Just after the period of quiet of which Mr. Oakeley speaks, the public mind began to be agitated :—a new era was about to

commence.

The heating of the furnace, into which all opinions, doctrines, and dogmas were soon to be cast, began. The process of refining is still going on. To the eye of man, the molten metal, as it seethes and bubbles, is but one mass of heterogeneous particles. Now, as is the nature of dross, one strange opinion, now another comes to the surface; and it would almost appear as though Truth had perished; but though hidden for a moment, it is not consumed. The Great Refiner is standing by. The base metal of error and the fine gold of Truth must continue in the furnace until all the dross be purged away, and the base metal be utterly consumed.

Then Truth, the Truth as it is in Jesus, having been tried and tested, and found to be indestructible; coming forth from the severest scrutiny and the closest examination unchanged and unchangeable, shall shine in all the splendour of its golden brightness and virgin purity; and, then, standing forth in all its native simplicity, while it fills men with reverential awe by the Majesty of its Holiness shall attract and win them by the Loveliness of its benignant Kindness. Then the well-nigh-forgotten strains of the Chorus, sung of old time by the Heavenly Choir, will be once again taken up by wearied humanity, and while earth resounds with the melodious song of Glory to God in the Highest, Peace on earth, and Goodwill towards man; all that is contained in these words shall be perfectly realized under the beneficent rule of the Prince of Peace, the once Crucified but now Exalted King, the Lord Jesus Christ,— The Way, the Truth,—and the Life.

That the Truth will ultimately prevail is certain. If this, then, be assuredly believed and constantly kept in mind, the consideration of the Ritualistic question in its entirety, may, the more calmly though not the less earnestly, be entered upon.

It has been said that the public mind began to be agitated. That series of changes now commenced, the time of the end of which no man can foresee. Principles were once again brought into antagonism, and met face to face. The repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts, in 1828, necessarily led to an inquiry into the nature of the relationship between the Church and the State. Roman Catholic Emancipation, in 1829, compelled an inquiry into the

nature and necessity of the Protestant Reformation, and, by consequence, into the whole system of Romanistic doctrine and practice. The importance of these questions cannot be denied. The whole controversy between Truth and Error, between the principles of the Reformation, that the Bible is the only rule of faith and practice, and that the Holy Spirit speaking in the Scripture, is the Supreme Judge, by which all controversies in religion are to be determined, and in whose sentence all are to rest—and those of Rationalistic Infidelity and Romanistic Superstition is involved in them.

Then immediately upon Roman Catholic Emancipation, came the Reform Bill, and soon after followed a measure for amending the laws relating to the Temporalities of the Church in Ireland, by which ten Bishoprics in that Church were suppressed.

Very shortly the Movement, now so well known as the Tractarian Movement, began. The originators were men of different characters and, to some extent, of different views, but they found a common basis of action in their feeling of intense dislike and opposition to the measures just named.

A brief notice of the originators, may not be unuseful.

Dr. Newman says of Mr. Rose, united as we were in the general scope of the movement, we were in discordance in our estimate of the means to be adopted for attaining it. Mr. Rose had a position in the Church, a name, and serious responsibilities. He was a practical man, in his thoughts existing facts had the precedence of every other idea, and the chief test of the soundness of a line of policy lay in the consideration whether it would work.

Froude and I were nobodies, with no character to lose, and no antecedents to fetter us.

Mr. Rose once said of Froude, that "he did not seem to be afraid of inferences." This was true. Froude had that strong hold of first principles, and that keen perception of their nature, that he was comparatively indifferent to the revolutionary action which would attend on their application to a given state of things.

Mr. Palmer was a learned man, decided in his religious views, cautious and subtle in expressing them, but deficient in depth. He

* History of my Religious Opinions, by J. H. Newman, D.D.

had a certain connexion with High Church dignitaries, whose idea of perfection in Ecclesiastical action was a board of safe, sound, sensible men. Mr. Palmer was their organ and representative, and as such, wished for a committee, with rules, &c. &c. He was, to some extent, supported by Mr. Perceval.

The nature of the influence exercised by Mr. Keble, who is regarded by Dr. Newman, as the true and primary cause of the Tractarian Movement, must be described by another hand. "To John Keble," the writer, referred to, says, 66 'more than to any other, belongs the glory of the mighty reformation, [the Tractarian and Ritualistic Movement] which our eyes have been suffered to behold, and which, though we may fairly believe it yet to be but in the infancy of its progress, has already centupled the active powers of the Church of England. While two of his dear friends, Newman and Pusey, severally may claim to have directed the intellectual and the dogmatic portions of the movement in its first origin, to him alone can be ascribed the more subtle, penetrating, and durable influence over the spiritual imaginations and affections in which the true inner strength of a religious energy must consist."

Froude, again to have recourse to Dr. Newman's History, was a pupil of Keble's, formed by him, and re-acting upon him.

He professed openly his admiration of the Church of Rome, and his hatred of the Reformers. He delighted in the notion of an hierarchical system, of sacerdotal power, and of full ecclesiastical liberty. He felt scorn of the maxim "The Bible, the Bible only is the religion of Protestants," and he gloried in accepting Tradition as a main instrument of religious teaching. He embraced the principle of penance and mortification. He had a deep devotion to the Real Presence, in which he had a firm faith.

*

It was not, Dr. Newman states, until several Tracts had been published, that Dr. Pusey joined us. I had known him well since 1827-8, and had felt for him an enthusiastic admiration. Great was my joy, when in the last days of 1833, he shewed a disposition to make common cause with us. His Tract on Fasting appeared as

*The late Cardinal Wiseman, in a tractate, entitled "The Catholic Doctrine on the Use of the Bible," says the cry of "the Bible, the Bible, nothing but the Bible," is as perilous to man's salvation, as the Jews' senseless cry "The Temple of the Lord, the Temple of the Lord it is!"

The Tractarian and the Romanist agree.

one of the series, with the date of December 21, 1833. He was fully associated in the movement in 1835 and 1836, when he published his Tract on Baptism, and started the Library of the Fathers. He at once gave us a position and a name. Without him we should have had no chance, especially at the early date of 1834, of making any serious resistance to the Liberal aggression. But Dr. Pusey was a Professor and Canon of Christ Church, he had a vast influence in consequence of his deep and religious seriousness, the munificence of his charities, his Professorship, his family connexions, and his easy relations with University Authorities. There was henceforth a man who could be the head and centre of the zealous people in every part of the country, who were adopting the new opinions; and not only so, but there was one who furnished the movement with a front to the world, and gained for it a recognition from other parties in the University. Dr. Pusey was a host in himself. He was able to give a name, a form, a personality to what was without him a sort of mob, and when various parties had to meet together in order to resist the liberal acts of the Government, we of the movement, took our place by right among them. Such was the benefit which he conferred on the movement externally: nor was the internal advantage at all inferior to it. He was a man of large designs; he had a hopeful, sanguine mind; he had no fear of others; he was haunted by no intellectual perplexities. Dr. Pusey's influence was felt at once. to be more sobriety, more gravity, more the Tracts. and in the whole Movement. It was through him that the character of the Tracts was changed.

He saw that there ought sense of responsibility in

It is important to keep this in mind, as Dr. Pusey, speaking of the Ritualists a short time since, said, "What we taught in word, they teach in deed."

It may, perhaps, be well, as Dr. Newman wrote the first and also the last Tract for the Times, and was one of the chief actors in the whole movement, to state more fully his opinions upon certain subjects, and also to indicate the sources from whence they were derived.

While yet an Under-graduate, he embraced the Doctrine of Tradition. A proposition was laid down by one of the Heads of the University, which Dr. Newman terms self-evident as soon as stated, viz:—that Scripture was never intended to teach Doctrine, but only to prove it; that if we would learn Doctrine, we must have

recourse to the Formularies of the Church, for instance to the Catechism and the Creeds.* After learning from them the Doctrines of Christianity, the inquirer must verify them by Scripture.

This view, most true in its outline, most fruitful in consequences, opened upon him, he says, a large field of thought. One of its effects was to strike at the root of the principle on which the Bible Society was set up. He at that time belonged to the Oxford Association;

*The teaching of the Roman Catholic Church on this subject, is thus stated in the Creed of Pope Pius IV. "I also admit the Holy Scriptures, according to that sense which our holy mother the Church hath held and doth hold, to whom it belongeth to judge of the true sense and interpretation of the Scriptures."

Dr. Wiseman, says, that merely as a book to be understood, the Bible presents more difficulties than any other work. " But considered as a practical book, from which each of its readers has to distil his own code of morals, and his own articles of faith, it becomes a thousand times more difficult, not to say dangerous." "We do not," he continues, "thrust the Bible, almost perforce, into the hands of the people; but we say to them, listen to the Doctrines of Scripture as only rightly understood and certainly taught by the true Church of God, to which alone is promised the infallibility of a Divine direction."

"There is no

The teaching of the Reformers was of a very different character. truth nor doctrine necessary for our justification and everlasting salvation, but that is, or may be drawn out of that fountain and well of Truth. Therefore, as many as be desirous to enter into the right and perfect way unto God, must apply their minds to know Holy Scripture; without the which, they can neither sufficiently know God and His Will, neither their office and duty.' "In Holy Scripture is fully contained what we ought to do, and what to eschew, what to believe, what to love, and what to look for at God's hands at length."-Homilies.

Dr. Newman, while yet a Minister of the Established Church, held the same Doctrine as Dr. Wiseman.

If such were Dr. Newman's principles, how can it be matter of wonder that his teaching led people to_the_Roman Catholic Church? If the Doctrines then taught were the Bulb, as Dr. Pusey says, what Fruit must be expected now?

The sole object of the Bible Society, is to encourage the wider circulation of the Holy Scriptures, without note or comment. In the Homilies, the Reformers say, "The great utility and profit, that Christian men and women may take, if they will, by hearing and reading the Holy Scriptures, no heart can sufficiently conceive, much less is any tongue able to express. Wherefore Satan, our enemy, seeing the Scriptures to be the very mean and right way to bring the people to the true knowledge of God, and that Christian religion is greatly furthered by diligent hearing and reading of them, he also perceiving what an hindrance and let they be to him and his kingdom, doth what he can to drive the reading of them out of God's Church."

Dr. Wiseman, however, is in agreement with Dr. Newman. His words are, "We answer therefore, boldly, that we give not the Word of God indiscriminately to all, because God Himself has not so given it." "We further say, that we do not permit the indiscriminate and undirected use of the Bible, because God has not given to His Church the instinct to do so." But the Apostle Paul says, "Whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope." Dr. Wiseman says, Bible reading is not a means by which saving grace is given: but the Apostle