blessed Michael Archangel,
" the blessed John Baptist, the Holy Apostles Peter
" and Paul, before All Saints, and you, my brethren,
" that I have sinned, &c. &c. Therefore, / beseech thee,
" blessed Mary, Ever -Virgin, the blessed Michael Arch-
" angel, &c. &:c. to pray the Lord our God for msT
Tracts for the Times, vol. III. No. 75. p. 10 and 61.

48
" Why is the opinion of the English Clergy, since the
" enactment of the Prayer Book, entitled to be called
" the teaching of the Church, more than that of the
" Clergy of the sixteen previous centuries? or, again,
" than the Clergy of France, Italy, Spain, Russia, &c.&c.?
" I can see no other claim which the Prayer Book has
" on a layman's deference, as the teaching of the Church,
" which the Breviary and Missal have not in a far greater
" degree." — Froude's Remains, vol. I. p. 402.
" I am sure the Daily Service is a great point ; so is
" kneeling with your back to the people, which, by the
" bye, seems to be striking all apostolioals at once : I
" see there are letters on it in the British Magazine." —
Ibid. p. 390.
" You will be shocked at my avowal that I am every
" day becoming a less and less loyal son of the Reforni-
" ation. It appears to me plain that in all matters that
" seem to us indifferent, or even doubtful, we should
" conform our practices to those of the Church which has
" preserved its traditionary practices unbroken. We
" cannot know about any seemingly indifferent practice
" of the Church of Rome, that it is not a developement
" of the apostolic r)6os ; and it is to no purpose to say
" that we can find no proof of it in the writings of the
" six first centuries ; they must find a (iis-proof, if they
" would do any thing." Ibid. p. 336.
" I forgot to say that  has derived great relief
" from the distinction between catholic verities and theo-
" logical opinions, as affecting the case of us with the
" evangelicals, and thinks we can fraternize with them
" without liberalism. Also he admits that, if the Roman
" Catholics would revoke their anathemas, we might
" reckon all the points of difference as theological opinions.
" This roTTos is a good one.'''' Ibid. p. 329.
" I see Hammond takes that view of the infallibility
" of the Church, which P. says was the old one. We

49
" must revive it. Surely the promise, ' I am with you
" always,' means something." Ibid. p. 32a.
" It has lately come into my head, that the present
" state of things in England makes an opening for re-
" viving the monastic system. I think of putting the
" view forward under the title of ' Project for reviving
" Religion in great Towns.' " Ibid.
" I touched just now on the subject of the Religious
" Institutions of the middle ages. These are impera-
" tively called for to stop the progress of dissent : indeed,
" I conceive you necessarily must have dissent or ww-
" nachism in a Christian Country ; so make your choice.
"  Heathens and quasi heathens (such as the
" miserable rabble of a large town) were not converted
" in the beginning of the gospel, or now, as it would
" appear, by the sight of domestic virtues or domestic
" comforts in a missionary." British Magazine for April
1836. p. 366 — 368.
" Since they (the early Church) knew not of our chill
" separation between those who being dead in Christ, live
" to Christ and with Christ, and those who are yet in the
'¦'¦ fiesh, they felt assured that this sacrifice offered by the
" Church on earth, for the whole Church, conveyed to
" that portion of the Church, which had passed into the
" umseen world, such benefits of Christ's death as (their
" conflicts over and they at rest) were still applicable to
"them,  Why should we take upon ourselves to
" say that they who are His members as well as we,
" have no interest in this, which is offered as a memo-
" rial for all ? or why should men think it an unhappi-
" ness or imperfection that they should obtain additional
'^ joys aud satisfactions thereby? — Tracts for the Times,
vol. IV. No. 81. p.6, 7.
" The receiving of which Sacrament or participating
" of which Sacrifice exhibited to us, we say is profitable
" only to them that receive it and participate of it ; but
" the prayers that we add thereunto, in presenting the

50
" death and merits of our Saviour to God, are not only
" beneficial to them that are present, but to them that
" are absent also, to the dead and the living both, to all
" true members of the Catholic Church of Christ." (Ex
tract from Bishop Cosin.) — Ibid. p. 136.
There appears a reluctance to &Amii fully i\ie Idolatry
of the Church of Rome. Thus : —
" I think people are injudicious who talk against the
" Roman Catholics for worshipping Saints and honour-
" ing the Virgin and images, &c.; — these things may
'¦'¦perhaps be idolatrous — ^I cannot make up my mind
" about it." Froud^s Remains, vol. I. p. 294.
" The direct invocation of saints is a dangerous prac-
" tice, as tending to give, often actually giving, to crea-
" tures the honour and reliance due to the Creator alone."
Tracts for the Times, vol. I. No. 38. p. 12.
Note H. page 36.
 "I am not speaking of those who would ad-
" mit they were Puritans ; but of that arrogant Pro-
" testant spirit (so called) of the day, in and out of the
" Church, (if it is possible to say what is in and what is
" out,) which thinks it takes bold and large views, and
" would fain ride over the superstitions and formalities,
" which it thinks it sees in those who (I maintain) hold
" to the old Catholic faith." Tracts for the Times, vol. I.
No. 41. p. 12.
" The wiseacres are all agog about our being Papists.
" P. called us ' the Papal Protestant Church ;' — in which
" he proved a double ignorance, as we are Catholics with-
" out the Popery, and Church-of-England men loithowt
" the Protestantism.''^ Froudis Remains, vol. I. p. 404.
" I do believe that he (R  ) hates the meagreness of
" Protestantism as much as either of us." Ibid. p. 425.
This perpetual attempt to cry down and depreciate
the principles of Protestantism, and to connect its very
name with all that is odious and disreputable, cannot be

5]
too strongly reprobated. Popery having once more be
come the assailant, Protestantism is the very bond of
union for our Church and nation, the watchword for our
defence ; and the dissemination of such religious views,
as those which I have endeavoured to expose, has be
come doubly dangerous.
Unaccountable is the indiscretion, and heavy the re
sponsibility of those, who have sent forth the offensive
publication, from which the most startling and extravar-
gant of my extracts have been taken. With many per
sons indeed its very extravagance will be a sufficient
antidote to the poison which it contains. But who shall
answer for its effect on the public mind in these days of
unsettled principles and religious disunion, should it, by
some unhappy chance, obtain extensive circulation ?
If any considerable party have concurred with the
editors in the hearty approval of its sentiments and
views, then is there a far more formidable conspiracy^
against our principles and our welfare, than most of us
have hitherto dreamed of. If, on the other hand, the
editors themselves (as is partially intimated *>) do not
whoUy coincide in every opinion which it expresses, who
is to separate the tares from the wheat ? It becomes a
wanton experiment on popular weakness and credulity —
a wilful tampering with the faith and happiness of thou
sands. a " R. thinks biography the best means of infusing principles against
" the reader's will." Froude's Remains, vol. I. p. 321.
Preface, p. xxii.

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