namely, That any endeavour to link the records of the ancient church with the canonical scriptures, as in any way forming a joint authority; or, more generally, the endeavour to set up the ancient church as an exemplar, and as being worthy of our religious reverence, or to go back from the doctrine and principles of the Reformation, to those of the nicene divines- - that such an endeavour is fond, foolish, pernicious; and, as related to the professions and obligations of protestant clergymen, that it is faithless, not to say traitorous.

To no other conclusion than this can the present controversy come, if it be pursued to its issue. It would be an affectation to assume the tones of hesitation, or of diffidence, on ground such as this. I am at least conversant enough with the methods of reasoning, and with the rules of induction in the several departments of mathematical, physical, moral, forensic, and historical inquiry, to know when and where absolute confidence is justifiable; and where even the most sedulous and impartial scrutiny may fail to produce conviction. Many things are angrily discussed in corners of the religious commonwealth, and among those who scarcely ever look beyond a corner, which are either too hopelessly uncertain, or are too manifestly certain, to detain a well disciplined and independent mind, for a moment.

In reference to such points, when laboriously debated, it can be no arrogance to speak, on the one hand impatiently, on the other confidently. Thus, concerning the precise manipulative process by which baptism was administered to the first converts at Jerusalem, it would be futile to inquire, as if it might be certainly known; and equally futile would it be to call in question the fact, that water baptism was practised and enjoined by the apostles. A meek tempered condescension toward the infirm in mind, or the ill-informed, may indeed induce one to seem to treat such questions otherwise than as they can rightfully claim to be treated. But it would be absurd, or worse than absurd to do so, except for a moment, and from such a motive of charity.

The extreme ill temper that has marked the criticisms of which these numbers have been the subject, I cannot hesitate to attribute to a consciousness that, in reference to certain matters of history, superabundantly attested, and beyond all possibility of

serious doubt, when once inquired into, the position so inconsiderately assumed when it was supposed that no diligent and independent inquiry would be instituted-must ere long be abandoned.

This uneasy consciousness cannot but have been enhanced by the many sharp rebukes, and some of them from episcopal lips, which of late have indicated a rising resentment, and a refreshed protestant feeling in the church. It is impossible but that Oxford Tract writers, and their adherents, must have felt that their entire scheme has come to be in extreme peril, and is now not unlikely to be consigned to ignominious oblivion. Even those whose professional inclinations and habits of thought impel them to go with these writers as far as may be possible, have distinctly convicted them of misrepresentation of facts; and (in gentle terms indeed) have given them to understand that they have trespassed upon truth and honour, and must retreat.* Meanwhile the common sense of the laity, on all sides, even within the church, is making a jest every day of the practical follies by which these principles are expressed.

At the same time-and this the writers and their friends must now well understand, not a little reverential feeling, respecting themselves, has of late been dissipated. A while ago it was imagined that a quire of canonized martyrs and holy anchorets had risen from their graves, and were coming among us. It was actually

* The figure of rhetoric-whether anaphora or epizeuxis, which consists in the frequent repetition of an emphatic phrase, is always held to indicate a strong feeling in the speaker; and especially so, if it be manifest that he is repressing his inmost sentiments. In this view we cannot misunderstand the solemnly reiterated-' I lament to say,' which marks some pages of the bishop of Exeter's late Charge. In what terms his lordship might have expressed the manly indignation which he smothers, had no indirect considerations ruled him, it is not difficult to imagine. Or, let us suppose another case--namely, that the instances of doctrinal error, and of discreditable prevarication which his lordship laments,' and 'more than laments' to adduce, had been chargeable upon certain declared opponents of the church. Would the reprehension have been measured, as it is, now that Oxford professors are the objects of it? I think not. If then the Oxford Tract writers were inclined to deal equitably with themselves, and if they would only translate his lordship's courtesies into the spirited vernacular of some of his controversial or parliamentary vituperations, they would hear themselves roundly accused, by an accomplished bishop, of dishonest perversions of evidence; not to say, of a serious sophistication of their engagements, as protestant clergymen. See pages 77-84.

believed that the ancient asceticism, purified by an entombment of centuries, was walking the earth to exemplify the temper of heaven. But these anchorets have spoken out--and the illusion is past they have written themselves forth in magazines and in newspapers, and now the world clearly understands that our 'British' Jeromes, and our British' Dominics, have inherited the dispositions, as well as the principles of their predecessors. Whether they may succeed in making good all the exclusive pretensions which they advance, is at present doubtful; but already these champions of antiquity have fully vindicated their personal shares in the undoubted apostolicity of the ascetic temper.

Among the errors I shall have to acknowledge, this is one; but there are many persons of great discernment to share with me the discredit of having too hastily supposed that asceticism and superstition might be revived, apart from its inveterate qualities, and might be practised and promoted in a christian spirit. The earlier compositions of the writers of the Tracts for the Times, and which preceded any actual, or perhaps anticipated assault upon them, must be allowed to indicate (generally-not without exceptions) a christian mildness of temper, and a superiority to the vulgar controversial style. Moreover, the official standing, and the private reputation of the individuals to whom these writings were attributed, seemed to afford ample security against any trickery or discreditable management, in the conduct of their argument. An extraordinary amount of confidence and good opinion was assigned to these writers for their use.

But how have they used this confidence? I grant that, in dealing with assailants, they have not betrayed more ill feeling than has too often marked theological strife :-but then they have not betrayed less. These writers, in packing their evidence, in schooling their witnesses, in making up a case against an opponent, have perhaps resorted to no evasions, other than such as have too often disgraced even a better cause; but then they have shown themselves not more scrupulous than disputants of the vulgar stamp ordinarily are. Whatever, in the dressing up an argument is wont to be done by men whose zeal is more vivid than their moral sense, these writers have done. If they are not worse than the usual run of sectarian champions, clearly

they are not much better; and it is now as certain that the Oxford Tract divines are only ordinary men, as it is that the nicene church was not so holy or pure as to be entitled to our reverEven in stating more strongly my corrected opinion as to the controversial' integrity of the Oxford Tract writers I should be borne out by good and high authority.*

In thus stating my corrected opinion in this particular — a correction conveyed to me, not merely in the private admonitions of my friends, but through the very pens of my opponents, I would carefully guard against the supposition that I am running, as do some, into a contrary extreme. There are not wanting those who are saying-These men are Jesuits.' This is unwarrantable; and, as it is an imputation which should not be advanced on any ground of mere conjecture, so is it actually contradicted by the features of the case.-Who can believe any such thing? Men who have so far outrun the feeling upon which they were endeavouring to work, and who have shown so little discretion in the general arrangement of their attempt to subvert protestantism-assuredly such men are no Jesuits. Those who have embraced this injurious supposition cannot be intimately acquainted with the policy of the romish court; for Rome has always shown an equal skill in the choice of her agents, and in giving them their instructions; and it is a mere act of justice, to the Italian machinators on the one hand, and to the Oxford Tract divines on the other, to relieve both from the imputation of having held a secret correspondence: the one party being clearly exonerated by their well known tact and ability;-the other, as clearly, by their manifested deficiency, at least in the former.

In disclaiming all participation in so uncharitable an hypothesis, which even the facts of the case disallow, I must not be understood

* Since the above was written I have been assured, in an authentic manner, that one of the first biblical scholars and theologians of the day, and who holds a high station in the church, is prepared to establish against these writers a heavy indictment of misstatements, and perversions of evidence; and that he has denounced them as controvertists, not to be trusted. To the same effect are the strictures of the Bishop of Calcutta upon the Oxford Tract writers, as controvertists merely. See the Appendix to his recently printed Charge.

to disclaim also the theory which explains the invariable connexion of a very peculiar species of malignity, with the ascetic and superstitious doctrine and discipline. No one who has followed the history of this scheme of comfortless pietism can mistake its characteristic quality, wherever it appears; or at least whenever it has been rudely touched. In recollecting the actual history of ascetic superstition, through a long course of centuries, and in calling to mind how it has been used to deal with its adversaries, and in remembering the mere fact that hundreds of thousands of victims, men, women, and children, have endured the last refinements of torture, or have suffered the horrors of cremation, on no other account than that of having trifled with the ascetic doctrine or practice-one cannot doubt that some uniform and very peculiar influence has run through the system, from first to last.

But why should this self-denying scheme have been thus marked, from age to age, with a peculiar malignity? It is because itself is the creature of those deep emotions of the moral nature which, when actively stirred, can be harmonized by nothing but Heaven's own truth. When vindictive sentiments, springing from man's natural conceptions of the divine inexorable justice, take their direction inward, preying upon the heart, and inflaming the imagination, and giving rise, at once, to ferocious austerities and to gloomy observances-when this is the condition of the soul, the least demonstration of hostility is enough to turn, toward the assailant, the burning stream which torments the heart.

Besides, the victim of this spiritual malady is never himself satisfied with his own expiatory performances, as if they were sufficient. The suspicion haunts him that all may prove too little his best hope of propitiating the Unseen Retributive Power is but a precarious hope, which, although watered with his tears, refuses to grow. In proportion therefore to his own secret sense of the doubtfulness of the issue of all his toil and pain, is his anger against any who take part with conscience in calling it in question. Tell him that fastings, floggings, vigils, ceremonies, are all of no avail for the purpose intended -he knows it too well, and therefore foams with rage against the objector, who echoes the deep misgivings of his soul.