"Q. Are Heretics or Schismatics in the Church?

A. In the Invisible Church they are not; for Heretics, as far as their heresy, and Schismatics as far as their schism, is concerned, have forsaken the true Church of God, which is sound in doctrine, and joined together in unity; but by virtue of the Sacraments which they have received, and of such articles of Christian faith as they hold, they are so far in the risible Church. Being indeed Heretics or Schismatics, but not Infidels, Atheists, or Apostates, they are still members of the visible Church, though peccant and unsound members; they are a part, though a maimed part, of the visible. Church. Sunt in Ecclesià, quamvis non salubriter in Ecclesia. They are indeed in the Church, but as long as they are Heretics or Schismatics they receive no benefit from it. They are subjects of Christ, but rebellious ones." -pp. 31, 32.)

"Q. But is it not inconsistent to speak of the Church and State, as two names for the same community, when, as in England, a great number of persons do not belong to the Church?

"A. No one does not belong to the Church, except Atheists, Jews, Infidels, and Apostates. If the Church of England is what she has been shown to be, (above, pp. 113, 148, 162, 181,) namely, a sound member of the Universal Church, in origin, doctrine and discipline-she is the spiritual Mother of all Christians in this country. In the words of Scripture, she is to them all, 'the house of God,' 'the body of Christ,'the mother of all living;' as such, she is appointed by Christ to be the dispenser of his grace, and there is no sacramental grace, and no Christianity, but by her. As Christians, then, Schismatics are members of the Church, though unsound ones; they are children of the Church, though not obedient ones; and as long as she is a Church, and as long as they are Christians, she neither can forget her maternal love to them, nor can they cast off their filial duty of obedience to her." (pp. 222, 223.)

Now, in the first place, we doubt if Dr. Wordsworth himself understands his own proposition; and at all events, we are very sure that few of his readers will. "Schismatics," he says, "are members of the Church, though unsound ones." Now, if this were all, their case would be at least as good as the greater part of nominal churchmen. Dr. W. will hardly find a parish-church in London, in which one-third of the adult attendants erer join in the celebration of the Lord's Supper. The negligent, i.e. the majority, must surely be reckoned as "unsound members:" which is what the Doctor calls the Dissenters. But how do these Dissenters arrive at the distinction of being members of the Church, at all?

Dr. Wordsworth answers, "By virtue of the sacraments which they have received."

Are there, then, Sacraments, out of the Church?

In other chapters of his work, Dr. Wordsworth replies in the negative. At p. 55 he tells us, that "the special ministration of God's word and sacraments is committed to certain persons;" and at p. 59, that these persons 66 must receive the ordaining grace of the Holy Spirit of God, investing him with the power of dispensing God's word and sacraments:" and "this the Holy Spirit

confers by the hands of the successors of the Apostles, in the office of ordination." Again, at p. 223, we have the positive declaration, that "there is no sacramental grace but by the Church."

We cannot see, then,-if the "ordaining grace of the Holy Spirit," conferred "by the hands of the successors of the Apostles," is essential to baptism; and if there be "no sacramental grace but by the Church," we cannot see, we repeat, how the Dissenters can be held to be members of the Church of England "by virtue of the sacraments which they have received." First, the Doctor asserts that they have no sacraments, and then he tells us that by the sacraments which they have received, they are virtually in the Church. Clearly, this system will not hang together. The most fearful thing, however, in this book, is the assertion, that Dissenters are not in the invisible Church of Christ. For it had been already explained that the invisible Church is "the family of God; the spouse of Christ; the mystical body of Christ, whose names are written in heaven." In short, correctly enough, the invisible Church is declared to be "the Church of the elect: " i.e. the Church of those who will finally be saved.

And then we are coolly and very decidedly told, of Dissenters, that "in the invisible Church they are not." In other words, that while they remain separated from the established Church, they are no part of the family of God, no part of the mystical body of Christ, no part of the Church of the elect!

in

And this absolute anathema is in another chapter confirmed in a different way. At p. 224, it is further explained, that though in "the field" or visible church, they are only the "tares that field; and that it is only "by God's converting power that they can become good wheat." It is further declared, that "the graces which schismatics may have, are in them, but not for them, but against them, as long as they remain wilfully separated from the Church; and it is only when they return to the Church, that these graces begin to profit them in their unity with the Church, which could not profit them in their separation from it." (p. 225.)

This anathema, then, seems to be final and complete. Were it of the least validity, where would be the soul of Robert Hall, of George Whitfield, of John Fletcher? With what strange feelings should we study the life of David Brainerd, that devoted servant of Christ, or of the last missionary martyr, Williams, whose history, as the Bishop of Chester lately observed, seemed like a second part of the Acts of the Apostles! All these, and myriads more, who "through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were

made strong,"-must we calmly resign, according to Dr. Wordsworth's monstrous system, as having graces, indeed, but graces which "could not profit them so long as they remained in separation from the Church!"-as being, in short, no part of "the family of God, the body of Christ, the Church of the elect!"

Is it true,—must we write it as a fact, of which we fear no doubt can be entertained,-that the Bishop of London actually recommends this extraordinary production to the careful study of his candidates for holy orders?

CONSIDERATIONS ON THE POSITION AND DUTY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD, with reference to the late proceeding against the Regius Professor of Hebrew. By HENRY ARTHUR WOODGATE, B.D., Rector of Belbroughton, &c. Oxford: Parker. 1843.

ARROGANT assumption is one of the chief weapons of the Tractarian school. Without it they could scarcely exist: forming, as it does, the staple of all their arguments. But we never met with a more repelling example of its use than in the tract, the title of which we have given above. It consists of arrogant assumption, and nothing else!

Reasoning or proof by evidence is not even attempted. The writer starts with taking for granted that the Vice-Chancellor of Oxford, and the six doctors, his assessors, have committed a great crime, an open breach of truth, and justice, and orthodoxy; and the only points which he really condescends to discuss, are, What will be the consequences of this crime? and, What ought to be done with the criminals?

Of Mr. Woodgate's language we must give our readers a few specimens, or they will scarcely credit our account of his tract. It is thus he speaks, be it remembered, of the head of his own col lege, and of six men, his seniors, so highly respected as Dr. Hawkins, Dr. Symons, Dr. Ogilvie, Dr. Faussett, and Dr. Jelf.

"The university has now been assailed, for the first time, both in her liberties and the purity of her faith."—(p. 6.)

The suspension of Dr. Pusey is not to be regarded as an insulated occur rence, having no relation to other questions which have long occupied se large a portion of public attention; but is rather to be regarded as a link among many, all of them intimately connected with, and arising out of, the great movement which has been going on for some years in the English

Church, and the continued struggle which it necessarily has to encounter with the sectarian spirit of the day, whether as exhibited in professed liberalism in matters of faith, with its unavoidable consequence, a tyrannical intolerance of the opinion of others, or in the profaneness and daring impiety which too frequently mark its progress."-(p. 7.)

66

to rescue the university from those threatened concessions to the sectarian clamour and liberalism of the day, now without the legal means of vindicating her from the stain which at present rests upon her from the decision of the Six Doctors?"-(p. 8.)

"Evidently little acquainted themselves with the language of the fathers or our standard divines, they appear to have succumbed to party dictation; and have, on this occasion at least, lent themselves to the vulgar senseless outery which would denounce as Popery every relic of Catholic truth, which our Reformers, by the blessing of Almighty God, bequeathed unto us."(p. 19.)

Such is the contemptuous strain in which this junior in the church thinks himself entitled to speak of seven men, all his seniors, all distinguished in various ways; but who all have the misfortune to differ from him in opinion, and who are therefore at once declared to be ignoramuses in theology, tyrants in government, and heretics in religion!

Our concern, however, is not so much with these impertinences, as with the more serious assumptions on which Mr. Woodgate ventures, in matters of doctrine. As, for instance :

"What is the main purport of the Sermon ? The assertion of a great fundamental truth-one much lost sight of indeed in a lax and profane age-but one, not only recognized and taught in the English Church, but set forth prominently in every formulary and office relating to the subject."—(p. 10.) "To the astonishment of all, these six doctors have pronounced this doctrine unorthodox; and if they have not actually condemned, have at least circumscribed within the limits of sectarian interpretation, the English Church, her homilies, liturgy, catechism, offices."-(p. 10.)

"A direct act of heterodoxy, by contravening the unequivocal and authoritative declarations of the Church and her standard Divines."-(p. 12.)

"And it seems difficult at first to account for the infatuation which could lead, I will not say Six Doctors of Divinity, nay, nor six Clergymen, but any six men really trained in the English Church, to such a monstrous decision.”— (p. 12).

"The doctrine of the Real Presence in the Holy Eucharist, is an essential doctrine of the Catholic Church. The Anglican branch has ever held it."(p. 33).

"That the language of our acknowledged standard Divines is unequivocal; that the formularies and offices of the Church, if to some they appear at first sight to speak less decisively on the subject, must in common justice be interpreted by the fuller and more categorical declarations of the former, especially if they were, either wholly or in part, the authors or compilers of the formularies and offices in question. And further, as if to cut away the whole ground from beneath the feet of those who would gainsay this blessed truth, it is remarkable that our Reformers, providentially as it were for us, had to contend for this very doctrine against the Romanists, who accused them, in rejecting transubstantiation, of rejecting this."-(p. 27).

Now such assertions as these really cannot be allowed to pass. First of all, we reject at once, the decisions or opinions, of what

Mr. Woodgate calls "our acknowledged standard divines;" and of whom he gives us, at page 11, this list :

"Archbishops Wake, Sharp, Laud, Bramhall; Bishops Ridley, Bison. Overall, Morton, Andrewes, Cosin, Sparrow, Fell, Jeremy Taylor, Ken, Hackett, Beveridge, Bull, Wilson; Deans Jackson and Comber; together with Sutton, Mede, Herbert, Hammond, Thorndike, Leslie, Wheatley, Grabe." (p. 11).

We reject these, always excepting Ridley, as altogether incompetent to the purpose for which Mr. Woodgate cites them. He

says:

"The formularies and offices of the Church, if to some they appear at first sight to speak less decisively on the subject, must in common justice be interpreted by the fuller and more categorical declarations of the former, (these standard divines,") especially if they were, either 'wholly or in part, the authors or compilers of the formularies and offices in question.”—(p. 27).

Now, a mere glance at the list which Mr. Woodgate has furnished, will show, that "to interpret" the sense of our Liturgy, Articles, and Homilies, he has called in, not the authors or compilers of those documents, but a set of writers (always excepting Ridley), who lived a century after, and who wholly differed in doctrine from those authors and compilers.

Nothing can be more monstrous than such a proceeding; the only apology for which would be, an impossibility, supposing such to have been the case,-of discovering any of the writings of the divines of the sixteenth century; and the consequent necessity of gathering their views, as well as we could, from men who lived eighty or a hundred years after.

But there is no such impossibility! and this Mr. Woodgate knows full well. The writings of the very men who wrote our Homilies and compiled our Liturgy, are accessible enough; and it is an act of wilful dishonesty and unfairness on the part of the Tractarians, to turn away from them, and to go to the Divines of the Laudian age, for "interpretations" of the formularies compiled by Cranmer, Parker, and Jewell.

The doctrine of the Church of England, as established at the Reformation, needs no "interpretation" of later and inferior divines. No honest man, willing to learn, and prepared to accept, the judgment of the Reformers as to the notion of a "Real Presence," could find any difficulty in ascertaining it. First of all, in every Common Prayer-Book in the kingdom, there stands this plain declaration:

"No adoration is intended, or ought to be done, either unto the sacramental bread and wine, there bodily received, or unto any corporeal presence of Christ's natural flesh and blood. For the sacramental bread and wine remain still in their very natural sub

1