and the cant of Puseyism are equally censurable, and both show an irresistible tendency towards the imperfect. The latter would bind us to the formularies and the mummeries of a diluted Romanism, whilst the former seeks to cast off all restraint and to leave every man at loose to follow the course of his own inclination, and to carve out a royal road to heaven for himself. Between the two extremes, calm, serene, and pure, in her liturgy, in her formulary, in her worship, and her doctrines, stands our holy Protestant Church. She is the light that is set upon a hill, the beacon to the wandering, the guide to the wavering, the finger-point to eternal rest. Her efficiency lies in her chastened simplicity, in her earnest activity, in her well assured doctrine, the faithfulness of her priests, and the love of her people. When, however, we see any of these broken in upon, then are we right to be warned, and to have a care, that in striving to build up we throw not down-that we do neither weaken the tower in which our strength lies, nor destroy with impious hands the structure that the pious care of our forefathers raised for our edification. It would have been well if our New Church Reformers as we suppose our Tractarians and Puseyites would call themselves, in their anxiety to purify "the outside of the cup and the platter," had also paid equal attention to the inside of the sacred vessels; and if whilst they made such a parade of their purity and zeal, they had occasionally listened to the dictates of that blessed word which they profess to take for their guide, had conformed a little more to the spirit of the apostles whose successors they are, had followed the example set them by the Divine head of our Church, and hearkened to the councils of the wisest of men, who in the character of the "Preacher, the son of David, the king of Jerusalem" has advised them, " Be not righteous over much, neither make thyself over wise." I have been led to make these prefatory remarks to the following Letter, because I have looked with no slight anxiety upon the progress of the Tractarian heresy, for by no other name can it be designated. The first design of the Puseyite party was admittedly to correct something of laxity in the practice of our Church, and to re-invigorate our faith by appeals to our reason. But by degrees these degenerated into mere form without godliness and a puerile attempt at a bastard imitation of Romanism. In outward demeanour, and form of apparel, as well as in the decoration of our Churches, in an endeavour to revive Popish festivals and ceremonies, and a dexterous and cunning engrafting of Papistry upon our Protestant observances, and impregnation of pure Protestant doctrines with Papist principle, we have seen a servile attempt at the imitation of Romanism. How many are there of us who have not heard in professedly Protestant places of worship, doctrine preached which has made us doubt whether we had not been dreaming of Protestantism all our lives and found our faith likely to be shipwrecked upon the rocks of a renegade religion? Things ought not so to be. If we would preserve our Protestant and Christian character we must away with all the solemn mockery of bowings and scrapings, and appeals to the senses, which are after all but a savour of idolatry. "Be not deceived, God is not mocked, for whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap, for he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption: but he that soweth to the spirit shall of the spirit reap life everlasting." And "God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands, neither is worshipped with men's hands, as though he needed anything, seeing he giveth to all life and breath and all things." Dare we not then abide by the teaching of the Apostle in preference to all the dicta of "his holiness" the Pope? I am not of those who are disposed to deny that any benefit could have arisen from the publication of the "Tracts for the Times," or from the disputation which has been created by them. But what I feared in them has actually happened. Honest, but perhaps weak minds, have been led astray by them; and so, whilst some men have remained the pastors of flocks and heads of our Church, yet preaching doctrines directly contrary to it, others have actually separated themselves from us, and gone over to the "scarlet whore of Babylon," avowed themselves Roman Catholics, and adopted Roman Catholicism, with its mariolatry, its idol worship, its invocation of saints, and countless other abominations. Such is the perversity of human nature, that it is ever running into extremes; it is either all blandness or all rigour; all zeal or all supineness; and casting off one notion because of its absurdity, only to run into an opposite one equally monstrous. All sudden and violent changes, whether in the natural, the moral, or the physical world, are to be dreaded; but most of all in the theological. Under the banner of the Cross, empires have been convulsed with the most bloody wars; evil has raised its head in every form and shape; pride, lust, vain glory and hypocrisy have displayed their hideous features; and under the sanction of religious fanaticism, or religious bigotry, the brother's hand has been imbued in the brother's blood, whilst the martyr for conscience' sake, and the defender of the faith in its spirit and its essence, has been led a victim to the stake and the funeral pyre. The present religious movement is pregnant of warning. The war of theological opinion, and the battle of religious controversy, are waxing strong and hot. The Tractarians, or, as they are commonly called, the Puseyites, are many of them pushing their doctrines to extremes, and whilst openly calling themselves Protestants, are doing all in their power to undermine and overturn the Protestant Church, and to set up a Babel of their own-the Romish Church-upon her holy foundations. As Protestants, loving our Church, and honoring those holy men who sealed their testimony with their blood, and the Covenants of our Church with their lives; and as men who would if need be, prove the defenders of their homes, and their altars, it is every Christian's duty to protest now, and protest warmly, against the innovations that are being sought to be made upon "the faith once delivered to the saints." The Bishop of Chester, in alluding to Tractarianism says, "that the whole system is destructive to the minister and the people-it lulls the people into a fancied security; it elates the minister with a false superiority; the leaders of the people cause them to err; and they that are led by them are destroyed.” These inroads, probably, are being made by some men from honest, but bigotted and mistaken notions-by men who see in forms and ceremonies helps to spiritual devotion, but which, as we see in the whole history of the Romish Church, only distract, instead of confirm, and fix the mind upon the shadow (the type,) rather than upon the substance, (the thing typified;) which chain men's notions down to earth, and the grovelling ideas that, earth born, have earth tendencies; and clouding upon men's imaginations a host of ceremonies and rites, shroud Heaven from their view, so as to prevent their faith ever from attaining to an upward flight and a Heavenly tendency; thus hindering the soul from expanding her wings, until thoroughly deplumed, she is bound to this lower sphere, without a hope of ever catching a single glimpse of the celestial glories. Ask the poor devotee of the Romish Church what he knows of Heaven, of Christ, of the worship of the Deity— the triune Jehovah-of religion "pure and undefiled" in its spirituality and not its form, and he will stare at you aghast, and mutter something about his priest, his confessional, his beads, his ave Marias, and his pater nosters, his genuflexions, his crossings, his bowings, his prayers to the Saints, his hopes of the intercession of the "Mother of God," and of the good Angels, of his penances, his fasts, his purgatory, and his masses for the repose of the souls of the dead; but not a word will he speak of b the Father of Mercies, of the dying Redeemer, of the coming of the Holy Ghost, of the adorable Trinity, of hopes of salvation alone through Christ, of Christ's own teachings and callings. Ought we not then to guard against such soul-destroying dogmas, and to blench with fear at even the faintest attacks upon that purer faith which we profess to believe in and enjoy? The outworks broken through, we know not how soon the citadel itself may become assailed—destroyed. In the body of my letter I have endeavoured to show that whatever dependance the Romish Church may place upon the miracles which she professes to declare do prove her power, and attest her Divine character, they are only such as can be believed in by the weakest credulity, or supported by the most barefaced impudence; and that at the best they have no title to a higher place in our regard than the fables of pre-existent paganism; whilst their class-fellows are to be found not only in the myths of Greece, and the pabulum of heathen Rome, but in the nations groaning beneath barbarism at the present day. Since writing this portion of the Letter, I have met with the annexed Epistle which I here insert as proof that my notion in this respect is neither fantastic, extravagant, nor unique. "Sir, "Since Dr. Newman has lately amused the world with several of the articles of his belief, I dare say he will be obliged to me if I point out to him the origin of one of the miracles in which he puts his faith. I mean the miracle of the Winking Virgin. "If Dr. Newman will turn to Virgil's Æneid,' lib. 2, v. 171, he will find the following statement made of the famous 'virgin goddess' Minerva : "Nec dubiis ea signa dedit Tritonia monstris. Vix positum castris simulacrum; arsere coruscœ : "Dr. Newman is, of course, a great admirer of antiquity and Catholic tradition; and I am sure he will be gratified to learn that winking virgins' date so far back as the mythical period of the Trojan war. He can now produce Virgil as a testimony to the truth of one miracle, as he can produce Horace to corroborate another, namely, the liquefaction of the blood of St. Januarius. "I am, Sir, your obedient servant, "Nov. 28. MARO." |
