THE IDEAL 
 
 OF A 
 
 CHEISTIAN CHURCH 
 
 CONSIDERED 
 
 CONTAINING 
 
 A DEFENCE OF CERTAIN ARTICLES IN 
 
 THE BRITISH CRITIC 
 
 IN REPLY TO REMARKS ON THEM IN 
 MR. PALMER'S < NARRATIVE.' 
 
 BY THE REV. W. G. WARD, M.A. 
 
 FELLOW OF BALLIOL COLLEGE, OXFORD. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 JAMES TOOVEY, 192, PICCADILLY. 
 
 M.DCCC.XLIV.
 
 PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 
 
 IN the Preface to the First Edition of the following 
 work, I apologised for the irregularity of its structure, 
 and the admixture of temporary and accidental matter 
 with the general statement of principles. These 
 defects I had hoped to remedy, as far as my ability 
 extends, in a second edition. In particular, I had 
 hoped to omit all allusion to Mr. Palmer and the 
 British Critic (as belonging to an ephemeral contro- 
 versy, the interest of which had passed away) ; to ex- 
 tend the eighth chapter into a more substantive form ; 
 and, above all, to enlarge the last chapter to at least 
 double its present size, in order that the statement 
 might be more clear and intelligible of principles, 
 which appear to me of all the most important, in the 
 present circumstances, not of our own Church only, 
 but of ' the Holy Church throughout all the world.' 
 
 These intentions, however, I have been compelled 
 for the present to abandon; because the recent proceed- 
 ings at Oxford necessitate the immediate appearance
 
 VI 
 
 of a Second Edition, and also make it desirable that 
 the said Second Edition should be, as nearly as pos- 
 sible, a fac-simile of the first. No alteration what- 
 ever, then, has been made, except the correction of 
 typographical errors. 
 
 Of course no apology is intended for the substance 
 of the work, as distinct from its form. As to the 
 sentiments contained in the propositions which have 
 been officially called into question, I have only to 
 say that my conviction of their truth, for a long time 
 past, has grown deeper and more undoubting ; that 
 they were expressed with the most perfect delibera- 
 tion ; and that with the same deliberation they are 
 here distinctly re-asserted. 
 
 Balliol College, Oxford, 
 Dec. 10, 1844.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 THE following work has grown under my hands into 
 dimensions which I had been very far from expecting. 
 When I spoke at the outset of ' trespassing at greater 
 length than I could wish on the public attention,' an 
 unusually long pamphlet was the utmost which I anti- 
 cipated as likely to follow. The result of this mode of 
 composition has necessarily been, to introduce an ad- 
 mixture of temporary and accidental matter with the 
 general statement of principles ; an admixture, which 
 in many respects may increase the reader's difficulty in 
 following the course of the argument. On the other 
 hand, without the justification which arises from having 
 been made the subject of severe censure, I could not 
 have brought myself to so bold a step, as publishing 
 opinions which, however deeply and fixedly entertained, 
 in many respects differ from those more generally held 
 in our Church. This reason has made me feel it quite 
 necessary to my own comfort, that I should retain the 
 allusions to Mr. Palmer's 'Narrative;' whatever the 
 incidental inconveniences which may be so entailed on 
 me. 
 
 To speak of more important matters than the form 
 of the work. The one object which has been nearest
 
 Vlll 
 
 my heart throughout, has been the attempting to lay 
 down a sufficient basis, on which all who profess what 
 are called ' high-church ' sentiments might be able to 
 cooperate, without compromise on any side : and I 
 hope that the second chapter, the fifth chapter as far as 
 p. 260, the sixth and the seventh chapters, may on the 
 whole meet with their concurrence. The principles, 
 which I have laboured there to establish, are such as 
 these : that careful and individual moral discipline is 
 the only possible basis, on which Christian faith and 
 practice can be reared that our Church at present 
 performs the duty with deplorable inadequacy, or rather 
 makes no attempt to perform it ; that, in consequence, 
 our standard of holiness, and also our average of Chris- 
 tian attainment, are miserably low ; and our belief even 
 in such a truth as our Blessed Lord's Divinity, very far 
 less firmly rooted than we are apt to think that to 
 remedy these defects is an object of so much magnitude, 
 as to offer the fullest scope for all our energies that 
 to act heartily and unsuspiciously on our points of 
 agreement, is the sure mode of arriving at agreement 
 on matters which are now points of difference. 
 
 At the same time, for various reasons (some of which 
 are expressed in the work) I have felt it a positive duty 
 in no way to conceal my own deeply and deliberately 
 entertained opinions, on the ultimate result which will 
 ensue from all wisely-directed endeavours to reform 
 and purify our Church. But so far from having felt it 
 a duty to give reasons why I so think (though it can- 
 not but happen that some of my reasons will incidently 
 appear), the very object, to which I desire humbly to
 
 IX 
 
 invite the concurrence of ' high-churchmen,' is, that we 
 should not trouble our minds with the ultimate result ; 
 but perform our immediate duties, under the full con- 
 viction that, in proportion as we do so, the ultimate 
 result must be such as God in His Wisdom desires. 
 
 The discussion of the Lutheran doctrine of Justifi- 
 cation became necessary, not only from the accidental 
 circumstance, that I had used such strong language on 
 the subject in the British Critic ; but much more, be- 
 cause that doctrine formally denies the truth, which 
 seems to me the key to all moral and religious 
 knowledge, and which accordingly I lately mentioned 
 as the leading idea of the present work ; the truth, 
 namely, that careful moral discipline is the necessary 
 foundation, whereon alone Christian faith can be 
 reared. 
 
 I am well aware that there are several passages in 
 the following pages, which admit of being extracted 
 and circulated with great promise of success : but I 
 would beg to urge on the attention of those who might 
 be inclined to such a course, that all who circulate 
 extracts from a work, incur the responsibility of im- 
 plying, that such extracts give a fair and just idea 
 of its general contents. I here then enter my protest, 
 that no series of extracts will, in my opinion, convey 
 this fair and just idea, if they do not include such 
 passages as that in p. 81, beginning, 'And I will say 
 plainly,' in p. 23, beginning, 'to all these I would 
 add,' in p. 459, beginning, 'Such religious practices.' 
 Those who may read the work, will see that these are no
 
 more than samples of similar expressions in every part 
 of it. 
 
 A friend who has seen the sheets thinks that 
 there may be a misapprehension of my meaning in 
 p. 288-9. I have more fully expressed what I there 
 intended, in p. 576 582. 
 
 In conclusion I most earnestly desire the reader to 
 believe and remember, that the feeling expressed at the 
 outset, (p. 5 8.) was present to my mind in every 
 sentence that I have written from first to last. 
 
 Balliol College, Oxford, 
 June 6, 1844.
 
 TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PRELIMINARY REMARKS, 
 p. 18. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 OF WHAT KIND WILL BE THE IDEAL OF A CHURCH IN 
 CIRCUMSTANCES LIKE OURS? 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Sect. 1 . Ideal of a Christian Church ... 9 
 
 Sect. 2. Ideal of a Christian Church in imparting Moral 
 
 Discipline . . . . . .11 
 
 Sect. 3. Ideal of a Christian Church in imparting Orthodox 
 
 Doctrine . . . . . .18 
 
 Sect. 4. Ideal of a Christian Church in gratifying our 
 
 aspirations and affections . . . .24 
 
 Sect. 5. Ideal of a Christian Church in her relations to 
 
 the poor ...... 26 
 
 Sect. 6. Ideal of a Christian Church in her relations to 
 
 the rich ...... 33 
 
 Sect. 7. Ideal of a Christian Church as educator of the higher 
 
 classes ...... 34 
 
 Sect. 8. Ideal of a Christian Church in her intellectual duties 35 
 Sect, 9. Ideal of a Christian Church in her political duties . 45 
 Sect. 10. Inference from this review . . .50 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 IS IT UNDUTIFUL TO THE ENGLISH CHURCH TO AIM 
 AT SUCH AN IDEAL ? 
 
 Sect. 1. Has the tone of the British Critic latterly been dis- 
 loyal to our Church ? . . . . . 53 
 Sect. 2. Has it tended to perplex the humble? . . 57 
 Sect. 3. Has it tended to encourage the undutiful ? . . 67
 
 XI 1 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Sect. 4. Consideration of the dilemma proposed by Mr. 
 
 Palmer ...... 70 
 
 Sect. 5. Has the tone of the British Critic shewn absence of 
 
 humility? ...... 74 
 
 Sect. 6. On what account is the Church of Rome to be 
 
 considered our fitting model '{ . . . .47 
 
 Sect. 7. In what manner may loyalty to our Church be dis- 
 played by those who deplore its corruptions ? . .93 
 
 Sect. 8. On what ground can attachment to our Church be 
 
 really felt by such persons ? . . . .102 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 DOES OUR EXISTING SYSTEM RESEMBLE THAT OF THE 
 EARLY CENTURIES ? 
 
 Sect. 1 What is meant by ' the early centuries ?' . . 104 
 
 Sect. 2. Does our existing system resemble theirs in Church 
 
 government? . . . . . .105 
 
 Sect. 3. Does our existing system resemble theirs in our 
 
 formularies ? . . . . . .111 
 
 Sect. 4. Does our existing system resemble theirs in formal 
 
 discipline ? . . . . . .114 
 
 Sect. 5. Does our existing system resemble theirs in recog- 
 nised ecclesiastical principles ? . . .117 
 
 Sect. 6. Does our existing system resemble theirs in our tone 
 
 and temper of mind ? . . . . .133 
 
 Sect. 7. Augury as to future course of the contro- 
 versy . . . . . . .165 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 ON THE LUTHERAN DOCTRINE OF JUSTIFICATION. 
 
 Sect. 1. Bishop O'Brien's views on the matter stated and 
 
 considered . . . . . .168 
 
 Sect. 2. Statement of the two questions which it is necessary 
 to bring to issue, and of the Lutheran answer to one of 
 them . . . . . . .185 
 
 Sect. 3. Answer to objections that may be raised against 
 being the allegation that this is necessarily the Lutheran 
 answer . 191
 
 xin 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Sect. 4. Hypothetical effect of the Lutheran principle, if it 
 
 were possible to act on it consistently . . .194 
 
 Sect. 5. Practical effect of the Lutheran principle as actually 
 
 witnessed ...... 205 
 
 Sect. 6. Statement of the vitally fundamental truth which 
 
 Lutheranism denies, and defence of it against a popular 
 
 objection ...... 247 
 
 Sect. 7. The extremely important and practical results which 
 
 flow from this fundamental truth . . . 260 
 
 Sect. 8. The sacredness of hereditary religion . . 279 
 
 Sect. 9. Application of the principles just established to our 
 
 present circumstances .... 290 
 
 Sect. 10. Answer to the second of the two questions raised in 
 
 Sect, 2 ...... 293 
 
 Sect. 11. Proofs of the real nature of Catholic doctrine on 
 
 'self-righteousness' . . . . .296 
 
 Sect. 12. Enumeration of some among the principles of 
 
 natural religion, which Lutheranism denies . . 299 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 ON OUR EXISTING PRACTICAL CORRUPTIONS. 
 
 Sect. 1 . Probability of corruptions .... 306 
 Sect. 2. Absence of all system of moral discipline for the 
 
 poor ....... 306 
 
 Sect. 3. Absence of all system of moral discipline for the 
 
 rich ....... 334 
 
 Sect. 4. Our Church's total neglect of her duties as guardian 
 
 of, and witness to, morality . . . .386 
 
 Sect. 5. Our Church's total neglect of her duties as witness 
 
 and teacher of orthodoxy . . . .389 
 
 Sect. 6. Powerlessness of our Church to perform the other 
 
 duties, especially in protecting and helping her poor, 
 
 while these are neglected . . . .409 
 
 Sect. 7. Rationalism prevalent in our Church . . 422 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 ADDITIONAL SUGGESTIONS IN THE WAY OF REMEDY. 
 
 Sect. 1. Preliminary observations .... 430
 
 XIV 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Sect. 2. Remedies in the power of those who have spiritual 
 
 care of the poor ..... 438 
 
 Sect. 3. Remedies in the power of those who have spiritual 
 
 care of the rich ..... 446 
 
 Sect. 4. Benefits that may be conferred on our Church by 
 
 all humble and orthodox Christians . . . 460 
 
 Sect. 5. Benefits that may be conferred on our Church by 
 
 those whose life is chiefly speculative . . 460 
 
 Sect. 6. The absence of any present external model to guide 
 
 our Church in the performance of her ' intellectual' and 
 
 ' political' duties ..... 470 
 
 Sect. 7. The ultimate result if our Church were to perform 
 
 her present duties . . . . .472 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 A FEW WORDS ON OUK AUTHORITATIVE FORMULARIES. 
 474481. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE SUPREMACY OF CONSCIENCE IN THE PURSUIT OF 
 MORAL AND RELIGIOUS TRUTH. 
 
 Sect. 1. The principle of free enquiry stated . . 482 
 
 Sect. 2. The principle of free enquiry considered with the 
 
 view of refuting it . . . . .487 
 
 Sect. 3. The principle of faith stated and illustrated . 508 
 
 Sect. 4. Enumeration of certain canons which follow from 
 
 this principle . . . . . .516 
 
 Sect. 5. Application of these canons to the enforcement of 
 
 the reverence due to Scripture . . .533 
 
 Sect. 6. Application of these canons to the vindication of the 
 
 course adopted by the Church towards her members ; 
 
 and of her development of Christian doctrine . .545 
 
 Sect. 7. Application of these canons to the vindication of the 
 
 course adopted by the Church in gaining converts . 558 
 Sect. 8. Application of these canons to the vindication of our 
 
 position in the English Church . . . 562 
 
 Sect. 9. Conclusion of the work . . . 587
 
 THE IDEAL OF A CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PRELIMINARY REMARKS. 
 
 MR. PALMER'S pamphlet has, as might have been expected, 
 been so widely circulated, and read with so much interest, 
 that some notice of it, on the part of those against whom it 
 is principally directed, seems almost imperatively called for. 
 Who these are, Mr. Palmer makes no secret. ( It is the de- 
 sign,' he says in his preface, at the very outset, ' of the fol- 
 lowing pages to clear those who uphold Church principles 
 from the imputation of approving certain recent tendencies 
 to Romanism ;' ' to draw a line of demarcation between our 
 principles and those of the British Critic.' (p. v.) The pe- 
 riodical in question he considers to have been marked of late 
 by an ' impetuosity and recklessness,' ' better fitted to revo- 
 lutionize than to reform.' (p. ix.) The feelings with which 
 ' the friends of Church principles contemplate ' such 'aberra- 
 tions,' are those of ' sorrow, and even indignation ;' although, 
 as the author ' most firmly and humbly trusts,' ' in no degree 
 mingled with hostility to those brethren.' (p. 46.) The 
 most favourable interpretation which can be given to ' lan- 
 guage and conduct which has deeply shocked every sober- 
 minded and orthodox believer,' is the attributing it to ' the 
 indiscretions of youthful and ardent minds ; inability to cope 
 with controversial difficulties; a too great readiness to receive 
 without examination any thing which may be plausibly ad- 
 vanced ; too great confidence in intellectual powers and theo- 
 logical attainments.' (pp. 46, 7.) But it admits, in the author's 
 opinion, of a very different construction, which ' appearances 
 
 B
 
 2 
 
 seem to justify,' but of which he ' cannot bring himself to 
 entertain the notion;' a construction which would imply, on 
 the part of the writers whom he censures, ' revolting iniquity,' 
 ' disgraceful and detestable treachery and hypocrisy.' (p. 68.) 
 These are very serious charges ; and, as being one of those 
 against whom they are brought, I am quite confident that 
 the love of justice, so characteristic of Englishmen, will insure 
 for me a patient hearing, if in the attempt to meet them I 
 should find it necessary to trespass at greater length than I 
 could wish on the public attention. And if it be asked 
 why I come forward on the occasion, not having been 
 Editor of the British Critic, nor in any way responsible 
 for its general tone, the reply is easy ; viz. that if we except 
 the article on Bp. Jewel, the writer of which has already 
 published a formal defence and explanation of its language, 
 a greater number of the other passages, selected by Mr. 
 Palmer for reprobation, were written by myself, than by all 
 the other contributors put together. At the same time, of 
 course, I am only professing to defend those articles for w r hich 
 I am myself responsible ; and my doing so will be no impedi- 
 ment in the way of any other writer in the British Critic, who 
 may wish to do the same in his own behalf. Nor, much less, is 
 it at all necessary to allude to any other of the various matters 
 which Mr. Palmer's pamphlet embraces. Whether or no 
 ' some of the principles advocated in the British Critic are 
 displeasing to the authors of the Tracts,' (p. vi.) is a matter 
 on which they should speak, not the contributors to that 
 Review, nor yet Mr. Palmer himself. Whether or no any 
 principles ' adopted by the ' same periodical, be * wholly 
 subversive of doctrines 'inculcated in the Tracts,' (p. 45, 
 note,) is a question which I cannot be called on to discuss, 
 for I never either wrote in the Tracts, or professed to follow 
 their teaching in every particular. And so much of my own 
 writing has been in various other quarters the subject of very 
 pointed and severe censure, that I shall have quite enough 
 to do in defending myself. At the same time, I am par- 
 ticularly glad of the opportunity to come forward and 
 take on myself the full responsibility which is justly mine ;
 
 as far as I may be involved in Mr. Palmer's allusion, 
 (p. 83,) I can assure him that I have no wish whatever to 
 avail myself of the shelter of the anonymous, or shrink from 
 avowing what I have not shrunk from publishing. 3 
 
 The articles which I have contributed to the British 
 Critic are those on 'Arnold's Sermons,' (October, 1841,) 
 ' Whately's Essays,' (April, 1842,) ' Heurtley's four Sermons,' 
 (April, 1842,) ' Goocle's Divine Rule,' (July, 1842,) ' St. 
 Athanasius,' (October, 1842,) ' Church Authority,' (Jan. 
 1843,) < The Synagogue and the Church,' (July, 1843,) and 
 ' Mill's Logic' (October, 1843). On looking them over with 
 a view to the present object, I find nothing in them of a 
 doctrinal nature which I can retract, except part of the 
 second note in p. 52, of No. Ixiii., in which I think I have 
 overstated the weight due to internal evidence on the 
 canonicity of Scripture ; and except also that I could not, 
 as at present minded, use the expressions at the bottom 
 of p. 333, and also of p. 355, in No. Ix. ; neither of which 
 passages, as far as my knowledge extends, has been made 
 matter of comment. b 
 
 a "As a general rule it may be said, that no man writing upon controverted 
 questions without the constant sense of responsibility which publicity entails, 
 will write with the same degree of caution, the same degree of considerate fore- 
 thought, the same degree of tenderness for the weak, and of wise and compre- 
 hensive charity, to which he would attain if he had that aid. An increased 
 severity of judgment, a higher strain of invective, a more copious use of rhetorical 
 colouring, a more artful and constant recourse to dialectic subtleties, a greater 
 recklessness of consequences, and a blunted instinct for pure truth, commonly 
 distinguish anonymous authorship upon matters deeply moving the nature of 
 man. The anonymous writer conducts a process, that ought to be judicial, in 
 the dark ; in the dark he condemns, he lashes, and he stabs ; unseen himself, he 
 sees, and he acts without the salutary check which the consciousness of being 
 seen imposes." Foreign and Colonial Quarterly Review for October, 1843, p. 
 596. These most forcibly and justly expressed dangers have been, in my own 
 case, considerably counteracted by that necessity of avoiding individual pecu- 
 liarities of opinion, which results from writing in a Review. Certainly I am 
 bound to state, that I can find no instances in which I have overstated my own 
 convictions ; but a considerable number in which I have much understated 
 them. 
 
 b Since writing the above, I observe that Mr. Palmer (p. 51) has expressed a 
 criticism on the former of these passages. That particular opinion however there 
 implied, to which he objects, is one which I do not retract. 
 
 B 2
 
 In defending these articles, I" conceive that I have mainly 
 to prove two points. First, that the various expressions and 
 sentences quoted by Mr. Balnier and others, which seem to 
 have shocked and startled so many excellent men, were not 
 put forth wantonly and without careful deliberation ; but 
 were no more (often less) than the adequate exponents of my 
 own deep, intimate, deliberate, and habitual conviction. 
 Secondly, that they are not inconsistent with a genuine 
 ' allegiance ' and attachment ( to the Church of England,' (see 
 Palmer, p. 50,) in the truest sense of the words. I cannot 
 profess that I am surprised, or have any right whatever to 
 complain, if my own articles in general have given a very 
 different impression. This may have arisen in part from the 
 circumstance, that (in consequence of having ordinarily 
 treated on subjects put before me by others, and of having- 
 been also precluded from the distinct expression of any 
 sentiment which might directly clash with those advocated 
 by other contributors), I have never hitherto had the op- 
 portunity of putting forth a connected and methodical view, 
 on the present condition and prospects of our Church. 
 I cannot but hope that many statements, when viewed in 
 their proper place and connection with reference to such a 
 view, may appear, even to those wholly unprepared to 
 receive them, as not destitute of reason and probability ; 
 which yet might of themselves, without such explanation, 
 most naturally convey the impression of being wild, violent, 
 and eccentric ; of being introduced in a spirit of wantonness, 
 and maintained in a spirit of exaggeration. Such then is the 
 task to which I must necessarily apply myself: to draw out 
 such a theory on our present circumstances, as may give a 
 natural, unexaggerated meaning to the sentiments of which 
 complaint has been made, and shew their consistency with a 
 hearty loyalty to our own Church. For such a theory, al- 
 though it most certainly was implied in the various articles I 
 have written, still, I most readily acknowledge, could not 
 have been deduced from them without a far closer attention 
 than I had any right to expect ; even if it should have oc- 
 curred to readers (which is not very likely) to distinguish
 
 the contributions of one writer from those of another. Nor, 
 of course, can I be accused of egotism, if from time to time 
 1 quote, either in the text or notes, such parts of what I 
 have written in the British Critic as bear some relation to 
 what I may be at the time saying ; for it is the very object of 
 my publication to exhibit such relation. 
 
 And the same defence, which I am putting forward for 
 using expressions liable to misconstruction, I am very de- 
 sirous also to urge for the apparent immodesty of address- 
 ing the public at all, on subjects of such overwhelming 
 magnitude and importance. I have been drawn, as it were, 
 into the position which makes it necessary, without my 
 knowledge and against my will. To undertake a review on 
 such works as ' Whately's Essays,' or 'Goode's Divine Rule,' 
 or even on writings so superior to them, as Dr. Arnold's or 
 Mr. Heurtley's Sermons, will not, I would fain hope, be 
 generally considered an act of unwarrantable presumption. 
 But it so happened, that I found myself unable to comment 
 as I wished on what appeared to me defects in those works, 
 and to draw out consistently the antagonist truth, without 
 implying a general view of things, differing in many particu- 
 lars from that with which I ordinarily met among ' high 
 churchmen.' This led to misconception ; and this again to 
 the necessity of explanation : and thus I find myself involved 
 in an undertaking, from which two years back I should have 
 recoiled in alarm. One disclaimer especially I am still most 
 anxious to make explicitly ; a disclaimer which, in more than 
 one article, I have expressed as clearly as the anonymous per- 
 mitted, and which I wished the readers of the British Critic 
 to understand by the following passage in my last article : a 
 passage which, without this clue, might seem unnecessarily 
 introduced, or even unmeaning. 
 
 " A person who shall have no more power than would be given 
 him by such occasional periods of moral action" (I had just spoken 
 of acting for a single day, with a reasonable constancy, in disregard 
 of other inclinations and with a single eye to duty) " in under- 
 standing and sympathising with moral goodness, and who should be 
 very far from having attained that ' patient continuance in well-
 
 6 
 
 doing* which is absolutely required for salvation ; so only he have 
 mastered this great principle, that holy and self-denying men are 
 the real fountains from which moral truth flows to the world, and 
 so only he have access to the company of such men ; such a person, 
 if endued with great powers of observation and analysis, may define 
 and adjust moral truth, trace it to its ultimate laws, and compare 
 it in its different aspects, with a depth and precision beyond the 
 reach of very many who are incomparably his superiors in all that 
 is strictly valuable" 
 
 And in an earlier article I introduced a similar disclaimer, 
 which I shall also beg leave to quote. 
 
 " In very many cases absolute and great defects of character, 
 and in a vast number circumstances utterly independent of the 
 degree of their moral advancement, will be the natural occasions of 
 bringing home to men's consciousness this sense (whether warranted 
 or not) of their Church's deficiency. ... A few instances may 
 serve partially to illustrate this. In some men, according to the 
 old division, the irascible, in others the concupiscible, part of their 
 nature predominates. Set before men of the former class a high 
 aim and a stern rule, they lack little else ; they devote themselves 
 with a deep and self-forgetting earnestness, to their task, and press 
 sturdily and resolutely onward. The latter class is far more liable 
 to be assailed by temptation, drawn back by sloth, cowed by want 
 of sympathy, repelled by the appearance of opposition, allured by 
 those outward objects which tend in an opposite direction. No one 
 can call men of this character more exalted and virtuous than of 
 the former ; rather the reverse : yet it is these, and not the others, 
 who will especially desiderate such a protection against self, as 
 would be provided by the habit of regular and periodical confession 
 to a priest, or occasional retirements from the world, with an 
 appointed round of prayer and meditation ; it is these again, and 
 not the others, who will be so sensible of a deficiency, should it 
 exist, in that varied and majestic ceremonial, which the Church in 
 her deep wisdom has devised, that she may encounter and over- 
 come the world with the world's own weapons, and draw her 
 children only the more closely to their and her Lord, by those 
 addresses to the eye and ear which are felt to be so ravishing and 
 
 c ' On Mill's Logic, 1 p. 409.
 
 transporting. And this, be it observed, will be still more felt, in 
 proportion as habits of past sin have made the road to virtue more 
 rugged and thorny ; have increased the power of temptation, and 
 lessened the habit of resistance. Would not any system be con- 
 sidered most maimed and imperfect, which, succeeding to the very 
 utmost in all else, should fail in its addresses to the returning 
 penitent ? yet by the very hypothesis, none would be conscious of 
 its defects, save him who should have deeply sinned. Another, 
 it is matter of neither praise nor blame, may have a more quick 
 and penetrating intellect than ordinary ; to him, confusion and 
 inaccuracy of expression, inconsistency of parts, and the like, would 
 be far more readily perceptible, and far more a cause of stumbling, 
 than to those destitute of this qualification. A third has studied 
 history ; and though studying it with a predisposition in favour 
 of the existing system, still has experienced in the circumstances 
 attending its establishment a cause of distrust, which otherwise he 
 would not have experienced ; or else has found the aspect of those 
 earlier ages, to which he has been referred, to be widely different 
 from his anticipations. Another has travelled abroad ; and though 
 he went there with a strong prejudice against other Churches, as 
 was probably his duty, still he can no longer possibly give credence 
 to those tales of exclusive purity at home and corruption abroad, 
 which he has hitherto rightly taken on trust. Another again has 
 been thrown by circumstances into positions, where his right course 
 of action was very difficult of discovery ; he has learned by expe- 
 rience the little sympathy felt at home for distresses of conscience, 
 and the inestimable value of foreign works on casuistry. Another 
 is gifted with an especial and yearning eagerness for sympathy ; 
 this is not surely the highest character ; yet in consequence of it, 
 he has within himself the most certain and sad evidence, how 
 unfounded are the dreams, suggesting that real unity exists among 
 the several members of his own Church, which delight the repose of 
 many of her children. One and all of these persons may, if the 
 reader will, be ever so widely mistaken, but at least, in lamenting 
 the condition of the English Church, they do any thing rather than 
 lay claim to an especial and peculiar sanctity." d 
 
 In a word, the charge of intellectual presumption to any 
 extent, (though I trust that it is not deserved,) will give 
 
 * ' On Church Authority,' pp. 225, 6.
 
 8 
 
 me very little pain or uneasiness : but should it be imagined 
 that the free strictures and confident opinions, in which I may 
 indulge, imply any arrogation to myself of moral superiority 
 over those whom I criticise ; should it be imagined that, 
 when I acknowledge the English system to be in many par- 
 ticulars uncongenial with my own feelings, I allude to the 
 impediments by which it thwarts the aspirations of a holy 
 mind after saintliness, rather than the absence of such helps 
 as may support an erring and sinful mind in the most 
 ordinary path of salvation ; should this be imagined, I 
 should be almost overpowered with shame and confusion.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 OF WHAT KIND WILL BE THE IDEAL OF A CHURCH IN 
 CIRCUMSTANCES LIKE OURS ? 
 
 1. A VERY convenient introduction to the matter in hand 
 will be found in an extract from the British Critic of several 
 years since, on Mr. Palmer's treatise, in which indeed the 
 writer professes to draw out not his own view, merely, of the 
 Church's office, but Mr. Palmer's also : 
 
 " Men find themselves in this world with many spiritual wants, 
 with a consciousness that they need a revelation, and a desire to 
 receive it. For a long while Providence left them in this unsatis- 
 factory state, with no certain communications from Him ; nay, to 
 this day, such is the state of the greater part of the world. But 
 He has blessed us with a message from Him, the Gospel, to teach 
 us how to please Him and attain to Heaven. He has given us 
 directions what to do. . . . And now comes the question, where 
 those directions are, and what ? . . . The Church is, in matter of 
 fact, our great divinely appointed guide unto saving truth, under 
 Divine grace. . . . The Church is practically ' the pillar and ground of 
 the truth,' an informant given to all people, high and low, that they 
 might not have to wander up and down and grope in darkness, as 
 they do in a state of nature. Then comes the question at once, where 
 is the Church ? what are the criteria by which she is discriminated 
 and known to be God's appointed messenger or prophet ? And here, 
 at very first sight, it is plain that, if the Church is to be an available 
 guide to poor as well as rich, unlearned as well as learned, its notes 
 and tokens must be very simple, obvious, and intelligible. They 
 must not depend on education, or be brought out by abstruse reasoning ; 
 but must at once affect the imagination and interest the feelings. 
 They must bear with them a sort of internal evidence, which super-
 
 10 
 
 sedes further discussion, and makes their truths self-evident. . . Such 
 evidences we are bound to find of the Church's divinity ; not such 
 as cannot possibly be explained away or put out of sight, but which 
 if allowed room to shew themselves, will persuade the many that 
 she is what she professes to be, God's ordained teacher in the way 
 to heaven." a 
 
 In this passage of course is involved the further prin- 
 ciple, that those who have yielded their assent to the evi- 
 dence thus characterized, shall find that very thing to be 
 true on trial, which they had received on faith ; that ' high 
 and low, rich and poor, one with another/ shall have the 
 great principle daily and hourly impressed on their minds by 
 the Church, of their soul's salvation being the one thing 
 needful ; and shall be guided, encouraged, cheered, helped, 
 and protected in the way of that salvation. Such is the 
 form with which we should expect and desire to see the 
 Church invested, if she is to perform those very functions 
 for which she was given : a form which may proclaim to the 
 world that treasure of grace which she is really privileged to 
 dispense ; by which, as on the one hand she may bear with 
 her plain marks of her divine commission, sufficient to ac- 
 credit her at once to all serious and humble persons as God's 
 appointed representative ; and may also oifer its fitting place 
 in His service to every faculty of every mind, moral or intel- 
 lectual ; so, on the other hand, (without which indeed the 
 former cannot exist,) she may be so consistent, plain, deep, 
 and sound in the teaching which she dispenses, that she may 
 unite to herself more and more firmly the hearts of all, in 
 proportion as they have earnestly and confidingly submitted 
 themselves to her guidance, by the 'threefold cord which 
 cannot be broken,' of conscience, Scripture, sanctity : i.e. [1.] 
 by their perceiving with daily increasing certainty how ex- 
 quisitely her system corresponds and answers externally to 
 the internal voice of conscience ; [2.] how deep and entire the 
 harmony of her doctrines with Scripture ; [3.] how high and 
 
 a British Critic for October, pp. 3.54, o.
 
 11 
 
 unapproachable by other systems the sanctity which is her 
 witnessed result. " Now we believe not because of thy say- 
 ing, for we have heard him ourselves, and know that this is 
 indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world." b 
 
 Let us carry with us then this simple and obvious ideal of 
 the Church's office, (which, of course, like other ideals, is no 
 where realized in perfection, but towards which indefinite 
 progress may be made,) that her one only object shall be to 
 save the souls of those committed to her charge ; and that 
 the very proof which she offers to her children of her divine 
 authority, shall be the sense entertained by them of the 
 spiritual benefits she imparts ; that her voice shall be as the 
 Voice of God heard amidst the din of this restless and sinful 
 world, guiding us in perplexities, soothing us in distresses, 
 strengthening us in temptations, alarming the careless and 
 worldly, cheering the contrite and humble of heart. And 
 let us apply this ideal in detail to the principal circum- 
 stances of our age and country. 
 
 2. The great truth, which a Church following such a 
 model, and established in the midst of a fallen world, will 
 ever have to proclaim in the loudest and most articulate voice, 
 will be the intrinsic hatefulness and peril of sin. Before this 
 gigantic and paramount evil, all others shrink into infinite 
 insignificance. In educating the young, whatever else might 
 or might not be taught, this at least will be impressed on 
 their minds in every variety of shape ; on their conscience, 
 on their imagination, on their reason. They will learn to 
 connect indissolubly their idea of beauty with holiness, of 
 deformity with vice. What these duties are in their respective 
 circumstances, which they cannot omit without the temporary 
 loss of God's grace, or at least imminent peril of such loss, 
 no pains and trouble will be considered excessive, in order 
 that they may adequately know ; what those temptations are 
 to which throughout the day they will probably be exposed, 
 to what evil tempers and dispositions they are most liable, by 
 what rules and pious practices they may best overcome such 
 
 b ' On Goode's Divine Rule,' p. 82.
 
 12 
 
 temptations, and be faithful to the grace which God so boun- 
 tifully gives them ; instruction in all this will be fully recog- 
 nised as so absolutely the principal object in education, that 
 whatever of mental cultivation must needs be sacrificed in 
 order to its adequate reception, without thought or de- 
 liberation will be Sacrificed. To implant principles, and in- 
 culcate habits of daily observance, which may be the Chris- 
 tian's safeguard against temptations from within or from 
 without, which may be God's instruments in preserving him 
 unharmed and unsullied in an evil world, and in enabling 
 him to persevere even to the end, this will be not professed 
 only but fully realized, as the one principal purpose towards 
 which every branch of education shall converge ; differences 
 of opinion may exist on matters of detail and application, but 
 this great principle will be assumed, not in word only but in 
 habitual act, as an axiom. 
 
 And the same principle will be extended to more general 
 ministrations. To arouse the confessedly irreligious and pro- 
 fane from their fatal lethargy, and sound the trumpet of 
 Christ's judgment, as if by anticipation, in their ears ; this is 
 a very necessary part of the Church's duty, and will by no 
 means be neglected. Still it will not occupy her chief at- 
 tention ; for it seems absolutely impossible that persons who 
 never come to Church nor profess to pray, should deceive 
 themselves into the notion that they are safe from God's 
 vengeance. Much greater care will be employed with those 
 who do come to Church lest they be betrayed into the de- 
 lusion, that a regular attendance at Christian ordinances 
 can compensate for open and deliberate habits of sin. Such 
 an idea, at all events as regards certain sins, is very widely 
 prevalent in England, as all experienced clergymen combine 
 in assuring us ; but it will fill with dismay the watchful and 
 anxious priest. He will be * instant in season and out of 
 season ' in warning them of their fearful peril ; and would 
 rather even die a death of torment, than so far encourage 
 them in their miserable infatuation, as to admit them to the 
 Lord's table, or recognise them as in any full sense Chris- 
 tian brethren.
 
 13 
 
 Even this, however, is comparatively a very easy task. 
 To impress on the mind of the offenders, at every possible 
 occasion, the general principle of which they appear igno- 
 rant, is all that is required : the individual application, in 
 the case of wilful and open sin, will be readily made by each 
 one for himself. Far more subtle and specious is the snare 
 of Satan, in cases where deadly sin exists, unknown, nay, un- 
 suspected by the sinner himself; where wealth is idolatrously 
 prized or pursued ; or love of power or of ease wholly banish 
 from the soul any real love of God ; or men admit maxims 
 and practices in their daily calling, indefensible on grounds 
 of morality ; or allow themselves in resentment or absence of 
 forgiveness to some one, at least, of their fellow men ; or 
 pursue some habitual course of action which they are afraid 
 steadily to look in the face, lest they be compelled to acknow- 
 ledge it wrong ; or where thoughts of pride and self-com- 
 placency, or of envy and malice, or of another and more 
 dangerous kind, are permitted in a degree which constitutes 
 a deadly sin ; or the like. 
 
 Nor indeed are the triumphs of Satan confined to cases of 
 deadly sin. How often do habits such as I have described, 
 though they fall short of this extreme character, and do 
 not actually obstruct the avenues of grace, still more or 
 less, as it were, choke them up ; so that no principle of 
 growth displays itself ; so that the spiritual stature remains 
 dwarfish, disproportioned, and unshapely ; and even though 
 they continue in a sense to enjoy the means of grace 
 here, the final salvation of the offenders is placed in the 
 most imminent jeopardy. Such perils as these will at all 
 
 c Spiritual writers lay great stress on the arduous contest which we shall all 
 have to wage against Satan, at the moment of death ; and say that he will put 
 forth his utmost strength, at the moment when the prey is on the point of escap- 
 ing his snares. Our Prayer-book in like manner says, " God most mighty, 
 Holy and Merciful Saviour, Thou most worthy Judge Eternal, suffer us not, 
 at our last hour, for any pains of death to fall from Thee." This is one great 
 reason why a prayer for final perseverance should form part of the daily devotions 
 even of the most advanced Christians. The thought altogether is very awful 
 and sobering to all of us ; but for those who content themselves with languid and 
 remiss efforts after self-mastery and growth in grace, it is a ground for the most 
 lively alarm.
 
 14 
 
 times be among the most dangerous pitfalls in the Chris- 
 tian's course ; but in an age of civilization they will assume 
 a shape of hundred-fold importance. At a period of com- 
 parative refinement like the present, when ' the regime of 
 public opinion is adverse to at least the indecorous vices ;' 
 when ' breaches of the tenth commandment of the Decalogue 
 will be encouraged in proportion as the open violation of the 
 three preceding is discountenanced by public opinion ;' when 
 from the fact that ' overt acts of passion are restrained' by 
 ten thousand motives wholly independent, or at least short, 
 of the fear and love of God, the temptation to ' wilful, pro- 
 tracted, and therefore ruinous sins of thought' or of secret 
 transgression, will be indefinitely increased ; wjien the strict 
 claims of duty to God will be continually put in the back- 
 ground, from the very circumstance of the prominence given 
 to a certain half-selfish, half-indolent benevolence towards 
 man ; at such a period, the sins above described will be to an 
 ideal Church objects of the most incessant care and watchful- 
 ness. To see persons regular at Church and Sacrament, in 
 whom he has reason to fear the existence of such secret sins, 
 will fill the faithful priest with misgiving and alarm. No 
 sense of any temporal or prudential advantages, derivable 
 from their presence there, will have the faintest efiect in 
 deadening his sense of fear for himself ; lest, by encouraging 
 or allowing them in their most perilous self-deceit, he may 
 have to give account for their souls at the Great Day. What 
 he can, he will, do, by the plainest and simplest expositions 
 from the pulpit, of the fearful character of those evil tenden- 
 cies and dispositions, which he may suspect to exist within 
 them. But he will most sensibly feel the need of some far 
 more penetrating and efficacious weapon, in order to pierce 
 the crust of obdurate self-complacency and self-ignorance, 
 with which he has to deal. To the discovery of some such 
 spiritual weapon, if such be not already possessed, the most 
 gifted spirits within the Church will direct the utmost vigour 
 of their mental resources. It will be felt by all around, that 
 the whole Church is pervaded by no deeper anxiety, no more 
 incessant and corroding care, than the supplying of this de-
 
 15 
 
 ficiency : that in no one other point will her eagerness be 
 greater and more sustained, than in carefully examining the 
 records of past and present times, and in zealously following 
 the slightest and most distant ray of light on the subject ; in 
 order that from any possible quarter she may discover 
 some means for adequately coping with this subtle snare, 
 which, to her most bitter sorrow, is enmeshing the souls 
 of so many among her dear and beloved children in the 
 faith. 
 
 Again, a Church which is ever on the watch to catch souls, 
 will take especial advantage of those moments, when from 
 reverse in worldly business, or sickness, or sorrow, or from 
 some temporary religious impression, an impulse towards 
 good is felt by one who has hitherto led a worldly or an 
 openly immoral life. She will ' fall on the neck,' as it were, 
 of such an one, ' and kiss him ;' she will endeavour to place 
 religion before him in a light as attractive as truth will per- 
 mit ; and to make that task as easy and joyous to him as the 
 case allows, which at best must be most wearisome and 
 grievous, of retracing his steps, and disentangling himself, 
 under God's grace, from the miserable thraldom of sinful 
 habits. At the same time, some wisely and religiously consti- 
 tuted system of observance must be always at hand, to fan the 
 embers of piety into a steady glow ; to obtain possession of 
 him, as it were, and secure him from the world, before the 
 latter has had time to reassert its dominion ; to bring before 
 him religious truths and sanctions, and impress them on his 
 whole nature ; to strengthen and protect him in holy seclu- 
 sion ; till he may be able again to go forth into the world, 
 without imminent danger of falling a second time away from 
 the narrow path. 
 
 But the father who fell on the younger son's neck and 
 kissed him, said also to the elder, " Son, thou art ever 
 with me, and all that I have is thine." An object then still 
 dearer to her heart even than comforting and retaining the 
 penitent, will be to guide those aright, who have never wholly 
 withdrawn themselves from under her Lord's light yoke ; to 
 relieve their perplexities, point out their duties, direct their
 
 16 
 
 obedience, shew them their spiritual dangers, guide their 
 penitential acts, and mould their habits after the Christian 
 model. And all this, without cramping or fettering, while she 
 directs, the free and natural development of their character ; 
 or interfering with that endless diversity of opinion, which 
 must ever exist, on the application of true principles in each 
 particular case. This diversity was plainly intended by God, 
 and is an important means whereby He works out His pur- 
 poses in our regard; nor could the Church more seriously 
 mistake her duty, than by any attempt to substitute, on 
 such matters, arbitrary Ecclesiastical dictation for well- 
 regulated individual responsibility. 
 
 A function of the Church, even more important than any 
 that we have yet named, is what may be briefly described as 
 the training up of Saints ; the sedulously tending of those 
 who, whether in reward for a consistently holy walk in time 
 past, or by the free workings of God's grace, have aspirations 
 within them which tend to a high and noble strictness of life, 
 and who thirst for a far more entire self-abnegation and devo- 
 tion to God's will, than that for which the ordinary walks of 
 life afford sufficient scope. To place before Christians such 
 as these the opportunity, of consecrating wholly to heavenly 
 realities those ardent and enthusiastic feelings, which men 
 among us ordinarily squander on earthly and transitory 
 objects, objects which neither are worthy of them, nor can 
 possibly satisfy or repay them ; this is an office which an 
 ideal Church will prize and cherish to her heart of hearts, 
 as her noblest and most transporting privilege ; she will feel 
 it as the greatest of all the mercies that she has received 
 from God, that she is allowed, in return as it were for His 
 infinite loving-kindness, to offer before Him specimens of the 
 capabilities of our common nature, and visible proofs of the 
 inexhaustible power of His wonder-working grace. But in 
 times like the present, (as indeed at all times more or less,) 
 for the mere purposes of practical efficiency, such institu- 
 tions will have an absolutely inappreciable value. We are, 
 if I may use a homely expression, at a perfect stand-still for 
 want of saints and saintly men ; surrounded and menaced on
 
 17 
 
 all sides by dangers the most imminent ; from which, humanly 
 speaking, we see no means of escape, until it shall please God 
 to raise up for our needs, and to do His work among us, in- 
 trepid, self-devoted, ardent, enthusiastic, humble, holy, hea- 
 venly-mirided men. A truth, to which I shall have occasion 
 more than once to recur in what will follow. 
 
 From what has been said, it results that a Church such 
 as we are now contemplating, will possess a profound and 
 accurate system of moral, of ascetic, and of mystical theology. 
 On every other subject except theology it is an universally 
 admitted axiom, and I suppose even in theology few would 
 deny it in terms, that empirical knowledge is worth very 
 little, but that scientific knowledge may be worth a very 
 great deal. It seems very plain, that a person whose peculiar 
 study it is to gather facts from all quarters, to examine them 
 carefully, to classify and arrange them, is likely to take a 
 veiy much more enlarged view of any given phenomenon, 
 than one whose experience is partial and (as it were) acci- 
 dental : that one whose special business it is to speculate, 
 whose education has been directed to that very object, and 
 whose life is one continued practice in its performance, will 
 certainly speculate to very much better purpose, than one 
 whose habits have been in quite a different direction : lastly, 
 that principles formed after deep and patient study, under 
 no present bias, and with a single eye to truth, may possibly 
 be very good ; but that principles extemporized on the spur 
 of the moment, to meet a present emergency, and under the 
 bias caused by the peculiar circumstances of that emergency, 
 will to an absolute certainty be altogether bad. But how much 
 stronger does the contrast become, when we remember that 
 the phenomena now in question are not those accumulated 
 by one man, however candid, observant, and indefatigable, 
 but the recorded experience of all past ages of the Church ; 
 and that the speculation is not that of one thinker, however 
 gifted, but of a series of doctors, each one reviewing, and 
 modifying or confirming, the dicta of those who have preced- 
 ed him ; and whose theories are confronted and verified every 
 year by an almost innumerable number of practical appli- 
 
 c
 
 18 
 
 cations. This then being granted, it follows that, whereas 
 the Church witnesses in the midst of us the great principles 
 of morality ; and is bound moreover to assist her children in 
 applying them to their peculiar circumstances, in knowing 
 what is and what is not sin, and how grievous in themselves 
 are particular sins ; she must needs have a recognised body 
 of moral theology : that whereas she is bound to guide them 
 to the various moral and theological virtues, to all holy and 
 Christian tempers of mind ; and to implant maxims of conduct 
 and inculcate practices of piety, which shall lead to those 
 virtues and tempers ; her ministers must be sufficiently versed 
 in a certain uniform and recognised body of ascetic theology : 
 that whereas her highest office is to train, not ordinary 
 Christians, but those predestined to be Saints, and whereas 
 those of her children, who are climbing up that arduous and 
 dizzy path, are free in great measure from the temptations 
 which beset ordinary men, but exposed to perils of a more 
 subtle indeed and transcendental, but no whit of a less fatal, 
 character ; whereas they require to be warned against the 
 very masterpieces of Satan's subtlety, who would fain ' trans- 
 form' himself even ' into an angel of light,' if by so doing he 
 may rob but one among those exalted spirits of the crown 
 prepared for him ; and whereas their salvation (speaking 
 generally) is no more assured before the end of their pil- 
 grimage than that of the humblest Christian ; she must 
 possess a certain number of thorough proficients in the noble 
 and wonderful science of mystical theology. 
 
 3. Further. * The duty of a Christian (as distinguished from 
 his gifts and privileges) may profitably be contemplated 
 according to the well-known division of faith and obedience. 
 In the former is included (though much more is also in- 
 cluded) knowledge of the great Christian doctrines. Christian 
 precept and Christian doctrine, these are the two great ex- 
 ternal facts which essentiaUy claim the Christian's attention 
 and allegiance.' And in a very remarkable manner they 
 react on, and correspond to, one another. Pure doctrine 
 requires for its reception a purified heart ; a purified heart 
 requires for its support and progress in holiness pure doctrine.
 
 19 
 
 * In no other way than by the habit of strict and anxious 
 conscientiousness, can that faculty be acquired, which alone 
 hears God's voice where others hear it not, or interprets His 
 words aright where all hear them.' In no other way than by 
 the contemplation, reception, and hearty appropriation of 
 sound doctrine, is this conscientiousness made really Christian 
 obedience ; preserved in its first fervour, or rather in a con- 
 tinually increasing degree strengthened, deepened, extended ; 
 led forth into a wider range, and endued with a higher and 
 more generous quality; adding refinement and delicacy to 
 zeal and warmth, confident hope to godly fear, joyous ex- 
 ultation to deep contrition and humility. ' Other studies, 
 however profitable ; even the religious study of Holy Scrip- 
 ture ; much more its critical examination, or the knowledge 
 of Christian antiquities, or of Church History; still more 
 again the evidences of religion, or the geography of the 
 Holy Land, or the harmony of sacred with profane history 
 no part of which latter class indeed has any pretension to be 
 considered any part or parcel of theology at all; but all 
 these, except so far as they are contained in one of the two 
 first named classes, are no essential part of the Christian's 
 knowledge. " Many barbarous nations," says St. Irenseus, 
 " believe in Christ without written memorial, diligently 
 preserving the old traditions :" without reading Scripture, 
 or knowing a word of it, men may be good Christians ; 
 without obeying Christ's commandments and believing in 
 His doctrines, they cannot. And the Church from the first 
 has acted upon this principle. She has never thought of 
 authoritatively determining the sense of any one text in 
 Scripture, however sacred. She has excommunicated those, 
 and those only, who were sinful in life or heretical in 
 doctrine.' f 
 
 The drift of this theorizing is to explain the intimate and 
 indissoluble connection which exists, between the combats 
 sustained by a pure Church against sin, (which we have 
 already viewed in some of their multiform aspects,) and the 
 witness borne by her. to Christian doctrine. There is perhaps 
 no one principle in all history, on which there is so surprising 
 
 f ' On St. Athanasius,' pp. 389, 90. 
 
 c2
 
 20 
 
 a consilience of a priori reasonings with observed phenomena, 
 as on this ; that any Church, which shall not contain at her 
 centre a deep dogmatic theology, exuberant with life, indo- 
 mitable in energy, that Church is languid in her spiritual 
 functions, wavering and unauthoritative in ruling her own 
 subjects, feeble and prostrate in her external relations. And 
 what the wonder ? Saints are the very hidden life of a Church ; 
 and Saints cannot be nurtured on less than the full Catholic 
 doctrine. Nay, even Christian obedience, in an earlier or 
 lower stage of growth, so far as it is really Christian, must 
 be in one certain given direction, not in some other. Nor is 
 there any one object which an ideal Church will recognise as 
 more vitally important, or to the attainment of which she will 
 direct more unwearied and incessant efforts, than the providing 
 that all her children shall have placed before them, necessarily 
 indeed in very varied degrees of advance and of refinement, 
 but still in whatever degrees of advance the very same doc- 
 trine, the one real, consistent, orthodox faith. 
 
 As to that faith itself, as stored up in its whole fulness 
 within the Church, an ideal Church will be no one whit less 
 sedulous in preserving the * unitatem in necessariis ' than the 
 ' libertatem in dubiis.' By ' necessaria ' she will understand 
 such doctrines as in any way concern the moral and spiritual 
 development, even in its most exalted state : by * dubia ' those 
 many points of minor importance, which are deduced by the 
 intellect, not impressed on the spiritual nature ; or again, 
 those cases in which the moral impression on holy minds is 
 absolutely one and the same, but the intellectual interpre- 
 tation of that impression varies, according to the accident of 
 education, habit of mind, mental cultivation and powers. 
 Whether the differences of opinion still allowed within the 
 Roman Church, on the subject of predestination, be of this 
 latter class, is a suggestion which I throw out with the 
 utmost diffidence, and submit to the judgment of those who 
 may be able to decide on it. g Again : how far from the 
 vital and fundamental importance of the great office of the 
 
 e Mr. Newman says somewhere (though I cannot at the moment refer to the 
 passage), that the Augustinian doctrine is merely the form into which minds, cast 
 in a certain mould, throw the eternal truth, that the way to Life is narrow.
 
 21 
 
 Church whereof I have been just speaking, taken in connec- 
 tion with the absolute impossibility of its fit performance by 
 any human wisdom, a probability accrues of the opinion 
 being well founded, which has so generally prevailed in the 
 Church, that a special and divine help is continually im- 
 parted to her supreme authority, (whatever that authority 
 may be,) enabling it to decide on doctrines with unfailing 
 accuracy ; this is a question which I am not bound to 
 discuss, but throw out for the consideration of those whom it 
 may concern. 
 
 Next, as to the Church's method of impressing these great 
 truths on her children one by one. In one of my Articles 
 I have ventured to express an opinion, that in every one who 
 has cure of souls, ' dogmatic theology, an accurate and habi- 
 tual knowledge of the Church's formal statements of doctrine, 
 will be an essential part of his qualifications. It will be im- 
 possible for him otherwise to dispense religious truth to his 
 flock as their spiritual necessities require it ; and he may thus 
 most seriously injure the harmonious development of their 
 inward life." h One advantage resulting from this, and by no 
 means an insignificant one, will be, that parish priests will 
 practically realize the fact, which persons who have not at 
 least mastered its elementary principles will never believe, 
 that there is such a science as dogmatic theology ; and, there 
 being such, that they who have devoted their lives to its 
 study, when accordant with each other, should meet with 
 absolutely implicit deference on the subject from those who 
 have not. Hence a priest will very carefully and habitually 
 use language precisely orthodox, even on details whereof his 
 own spiritual advancement or else intellectual acumen has 
 not yet enabled him to discern the essential importance. 
 Without this universal and harmonious accuracy of language, 
 unless every thing which comes from authority, authoritative 
 teaching, prayers, ceremonial, conspire with one consent to im- 
 press on their conscience, imagination, and reason, one and the 
 same religious faith, one and the same religious character, the 
 Church's task, in itself sufficiently arduous, of providing her 
 h ' On the Synagogue and the Church,' p. 52.
 
 children with Christian doctrine suitable to their needs, would 
 be rendered absolutely hopeless. It is a certain fact, however 
 we account for it, and a fact which throws very considerable 
 light indeed on the present condition of the English Church, 
 that in innumerable cases, where spiritual addresses are more 
 or less discordant from one another on important points, those 
 submitted to their influence experience no conscious dissatis- 
 faction, (which would be incomparably better, for it would lead 
 to inquiry and interest,) but rather that these various addresses 
 in great part neutralize each other ; and that to a miserable 
 extent the people fall into a habit of hearing religious words 
 without attaching to them any definite meaning, and the voice 
 of the preacher becomes to them almost as ' sounding brass 
 or a tinkling cymbal.' 
 
 What I have said shews to a certain extent the rationale 
 of w T hat is continually exemplified, in Ecclesiastical History ; 
 viz. that certain modes of expressing doctrine, which as used 
 by this or that person may have a precisely orthodox mean- 
 ing, are nevertheless, in the performance of her bounden duty, 
 proscribed by the Church. The reason being, that if their 
 use be allowed to any Christians, (though they may be neu- 
 tralized by the spiritual discernment in the case of eminently 
 religious persons, and though of course they will produce no 
 direct effect whatever on the unintellectual, still) they will to 
 a most lamentable extent either baffle and confuse, or else 
 pain and distress, many an excellent Christian, who carefully 
 and habitually endeavours to perform the essential duty of 
 realizing and dwelling upon the religious expressions he is 
 taught. Nay, infinitely worse than this is the ultimate result ; 
 for if allowed to circulate among the mass of educated be- 
 lievers, much more if carried into their consequences by 
 profound thinkers, they will introduce into the community 
 feelings and methods of thought wholly inconsistent with the 
 true Christian element, and thus sap the very foundations of 
 the faith. This danger can of course be seen, in a particular 
 case, only by those who are deeply versed in dogmatic the- 
 ology ; and this will still further illustrate the indispensable 
 necessity of that implicit deference to the united decisions of
 
 such men, which the Catholic Church has ever yielded. It 
 must not be forgotten in conclusion, that to proscribe, in the 
 case of a body whose sanctions are wholly spiritual, is to 
 anathematize. 
 
 Of course, as was just now implied, the number of those 
 who are directly guided into orthodoxy by means of orthodox 
 statements is comparatively limited. In what manner the un- 
 learned and unintellectual are to learn orthodoxy, indeed 
 ' the whole subject of the religious knowledge of a saint-like 
 and heavenly-minded believer, who should be wholly without 
 intellectual cultivation, is full of importance, interest, and 
 (we may add) mystery, and well deserves a separate dis- 
 cussion by itself.'' On this discussion I have no room nor 
 inclination here to enter ; nor to pursue into their ultimate 
 elements, even so far as might be done, the phenomena in 
 question. A very few words however on the matter do seem 
 called for. Mr. Newman lays down, as a foundation for their 
 reception of such knowledge, that ' i would not be safe to 
 deny to the illuminating grace of Baptism a power at least 
 of putting the mind into a capacity for receiving impressions ;' 
 a sentiment which, if he had not stated it thus problemati- 
 cally, I confess I should not have hesitated to express confi- 
 dently. ' The secondary and intelligible means,' he goes on 
 to say, ' by which we receive the impression of Divine Veri- 
 ' ties, are such as the habitual and devout perusal of Scripture, 
 ' which gradually acts upon the mind : again, the gradual in- 
 'fluence of intercourse tvith those who are themselves inposses- 
 ' sion of the sacred ideas ; . . . again, a continual round of de- 
 * votion ; or again sometimes in minds both fitly disposed and 
 ' apprehensive,' I should be inclined to say especially among 
 the very religious poor, ' the almost instantaneous operation 
 ' of a keen faith." 4 To all these I would add, as one most 
 especial means of effecting the object desired, what is some- 
 times called the preaching Christ. I mean, putting Him 
 before the people as the principal object for their contem- 
 plation ; leading them on to meditate in private on the 
 various circumstances of His life, under the habitual im- 
 1 ' On St. Athanasius,' p. 419. k University Sermons, pp. 334, 5.
 
 24 
 
 pression that it is God to Whose acts and words they listen ; 
 to address Him spontaneously in all troubles and distresses ; 
 to keep ever present in their mind a sense that He, of Whom 
 they hear or read, created them one by one ; that at this very 
 time He knows all their thoughts, governs all the events which 
 meet them in their daily course, feels for all their trials, gives 
 them strength for victory, will judge them at the Great Day. 
 If His real and proper Divinity be by such methods as this 
 deeply and firmly imprinted on their mind ; if they be carefully 
 taught from the very first the most elementary expressions of 
 orthodoxy on the two principal doctrines of Revelation, such 
 as '' Three Persons, One God,' and 'One Person, Two Natures;' 
 and are habituated to the frequent recitation of our ordinary 
 doxology ; then the natural use, in sermons and the like, of such 
 Scripture language as " God sent His Son into the world." 
 " The Holy Ghost whom the Father will send in My name," 
 " He shall glorify Me ; for He shall receive of Mine and shall 
 shew it unto you. All things that the Father hath are Mine : 
 therefore said I that He shall take of Mine and shew it unto 
 you " and other similar expressions ; the use, I say, of such 
 language, joined with the most careful and undeviating ortho- 
 doxy of expression in all that is said to them, will lead them 
 forward, in proportion to their spiritual growth, (so at least I 
 cannot but think,) into full implicit belief in the Trinity and 
 the Incarnation. And when Christians, who are proceeding 
 in the path of holy obedience, have realized so much as this, 
 I sometimes fancy that they would almost anticipate the fur- 
 ther doctrine of the Atonement, even were it possible that 
 they should not have heard it from without. Certainly, be- 
 coming, as they do, daily more conscious of their miserable 
 sinfulness, and of the deep corruption of their nature ; after 
 they have once mastered, in some not wholly insufficient mea- 
 sure, the before incredible truth that God became Man, an 
 equally real apprehension, and an unspeakably deep and grate- 
 ful appreciation, of the further and now most credible truth, 
 that His death was our redemption, will most easily follow. 
 
 4. Such then is the essential and fundamental duty of the 
 Church ; the united maintenance of these two objects, which
 
 25 
 
 cannot by possibility be maintained separately, holiness of 
 life and orthodoxy of faith. Second to this in importance, 
 but second only to this, is the attempt to give to all our high 
 aspirations and affections their adequate and fullest satisfaction, 
 where only it can be found, in God's service. I will instance, 
 as the principal particular under this head, public prayer ; 
 or to speak more accurately, the provision of a public office 
 for prayer, praise, and thanksgiving in its various shapes. 
 
 This doubtless, if not closely connected with a strict 
 government of the inward life, by an inevitable necessity de- 
 clines more or less into hollowness and formalism ; but not- 
 withstanding, when based upon right individual faith and 
 practice, it supplies us with a most invaluable vent for our 
 social regards and sympathies. In order however that this 
 may be so, it is of primary importance that the accessories of 
 this service shall be divested of every approach to gloom, 
 constraint, pedantry, or formality ; that f the mould into 
 which the united prayers of the Church are thrown shall ' not 
 ' be destritute of poetical beauty,' nor 'offend the spiritual taste 
 by inflated declamation, lengthy verbosity, tedious sameness, 
 wearisome repetition ;' that it shall ' give sufficient utterance 
 to all those feelings and desires which Christians in public 
 prayers would wish to express,' and ' all the great doctrines 
 of revelation which they would desire to honour ;' lastly, that 
 the people shall not be unduly ' restrained by forms ; that 
 they' shall be ' allowed and encouraged to vent their warm 
 devotional feelings in such external acts and gestures as na- 
 turally express them,' not be ' bound by harsh and cruel 
 custom to an exterior of polite indifference, a cold, cramping, 
 stifling uniformity.' 1 But the principles which a true spi- 
 ritual wisdom would apply, to the setting in order of the 
 services of the sanctuary, have been so admirably expressed 
 in several articles of the British Critic, that it is not neces- 
 sary here to say more on the subject. 
 
 But not only in religious celebrations, universally, the 
 sense of the sublime and beautiful will be one very principal 
 means, whereby the Church will impress on the minds of her 
 ' ' On the Synagogue and the Church, 1 pp. 24, 5.
 
 children those superhuman realities, which it is her office to 
 witness. ' Those mysterious feelings which are called forth 
 by the sense of beauty, are media by which heavenly and 
 supernatural truths are, in various measures, shadowed forth 
 to the believer's mind ; by which are impressed faint, con- 
 fused, and unconnected ideas of that unknown Beauty, 
 whose intuition in its full and harmonious completeness is 
 reserved for a future existence.' 01 ' Whether it be solemn 
 ceremonial, or music, or architecture, or again poetry, which 
 draws forth the sense of beauty in the particular case, so it 
 is that he w T ho patiently continues in w r ell-doing and in wait- 
 ing upon God, is addressed by Him through some peculiar 
 channel, and receives "through a glass darkly" perceptions 
 of eternal and heavenly truth.' A Church then, fully fur- 
 nished for her high calling, will have a school of architecture, 
 of music, of painting, perhaps of poetry, of her own ; each 
 setting forth in its peculiar method, and impressing on those 
 who are open to its peculiar influence, the one essential and 
 unalterable stamp of the Christian faith and character. Nor 
 should we suppose, that in times past the accomplishment of 
 this high object has been left to unassisted human agency. 
 ' The vast ceremonial, ritual, liturgical system which is her 
 heritage, the noble building, the solemn procession, the 
 ravishing chant, are, to an indefinite extent, the suggestions 
 of the Spirit Himself to the beloved Bride of Christ. And if 
 to the deep prejudices of modern Englishmen this statement 
 appears at once utterly extravagant, let them read their 
 Bibles, and remember the case of Bezaleel ; nay, let them 
 ask themselves whether, in plain reason, the fit outward ex- 
 pression of the Church's feeling, e. g. on Good Friday, 
 would not be an object so far surpassing all other outward 
 things in majesty and sublimity, as to be a worthy occasion 
 for special interposition.' 11 
 
 5. But the ideal I am endeavouring to draw out, though 
 even at last it must needs be very incomplete, still will be 
 far from sufficiently specific to suit the necessary exigencies 
 
 m ' On Mill's Logic,' p. 398. 
 
 n ' On the Synagogue and the Church,' pp. .9, 12, 13.
 
 27 
 
 of my purpose, unless I proceed from these generalities, to 
 consider the peculiar circumstances of some among the 
 various classes into which England is divided ; and trace in 
 imagination the demeanour of an ideal Church under those 
 circumstances. And first I will consider those, far the 
 dearest objects of affection to the Church as to her heavenly 
 Master, the little ones of Christ, the poor ; that class to whose 
 number belonged the Apostles, St. Mary, our Blessed Lord 
 Himself; that class whom He begins by pronouncing 
 blessed ; that class whom he vouchsafed to single out from 
 the rest, and say especially that to them the Gospel was 
 preached. And in default of practical knowledge, let me 
 make my statements on the authority of a work recently 
 published, which can labour under no possible suspicion of 
 advocating the general views which I humbly support ; but 
 which, I believe, has received a very general testimony from 
 the public on the substantial truth of its statements, and 
 which shews indeed, in its whole composition, that the writer 
 has been at the utmost pains, to unite dispassionate accu- 
 racy of statement with that warmth of benevolence and zeal 
 against oppression, which are such attractive characteristics 
 of his production. 
 
 " In England, the population compelled to labour for daily bread 
 may be arranged generally under the following heads ; manufacturing, 
 mining, commercial, and agricultural." p. 15. 
 
 " The Manufacturing Poor. The employment in nearly all its 
 branches is unhealthy, wearisome, and irksome ; the confinement 
 severe, and the numbers crowded into a given space, such as to 
 impregnate loth the physical and moral atmosphere with poisonous 
 
 qualities Twelve hours in the twenty-four is the minimum 
 
 for young persons in the mills and factories, which constitute a main 
 department of this branch, and no precise limit is set to the toil of 
 
 adults The ordinary day's labour in these employments, 
 
 with the time required for going and returning, occupies fourteen 
 
 or fifteen hours out of each four and twenty What distinction 
 
 can be drawn between the forcible wresting away of a poor man's 
 Bible, and the exhaustion of his bodily powers to such a degree, 
 
 'The Perils of the Nation.' Seeley, London, 1843.
 
 28 
 
 that the very little time allowed him for rest scarcely suffices to 
 recruit them, and leaves him neither leisure nor ability for intellectual 
 or spiritual improvement ? 
 
 " Vice and demoralization reign unchecked in these establish- 
 ments. . . . There are masters who take an interest in the well-being 
 of their servants, .... but what proportion do they bear to the 
 bulk of their brethren ? Is it as one to twenty ? one to fifty ? one 
 to a hundred ? we fear it is not. This then is the all but universal 
 character of a factory : the labourers consist of persons of both 
 sexes and of all ages, from the hoary transgressor, whose .... long 
 experience in iniquity renders him no less effectual in Satan's service, 
 down to the little child that cannot yet attach a meaning to the 
 foul expressions which its ears drink in. These persons, con- 
 tributing each some share to the common stock of evil communi- 
 cation, .'. . . from the element in which they live, an ocean of 
 reckless, raging profligacy, are prepared to overpower and engulph 
 every new victim cast upon the surface of its bottomless abyss." 
 pp. 1824. 
 
 " Mining Poor. The horrors of this department have, like their 
 
 sable treasuries, been long hidden from the light of day In 
 
 many of the mines now working the roads or passages do not 
 exceed eighteen inches in height. The closeness of the place would 
 
 speedily produce suffocation, were it not ventilated from above 
 
 If the ventilation be imperfect, the heat in the workings becomes 
 most offensive; and the character of the gases combined, the 
 moisture where the drainage is not very complete, and animal 
 effluvia, render it the most noisome, most horrible atmosphere that 
 
 man's lungs can inhale No ray of natural light, no breath of 
 
 unfettered air, .... ever visit the miner's place of work ; but 
 perils fearful to contemplate impend over him, requiring above 
 almost any other predicament of human life, that his way amidst 
 the bowels of the earth should be cleared of all unavoidable entice- 
 ments to transgression, and the solemn truth allowed to bear with 
 full force upon his conscience, that ' there is but a step between 
 him and death.' .... 
 
 " The nature of the ordinary employment in coal mines is to the 
 stout heart of man appalling, to his vigorous intellect debilitating, 
 
 to his sinewy frame, in its full maturity, exhausting What 
 
 a man by the utmost efforts of willing labour can earn, is often 
 utterly insufficient ; whence it follows, that ere his wife and babes
 
 29 
 
 can eat, they must be immersed in the untold horrors of those 
 
 subterranean hells Little creatures of eight, five, yea, four 
 
 years are chosen, whose fathers carry them down to the pit even in 
 their night gowns, as the evidence has shewn, place each poor babe 
 behind a door, and leave it, crying with cold and terror, in total 
 darkness for twelve or fourteen hours, with no one variation of its 
 wretched employment. 
 
 " The most abandoned vice reigns in the mines, transforming the 
 female character into something so depraved, that their language and 
 
 conduct are far worse than the men's Added to the powerful 
 
 influence of constant persuasion to sin, is the total absence of all 
 restraining principle." pp. 29 46. 
 
 " Workshop Labourers. In the iron manufactures . . . the chil- 
 dren are put to the vice as early as seven years of age One 
 
 even of the more respectable employers admits .... that he has 
 carried on his works sometimes for nineteen or twenty hours a day, 
 boys as well as men, 
 
 " In screw manufactures \hefemales constitute 80 or 90 per cent, 
 of the whole number employed." In manufacturies generally " these 
 poor children (girls and boys) are subjected to the" most incredibly 
 " brutal treatment, ' beaten with a seat-rod a stick as thick as a 
 ' finger every week,' with ' a whip with four lashes to it and tied 
 ' in knots ;' one boy's master ' cut his head open five times, once 
 ' with a key and twice with a lock ; knocked the corner of a lock 
 ' into his head twice :' another's ' hit him on the head with a ham- 
 naer the blow cut his head open and he fainted away.' 
 
 " Dreadful also are the sufferings of these poor children from the 
 mere want of food. 
 
 " The inevitable consequence of this utter disregard of all the 
 obligations of parent or employer, is seen in the fearful depravity 
 
 which prevails among these poor creatures ' Moral feelings 
 
 and sentiments do not exist among them. They have no morals.' " 
 pp. 5062. 
 
 " The Commercial classes. A young man opens a small shop : . . . 
 in former times what would have been his plan ? He must have 
 commenced in a moderate way according to his means ; and by 
 sound goods, fair prices, and steady attention, endeavoured to esta- 
 blish a character, &c. Such times however are unhappily at an end ; 
 a new system is in operation, &c. A young man . . . cannot long 
 contend against present loss, decreasing custom, and the feverish 
 anxiety inseparable from so exciting a conflict. He perhaps be-
 
 30 
 
 comes more reckless in his dealings, and by the discovery of 
 unequivocal frauds is overwhelmed with disgrace, &c. What his 
 future lot may be, no one can predict ; but the ranks of our army, 
 the walls of our workhouses, and, alas ! the hulks of our convict- ships, 
 could exhibit many a living illustration of this statement. 
 
 " Another class more extensive : to begin with stationery .... a 
 reduction, the amount of which we should be ashamed to calculate, 
 enables the epistolary world to save a farthing on every dozen 
 billets they dispatch, at the trifling cost of driving to starvation, 
 prostitution, or some summary mode of self-destruction, the succour- 
 less young females whose bread is thus wrested away." pp. 68 73. 
 
 " Agricultural poor. The distress existing among the agricultural 
 
 poor is great ; it is also increasing The utter absence of any 
 
 powerful motive to honest labour, resulting from the fact that 
 nothitfg to which he puts his hand is or can be his own, ... is enough 
 to cramp the energies and deaden the feelings of any man. He 
 feels himself a supernumerary on the earth's surface ; he has no 
 proprietorship in any thing, save perhaps in a helpless family, 
 
 whose hunger he knows not how he can appease He becomes 
 
 a reckless, if not a demoralized being ; and the contrast which 
 he cannot but draw between his own condition and that of the 
 landed proprietor whose soil he tills, engenders feelings of envy, 
 hatred, and a disposition to violence, of which many are eager 
 to take advantage Our agricultural poor are wholly and hope- 
 lessly dependent on what they can gain by toiling for others ; they 
 dwell in hovels, single or clustered, destitute of comfort, cramping 
 the body and depressing the mind. .... And thus, as among the 
 other working classes, personal respectability becomes a chim&ra : 
 they follow the lowest instincts and impulses of animal life, and are 
 perfectly prepared to become the scourges of those orders in society 
 who have trampled them down to so wretched a level." p pp. 81 87. 
 " England is one vast mass of superficial splendour, covering a body 
 of festering misery and discontent. Side by side appears, in fearful 
 and unnatural contrast, the greatest amount of opulence, and the 
 most appalling mass of misery. . . . Where once was sociable and 
 merry England, we have care and caution in the countenance of 
 the rich man, in the working man discontent, in the poor man misery 
 and depression." p. xv. 8. 
 
 P See British Critic, No. Ixv. pp. 271, 2. Indeed the whole of that very beautiful 
 article ' on agricultural labour and wages,' forcibly illustrates the positions of the 
 writer whom I am quoting.
 
 31 
 
 It has been most justly and admirably said, that * the 
 Church is the poor man's court of justice. He has no other. 
 It is a saying in the mouth of every one, that laws are 
 made to protect the strong, not the weak. The laws cannot 
 concern themselves with small things. They assert principles, 
 and so are a political testimony to the obligation of justice. 
 They can do little more, as far as the poor are concerned. 
 Nor should we wish to see it otherwise. A multiplicity of 
 particular laws made for the poor, would increase their misery, 
 and be utterly ineffective ; for law cannot reach their po- 
 sition, any more than it can the relations of parent and child, 
 husband or wife. Law protects chiefly its own creations, wealth 
 
 and privilege Generally speaking, the rights of the rich 
 
 can be asserted by law ; generally speaking, the rights of the 
 poor cannot, because they are matters, not of positive institu- 
 tion, but of nature, of feeling, and of custom. When the 
 moral tone of the country is unchristianized, it is all one 
 whether the poor are serfs by law, or citizens by law. Their 
 poverty in both cases is equally weak, contemptible, and 
 ridiculous. It devolves on the Church, therefore, to assert 
 in her own courts the rights of the poor. She must exhibit 
 a picture of Christian equality, as an edifying lesson to the 
 world; and put her poor and helpless in that honourable 
 position, which shall render any thing which injures or de- 
 grades them an obvious offence against the Church, and 
 shocking to the common feelings of Christians.' a 
 
 And it is for such reasons, among others, that ' the Church 
 when free, has ever assigned to Christ's poor a quasi-sacra- 
 mental character." b 
 
 Truly, this being so, to discuss how an ideal Church would 
 comport herself, if co-existing with such tremendous evils as 
 those just enumerated, involves the same sort of difficulty, 
 which Aristotle notes as to the parallel inquiry, in what 
 manner a perfectly virtuous man would repent. A perfectly 
 virtuous man would have done nothing to repent of; and in 
 like manner, a pure Church could not have co-existed with 
 such tremendous evils. ' The sufferings of the poor, in (even 
 very corrupt) Catholic times, are at once known and felt by 
 
 a British Critic, No. Ixiv. p. 489. b ' On Arnold's Sermons,' p. 303.
 
 32 
 
 the clergy, and it is their province to proclaim those sufferings 
 in the ears of the civil rulers.' No one can even plausibly 
 accuse cur civil rulers of wanton and deliberate cruelty ; 
 neglect and thoughtlessness are all which can be laid to their 
 charge, and are quite enough, alas ! to account fully for our 
 present extremity of evil. But such neglect and thoughtless- 
 ness could have had no existence, had a pure Church then 
 energized in our country ; for a pure Church's heart beats 
 with the most ready and spontaneous sympathy with all the 
 troubles of the poor ; and she would with eager and 
 urgent zeal have pleaded, clamoured, threatened in their 
 behalf, ' to help the fatherless and poor to their right, {hat 
 the man of the earth be no more exalted against them.' 
 
 Let us suppose, however, an ideal Church to be suddenly 
 placed in charge with a country, in which such a state of 
 things had been allowed to grow up unchecked. What a 
 scene presents itself to the imagination ! How careful at once 
 her inquiry, what may be those branches of labour in which, 
 whether from the kind or the amount of toil, the leading of a 
 Christian life would be impossible ; and how stern the pro- 
 hibition, enforced by all spiritual sanctions, against any of 
 her children engaging in those branches ! In less ex- 
 treme cases, how loving and considerate her tenderness to 
 the poor sufferers ! with what profound wisdom would an 
 early education be imparted, which might prepare them for 
 the life to which they are destined ! with what urgency and 
 care would such holy practices be taught them, as might pro- 
 tect them against the spiritual dangers which surround them 
 on all sides ! with what zeal and though tfulness would such 
 religious services be prepared for their one day of rest, as 
 might cheer, soothe, and refresh them ! Religious ceremonial, 
 in other cases but an accessory, (though a most important 
 one,) becomes in these an absolute essential; for in what 
 other way can religious truths be possibly impressed deeply 
 on those whose minds are worn down by unceasing anxiety 
 and care, and whose bodies are exhausted with severe and 
 protracted toil ? Then what employment would she not make 
 of her spiritual censures, in directing them against the op- 
 
 c ' On Goode,' p. 79.
 
 33 
 
 pressors of the poor; what loud and clamorous appeals to 
 our civil rulers ; what addresses to those of her own children 
 who are influential in a worldly point of view! Such a sketch 
 may suffice as a faint outline of the picture, and a means of 
 suggesting to the reader numberless points of detail. 
 
 6. From the poor we proceed to the rich. And here, when 
 we bear in mind the appalling denunciations against wealth 
 which we read in Scripture, how marked and authoritative 
 an attitude should we not expect such a Church to assume, 
 in her dealings with this class of her children !. how urgent 
 and impressive her admonitions to them, to ' place no trust ' 
 in those riches, but live as ' poor in spirit.' 
 
 A careful and accurate observer of men and things in their 
 secular phase, I should say the most so of any contemporary 
 English writer, I mean Mr. John Mill, gives us the following 
 result of his experience : 
 
 ' There has crept over the refined classes, over the whole class of 
 gentlemen in England, a moral effeminacy, an inaptitude for every 
 kind of struggle. They shrink from all effort, from every thing 
 which is troublesome and disagreeable. When an evil comes to them, 
 they can sometimes bear it with tolerable patience (though nobody 
 is less patient, when they can entertain the slightest hope that by 
 raising an outcry they may compel somebody else to make an effort 
 to relieve them). But heroism is an active, not a passive quality ; 
 and when it is necessary not to bear pain but to seek it, little need 
 be expected from the men of the present day. They cannot undergo 
 labour, they cannot brave ridicule, they cannot stand evil tongues ; 
 they have not hardihood to say unpleasant things to any one whom 
 they are in the habit of seeing, or to face, even with a nation at 
 their back, the coldness of some little coterie which surrounds them. 
 This torpidity and cowardice, as a general characteristic, is new in 
 the world ; but (modified by the different temperaments of different 
 nations) it is a natural consequence of the progress of civilization, 
 and will continue until met by a system of cultivation adapted to 
 counteract it.' d 
 
 And what is to supply such a system except the Church ? 
 So capital an evil, so enfeebling us in all our efforts to benefit 
 d London and Westminster Review, April 1836, p. 13. 
 
 D
 
 34 
 
 the poor or spread the Gospel, so crushing to all growth of 
 Christian perfection, nay, so contradictory to the elementary 
 idea of the Christian character, which is, to fight Christ's 
 battle here on earth, will not long continue uncontrolled, 
 when a pure Church confronts it. Bringing from her treasure 
 things new and old, she will be at no loss for a remedy ; nor 
 will she be, from respect of persons, lukewarm or hesitating 
 in its application. 
 
 The same accurate and dispassionate observer remarks : 
 
 " As civilization advances, . . . the only motive to action which 
 can be considered as any thing like universal, is the desire of wealth ; 
 and wealth being in the case of the majority the most accessible 
 means of gratifying all their other desires, nearly the whole of the 
 energy of character which exists in highly civilized societies concentrates 
 itself in the pursuit of that object. . . . Thus it happens that, . . . 
 particularly among ourselves, the energies of the middle classes are 
 almost confined to money-getting^ and those of the higher classes are 
 nearly extinct." p. 12. 
 
 And 'the love of money is the root of all evil!' With what 
 unremitting urgency and intentness of purpose, by what varied 
 machinery, by sermons, by personal addresses, by the ex- 
 hibitions of voluntary poverty, by setting forth the claims of 
 the poor, by putting forward other pursuits as objects for 
 this energy, which thus does far worse than run to waste, 
 will not an ideal Church oppose herself to this most baneful 
 and anti-Christian tendency? 
 
 7. Having mentioned the upper classes of society, let us 
 consider the Church's dealings with them, as being the edu- 
 cated classes; and first let us conceive an ideal Church, which 
 should virtually possess a control over the whole education 
 of those classes. We should find in such a Church, united 
 with a profound appeciation of the very important place in 
 mental culture held by the study of heathen literature and phi- 
 losophy, a very keen sense also of the spiritual dangers thence 
 accruing. I speak not only of peril to that, almost highest of 
 all graces, the perfect purity which consists in the absence of 
 the power to realise practically what is sinful and corrupt : e 
 e See Newman's Parochial Sermons, vol. vi. p. 287.
 
 35 
 
 this of course is the greatest danger, but there are other very 
 real and formidable dangers also. There is danger, e. g. lest 
 unconsciously young persons adjust their idea of the heroic, 
 the sublime, and the beautiful, to a heathen not a Christian 
 standard; lest the highest evangelical virtues, spotless purity, 
 voluntary poverty, extreme sensitiveness of conscience, re- 
 joicing in shame, reproach, and suffering, be rather allowed 
 for or excused, even if not despised and repudiated, than 
 honoured with that artless and enthusiastic admiration, which 
 the Gospel requires, and which is so graceful and salutary in 
 the young. For dangers such as these an ideal Church will 
 have devised, with pains and sagacity, deep and efficacious 
 remedies ; she will have ( spoiled the Egyptians,' and made 
 the treasures of heathen antiquity subservient to that Divine 
 fabric which was reared on its ruins. 
 
 Here, too, is another most grave circumstance, which the 
 Church in her capacity of educator should most seriously 
 weigh. If there be a character peculiarly removed from human 
 sympathies, peculiarly inaccessible to religious motives, pe- 
 culiarly proud, selfish, unbelieving, almost diabolical, it is 
 that of one who, with uninterrupted health and prosperity, 
 and vigorous intellectual powers, devotes himself to congenial 
 studies as the one pursuit of his life, without submitting him- 
 self to the special discipline suited to his case. In Catholic 
 ages, intellectual studies were indissolubly connected with a 
 range of religious exercises and offices ; and a pure Church 
 will be most forward and earnest in training up those, who 
 are called to such a life, in self-denial on small matters, much 
 religious meditation, and frequently-repeated prayer. 
 
 8. Again, * each succeeding age has its own intellectual de- 
 velopment, and theology ' scientiarum omnium domina et 
 magistra' is most deeply concerned in such development. 
 New modes of philosophy, deeper views of history, fresh dis- 
 coveries and a higher criticism in philology, all should offer 
 their choicest treasures at the feet of Revelation ; and yet, 
 when left in the hands of heretics and unbelievers, they fail 
 of doing so. Rather, whether from inadequate premises, or 
 faulty inferences, or at least (which will quite certainly be 
 
 D 2
 
 36 
 
 found in such persons) deficiency in the true philosophical 
 temper, they will frequently appear to issue in conclusions at 
 variance with revealed doctrine, and will foster, consciously 
 or not, in the minds of the intellectual world the monstrous 
 notion, that increase of knowledge tends to diminish rather 
 than enlarge the sphere of heavenly truth. Systems will be 
 found, most dazzling and imposing from the depth, brilliancy, 
 and varied ability of their devisers, which will strike with 
 dismay the humble and gentle believer, which will deal rudely 
 with his most sacred associations, and sport with his deepest 
 and most certain convictions. And the result must be, that 
 such persons will be led by their very virtues to (what we 
 must call in itself) a narrow-minded and morbid dread of the 
 spread of knowledge, a flurried and excited denunciation of 
 the use of God's gifts of reason and intellectual power ; that 
 is, in other words, holiness and mental cultivation must be 
 brought into a state of hopeless and ever-increasing opposition ; 
 unless there be some visible tabernacle of the truth, towards 
 which the alarmed and disquieted soul may turn for peace 
 and light to guide him through the entanglement.' . . . Ac- 
 cordingly, to meet this danger, * the Church, in her high and 
 palmy state, displays an antagonist literature and philosophy 
 of her own ; and for such schools of thought as are without 
 her pale, she calmly and soberly surveys them; absorbing 
 from them into herself such high and important principles as 
 they may have introduced ; so disentangling them from error 
 and uniting them with other truths, as to lead them forward to 
 more legitimate inferences ; and thus using them, to display 
 the treasure committed to her charge, in new and ever-varying 
 lights, and to increase it by new acquisitions and results.' f 
 
 I will proceed to give a few applications of this, without 
 professing in the least to exhaust the subject. 
 
 I. The circumstances of the last three centuries have given 
 both increased interest and very remarkably a new character 
 and development to the study of Biblical Criticism. Pro- 
 testants have accordingly, I believe, pursued this study with 
 great ability and success; while they have, from the necessity 
 
 f ' On the Synagogue and the Church,' pp. 36, 7.
 
 37 
 
 of their Creed, more or less pressed it into the service of 
 rationalism and heresy. I have no wish to assign an undue 
 place to this study ; doubtless, it is among the more humble 
 sciences, and to dream of comparing it, in interest and es- 
 sential dignity, with the great fundamental and normal science 
 of dogmatic theology, would be like comparing the power to 
 spell syllables with the Christian Gift of Faith. Still, in its 
 place it has importance ; and it most justly claims at the 
 hand of an ideal Church, a full recognition, and a deliverance 
 from the power of those who now (unintentionally) abuse it 
 to dangerous purposes and results. 
 
 Moreover, the surface of the New Testament presents to 
 the unbiassed critic an appearance of contradiction to several 
 Catholic truths ; for instance, the Christian Priesthood, the 
 Eucharistic Sacrifice, the duty of penance, the honour due 
 to St. Mary : nay, even to undoubted facts ; such as the fact 
 that baptized Christians are very frequently found in deadly 
 sin, and again, that the duration of the world has outlasted 
 all the Apostles and first Christians. Doubtless, it is a very 
 sinful course, to adopt an exegetical interpretation of Scrip- 
 ture, as any part of our rule of faith ; still it is a duty to 
 dimmish as much as possible the temptations to sin. And 
 over and above this, the superficial meaning of the New 
 Testament (the meaning, that is, which may be obtained 
 from it by principles of criticism) cannot in reality con- 
 tradict doctrines which are from the same Author ; or, in 
 other words, there must be a sound method of critical in- 
 terpretation, which admits of being opposed to the unsound. 
 For both these reasons then a Church ought, I do not say to 
 make it at all a primary object, but still not to neglect the 
 task, of gradually discovering and illustrating this method. 
 For reasons not very dissimilar, a good commentary on the 
 ' Romans' and ' Galatians' would be an acceptable service. 
 
 II. Here I may mention Physical Science, now so generally 
 and necessarily cultivated, and the peculiar intellectual mis- 
 takes concerning its province and capabilities, which in one 
 way or other militate against Christian truth, and against 
 which the Church is bound to warn its votaries.
 
 38 
 
 III. History is another study which is assuming considerable 
 importance at the present time ; and that under two distinct 
 aspects. The first may be called critical, and is both absolutely 
 necessary, and I suppose principally important, as preparing 
 the way for the other. I allude to the study which concerns 
 itself with discovering the real circumstances of past ages, 
 ' detecting the meaning of small things, and dragging to 
 light the forgotten elements of a gone-by state of society, 
 from scattered evidences which the writers themselves who 
 recorded them did not understand ;'* distinguishing truth 
 from fable, plain fact from allegorical ' myth,' and the like ; 
 and thus preparing the materials, by which the philosophical 
 mind may test and verify its theoretical deductions. High 
 and rare powers of mind have been beyond doubt devoted to 
 these inquiries ; Niebuhr, judging from what is said of him 
 by competent persons, is the great model and example of an 
 historian of the kind ; though he seems considered to have 
 occasionally taken a higher range also. 
 
 These writers are brought into direct contact with the Old 
 Testament, and have started many difficulties on the right 
 mode of understanding its historical narratives. But an ideal 
 Church would have interpreters ready at hand, both to solve 
 these difficulties, and to avail themselves of the science itself, 
 as might so advantageously be done, for the purpose of illus- 
 trating and clearing up many parts of our earlier sacred 
 books. 
 
 A much higher science of history however is in gradual 
 progress of formation, which has a far nearer connection 
 both with poetry and with philosophy. It aims at ' realizing 
 a true and living picture of times past, clothed in their cir- 
 cumstances and peculiarities ;' at probing to the bottom, 
 in regard to those times, 'not the intellectual life of in- 
 tellectual men, not the social life of the people, but their 
 internal life ; their thoughts and feelings in regard to them- 
 
 y The passages marked as quotations, in this and the two following paragraphs, 
 are taken from a most interesting article on Michelet's History of France in the 
 Edinburgh Review for January: the authorship of which it is not very difficult to 
 discover.
 
 39 
 
 selves and their destinations ; the habitual temper of their 
 minds;' the causes of their highest joys and sorrows, hopes 
 and fears. Nay, more than this ; it regards ' the whole of 
 the events which have befallen the human race, and the 
 states through which it has passed, as a series of phenomena, 
 produced by causes and susceptible of explanation. All 
 history is conceived as a progressive chain of causes and 
 effects ; or (by an apter metaphor) as a gradually unfolding 
 web, in which every fresh part that comes to view is a pro- 
 longation of the part previously unrolled, whether we can 
 trace the separate threads from the one to the other or not.' 
 It makes its chief aim ' to find on what principles, derived 
 from .the nature of man and the system of the universe, each 
 state of society and of the human mind produced that which 
 came after it ;' and to discover how far ' any order of pro- 
 duction can be traced sufficiently definite, to shew what 
 future states of society may be expected to emanate from the 
 circumstances which exist at present.' 
 
 To regard indeed the successive stages of society as con- 
 nected, in some degree at least, by an ascertainable order of 
 advance, appears at first sight contradictory to the deep and 
 sure knowledge which all Christians possess, of God's parti- 
 cular providence towards individuals, and generally of His 
 ceaseless intervention, for His moral purposes, in the affairs of 
 the world ; and the same apparent inconsistency exists in the 
 case of physical science, as at present studied. That there 
 is no real inconsistency I fully believe ; and in an ideal 
 Church there would exist a recognised theory, explaining 
 fully the principles on which, and the degree in wliich, the 
 Christian can apply himself to the processes of experimental 
 philosophy, with the hope of a true result. 
 
 Historical science then being attainable, we see at once the 
 peculiar interest which it will have for the Christian, and the 
 great benefit the Church may reap from the study of it. To 
 have brought before our eyes a successive picture of the past 
 ages of the Church, viewed as a Catholic would view them, 
 and glowing with life and reality ; to have made clear and 
 transparent, in the record of past facts, the essential and all-
 
 40 
 
 important distinctions of character, which have separated the 
 heretic from the orthodox ; to witness, as if present at succes- 
 sive periods, the gradual and orderly development of Christian 
 doctrine ; to have brought before our minds, in all their dis- 
 tinctness and in all their agreement, the great worthies of the 
 Church ; to have a Catholic portraiture of such scenes, as 'those 
 produced in Rome by the conflict of opinion and character, 
 which accompanied the first rise of Christianity, or of the con- 
 test between St. Athanasius and Constantius, or between St. 
 Gregory VII. and Henry, or of the reign of St. Louis, similar 
 in kind to Mr. Carlyle's portraiture of the scenes of the French 
 Revolution ; to follow into public worship, at some great 
 festival, a religious Catholic in the ages of faith, and learn 
 to understand his feelings, thoughts, and aspirations ; or to 
 see in detail all the daily scenes of the monastic life ; such 
 fancies as these almost take away our breath. But to do 
 even more than this ; to unfold the connection between the 
 various ages of the Church, and to trace out the mighty 
 results, permanent as the world itself, wrought for her 
 by her great champions ; to exhibit distinctly how the 
 seed, sown amidst tribulation and persecution, and to all 
 appearance wasted, springs up a hundred-fold in some mar- 
 vellous way at a future period; to put in clear and full 
 light the most momentous effects produced on European 
 civilization by the agency of the Church, and the causes 
 which for so many years have so grievously impaired her 
 influence on the course of social and political life ; such are 
 the achievements the Church should perform, if she is to 
 preserve Christian literature on a level with the age. 
 
 IV. But by far the most important service to the intel- 
 lectual world which the Church is called on to perform, and 
 the most parallel to the previous course of her intellectual 
 efforts, is connected with the present state of moral and 
 metaphysical science. Whether dogmatic theology would 
 ever have been brought into shape, except for the presence 
 of heresy, belongs to a larger class of questions ; such as 
 whether anatomy or physiology would ever have been 
 scientifically studied, had it not been for the existence of
 
 41 
 
 pain and disease : nor, in a world so very full of evils, is it a 
 question likely to admit of a crucial experiment. Certain it 
 is, that in point of fact each new theological development 
 has been closely connected with contemporary error; the 
 Athanasian with that of Arius, the Augustinian with that 
 of Pelagius, the especial honour of St. Mary with that of 
 Nestorius : even what might appear an exception, the 
 methodical scholastic system, which finds its most fit and 
 glorious representative in St. Thomas, is stated by an in- 
 telligent writer in the British Critic not really to be an 
 exception ; but to have had its origin in the great honour 
 paid by contemporary heretics to Aristotle, and the conse- 
 quent necessity of giving a Christian interpretation to the 
 writings of that philosopher. 2 Protestantism accordingly } 
 being intellectually 'the subtlest and most extensively poi- 
 sonous' of heresies, just as Lutheranism is morally," has 
 opened questions of even far deeper interest and moment 
 than any previous extravagance. The whole inquiry con- 
 cerning the original elements of moral and religious belief, 
 the evidence appropriate to them, and the moral or intellec- 
 tual process by which it becomes evidence ; why heresy is a 
 sin, and what sort of ' ignorance ' is ' invincible ; ' all this must 
 sooner or later be resolved by a Church, which shall be 
 brought into collision with Protestant principles. It must 
 be resolved, first, in such a manner as to justify the habitual 
 conduct of the Church in past ages ; for in this, as in every 
 similar case, the office of the existing Church is but to draw 
 out into consciousness and into form, the principles which, in 
 their wwconscious and zmformed condition, have ever animated 
 
 z British Critic, No. Ixv. p. 139. 
 
 a ' By the Protestant principle, I mean the principle which encourages or 
 allows the examination of those moral and religious doctrines, which we have 
 learnt, and which those who act consistently upon them find more and more satis- 
 factory, the examination of these (I mean for the purposes of acceptance or rejection) 
 by some external test, available to the person who has not so acted ; whether that 
 test be apparent expediency, or the prima facie appearance of Scripture, or the 
 general consent of non-religious men, or our private interpretation of the works of 
 the fathers, or any other whatever.' (' On Goode,' p. 75.) In other words, the 
 principle of making the intellect an arbiter of moral and religious truth, instead of 
 the conscience.
 
 42 
 
 the Christian community. Next, they must be resolved also 
 and expressed, in the terms introduced by modern science : 
 for more than one rival philosophy is in possession of the 
 field, giving its own decision upon all these points ; and in 
 order to enforce an intelligent protest against existing error, 
 the one eternal Truth must be stated as a function (or I may 
 say in the calculus) of these respective philosophies. 
 
 Moreover, it is of great importance that this shall be 
 done as soon as possible. If ever there were a period, when 
 great hope existed that sceptics or infidels might be caught, 
 as it were, in the rebound, that period is the present. A re- 
 action is in course, of the most lively and energetical character, 
 against the stiff, meagre, negative philosophy of the last 
 century. * The Protestant and infidel philosophies have had 
 full scope to exhibit themselves ; and the miserable issue to 
 which they are tending is displayed, with more or less dis- 
 tinctness, to numbers who have been nurtured in them, or 
 have been seduced by their shew of wisdom and depth. The 
 eyes of men seem turned, in a certain inexplicable manner, 
 towards the Catholic Church, as though expecting some 
 unknown good to come forth from her bosom, to help us 
 in our present extremity of both social and speculative per- 
 plexity.' But ' if she is to fulfil her appointed office, if she 
 is to be a haven to which those may flee for refuge, who are 
 wearied and exhausted with doubt and speculation ; if she is 
 to be a light, whither those may resort for guidance, who 
 have lost their way in the maze of human philosophies ; she 
 must be prepared with a view, on the relative position due 
 to the respective tenets of these philosophies ; she must be 
 enabled to satisfy inquirers, that the doctrines they have 
 therein learnt, and of whose partial truth at least they have 
 obtained a certain conviction, the methods of inquiry, the 
 principles of evidence, need not, so far as they are true, be 
 neglected (rather may be the more effectually cherished) 
 when philosophers shall receive her authority.' b 
 
 But it must not be dissembled, that there is also an exactly 
 opposite evil to be dreaded : if old philosophical systems are 
 b ' On Mill's Logic,' p. 426.
 
 43 
 
 breaking up, so also are old religious prepossessions. ' We 
 have been detained by circumstances, or, as I may say, frozen 
 in an intermediate state between Protestant principles and 
 their rightful inferences. Those circumstances are now, after 
 several centuries, dissolving ; and we are gradually gaining a 
 free course, and may choose our haven for ourselves.' If a 
 warmer and more persuasive form of religion be springing 
 up, calculated to attract the deserters from dry Bentham- 
 ism or Conservatism ; so is there, on the other hand, (as 
 implied a few pages back,) a more dazzling and specious phi- 
 losophy, which solicits very powerfully those who have 
 gradually or suddenly broken off from ' Anglicanism ' or 
 ' Establishmentism.' There is a spirit of free and independ- 
 ent inquiry, among the more intelligent and imaginative 
 in various quarters, which is as yet but little understood, 
 and which no one can contemplate without being led to 
 very serious musings and questionings. Nor is it necessary 
 to add, what is so very obvious, that independently of that 
 consideration, infinitely the most important, the rescuing of 
 their souls from fearful peril ; and over and above the very 
 extensive influence, which such intellectually powerful minds 
 always exercise over the coming generation ; considering only 
 our existing exigencies, there is no class of ministers whom 
 the whole Church at the present time so preeminently needs, 
 as men of original, sagacious, and philosophical minds, who 
 shall be really penetrated with the religious spirit. 
 
 I shall have to return to this subject again : here therefore 
 I will only add, that this consideration affords a still further 
 argument, for the incalculable importance of the intellectual 
 task I have advocated ; of digging, as it were, about the founda- 
 tions of the fabric of Catholic Truth, that the indestructible 
 composition of their materials, and exquisite suitableness of 
 their construction, may be made as clear to the eyes of men, as 
 have long been, to all fitted to discern them, the supernatural 
 harmony, proportion, and majesty of the fabric itself. Two 
 principles especially, closely and indissolubly connected with 
 each other, seem to me so vitally important at the present 
 c Newman's Justification, p. 141. edition of 1838.
 
 44 
 
 time, that I could wish their very names were familiar to us 
 all ' as household words :' the one, the absolute supremacy of 
 conscience in moral and religious questions, 1 * the other, the 
 high sacredness of hereditary religion. It will be indeed one 
 great object of the present work to enforce and illustrate, di- 
 rectly or indirectly, these great principles. For I am deeply 
 convinced, that if fully apprehended and honestly applied, 
 they will furnish a remedy for all our spiritual and intellectual 
 evils ; while should they be discredited or put out of view, 
 firm belief in Theism itself will not very long prevail, 
 with the more inquiring and philosophical. It may be added, 
 that when we consider how signally and conspicuously the 
 English Reformation transgressed those great principles, 
 (more so indeed than any other event on a similar scale in 
 the history of the world,) one part of the reason will be seen, 
 for the deep and burning hatred, with which some members 
 of our Church (including myself) regard that miserable 
 event. 6 
 
 d " A truth ... is implied all through Scripture as a basis on which its doctrine 
 rests, viz. that there is no necessary connexion ' between the intellectual and moral 
 principles of our nature ; that on religious subjects we may prove any thing, or over- 
 throw anything, and can arrive at the truth but accidentally, if we merely investigate 
 by what is commonly called Reason ; which is in such matters but tte instrument, 
 at best, in the hands of the legitimate judge, spiritual discernment.'''' Newman's Uni- 
 versity Sermons, p. 40 (preached in the year 1831). The two or three following 
 pages should be read. 
 
 e It always appears to me, that a great distinction ought to be made in this re- 
 spect between the English and the Foreign Reformation. In the latter, moral feel- 
 ing, partly healthy, in greater part perverted, seems to have been the principal agent 
 in forwarding the revolt. Under the first head would be included that zealous 
 and energetic protest against practical corruption, which, rightly regulated, is even 
 a high virtue ; and in regard to which, the example of St. Gregory VII. alone is 
 BO inestimably valuable, as shewing how fully the feeling may be exercised with- 
 out impairing the Christian duties of reverence and humility. Under the second 
 head we must class those tendencies (of various kinds) which led to the invention 
 and defence of Luther's doctrine of Justification. No one can suspect me of under- 
 ating the extreme sinfulness of that most hateful heresy, or if so, the fifth chapter 
 of the present work will fully vindicate me from the imputation ; still it does 
 appear that the Continental Reformers had submitted themselves to the discipline 
 under which God's Providence had placed them, until their conscience (most ill- 
 directed, I admit, and morally perverse, but still honestly) seemed to them to com- 
 mand its abandonment. But in England, I cannot find that, among the leaders 
 at least of the Reformation, there was even the allegation, that some doctrine in
 
 45 
 
 9. And now, in the last place, let us consider under some 
 few aspects, what" may be called the Church's political duties; 
 those duties, namely, which require that she should enlist 
 in her service a knowledge of political science, and the prac- 
 tical affairs of life. Now first, under our present circum- 
 stances, how can she teach aright that so essential Christian 
 duty, Almsgiving ; the right performance of which in its wide 
 extent is so extremely difficult of discovery, amidst the com- 
 plications of our social system, and the allegations of political 
 economy ? It would seem absolutely impossible that the 
 purest and most efficient Church should bring any vast and 
 powerful machinery to bear on existing misery, until we 
 obtain the facts, which constitute that misery, brought be- 
 fore us in a connected and scientific shape. I am not 
 now speaking of tendencies or remedies, that is a different 
 matter : I confine myself to what Mr. John Mill would call 
 the statics, not dynamics, of the case. That we, who are in 
 the midst of it, should be able to see, what the Angels now 
 are able to see, the connection of cause and effect, of action 
 and re-action, subsisting between the various branches of 
 
 the Ancient Theology was at variance with spiritual truths, which they deeply 
 cherished and prized. They objected indeed to the prevalent corruptions ; but 
 even against these I can find no trace whatever of that single-minded and honest 
 indignation, which animated, e. g. Luther : and their real grounds of offence seem 
 to have been mainly of a political order ; such as the interference (often I dare 
 say very vexatious) of a foreign court with English Ecclesiastical arrangements. 
 Their principle seems to have been, so far as they had any, that men may without 
 grievous sin, nay innocently, nay laudably, leave the system in which God has 
 placed them, without ever having honestly and heartily tried it, and thus spiritually 
 apprehended its real nature, from having intellectually compared its external ap- 
 pearance, (I mean the appearance it presents to those who have not tried it, and 
 therefore a very false appearance,) with some external standard : in other words 
 that not conscience but intellect is supreme judge of religious truth. It will be seen, 
 then, that I cannot at all agree with those who prefer the English Reformation to 
 the Foreign ; so far from it, I know no single movement in the Church, except 
 Arianism in the fourth century, which seems to me so wholly destitute of all claims 
 on our sympathy and regard, as the English Reformation. I am not here express- 
 ing any judgment on individual Reformers, but on certain plain and acknowledged 
 facts ; nor am I at all denying (nor yet maintaining) that the course of events here 
 has been divinely overruled to less disastrous results than among the Foreign 
 Protestants.
 
 46 
 
 commerce and trade ; with what phenomena in other di- 
 rections the fluctuation of each such branch is bound up ; 
 what are the contemporaneous circumstances throughout the 
 industrial world when the labourers are in a state of com- 
 petence, what when in a state of distress ; this is the object 
 of which I am now speaking. Nor do I see how the Church 
 can possibly give more than very distantly approximate and 
 altogether empirical rules, on the mode of performing the 
 great duties of almsgiving and personal attention to the 
 poor, until she have at least such a synoptical view of facts 
 as this in her possession. 
 
 Again, the education of the whole people is now allowed, 
 by very general consent, to be in itself the legitimate office of 
 the Church. But to perform this duty aright, she must have 
 a very extensive and accurate knowledge of the various 
 callings, which she must prepare her children to fulfil. I do 
 not of course mean that she is to teach them land-surveying, 
 or book-keeping by double entry ; this of course could 
 always be done, when necessary, by special instructors : but 
 she must know the peculiar dangers, not only of a spiritual 
 but also of an intellectual kind, to which their way of life is 
 likely to expose them, in order to prepare them against their 
 influence, and give them that special discipline of which they 
 stand in need. Let us take an instance, that we may the 
 more precisely fix our ideas. 
 
 Suppose that the increasing tendency of modern civiliza- 
 tion is truly expressed in the following passage, taken from 
 a French political writer ; surely an educational body is in 
 duty bound most carefully to ascertain the real extent of the 
 evil, meditate on the causes which produce it, and devise 
 deep and powerful remedies which may be applied to it, by 
 anticipation, in training the young. 
 
 " The increasing speciality of men's habitual ideas and daily re- 
 lations must inevitably tend, in every class, to blunt more and more 
 the understanding as a whole, while it sharpens it without cessation 
 in one particular direction ; and more and more to separate off 
 private interest from a public welfare, which becomes continually
 
 47 
 
 less visible and direct. In the mean time, the social affections are 
 gradually confined to men of the same profession, and more and 
 more estranged from all other classes, from a want of any sufficient 
 similarity of manners and thoughts. Thus it is that the very 
 principle, which alone has rendered possible the development and 
 extension of the general society, threatens, under another aspect, 
 to decompose it into a multitude of corporations, possessed of no 
 common bond of union, and which hardly seems to belong to the 
 same species. So also it is, that the first elementary cause of the 
 start and gradual growth of human art, seems destined at last to 
 produce those minds, very clever in one particular, and monstrously 
 incapable under all other points of view, which are now-a-days too 
 common among the most civilized nations, where they excite uni- 
 versal astonishment. If a just complaint has been often made 
 that, in the material order of things, the workman is occupied ex- 
 clusively during his whole life in making the handles of knives or 
 pins' heads, sound philosophy ought not, at bottom, to regret less 
 what happens in the intellectual order ; the exclusive and long- 
 continued employment of a human brain on the resolution of certain 
 equations, or the classification of certain insects. The moral effect, 
 in either case, is unhappily very similar ; it is an essential tendency 
 to inspire most deplorable indifference for the whole course of human 
 affairs, so only that there may be supplied, without ceasing, equations 
 to solve, and pins to manufacture. Although this sort of human 
 automatism constitutes fortunately only an extreme case of the dis- 
 persive influence of civilization, still its realization, already too fre- 
 quent, and continually more imminent, should make us attach a real 
 scientific importance to the appreciation of such a case ; as one 
 eminently fitted to characterize the general tendency of society, 
 and to shew in a more lively manner the indispensable necessity of 
 its permanent repression." 
 
 The writer himself goes on to say, that the only means for 
 such a repression would be a Society, holding precisely the 
 same relation to the civil government, which the Church held 
 in the Middle Ages ; though his irreligious opinions un- 
 happily forbid him to consider the Christian Church at 
 present, as capable of becoming such a Society. It is very 
 plain, if the description I have quoted be acknowledged as 
 on the whole very accurate, that nothing could oppose so 
 powerful a check to the lamentable tendency in question,
 
 4.8 
 
 as education really based on religion ; and that it would 
 be incumbent on the Church, if performing her rightful 
 part in society, to adapt her education to meet this evil 
 among others. But with how great power of thought, and 
 how wide a knowledge of practical life, must some who work 
 in her service be endowed, if she is really to devise a satis- 
 factory remedy ! 
 
 Then again, her close relation to her children by no means 
 ceases, when they go forth into the busy world : she must still 
 set before them plain duties, and warn them against plain sins. 
 Now partly from this 'dispersion' and 'specialization' just 
 mentioned, and partly from other causes, so it happens that 
 almost every different trade or profession seems to have its 
 peculiar maxims, and generally immoral ones. There has 
 arisen throughout England a certain (to use a happy name 
 which has been given it) ' class-morality.' But if the Church 
 is really to possess a sound moral theology, and inculcate 
 precepts based upon it, it is included as part of this that she 
 should have a view, and should proclaim it, on the moral 
 value of these maxims; that she should authoritatively 
 declare what sort of causes a barrister ought to plead, 
 and what sort of books a bookseller ought to sell. Such 
 questions as these are very far from being among the 
 number, which are left more wisely to individual conscience 
 and responsibility : there are general principles involved in 
 them, which admit of being stated with the most perfect 
 accuracy ; and general rules, which admit of being applied in 
 every particular case. These principles and rules the Church 
 is bound to proclaim in men's ears, * whether they will hear 
 or whether they will forbear :' and though the number of 
 those who ' forbear' will at first very greatly preponderate 
 in due course of time the most salutary results will certainly 
 follow, not less as regards the practice of the many, than as 
 regards the conscience of the few. Now in order rightly to 
 adjust these principles and state these rules, to how con- 
 siderable an extent must practical and secular experience be 
 exercised in the service of the Church ! 
 
 And now to speak of her highest political duty, her 
 demeanour towards the civil power. In addressing an indi-
 
 49 
 
 vidual, as I implied a few pages back, the Church will put 
 before him general principles, and the application of those 
 principles to what may be called his general circumstances ; 
 e. g. as being rich or poor, a merchant, or a landed pro- 
 prietor, or a physician : moreover, individual acts, which are 
 plain and deadly sins, she will punish by her inherent power, 
 in denying him absolution until his repentance and promise 
 of amendment. But the infinitely various particular applica- 
 tion of true principles, to particular circumstances and events ; 
 that immensely large class of moral acts, on which it is impos- 
 sible for one man to judge what is right in his neighbour's 
 case ; all this she will leave mainly to his individual responsi- 
 bility and sense of right. God has made men infinitely 
 distinct from each other in character and in circumstances ; 
 His Church must not stifle their free growth, or attempt to 
 mould them into a stiff uniformity. Now her addresses to 
 the civil power will, I conceive, be of the same kind. The 
 very idea of attempting to draw into her own hands the 
 actual administration of state affairs, would be no less insane 
 as a matter of Christian policy, than utterly indefensible as a 
 matter of Christian duty. Nor did I ever hear of a single 
 passage in history, in which there was so much as the most 
 distant appearance of such a desire on the part of the 
 Church. 8 But she will feel it her duty, to proclaim aloud 
 the general application of Christian principles to political 
 government ; and plain undeniable sins, such as a flagrantly 
 unjust war, or a measure conspicuously oppressive to the poor, 
 she will fearlessly denounce. Against sinful government, of 
 a less glaring and overt character, she will not be sparing in 
 her secret but urgent remonstrances ; nor will she consider it 
 any derogation whatever from her proper functions, to direct 
 her children in the wise employment of such constitutional 
 privileges as may be entrusted to them, with the view of 
 obtaining amelioration or redress. The office of protecting 
 the poor against wrong is especially her own ; nor will she 
 consider any one of her attributes more noble, precious, or 
 
 8 It is of course evident, that the circumstance of an individual ecclesiastic acting 
 ;is a king's minister, is a thing loto caelo different. 
 
 E
 
 50 
 
 inalienable. But, on the other hand, should the civil power 
 appear actuated by a real desire to govern religiously and 
 well, she will herself set the example to all her children of 
 the most dutiful and reverential loyalty. She will still re- 
 serve it, as her high privilege, to represent in detail a'nd 
 with earnestness the distresses and sufferings of the poor, to 
 those governors who, as she believes, are so willing and 
 desirous to alleviate them ; but will, in that case, submit her 
 judgment, on the appropriate remedies, to the bearers of the 
 temporal sword. 
 
 But though an ideal Church will never aim at any po- 
 litical position whatever, but occupy herself wholly in per- 
 forming the various duties of her office, it must be expected, 
 in matter of fact, that her ordinary condition will be one 
 of opposition to those high in worldly station. For her 
 tenderness and loving-kindness will most effectually retain 
 the affections of the poor, while her plain protests against 
 evil will affront and irritate the powerful. ' The world is 
 strong : men of the world have arms of the world ; they 
 have swords, they have armies, they have prisons, they have 
 chains, they have wild passions. The Church has none of 
 these, and yet it claims a right to rule, direct, rebuke, 
 exhort, denounce, condemn. It claims the obedience of the 
 powerful ; it confronts the haughty ; it places itself across the 
 path of the wilful ; it undertakes the defence of the poor ; 
 it accepts the gifts of the world, and becomes involved in their 
 stewardship ; and yet it is at the mercy of these said powerful, 
 haughty, and wilful men, to ill-treat and to spoil. Can it be 
 otherwise, but that a kingdom which claims so much, which 
 professes so much, yet can resist so little ; which irritates the 
 world's pride, which inflames its cupidity, which interferes 
 with its purposes, which terrifies its conscience, yet does 
 nothing in its defence but threaten ; which deals with unseen 
 ill and unseen good, whose only arms are what an unbelieving 
 world calls priestcraft is it not certain that such a kingdom 
 will be the prey and sport of the world ?' h 
 
 10. I have now gone through sufficiently for my purpose, 
 
 h Newman's Sermons on Subjects of the Day, pp. 293, 4.
 
 51 
 
 though most insufficiently as compared with the mighty 
 theme itself, some of the principal positions which would be 
 assumed by an ideal Church, were such to exist among us at 
 the present time. In most cases, I think, what I have said 
 will be seen at once to follow, from that fundamental view of 
 the Church's office with which we started; where the con- 
 nection was not so obvious, I have endeavoured to state suffi- 
 ciently the reasons for what I have said. And now I will 
 make one remark ; viz. that even those who may dissent 
 most widely from Catholic principles, will see, by what has 
 gone before, that those who for some years past have been 
 industriously advocating the revival of the idea of a Church 
 as the only remedy for existing evils, have not at all events 
 raised a merely vague, thoughtless, clamour; that at least 
 there is a very definite meaning in such a sentiment, whether 
 the sentiment itself be considered true or otherwise. Some 
 years ago, after a most interesting and touching account of 
 the religious state of the manufacturing poor, it was said : 
 
 " Nothing strange has happened to us. No church ever yet 
 succeeded in retaining the allegiance of the people without a larger 
 and stronger, more searching and more elastic apparatus, than is 
 ours. The extent of the popular apostacy in our days is indeed 
 wonderful ; but not more wonderful than the degeneracy of the 
 Church's present ways and means. Christianity did once wear 
 that very guise which, while it was good for the rich, was also of 
 that very sort which most appeals to the prejudices and sympathies 
 of the poor. It was once a religion of visible self-denial and 
 holiness, that willingly took on itself the sorrows which to the 
 multitude are inevitable, and lightened their sufferings by its own 
 pain and privation. It was not once that umbratile thing, that 
 feeble exotic, shut up in churches, parsonages, and parlours ; but 
 walked abroad, made the multitude both the receivers, the col- 
 lectors, and distributors of her bounties ; compelled cities to wear 
 her livery, and dared to inherit the earth. She once provided 
 homes and forms of operation for the heroic virtues, for lofty aims, 
 and firm resolves, making their torrents flow in the manifold 
 channels of mercy, instead of suffering them to waste the land with 
 a baleful magnificence. She once gave names, and methods, and 
 
 E 2
 
 52 
 
 ancient sanctions, and solemn order, and venerable holiness, and 
 every quality men love and obey, to the pious bearers of spiritual 
 and temporal aid to the ignorant and poor ; as even the many 
 sacred titles, which our streets, our gates, and our bridges are still 
 suffered to bear, do testify. She once did so combine and temper 
 these works of benevolence with other holy employments, with 
 frequent daily prayer, and oft-heard choral praise, that the social 
 acts of temporal and ghostly relief seemed no separate adventitious 
 work, no petty craft of artificial goodness, no capricious adventure 
 or trick of interference, but rather flowing from a something holy, 
 natural, and complete in all its parts. She once had officers and 
 employments for all, that all, however humble in rank, or wealth, 
 or mental culture, might be personally interested in the Church's 
 work. She once could claim her own from every rank, teach all 
 her holy characters, make all acknowledge her marks and passports 
 of sacredness and authority. We cannot bring back those days 
 again ; who would wish that man should have this power ? but 
 still they may come back to us. The times are dark, and a curtain 
 of gloom hangs over the future; but on its dark face we may 
 discern brightening in prismatic hue a vision of past beauty, the 
 Holy Catholic Church." a 
 
 a British Critic, No. Ivi. pp. 370, 1.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 IS IT UNDUTIFUL TO THE ENGLISH CHURCH TO AIM AT 
 SUCH AN IDEAL ? 
 
 1 . IF it be maintained that an ideal of the Church, agreeing 
 in substance with that drawn out in the last chapter, is not 
 the highest and the most fitting to be aimed at, there can be 
 no fairer point on which to join issue ; and any argument 
 addressed to it shall meet with my most attentive consider- 
 ation. All that concerns my present purpose, however, is to 
 say, that such was my own view during the time I wrote in 
 the British Critic, and to submit (which will I think hardly 
 be denied), that the conception of such an ideal is at least 
 not extravagant nor irrational. But if any one should 
 acknowledge it to be higher than any which he can oppose 
 to it, but should accuse me of disloyalty to my own Church, 
 because it is seen, on its very statement, to follow the Roman 
 not the English pattern, I would beg such an one to recon- 
 sider the latter opinion, as it is a very important one in the 
 argument. If on reconsideration he withdraw it, the charge 
 of disloyalty, of course, falls with it ; but if he repeat it, (and 
 I confess that it is an opinion in which I myself agree,) then 
 let me observe that it is he and not I, who has given a most 
 unassailable reason for preferring the Roman to the English 
 system ; a reason wholly untouched by any amount of practi- 
 cal corruption which so many Englishmen attribute to the 
 Roman Church : viz. that Rome has preserved in the main, 
 and we have not, what is so inestimably precious, the high
 
 54 
 
 and true idea of a Church ; that whatever may be the present 
 lukewarmness of her children, (of which for myself I really 
 cannot judge, nor have ever expressed an opinion,) whenever 
 zeal, energy, and piety revive, they can act immediately on 
 the Church by means of the system they find, while among 
 us they must begin by attacking the system they find. In no 
 one of my articles have I expressed or implied any compari- 
 son more pointed than this ; which yet, as I have shewn, is 
 necessarily implied in that very objection, which is most cer- 
 tain to be brought. If this is to be disloyal to the English 
 Church, the supposed objector is as disloyal as I. And I 
 consider that Mr. Palmer should have attempted to prove 
 this, not taken it for granted. He has shewn, by unanswer- 
 able evidence, what I can hardly fancy any body reading one 
 of my articles without discovering, and what on one occasion 
 I have asserted in terms, viz. that on a great number of 
 points I conceive that the English Church would act wisely 
 in making Rome her model ; whereas he has merely assumed, 
 what was the only real point at issue, that such an opinion 
 argues want of patriotism in an English Churchman. Yet in 
 parallel cases we find the very opposite held universally. 
 No one would call an American of the present day unpatri- 
 otic, because he very much indeed prefers the state of things 
 which existed before the revolt, and because he is anxious to 
 do his utmost in restoring, if possible, constitutional mon- 
 archy. An Englishman is not patriotic, in that he believes 
 and propagates the belief of one Englishman beating ten 
 Frenchmen; but in that he makes England the one great 
 sphere and centre of his energies ; loves to study the feelings, 
 habits, opinions of Englishmen, and brings whatever know- 
 ledge he possesses of other countries to bear upon this his 
 favourite subject of thought ; is more pained by the vices 
 and more delighted by the virtues of Englishmen, than by 
 those of French, Germans, or Italians. I am not attempting 
 to decide, how far we are justified in allowing patriotism 
 to supersede universal philanthropy : all acknowledge that 
 we are in some degree, and all acknowledge that we are 
 not entirely ; but so far forth as we are patriotic, so far have
 
 55 
 
 we such sentiments as I just described. On the other hand, 
 to intoxicate ourselves in insular pride, to hug ourselves 
 in the thought of England's real and supposed excellencies, 
 to be blind to her failings, and to believe, even in the ut- 
 most simplicity of heart, that she is the envy of surrounding 
 nations and eighth wonder of the world, this is no real 
 patriotism ; it is at bottom but base pride and vulgar 
 nationality. 
 
 Again, to continue the same illustration, considering the 
 tendency always and every where to national pride, there 
 must ever be extreme danger in using habitually an inflated, 
 boastful, way of speaking concerning our country's great- 
 ness. But if the very besetting fault of our country, the 
 very fault against which all our feelings of patriotism calls us 
 to contend, be that very national pride, how infinitely stronger 
 the case becomes ! And to speak plainly, believing as I most 
 firmly do, that ever since the schism of the sixteenth century, 
 the English Church has been swayed by a spirit of arrogance, 
 self-contentment, and self-complacency, resembling rather an 
 absolute infatuation than the imbecility of ordinary pride, 
 which has stifled her energies, crippled her resources, frus- 
 trated all the efforts of her most faithful children to raise her 
 from her existing degradation, I for one, however humble my 
 position, will not be responsible for uttering one word, or im- 
 plying one opinion, which shall tend to foster this outrageous 
 delusion. The disease has been too deeply seated to yield to 
 ordinary remedies : experience has shewn that mere hints 
 and implications, especially when united with disclaimers of 
 superior admiration for other systems, have wholly failed in 
 their objects : and even had the British Critic during its two 
 last years performed no other service, it has at least succeeded 
 in this ; in impressing on the most careless and inobservant 
 minds this fact, that certain members of the Church of Eng- 
 land, be they more or fewer, do raise their voices in indig- 
 nant protest against the system and spirit which so exten- 
 sively energize within her, and do wish to raise the sympa- 
 thies of her many holy and devoted children to some higher 
 object, than the maintenance and praise of that system.
 
 56 
 
 Still an objection has been taken, to the tone in which my 
 humble yet zealous protests have been made. A word has 
 been used in a private communication, which I have not seen 
 in print, but which, I suppose, expresses the sort of feeling : 
 it has been said, then, that they appear couched not in 
 sorrowful but in ' spiteful ' terms. I think I perceive what 
 that element is in them, which has given rise to such a feel- 
 ing, and I humbly trust that it is neither wrong nor unbe- 
 coming. 
 
 In the first place, most certainly it does not shew that 
 what appear to me the corruptions in question give me no 
 pain. For years, consciously or not, and in various shapes 
 not recognised by me at the time as modifications of the 
 same symptoms, had my feelings been oppressed and (I may 
 really say) tortured, by this heavy, unspiritual, unelastic, 
 prosaic, unfeeling, unmeaning Protestant spirit ; all this time 
 my ears were stunned with the din of self-laudation, with 
 the words ' pure and apostolical,' ' evangelical truth and 
 apostolical order,' and the like most miserable watchwords : 
 those, from whom I learned at one moment some high and 
 elevating truth, at the next crushed and overwhelmed me by 
 some respectful mention of our existing system ; with the 
 single exception of Mr. Froude's work, no external response 
 could I find to my ceaseless and ever-increasing inward re- 
 pugnance, against the habits of thought and action prevalent 
 in our Church. At length I was able to fix, with some 
 definiteness, on the particular cause of my annoyance ; and 
 soon afterwards (in writing two pamphlets three years ago) 
 I had the opportunity of speaking out. To say that the 
 hearty and energetic tone, with which I did speak out, indi- 
 cates my real feeling of sorrow to have been shallow and 
 trifling, is an allegation which I will meet by a parallel 
 case. Let us suppose any one to have been afflicted by 
 some most painful illness for many weeks, but to have 
 been compelled to restrain his outcries hitherto, because of 
 dangerous illness in the next house : the impediment being 
 removed, he cries out with no subdued tone, and with great 
 relief of mind ; on which he is accosted by a stranger with
 
 57 
 
 the observation, " Sir, your pain really cannot be very se- 
 rious, or you would not cry out with so good a heart, and 
 with such evident satisfaction." 
 
 And, secondly, I trust that allowing myself to speak in 
 such a tone, was not in itself wrong or unbecoming. When 
 the evils to which one desires to draw attention, are facts 
 whose existence has hitherto been unknown, all men's natural 
 feelings conspire with the obvious rule of right, and the com- 
 munication is made in a sorrowful and subdued spirit. But 
 when the facts have been known from the first, but not re- 
 cognised to be evils, then I conceive that words of zealous, 
 indignant, declamatory, remonstrance are generally allow- 
 able, and are often the most fitting of all possible methods. 
 
 2. It will be said, perhaps, that various things I have 
 written have tended to cloud with perplexities many an 
 humble and retiring spirit, who wished but to know his duty 
 and to do it ; but was filled with misgiving and alarm, at 
 the strange and fierce denunciations he found in the British 
 Critic. If this were true, great cause would there be for 
 sorrow and repentance ; but that at least the duty of guard- 
 ing, to the best of my power, against such a result, had not 
 escaped my notice, the following extract, from the second 
 article I wrote, will sufficiently evince. 
 
 " In how many quarters do we not hear, and in how many do 
 there exist without being heard of, humble and teachable disciples 
 of Christ, who have but one wish, to be taught the truth that they 
 may follow it ; but who shrink back in dismay from the ' strife of 
 tongues,' so busy and restless in all quarters of the religious world, 
 and seem almost to look in vain for some intelligible guidance, 
 amidst the innumerable confident and conflicting pretensions to 
 which 'our unhappy divisions' have given birth in these later times. 
 Nor is it from one quarter alone that these troubles proceed : one 
 person has been taught by our Catechism and other similar instruc- 
 tion to aim, by God's grace, at ' living a righteous and sober life,' 
 to ' learn and labour truly to get his own living,' to make advances 
 towards ' believing in God, fearing and loving Him with all his 
 soul and strength ;' and is told that all this ' avails him nothing/
 
 58 
 
 nay, less than nothing, since it deadens the conscience, unless he 
 has been conscious of certain definite feelings and impressions, 
 which are the real mark of God's presence. Another has been 
 brought up in fear and shrinking indefinable aversion from every 
 thing connected with Roman theology, and hears of certain new 
 teachers who have come forward to say that the foreign churches, 
 whatever their practical corruptions, have retained many great 
 truths which we in our practical corruptions have lost ; or has been 
 brought up to think of our separation from Rome as a ground for 
 triumph and just thankfulness, and hears of its being spoken of as 
 at once a punishment and a sin ; nay, hears of serious and devoted 
 members of his own communion praying daily for the reunion of 
 Christendom, as the great remedy for our evils and distresses. 
 
 Now in respect to that one of these two classes of teachers, for 
 whom we profess ourselves especially interested, if it be imagined 
 in any quarter that those, who have felt it their duty to make such 
 statements, are insensible to the misery of such cases as we have 
 described, great injustice is done them. It is highly improbable of 
 course, that in so extensive a movement several persons may not 
 have said harsh and unkind things, have thoughtlessly suggested 
 scruples and doubts to the humble believer, or unnecessarily shocked 
 prejudices which are the result of very docility and reverence ; and, 
 of course, so far as this has been done, individuals have laid up for 
 themselves materials for deep repentance and humiliation. But 
 let it be considered, in defence of both the one class and the other, 
 both of those calling themselves Evangelicals and of those called 
 by their opponents Papists, whether at last it can have been possible 
 to rouse our Church from what all parties seem to consider the 
 carelessness and worldliness of the last century, without causing 
 her to pass through perhaps more than one stage of great trouble 
 and anxiety : whether it be not with societies as with individuals, 
 that sharp pangs and trials are in the way, which leads from the 
 lethargy of sloth and self-ignorance to the quiet and assured peace 
 of an awakened conscience 
 
 How then do we apply our principle ? a private individual has, by 
 whatever means, the circumstance brought home to him of the extent 
 and uncertainty of religious controversy at the present time ; he 
 becomes anxious and excited, suspicious alternately of the doctrines 
 which he has been taught, and of those which are newly suggested to
 
 59 
 
 him ; this at least he earnestly desires to be told, what is his duty 
 in consequence of having heard them. We answer, his duty is with 
 himself ': to leave the course of simple obedience for that of argument 
 and conscious investigation, is to search for truth by abandoning 
 the very path which leads to it ; for it is not by inquiry and specu- 
 lation, but by the practice of good, that truth is attained. Let him 
 be led the more watchfully to guard his own progress in humility, 
 meekness, purity, self-restraint ; let him dwell the more lovingly 
 on those good examples which, wherever he is placed, may probably 
 be brought to his notice from among all the existing religious 
 parties ; let him look on himself with suspicion, on others with con- 
 fiding love. Then let him pray habitually, and that not with formal 
 and lifeless devotion, but eagerly and from the heart, for gradual 
 guidance into the truth wherever it may be. Let him, as ability 
 and opportunity exist, meditate on Holy Scripture, with the view of 
 discovering what light may be thrown upon its inspired language, 
 by the new faculties he is acquiring wherewith to apprehend it. In 
 proportion as he is honestly and actively following such a course of 
 religious action, he may with a safe conscience dismiss from his 
 thoughts at once any religious sentiment, which meets him from 
 whatever quarter, should it at present shock his conscience or jar 
 against his moral feelings ; or rather indeed he is bound as a point 
 of duty to dismiss it, to strive against the intrusion of perplexities 
 arising from it, as he would against any confessedly wicked 
 thoughts. It may be, if he be true to God's guidance, that the 
 time will come when some doctrine so dismissed will return to him 
 as sent from God, and as commending itself to his whole nature ; 
 when he f who thought its voice strange and harsh at first, will 
 wonder he could ever so have deemed of sounds so musical and 
 thrilling.' a 
 
 We are not speaking as though there were any certainty, 
 that even by these means an individual will be in fact led into 
 the whole truth ; this depends, as before observed, not only on 
 the inherent excellence of the true religion, not only on the moral 
 condition of the recipient, but also on the clearness with which it 
 is brought before him. But were it only for the intellectual pre- 
 judices with which each one of us has been educated, it would be 
 impossible to form any judgment whatever, in the case of this man 
 or that, how far such may be the case; and, in addition to this, 
 
 a Newman's Prophetical Office, &c., Introduction.
 
 60 
 
 surely no one, Anglican or Roman, can maintain, that any where 
 in England is Catholicism exhibited so purely and genuinely before 
 the world, as to force on ordinary minds the perception of its true 
 character. This then cannot be promised ; what can be promised 
 is, that in proportion as the inquirer pursues such a course of conduct 
 as we have sketched, the real doctrines on which his spiritual life 
 is supported will be, so far as they go, true and sound ; and his 
 conscience may be in perfect tranquillity and stayed upon God, 
 considering that if ever there were a case of what theologians call 
 ' invincible ignorance,' such a case is his." 
 
 It is indeed observable, that the only two passages quoted 
 by Mr. Palmer from my own articles, as tending to shake the 
 faith of humble Christians in our own Church, are found in 
 the British Critic, in the immediate neighbourhood of similar 
 statements. One of them (Palmer, p. 53,) is close to the 
 passage I have just cited ; and the other (Palmer, p. 51,) to 
 a paragraph (' On Arnold's Sermons,' pp. 334, 5,) of a similar 
 tendency, which I shall have to quote hereafter. If my 
 readers would take the trouble of looking through my arti- 
 cles, they would be surprised to find how much there is 
 of similar language. For instance, two of them (on Mr. 
 Goode and on ' Church Authority ') are, to a great extent, 
 taken up with the methodical expression of the principle, 
 implied in the citation I just made. A statement, which 
 seems to have startled many more than any thing else I have 
 said, is my defence of the language used towards the Blessed 
 Virgin by St. Bonaventure and St. Bernard: in that very 
 place I take care to say, " so long as" the professor of ' high- 
 Church' principles " acts carefully up to the principles he has 
 been taught, and in so acting feels himself in no way attracted 
 towards these ways, so long it would be a plain sin in him 
 to resort to them."* In an article on the ' Church and Syna- 
 gogue,' which, as a whole, has been considered by many to 
 be more Roman in tendency than any other, I have also ex- 
 pressly observed, " if persons, who keep their consciences 
 in a pure and healthy state by attempting a consistent and 
 uniform obedience to God's commandments, feel that a new 
 
 a ' On St. Athanasius,' p. 410.
 
 61 
 
 doctrine, proposed to them on its own grounds, threatens 
 rather to chain them earthwards and fetter their spiritual 
 development, than afford it scope and direction; we know 
 not how any amount of external evidence can justify them in 
 receiving it." b Moreover, in the same article, I have taken 
 especial pains to shew, that " we are defending a class of 
 doctrines, which have the distinct sanction both of our 
 Church's formularies and of our ' standard divines'." 
 
 All this, I really think, proves sufficiently, that I have not 
 at least wantonly and carelessly outraged men's most sacred 
 and cherished prepossessions : persons may still think that 
 I have been injudicious, but they can hardly think that I 
 have been cruel. Moreover, a great deal must depend on 
 the seriousness of the evil, which appeared to me to require 
 a remedy. No doubt the appearance of a slight disorder or 
 unhealthy symptom, on the surface of our Church, could 
 never justify such extreme and decided language as that 
 which I have adopted ; but believing, as I do from my in- 
 nermost heart, that our system labours under no superficial 
 disease, but is corrupt to its very core ; that " the whole 
 head is sick and the whole heart faint ;" that the generally 
 received form of religion among us is " another Gospel, 
 which is not another," for it is no Gospel at all ; believing 
 all this, it was a direct duty to use language, which under 
 other circumstances might have justly appeared wanton, 
 cruel, and extravagant. But it is plain that principles, once 
 lost, could never by possibility be recovered, if it were ad- 
 mitted as a final bar against earnest discussion of their va- 
 lue, that incidental scandal may possibly be given in the 
 course of such discussions. How can those be defended, 
 who, half a century ago, called on all Christians to believe, 
 that, unless they were conscious of a sudden conversion, they 
 could not hope for heaven ? Or those, who, at a later period, 
 called on their brethren at once to take up an opinion, 
 founded on arguments from the Fathers, that Presbyterians 
 are not within the Christian Covenant? And both these 
 
 *> ' On the Synagogue and the Church,' p. 7. 
 c Ibid. p. 5.
 
 62 
 
 classes seemed by their language to imply, that it was the 
 duty of 'high and low, rich and poor,' at once to receive 
 these respective theologies, so utterly astounding and revolt- 
 ing to all their early prepossessions ; whereas in my own case 
 I continually went out of my way to urge on them, that it 
 would be absolutely sinful if they did so ; and that their 
 duty was to act conscientiously on their existing principles. 
 
 But we shall see the whole matter in a clearer light, by 
 observing a mode of action, which has ever obtained in the 
 Catholic Church. ' The Church's system alone assigns its 
 rightful place to intellect and practical ability : she uses 
 them, hallows them in using, and yet assigns to them a place 
 far lower than the highest. And for what great purpose has 
 the Church always employed these two classes of character ? 
 For this ; to guard in peace and tranquillity from the world 
 without (the one from its rude violence, the other from its 
 restless questionings ; the one by the barrier of spiritual power 
 and the exercise of political wisdom, the other by that of 
 well-digested, subtle, and deep statements of doctrine) the 
 weak and uneducated poor in Christ; or again, the pure- 
 minded and contemplative few, whom their very protectors 
 feel to be called to a higher and more heavenly lot than them- 
 selves. ,' d 
 
 Putting aside the question of ecclesiastical power, which 
 does not here concern us ; let us consider what will be the 
 place, held by thoughtful and argumentative Christians in 
 a corrupt Church, corresponding to that held by them in 
 a pure one. It is evident that there is a certain class of men, 
 called by their peculiar endowments to the office of sifting 
 principles, classifying phenomena, analyzing and deducing 
 truths, and the like. These may be considered as making 
 up a certain community by themselves, and separate from 
 others ; so that each one of them, in dealing with the rest, 
 may do the most important service, by comparing statements ; 
 putting forward plainly the ultimate ends he may wish ; 
 enforcing, by means of argument, the desirableness and 
 practicability of those ends ; and, with those who agree with 
 
 d ' On the Synagogue and the Church,' p. 39.
 
 63 
 
 him, concerting plans for success in their joint desire. But 
 the multitude of Christians is called to a far nobler and 
 more heavenly lot. Infinitely nobler surely it is, to believe, 
 and act, and grow in faith and knowledge by action, than 
 to criticise, doubt, compare, argue. Let us call these two 
 classes, for the present purpose and to make my reasoning 
 clearer, by the respective names of the ' scientific' and the 
 ' favoured' class. 
 
 To revere at a humble distance the more heavenly spe- 
 cimen of the latter class, is the highest honour and truest 
 wisdom of the former ; and the whole of that class must be 
 regarded with respectful and affectionate interest, by ' scien- 
 tific ' men ; who should acknowledge it as their very vocation 
 to labour for their spiritual welfare. No conduct then can be 
 more inexcusable or more unchristian, than to address these 
 ' little ones of Christ ' in terms calculated, in any the slightest 
 degree, to do violence to their prepossessions, or pain their 
 best and purest feelings. ' Scientific' men, who desire to 
 draw these others in the right direction, will apply them- 
 selves to the task of pressing on their attention precepts, 
 which, when stated, cannot but have the full sanction of their 
 conscience, but which had not been sufficiently considered ; 
 or of putting before them doctrines fitted to satisfy spiritual 
 aspirations, which have been already excited and are wan- 
 dering, as it were, in search of an object; or again, to evoke 
 for the first time that very craving, which they will also 
 satisfy. Such is the course by which these humble souls, so 
 dear to Christ, and with the ' offending ' of whom He has con- 
 nected so fearful a sentence, will be gradually trained towards 
 the full truth. Such is the course, which, if we were wise, we 
 should all regard with a holy covetousness, as by far the happiest 
 and most blessed path, even though we may feel ourselves called 
 by God (in consequence of the faculties He has given us) to 
 serve Him in a lower and more earthly position. Now I have 
 published two little works, directly addressed to this class ; 
 one called ' Questions for Self-Examination,' addressed to all 
 Christians ; another called ' Questions and Answers on the 
 Church Catechism,' addressed to Christians who are prepared
 
 64 
 
 by education to accept ' high Church' doctrine. And I am 
 sure no one can possibly accuse me, in either of those pub- 
 lications, of introducing one single remark, which would tend 
 to unsettle or distress the mind of either of those classes. 
 And what is true of those little works, is true of a work of 
 far higher value and scope ; published by one more fitted for 
 such a task, and who also has been accused of disturbing the 
 minds of men by his articles in the British Critic : I mean, 
 ' Devotions on the Holy Communion.' A more salutary, edi- 
 fying, and comforting book for members of our Church trained 
 in ' high Church' principles it is impossible to conceive. 
 
 From what has been said, it is sufficiently clear how 
 eminently valuable, or rather indispensably necessary, are 
 the services of this ' scientific' class, and how incalculable the 
 importance of indoctrinating them with Catholic sentiments. 
 Were a large body of such men to exist ; on the one hand 
 deeply penetrated by Catholic Truth, and on the other hand 
 endowed with a most tender and considerate regard, a most 
 deep and accurate knowledge, of the educations, preposses- 
 sions, tendencies, desires, habits of ordinary men, one by 
 one ; soon, by their united and well-devised efforts, would the 
 holy flame spread from soul to soul ; soon would all serious 
 Christians begin to see their real and deep unity of feeling, 
 and once more to ' love one another.' And now, if any one 
 thing is clear in the whole world, it is clear that it was to 
 this object that I directed my articles in the British Critic. 
 The style of writing, so argumentative, methodical, and un- 
 rhetorical ; the language so harsh, dry, and repulsive, as I have 
 continually heard it called ; all this shews that I addressed my 
 words to those who professed argument and analysis, and not to 
 those who take the higher path of following their wwanalyzed 
 conscience. It seems really too much, that men should claim 
 at once the right of reasoning, and the privilege of intellectual 
 weakness ; that they should bring to % bear, with great pomp 
 and elaboration, a series of patristic or Anglican arguments ; 
 and then, when they are unable to parry the reply made to 
 them, should, as it were, plead their infancy, and claim the 
 prerogative of being shocked and distressed. Let them either
 
 65 
 
 form their opinions by argument, and meet the British Critic 
 in argument ; or else let them be contented with following 
 their conscience, and not express a judgment on matters, 
 which, by their own confession, they cannot understand. As 
 I said in a passage I just quoted, they may know that various 
 doctrines are, as yet, wholly beyond the range of, and wholly 
 unattractive to, their spiritual nature ; and this is quite 
 sufficient to determine their conduct. But when they speak 
 of them as superstitious, idolatrous, and I know not what, 
 (unless indeed they merely profess to take up such an 
 opinion on the authority of teachers in whom they repose 
 confidence, which course, if avowed, would be altogether 
 defensible ; but otherwise) they assume the power of appre- 
 ciating religious tenets, in cases where they have not yet 
 morally apprehended either the tenets themselves or their 
 contradictories. But to do this, (I will not say in any ade- 
 quate measure, but,) even in such measure as to avoid the 
 most extravagant misconceptions, requires intellectual power 
 of the rarest and most exalted order. And if they possess 
 such power, we have a right to call on them not to use the 
 language of which I speak, without being able to place before 
 us a sufficient defence of it, drawn up in accurate and me- 
 thodical expression. 
 
 It will not, I trust, be imagined, that I am either main- 
 taining the intellect to be, even in the smallest degree, an 
 independent judge of moral and religious truth, or denying 
 the disapprobation of a spiritually enlightened conscience to 
 be a conclusive disproof of any alleged doctrine ; supposing 
 only that the doctrine be rightly understood, and the voice of 
 conscience rightly interpreted. But then the right per- 
 formance of these two functions frequently requires an intel- 
 lectual exercise of the greatest complication and difficulty. 
 Conscience reigns alone supreme in all these matters ; but when 
 conscience has at its command a minister so active, compre- 
 hensive, powerful, and versatile, as the intellect, the range of 
 its judgments is infinitely enlarged, and the external value 
 of its dictates infinitely increased. So much as this indeed is 
 implied in the very objection : for the objection, which I am
 
 66 
 
 considering, is not that the statements in the British Critic 
 shock religious men who rightly understand them ; (to that 
 objection this whole \vork is in} 7 attempt to reply ;) but that 
 they shock large numbers of holy and humble men of heart, 
 who do not profess that intellectual power, which might 
 enable them to appreciate doctrines widely foreign to their 
 moral experience, or expressions of doctrine widely different 
 from their traditionary expressions ; and to whom, in conse- 
 quence, these statements cannot but appear harsh, paradoxi- 
 cal, nay profane. If then such a person should read these 
 pages, I would take the liberty of speaking to him plainly, 
 yet with much reverence, as follows : You complain that you 
 make no profession of argumentative powers ; and that you 
 have just reason for dissatisfaction, if expressions are put in 
 your way, which you cannot understand, which do violence 
 to early and holy associations, which perplex, alarm, shock 
 you. I ask, who put these expressions in your way ? Not 
 only were the articles, which you criticise, written in a tone 
 and language which might have made it clear, that they 
 presupposed in the reader those very powers, which you 
 disclaim in yourself; but also in almost every article, 
 sometimes in almost every page, they enforce the duty, 
 incumbent on such as you, to confine your thoughts either 
 to the doctrines you have been taught, or to those which 
 gradually recommend themselves to your conscience in propor- 
 tion to your spiritual development. Of course many passages, 
 written primarily with a controversial object, might contain 
 edification to like-minded Christians ; and might well be 
 a matter of interest, if recommended to you by a teacher in 
 whom you repose confidence. But when on your own 
 responsibility you enter on the field of controversy, and think 
 of comparing doctrine with doctrine, argument with argu- 
 ment, you descend from that high position in which God has 
 placed you : your proceeding is like that of some hitherto 
 religious hermit, who should leave his peaceful desert, and 
 become candidate for an earthly crown. You are called to 
 a more heavenly course, you wilfully place yourself in a 
 more earthly course ; you are called to the life of simple
 
 G7 
 
 obedience, you descend by your own act to the life of 
 argument and inquiry ; and in one sense I am even glad, 
 should the result of your free inquiry be perplexity and 
 confusion ; because it may awaken you to a sense of your 
 misconduct, and teach you to value better the high and noble 
 privileges of your calling." 1 
 
 3. Next let me apply myself to the parallel objection which 
 has been raised: for frequently it has been said, not only 
 that the British Critic has scandalized the humble, but that 
 it has encouraged the undutiful ; that it has sanctioned a spirit 
 of wanton criticism, exercised on the system and formularies 
 of our Church, or even has been an active instrument in 
 fomenting such a spirit. Now that the claim of the English 
 Church on our allegiance has not been a subject neglected in 
 the British Critic, is at once evident from the fact, that, on 
 looking over my own articles for the purpose, I find not so 
 much as one in which that claim is not directly enforced ; 
 while in several I have gone to great length and detail in 
 enforcing it. I am quite confident, that the representation 
 which follows is a fair exponent of the consistent and un- 
 deviating view, on the matter, which has been there main- 
 tained. I can perfectly understand then, that a deeply 
 religious person may, under present circumstances, entertain 
 the most serious and anxious doubts, whether he be not in 
 duty bound at once to join the Roman Church. But I cannot 
 understand that a religious person should, for any length of 
 time, doubt, that, if he do remain in our Church, he must re- 
 main as her faithful and attached son ; not standing, as it were, 
 with one foot in England and the other in Rome, but devoting 
 himself with undivided loyalty to his immediate mother. And 
 if it be asked what definite meaning can be attached to these 
 words, let us, for example's sake, take such particulars as the 
 following. He will " fix his affections" immediately " on the 
 
 <l I mentioned at starting that it is no business of mine to defend the works 
 of other writers ; but I cannot forbear from adding here, that the other articles 
 in the British Critic, almost without exception, seem to me so carefully and 
 habitually deferential towards our Church, that I cannot fancy they would have 
 been even accused of an unsettling or disturbing tendency, had they not been 
 coloured, in the reader's mind, by the tone or expressions of my own articles. 
 
 F 2
 
 68 
 
 Church wherein God has placed him," and only " through that, 
 on the great Catholic community throughout the world;" 6 the 
 English Church will be to him the visible embodiment and 
 channel of his Lord's presence. 2. Her morning and evening 
 prayer will be the central points of his public and social de- 
 votions ; he will offer up those prayers, not as one of the acci- 
 dentally present congregation, nor yet as one of the Catholic 
 Church; but more definitely, as a member of the English 
 Church: through her, with her, and for her, will his addresses 
 ascend to God day after day, in the language she has placed 
 in his mouth. In like manner, should there be prayers for 
 Catholic unity used by certain members of our own Church as 
 such, and others used by Roman Catholics as such, he will unite 
 in the former rather than in the latter. And, 3. the sphere 
 of his practical energies, the turning point of his hopes and 
 fears, interests and disquietudes, the central position from 
 which his view grows forth and expands, will be the Church 
 through which he was regenerated, through which he has 
 communion with the Body and Blood of Christ. He will 
 be careful to make the most of all the salutary privileges 
 she offers him ; he will fight without ceasing against any 
 disposition to repine at the comparative paucity of means 
 of grace ; he will love to contemplate, with humble and 
 affectionate veneration, the admirable patterns of holiness 
 he may find within her pale, nor suffer any difference 
 of opinion, on a matter of minor importance, to lessen his 
 keen perception of their heavenly graces. 
 
 I would gladly add, that he will accept the teaching of 
 the English Church in the first instance, and should he 
 become unable to accept it, leave her communion ; if I could 
 attach any sense whatever to those often-repeated words 
 ' teaching of the English Church.' That the phrase ' teaching 
 of the Prayer-book' conveys a definite and important meaning, 
 I do not deny : considering that it is mainly a selection from 
 the Breviary, it is not surprising that the Prayer-book should 
 on the whole breathe an uniform, most edifying, deeply 
 orthodox, spirit ; a spirit, which corresponds to one particu- 
 e ' On -Church Authority,' p. 222.
 
 69 
 
 lar body of doctrine, and not to its contradictory. Again, 
 that the phrase ' teaching of the Articles' conveys a definite 
 meaning, I cannot deny ; for (excepting the first five, which 
 belong to the old theology) they also breathe an uniform, 
 intelligible spirit. But then these respective spirits are not 
 different merely, but absolutely contradictory ; as well could 
 a student in the heathen schools have imbibed at once the 
 Stoic and the Epicurean philosophies, as could a humble mem- 
 ber of our Church at the present time learn his creed both from 
 Prayer-book and Articles. This I set out at length, in two 
 pamphlets with an appendix, which I published three years 
 ago ; and it cannot therefore be necessary to go again over the 
 same ground : though something must be added, occasionally 
 in notes, and more methodically in a future chapter. The 
 manner in which the dry wording of the articles can be 
 divorced from their natural spirit, and accepted by an ortho- 
 dox believer ; how their prima facie meaning is evaded, and 
 the artifice of their inventors thrown back in recoil on them- 
 selves ; this, and the arguments which prove the honesty of 
 this, have now been for some time before the public. Others 
 have not been equally open ; and we can therefore form no 
 judgment, what the success of * Evangeli cals ' would be, in 
 shewing how they give their full assent and consent to the 
 Prayer-book. But it is plain, if there be force in the argu- 
 ments used three years ago, that even omissions in the Prayer- 
 book cannot be taken as any direct voice of the English 
 Church ; nor can it be said that prayers for the dead or 
 Invocations of Saints are condemned by her, merely be- 
 cause she has dropped such addresses from her service/ For 
 if those omissions were the result of a disingenuous com- 
 promise, (as I endeavoured to shew in my former pamphlet,) 
 and if the very men, who made the omissions, wished to 
 include within our Church Christians who would have pre- 
 ferred their retention ; it is plain that there can be no 
 colour for the allegation, that we are bound to withdraw 
 from the English Church, should we be led forward to such 
 practices and devotions. 
 
 f This has indeed been decided by the Ecclesiastical Court on the former subject.
 
 70 
 
 Having alluded to the subject of our Articles, it may be 
 as well to add, that so far has Mr. Palmer been from ar- 
 guing against the British Critic on the ground of alleged in- 
 consistency with those formularies, that he quotes as a part of 
 his indictment a passage (not written by myself) in which 
 Mr. Oakeley is quoted as having " proved historically that 
 the Articles were not designed to exclude Roman Catholics," 
 (p. 66,) and attempts no refutation whatever of the position. 
 
 But even were the formularies of our Church accordant 
 instead of discordant, urgent instead of wavering, definite 
 instead of vague, still so long as her practical teaching is in 
 the highest degree uncertain, conflicting, and contradictory ; 
 when members of our Church seem hardly to agree in one 
 matter of positive opinion that can be named, except the 
 purity of our Church ; and when, even as to that, each party 
 maintains that our Church would be most zwzpure if she 
 taught doctrines, which the other party strenuously contends 
 she does teach ; I can see no possible defence for the position, 
 ' that her formularies, in their prlma facie bearing, demand 
 implicit reception from her children. Surely, until she is 
 able so far to invigorate her discipline, as that one and one 
 only doctrine in essentials shall be taught within her pale, 
 she can have no warrant in making this demand. How can 
 that sacredness and divine authority, which attaches to our 
 first instructors, be fairly claimed for the English formu- 
 laries in their natural sense, when in point of fact they are 
 not our first instructors ? It is the creed of our parents, 
 which first introduces us to the Creed of our Church, and 
 colours the latter with its own hues. And when our moral 
 development has compelled us to desert that creed, those do 
 not fairly challenge our adherence, who give to our formu- 
 laries their most literal sense, but those who give to them 
 that sense which promises most fairly as a rest and satis- 
 faction to that development.' 5 
 
 4. The two objections I have just considered are rather 
 implied by Mr. Palmer, than distinctly stated. There is 
 indeed only one passage, in all his pamphlet, which bears 
 ' On Church Authority,' pp. 231, 2.
 
 71 
 
 with it the profession of reasoning against the course adopted 
 by the British Critic : h in all the remainder he merely 
 expresses his own opinion, that such a course is undutiful 
 and inexcusable. In the passage to which I refer, he pro- 
 poses three exhaustive alternatives : of which I will proceed 
 to quote that which concerns myself. 
 
 " If men are satisfied that it is a matter of duty to remain in the 
 English Church, then I say, that it is wholly inconsistent with that 
 duty to excite a spirit of doubt and dissatisfaction in the Church, 
 and to tempt its members, in every possible way, to secede from 
 its communion. Nothing can be more inconsistent than the practice 
 of disregarding its authorities, encouraging disobedience and dis- 
 respect to its prelates, and discontent within the Church itself, as if 
 the great mass of its members were engaged in measures hostile to 
 the true faith. It is sinful even to contemplate the possibility of 
 voluntarily separating from the Church under circumstances of 
 persecution or obloquy. Notions of this kind tend to diminish the 
 horror which every Catholic should feel at the very notion of 
 schism." p. 67. 
 
 This, I say, is that part of the dilemma, proposed by 
 Mr. Palmer, which includes my own case. I suppose indeed 
 that, considering all the various proposals which have been 
 made, and all the various measures which have been ru- 
 moured as in contemplation, and considering too some among 
 the apparent tendencies of our existing condition, the num- 
 ber is very far from small of those, who have had more or less 
 misgiving, what at some future time might possibly become 
 their duty. But I can most truly say, that the very idea of 
 leaving our Church has never been before my own mind as 
 an immediately practical question ; that my present feeling 
 is (without for one moment judging others), that I should 
 myself commit a mortal sin by doing so; and that it has 
 been my uniform endeavour to divert my imagination from 
 
 h Mr. Palmer's remarks on ' development' shall be considered before I conclude : 
 but they are directed against the truth of opinions advocated in the British Critic ; 
 not against the legitimacy of English Churchmen advocating such opinions. The 
 latter is the point now in hand.
 
 72 
 
 dwelling on such a contingency, even as a future possibility. 
 It is very plain then that the paragraph I have quoted 
 contains, if any part of the pamphlet contains, Mr. Palmer's 
 grounds for thinking that ' the tone ' of my articles ' cannot 
 be excused,' p. 68. 
 
 First then, is it wrong in me to ' encourage' to the utmost 
 of my humble power and opportunities ' discontent with the 
 Church itself, as if the great mass of its members' are ' en- 
 gaged in measures hostile to the true faith ? ' The answer 
 to this must surely depend on the truth of the allegation. 
 I willingly adopt Mr. Palmer's happy expression ; I do 
 believe that the * mass of our Church's members' are un- 
 consciously and unintentionally, but most effectually, ' en- 
 gaged in measures hostile to the true faith ; ' this I believe, 
 and hope before I end to prove. And believing this, it would 
 surely be the strangest possible mode of shewing loyalty to the 
 English Church, were I to remain perfectly quiet, enjoying the 
 proceeds of my Fellowship, or (to use the ordinary language) 
 ' eating the bread of the Church,' and abstain from drawing 
 attention to evils, which appear to me so imminent, so fearful, 
 so destructive of the very life and essence of a Church. Nor 
 yet do I seek to encourage discontent with our Church her- 
 self, but only with that miserable system, to which, for three 
 hundred years, she has been so unfortunately committed. 
 
 Secondly, is it wrong in me to ' disregard the authorities of 
 our Church ? ' This must surely depend on the dicta of those 
 authorities. The Roman Catholics indeed generally say, that 
 Christians are, in matters of doctrine, bound to receive im- 
 plicitly the decrees of St. Peter's Chair ; but those who so 
 think, think also that, by a Divine promise, that Chair is in- 
 fallibly saved from teaching error. But to reject the doctrine 
 of the Church's infallibility as a figment, to proclaim as a 
 great and glorious truth, that all Bishops are but fallible men, 
 and that the chief Bishop on earth sanctions, nay, prac- 
 tises, idolatry ; and at the same time to call for implicit 
 deference and submission to the doctrinal statements of a 
 certain small body of bishops, who are indefinitely at variance 
 with each other, and who, according to Mr. Palmer's own
 
 T3 
 
 theory, are separated off from the great body of the Catholic 
 Church; this is a flight of conservative extravagance, an 
 assumption of spiritual despotism, which can find no parallel 
 beyond the circle of Anglican ' high-Churchmen.' My own 
 sentiments on the subject I have already expressed, and find 
 nothing to alter. 
 
 ' One of the many difficulties,' I say, ' which press upon us in the 
 present most unhappy state of our Church, is the question of the 
 proper course to be pursued hy Churchmen, when a bishop delivers 
 ex cathedra doctrines which are in fact heretical. There is no 
 difficulty of course when the points at issue are short of fundamental 
 articles of faith ; for silent submission to his diocesan's will, sup- 
 posing an injunction to have been laid upon him, is then the 
 clergyman's plain duty : nor again, in .the case of fundamentals is 
 the question one of principle ; for learned persons tell us, that, ac- 
 cording to the uniform tradition of antiquity, even laymen have not 
 the right only but the duty of contending for the faith openly and 
 uncompromisingly, by whomsoever it may have been assailed, and 
 under whatever circumstances. But the when and the huw no doubt 
 present matter for grave deliberation ; and which perhaps at last 
 must be decided in each case, as it separately arises, by reference to 
 its own peculiar facts.' ' 
 
 Thirdly is it right to ' tempt ' members of the English 
 Church ' in every possible way to secede from its communion ? ' 
 Certainly not. That, for myself, it was in some sufficient 
 measure impressed on my own mind, how serious responsi- 
 bility on this head is incurred by all who express publicly 
 their opinion on present circumstances, will, I hope, be evinced 
 by the fact, which I lately mentioned, of my constant enforce- 
 ment throughout my articles, of our Church's claim on our 
 allegiance. But fully acknowledging (which I do), that frank 
 and bold protests against the English Reformation, and the 
 system introduced by it, have an indirect and accidental ten- 
 dency, in some cases, to hasten, or even to cause, a separation 
 from our Church, I would still most fearlessly meet Mr. Palmer 
 on his own ground and by his own theory ; and I would ask 
 him, whether in any age of the Church it would be thought 
 even tolerable in individuals, to be in any way less diligent 
 1 ' On Whately's Essays, 1 p. 225.
 
 74 
 
 and energetic in their protests against heresy, deeply-seated, 
 subtly-insinuating, and widely-extending heresy, because 
 such protests had the accidental effect of inducing one or 
 two orthodox to join a foreign communion? My defence 
 then entirely depends on the truth or falsehood of the views 
 I hold, as to the amount of corruption existing in and ruling 
 our Church. If the evils be such as I suppose, I was justi- 
 fied in denouncing them as loudly as I did. 
 
 5. But although what I have said seems sufficiently to 
 answer Mr. Palmer's observations, I feel deeply that there is 
 a natural reason, for great dislike and suspicion of statements 
 such as I have made ; and a reason far more serious, and re- 
 quiring far greater deference of tone in meeting it, than any 
 of the objections which have occurred to Mr. Palmer. It is 
 thought that the most ordinary reverence and docility of 
 mind would secure a willing reception of those principles 
 under which one is born ; and that to allow one's self in open 
 dissatisfaction with, or even hatred to, those principles, must 
 imply much holiness, or else little humility. " We do not 
 augur much good," says a writer in the British Critic, " of any 
 one, who does not in the first instance throw himself into the 
 system under which he is born, accept the voices of the 
 teachers, divines, and pastors, by whom he is providentially 
 surrounded, as the voice of heaven, and identify their pat- 
 tern and their faith, with the holy doctrine which they have 
 been the instruments of conveying to him." k This general 
 principle, thus stated, is that very principle, ' the high 
 sacredness of hereditary religion,' w r hich I singled out in the 
 last chapter, as all-important at the present moment; and 
 which it was the miserable sin of our Reformers, so grievously 
 to violate. In fact, I wrote an article in the British Critic 
 (that on ' Church Authority') with the main object of en- 
 forcing, illustrating, and vindicating this principle ; in which 
 article I extended it to its legitimate consequence, the case 
 of Dissenters of whatever kind. Still, as the writer just 
 quoted proceeds to say, " of course such implicit confidence 
 cannot last in all cases, as time goes on ; for there is but one 
 truth whatever it is, whereas there are ' many kinds of voices 
 
 k No. Ixii. p. 385.
 
 75 
 
 in the world,' and it is not to be anticipated that all minds, 
 every where, as they grow, will just happen felicitously to 
 concur with the system in which they find themselves." " It 
 is the trial and mystery of our position in this age and coun- 
 try, that a religious mind is continually set at variance with 
 itself, that its deference to what is without contradicts sugges- 
 tions from within, and that it cannot obey what is over it with- 
 out rebelling against what was before it" And as to the origin, 
 again, of such ' suggestions from within,' in the article of my 
 own to which I just alluded, a passage occurs, quoted in the 
 first chapter of this work, arguing with great earnestness, 
 that ' absolute and great defects of character ' frequently oc- 
 casion them. Certainly, so far is it from being the case, 
 that the idea of corruptions within our Church was a con- 
 genial idea to my own mind, that I suffered innumerable 
 troubles and perplexities, before it even occurred to me to 
 seek for their cause in its true quarter ; the radically corrupt 
 and heretical nature of the system which I had been taught. 
 
 A sentiment is often expressed and often implied, not un- 
 like the preceding, which, though substantially refuted by 
 what has just been said, still deserves an explicit notice. We 
 often hear admonitions of this kind, addressed to the ' discon- 
 tented young men ' in the English Church. ' Act up to the 
 provisions of the Prayer-book ; when you regularly attend 
 morning and evening prayer, observe rigorously all the fasts 
 in the calendar, and realise that type of character which the 
 Prayer-book implies, then, if still dissatisfied with the English 
 system, you may perhaps deserve a hearing ; but not till 
 then.' Now I will not be betrayed, by the wish of defending 
 myself, into any such concession, as that the English system 
 does place before her children a sufficiently high standard, or 
 that holy men, who shall have complied with the conditions 
 above specified, will not be even more dissatisfied than they 
 were before. But I will fully acknowledge, that the Prayer- 
 book puts before us a very high standard, and one indefinitely 
 above my own humble aspirations or attainments: but so 
 also, let it be carefully observed, did the Jewish Law. ' To 
 keep alive, throughout one nation at least, these truths (the 
 
 m p. 225.
 
 76 
 
 perfection of God's law and our own miserable sinfulness) 
 in all their native freshness and distinctness, to preserve man's 
 conscience from becoming hardened, and his perception of re- 
 ligious truth deadened, over the whole world, was one especial 
 cause, St. Paul seems to say, of the Jewish economy.'" " Ever 
 since the Fall, man, viewed in himself, has remained knowing 
 the law, but not doing it ; admiring, not loving ; assenting, 
 not following ; with the Law not within him, but before 
 him ; not any longer in the heart, but departing from him 
 and moving away and taking up its place, as it were, over 
 against him, and confronting him as an enemy, accuser, and 
 avenger." Christianity then was essentially and funda- 
 mentally a remedial religion; nor has it any object more 
 closely connected with its whole scheme of doctrine and 
 discipline, than that of bringing our power to do right 
 into some illimitably increasing proportion with our power 
 to perceive it. To take a strong instance ; the superiority 
 itself of celibacy over marriage, I have confidently stated 
 to be a dictate of the natural conscience ; p but the power 
 of leading blamelessly a single life, is one of the highest 
 and most precious Gospel gifts. Those then who hold such 
 language as that above described, should in all consistency 
 have held the same to the Jews also : Christ came to enable 
 them to fulfil the Law, but these objectors should have 
 said, 'fulfil the Law first, and join Christ afterwards.' Whe- 
 ther or no indeed the English Church does give such helps 
 towards the most ordinary Christian life, as frail and humble 
 believers seek at her hands, is a question which will come 
 under our consideration in a future chapter : but unless she 
 does so, though the character she held up for reverence and 
 imitation were really the true evangelical pattern ; though 
 she encouraged her children to honour austerity, celibacy, 
 voluntary poverty, as much as she in fact (practically at 
 least, and in her authoritative teaching) encourages them to 
 despise or revile those graces ; even then, there would not be 
 so much as an approach to a proof, that she even tolerably 
 fulfils the very primary object, for which the Church was 
 
 n ' On the Synagogue and the Church,' p. 28. 
 Newman's Parochial Senn. vol. v. Senn. xi.P ' On Mill's Logic,' p. 406.
 
 77 
 
 founded ; nor would her children have any reason for with- 
 holding their most bitter complaints, if they meet not at her 
 hands with that protection and support, which shall shield 
 them from the implacable enemies of their salvation. 
 
 6. " Granting, however, that our corruptions may be as 
 grievous as the British Critic has represented, still," it may be 
 asked, " why is Rome to be taken for our model in the needful 
 task of reform and purification ? Why not rather go back to 
 more early and primitive times, than endeavour to place before 
 the minds of Englishmen in such favourable colours a system, 
 which practically issues in the deep superstition and idolatry 
 which we witness abroad ? " Such will be the language of 
 many members of our Church ; and it certainly requires a 
 reply. The inquiry indeed deserves most careful considera- 
 tion, whether the Church of the fourth century, (did we see 
 it really reproduced amongst us, instead of being known to us 
 through the less distinct and impressive media of historical 
 documents,) would appear on the whole much less idolatrous 
 and superstitious than modern Rome herself. Waiving how- 
 ever this question, (towards the elucidation of which some- 
 thing may be done in the next chapter,) and moreover with- 
 out professing to give either, or even the principal, reasons, 
 which lead me to consider the existing Church abroad as the 
 fit model to regard, those which follow will amply suffice to 
 support that opinion. It must be observed, however, that 
 the idea of introducing, as it were, bodily among us some 
 foreign pattern, according to the best conception we are able 
 to form of it, would be absolute insanity ; to think of it would 
 be most extravagant, even to attempt its execution absolutely 
 impossible. No ! the one principal object of our observation 
 must ever be our own Church ; to study the nature and ex- 
 tent of her corruptions, and the remedies for them which her 
 present resources are capable of supplying, this must be, be- 
 yond any comparison, our principal task ; the only question 
 is, in what quarter are we to look for the suggestion of ap- 
 propriate remedies ? And the Church abroad is the point to 
 which we are in duty bound first to turn our eyes, were it 
 only for the plain dictates of Christian love and charity. 
 All our existing most unhappy divisions cannot efface the
 
 obligation of that primary Gospel duty, which requires us to 
 consider as brethren all who bear the name of Christ, so only 
 they be not heretical in some essential particular. Now all 
 English ' high Churchmen' agree in denying that Roman 
 Catholics are so to be regarded ; the plain duty then remains, 
 to consult first of all with our brethren, in any difficulty 
 wherein we may be placed ; and only in the event of failing 
 to find in them what we seek, to turn our thoughts in any 
 other direction. Another reason, which may be given, is the 
 undoubted fact, that great as are the difficulties in either 
 case, they are incomparably less in the way of our right- 
 ly understanding a contemporary, than an ancient, system, 
 Those innumerable details which, small in themselves, go so 
 very far, when taken together, in constituting the real nature 
 of an institution as a fact in history ; and the knowledge of 
 which is so indispensably necessary in order to the practical 
 working of any imitation ; all these we may study on the spot, 
 if we follow a living example ; but can by no possible efforts 
 rescue from the abyss of time, when we desire to make the 
 past our guide. 
 
 But over and above these considerations, there is another 
 quite decisive on the subject. If our Church be so corrupt 
 in her practical working as I have represented her, we should 
 expect d priori, what we find in fact, that we must look for 
 the source of her corruptions in no less vital part, but in the 
 very foundation of all ; her system, or rather her total ab- 
 sence of system, of moral discipline. That this is the real 
 truth, it will be the main object of the following pages to 
 shew ; and if it be so, until this fountain-head of evil be 
 closed up, the application of any number of more superficial 
 and external remedies will be wholly fruitless. Now it is 
 plain at once, that there is no subject in the whole range of 
 theology, which varies more indefinitely, according to the 
 indefinite varieties of man's inward character, (varies, that is, 
 in every particular excepting the most general and funda- 
 mental principles,) than this very subject. And this being 
 so, considering how closely bound up in all the more essen- 
 tial features of their civilization, (whatever important minor 
 differences may exist,) are all the countries of the great
 
 79 
 
 European family, to look for our guide, in the task of con- 
 structing a system of moral discipline for modern England, 
 in the Church of fifteen centuries or even of five centuries 
 since, when a Church exists before our eyes in modern France 
 or modern Italy, this would be nothing short of absolute 
 infatuation. To mention only one particular where very 
 many might be mentioned ; every one knows that there is 
 no more essential and important characteristic, which dis- 
 tinguishes modern civilization from all former periods, than 
 the vast increase of what is called subjectivity : the very 
 much greater portion of man's life and interest which is 
 occupied in observation of his own thoughts, feelings, and 
 actions ; the very much less part which is occupied in action 
 unaccompanied by self-consciousness, or uninterrupted con- 
 templation of external objects. We might have been certain 
 then beforehand that, supposing the ancient Church, which 
 we regard, to have been really pure and efficient, the effect of 
 appropriating its discipline to ourselves would be, to lay far 
 too much stress on outward action and devotion, and far too 
 little on the conscious regulation of the thoughts. This is 
 perhaps a partial account of the accusation of formalism, so 
 often brought against the Church by Protestants. They find 
 much less said by early writers, than by Christians of the pre- 
 sent day, on the inward life of the soul ; and failing to see 
 that this was the necessary result of the habits and tendencies 
 of the time, and that spiritual habits and desires do not the 
 less exist, because men do not contemplate, analyze, and de- 
 scribe them, they attribute it to something of a deadening 
 and unspiritualizing character in the creed then professed. 
 As though, from the time that subjectivity has obtained so 
 complete an entrance, the works of any other writers could 
 bear even a moment's most distant comparison with those of 
 Roman Catholics, in profound acquaintance with the inmost 
 recesses of the human heart. q 
 
 i ' A sentiment is commonly found in Mr. Maurice's writings, which puz- 
 zles us more than any other of his sentiments ; viz. that " the truths, which 
 constitute Protestantism, are those which concern man as a personal being, which 
 assert his individual responsibility and relation to God, and provide that this 
 responsibility and relation shall be realities, and not dreams." We should not
 
 80 
 
 However, if Antiquity is to be our guide in this matter, let 
 us make it fairly and honestly our guide : let us look fully 
 in the face those bodily privations and inflictions, which to us 
 seem so incredibly severe ; and wfiich nevertheless were not 
 the choice of eminently holy men who had a special vocation, 
 and went on towards perfection, but were appointed as the ordi- 
 nary lot of penitents, nay, in great measure, of all Christians. 
 But if there appears small chance of introducing any approach 
 to the like among ourselves, insomuch that the most sanguine 
 can entertain no hope of its possibility ; (those even, I mean, 
 who think their general introduction among us, in the abstract, 
 desirable ; a sentiment against which I most warmly protest ;) 
 if this be so, we confess with our own lips that we cannot 
 make the ancient Church our model, in supplying our one pri- 
 mary deficiency ; for we cannot hope to introduce that, which 
 was her very principal instrument in performing the work, 
 which we desire to be done. On the other hand, I know no more 
 noble and wonderful event in the whole history of the Church, 
 than the mode in which the Roman Church has applied her- 
 self, to meet this new and most conspicuous phenomenon 
 which crossed her path. About the time when the Church 
 of Christ was harassed, and outraged, and insulted, by the 
 foreign Reformers, within the Church appeared the spiritual 
 exercises of St. Ignatius ; a work, which all who have given 
 deep and careful attention to it, and, far more, those who have 
 used it practically, extol in terms of eulogy, which those who 
 (like myself) have not done so, can hardly bring ourselves to 
 believe is not exaggerated. On the basis of that miraculous 
 work has been reared the whole scheme of occasional retreats, 
 
 be more surprised than pleased, if Mr. Maurice could shew us in Protestant 
 writers any knowledge or realization of these subjects, which can for very shame 
 be compared with that displayed scientifically by St. Thomas and the moral 
 theologians who have followed him ; and practically by a hundred such works as 
 ' The Spiritual Combat,' St. Francis de Sale's ' Love of God,' St. Alphonsus 
 Liguori's Sermons, and * Preparation for Death,' Salazar's ' Sinner's Conversion 
 Reduced to Principles ;' we may be allowed to add Mr. Newman's Sermons. 
 We keep St. Ignatius's ' Spiritual Exercises' for a separate place, since the 
 wonderful insight into such subjects which that work displays, has led many to 
 think it inspired, in a lower sense of the word.' ' On Mill's Logic,' p. 409, 
 note.
 
 81 
 
 daily meditation, daily general examen of conscience, par- 
 ticular examen, and the rest, which is at present the very 
 vital principle of the Roman religious system. This scheme 
 it is, from which we may really hope to derive remedies for 
 our present need, of proved efficacy, and of the profoundest 
 wisdom ; not by the insane course of servile and literal imita- 
 tion, but by bringing with us to the study of that scheme a 
 deep and habitual knowledge of the English feelings and 
 habits of the day, and carefully adapting whatever proposals 
 we may make to the exigencies of those feelings and habits. 
 
 It will be a great relief to many, who justly claim at our hands 
 the deepest reverence and sympathy, when they are told that 
 the name of St. Mary is so little prominent in these exercises, 
 or generally in the whole scheme of discipline founded on 
 them, that it hardly escapes omission. And I will say plainly 
 that nothing, in my judgment, would be fraught with more 
 omnigenous mischief, or would deservedly incur God's heavier 
 displeasure, than any attempt to introduce generally among 
 us at the present time any of those devotions to the Blessed 
 Virgin, which occupy so prominent a place in foreign Churches. 
 But having said this boldly, I will also say with equal bold- 
 ness, that this opinion implied no adverse criticism whatever 
 on foreign systems as they exist. On this subject I have 
 really seen no evidence, which enables me to have so much as 
 a bias one way or the other ; nor indeed is it at all practicaUy 
 important that a member of our Church should have such a 
 bias : we know our own duty, and we need know no more. 
 If indeed some religious and unusually intelligent person 
 were to live for a considerable time, say in some particular 
 part of Italy ; if he were able, by a strong and sustained 
 effort of the imagination, to realise and sympathise with the 
 habitual emotions, desires, aspirations of the people ; if he 
 were to follow them into their retirement and their home, 
 converse familiarly with them, and live almost as one of 
 themselves ; and if, after having done all this, his opinion 
 were unfavourable, it would justly deserve the very greatest 
 attention. But the mere random observations of those who 
 go abroad mainly for recreation, and presume to pass judg-
 
 82 
 
 ment on a nation's religion by such mere external forms as a 
 rapid passage through the country enables them to perceive, 
 can surely have no weight whatever, in the mind of any 
 candid and reasonable inquirer. As to stories they hear, 
 they are still less trustworthy than appearances they see ; 
 for it is well known that Italian guides continually invent 
 false tales against their countrymen, with the view of obtain- 
 ing better pay from the English traveller. 
 
 Observe, the question to be considered is this ; not whether 
 Roman Catholics address very frequent devotions to St. 
 Mary, (this is allowed on all hands,) but whether those de- 
 votions tend to cloud or supersede in their minds the thoughts 
 of their and her Creator ; whether the form, as it were, in 
 which she is habitually present to their imagination, is as 
 kneeling with uplifted hands to her Son, praying for those 
 favours which they beg from her ; or, on the other hand, as 
 scattering down on them those favours from her own treasury. 
 If the former be the case, every invocation they address to 
 her not only does not put her before their minds in the place 
 of Christ, but imprints more deeply on their conscience and 
 imagination her infinite inferiority to Him. For instance, 
 the Rosary, the use of which is continually thrown in their 
 teeth, would most certainly tend very powerfully to this latter 
 result. It consists in meditation on fifteen mysteries of St. 
 Mary, in all of which, except two, our Blessed Lord Him- 
 self must be in the mind of those who meditate ; and in 
 almost all of these, must be so in their mind as forcibly to 
 impress it with a sense of her infinite subordination to Him. 
 Indeed it must not be supposed, notwithstanding the incalcu- 
 lable obstacles in the way of a fair judgment, on people so 
 unlike ourselves in every particular, which is presented by 
 all our prejudices of habit and education ; it must not be 
 supposed that the English are always unfavourably impressed 
 with what they see abroad. When the Queen was in Belgium 
 last year, even the newspaper reporters seemed struck by the 
 peculiarly religious character of the people. And I have 
 put down in an appendix several accounts, given by acquaint- 
 ances of my own, of their personal experience, that it may be
 
 seen how much there is which presents itself even to English- 
 men in a favourable light. 
 
 However, it is continually supposed, that a refusal to ad- 
 mit, without proof, the practical corruption of foreign systems, 
 implies some desire of seeing those systems introduced here. 
 Thus, for example, I have seen questions like this : "Is it 
 possible that writers in the British Critic can desire the 
 introduction among us of the state of things we witness 
 in Belgium or Normandy, nay, in Naples or Palermo?" 
 The very question points to the answer that must be given. 
 The respective Churches of Belgium, Normandy, Naples, 
 Palermo, differ from each other in numberless matters of cere- 
 monial and observance, of usage, discipline, ecclesiastical taste, 
 nay, and in many minor points of religious opinion : which 
 then of the four are we to adopt ? What can be more prepos- 
 terous than the fancy of our gravely endeavouring to imitate 
 the external gestures, as it were, and demeanour of some 
 foreign system, while all the habits of our mind, all our 
 thoughts, feelings, and dispositions are in marked contrast 
 with that system ? 
 
 The only legitimate office of the external framework and 
 constitution of a Church, is to be, first, the expression, 
 mould, and protection of a certain given religious spirit; 
 and, secondly, the mode by which this spirit is brought 
 to bear upon a certain given condition of society ; to pay 
 any serious regard to it, on any other principles, is the 
 certain road to the hollowest and most hideous formalism. 
 First then let us endeavour to secure what comes first ; 
 let us learn, to the best of our power, to understand and 
 appreciate the various exigencies, tendencies, tastes, ca- 
 pabilities of the modern English character : and in pro- 
 portion as we succeed in our attempts, by help of such 
 knowledge, to promote and forward the growth of this same 
 Catholic spirit, the latter will clothe itself in whatever 
 external envelopment may be found ready at hand, which it 
 will quicken, enliven, and re-create, adopting it as the organ 
 of its expression, and the minister of its will. What outward 
 shape this envelopment will ultimately assume, in what 
 
 G2
 
 84 
 
 degree Catholicism will modify our existing institutions, in 
 what degree it will itself receive a colour from those institu- 
 tions, and from our national character and dispositions ; all 
 this, and much more of the same kind, it is vain and useless 
 to conjecture before the event. We must learn to content 
 ourselves \\ith what lies before us, and not dissipate our 
 energies in barren and unprofitable speculations. 
 
 What will be the external manifestation of Catholicism in 
 England, is a question then which it is idle to ask ; but we 
 may be very certain what it will not be ; it will not be the 
 same with its manifestation in Belgium or Normandy, Naples 
 or Palermo ; much less, with that assumed by it in its conflicts 
 with the expiring efforts of a Paganism, powerful even in its 
 decline ; or in its attempts to humanise and soften the wild 
 and lawless hordes, who at a later period became nominal 
 adherents of the Church. Catholicism is something moral 
 and spiritual, not formal, external, circumstantial ; in doc- 
 trine, in sentiment, in principle, ever one and the same ; 
 but elastic and pliant to adapt itself to all conceivable circum- 
 stances, vigorous and full of life to cope with all conceivable 
 emergencies. Take the case of an individual, whose 
 religion shall assume a more earnest or more orthodox 
 character : we do not find that his recognisable identity 
 of mind is affected, any more than of body. His numberless 
 peculiarities of feeling and disposition, taste and imagination, 
 intellectual cultivation and power, still remain undiminished 
 in their native distinctness and energy ; although at the 
 same time a new and authoritative element has been intro- 
 duced, which, to an illimitably increasing extent, controls, 
 harmonizes, and colours those peculiarities. Let a number 
 of serious and Catholic minded men meet together : how 
 very far will they be from exhibiting any artificial con- 
 formity to some external and partial standard ! and yet for 
 all this, a like-minded observer will very easily discern, by 
 means of indications far too ' subtle, delicate, indirect, and 
 spiritual,' to admit of analysis and formal expression, the 
 essential oneness of principle, which animates and informs 
 those accidental diversities of character. What then would
 
 85 
 
 be thought of some disciple in the school, who being desirous 
 of conforming more fully to the Catholic model, should copy 
 the expressions and gestures, or even the argumentative 
 methods and political opinions, of some one amongst their 
 number, instead of attempting, by legitimate means, to lodge 
 more deeply within his heart that essential principle, which 
 is common to them all ? The application of this, from indi- 
 viduals to Societies, is obvious. 
 
 Nor is it only external habits, which are thus intimately 
 connected with the inward principle; doctrines also, as I 
 said in the last chapter, are in many cases the spontaneous 
 evolution, in all the appropriate correlative, of a certain 
 moral character. This truth is the foundation of the 
 ' disciplina arcani ' which existed in earlier ages ; and (what- 
 ever real and serious difficulties are in the way of its 
 application on vital and fundamental articles of the 
 Creed) when we are considering subordinate and accessory 
 religious opinions, it is our one chief guide and protection. 
 In proportion as any primary religious principle takes deep 
 root in the mind, or any cardinal doctrine is realised, con- 
 templated, and habitually appropriated, an indefinite number 
 of minor opinions and practices start into existence : of which 
 some are the simple and legitimate result of this doctrine 
 or principle ; but other some result, not from it as iso- 
 lated and energizing by its own power, but as taken in 
 connection with current opinions and feelings, which however 
 deeply and widely rooted in the popular mind, are pecu- 
 liarities of a nation or of a period, and have an origin 
 wholly independent of revelation/ We may apply this at 
 once, to that very class of doctrines and practices so lately 
 mentioned. Nothing can be further from the truth, than 
 the supposition that the British Critic has ever advocated 
 their introduction among ourselves. Speaking only for 
 myself, in July last I say, ' so far as later introductions are 
 concerned, such as Images and Indulgences, and habitual 
 Invocation of Saints, we should certainly be travelling out 
 of our way to notice them.' 8 In January, ' Those who are 
 
 r See this stated at somewhat greater length ' on Church Authority,' p. 218. 
 ' On the Synagogue and the Church,' p. 7.
 
 86 
 
 pained and distressed by some circumstances in which the 
 mediaeval system differs from antiquity, have a most legiti- 
 mate satisfaction in the history of the early Church, which 
 exhibits Catholic faith as truly active and energizing, at a 
 time when such peculiarities (we allude, e. g. to the pointed 
 and habitual invocations of the Blessed Virgin and Saints) 
 are not prevalent.' 4 In the previous October, in a passage 
 quoted by Mr. Palmer, I go still further ; ' So long as an 
 ' English Churchman acts carefully up to the principles he 
 ' has been taught, and in so acting feels himself in no way 
 ' attracted towards these ways, so long it would be a plain 
 ' sin in him to resort to them.' 1 Nay more ; not only have 
 I never expressed a wish (but the reverse), that these devo- 
 tions should be generally practised by us at present, I have 
 never even implied an opinion that, as popularly adopted, 
 they are not mischievous and dangerous abroad ; though 
 neither have I, so at least I trust, implied the opposite 
 opinion. What I have said is, (and no greater proof can 
 be given of our degraded and unchristian temper of mind, 
 than that it is necessary to say what all ought to admit as a 
 first principle,) that Saints, in using the high and glowing 
 language which is found in their writings, have not made 
 even the most distant approach to superstition or idolatry. 
 Why I was called upon to say this, will appear in the course 
 of the work, when I hope to touch on the general subject 
 with which it is connected ; I mean, the authority of holy 
 men on questions of religious truth. Here I will only add 
 so much as closely concerns the matter now in hand. 
 
 Roman Catholics say, that it is impossible for the Church 
 heartily to emb'race and dwell upon the great and fun- 
 damental truths of our Lord's Divinity, the indwelling of His 
 Spirit in the souls of His Disciples, and the importance of 
 gaining to ourselves intercessors against His final judgment, 
 without being led on in course of time to similar devotions. 
 And certainly our experience in England does not enable us 
 to deny this ; for, as I shall presently have to urge, those 
 great doctrines are either practically disbelieved or most 
 
 ' ' On Church Authority,' p. 215. ' On St. Athanasius,' p. 410.
 
 87 
 
 insufficiently held, by the great body of members of our 
 Church. On the other hand, whether or no these devotions 
 necessarily spring from fundamental doctrines, most certainly 
 in themselves they are not fundamental ; as Roman Catholics 
 themselves are forward in assuring us. Let us then fairly 
 and honestly try the experiment. ' High Churchmen' of 
 all grades profess belief in the fundamental Verities to 
 which I just now alluded ; let them unite in the use of 
 all such means as are in our power, which, I hope to shew in 
 a future chapter, are very far from inconsiderable, to imprint 
 these doctrines on the innermost hearts of our fellow- 
 churchmen, as living and absorbing realities; and let them 
 'leave the result with perfect calmness, contentment, and 
 tranquillity of heart in His hands, who, by His Apostle 
 has praised Abraham's faith, in that he went out, not 
 knowing whither he went.'" Should it be found that the 
 more deeply and practically English Christians embrace these 
 essential truths, so much the more powerfully they are 
 attracted to such usages and devotions as are now in 
 question ; no stronger proof can be devised that those 
 devotions are not injurious, but ministrative, to the central 
 and paramount doctrines of the Gospel. Should the opposite 
 be found the case, I suppose there is no one member of 
 our Church, who would desire their adoption : and the 
 conclusion as to any given foreign country would be, that in 
 its case either their use is attributable to particulars in the 
 national history and character, wherein it differs from 
 England ; or else (which is of course perfectly conceivable), 
 that it is a real practical corruption, to which we may 
 fitly desire that the Church should apply a remedy. 
 
 It will be well, however, to enforce still further this very 
 important truth, that Catholicism (should it ever again 
 exist actively in England) will no more destroy English 
 peculiarities of habit or opinion, than it does in the parallel 
 case, which I put above, of an individual adopting a more 
 Catholic view of things. And the same considerations will 
 also shew, how utterly fallacious is that mode of judging 
 
 ' On Church Authority,' p. 211.
 
 88 
 
 as to the merits of some religious system, which is founded 
 on the superficial observation of the various sentiments and 
 practices, which are seen in some particular country to be 
 coexistent with it. Let it be observed then, that there is not a 
 single event which has happened to a nation in the earliest ages, 
 before Christianity had existence, which has not had its perma- 
 nent and abiding influence in constituting the nation's present 
 character. Without refining however so much as to take this 
 into account, (though all this must be taken into account, if 
 we desire a really accurate appreciation of the subject,) such 
 circumstances as the following are not permanent only but 
 most essential, most fundamental, most vital elements, in the 
 formation of that character : the race or mixture of races 
 from which the nation has its origin : the climate ; not only as 
 affecting the mind directly, and disposing it to this vicious 
 excess rather than that; but also as obliging the lower classes, 
 when unemployed, to keep mainly within doors, or else 
 allowing and alluring them to meet together in large bodies 
 for recreation in the open air; (the former leading to the 
 more domestic, the latter to the more social life ;) as making 
 a certain quantity of food and clothing more or less indis- 
 pensable, and so giving or not giving an unceasing stimulus 
 to labour ; and so with other particulars : then again, the 
 nature of the soil and the geographical position of the country, 
 as directly fixing the principal employments pursued by the 
 people, commercial, agricultural, or the like : the various 
 other countries, with which, in times past, whether by war or 
 by commerce, the nation has been brought into close contact; 
 and the peculiar character of those countries : the nature of 
 the civil government, past or present, and the degree in 
 which it has made the people's welfare its principal ob- 
 ject: the number of men gifted with great originality and 
 genius who have flourished in the nation, and the respective 
 bent of their minds ; the number of Saints and saintly men 
 who have been raised up among them, and in what rank of 
 life they have principally been. This list might be very 
 much increased; but enough has been said to indicate the 
 extreme complexity of any problem, which proposes to derive
 
 89 
 
 a practical result, from the observation of social and political 
 facts in the concrete. Of these elements, the only one, with 
 which a religious system has any direct connection, is the last ; 
 and even with the last its connection is very precarious : for 
 we have no reason at all to believe (orthodoxy and Catho- 
 licity being supposed), that a practically pure Church will be 
 honoured by the presence of Saints more often than one of 
 an opposite character : rather God raises up Saints where 
 He will, according to the inscrutable laws of His providence. 
 Yet all of these elements, especially the two latter, have a 
 very much indeed more deep and intimate share in the form 
 assumed even by religion itself, than, I suppose, any one 
 like myself, who has not deeply studied history, can at all 
 realise. 
 
 And now, to see more clearly what it is which a religious 
 system is called on to accomplish, let us conceive an ima- 
 ginary hypothesis ; let us suppose that these various causes 
 had by themselves been operating for a long period, and 
 issuing in those results which would follow their combined 
 operation ; and that then, for the first time, such a system 
 were projected. It has to act on a large body of men, who 
 are and have been exposed to certain most powerful in- 
 fluences, while the very ministers, by whom it is obliged to act 
 on them, have themselves been exposed to the same influences. 
 A system might be absolutely the very best possible, which 
 yet, when acting under this double disadvantage, would pre- 
 sent to those, who have themselves been governed by a life- 
 long bias of the most opposite character, an objectionable, not 
 to say repulsive, appearance. And again, it is very plain that 
 precisely the same religious system, acting on a people and by 
 means of ministers, who, in all the particulars above specified 
 or nearly all of them, differ from that former nation, would 
 wear an external dress so absolutely different also, that it 
 would almost require a practised eye, to recognise through 
 that dress the same essential principles at work. 
 
 We shall the better understand this, by fixing our ideas on 
 one out of those numberless elements of a national character, 
 and tracing in greater detail the degree of its influence ; and
 
 90 
 
 there is more than one reason which induces me to select, for 
 that purpose, the different effect caused by difference of race. 
 ' The division between the Teutonic and the Roman 
 nations is, both in itself the most striking in modern Europe, 
 and also acquires additional interest from the almost universal 
 adoption of the Reformation by those of the former stock, 
 its almost universal rejection by those of the latter. And 
 if we examine the moral character of those nations, as 
 they are exhibited in their most complete specimens ; on the 
 one hand in England and Germany, on the other hand in 
 Spain and Italy ; we shall find, amidst the general resemblance 
 which binds together all the parts of European Christendom, 
 marked diversities, which cannot readily be ascribed to any 
 other cause than their original difference of race. Of France 
 it is the less necessary to speak, because the less strongly 
 denned character of the French people, in the leading points 
 which distinguish generally the Teutonic and Roman nations, 
 is exactly what might be expected from a country in which 
 the two elements were from the first most inseparably and 
 equally blended ; and exactly accords with the doubtful con- 
 test, there maintained so long, between the two contending 
 principles of the sixteenth century, which in the other states 
 of Europe so soon obtained mastery over the national 
 mind. It is not then too much to say, that the two great 
 divisions, before mentioned, coincide as nearly as possible 
 with two of the chief tendencies which divide the human 
 race itself; and in which, so far as we can trace them back to 
 their origin, we find on the one side the ideas of truth and 
 justice, on the other side, those of beauty and love ; wliich, 
 when separated from each other, and exposed to evil in- 
 fluences, are liable to be corrupted, the one into selfish 
 Atheism, the other into a bloody and lying idolatry.* It 
 will be sufficient for the present purpose, to dwell on the 
 exemplification of these tendencies under their more favour- 
 able aspect, in each of these two great branches of the Euro- 
 pean commonwealth. 
 
 ' Long before the introduction of Christianity among the 
 x See the Preface to Dr. Arnold's fourth volume of Sermons.
 
 91 
 
 German races, Tacitus had contrasted their truthful and 
 independent spirit with the servility of his own country- 
 men. The English, whilst they are often regarded in the 
 East as a people without religion and without morality, 
 are yet known emphatically as the truth-speaking nation. 
 The Saxon race has been pronounced to be the only one, in 
 which veracity is regarded as an undoubted virtue. On the 
 other hand, it is no less notorious that our very idea and 
 standard of beauty has been derived from Italy that what- 
 ever elements have been powerful in refining and softening 
 the harshness of the northern nations, have been derived 
 almost entirely from the south. How different would have been 
 Shakspeare's mind, without the conception of the Italian at- 
 mosphere which breathes through Romeo and Juliet ! How 
 different would have been all the poetry of Christendom, had 
 it not found its first voice in the immortal work of Dante ! 
 
 * In each of these two divisions, the best man will of course 
 rise above the failings of his nation, and the worst will sink 
 below its virtues ; but the character of the mass must be 
 judged by the ordinary temptations, and the ordinary stand- 
 ard of excellence, in the race to which they belong. The 
 mere Englishman is consious of no struggle when he tells 
 the truth the mere Italian is conscious of no victory when 
 he burns with passionate enthusiasm. The mere English- 
 man will never be a treacherous assassin the mere Italian 
 will never be a drunken sot. No Englishman would have 
 written Machiavelli's ' Prince' no Italian would have written 
 Bentham's Deontology. ' y It is no testimony to his religious 
 system that an Englishman is veracious, nor yet that an 
 Italian is ardent and reverential. 
 
 This consideration of the extensively important results, de- 
 rived from one only among the numberless constituent ele- 
 ments of national character, will sufficiently shew the extremely 
 arduous nature, under any circumstances, of the attempt to- 
 draw general lessons from social phenomena : and still more 
 when those who observe them do not suddenly descend from 
 
 * The passage within inverted commas has been supplied me by a friend who 
 understands the subject, which I do not.
 
 92 
 
 the moon, but are predisposed by their origin, and have 
 been strengthened in their predisposition by every early 
 association, either to undue sympathy, or undue antipathy. 
 No one will at any time be able to make real progress 
 in such a study, to make way against the unavoidable 
 temptations whether to over-lenient or over-severe judg- 
 ment, unless he unite, in a very high degree, powers of mind 
 seldom found together in any degree : painful abstraction, 
 vivid imagination, accurate observation. But in the present, 
 hardly even nascent, state of the social science, no one, even so 
 endowed to the uttermost extent, can derive any general con- 
 clusions from these phenomena, except with extreme diffidence 
 and doubtfulness. No ! the history of past ages and foreign 
 countries is not as yet productive of results, which may be 
 separated, as it were, from the concrete mass, and applied as 
 general maxims for the guidance of a nation or a national 
 Church. Its benefits are very considerable, but do not amount 
 to this. They are principally the two following. First, such 
 studies protect us against a certain pusillanimity and nar- 
 rowness of mind, incidental to merely personal experience ; 
 on the present subject, they save us from that deep de- 
 spondency which might otherwise bow us to the earth, that 
 oppressive and stifling fear lest it should be true that 
 Christian doctrines cannot, from their very nature, be the 
 leaven and animating principle of society ; it saves us from 
 this, by putting before us in all their details, so as to satisfy 
 our imagination and affections no less than our understanding, 
 the picture of those glorious ages, when religion was " a living 
 power, kindling hearts, leavening them with one idea, moulding 
 them on one model, developing them into one polity ; when it 
 was the life of morality, gave birth to power, wielded empire." 1 
 And secondly, acquaintance with past ages or foreign countries 
 may suggest to us, in abundant profusion, remedies for those 
 unparelleled irregularities and distresses which now surround 
 us : remedies, however, which it can only suggest ; whose 
 efficacy can be tested by reference to no such merely external 
 sources, but must be determined by the general principles of 
 
 1 Letters of Catholicus.
 
 93 
 
 human nature, and by a deep and penetrating insight, if it be 
 attainable, into men and things as they really exist in the 
 midst of us. 
 
 7. Thus then every thing seenis to throw us back on that 
 course of action, which feelings of natural affection would in 
 themselves suggest ; viz. the making our own Church our one 
 great centre of thought, as it must inevitably be our one great 
 sphere of action. We must learn to dismiss all otiose and un- 
 fruitful contemplation of external models, whether primitive 
 or foreign, and apply ourselves to the more homely task of 
 labouring by their help, to introduce among ourselves that 
 vital principle, which has had so great a share in organizing 
 those models. And just as we should encourage in our minds 
 a warm and hearty affection for serious Christians throughout 
 all the world; (being confident of this, that so far forth as 
 they are really serious, they have a true principle and sound 
 faith, practically, even if unconsciously, energizing within 
 them ;) so we should also cherish a regard in some respects 
 even more especial and peculiar, to all serious Christians 
 among ourselves, who join with us in affection to the English 
 Church. All who seriously and unaffectedly desire to see 
 that Church such in action, as every Christian Church is in 
 profession, and who are ready to devote their utmost energies 
 to the accomplishment of that object, have in point of fact, 
 and should be made more and more to feel that they have, 
 a very real bond of union and sympathy ; however widely 
 they may differ as to the means of that accomplishment. 
 And if this be so, as it plainly is, even in cases where there 
 is a radical contrariety of doctrinal profession, how much 
 more will it be so, in cases where such profession is in funda- 
 mentals accordant ! ' Numbers there are among ourselves, 
 who fully agree in the profession of attachment to the early 
 Church, and a real wish to conform to its standard ; in the 
 desire to lay far greater stress than heretofore on prayer, 
 obedience, and self-denial ; in zeal for the Sacraments and 
 other Church ordinances ; and a deep sense of the unspeakable 
 blessings which God gives us through their channel. And 
 how painful a reflection to any one, who has imbibed so much
 
 the moon, but are predisposed by their origin, and have 
 been strengthened in their predisposition by every early 
 association, either to undue sympathy, or undue antipathy. 
 No one will at any time be able to make real progress 
 in such a study, to make way against the unavoidable 
 temptations whether to over-lenient or over-severe judg- 
 ment, unless he unite, in a very high degree, powers of mind 
 seldom found together in any degree : painful abstraction, 
 vivid imagination, accurate observation. But in the present, 
 hardly even nascent, state of the social science, no one, even so 
 endowed to the uttermost extent, can derive any general con- 
 clusions from these phenomena, except with extreme diffidence 
 and doubtfulness. No ! the history of past ages and foreign 
 countries is not as yet productive of results, which may be 
 separated, as it were, from the concrete mass, and applied as 
 general maxims for the guidance of a nation or a national 
 Church. Its benefits are very considerable, but do not amount 
 to this. They are principally the two following. First, such 
 studies protect us against a certain pusillanimity and nar- 
 rowness of mind, incidental to merely personal experience ; 
 on the present subject, they save us from that deep de- 
 spondency which might otherwise bow us to the earth, that 
 oppressive and stifling fear lest it should be true that 
 Christian doctrines cannot, from their very nature, be the 
 leaven and animating principle of society ; it saves us from 
 this, by putting before us in all their details, so as to satisfy 
 our imagination and affections no less than our understanding, 
 the picture of those glorious ages, when religion was " a living 
 power, kindling hearts, leavening them with one idea, moulding 
 them on one model, developing them into one polity ; when it 
 was the life of morality, gave birth to power, wielded empire."* 
 And secondly, acquaintance with past ages or foreign countries 
 may suggest to us, in abundant profusion, remedies for those 
 unparelleled irregularities and distresses which now surround 
 us : remedies, however, which it can only suggest ; whose 
 efficacy can be tested by reference to no such merely external 
 sources, but must be determined by the general principles of 
 
 1 Letters of Catholicus.
 
 93 
 
 human nature, and by a deep and penetrating insight, if it be 
 attainable, into men and things as they really exist in the 
 midst of us. 
 
 7. Thus then every thing seems to throw us back on that 
 course of action, which feelings of natural affection would in 
 themselves suggest ; viz. the making our own Church our one 
 great centre of thought, as it must inevitably be our one great 
 sphere of action. We must learn to dismiss all otiose and un- 
 fruitful contemplation of external models, whether primitive 
 or foreign, and apply ourselves to the more homely task of 
 labouring by their help, to introduce among ourselves that 
 vital principle, which has had so great a share in organizing 
 those models. And just as we should encourage in our minds 
 a warm and hearty affection for serious Christians throughout 
 all the world; (being confident of this, that so far forth as 
 they are really serious, they have a true principle and sound 
 faith, practically, even if unconsciously, energizing within 
 them ;) so we should also cherish a regard in some respects 
 even more especial and peculiar, to all serious Christians 
 among ourselves, who join with us in affection to the English 
 Church. All who seriously and unaffectedly desire to see 
 that Church such in action, as every Christian Church is in 
 profession, and who are ready to devote their utmost energies 
 to the accomplishment of that object, have in point of fact, 
 and should be made more and more to feel that they have, 
 a very real bond of union and sympathy ; however widely 
 they may differ as to the means of that accomplishment. 
 And if this be so, as it plainly is, even in cases where there 
 is a radical contrariety of doctrinal profession, how much 
 more will it be so, in cases where such profession is in funda- 
 mentals accordant ! ' Numbers there are among ourselves, 
 who fully agree in the profession of attachment to the early 
 Church, and a real wish to conform to its standard ; in the 
 desire to lay far greater stress than heretofore on prayer, 
 obedience, and self-denial ; in zeal for the Sacraments and 
 other Church ordinances ; and a deep sense of the unspeakable 
 blessings which God gives us through their channel. And 
 how painful a reflection to any one, who has imbibed so much
 
 96 
 
 those very measures of whose propriety they have the most 
 certain conviction. 
 
 It will of course be at once asked, if this be so, why is it 
 that so much has been said on these ultimate points ? why is 
 it that we have not been content with dwelling on points of 
 agreement? why is it that the English Reformation has been 
 so warmly attacked ; monastic institutions, voluntary poverty, 
 celibacy, and every thing, most plainly and directly opposed 
 to the spirit of that Reformation, so warmly eulogized ? I 
 answer in the first place, speaking still only for myself, that 
 I have not at all professed sympathy, even on matters of im- 
 mediate practice, with the course now adopted by most ' high 
 churchmen;' rather, I hope to establish, that the principles 
 they profess ought to lead them to an extremely different course. 
 Since then it seems to me absolutely necessary, were it only 
 with a view to most immediate and daily duties, to defend 
 most earnestly and uncompromisingly the position, that our 
 Church, in her present practical working, is radically and 
 vitally corrupt, I am not aware that I add materially to the 
 odium necessarily incurred by such a statement, when I go 
 on to the further acknowledgment, that I cannot but consider 
 even the professed principles of most ' high churchmen ' to be, 
 in some important respects, erroneous or deficient. 
 
 In the next place, I have to submit, that the number is 
 perhaps not small of those who, like myself, are so utterly 
 averse to the peculiarities, whether in the Church's constitu- 
 tion, or in Churchmen's general profession, introduced by 
 the Reformation, that so long as our Church is identified in 
 their minds with those peculiarities, it is literally impossible 
 for them to indulge in that affection towards her, which would 
 otherwise be natural. Moreover, many of these are endued 
 with qualities, to which I can lay no sort of claim ; ardent and 
 enthusiastic love of God, intense, self-sacrificing, self -forgetting 
 benevolence to man. These high qualities they are ready, 
 nay most anxious, to devote ungrudgingly to the service of 
 their immediate Mother ; but to cheer them in their thank- 
 less labours, to support them against so much of hostility, 
 detraction, and reviling as will surround them on all sides, their
 
 97 
 
 imagination must be allowed to rest, as on the ideal towards 
 which they tend, on a vision far more bright, glowing, and 
 cloudless, than may consist with the continued presence 
 amongst us of any part of the spirit now triumphant, or of 
 the external forms, positive or negative, in which for three 
 hundred years it has learned to clothe itself. One of their 
 number has given expression to this feeling. After stating, 
 in language now by frequent repetition familiar to the 
 public, the very serious evils involved in the present ne- 
 cessary struggle, " all this," he adds, " has been done, 
 and all this is worth hazarding, in a matter of life and 
 death ; . . . . But if, after all, we are not to be carried 
 above the doctrine and tone of the English Reformers ; if 
 we are but to exchange a congenial enthusiasm for a timid 
 moderation, a vigorous extreme for an unreal mean, an 
 energetic Protestantism for a stiff and negative Anglicanism, 
 we see but poor compensation for so extensive and irrepa- 
 rable a breach of peace and charity." b 
 
 Others, again, who have not yet seen their way to 
 adopt ' high Church ' principles in any shape, will often 
 be much more readily drawn to them, when exhibited in 
 what I must beg leave to call a simply Catholic and ho- 
 mogeneous dress, than when mixed up with foreign and 
 incongruous elements. Nor, when wishing to give the 
 former class of men that encouragement which results 
 from a knowledge how many hearts beat in unison with 
 their own ; and to enable the latter to understand what 
 that system is, which one wishes to propose for their 
 acceptance ; is it possible to succeed in these indispensable 
 objects, without causing alarm to more timid and cautious 
 minds ? The very attempt leads precisely to that practice of 
 significant hints and implications, which has given so great 
 offence. If then objectors say, ' why do you use language 
 so vehement, so unmeasured, so intense ? ' one answer ready 
 at hand is, you have made it necessary, who so much 
 dislike a tone of caution, suggestion, and (as it were) irony. 
 We wish to convey to others certain strong feelings which 
 we entertain : we must do so directly or indirectly ; you 
 
 b Article on Bp. Jewel. 
 
 H
 
 98 
 
 complain most grievously if we choose the latter ; pray then 
 moderate your indignation when we prefer the former. 
 
 But this is far from being even the most important answer 
 that may be given. The points at issue between ' high 
 churchmen/ though not at this moment externally practical, 
 must be at all times, as I have hinted above, internally 
 so in a very high degree. Take, merely as instances, those 
 particular opinions just now mentioned ; the admiration 
 of monastic institutions, of celibacy, of voluntary poverty. 
 Is it not plain, on being once stated, that these opinions 
 spring from real and important peculiarities of mind ; from 
 a far deeper sense than is now common among us of the 
 supernatural character of Christian obedience, of the cor- 
 rupting tendency of this world's goods, of the extreme 
 arduousness of the path to heaven, of the peculiar beauty of 
 virgin purity, of the inestimable value of habitual and 
 abstracted spiritual contemplation ? It cannot be of little 
 moment, were it only for their own sakes, whether indi- 
 viduals do or do not entertain opinions such as these ; for 
 without them the Christian character is in a fair way to 
 lose all that is most heavenly and most peculiar to itself. 
 And believing, as we do most firmly, that in proportion 
 as the Christian walks more steadily and consistently in the 
 path of ordinary conscientiousness, he is likely to be attracted 
 the more forcibly to these opinions, provided only they be 
 fairly placed before him ; it would be impossible to reconcile 
 our conduct with the most obvious principles of duty, were 
 we parties to any compromise, which might tend to with- 
 hold the knowledge of them, from any who may be pre- 
 pared to receive them. And the same considerations render 
 it equally impossible to refrain from the most earnest and 
 almost indignant disavowals of the language, adopted by 
 many ' high churchmen' towards Rome. A small, very 
 small, knot of individuals, in using such language, intend 
 only to attack certain modern developments of doctrine, 
 which they consider corruptions ; but with the general body 
 the case is very far different. ' High churchmen' of the 
 present day are not in general (nor have any need to be) 
 subtle and accurate theologians ; in attacking Rome, they
 
 99 
 
 attack not this or that particular, but a certain general spirit, 
 to which Rome has ever most prominently and honourably 
 witnessed ; that very spirit of which I spoke above. It is 
 a mere theory, refuted by the smallest practical experience, 
 to suppose that these peculiarly Christian tempers of mind 
 can ever be held in due honour and reverence, I do not say 
 by a very few individuals, but by any numerous class, while 
 such language towards Rome, as that to which I allude, 
 receives encouragement or indeed tolerance. Nor in like 
 manner can the all-important principles of dutifulness and 
 faith be apprehended in their true colours, so long as it is sup- 
 posed to be an acknowledged fact, that the English Reforma- 
 tion (which to me appears the very embodiment of the sins most 
 opposed to those principles) is to be regarded with respect. 
 
 Such then is the alliance which, as I cannot but think, may 
 without difficulty be maintained among ' high churchmen.' 
 They will be surprised to find how little necessity there 
 is, for introducing any doctrine or sentiment, which is 
 controverted between us, into the discussion of matters 
 of immediate practice ; but, if it is to be a real and 
 lasting alliance, there must be the fullest permission on 
 both sides to state plainly our sentiments on questions 
 of (what some might call) a more speculative character. 
 Let us agree with each other from our innermost heart, 
 as serious and truth-seeking men, to test the value of our 
 respective views on points of difference, by discovering which 
 alternative those adopt, who carry out into most earnest prac- 
 tice our points of agreement. Let Mr. Isaac Williams, if he 
 so please, still publish his opinion, that " human support and 
 human comfort " were needful to St. Mary, after our Lord's 
 Ascension, while the promise of the Holy Ghost was the 
 sufficient consolation of His disciples ; let Dr. Hook continue 
 to call Roman Catholics Mariolaters ; let Mr. Wilson exercise 
 his judgment on a Pope's bull, and characterize it as almost 
 worthy of a 'railing' censure; but let others have equal 
 liberty, and with no greater remonstrance, to honour St. 
 
 c ' On the Passion,' p. 336. ' Preface to translation of Quesnel's Commentary on 
 St. Matthew. 
 
 H 2
 
 100 
 
 Mary as the highest and purest of creatures ; to regard the 
 Roman Church with affection and reverence ; and to hold a 
 Pope's dogmatic decree, as at least exempt from our 
 criticism and comment.* 1 It is impossible for our opinions to 
 
 d It has been considered by some, that subscription to our XlXth Article 
 requires the formation and expression of an opinion that the formal doctrine of 
 the Roman Church is erroneous in some particular ; but a very little consider- 
 ation will shew, that no one is at all committed by this Article to so painfully 
 presumptuous a sentiment. The Article gives a definition of the Visible Church, 
 and then at once proceeds to call the Church of Rome a Church ; so much 
 then at once follows, that the Article implies the (local) Church of Rome to be 
 part of that " congregation of faithful men, in the which tJie pure Word of God 
 is preached, and lite Sacraments be duly administered according to Christ's 
 ordinance in all those things that of necessity are requisite to the same*'" It then 
 asserts that, like other Churches the Church of Rome hath erred "not only in 
 their living and manner of ceremonies, but also in matters of faith." Even 
 without commenting on the significant use of the word 'their,' which really 
 seems to me at once to point to members of the Church of Rome, the general 
 scope of the Article is quite sufficient for my purpose. For, as is plain, the 
 Church of Rome is here asserted to have erred in 'matters of faith,' exactly in 
 the same sense in which she is asserted to have erred in 'living.' Now there is 
 literally no meaning in the assertion, that the abstract Church of Rome has 
 erred in ' their living ; ' it must by absolute necessity be certain of her concrete 
 members who have so erred: certain of her concrete members then it is, who are here 
 asserted to have erred in matters of faith, i. e. of religious belief. This sentiment 
 I most fully hold ; for instance, many of the opinions held by some in Rome, at 
 various times, on the subject of purgatory, are held, I suppose, by very few 
 educated Roman Catholics at the present day. 
 
 I subscribe then the Article in the following sense : I take it to affirm, 
 that whereas the Visible Church of Christ is a certain congregation of faith- 
 ful men, &c., every local Church, included in that body, will contain members 
 not only who act wickedly, not only who are superstitiously addicted to out- 
 ward observances, but also who err on one point or other of religious belief. If 
 this appears the solemn enunciation of a mere truism, I quite admit that it is 
 so : but so far am I from allowing that a probability thence follows of its not 
 having been a sense intended by the Convocation of the time to be admissible, 
 that, on the contrary, nothing seems so natural, as that when a large num- 
 ber of persons meet together, of most opposite opinions, each protesting against 
 what clashes with his own, the result of the various eliminations shall be a 
 formula, which gives no offence to any, because it contains no specific mean- 
 ing whatever. The reader should be reminded, that in my pamphlets, three 
 years since, I distinctly charged the Reformers with fully tolerating the absence 
 from the Articles of any real anti-Roman determination, so only they were 
 allowed to preserve an apparent one : a charge which I here beg, as distinctly, 
 to repeat. I should not close this note without observing, that at first sight of 
 the Latin Version, (which according to Bp. Burnet's account is neither of 
 greater nor of less authority than the English,) the interpretation I have given
 
 101 
 
 pain them, more than theirs pain us ; yet it will I think be 
 confessed by all, that the British Critic has, in a surprising 
 degree, refrained from all unfavourable comment on ' high 
 churchmen' of a different complexion. Speaking again 
 merely of myself; I have used language of very consi- 
 derable respect and deference to Archdeacon Manning, 
 Mr. Dodsworth, Mr. Heurtley, Dr. Hook, Dr. Jelf, Mr. 
 Ernest Hawkins ; and have in no one instance spoken 
 of such divines in a different tone ; and so, with regard to 
 the other two writers I just now mentioned, for Mr. Wilson, 
 though most slightly acquainted with him, I entertain feelings 
 of extreme regard and respect ; to Mr. Williams I look up 
 with (I trust) single-minded love and reverence. On any 
 positive doctrine which persons, such as some of these, 
 should maintain as dear and precious to them, it would 
 indeed be a matter of long and painful deliberation before 
 I could bring myself to dissent from their judgment ; but I 
 have pleasure in believing that such is not the case : on the 
 other hand, even Saints may be wholly mistaken on matters 
 beyond their personal experience ; much less can I follow even 
 such excellent men as these, when they venture to attack 
 Saints. But why may we not hold our respective opinions 
 
 appears less obvious than it does in the English ; mainly from the words 'agenda' 
 and ' credenda,' which seem at first sight to speak of formal appointment. 
 This mistake however is removed on closer inspection ; for the words are ' quae 
 credenda sunt," 1 not fuerunt ; things which are matters of belief, or things which 
 (as being true) ought to be believed. 
 
 I am of course quite aware that the whole of the present argument will be con- 
 sidered as dishonest special pleading by those, who will not give themselves the 
 trouble to look candidly at the wording of our Articles, and fairly to examine the 
 allegation of disingenuousness brought against their framers. Nor do I deny, rather 
 I have plainly said, that the first blush of the Article appears to imply some re- 
 flection on the formal doctrine of the Church of Rome : this indeed will make it a 
 more unexceptionable evidence, for the truth of the view which I maintain. For I 
 challenge any objector to give any meaning to the Article, word by word, which can, 
 by possibility, brine/ the formal doctrine of Rome within its scope. For example, if 
 the phrase had been 'their precepts," 1 although the pronoun 'their' would still 
 have been a difficulty, it might have been plausibly enough maintained, that the 
 formal teaching of Rome on moral points is condemned in the first clause, and 
 by parity of reasoning her formal teaching on doctrinal points in the last. But 
 the phrase being, as it is, ''their living,' any such attempt is impossible.
 
 102 
 
 in mutual love and charity, and possess our souls in peace ? 
 Why may we not hope, that by building on our many sub- 
 jects of agreement, their number may be even increased? 
 Why, when heresy and infidelity are at our very doors, shall 
 we waste that force in intestine divisions, which should rather 
 be directed by our united efforts against the common foe ? 
 When the Spartan in time of war was challenged by a fellow- 
 soldier to single combat, ' rather,' he replied, ' let us decide the 
 quarrel, by our comparative prowess in to-morrow's engage- 
 ment with the enemy.' Let our zeal, accordingly, whether 
 for the more Anglican or more Roman phase of doctrine, 
 lead us not to barren and wasteful invectives ; but to a fair 
 trial of the experiment, which will give us the most effectual 
 help in evangelizing our large towns, in promoting holiness 
 of life, in restoring essential orthodoxy of faith. 
 
 8. In a word then, if it be asked by ' high-churchmen' of 
 what are called more moderate opinions, on what grounds a 
 person can feel real attachment to our Church, who should 
 hold such opinions as those maintained in several parts of the 
 British Critic, how he can defend himself for remaining in 
 our Church, and in what course of action such attachment 
 will display itself; the following answers may be given. 
 
 I. We feel attachment to our Church, because through it 
 we were born again, and because through its ordinances we 
 obtain Communion with Christ. I have never for one 
 moment wavered in this conviction, from my first article in 
 the British Critic to my last ; and here is a marked difference 
 between the attachment entertained by English Churchmen 
 to their Church, and that felt by Dissenters of various classes 
 to their respective Societies. If Dissenters enjoy Communion 
 with Christ, (and I rejoice in believing that very many do 
 enjoy it,) it is not through their Church that they enjoy such 
 Communion, nor do they profess it to be so ; but our Church 
 is a channel of Sacramental grace. 
 
 II. On the second head, an answer to the objectors, is 
 equally ready. The English Church, they are even forward 
 in asserting, had not its origin in the Reformation, but has 
 existed from far earlier times. Whereas then no one accuses
 
 103 
 
 them of disloyalty in preferring the seventeenth century to the 
 nineteenth, what shadow of ground can there be for accusing 
 us of disloyalty any more, in preferring the thirteenth century 
 to either ? 
 
 III. To the last question the foregoing pages, for some way 
 back, have been one continued reply. In addition to the 
 other demonstrations of attachment, specified in an earlier 
 part of the chapter, we now see much more strongly, how 
 great a scope her children have at the present time for indulg- 
 ing that sentiment : by fixing their thoughts mainly on the 
 circumstances of her position ; by studying foreign systems, 
 past and present, with the one object of gathering from them 
 what may be suitable to these circumstances ; by endeavour- 
 ing to obtain some little insight into that hitherto unexplored 
 abyss, our doctrinal and practical corruptions ; above all, by 
 endeavouring to save her from that root of all other national 
 and ecclesiastical sins, which for three hundred years has been 
 our peculiar note of disgrace, I mean pride.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 DOES OUR EXISTING SYSTEM RESEMBLE THAT OF THE EARLY 
 CENTURIES ? 
 
 1. THAT our Church differs, in a vast number of most 
 important particulars, from the Church abroad, is agreed on 
 all hands ; but it is usual for * high-churchmen' to say, 
 that Rome has departed from the primitive model, and Eng- 
 land has not. This is an opinion, which stands directly in 
 our way, before entering on the proposed examination of the 
 English practical system; for certainly, if that system be 
 substantially the same which prevailed in the Church of the 
 Fathers, the most ordinary modesty must forbid one from 
 assailing or questioning it. By ' primitive model,' it may be 
 taken for granted, is meant ' the first five centuries' at least ; 
 for although Mr. Stanley Faber speaks of the fourth century 
 as ' grossly apostatical,' and one or two other modern ' high- 
 church' writers may hold similar language, nothing can be 
 adduced in proof of our Church professing to follow An- 
 tiquity at all, which does not include those centuries under the 
 name of Antiquity. The period of the four first Councils, on 
 this, if on any, has the English ' high-churchman* ever taken 
 his stand. ' In this moderately sized volume of sermons, [the 
 Homilies,] says Mr. Perceval, I have noted forty citations from 
 Augustine onl/.' It is not necessary however to say more on 
 so plain a matter. This opinion then, which maintains the 
 substantial agreement of our present system with the primi- 
 tive, must be briefly considered ; not that I profess in the least 
 to exhaust the subject, but, on the contrary, only to throw 
 out hints, which others may follow up who are versed in the 
 history of those times.
 
 105 
 
 2. First then, let us consider whether our Church agrees 
 with Antiquity in the matter of Church government. For a 
 statement of the primitive constitution of the Church in this 
 particular, I can refer to no better or clearer authority than 
 Mr. Froude: and I must be excused the length of the 
 quotation, in consideration of the importance of the subject ; 
 being indeed no less, than whether the Church of Christ be 
 by right an independent society or no. Mr. Froude then 
 observes as follows : 
 
 ' Though it might be no difficult task to elicit from Scripture 
 precepts sufficient to satisfy this inquiry, it may perhaps be a 
 shorter and a surer process, to refer to the interpretation put upon 
 these precepts by persons better qualified than ourselves to judge of 
 them : and for that I shall refer to one of acknowledged learning, 
 and who will not be suspected of any religious prepossession, the 
 historian Gibbon. 
 
 ' " The distinction," says he, " of spiritual and temporal powers, 
 .... was introduced and confirmed by the legal establishment of 
 
 Christianity In the Christian Church, which entrusts the 
 
 service of the Altar to a perpetual succession of consecrated 
 ministers, the monarch, whose spiritual rank is less honourable 
 than that of the meanest deacon, was seated below the rails of the 
 sanctuary, and confounded with the rest of the faithful multitude. 
 The emperor might be saluted as the father of his people, but he 
 owed a filial duty and reverence to the fathers of the Church ; . . . 
 the opposition or contempt of the civil power served only to cement 
 the discipline of the Primitive Church. The Christians had been 
 obliged to elect their own magistrates, to raise and distribute a pecu- 
 liar revenue, and to regulate the internal policy of their republic 
 by a code of laws which were ratified by the consent of the people 
 and the practice of three hundred years. When Constantine em- 
 braced the faith of the Christians, he seemed to contract a perpetual 
 alliance with- a distinct and independent society, and the privileges 
 granted or confirmed by that Emperor or by his successors, were 
 accepted, not as the precarious favours of the court, but as the just 
 and inalienable rights of Ecclesiastical Order. The Catholic Church 
 was administered by the spiritual and legal jurisdiction of eighteen 
 hundred years. .... The important review of their station and 
 attributes may be distributed under the following heads : 1. Popular
 
 106 
 
 Election. 2. Ordination of the Clergy. 3. Property. 4. Civil 
 Jurisdiction. 5. Spiritual Censures. 6. Exercise of Public Oratory. 
 7. Privilege of Legislative Assemblies." Of these the 1st and 5th 
 are the ones which require attention. 
 
 ' " 1. The freedom of elections subsisted long after the legal 
 establishment of Christianity, and the subjects of Rome enjoyed in 
 the Church the privilege which they had lost in the Republic, of 
 choosing the magistrates whom they were bound to obey. As soon 
 as a Bishop had closed his eyes, the Metropolitan issued a com- 
 mission to one of his Suffragans, to administer the vacant See, and 
 prepare within a limited time the future election. The right of 
 voting was vested in the inferior Clergy, who were best qualified to 
 judge of the merits of the candidates ; in the Senators or Nobles 
 of the city, all those who were distinguished by their rank or pro- 
 perty ; and finally, in the whole body of the people, who on the 
 appointed day flocked in multitudes from the most remote parts of 
 
 the Diocese The authority of the Provincial Bishops who 
 
 were assembled in the vacant Church to consecrate the choice of 
 the People, was interposed to moderate their passions and to correct 
 their mistakes. The Bishops could refuse to ordain an unworthy 
 candidate, and the rage of contending factions sometimes accepted 
 their impartial mediation. The submission or the resistance of the 
 Clergy and People, on various occasions, afforded different pre- 
 cedents, which were insensibly converted into positive laws and 
 provincial customs, but it was everywhere admitted as a fundamental 
 maxim of religious policy, that no Bishop could be imposed on an 
 Orthodox Church, without the consent of its members. The 
 Emperors, as the guardians of the public peace, and as the first 
 citizens of Rome and Constantinople, might effectually declare 
 their wishes in the choice of a Primate ; but those absolute monarchs 
 respected the freedom of ecclesiastical elections ; and while they 
 distributed and resumed the honours of the state and army, they 
 allowed eighteen hundred perpetual magistrates to receive their 
 important offices from the free suffrages of the People 
 
 ' " 5. The Bishop was the perpetual censor of the morals of his 
 people. The discipline of penance was digested into a system of 
 canonical jurisprudence, which accurately defined the duty of 
 private and public confession, the rules of evidence, the degrees 
 of guilt, and the measure of punishment. It was impossible to 
 execute this spiritual censure if the Christian Pontiff, who punished
 
 107 
 
 the obscure sins of the multitude, respected the conspicuous vices 
 and destructive crimes of the magistrate : but it was impossible 
 to arraign the conduct of the magistrate without controlling the 
 administration of civil government. Some considerations of religion? 
 or loyalty, or fear, protected the sacred persons of the Emperors 
 from the zeal or resentment of the Bishops ; but they boldly 
 censured and excommunicated the subordinate tyrants who were 
 not invested with the majesty of the purple. St. Athanasius ex- 
 communicated one of the ministers of Egypt ; and the interdict 
 which he pronounced of fire and water, was solemnly transmitted to 
 the Churches of Cappadocia. Under the reign of the younger 
 Theodosius, the polite, the eloquent Synesius, one of the descend- 
 ants of Hercules, filled the episcopal seat at Ptolemais, near the 
 ruins of the ancient Gyrene, and the philosophic Bishop supported 
 with dignity that which he had assumed with reluctance. He van- 
 quished the monster of Lybia, the president Andronicus, who abused 
 the authority of a venal office, invented new modes of rapine and 
 torture, and aggravated the guilt of oppression with that of sacrilege. 
 After a fruitless attempt to reclaim the haughty magistrate by mild 
 and religious admonition, Synesius proceeds to inflict the last 
 sentence of ecclesiastical justice, which devotes Andronicus with 
 his associates and their families to the abhorrence of earth and 
 heaven. The impenitent sinners . . . are deprived of the name 
 and privilege of Christians, of the participation of the Sacraments, 
 and of the hope of Paradise. The Bishop exhorts the clergy, the 
 magistrates, and the people, to renounce all society with the enemies 
 of Christ ; to exclude them from their houses and tables ; and to 
 refuse them the common offices of life, and the decent rites of burial. 
 The Church of Ptolemais, obscure and contemptible as she may 
 appear, addresses this declaration to all her sister Churches of the 
 world, and the profane who reject her decrees will be involved 
 in the guilt and punishment of Andronicus and his impious fol- 
 lowers."" 
 
 ' Such was the independent power asserted by the Church when 
 its champions emerged from the bracing air of persecution, with their 
 armour bright and their loins girded. 
 
 ' 1. The whole body of Christ's Church asserted and maintained 
 to themselves the right of freely choosing those who were to be 
 
 a Gibbon, Roman Empire, c. 20.
 
 108 
 
 their Spiritual Rulers. This right they did not think it 6t to make 
 over either to the Emperor's ministers or to the Emperor himself. 
 It was their own ; it had been bequeathed to them by the Apostles : 
 and they would not sell the inheritance of their fathers. 2. The 
 persons so elected, after they had received the spiritual gift which 
 qualified them for their high office, deemed it in no wise incumbent 
 on them, or consistent with their duty, to consult their civil governors 
 as to the manner in which they should administer it. The sword 
 of the Holy Spirit was in their hand, and they turned it against 
 whomsoever that Spirit pleased. 
 
 ' I hope then, that when I maintain the incompetence of our 
 present Governors to represent Christ's flock in the choosing who 
 shall be Bishops, and to represent a higher power in controlling 
 them when they are Bishops, I shall escape the imputation of speak- 
 ing lightly of the Powers that be 
 
 ' In the long and obscure interval between the fifth and thirteenth 
 centuries, however unjust and oppressive may have been the en- 
 croachments made on the independence of different national Churches 
 by the policy of the Roman Pontiff, still it does not appear that the 
 Church as such had effected any material aggression on the Rights 
 of Christian States. Indeed, if we compare the claims of Gre- 
 gory VII. and his austere successors, with those which Gibbon alloics 
 to have been conceded by Constantine and other Emperors to the 
 Patriarchs of the Primitive Church, it may be thought on the whole 
 that their policy, with respect to Civil Governments, was directed 
 rather to recovering losses than extending conquest.' a 
 
 Looking not at theories, but (which is my subject) at our 
 practical system in England, do we find anything even in 
 the remotest degree similar to this ? A contemporary writer, 
 who professes to be strictly in accordance with our ' divines of 
 the seventeenth century,' pronounces at least his own opinion, 
 that ' the King has power, if he shall see cause, to suspend 
 any Bishop from the execution of his office. >b No single 
 Bishop can so much as appoint the Ember Day prayer to be 
 used on the week, preceding his day for ordination, should 
 he see cause to change the latter. The only alterations, now 
 ever made in our Prayer-book, are made by an Order of the 
 
 a Froude's Remains, part II. vol. i. pp. 215 221. 
 
 h Quoted from the Quarterly Review iu British Critic, vol. xxxii. p. 222.
 
 109 
 
 Queen in Council. Simply to remind us, and bring home to 
 our feelings what we all so well know, let us take by way of 
 illustration a very few specimens of the ordinary way of pro- 
 ceeding among us. A Privy Council meets, and issues a 
 document such as the following : 
 
 ' It is ordered by their Lordships, that his Grace the Archbishop 
 of Canterbury do prepare a form of prayer and thanksgiving .... 
 and that such form of prayer and thanksgiving be used in all churches 
 and chapels in England and Wales ;' or, ' Whereas by the late 
 Act of Uniformity which established the Liturgy, and enacts, that 
 no form or order of prayer be openly used, other than what is pre- 
 scribed or appointed to be used in and by the said book ; it is not- 
 withstanding provided, that in all those prayers, litanies, and 
 collects, &c., &c., her Majesty was pleased this day in Council to 
 declare her royal will and pleasure, that in all the prayers, litanies, 
 and collects, &c., &c. And her Majesty doth strictly charge and 
 command that no edition of the Common Prayer be from henceforth 
 printed without this amendment ; and that in the mean time, till 
 copies of such edition may be had, all parsons, vicars, and curates 
 in this realm do (for the preventing of mistakes) with their pen 
 correct, &c. And for the better notice thereof, that this order be 
 forthwith printed and published, and sent to the several parishes, 
 and that the Right Reverend the Bishops do take care that obedience 
 be paid to the same accordingly.' c 
 
 And of the perfect deference with which our Bishops re- 
 ceive such commands, also, I believe, in the strictest ac- 
 cordance with precedent, take this as a specimen : 
 
 ' To the Archbishop of Canterbury. 
 
 ' Victoria R. 
 
 ' Most Rev. Father in God, &c. Whereas the incorporated 
 National Society, &c. have, by their petition, humbly represented 
 to us, &c., [inter alia,] that the general principles upon which the 
 Society has conducted its operations have now received the sanction 
 of the legislature, as well as the approbation of our subjects at 
 
 c The Latter of these is copied from the London Gazette of Dec. 14, 1841, the 
 former about a fortnight earlier ; but they are, I fancy, strictly in accordance with 
 the precedent.
 
 110 
 
 large' . . . . ' We taking the premises into our Royal consi- 
 deration ... do hereby direct you, that these our letters be com- 
 municated to the several suffragan Bishops within your province, 
 expressly requiring you and them to take care that publication 
 be made hereof on such Sunday, &c., and that upon this occasion 
 the ministers in each parish do effectually excite their parishioners 
 to a liberal contribution, &c. 
 
 ' By her Majesty's command, 
 
 ' J. R. GRAHAM.' 
 
 Sir James Graham signs this as home-secretary : he is 
 himself, no doubt, a very sincere member of our Church ; 
 but the office may be held by a Socinian. The Archbishop, 
 accordingly, addresses his individual clergy as follows : 
 
 ' Rev. Sir, 
 
 ' In obedience to the commands of her Majesty, I require you to 
 read from the desk,' d &c. 
 
 Mr. Perceval is proceeding with his motion in the House of 
 Commons for a national fast, but is stopped by the intimation 
 that her Majesty's ministers agree to the proposal ; e and ac- 
 cordingly, in due time, a fast is appointed by the King in 
 Council. The Archbishop of Canterbury desires to enter into 
 active communion with the Scotch and American Episcopal 
 Churches ; accordingly he brings in an Act of Parliament 
 to allow him to do so. A weekly newspaper, of considerable 
 authority on subjects of this kind, has been of late expressing 
 a strong doubt whether the English Bishops would be able 
 to refuse institution to a clergyman, excommunicated by 
 a Scotch Bishop in full communion with themselves. Mr. 
 Froude, in one of the Tracts for the Times, among other 
 striking observations, reminds us that * a large proportion of 
 our benefices are in the hands of laymen, who may be of any 
 
 d The Times, Saturday, Dec. 9, 1843. 
 
 e See the Mirror of Parliament, Jan, 26, 1832. The Chancellor of the Ex- 
 chequer (an officer who may be a Socinian, but who in this instance was the pre- 
 sent Lord Spencer) ends a short speech on the subject by saying, ' This mode of 
 proceeding (moving the previous question) will not at all imply that the King, ifJie 
 pleases, may not order a general fast ; and, in point of fact, it is tlie intention of govern- 
 ment that a day of fasting shall be appointed.''
 
 Ill 
 
 religion under heaven ; and the laws of England watch so 
 jealously over the interests of the patrons, and so little over 
 those of the Church, that they compel the Bishops, except in 
 cases so outrageous that they can hardly ever occur, to accept 
 at once the person first presented to him, and commit the 
 care of souls to him by the process of institution.' But the 
 following summary exhibits the whole contrast in a pointed 
 way ; nor am I aware of any attempt that has been made to 
 answer it, so far as concerns the question here at issue. ' The 
 primitive Bishops were appointed by the members of their own 
 order, with the approbation of the people of the diocese : 
 Bishops in England are appointed solely by the Crown. . . . 
 The primitive Bishops fixed the doctrine of their churches, 
 and ordered their ceremonies : no single Bishop, nor all the 
 Bishops in England united, can order a single prayer to be 
 added to or taken from the Church service ; nor can they so 
 much as alter a single expression in its language. No Bishop 
 can ordain any man, unless he will take certain oaths imposed 
 by Act of Parliament, and subscribe to the Articles of re- 
 ligion as required by Act of Parliament. No Bishop can 
 refuse to institute any man, regularly ordained, to the cure of 
 souls in his diocese, to which he may be appointed by the 
 patrons : nor can he, except as patron, and not as Bishop, 
 confer the cure of souls on any one.' f 
 
 3. In the matter of Church Government, then, it is impos- 
 sible to discover the faintest resemblance between the existing 
 and the ancient system. Turn we now to our formularies. 
 Here, first of all, one most remarkable circumstance presents 
 itself to our notice ; viz. that Subscription to certain 'Articles 
 of religion' is required of all the clergy. The laity then are 
 prevented from hearing any doctrine urged upon them, that 
 may be inconsistent with certain propositions, which no one 
 professes to be matter of Divine Revelation, or more than 
 human deductions from the Inspired Word. This may all be 
 very right and necessary ; that is a different question : but 
 what approach to the most distant parallel can be found in 
 ancient times ? When in the first five, or the first fifteen cen- 
 turies, was such a course ever heard of, as requiring a totally 
 
 1 Arnold's Principles of Church Reform, pp. 102, 3.
 
 distinct religious profession in clergymen, over and above that 
 which is required in laymen ? or making any belief necessary 
 to the clerical office, which was not also (in its implicit shape at 
 least) considered necessary to Christian salvation? The only 
 approximation to such a course, I believe, that can be pointed 
 out, is in St. Athanasius' not requiring the word ' opoounov ' 
 to be adopted by those who might scruple at it, while he 
 forbade such persons to hold offices in the Church : but the 
 very essential ground of that distinction was, that they really 
 did hold the doctrine intended by the word ; and that recep- 
 tion of the doctrine (though not of the word) is essential to 
 salvation. Mr. Palmer ('On the Church,' vol. ii. p. 2GG 
 281, first edit.) brings many instances to support the principle 
 adopted in our Church : but the very earliest of them belongs 
 to the latter part of the fifteenth century ; and much as it 
 may be a matter of rejoicing to find points of sympathy be- 
 tween the English and Roman Churches, this throws no light 
 at all on the subject of our agreement with Antiquity. Again, 
 recent investigations have proved, certainly to my own com- 
 plete satisfaction, that subscription to the Articles is really 
 very far from a stringent test ; but, in the first place, that 
 does not alter the principle, and, in the second place, those 
 with whom I am now in controversy, do not at all admit 
 those methods of interpretation, which give the Articles so 
 extraordinary a latitude. 
 
 Indeed two opinions, very prevalent within our Church, 
 when taken together, land us in rather extraordinary con- 
 clusions. For it is frequently considered (1), that the Eng- 
 lish Church is the only ordinary way of salvation in this 
 country, and (2), that the ministers of that Church are 
 bound, by subscription of the Articles, to teach certain ' dis- 
 tinctive doctrines,' which are indeed represented as the very 
 pride and glory of our Church. It follows then, that no 
 Englishman can hope for salvation, (except on the plea of 
 invincible ignorance,) unless he submit himself to the guid- 
 ance of ministers, who are required to teach him, over and 
 -above the general Catholic Faith, certain characteristic doc- 
 trines; doctrines for whose truth there is absolutely no warrant, 
 except that certain Bishops and others, three centuries since,
 
 113 
 
 lor whom no one claims any covenanted divine illumination, 
 and who were called upon very suddenly to make most ex- 
 tensive changes, considered at the moment that these doctrines 
 were derivable from Scripture and Primitive Antiquity. A 
 violation this of the sacred rights of conscience, which stands 
 in most startling contrast to all the maxims of Antiquity, as 
 well as to those of the modern Church of Rome. 
 
 On proceeding from our Articles to our Prayer-Book, and 
 looking first at the most sacred portion of the latter, the 
 order for Holy Communion, we find alterations so great to 
 have been made by our Reformers, that even in an apologetic 
 letter, deprecating the suspicion of Roman tendencies, nothing 
 but the most indignant language could express Mr. New- 
 man's feelings on the subject. ' The original Eucharistic 
 form is with good reason assigned to the Apostles and Evan- 
 gelists themselves. This sacred and most precious monument 
 of the Apostles our Reformers received whole and entire 
 from their predecessors ; and they mutilated the tradition of 
 fifteen hundred years. Well was it for us that they did not 
 discard it, that they did not touch any vital part ; we have 
 it at this day, a violently treated, but a holy and dear pos- 
 session.' s 
 
 In the following instances too our variations of ritual are 
 very great from the Church of the Fathers, and which I men- 
 tion on the authority of a friend, (a clergyman of our Church,) 
 who is very well versed in their writings, and is ready to 
 mention his name and defend his statement should it be 
 called in question. He says that universally in early times 
 Confirmation was given to infants immediately after Baptism, 
 and the Eucharist immediately after that ; that unction was 
 used both in Baptism and in Confirmation ; that Exorcism 
 was also used in Baptism ; that the Consecrated Host was re- 
 served for the sick and the dying ; that water was invariably 
 mixed with the wine ; that solitaries frequently, for a length 
 of time together, received only under one kind ; that prayers 
 for the dead were universal in the Ancient Liturgies. Now 
 is it not plain, on its very statement, that such ordinances 
 as these imply an habitual feeling, on the subject of the 
 
 e Letter to the Rev. Dr. Faussett, pp. 46, 7- 
 
 I
 
 114 
 
 Sacraments and other similar particulars, which bears a most 
 striking resemblance to that prevalent among Roman Catho- 
 lics at the present day ; and at the same time, by no means in 
 harmony with the ordinary sentiments of * high-churchmen '? 
 
 Our Prayer-book, as a whole, is so very dear to every 
 Catholic-minded member of our Church, and, taken alto- 
 gether, is in essentials so accordant with the old Catholic 
 services, that I shall not allude to minor differences in detail 
 and even in spirit ; which, however, are very far from incon- 
 siderable. 
 
 4. From formularies of worship we naturally turn to in- 
 stitutions of formal discipline ; and here again the same friend 
 must be taken as authority for the following statements. 
 Public penance was universally required for public sins ; 
 no one might receive the Eucharist otherwise than fasting ; 
 it was necessary to go through certain minor orders, before 
 admission was possible to the diaconate or the priesthood. 
 On the celibacy of the clergy, I cannot do better than quote 
 part of a note to the Oxford Translation of ' Fleury's Ec- 
 clesiastical History,' which I have already introduced in the 
 British Critic. " Earnestness and persecution seem at first 
 to have superseded the use of canons, and all but readers 
 and singers preserved continence. But no sooner had Con- 
 stantine granted the Christians in Spain liberty of worship, 
 A.D. 306, than we find a council at Eliberis requiring con- 
 tinence of all clerks, ' positis in ministerio ;' and no sooner 
 was universal toleration proclaimed, A.D. 312, than we find 
 two councils at Neocaesarea and Ancyra, both A.D. 314, 
 enforcing the law of continence." g Can any thing shew more 
 distinctly than this, not the difference, but the fundamental 
 opposition, of our present feelings and habits to those of 
 primitive times ? 
 
 The fearfully severe penitential discipline which prevailed 
 in the early Church, is matter of universal notoriety ; I will 
 merely, then, make a short quotation from Marshall's ' Peni- 
 tential Discipline of the Primitive Church,' to call more dis- 
 tinctly into our memory facts which are acknowledged by all. 
 ' This discipline (how much soever the zeal of those times 
 
 e p. 182.
 
 115 
 
 might induce people to desire coming under if) was in reality 
 very severe and rigorous ; not only in the Church, but out 
 of it, &c. Origen will tell us, that ' the hardships are very 
 great which the man must submit to, who should not be 
 discouraged by the regards of shame from opening his case 
 to the ministry of God, and from seeking relief at His hands ; 
 that, according to that of the Psalmist, he must * water his 
 couch with his tears, and that they must be his meat both 
 day and night.' " Tertullian, speaking of the practice which 
 existed in the Catholic Church concerning penitents, says, 
 " They sit in sackcloth, they are covered with ashes, they 
 entreat with sighs, and groans, and bended knees to their 
 common mother." . . . . " The public exomologesis extends 
 its rigour even to his garb and diet, and to lay him in sackcloth 
 and ashes ; it obliges him to neglect all dress and ornament, 
 to afflict his soul with melancholy meditations, and to reverse, 
 by a quite contrary practice, the example of his former mis- 
 behaviour. As to meat and drink, to use none for pleasure, 
 but merely for sustenance ; to keep up the fervour of his 
 piety with frequent and assiduous fastings; to groan, and 
 weep, and cry unto the Lord his God both night and day ; 
 to prostrate himself before the Presbyters of the Church, 
 and to beg of the servants of God in the humblest posture, 
 that they would intercede for his pardon. All this the public 
 exomologesis requires the Penitent to submit to." (pp. 76 78.) 
 None can deny, that the view taken at any time of Chris- 
 tian repentance is more deeply and intimately bound up with 
 the acknowledged type of the Christian's inward life, than 
 almost any other that can be named ; and that two systems, 
 which radically differ in that particular, are quite certainly 
 opposed to each other on the very elementary principles of 
 religion. It is plain, then, that those who think such rules 
 as these wrong in point of principle, profess nothing less than 
 a different Gospel from that professed in the early ages : 
 they may say, indeed, that theirs is the true Gospel, and the 
 antagonist a counterfeit ; but they cannot say that both are 
 the Gospel. 8 On the other hand, as I said in the last chapter, 
 
 8 For instance, a writer in the British Magazine,) which professes ' high-church ' 
 principles,) in the following passage distinctly repudiates the principle of volun- 
 
 i2
 
 116 
 
 a difference on matters of particular application and ar- 
 rangement, which should even extend very far indeed, 
 would be no presumption at all that there is any real differ- 
 ence of principle ; and accordingly no one who reveres the 
 Ancient Church is at all bound, in consequence of that 
 reverence, to suppose that the discipline, which was most 
 suitable then, would now be even endurable. But surely 
 those who not merely revere the Ancient Church, but take it 
 as their model in contradistinction to modern Rome, are bound 
 to suppose this. What meaning is there in the very words 
 ' taking the early ages for our model,' if on a matter which 
 no other can exceed in practical importance, we are at liberty 
 to choose for ourselves some other standard ? Nor indeed will 
 this dilemma be at all confined to the case of penitents ; the 
 extreme austerity of life, practised by Christians who were 
 not penitents, is equally difficult of adoption among modern 
 Englishmen. If it be replied that circumstances are most 
 widely changed, that is of course the very reason why the 
 Ancient Church should not be our model ; but it is no proof 
 that we can, without a contradiction in terms, take it for our 
 model, and yet not imitate it. Let those then who wish to 
 recal writers in the British Critic to what they consider a 
 purer and holier standard, seriously consider how much would 
 be involved in the accomplishment of their wish; and let 
 those who dream of our being already not very different from 
 Antiquity, steadily contemplate the real features of the An- 
 cient Church. 11 
 
 tary self-chastisement, which is involved in the whole Ancient penitential discipline ; 
 whereas it is no disparagement whatever of the principle, to say that in^ our 
 times its application ought to be most widely different. The writer in question 
 protests against that ' notion of holiness ' which ' is formed on the routine of 
 monastic life, 1 and against the sentiments of those who 'hoped to extract from 
 sufferings which they inflicted on themselves, the benefits attainable from such as He 
 inflicts on those whom, loving, He rebukes and chastens.' April, 1844. 
 
 h ' If it is our ambition to follow the Christians of the first ages . . . they had 
 
 the discomfort of this world without its compensating gifts If we have 
 
 only the enjoyment and none of the pain, and they only the pain and none of the 
 enjoyment, in what does our Christianity resemble theirs ? . . . Why do we not 
 call theirs one religion, and ours another ? . . . How do the two agree, except 
 that the name of Christianity is given to both of them ? ' Newman's Sermons on 
 Subjects of the Day, p. 415.
 
 117 
 
 5. In government then, in authoritative formularies, in 
 discipline, the differences in question are most extensive, 
 deep, fundamental; amounting, indeed, rather to absolute and 
 pointed opposition. Next let us consider what maybe called 
 the ecclesiastical principles, which are maintained by ' high- 
 churchmen ' in defence of our position. Of these, there is none 
 in the whole range of Anglican theology, so deep, so all-per- 
 vading, so indispensably necessary for an essential support of 
 the entire superstructure, as this : viz. that when the ' holy 
 Church throughout all the world' (or at least that which has 
 been hitherto believed to be such) with one voice propounds 
 a certain scheme of doctrine for acceptance, a local Church is 
 at liberty to throw off such doctrine, (not because religious 
 men among her members have heartily accepted it, and then 
 find by experience that it offends against sacred and inviolable 
 principles of conscience, but) because, in the judgment of that 
 local Church, such doctrine is not sufficiently supported by 
 the testimony of early ages. It will not be denied, that it is 
 on this single principle that the English Reformation (J. will 
 not say was brought about, but) is by high-churchmen justi- 
 fied. On this principle they praise Cranmer and his associ- 
 ates ; on this principle they defend our continued separation 
 from Rome ; on this principle they challenge for our Church 
 the allegiance of her members. It cannot then be called a 
 subordinate or secondary maxim ; and to shew still more that 
 it cannot so be called, I will recal to the reader's memory 
 what I said on the subject in the second chapter. In that 
 chapter I implied, as my deep conviction, that this funda- 
 mental principle of ordinary ' high-church' theology, con- 
 sidered in the temper of mind to which it fitly appertains, 
 is simply Anti-Christian, and, considered in its inevitable 
 tendency, is destructive of all religious belief whatever. 
 
 Such being the extreme view which it is at least possible 
 to take of this principle, it is a matter deserving of most 
 serious consideration for those many admirable men who hold 
 it, (wholly unsuspicious, as I should say, of its real nature 
 and results,) it is deserving, I say, of their most serious con- 
 sideration, what warrant have they for holding it ? In that 
 Antiquity to which they appeal, what single feature is there,
 
 118 
 
 which can, with any possible show of plausibility, be taken to 
 give it the most distant sanction ? True that the Church 
 of the fourth and fifth centuries always professed, that her 
 decrees were only exponential of the doctrine handed down 
 from the first ; but so also did the Church of the sixteenth 
 century. Now in the sixteenth century, the Ecclesiastical 
 definition on the Real Presence was rejected by the English 
 Reformers; and the rejection is defended, because some of 
 the Fathers hold language which appears inconsistent with it. 
 Let us conceive as a parallel case, that some small Church, 
 one hundred years (say) after the Nicene Council, when the 
 whole Catholic Body had given their joyful witness to the 
 6ju,oGvo-*ov, and after that this supposed local Church inclu- 
 sively had herself received it, should have rejected the word, 
 and thrown off communion with the rest of Christendom be- 
 cause they maintained it. Let us then further conceive, that 
 in justification of so wild and wicked a procedure, they should 
 have drawn attention to the language of several Ante-Nicene 
 Fathers, apparently inconsistent with the Council's decree ; 
 and moreover (which is really a strong fact) to the circum- 
 stance, that a local Council of some repute was generally con- 
 sidered to have condemned the word 6/x,oou<nov, as savouring of 
 Sabellianism. b What, think we, would have been the ge- 
 neral voice of Antiquity, in speaking of that local Church ? 
 It is a matter for grave thought. 
 
 I am well aware that it will be said by many in parallel 
 instances (though it cannot be urged in this 1 ), that where the 
 
 h The Council of Antioch, towards the end of the third century. 
 
 1 That cannot be said in this case, for Mr. Palmer admits ('On the Church, 
 vol. i. p. 211), that the Greek Church does use the word ' Transubstantiation.' It 
 seems necessary to add here one or two observations, lest I be supposed in the 
 text to contradict the Articles of our Church. ' High-churchmen' will, I sup- 
 pose, with one consent agree, that the doctrine denied by our Church, under the 
 name ' Transubstantiation,' is the doctrine of our Lord's Body being present 
 after Consecration, in such sort, that if our senses were not miraculously with- 
 holden, they would perceive it. But that doctrine is virtually denied by the 
 Roman formularies, as well as by our own : for, according to the scholastic use 
 of the words ' substance ' and 'accidents,' the latter alone can by possibility fall 
 under the cognizance of the senses : and it is a ruled point that they are not 
 changed. The ' substance,' in the case of any body whatever, is wholly un- 
 known to us, and its real nature is just as mysterious, without supposing any 
 change, as it will be with that supposition. The Catechism of the Council of
 
 119 
 
 Greek Church has given no sanction, there has been no judg- 
 ment of the Universal Church on the matter ; and therefore 
 that the case is wholly different. That answer does not, I 
 must say openly, in the very least remove my own deep-seated 
 hatred of the principle in question ; but it doubtless makes, 
 in the judgment of English ' high-churchmen,' a plain dis- 
 tinction between the cases : still let it be most carefully ob- 
 served, that this answer does not even remotely affect the 
 purpose for which I have brought the case forward. So far 
 as such an answer is valid, doubtless it tends to remove that 
 
 Trent says, ' that Christ the Lord is not in this Sacrament as in a place . . . nor 
 as He is great or small, which belongs to quantity ; but as He is a substance. 1 
 And again, the accidents of the Bread and Wine, after Consecration, ' beyond all 
 the ordinary course of nature support themselves, and rest on no other thing.' 
 (De Eucharistia, xliv. xlv.) The substance of a body then, in scholastic lan- 
 guage, is that wholly unknown and inconceivable thing, (not inclosed in, or refer- 
 able to, space) which is the ' substratum' of ' accidents,' or of what we now-a-days 
 call ' phsenomena.' Nor have I ever been able, by the utmost stretch of my 
 abilities, to understand how English Churchmen, in saying that the ' bread ' 
 remains, can possibly mean any thing different, from what Roman Catholics 
 mean in saying that the ' accidents of the bread' remain. 
 
 It must be fully acknowledged, that one hears of a popular notion in the middle 
 ages, contradictory to this doctrine ; a ' notion that Christ's body in the Eucharist 
 is " carnally pressed " with the teeth ; that it is a body or substance of a certain 
 extension and bulk in space, and a certain figure and due disposition of parts.' 
 How far such a notion may have received more or less countenance from theo- 
 logians, (e. g. Bellarmine,) I am not prepared with an opinion. Such popular 
 notion, however, is plainly that which is condemned in our twenty-eighth Article ; 
 it is one which all members of our Church do readily condemn, and which, as I 
 have said, the formularies of the Roman Church are very far indeed from counte- 
 nancing or supporting. 
 
 I cannot refrain from adding another passage from the ' Catechism,' in regard 
 to the accusation so commonly brought against the Roman doctrine, that it affects 
 to explain a mystery ; whereas it only affects to do, what the Nicene doctrine 
 does, define a mystery. ' Let not the faithful too curiously inquire how that 
 change can take place : for neither can it be perceived by us, nor have we 
 any example of it, either in natural changes or in the creation of the world itself. 
 But what this is must be known by faith ; how it takes place must not be 
 too curiously inquired.' (xlii.) After what is here said, I hope that a pas- 
 sage in one of my articles is sufficiently intelligible, which, though not in 
 the number of Mr. Palmer's extracts, I have seen quoted in more than one 
 other quarter as peculiarly objectionable. 'The idea that to a Christian, be- 
 lieving all the astounding mysteries which are contained in the doctrine of 
 the Incarnation, the further belief in the Real Presence, even to the extent of 
 the Tridentine definition, is a serious additional " tax on his credulity," is 
 not tenable for one moment.' 'On Goode,' p. 71.
 
 120 
 
 appearance of contradiction to Antiquity, which is otherwise 
 presented by this principle ; but it does not tend to give it any 
 support from Antiquity. Taking then the most favourable view 
 of such an answer that its advocates can desire, this undoubt- 
 ed, startling fact remains, that the very foundation on which 
 those theologians rest, who claim special and paramount 
 authority for Antiquity, is a doctrine of their own invention, 
 self-devised for their purpose, without the slightest particle of 
 sanction or encouragement from that Antiquity. In a future 
 chapter I hope to press this point further. 
 
 In close connection with this last, is another sentiment, 
 which has more to do than any other element, perhaps more 
 than all other elements put together, in giving its peculiar 
 features and complexion to ' high-church' theology. The 
 very expression used by advocates of that theology would 
 be, that we remain separate from other branches of the 
 Catholic Church, because of their extreme corruptions and 
 superstitions, and their very close approximation to direct 
 idolatry. Mr. Palmer uses even much harsher language. 1 
 Now here again I am not criticising this sentiment, but 
 merely drawing attention to its utter repugnance to all 
 primitive maxims. A local Church remains separate from 
 all the remaining Catholic Body, the Roman See inclusive, 
 on the ground of the very grave and serious doctrinal errors, 
 enforced by that body as truths necessary to salvation. Such is 
 the * high-church' theory at its greatest advantage ; and, for 
 all that I am here saying, it may be very true and ' necessary 
 for these times :' but what, think we, would St. Augustine 
 have said of a local Church, which should have allowed itself 
 to form such an opinion, concerning those whom it acknow- 
 ledges to be branches of the Catholic Church ? St. Augustine, 
 with his vehement denunciations of the Donatists, with his 
 * securus judicat orbis terrarum' ? 
 
 Further, there is no more remarkable and interesting fea- 
 ture in the early Church, than the wonderful degree in which 
 they realise St. Paul's language, ' if one member suffer, the 
 whole body suffers with it.' The total want of any such 
 mark of Catholicity among ourselves, follows no doubt by 
 k 'On the Church,' vol. i. p. 282, 1st ed.
 
 121 
 
 inevitable consequence from the principles above stated, and 
 is perfectly legitimate if they be so. We cannot possibly 
 desire the prosperity, or lament the adversity, of a religious 
 community, which prominently upholds corrupt and super- 
 stitious practices; the difficulty is, how we can reconcile it 
 to ourselves to attribute so serious blame to Societies, which 
 we acknowledge as Christian Churches. Whichever opinion 
 then is to be censured, the thinking them so corrupt, or 
 the thinking them Churches, I am merely mentioning the 
 result as another instance of our marked opposition to An- 
 tiquity. Never perhaps in the history of the Church has there 
 been a more vital and deeply interesting struggle, than that 
 now depending between the Church of France and the Uni- 
 versity ; can it be said that English Churchmen in general feel 
 any very lively or personal concern in any part of the matter ? 
 So far as they do think of it, their sympathies are perhaps on 
 the whole rather more strongly (I fully grant through a mis- 
 understanding of its real character) with the Infidel than with 
 the ' Popish' party. Truly, a Church which (for such is the 
 ordinary ' high-church ' view of the matter) considers herself 
 so pure, that she cannot even actively sympathise with those, 
 whom she considers her Sister-Churches, in their conflicts 
 against an oppressive civil government, or some other ma- 
 nifestation of evil, presents in herself a very remarkable 
 spectacle. But when she professes to be an exact copy of the 
 Primitive Church, (in which the possible existence of such 
 a phenomenon could never have been conjectured by the 
 most lively imagination,) she contrives to unite in her theory 
 so many apparent contradictions, that we cannot wonder at 
 the difficulty which all other Christians over the whole world 
 experience, be they Catholic or Protestant, in understanding 
 so much as the honesty of these most perplexing professions. 
 Consider indeed the very idea of the Christian Church, as it 
 existed in early times ; which cannot be better described than 
 in the following passage : ' Even in the Apostles' life -time 
 the Gospel had spread East, West, and South, far and wide, 
 and the Church with it. Multitudes had been converted in 
 all nations, and the Apostles were the acknowledged rulers of 
 those multitudes. So wide and well-connected a polity there
 
 was not on the earth, even before their martyrdoms, except 
 the Roman empire itself which was the seat of it.' ... And 
 ' has there not in fact been a great corporation or continuous 
 body politic, all over the world, from the Apostles' days to 
 our own, bearing the name of Church ; one and one only ? 
 Has it not spread in spite of all opposition, and maintained 
 itself marvellously against the power of the world ? Has it 
 not ever taken the cause of the poor and friendless against 
 the great and proud? Has it not succeeded by the use of 
 weapons, not earthly and carnal, but by righteousness and 
 mercy, as was foretold ? Has it not broken in pieces num- 
 berless kingdoms and conquerors which opposed it, and risen 
 again, and nourished, more than before, after the most hopeless 
 reverses ? Has it not ever been at war with the spirit of the 
 world, with pride, and luxury, and cruelty, and tyranny, and 
 profaneness ?' L Yes ; one ' great corporation,' one ' continuous 
 body politic ;' containing within ' governors and governed, 
 with determined relations, with a fixed constitution and laws, 
 with sanctions and punishments ; ' carrying with it * the ex- 
 hibition to those without of an united body acting exter- 
 nally in a specific and corporate character;' with ' the fullest 
 sympathy and intercommunication of its respective members, 
 and united zeal against their common antagonist ;' with ' observ- 
 ances, forms, what we may call etiquettes, nay, even a language 
 of its own, by help of which its subjects have the bonds of union 
 more closely drawn, and more fully realize their separation from 
 those without.' m Such is the picture of the Church Catholic, 
 which any ordinary inquirer would derive from all primitive 
 Antiquity : not very different from this in substance is the 
 Church Catholic, according to the Roman doctrine, at the pre- 
 sent day ; but most strikingly, broadly, signally contrasted with 
 this is the present face of the Church, on any Anglican theory. 
 We count ourselves a branch of the Catholic Church, yet 
 * we are in fact cut off from the whole of the Christian world ; 
 nay, far from denying, in a certain sense we glory in, that 
 excommunication, and that under a notion that we are so 
 very pure, that it must soil our fingers to touch any other 
 
 1 Newman's Sermons on Subjects of the Day, pp. 264, 5. 
 " ' On Whately's Essays,' p. 260.
 
 123 
 
 Church whatever upon the earth, in North, East, or South. 
 How is this reconcilable with St. Paul's clear announcement, 
 that there is but one body as well as one spirit ; or our Lord's, 
 that "by this shall oilmen know," as by a note obvious to 
 the intelligence even of the illiterate and unreasoning, that 
 ye are My disciples, if ye have love one to another ;" or, again, 
 His prayer that His disciples might all be one, ". that the world 
 might know that Thou hast sent Me, and hast loved them as 
 Thou hast loved Me ? " Visible unity would seem then to be 
 both the main evidence of our religion, and the sign of our 
 spiritual adoption ; whereas we English despise the Greeks, 
 and hate the Romans, and turn our backs on the Scotch, and 
 do but smile distantly upon the Americans. We throw our- 
 selves into the arms of the State, and in that close embrace 
 forget that the Church was meant to be Catholic ; or we call 
 ourselves the Catholics, and the local Church our Catholic 
 Church," [i.e. as though our Church were Catholic in some 
 higher sense than e. g. the Spanish or the Neapolitan Church 
 is Catholic] as if forsooth by thus confining it all to ourselves, 
 we did not ipso facto forfeit for it all claim to be considered 
 Catholic at all. What increases the force of this argument 
 is, that St. Augustine seems, at least at first sight, virtually 
 to urge it against us in his controversy with the Donatists, 
 whom he represents as condemned simply because separate 
 from the orbis terrarum, and styles the point in question 
 ' questio facillima,' and calls on individual Donatists to decide 
 it by their private judgment. . . . 
 
 ' Flagrant evils cure themselves by being flagrant ; and we 
 are sanguine that the time is come when so great an evil as 
 this is, cannot stand its ground against the good feeling and 
 common sense of religious persons. . . . Our eyes and ears 
 
 n Thus Mr. Palmer objects (p. 56) to my saying, that ' the exemption by 
 special gift from venial sin is believed by most Catholics to be a privilege apper- 
 taining to the Blessed Virgin' as ' identifying ' ' Romanism with Catholicism.' 
 Now certainly upon ' high-church' principles my statement is literally true : all 
 Roman Catholics, and all the Greek separated Church, hold the belief in question ; 
 and, upon such principles, these together certainly amount to ' most Catholics.' 
 It is plain then that Mr. Palmer's objection is to calling foreign Catholics by 
 the simple name O f Catholics; while he himself employs that name (p. 67) in 
 speaking of members of our Church. This is precisely an instance in point.
 
 are filled with the abuse poured out by members of our 
 Church on her Sister-Churches in foreign lands. . . . We 
 act as if we could do without brethren, as if our having 
 brethren all over the world were not the very tenure on which 
 we are Christians at all, as if we did not cease to be Chris- 
 tians, if at any time we ceased to have brethren. Or again, 
 when our thoughts turn to the East, instead of recollecting 
 that there are Christian Churches there, we leave it to 
 the Russians to take care of the Greeks, and the French 
 to take care of the Romans, and we content ourselves with 
 erecting a Protestant Church at Jerusalem, or with helping 
 the Jews to rebuild their temple there, or with becoming the 
 august protectors of Nestorians, Monophysites, and all the 
 heretics we can hear of, or with forming a league with the 
 Mussulman against Greeks and Romans together. Can any 
 one doubt that the British power is not considered a Church 
 power by any country whatever into which it comes ? and if 
 so, is it possible that the English Church, which is so closely 
 connected with that power, can be said in any true sense to 
 exert a Catholic influence, or deserve the Catholic name ? 
 
 On all this, however, it is really not necessary for my pur- 
 pose to express any opinion whatever, beyond this obvious 
 one ; that whether or not a great deal may be said in defence 
 of our present position, this one thing cannot be said in its 
 defence, that it is at all like any thing which we find existing 
 in primitive times. p 
 
 British Critic, No. lix. pp. 121,2, 3. 
 
 P An interesting little work has been published, breathing a most truly re- 
 ligious spirit, with the name ' offices of prayer for private devotion,' and with the 
 profession that these offices ' have been compiled from Catholic sources. ' As 
 one instance among several that might be given of the false position in which 
 members of our Church are necessarily placed, when they exercise their private 
 judgment on Antiquity, and dare to speak, on the strength of that judgment, against 
 the Church abroad, let us observe in p. 85, such a prayer as this : ' I earnestly pray 
 Thee to remove all scandals and offences . . . the scandalous use of images in divine 
 worship, &c.' Who does not at once see the absolutely different element intro- 
 duced into the writer's theology, compared with any which existed in early times, 
 by such an allusion as this to the formal ordinances of a body, which he would 
 himself acknowledge as a Sister-Church ? What would have been thought in 
 early times, if a local Church had abrogated usages which prevailed through the 
 Church Catholic, and then an individual member of that Church had had the pre- 
 sumption to call those usages scandalous ?
 
 But not only were these extremely high views held in 
 primitive times, on the essential importance of Catholic 
 sympathy and visible unity, q the Bishop of Rome was also 
 held in very peculiar honour and regard. Here again, as I 
 do not profess to go at all deeply into the question, it will be 
 sufficient to put together a very few passages, from the notes 
 or text of the Oxford translation of St. Athanasius's Histori- 
 cal Treatises ; but the whole of that volume will give a far 
 more lively impression of the high preeminence yielded to 
 that Bishop, than any possible number of quotations. 
 
 "Socrates says, .... 'Julius (the Pope) wrote back that they 
 acted against the Canons .... the Ecclesiastical Canon com- 
 manding that the Churches ought not to make Canons beside the 
 will of the Bishop of Rome.' Sozomen in like manner, ' for it was 
 a sacerdotal law, to declare invalid whatever was transacted beside 
 the will of the Bishop of the Romans' (p. 56.) 
 
 " ' Petri in sede sua vivit potestas et excellit auctoritas,' Leon. 
 Serm. iii. 3." 
 
 " ' They' (the deposed Bishops) ' acquainted Julius the Bishop 
 of Rome with the case ; and he, according to the prerogative of 
 the Church in Rome, fortified them with letters in which he spoke 
 his mind, and sent them back to the East, restoring each to his 
 own place, and remarking on those who had violently deposed 
 them. They then set out from Rome, and on the strength of the 
 letters of Bp, Julius, take possession of their Churches.' Socr. 
 
 ii. 15 Sozomon says, ' Whereas the care of all pertained to 
 
 him on account of the dignity of his see, he restored each to his 
 own Church,' iii. 8." (p. 80.) 
 
 " Julius, (the Pope) to the Presbyters, &c., of Alexandria. 
 
 . . . ' He (Athanasius) returns to you now more illustrious than 
 
 when he went away from you How can one describe the 
 
 worth of such a man who .... is now restored to you, being 
 pronounced innocent, not by my voice only, but by the voice of the 
 whole Council. . . Receive therefore your Bishop Athanasius,' " &c. 
 (p. 81.) 
 
 " ' I have always entertained some doubts,' says Gibbon, ' con- 
 cerning the retractation of Ursacius and Valens ' [who were 
 Bishops]. ' Their epistles to Julius Bishop of Rome, and to 
 
 i The Fathers generally, I believe, laid far more urgent stress on the doctrine of 
 Visible Unity, than on that of Apostolical Succession.
 
 126 
 
 Athanasius himself, are of so different a cast to each other, 
 that they cannot both be genuine' .... Surely [remarks the 
 editor] this is just the difference of tone in which an apology is 
 made to a superior, and to an equal, except by very generous, or 
 by deeply repentant, persons." (p. 86.) 
 
 What I have urged then under the present head, comes to 
 this ; that three different and most important ecclesiastical 
 principles are involved in the * high Church ' defence of our 
 position, of which one has no shadow of support from Anti- 
 quity, and the other two are directly counter to Antiquity. 
 T he first principle, that it is lawful to criticise a religious 
 system, handed down by our fathers, and under which God 
 has placed us, by some external standard, without that neces- 
 sity for so doing, which results from having heartily obeyed 
 it in the first instance, and having been unable to find in it 
 an anchorage for our spiritual nature ; the second, that a 
 local Church may consider all the rest of what it acknowledges 
 as the Catholic Body to be superstitious and erroneous in 
 doctrine, from a comparison of its tenets with (what appear 
 to the said local Church) the tenets of Antiquity ; the third, 
 that the claims of the Bishop of Rome to authority may be 
 summarily set aside on a similar allegation. But a still more 
 important circumstance remains behind. The reasonings of 
 English ' high churchmen,' who criticise Roman doctrine by 
 a comparison with Antiquity, derive their whole force from a 
 denial of the doctrine of ' development.' This is obvious ; 
 and Mr. Palmer by implication confesses it, in such passages 
 as the following. The italics are my own. 
 
 " Modern defenders of Romanism have adopted a new theory, 
 which is essentially opposed to those of their predecessors. They 
 have adopted the bold expedient of avowing that their doctrines 
 receive but little aid from the testimony of primitive antiquity 
 that, in fact, the early Church was perhaps unacquainted with 
 those doctrines, since it is the nature of Christianity to develop 
 itself gradually in the course of ages, and under change of cir- 
 cumstances ; so that Christianity in the middle ages, teas more 
 perfectly developed than in the primitive times : it was the 
 expansion of a system which existed at first, merely in germ ; and 
 probably, on the same principle, the existing system of the Roman
 
 127 
 
 Catholic Church may be still more perfect than that of the middle 
 ages, and be itself less perfect than that which is to be hereafter. 
 
 " Undoubtedly there is much in this theory which is pleasing to 
 the imagination. The notion that Religion that Divine truth, 
 is capable of continual progress ; that we may look for develop- 
 ments corresponding to the advance of art and science, and 
 analogous to the process of change which we see operating in the 
 natural world around us, has very great temptations to the human 
 mind. That it has, we need no further proof than the fact that 
 this theory is upheld by Socinians and other Rationalists ; the 
 principal difference between their system and that of the philo- 
 sophical Romanists above alluded to, being, that the latter 
 attribute to the Church that office of development, which the 
 former assign to the reason of individuals. This is not the only 
 affinity between the systems : it is the well known tendency of 
 Rationalism to disregard the sentiments of former ages ; to esteem 
 itself superior in knowledge to the primitive Church. Now the 
 doctrine of development has the same tendencies ; it leads to the 
 conclusion, that the religion of the present day is more perfect than 
 that of the early Church : it teaches us so far to set aside the 
 testimony of Catholic Antiquity, on pretence that religion was then 
 but imperfectly understood. 
 
 " It is not easy to see what may be the termination of such 
 theories. Romanism may not be the only eventual gainer from 
 that theory of Christianity, which supposes it to have existed 
 originally in germ only. There is a subtle Rationalism in such a 
 notion ; nay, something still worse if possible. If the Gospel is to 
 be developed by reason ; if its lineaments are to be filled up by the 
 human mind; if it was originally imperfect; is there not some 
 danger of supposing that, after all, it is only a philosophy, a 
 science, a creation of the intellect ? And again, if its processes are 
 analogous to those which we see in nature, may not the inference 
 be drawn that, like them, it has its period of decay as well as 
 perfection ; of extinction as well as of germination ? A germ 
 infers growth indeed, and change, but it also infers corruption 
 and death." pp. 57, 58, 61, 62. 
 
 Mr. Palmer then considers this doctrine to have been 
 invented by modern advocates of Roman sentiments ; and 
 thinks it most dangerous, as being not less likely to subserve 
 the cause of Rationalism than of ' Romanism.' Now what
 
 128 
 
 writer in all Antiquity can be taken for our guide, with less 
 objection from English ' high-churchmen,' than St. Vincen- 
 tius Lirinensis, the great witness to the famous phrase, ' quod 
 semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus'? His Commonito- 
 rium is the very text-book of that theology. Let us hear 
 then his sentiments on this important matter, and see how 
 far it is possible to distinguish them from this * modern 
 theory.' I quote from the Oxford translation. 
 
 ' But peradventure some will say, shall we then have no ad- 
 vancement of religion in the Church of Christ ? Surely let us have 
 the greatest that may be. For who is either so envious of men, or 
 hateful of God, which would labour to hinder that? But yet in 
 such sort that it may be truly an increase in faith, and not a 
 change ; since this is the nature of an increase, that in themselves 
 severally things grow greater ; but of a change, that something be 
 turned, from one thing which it was, to another which it was not. 
 Fitting it is, therefore, that the understanding, knowledge, and 
 wisdom, as well of every man in particular, as of all in common ; 
 as well of one alone, as of the whole Church in general, should by 
 the advance of ages abundantly increase and go forward ; but yet 
 for all that, only in its own kind and nature : that is, in the same 
 doctrine, in the same sense, in the same judgment. In this case, 
 let the religion of our souls imitate the nature of our bodies, which 
 although with process of time they develope and unfold their pro- 
 portions, yet they remain the same that they were. There is great 
 difference betwixt the flower of youth and the ripeness of age, yet 
 the self-same men become old which before were young ; so that 
 although the state and condition of one and the self-same man be 
 altered, yet one and the self- same nature, one and the self-same 
 person, doth still remain. The limbs of infants be small, of young 
 men great ; yet not divers, but the same. So many joints as 
 young children have, so many have they when they be men ; and 
 if any parts there be, which with increase of more mature years 
 spring forth, those before were in man virtually planted in manner 
 as the seed, so that no new thing do come forth in old men, which 
 before had not lain hid in them being children. Wherefore there 
 can be no doubt but that this is the due and right rule of growing, 
 the fixed and goodliest order of increasing, if the increase of age 
 complete over these members, those parts and joints, which the 
 wisdom of our Creator before framed, when we were yet but little
 
 129 
 
 ones. But if a human form be afterward changed into some other 
 likeness not of its own kind, or at least if any thing be added to 
 the number of its members or taken from it, then of necessity the 
 whole body must either perish, or become monstrous, or at least be 
 weakened. In like manner, Christian doctrine must follow these 
 laws of increasing, to wit, that with years it wax more sound, with 
 time it become more ample, with continuance it be more exalted, 
 yet remain incorrupt and entire, and continue full and perfect in 
 the proportions of each of its parts, and, as it were, with all its 
 members and proper senses. And that it admit no further change, 
 sustain no loss of its propriety, no variety in definition. For ex- 
 ample' sake ; our forefathers in old time in this field of the Church, 
 sowed the wheaten seed of true faith ; it were now very injurious 
 and inconsistent, that we their posterity, instead of the perfect and 
 true grain, should reap the spurious error of cockle : and contrari- 
 wise, it is reason and very consistent that, the beginning and 
 ending not disagreeing with each other, we should of the increase 
 of wheaten teaching reap the fruit of wheaten doctrine ; so that 
 when, with tract of time, any of those first seeds begin to bud and 
 come forth, and now flourish and receive culture ; yet there be no 
 change of the propriety of the germ ; and albeit fashion, shape, and 
 distinction be added, yet the nature of each kind remain the same. 
 For God forbid that those rosy plants of Catholic doctrine should 
 be changed into thistles and thorns ; God forbid, I say, that in the 
 very spiritual paradise of the slips of cinnamon and balsam, should 
 suddenly grow up darnel and aconite. Therefore whatever hath by 
 our fathers' faith been sown in this Church, the field of God's 
 husbandry, reason it is, that the same be cultivated and maintained 
 by the industry of the children, that this same flourish and wax 
 ripe, that this same grow and come to perfection ; lawful indeed it 
 is, that those ancient articles of heavenly philosophy be, in process 
 of time, trimmed, smoothed, and polished ; but unlawful that they 
 be changed, unlawful that they be mangled and maimed. And 
 albeit they receive perspicuity, light, and distinction, yet of ne- 
 cessity must they retain their fulness, soundness, and propriety. 
 For if once this licentiousness of wicked fraud be admitted, I tremble 
 to speak what danger is like to ensue of extirpating and abolishing 
 religion ; for if we give up any part of the Catholic Faith, straight- 
 way other parts, and after that other, and again other, and that 
 now as it were of custom, and by a kind of law, shall be given up. 
 
 K
 
 130 
 
 And further, what followeth, when the parts, by little and little, 
 have been set aside ; but that, in conclusion, the whole in like 
 manner must be set aside ? And, contrariwise, if new things and 
 old, foreign and domestic, profane and sacred, begin once to be 
 confounded together, then must needs this custom generally creep 
 on, that nothing hereafter remain in the Church untouched, no- 
 thing without corruption, nothing sound, nothing pure ; and so 
 where before was the sanctuary of chaste and immaculate truth, 
 there shall be a very brothel-house of wicked and filthy errors. But 
 God of His goodness deliver his servants from such minds, and let 
 such madness be rather for the impious ! 
 
 4 For the Church of Christ, a careful and diligent keeper of doc- 
 trines committed to her charge, never changeth any thing in them, 
 diminisheth nothing, addeth nothing.' pp. 104 9. 
 
 I have added this last sentence, to shew plainly how little 
 any of the Fathers, when they speak of ' adding nothing to 
 the faith,' imply any contradiction to the doctrine here so 
 clearly set forth : and my readers cannot but have been struck 
 with the very curious similarity of the language used re- 
 spectively, by St. Vincentius in advocating a doctrine which 
 Mr. Palmer considers worse, if possible, than rationalism, 
 and by Mr. Palmer in endeavouring to hinder that, which he 
 who hinders is regarded by St. Vincentius as 'envious of men 
 and hateful of God.' z 
 
 Again : the deep feeling of love and union, which existed 
 throughout the various branches of the Church, say in the 
 
 1 What has been here said is sufficient of itself to supersede the necessity of for- 
 mally examining a theory often propounded by members of our Church ; viz. that 
 our own Church authoritatively refers us to Antiquity as our standard of doctrine 
 and practice. Without entering then into the other reasons which make me con- 
 sider this theory wholly untenable, it is obvious here to remark that Antiquity itself 
 remands us back again, as it were, to the existing Church. There is no one truth 
 more plain on the very surface of the history of the early ages, than the exceeding 
 deference which they considered due from each local Church to the whole Catholic 
 Body, and to the Bishop of Rome. And the last quotation in the text shews in 
 addition, if we may take St. Yincentius as a fair representative of their doctrine, 
 that so far from considering the existence of doctrinal developments to be an excuse 
 from the performance of this duty, they would, on the contrary, have considered 
 the Church to have failed in her duty, if she had not given birth to such develop- 
 ments.
 
 131 
 
 time of St. Augustine, when the Arian troubles had been for 
 some time brought to a close, displayed itself outwardly, as 
 all real feelings among men do display themselves, in various 
 observances, regulations, and formal results. One of these 
 would even necessarily be, that a Christian, whether in his 
 own country or in any other, who should separate himself 
 from the Communion of the local bishop and join some other 
 body, would be treated by the whole Church as a schismatic, 
 and considered most justly to have excluded himself from 
 the ordinances of grace. Such a rule had a deep meaning 
 and value, under the circumstances which then existed ; but 
 'high-church' Anglicanism has its being, its only possible 
 life, in most zealously maintaining that those circumstances 
 have wholly changed. If therefore a maxim formerly in 
 force, which had its origin, nay its very meaning, in that 
 particular state of things which has now passed away, be 
 itself retained or rather revived, such revival may on other 
 grounds be wise and proper, or it may not ; but to defend it 
 by appeal to Antiquity is absolutely ludicrous It will be at 
 once seen, that the allusion is to that principle, very generally 
 prevalent among ' high-churchmen,' and so startling and 
 astonishing to an ordinary mind, that English Catholics, 
 who are in Communion with the See of Rome, are in a 
 state of schism. Here again I am not saying whether this 
 principle should stand or fall, but that on its own merits 
 it must stand or fall ; that to adopt at random, as it were, 
 from early ages some external rule, when the very spirit 
 which gave life to the rule has gone away from us, is not to 
 follow, but to abandon, the principles of those ages ; 
 which shrank from no one thing more sensitively, than from 
 a carnal and ceremonial resting in outward ordinances and 
 appointments. 
 
 It will be well, however, to state as accurately as may 
 be what this principle is ; and I suppose it will be ad- 
 mitted on all hands to be this : viz. that a French clergy- 
 man, e. g. who says mass at Calais to-day and crosses the 
 water, should he say mass at Dover to-morrow with the 
 same intention and in the same state of mind, (unless he can 
 
 K 2
 
 132 
 
 plead invincible ignorance,) commits a mortal sin ; re- 
 ceives the Lord's Body to his condemnation; and were he 
 to die without repenting of such sin, would be consigned to 
 everlasting torments. Mr. Palmer adds a still further step ; 
 for he denies that invincible ignorance itself can excuse one, 
 who in England remains separate" from our Church. Whether 
 or no, however, others may follow him in the latter view, the 
 sentiment which he holds in common with other high-church- 
 men, leads by necessary consequence to a very serious result. 
 The deliberate intention of committing mortal sin under 
 certain conceivable circumstances, is, as every one knows, 
 itself a mortal sin. Now there is not a Roman Catholic 
 living, who does not most fully purpose, should he come to 
 England, to communicate with the Roman Catholics, not 
 
 a Objection " xii. Papists do not admit that the members of the British Churches 
 can be saved, while the latter allow that Papists can be saved. Therefore it is plain 
 that there is greater safety in the Papal communion. 
 
 " Answer. The argument ought to be directly reversed, thus : Papists allow 
 that the members of the [English] Church can be saved. They cannot allow that 
 Papists are in the way of salvation ; therefore the communion of the [English] 
 Church is safer than that of the Papal schism. I prove the two first propositions 
 thus. (1.) Papists allow that we can be saved. Dr. Milner says : ' Catholic 
 divines and the holy fathers .... make an express exception in favour of what 
 is termed invincible ignorance ; which occurs when persons out of the true Church 
 are sincerely and firmly resolved, in spite of all worldly allurements on the one hand, 
 and of all opposition on the other, to enter into it, if they can find it out ; and when 
 they use their best endeavours for this purpose. Our great controversialist Bellar- 
 mine asserts that such Christians, in virtue of the disposition of their hearts, belong 
 to the Catholic Church.' 1 (2.) On the other hand, the Church of England excom- 
 municates any one who shall dare to affirm that the Romish community in these 
 countries is a true Church ; and as we therefore cannot allow Romanists to be in 
 the Church, and as we have no right to admit that any persons out of the Church 
 are or can be in the way of salvation, it is plain that there is much the greatest 
 safety in adhering to our communion, in which alone both parties allow that sal- 
 vation may be obtained." ' On the Church,' vol. i. p. 254, first edit. Mr. Palmer 
 seems unwilling to speak quite plainly : but his distinct argument is, that Roman 
 Catholics admit the salvability of members of our Church, in a sense in which 
 Engb'sh Churchmen do not admit the salvability of Roman Catholics in England. 
 But the sense in which Roman Catholics admit the salvability of members of our 
 Church, according to Mr. Palmer's quotation, is merely that invincible ignorance 
 forms a ground of excuse ; therefore it is Mr. Palmer's opinion, that English Church- 
 men do not admit that, in the reverse case, invincible ignorance forms a ground of 
 excuse. Q. E. D.
 
 133 
 
 with the English Church : it follows then by inevitable con- 
 sequence from this theory, that all Roman Catholics through- 
 out the world are in mortal sin ; either simpliciter, as Mr. 
 Palmer must say, or saving invincible ignorance, which is, I 
 suppose, the more ordinary sentiment. To base a maxim 
 thus pregnant with consequences on so precarious a foundation 
 as that above described, does seem an inconceivable pro- 
 cedure : but how much stronger does the case against it be- 
 come, when we call to mind that, on referring to the chief ex- 
 ample in Antiquity which presents any distant parallel to our 
 present condition, and which in consequence has to support no 
 little weight of argument and inference, (the example of St. 
 Meletius of Antioch) we find no appearance whatever (but 
 the very reverse) of the prevalence of such a maxim ; " there 
 is not the faintest trace of any idea, prevailing in any quarter 
 at that time, of casting so strange an imputation on Paulinus 
 and his followers." b 
 
 6. Let so much have been said on the ecclesiastical prin- 
 ciples appertaining to, and adducible in defence of, the 
 respective systems which I am comparing together. The 
 most important particular of comparison, however, is of course 
 that which still remains ; a comparison as to the general 
 tone and temper of mind on doctrinal and practical subjects. 
 This comparison has already indeed been incidentally carried 
 out in one or two particulars : nor again shall I here attempt 
 to trace it upwards to its ultimate elements, for that would 
 necessarily imply a discussion on the primitive doctrine of 
 justification ; a discussion which on the one hand would lead 
 us far more into controverted matters than is necessary for 
 my purpose, and, on the other hand, would in some respects 
 anticipate what will find a more fitting place in the next 
 chapter. Let us rather, then, confine our attention to various 
 salient points of usage or common language, of whose 
 existence no one entertains a doubt, and which will never- 
 theless be acknowledged by all candid inquirers, to indicate 
 conclusively the presence and energy of a certain definite 
 character among Christians of that day. 
 
 b ' On the Synagogue and the Church,' p. 45.
 
 134 
 
 I. At the risk of appearing fanciful, 1 will begin by 
 speaking of the tendency so universally found among the 
 Fathers, as among holy men in all periods of the Church, to 
 think the religion of their own age and country the most 
 corrupt that has ever existed, and not worthy to be even 
 mentioned in comparison with that of other times. It should 
 of course be fully acknowledged, that this tendency, even if 
 existing most actively, will in times like the present receive 
 a very decided check, from the growth of historical studies, 
 and our consequent knowledge of the prevalence of similar 
 complaints at other periods. Such causes, however, though 
 they may well prevent the tendency from growing into an 
 opinion, will not help at all in accounting for an absence 
 of the tendency itself; nor does it require any very deep re- 
 search into human nature, to discover how necessarily a high 
 standard of religious obedience, when brought into contrast 
 with that miserable amount of practical evil which must 
 always and everywhere be found here below, will produce 
 this tendency in the serious mind. And if, in addition to 
 this previous probability, the fact adduced be itself found 
 historically true, as on examination it most certainly will ; if 
 a continued inclination to think our Church peculiarly corrupt 
 has ever been an especial note of our own religion being 
 pure ; what reason have not those for suspecting the real 
 spirituality of their desires and religiousness of their views, 
 who are so little conscious of such an inclination, as the 
 ordinary professors of ' high-church ' principles appear to be ! 
 
 II. This deep principle of human nature has also borne a 
 very chief part, in producing that continual expectation of 
 our Lord's immediate coming to judgment, which so much 
 astonishes all modern readers of early religious writings. 
 Mr. Newman, in his works, fully accounts for and defends 
 this expectation ; of whose existence, even in Apostolic times, 
 certainly the New Testament itself bears on its surface very 
 apparent and obvious marks. If then in our own days we are 
 disposed to simple astonishment, not to say contempt, when 
 
 c Parochial Sermons, vol. vi. Serm. 17 and 18.
 
 135 
 
 we hear of its prevalence, what else can this possibly shew, 
 except that the habitual character of our religion is wholly 
 wanting in some important element or other, which has ex- 
 ercised an active influence in all other ages of the Church ? 
 
 III. If there be one fact more than another in early cen- 
 turies, which even forces itself on the mind of the most 
 superficial reader, it is the extreme stress laid by holy men 
 on what appear at first sight minute points of faith, and the 
 surprising hold over the popular mind possessed by disputes 
 concerning s ; ach points. We find even the unlearned and 
 rude multitude sensitive to the slightest breath of heresy, 
 perplexed by novel statements of doctrine, ready to die for 
 an article of the Creed, miserable under the ascendancy of 
 Arians, filled with joy at the triumph of the orthodox. 
 How completely opposite this is to our present way of think- 
 ing, needs not be told ; insomuch that modern historians, 
 while they cannot fail to observe, make in fact no attempt 
 whatever to explain the phenomenon. If there be a view of 
 religion held at the present day, which gives a fair and 
 natural account of this fact, nay, by means of which the fact 
 might have been readily foretold before the event, while the 
 more popular views wholly fail of giving any such account ; 
 then, whether or not this view be true, it cannot be fairly 
 questioned that in its characteristic points it agrees with that 
 prevalent in the early ages. It need hardly be added, that 
 such a view does exist, and that it is essentially contradictory 
 to that now dominant in England. Hear the Christian Re- 
 membrancer, in an article distinguished by peculiar kindness 
 of language and earnestness of purpose, but protesting withal 
 very strongly against Rome and the British Critic, and 
 therefore the more unsuspicious witness. 
 
 ' Would it not be possible to preach every heresy condemned by 
 the first four general Councils in nine pulpits out of ten in England, 
 without a murmur) to say nothing of a censure ? Nay, is it not 
 a fact, that the clearest heresies, condemned over and over again, 
 are taught not only orally but in print ; and this, too, without an 
 attempt on the part of the Church, at canonical and ecclesiastical
 
 136 
 
 branding ? Would the Church of the Fathers have permitted, with- 
 out formal protest, one half of its Clergy to deny Baptismal Re- 
 generation, and the Apostolic Succession ? Can we conceive the 
 early Church disputing and questioning whether it did or did not 
 hold the simplest fundamentals of the Christian faith ? Would not 
 the communion of Athanasius have risen as one man, with a voice 
 alike indignant and uniform, against what is now passed over un- 
 questioned ? a Church claiming ' authority in controversies of Faith,' 
 and yet without a voice ; assuming to be the source and bond of 
 unity, and yet permitting not merely discordant, but contradictory 
 doctrines to be taught. . . . Surely we must be deficient, and that 
 to no slight extent, in the temper and in the rigid faithfulness of 
 the primitive times.' d 
 
 It will not be denied that even * high-churchmen ' in 
 modern England are very far less sensitive and keen-sighted 
 on what they would regard as minute points of doctrine, 
 than were the early Christians. So that, whereas we have 
 already seen how fundamental is the opposition between 
 ancient and modern views of repentance and of obedience, 
 we now see the same in respect to faith. Surely it is in 
 mockery that our Church is ever called 'primitive and 
 patristic,' whether she do or do not deserve the name of 
 ' Scriptural and Apostolical.' 
 
 IV. Then, again, is there any thing more extraordinary to 
 our modern ideas, than the mode universally prevalent in 
 Antiquity of regarding Scripture ? When appealing to it 
 indeed in proof of doctrine, for instance in St. Athanasius's 
 works, very great power is evinced in the way of what is 
 now called ' exegesis ;' but when merely applying it to prac- 
 tical purposes, they seem very often hardly to think of the 
 context, but to take some one individual verse, and see be- 
 neath it the most surprising depth of meaning and allusion. 
 The discussion in No. 89 of the Tracts for the Times will 
 sufficiently explain what is here meant ; and not a word more 
 need be said, to prove how extremely repulsive to our modern 
 taste is this whole method of procedure, how extravagant, 
 
 d Christian Remembrancer, Nov. 1843, pp. 557, 8.
 
 137 
 
 arbitrary, disrespectful to the sacred text itself we are tempted 
 to consider it. Many interpretations most gravely propounded 
 by the greatest fathers, St. Ambrose or St. Augustine, would 
 naturally appear to us rather like the ravings of madmen, 
 than the dicta of sober Scripture expositors. Nay, even in 
 formal argument against heretics, great stress is frequently 
 laid on these mystical interpretations. Now as it is very plain, 
 from other of their writings and from their whole lives, that 
 such men were in an eminent degree holy, sober-minded, 
 prudent, highly-gifted, it follows that there was something very 
 remarkable in their state of mind, which we have wholly lost. 
 Whether or no the whole system of ' double interpretation' 
 be intended by God's Providence to nourish in any modern 
 ages of the Church, or whether the knowledge, then pos- 
 sessed, of the deep mysteries concealed beneath the Scrip- 
 ture text, be connected in some wonderful way with the then 
 existing state of opinion and civilization, we are not perhaps 
 in a condition to pronounce. It is certainly very much to be 
 observed, that it has in no shape been fixed by any Ecclesi- 
 astical decree, as part of the inalienable dogmatic heritage, 
 which is to the end of time to be the highest object of con- 
 templation in the Church Catholic. But however this may 
 be, this mode of interpretation was so universal and all-pene- 
 trating, that it must, by absolute necessity, correspond to 
 some very important element of character pervading the 
 early Church : which element may indeed very possibly ex- 
 hibit itself under a different shape in modern times, but cannot 
 be absent from any modern community without constituting a 
 most deep mark of separation between it and the primitive 
 Church. To shew what is meant, it has been, said that the 
 very general Invocation of Saints, and religious use of images 
 and pictures, existing in the Church abroad, is the outward 
 display of the very same inward principle. How far this 
 may be so, is of course no special concern of ours ; what is 
 our concern, is to look about carefully in every direction 
 among ourselves, and inquire whether we can fairly say that 
 any feeling, widely spread in our religious world, looks at
 
 138 
 
 all like the counterpart of this ancient habit of mind. For 
 instance, if religious ceremonial in any shape were ex- 
 tremely popular, that might conceivably be an answer to 
 the inquiry. If nothing of the sort can be found, (and, 
 myself, I know not where to look for it,) here is another 
 contrast between the English and the Ancient Church. 
 
 V. Speaking of Scripture, one is led to another curious fact. 
 Antiquity with one voice pronounced the Song of Solomon 
 the most sacred and evangelical book in all the Old Testa- 
 ment ; and the same have all Saints done from that day to 
 this. An eminent Dissenter, now living, has formally rejected 
 it from the Canon ; but, waiving such extreme cases, religious 
 men among ourselves, as is quite notorious, are, to say the 
 least, very far from affixing the same habitual value to this 
 Inspired Poem. Considering its peculiar nature, I do not see 
 how any one can fairly doubt that this spontaneous and 
 unconscious opposition of procedure corresponds to a subtle 
 indeed, but very real and extensive opposition of inward 
 character. 
 
 VI. Miracles were believed to exist in the fourth and fifth 
 centuries, to a very far greater extent than in Roman Catholic 
 countries at the present day. The most prejudiced observer 
 could not by possibility give any such account of contem- 
 porary Roman Catholics, as Gibbon has given of Christians 
 of that period. 
 
 " The grave and learned Augustine, whose understanding scarcely 
 admits the excuse of credulity, has attested the innumerable prodi- 
 gies which were performed in Africa by the relics of St. Stephen. 
 He solemnly declares, that he had selected those miracles only 
 which were publicly certified by the persons, who were either the 
 objects or the spectators of the power of the martyr. Many prodi- 
 gies were omitted or forgotten ; and Hippo had been less favourably 
 treated than the other cities of the province. And yet the Bishop 
 enumerates above seventy miracles, of which three were resurrec- 
 tions from the dead, in the space of two years, and within the limits 
 of his own diocese. If we enlarge our view to all the dioceses and 
 all the Saints in the Christian world, it will not be easy to calculate
 
 139 
 
 the fables and the errors which issued from this inexhaustible 
 source." 8 
 
 It is plain of course, and has very often been, observed, that 
 in an uncritical age the existence of a large number of real 
 miracles, will most inevitably lead to the popular belief in 
 a prodigious number of imaginary ones. The present Church 
 of Rome (partly from the progress of physical science and of 
 the critical spirit, partly from the great care and profound 
 wisdom with which certain miraculous allegations are ex- 
 amined at the Court of Rome, partly perhaps from the 
 circumstance that miracles really are less frequently vouch- 
 safed in these latter days, but from whatever cause) certainly 
 exhibits no such belief in the universal prevalence of miracles. 
 Yet the feelings with which we are inclined to regard even her 
 miraculous stories (such, for instance, as that of St. Janua- 
 rius's blood), the readiness with which we are tempted at 
 once to disbelieve them before examining the evidence on 
 which they rest, all this shews very plainly, how much more 
 shocked and offended we should have been by the belief of 
 early centuries on the subject, and by consequence how very 
 widely we have departed from the spirit of those centuries. 
 
 VII. The universal prevalence of monasteries or other like 
 institutions, nay, of solitaries in the desert, must be imme- 
 diately felt by all as indicative of a spirit directly at variance 
 with that prevalent in the English Church. On this subject 
 I cannot do better than make the following quotation. 
 
 ' The history of the Church affords us an additional 
 
 lesson of the same serious truth. For three centuries it was ex- 
 posed to heathen persecution ; during that long period God's Hand 
 was upon His people : what did they do when that Hand was taken 
 off? How did they act when the world was thrown open to them, 
 and the Saints possessed the high places of the earth ? did they 
 enjoy it? far from it, they shrank from that, which they might, 
 had they chosen, have made much of; they denied themselves 
 what was set before them ; when God's Hand was removed, their 
 own hand was heavy upon them. Wealth, honour, and power, 
 
 Gibbon, vol. v. pp. 129, 30.
 
 140 
 
 they put away from them. They recollected our Lord's words, 
 " How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of 
 God I" h And St. James, " Hath not God chosen the poor of this 
 world, rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom ?"' For three centuries 
 they had no need to think of those words, for Christ remembered 
 them, and kept them humble ; but when He left them to them- 
 selves, then they did voluntarily what they had hitherto suffered 
 patiently. They were resolved that the Gospel character of a 
 Christian should be theirs. Still, Christ, in the Gospels, makes 
 His followers poor and weak, and lowly and simple-minded ; men 
 of plain lives, men of prayer, not " faring sumptuously," or clad in 
 " soft raiment," or " taking thought for the morrow." They recol- 
 lected what He said to the young Ruler, " If thou wilt be perfect, go 
 and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have 
 treasure in heaven, and come and follow Me." And so they put off 
 their " gay clothing," their " gold, and pearls, and costly array ;" 
 they " sold that they had, and gave alms ;" they " washed one 
 another's feet ;" they " had all things common." They formed 
 themselves into communities for prayer and praise, for labour and 
 study, for the care of the poor, for mutual edification, and prepara- 
 tion for Christ ; and thus, as soon as the world professed to be 
 Christian, Christians at once set up among them a witness against 
 the world, and kings and monks came into the Church together. 
 And from that time to this, never has the union of Church with 
 State prospered, but when she was united also with the hermitage 
 and the cell.' k 
 
 VIII. The same writer proceeds at once to another sin- 
 gular feature of early times. 
 
 ' Moreover, in those religious ages, Christians avoided greatness 
 in the Church as well as in the world. They would not accept rank 
 and station on account of their spiritual peril, when they were no 
 longer encompassed by temporal trials. When they were elected 
 to the episcopate, when they were exhorted to the priesthood, they 
 fled away and hid themselves. They recollected our Lord's words, 
 " Whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant ;" 
 and again, " Be not ye called Rabbi ; for one is your Master, even 
 
 h Mark x. 23. ' James ii. 5. k ' Plain Sermons,' vol. v. pp. 44, 5.
 
 141 
 
 Christ, and all ye are brethren." k And when discovered and forced 
 to the eminence which they shunned, they made much lament, and 
 were in many tears. And they felt that their higher consideration 
 in the world demanded of them some greater strictness and self- 
 denial in their course of life, lest it should turn to a curse, lest the 
 penance of which it would defraud them here, should be visited on 
 them in manifold measure hereafter. They feared to have " their 
 good things" and "their consolation" on earth, lest they should not 
 have Lazarus's portion in heaven. That state of things indeed is 
 now long passed away, but let us not miss the doctrinal lesson 
 which it conveys, if we will not take it for our pattern.' 
 
 But why need I say more? why speak at length of the 
 burning desire or rather passion for martyrdom, so common 
 in the ages of persecution ? or of the unbounded veneration 
 for relics ? or the universal honour paid to celibacy, and the 
 habit of solemnly before the Church making vows of con- 
 tinence ? or of the great prominence given to that feature 
 in the Church, which is now called priestcraft ? or of the cir- 
 cumstance that presbyters were so generally called priests, 
 and that their office was considered to consist more essentially 
 in offering Sacrifice than in any other function ? or the habi- 
 tual thought and remembrance of Angels, and belief in their 
 guardianship both over individuals and over countries ? 
 Enough surely has been already detailed, to impress on 
 the most unimaginative and insensible the wide contrariety, 
 between the religious spirit which ruled respectively Nicene 
 Christendom and modern 'high -church' Anglicanism. 
 
 But sufficient justice will not be done the subject, without 
 drawing the attention of learned men in our Church, who 
 protest against Roman practices, to the following long extract 
 from the Dublin Review. The Roman Catholics have been 
 so long challenged to join issue on the question of Antiquity, 
 that they have a right to claim the most careful consideration 
 of their arguments, when they do enter upon that field of 
 discussion. It occurs in a criticism on a little work, called, 
 ' A voice from Rome ;' which, while it displays a remarkable 
 desire to do justice to the Roman system, complains in very 
 
 k Matt. xx. 27 ; xxiii. 8.
 
 142 
 
 severe terms of many practices which flourish at Rome. The 
 Reviewer thus proceeds : 
 
 ' We may imagine, if we please, some Persian gentleman, of 
 ancient days, going on his travels, through Christian countries, 
 with that instinctive horror of idolatry, and of worship through 
 visible symbols, which became one accustomed to feed his piety 
 only on the ethereal subtlety of the solar rays ; most anxious to 
 collect all possible evidence why he should not be a Christian. It 
 is true, he understands very little of the languages of the countries 
 through which he passes, and cannot be supposed to enter much 
 into the habits, the ideas, and the feelings, of their inhabitants ; 
 but, with the help of a dictionary, and a valet de place, he can 
 make his way ; and, at any rate, he can see what the people do, 
 and read their books and inscriptions. What place does Christ 
 hold in their worship ? How does God appear in relation to men ? 
 Surely, we could easily imagine him struck with the prominent 
 place which the martyrs occupy in all the worship, in the 
 thoughts, and words, and feelings, of Christians ; whether clergy 
 or laity, learned or simple. Not a town does he come to but 
 he finds the church most frequented, nay, crowded with wor- 
 shippers, to be that of some martyr ; while smaller oratories, 
 in every direction, are favourite places of prayer, because they 
 commemorate some other Saint, or contain a portion of his ashes. 
 Not an altar does he any where see, which is not consecrated by 
 their relics. Before them hang lamps, garlands, and votive 
 offerings ; around them are palls of silk, and richest stuffs ; their 
 shrines are radiant with gold and jewels ; the pavement of the 
 temple is covered with prostrate suppliants, with the sick and 
 afflicted, come to ask help and consolation from Christ's servant : 
 the pilgrim from afar, scrapes, with simple faith, some of the dust 
 from the floor or from the tomb ; the preacher, ay, a Basil, or a 
 Gregory, or a Chrysostom, or an Ambrose, instead of cooling their 
 fervour, adds confidence, earnestness, and warmth to it, by a 
 glowing and impassioned discourse in its favour. 1 And if he after- 
 wards goes and interrogates these holy men, who, he might think 
 were carried off by their eloquence and the heat of discourse, what 
 
 1 See inter alia the Homilies of S. Chrys. on SS. Bernice, &c. torn. ii. p. 645, 
 ed. Bened. ; of St. Basil in xl. Mart. torn. ii. p. 149, ed. Bened. ; of St. Gregory 
 Nyssen on St. Theodoras, torn. iii. p. 580, ed. 1638.
 
 143 
 
 is their real belief, as he cannot bring himself to go as far as they 
 seem to do, in veneration of saints and relics, he receives some 
 such answer as this : " What ? will you not reverence, but rather 
 contemn, those by whom evil spirits are expelled, and diseases 
 cured ; who appear in visions and foretel in prophecy ; whose very 
 bodies, if touched, or even honoured, are gifted with as much 
 power as their holy souls ; the drops of whose blood, or the 
 smallest symbol of whose sufferings, have as much efficacy as 
 their entire bodies ?" m Or what will he say if one of these grave 
 and learned men shall say to him, by way of extolling the glory 
 and merit of the martyrs : " Perhaps, as we were purchased by the 
 precious Blood of Jesus ... so some may be purchased by the 
 precious blood of martyrs ?" n Surely he may, at first sound of such 
 words, exclaim, that the saints are made equal to their Lord, and 
 that this must be a sad and an idolatrous departure from what He 
 may be supposed to have taught. And if he stops his ears, and 
 does not admit or accept of explanation, what must we expect 
 from him but a most mistaken report ? 
 
 " Again, he looks about him. At Antioch he finds the church 
 of St. Barlaain richly decorated with paintings ; but all represent- 
 ing the life and death of the saint : Christ is introduced, but as if 
 in illustration, or by chance, into the picture. At Nola he finds a 
 magnificent basilica, literally covered with mosaics and inscriptions, 
 full of the praises of saints, and especially martyrs. p At Rome he 
 sees the basilicas of the Apostles, of St. Lawrence and others, 
 adorned with similar encomiastic verses. Surely if he sends forth 
 " a voice from Rome," it will be to proclaim that, to him, all this 
 seems excessive reverence, and, if you please, worship, of men, no 
 matter how holy. We should like to know how some great 
 Father would have answered him : for that answer would just 
 serve our case at present. If he descend into the catacombs, the 
 favourite retreat of devout Christians, what does he find ? Martyrs 
 every where, their tombs hallow each maze of those sacred laby- 
 rinths, and form the altar of every chapel. Their effigies and 
 praises cover the walls ; prayers for their intercession are inscribed 
 
 m St. Gregory Naz. Or. ii. adv. Julian, Op. torn. i. p. 76, Par. 1609. 
 n Origen Exhort, ad Martyr. Op. torn. i. p. 309. Ed. De la Rue. 
 See the Homily probably by St. John Chrysostom, in St. Basil's works, torn. ii. 
 p. 141. Ed. Garnier. 
 
 P S. Paulini Op. Ep. xxxii. Ed. Murat. p. 194.
 
 144- 
 
 on their tablets. He goes into the houses of believers ; memorials 
 of the saints every where. Their cups and goblets are adorned with 
 their pictures ; for one representation of our Saviour he finds 
 twenty of the Blessed Virgin, or of St. Agnes, or St. Lawrence, or 
 the Apostles Peter and Paul. q What shall his " voice " pronounce 
 these ? What encouragement will it give to his brother fire-wor- 
 shippers to embrace the Christian religion ? Once more, we should 
 have liked to See St. Jerome's answer to it. 
 
 ' Certainly, if we had nothing remaining from the early Church 
 except the Liturgy, the ancient Christians would stand before us, 
 just as we do before others when they look only at our solemn 
 worship. In fact, the two Liturgies, theirs and ours, are the same. 
 An Anglican fancies that so far, and no further, are we conformable 
 to the practice of antiquity ; and he will agree with us ; unless he 
 takes objection to the prayers for the departed, and the com- 
 memoration of martyrs, invariably found in every ancient Liturgy, 
 as in ours, though carefully expunged by the wicked pretenders 
 to reform the perpetual practice of the Church of God those who 
 spoke of the Spouse of Christ as Pilate did of her Lord : " emenda- 
 tum ergo ilium dimittam." r But fortunately we have plenty of 
 other documents to shew us what the belief and practice of the 
 ancient Fathers was on extra-liturgical matters, such as form the 
 staple of publications like that before us. We have their homilies, 
 to which we have already referred ; but we have what, in this 
 respect, is even more interesting, a great body of familiar and 
 anecdotic matter in their epistles and biographies, which, more 
 than any thing else, enable us to judge whether those great and 
 holy men thought and felt Catholicly or Protestantly ; or, if you 
 please, Romanly or Anglicanly. The evidences of popular religion 
 (such is the term which Tract 90 most unfortunately brought into 
 vogue) are sought now-a-days in documents such as would and 
 could only be similarly preserved. The conversion of M. Ratisbonne, 
 for instance, will have probably to be found in after ages, in the 
 letters and brochures of the present day, or in some collection of 
 edifying histories ; and many of the verses and descriptions which 
 so much scandalize our modern traveller will possibly fall before a 
 change of taste, or edax vetustas ; and unless found worthy of a 
 place in the laborious collection of some Fabretti or Muratori, 
 
 i See Buonarotti's Osservazioni sopra alcuni Frammenti di vetri antichi. 
 r uc. xxiii. 16.
 
 145 
 
 posterity will only know of them through the gleanings of curious 
 pryers into such matters for controversial purposes. In like manner, 
 many of those lesser feelings, those more homely sentiments and 
 thoughts, which were interwoven with the every-day religion of the 
 ancients, those tales which simple piety recorded for edification, not 
 for evidence, are not to be sought in the solemn records of public 
 deeds, nor often in earnest treatises on great dogmatical contro- 
 versies, but in the unbosoming of friend to friend in familiar letters, 
 or in the narrative of private virtues and domestic histories. If 
 much of these has been lost, sufficient remains to shew us the great 
 men of the Church bending from their doctor's chair to the warm- 
 hearted simplicity (called, in our age, credulity) of their poorest 
 children ; believing and proclaiming, with unsuspicious confidence, 
 tales of wonder, whereby God seemed glorified in His Saints ; and 
 telling them in such manner, that they form most interesting tests 
 for ascertaining with whom their feelings and belief accorded Rome 
 or England ; trustful, faithful, joyful Rome, or doubting, suspecting, 
 moody England. 
 
 ' But we are not acting up to our promise. Let us, therefore, 
 come to the point. In proof that the Blessed Virgin is " worshipped 
 as the mother of mercies, temporal and spiritual," the author before 
 us appeals to the Baron de Bussiere's account of M. Ratisbonne's 
 conversion from Judaism, " which he distinctly attributes to the im- 
 mediate operation of the Virgin Mary; for he relates, that it was 
 effected by her actual appearance to him." (p. 16.) Now what is 
 meant to be granted, and what to be doubted here, we do not 
 know. We suppose no one doubts that M. Ratisbonne, from a 
 Jew, did become a Christian, and has become a religious ; having 
 abandoned home and friends, and given up a long-cherished- alli- 
 ance. Any one might as well deny that Sir R. Peel is prime min- 
 ister. That he went into the Church of St. Andrew a Jew, and 
 came out a Christian, is attested upon evidence as certain as any 
 fact can well be that of trustworthy and honest men, who saw 
 him and spoke with him before and after. For the change some- 
 thing must account. That it was a true conversion from Judaism 
 to Christianity, with great temporal sacrifices, is clear ; and such 
 a conversion must have been the work of Divine grace. How 
 communicated is the question. The only witness can be the con- 
 vert. He tells us it was through an apparition of the Mother of 
 God, who instructed him in the mysteries of our holy religion. 
 
 L
 
 146 
 
 Are we to believe that a person is chosen by the Divine goodness 
 for an object of a most singular act of grace, at the moment that 
 he devises and tells an abominable falsehood, to rob Him of the 
 glory of it, and give it to another; by feigning a vision of the 
 Blessed Virgin ? What does the author of the " Voice" mean to 
 throw doubts on? On the apparition, as for such a purpose im- 
 possible ? Or on the consequences drawn from it ? Surely not 
 on the latter; for if the vision was true, it was right to consider 
 the blessed Mother of God, not as the source, but as the channel, 
 of a great " spiritual mercy." 
 
 < If he wish to insinuate that it would be derogatory to God's 
 honour, or incompatible with His revealed doctrines, to believe such 
 a mode of communicating grace and religious instruction possible ; 
 and, consequently, that the whole must be a figment or a delusion ; 
 we will, in answer, relate another similar story, in which not a Jew, 
 but a Bishop, was the party, and we will premise that we have it 
 on the best authority. 
 
 ' The person to whom we allude was a young man of singular 
 piety and virtue. Left young an orphan, he devoted his youth to 
 study, in a celebrated university. There his assiduity in learning 
 was only surpassed by the purity and innocence of his life, which 
 stood the test of severe trials, and escaped the snares laid for him 
 by profligate companions, jealous of his virtue. Having made 
 himself master of all profane learning, he entered on a course 
 of sacred studies, under the most celebrated professor of the day, 
 and soon made considerable progress. He was, however, while yet 
 young, put into Orders, and even named Bishop, before he con- 
 sidered himself well enough grounded in theological knowledge ; 
 though probably his humility led him to exaggerate his deficiencies. 
 He found himself quite unequal to the task of preaching the 
 Divine Word, and on the eve of his first undertaking this duty, he 
 lay sleepless on his bed, in agitation and anxiety. Suddenly he 
 saw before him a venerable figure of an old man, whose counte- 
 nance, attitude, and garb, bespoke great dignity, but who, at the 
 same time, appeared most gracious and affable. Terrified with 
 this appearance, he leapt from his couch, and respectfully asked 
 him who he was, and for what purpose he had come. The old man 
 replied, in a gentle voice, that he had come to calm his doubts, and 
 solve his difficulties. This declaration soothed his fears, and made 
 him look toward his visitor with a mixture of joy and awe ; when
 
 147 
 
 he perceived that by steadily pointing with his hand towards the 
 other side of the apartment, he seemed to wish to turn his attention 
 in that direction. Thither he consequently turned his eyes, and 
 there he beheld a lady of peerless majesty, and of more than human 
 beauty, so resplendent, that his eyes could not bear the brightness 
 of the vision, but he must needs bend them and his countenance 
 down, in reverential awe. Thus he listened to the conversation of 
 these two heavenly beings, which fully instructed him on the 
 subjects whereon he felt anxious, and at the same time informed 
 him who his gracious visitors were. For the lady, addressing the 
 other by the name of the Evangelist John, requested him to in- 
 struct the youth in the mystery of heavenly piety ; and he re- 
 plied, " that he was ready to do even this, to please the Mother 
 of his Lord, seeing that she desired it." And accordingly he 
 did so. 
 
 ' Such is our counterpart to the narrative objected to by our 
 author respecting M. Ratisbonne's conversion. Now before giving 
 the names of our authority for this wonderful history, or of the 
 person to whom it refers, we will only beg our reader, if not 
 sufficiently versed in ecclesiastical biography, at once to answer 
 both points, to say to what Church or religion he considers either 
 the writer or the subject of this anecdote belongs. Could he 
 believe us if we told him that it happened to Bishop Ken, or 
 Bishop Wilson, or Archbishop Laud, or that we had transcribed 
 it as gravely told by some Anglican clergyman in a life of any of 
 them ? We are sure he could not. The idea of a Protestant 
 Bishop's learning his faith from a vision of the Blessed Virgin, 
 would be deemed repugnant to every principle and every feeling 
 of the religion. But were we to tell the reader that the Bishop 
 spoken of was St. Alphonsus Liguori, or even St. Charles, and 
 the narrator an Italian monk or priest, he would at once allow 
 that such an account from such a pen, concerning such a person, 
 was perfectly consistent with the principles of both ; and though, 
 if a Protestant, he might declare that he does not believe the 
 story, he will acknowledge that it does nof surprise him to find it 
 in such a place. It must be then a Catholic, and not a Protestant, 
 who thought or said he saw such a vision ; and it must be a 
 Catholic, and not a Protestant, who has recorded it as believing it. 
 And so it was. The Bishop who thus learnt his faith was St. 
 Gregory Thaumaturgus, only little more than two hundred years 
 
 L2
 
 148 
 
 after Christ, and the recorder of the vision is the brother of the 
 great St. Basil, St. Gregory, Bishop of Nyssa.* This would have 
 been a nice anecdote for our ancient note-taker upon the doctrines of 
 Catholics. 
 
 * We do not intend to pursue any very regular order ; but just to 
 pick up a few incidents, such as may shew us how our fathers in 
 the Faith thought upon matters whereon we are so censured. And 
 as we have begun with the saints, and the wonders wrought by 
 them, we will say a few words more concerning them. Let any 
 one take the trouble to read any of the miracles recorded by St. 
 Augustine in the twenty-second book of the City of God, and let 
 him apply the criterion we have already given, of asking himself 
 in what class of modern religious writings he would expect to meet 
 with similar occurrences. Take for instance the history which he 
 gives of a certain poor tailor at Hippo, named Florentius, who 
 being in great want of clothing, and having no means of procuring 
 it, went to the Church of the Twenty Martyrs, and prayed aloud 
 that he might be clothed. Some young men, professed scoffers, 
 overheard him, and followed him, jeering him as though he had 
 prayed to those twenty martyrs for fifty-pence to buy a coat. The 
 poor old man, however, going his way, found a fish cast on shore, 
 yet alive, which he sold, and a gold ring was moreover found in it, 
 and given to him by the honest purchaser with these words : See 
 how the twenty martyrs have clothed you. 1 Now we are pretty sure, 
 that many a poor Italian would, in his distress, do just what 
 Florentius did, go to some Church of the B. Virgin, or of some 
 saint, and kneeling before the shrine, pray as he did. And we are 
 equally clear that a party of English Protestant youths overhearing 
 him (the adolescentes irrisores now-a-days of Catholic practices) 
 would make as good a joke of the matter as did the young Hippo 
 fashionables. So that it requires little to settle the dramatis 
 persona of St. Augustine's anecdote on transporting it to modern 
 times, and give Catholic and Protestant each his part. And no 
 doubt either an ancient or a modern collector of proofs, that the 
 saints are made conveyers of " temporal mercies" in the Catholic 
 system, would find the history equally applicable to his purpose 
 with this exception however, that, as St. Augustine gives it among 
 other proofs that the Christian religion is still evidenced by 
 
 ' De Vita S. Greg. Thaumat. Op. torn. iii. p. 545. ed. Par. 1638. 
 1 Op. torn. vii. p. 6G8. ed. Bened.
 
 149 
 
 miracles, the ancient traveller would have turned it against Chris- 
 tianity, as the modern one would against Catholicity ; so completely 
 are the two identified. 
 
 ' Let us take a case bearing more minute comparison. In a little 
 work containing the history of the Medal of the B. Virgin, com- 
 monly known by the epithet of miraculous, there are many extraor- 
 dinary but well-attested cases of conversion of hardened unbelievers 
 through the prayers of their friends, and the application of that 
 blessed symbol, to the unconscious sinner. These to flesh and 
 blood, to the dull sense and the cold heart of the present gene- 
 ration, are hard to believe, and they are either silently rejected or 
 openly scoffed at would to God if by our adversaries only ! For 
 instance, a soldier, we are told, in the military hospital at Paris, 
 is on the point of death, and rejects every succour of religion. In 
 vain the sisters of charity who attend him, in vain the good curate 
 make every effort to bring him to a right feeling on the necessity 
 of making his peace with God. He rejects every offer, and at 
 last with violent oaths and brutal rage, imposes silence on the 
 subject. Reduced to extremity, the pious sisters have recourse to 
 prayer to the B. Virgin, not expecting him to survive the night ; 
 and place a medal secretly in his bed. He sleeps tranquilly, and 
 on awaking mildly sends for the curate, receives the sacrament 
 with great devotion, and dies in peace." This is only one instance 
 out of many;" .... Those who would join in the "Voice 
 from Rome," cannot be much edified, nay, on the contrary, are 
 likely to be shocked and scandalized by such a narrative. " What 
 efficacy can there be supposed to exist in a mere symbol thus 
 
 11 Notice Historique, sixth ed. p. 76. 
 
 " As regards the doctrine implied in this extract, which, at first hearing, may 
 perhaps pain the conscience of some who deserve the tenderest and most considerate 
 dealing, it must be observed, first, that the difficulty is exactly the same, when, by 
 means of intercessory prayer alone, a sudden conversion is effected ; and, secondly, 
 that in neither case is there any real difficulty, because any amount of probation may 
 be crowded (if I may so speak) into the smallest portion of time ; e. g. the moment 
 of death may be indefinitely protracted to the individual, so as to allow opportunity 
 for God's full trial and justification of the soul. ' He can condense into an hour a 
 life of trial. He who frames the world in a moment, .... more wondrously can 
 He deal with the world of spirits, who are never subject to the accidents of matter. 
 He can, by one keen pang of agony punish the earthly soul, or by one temptation 
 justify it, or by one vision glorify it.' Newman's Parochial Sermons, vol. v. p. 59. 
 [W. G. W.]
 
 150 
 
 placed, like a charm" (so they would say) " near, or on, a person 
 heedless or unconscious of its presence ? Who can believe that 
 ' spiritual mercies' will thus he granted upon prayers to a saint ? 
 We must enter these down in our note-book, as the deceits or the 
 delusions of popery." 
 
 ' Be it so, but we must have a corresponding one to enter into 
 the tablets of our ancient inquirer, and here it is : " There was a 
 man at Calama of high rank, named Martial ; advanced in years, 
 and having a great repugnance to the Christian religion. He had a 
 Christian daughter and son-in-law that year baptized. They en- 
 treated him, with many tears, to become a Christian ; but he posi- 
 tively refused, and drove them from him with violent indignation. 
 His son-in-law bethought him of going to the chapel of St. Stephen, 
 and there praying for him, to the utmost of his power, that God 
 would give him grace to believe, without delay, in Christ. He 
 did so, with many sobs and tears, and with the ardour of sincere 
 devotion. Departing, he took with him some flowers from the 
 altar, and, when it was night, placed them at the sick man's head. 
 He slept : but, before daybreak, he called out, requesting that 
 they would send for the Bishop, who happened to be with me in 
 Hippo. On hearing of this, he begged that some of the clergy 
 might be sent for. They came ; he declared himself a believer ; 
 and, to the astonishment and joy of all, was baptized. So long as 
 he lived, he had in his mouth the words, ' O Christ, receive my 
 spirit ;' though he did not know that these were the last words of 
 the blessed Stephen, when stoned by the Jews. They were, like- 
 wise, his last, for he soon expired."* Here, then, we have our 
 parallel ; each part of the modern narrative has its counterpart in 
 the ancient ; and if one is to be rejected, so is the other. There is, 
 in both, an obstinate infidel, or sinner, who will not be converted to 
 God : there are pious persons who pray to the saints ; there is a 
 badge or symbol of their intercession for the flower from the altar 
 means the same as the medal ; in each case it is placed in the 
 bed of the unsuspecting patient ; and, in both instances, he awakes 
 at morning to ask for God's minister to administer a Sacrament of 
 forgiveness. Yet, the one narrative is of France, in the nineteenth 
 century ; the other of Africa, in the beginning of the fifth (A. D. 
 427). How comes it that such accidental coincidences should be 
 
 J S. Aug. lib. xxii. cap. viii. De Civit. Dei, torn. vii. p. 668.
 
 151 
 
 found, with such distances of time and place, save as fruits of one 
 tree, as plants of one seed, as evidences of one system ? And do not 
 they who find fault with such evidences, in our times and countries, 
 equally censure them in others ; and thereby place themselves in 
 the awkward position of scoffers of Christianity not of what they 
 are pleased, in the later instances, to nickname Popery ? 
 
 We could carry on much further this comparison between miracles 
 which are considered the production of modern Catholicity, and 
 such as are recorded with perfect confidence by ancient writers, 
 and in every instance draw the same conclusion a conclusion which 
 goes quite as far as dogmatical texts from homilies or treatises, to 
 prove the identity of ancient and modern Catholicity in those mat- 
 ters, on which the latter is most harshly treated as being a departure 
 from the former. 
 
 Connected with the subject, there is a point on which we wish to 
 touch, as being one of common reprehension not only in the little 
 work before us, but in many others of a similar tendency. We 
 allude to that species of partiality which seems to be shewn at a 
 given time, to a particular sanctuary, in which some shrine or image 
 is found, through which God is thought to work more wonderfully 
 than elsewhere. Such, at this moment, is the shrine of St. Philo- 
 mena, at Mugnano, or the church of St. Augustine, at Rome. It 
 would be easy to bring together many passages from ancient writers, 
 that shew the prevalence of a similar feeling and its consequent 
 practice; indeed the book and chapter in the works of the holy 
 doctor just named, to which we have more than once referred, will 
 furnish proofs of the peculiar regard in which certain places conse- 
 crated by relics (as the oratories of St. Stephen) were held by him. 
 But such feelings of veneration, confidence, and attachment towards 
 one Saint and his sanctuary, are by no one so well represented as 
 by the learned, the holy, and the truly amiable St. Paulinus. Few 
 of the Fathers let us more delightfully into the secrets of the Chris- 
 tian life and the Christian heart in ancient days, than the Bishop and 
 Poet of Nola. A patrician by birth, the scholar of Ausonius (who 
 compares him to the ancient classics) by education, a poor monk 
 by choice and vocation, the delight and friend of St. Augustine 
 St. Ambrose, St. Jerome, Sulpicius Severus, and all the great 
 and good men of his day, the admiration of the whole Church, 
 he exhibits in his letters a simplicity of faith, a tenderness of affec-
 
 152 
 
 tion, an innocent playfulness, a cheerfulness, and an unaffected 
 humility, which most pleasingly combine with the depth of his 
 devotion, and the richness of his sacred learning. There are few 
 of the Fathers who gain more upon our every day and homelier 
 feelings, and make themselves more familiar with their readers, than 
 he does. But throughout his works he is the servant of St. Felix, 
 the glorious martyr of Nola. Near his tomb, though himself a 
 native of Gaul, he resides, a poor hermit by choice (having sold 
 all and given the price to the poor), and priest, afterwards Bishop, 
 of the See. To celebrate the anniversaries of that Saint, by poems 
 and festivities ; to build a basilica in his honour, and adorn it with 
 mosaics and verses ; to make his friends love him and believe in his 
 power, and bring them to visit the shrine of his father and patron, 
 as he styles him seem his most pleasing occupations. How Catho- 
 lic his language every where to Catholic ears ! How Popish it 
 must sound to Protestant ! By way of example : the " Voice from 
 Rome" cries out against the following occurrence, or at least the 
 feelings it excited. A young woman is run over by a cart (an empty 
 one, but Roman carts are not very light even when empty) close 
 to the church of our Lady, attached to the hospital of the Con- 
 solazione, while holy exercises were going on within. She escapes 
 what every one considers an imminent danger of death ; and the 
 people cry out " e un miracolo della Madonna !" This is brought 
 as a proof that temporal blessings are sought from the Blessed 
 Virgin. It so happens that St. Paulinus relates a somewhat 
 similar accident, and reasons much in the same way as those poor 
 Italians did. Fortunately, he had no English Protestants near. 
 A person of the name of Martinianus was coming to him with 
 letters, or rather with a message ; and, on his way from Capua to 
 Nola, a distance of about twenty miles, he met a man with mules 
 returning home, after discharging their loads just as one may now 
 meet them among the Tusculan hills, after they have taken wine 
 to Rome so he wisely bargained for a ride, which was given him 
 cheap. 
 
 " Nactus vacantem sarcina mulum (ut solent 
 Jumenta revocari domum) 
 
 Parvo breve per iter a?re conductum sedet." 
 
 When about half-way, the mule took fright and grew restive.
 
 153 
 
 Martinianus (who had lately been more of a sailor than of a 
 horseman) was thrown, and flung to a distance. But, though 
 he fell among stones and thorns, he was neither bruised nor 
 scratched. How did this happen ? St. Paulinus has no diffi- 
 culty about it. Had he been expressing it in prose, and in Italian, 
 he would have said, " e un miracolo di San Felice." As he was 
 writing Latin verse, he describes and explains the event as fol- 
 lows : 
 
 " Medioque mox spatio viae 
 Muli pavore sessor excussus procul 
 
 Vectore subducto cadit. 
 In ora lapsus ora non laesit sua, 
 
 In saxa fusus et rubos 
 Nee sente vultum nee lapide artus contudit, 
 
 Felicis exceptus manu ; 
 Qui jam propinquantem aedibus fratrem suis, 
 
 Non passus occursu mail 
 Suis periculum in finibus capessere 
 
 Hostem removit invidum, 
 Et hunc fidelem compotem voti, suis 
 
 Confessor induxit loots, 
 Nostrisque juxta sedibus gratum intulit 
 
 Felix patronus fiospitem."" 
 
 St. Felix, therefore, St. Paulinus hesitates not to say, prevented 
 this poor man's being hurt, and brought him safe to his journey's 
 end ; because he was within some few miles of his church, and was 
 journeying towards his client Paulinus. Surely St. Paulinus was 
 a downright Romanist ! 
 
 And so he was. For he made it a point to go to Rome every 
 year, as he repeatedly tells us, for the festival of the holy apostles 
 SS. Peter and Paul ; x and he was much consoled by the kindness 
 which the Roman Pontiff shewed him, in inviting him to Rome, to 
 commemorate the anniversary of his election. Now this brings us 
 
 u Poema xxii. 405 421, Op. col. 583, ed. Murat. 
 
 * " Romse, cum solemni consuetudine ad beatorum Apostolorum natalem venisse- 
 mus." Ep. xx. col. 108. " Cum Apostolicam solemnitatem, voti nostri et itineris 
 annui socius, celebrasset." Ep. xliii. col. 254.
 
 154 
 
 to the point for which we first referred to Sf. Paulinus ; his attach- 
 ment to one particular sanctuary, and his affection to one saint, 
 there honoured. In one of his epistles to his friend Sulpicius 
 Severus (whom he had been disappointed in not meeting that year 
 in Rome), he reproaches him, half playfully, but not without seri- 
 ousness, for neglecting to come and visit, as he had promised, 
 "his lord (St.) Felix," as he calls him (Dominum meurn Felicem). 
 He bids him beware how he incurs his displeasure, by promising a 
 pilgrimage and not fulfilling it. " Scio quidem ;" he adds, " et in 
 Domino meo Felice viscera pietatis affluere ; sed tu quaeso, hoc eum 
 magis diligas et timeas, quo melior est et indulgentior . ut 
 
 tanto magis carissimum Dei metuas offendere, quanto promptius 
 dignatur ignoscere." y This surely is most unprotestant, and, there- 
 fore, most Catholic language. We could imagine it used by the 
 good archpriest of Mugnano (St. Paulinus was not yet Bishop when 
 he thus wrote) to some friend who had promised to visit the tomb 
 of his patroness, St. Philomena, and had disappointed him. Had 
 such a letter come from him, what a rich page it would have made 
 in a modern English traveller's note-book ! For want of it, there- 
 fore, we beg to offer him that of the curate's neighbour in place and 
 in faith St. Paulinus. 
 
 ' Before shutting up the volume of his works, there is another 
 topic, allied to the preceding, which we may be glad to hear him 
 on. But we must introduce it by a little domestic history, on which 
 again we will crave the reader's opinion, whether the parties in it 
 were Catholic or Protestant. 
 
 ' There lived in retirement, in a house of religious women dedi- 
 cated to God, a nun of singular piety and wisdom, the sister of two 
 Bishops, both distinguished for the learning of their writings and 
 the holiness of their lives. One, the more celebrated one, was just 
 dead, and his loss was deplored as a public calamity by all good 
 men. The other, having a little leisure after this event, resolved 
 to go and visit his saintly sister, whom he had not seen for many 
 years. The distance was great: and when he was within a day's 
 journey from the place where she lived, he had at night a most re- 
 markable vision, which turned into fear the hopes of the future. 
 "For I seemed to myself," such is his own account, "to bear in 
 
 y Ep. xvii. col. 96.
 
 155 
 
 my hands the relics of martyrs, from which darted forth a splendour 
 like that of a burnished mirror, held against the sun ; so that my 
 eyes were dazzled by the brilliancy of the light. Three times that 
 night did this vision come before me." 1 Unable to divine its mean- 
 ing, he looked forward to events to expound it. As he approached 
 the monastery, he inquired about his sister, and heard for the first 
 time that she was somewhat indisposed. His coming had, in the 
 meantime, been made known, and a large concourse of persons went 
 out to meet him. But the holy virgins modestly awaited him in the 
 church, and after he had prayed, and had given them his blessing 
 (they bending lowly to receive it), they retired. On entering the 
 convent, he found his sister very ill in her cell ; but instead of a 
 bed, she lay upon a plank on the ground, with another for her 
 pillow. We will not detain our readers with the edifying account 
 of her words and prayers in her last hours ; how she dismissed 
 her brother when the sound of the vesper's chaunt reached her cell, 
 that he might not omit this duty ; a how when she closed her own 
 sublime prayer, she signed herself with the cross on her eyes, her 
 mouth, and her breast ; and how her last act was to raise her hand 
 again to do so. b These things may serve to help the' reader in his 
 judgment, as to the religion of the holy persons engaged; but are not 
 what we are seeking. The pious virgin thus expires, and a religious 
 matron, the friend of the deceased, undertakes, as she had promised, 
 to prepare her holy remains for interment. We will now give the 
 words of the bishop her brother. " Vestiana arranging with her 
 own hands that sacred head, and having her hand under the neck, 
 exclaimed, looking towards me, ' See what sort of a necklace this 
 saint wore ; and at the same time loosening a string from behind the 
 neck, stretched out her hand and shewed us an iron cross and a 
 ring of the same metal, which both hung, by a thin cord, over 
 her heart. Upon this I said : ' Let us share this inheritance. You 
 keep the cross as a memorial ; I will be content with this ring as 
 my legacy, for this likewise has the cross carved upon its boss.' 
 Whereupon she, looking more closely at it, said to me : ' You 
 have not made a bad choice ; for the ring is hollow under the 
 boss, and in it is inserted a portion of the wood of life, (the true 
 cross,) and thus the cross engraved above rightly indicates that which 
 lies underneath.' " c 
 
 Ubi inf. p. 188. a P. 192. b P. 195. 
 
 c S. Greg. Nyss. in Vita S. Macrinae, Oper. torn. ii. p. 198.
 
 156 
 
 ' Will any reader hesitate in deciding of what religion were all 
 the persons here engaged ? Were they Anglicans ? We should be 
 indeed glad to know, how many crosses not golden ones, worn as 
 vain ornaments outside but of inferior metals, concealed, and ly- 
 ing over the heart, and how many reliquaries similarly placed, 
 could be collected in the households of English Bishops ? But look 
 at the neck of any swarthy peasant who open-breasted digs the 
 fields or plucks the vines of Italy, and you will find the " thin 
 cord" around it, that sustains some similar memorial of Christ's 
 passion. Nay, in either of our islands, we hesitate not to say, that 
 the poor Catholic might be distinguished from the Protestant by 
 these very badges the cross, or the relic, or the medal, or even 
 the ring with a cross for its posey, suspended round the neck, and 
 lying on the breast, in life and after death. We have known the 
 body of a shipwrecked Catholic so recognised at once. How tightly 
 and closely does a " little thin cord " like this bind together the 
 belief and feelings of the old and modern Church, and prove them 
 still the same ! How home to the Catholic heart does such a 
 trifling incident casually recorded come I Come, how full of con- 
 victions, of encouragements, of consolation I How joyfully even 
 can one bear to be taxed with superstition in company with the 
 holy Macrina, the sister of St. Basil, and her biographer St. Gre- 
 gory of Nyssa ! For these are the persons of whom we have been 
 writing. 
 
 ' But if those who had chosen such complete poverty as this holy 
 nun, wore but a reliquary of iron, it must not be fancied that this 
 argued any light estimation of so precious a relic as a portion of 
 the holy Cross : for they that could, or might without violation of 
 a religious engagement, would wear it enshrined in gold. We 
 have a beautiful letter of St. Paulinus upon this subject. Severus 
 had asked him for relics of martyrs, for the consecration of a 
 church which he was building. He replies, that if he had but " a 
 scruple of their sacred ashes to spare he would send it." But as 
 he required all that he had for his own new church, he sends him 
 another present to add to the relics which he must get elsewhere ; 
 this was a particle of the " divine Cross." " Invenimus quod digne, 
 et ad basilica? sanctificationem vobis, et ad sanctorum cinerum cu- 
 mulandam benedictionem mitteremus, partem particular de ligno 
 divinae Crucis." The portion which he sends is, he informs him, 
 almost invisible, but he must believe it to possess all the power and
 
 157 
 
 virtue of the entire Cross ; a present safeguard, and a pledge of 
 eternal life. " Accipite magnum in modico munus ; et in segmento 
 pene atomo astulae brevis sumite munimentum praesentia, et pignus 
 aeternae salutis. Non angustietur fides vestra carnalibus oculis 
 parva cernentibus, sed interna acie totam in hoc minimo vim Crucis 
 videat." The relic was enclosed in a small gold tube, <f tubello 
 aureolo rem tantae benedictionis inclusimus." d When afterwards 
 he sends Severus verses for the inscriptions in his church, he sends 
 two copies for the altar ; one in case he puts this particle of the 
 holy Cross with the other relics, the other should he prefer to keep 
 it to wear himself. The reasons which he gives in favour of the 
 latter alternative are perfectly Catholic. " If, however, you would 
 rather keep this blessed portion of the Cross at hand, for your daily 
 protection and care, lest once shut up in the altar, it may not be 
 ready for you and at hand, when wanted for use," e &c. f 
 
 Surely such views on the subject of our present duties, 
 as I sketched in the last chapter, are immensely more con- 
 siderate to humble and obedient members of our Church 
 than is the bidding them to follow Antiquity, if this be An- 
 tiquity. 
 
 With a few words on two more subjects I shall conclude 
 the present chapter. 
 
 Another friend of mine, also a clergyman of our Church, 
 has furnished me with the following quotations for publica- 
 tion, in proof of the belief, entertained by the respective 
 writers, of some intermediate suffering to be endured by the 
 soul, between the moment of death and of final bliss. He 
 has himself devoted his whole life to a study of the Fathers ; 
 and has been led by that study, without any knowledge of 
 later writers, to entertain a similar belief. He also is ready 
 to give his name, should his statement be questioned. 
 
 ' In regard to intermediate suffering between death and 
 final bliss, it will be found that on the whole there certainly 
 was a strong tendency towards a belief in it, in those ages 
 which our Church commends to our study and admiration. 
 In his Commentary on the Romans, viii. . 11, Origen 
 speaks thus : 
 
 d Ep xxxi. col. 189. e Ep. xxxii. coL 201. . f ' Dublin Review,' 
 
 Dec. 1843.
 
 158 
 
 " The end of all things is at hand, and in regard to such as are 
 blessed, whether they come from Israel or even from the Gentiles, it 
 is the word of Gospel doctrine in this life present which purifieth 
 them, to make them such as they were to whom the Lord said, 
 Now are ye clean through the word which I have spoken unto you. 
 But he that hath despised the purifying by the word of God and 
 the Gospel doctrine, reserveth himself unto sad and penal purifi- 
 cations ; so that the fire of Gehennah may purge him whom neither 
 the doctrine of the Apostles nor the word of the Gospel hath 
 purged, according to that which is written, ' I will purge thee with 
 fire unto purity.' (Is. i. 25. LXX. but the Heb. implies a purgation 
 by fire.) But in this same purgation, which is applied by the pe- 
 nalty of fire, in what long times and during how many ages the 
 torment will be exacted of sinners, He only can know, to whom the 
 Father hath delivered all judgment ; who so loved His creatures, 
 as to have emptied Himself for them from the form of God, and 
 to have taken the form of a servant, humbling Himself even unto 
 death, as willing that all men should be saved, and come to the 
 knowledge of the truth. Still we ought always to bear in mind, 
 that the Apostle would have the present passage (Rom. xi. 25 27) 
 reckoned a mystery, so that the faithful and perfect should hide 
 within themselves such meanings as these, as a mystery of God, 
 and not offer them indiscriminately to the imperfect and less 
 capable.' 
 
 * Here we see he contemplates a doctrine of intermediate 
 suffering, as held in the hearts of men : whether or no his 
 statement of it tallies with the subsequently expressed de- 
 velopment of it. It is true that St. Jerome, c. Pelag. i. 28, 
 speaks against some such passage as this ; yet Vallarsi has 
 shewn upon the place that St. Jerome himself held a similar 
 doctrine. He refers to the closing words of his commentary 
 on Isaiah. 
 
 " This ought we to leave to the knowledge of God alone, seeing 
 that it is not His mercies only, but His torments also, which are 
 justly balanced ; and that He knoweth whom to judge, and how to 
 do so, and for how long. Let us only say what it befits man's 
 frailty to say ; Lord, correct me not in Thine anger, neither chasten 
 me in Thy displeasure. And like as we believe that the torments 
 of devils and all the ungodly, that say in their heart, ' There is no
 
 159 
 
 God/ are everlasting ; so in regard to such sinners and ungodly as 
 are Christians, whose works are to be tried in the fire and purged, 
 we suppose that the sentence of the Judge will be bounded and 
 mingled with clemency." 
 
 ' When Jerome and Origen agree, we may be pretty sure 
 that the doctrine is one generally received, even if there be 
 no explicit statement of it sanctioned by the Church. The 
 notion of repentance, repentance continuing after death, is 
 found in St. Clement, Origen's master, Strom, iv. . 37, 
 p. 580, Potter. After quoting Plato's speculations on the 
 subject, he adds : 
 
 " There are two sorts of penitence ; the commoner one is fear, 
 ensuing on what has been done, but the more proper one is a dis- 
 gust of the soul with itself from conscience, whether in this world 
 or elsewhere ; for in no place is God's gracious dealing inert." 
 
 ' Again, Strom, vi. .46, p. 764 : 
 
 "If the Saviour preached to all that were in prison, then all that 
 believed will be saved, though they be of the Gentiles, if there at 
 least they have confessed Him, since the punishments of God are 
 salutary and corrective, (Trat^euncot,) leading to a conversion and 
 repentance of the sinner, rather than choosing his death ; and this 
 [the rather], as the souls when freed from the body, darkened though 
 they may be by passions, are able to see more clearly from their 
 being no longer attached to the flesh." 
 
 ' And soon after : 
 
 " I think it is thus shewn that the gracious God and the mighty 
 Lord saveth with justice and equity towards such as repent, whether 
 in this world or elsewhere ; for it is not here only that the ener- 
 getic Power of God reacheth, but it is every where and always 
 energizing." 
 
 ' So too, vii. . 78, p. 879, of the perfect man he says, 
 
 " He being drawn along by his own hope, tasteth not of the 
 good things that be in the world, feeling a high-minded dislike for 
 all herein, and pitying those who after death by the correction of 
 punishment are brought to an unwilling confession" &c.
 
 160 
 
 ' With this last passage the following instructive passage of 
 St. Ephrem will come in a natural connection. It will be 
 seen that he considers prayers for the dead to be to procure 
 relief of their sufferings, which indeed is sufficiently apparent 
 from his frequent use of them (in his Necrosima) for others ; 
 though more forcibly so from the way in which he asks them 
 of others for himself in his last testament (ap. Assem. B.O. i. 
 p. 143, or, with slight variations, among the Opera Gr. ii. 
 p. 401). 
 
 " Come, my brethren, stretch me out, for my life is giving way, 
 neither am I long to stay ; by prayer, by psalms, by offerings, give 
 me provisions for the way ; and when my thirty days be full, make, 
 brethren, a commemoration for me, for the dead are profited by 
 offerings that the living make 
 
 " Be thou patient ; from the Scriptures, if thou wish it, will I 
 prove it. Moses, three generations after, to Reuben gave life by 
 blessings. If the dead are not profited, why should Amram's son 
 have blessed him? And if the departed feel not, hear the Apostle, 
 what he said : ' If the dead rise not, why then are they baptized 
 for them ;' and if the men of the house of Mattathias, (who as a 
 type [of us] were possessed of the feasts and commemorations, as 
 ye have read in the Scriptures, 2 Mace. xii. 44,) by offerings re- 
 mitted the sins of those that fell in the war, that were heathenish 
 in their deeds and evil in their conversation, how much more shall 
 the priests of the Son remit the sins of the departed by their holy 
 offerings and the prayers of their mouths ?" 
 
 ' We see that St. Ephrem here contemplates Moses as 
 praying Reuben out of the curse under which Jacob left him, 
 and insists on the Apostle's words as at least implying the 
 power of the living to affect the state of the dead. 
 
 ' To this may be appended the following passages, selected 
 from many out of St. Augustine, whose frequent assertion 
 of this doctrine is the more important, because it shews the 
 conviction of one who reviewed and systematized all that had 
 been done before him ; like St. Paul, labouring more abun- 
 dantly than they all. 
 
 ' In his Enchiridion ad Laurent. . 29, the practices of
 
 161 
 
 the Church for the commendation of the dead are not op- 
 posed to that text of the Apostle. 
 
 ' We shall all stand before the judgment-seat of Christ, that 
 every man may receive the things that he did in the body, whether 
 they be good or evil.' Because each must have obtained a degree 
 of merit while he lived in the body, that such practices may be 
 available to him. For it is not to all that they are availing ; and 
 why not, save because of the different life each has led in the 
 body. When the oblations, whether of the altar, or of alms of any 
 kind are put up for all the departed that were baptized, for the 
 very good they be thanksgivings ; for those not very bad, propitia- 
 tions ; for the very bad, if they are even no advantage to the dead, 
 yet they are consolatory in their way to the living. But those to 
 whom they are of avail, they either are so far of avail as to obtain 
 a plenary remission, or at all events that the condemnation itself 
 should be more tolerable* 
 
 ' On the thirty-seventh Psalm, which, according to the 
 Vulgate, begins, O Lord, rebuke me not in Thine indigna- 
 tion, neither amend me in Thy wrath. 
 
 " Lord <kc. May I not be amongst those to whom Thou wilt 
 say, Go into eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels I 
 Neither amend me in Thine anger. Purge me in this life, and 
 make me such as not further to need the emendatory fire, on ac- 
 count of there being those who are to be saved, yet so as by fire. 
 Why ? but because here they are building on the foundation wood, 
 hay, stubble ; did they build gold, silver, precious stones, they then 
 would be safe from both fires, not only from that eternal one which 
 to eternity is to torment the ungodly, but even from that which is to 
 amend those who are to be saved by fire. For it is said, ' Him- 
 self shall be saved, yet so as by fire.' And because it is said, ' shall 
 be saved,' that fire is made light of. So, plainly, though they be 
 saved by fire, yet that fire will be less bearable (gravior) than any 
 thing man can suffer in this life. Yet you know how much the 
 bad have suffered here and can suffer : but what they have suffered 
 is no more than the good might suffer. For what is there that any 
 malefactor, robber, adulterer, abandoned, or sacrilegious, man has 
 suffered at the hand of the law, that the martyr has not suffered 
 
 M
 
 162 
 
 in confessing Christ ? The evils that are here then are far the 
 most bearable : yet you see how men will do any thing you bid 
 them not to suffer these. How much better if they were to do 
 what God bids them, in order not to suffer those less bearable 
 evils ! 
 
 To this may be added a vision of St. Perpetua, who teas 
 martyred in the year 203. I take the account from Alban 
 Butler, (March 7,) but another of my friends, learned in the 
 Fathers, has kindly consulted the original document, and is 
 prepared, if required, to vouch for its authenticity. 
 
 " A few days after receiving sentence, when we were all together 
 in prayer, I happened to name Dinocrates, at which I was astonished, 
 because I had not before had him in my thoughts ; and I at that 
 moment knew that I ought to pray for him. This I began to do 
 with great fervour and sighing before God ; and the same night 
 I had the following vision : I saw Dinocrates coming out of a dark 
 place, where there were many others, exceeding hot and thirsty, his 
 face was dirty, his complexion pale, with the ulcer in the face of which 
 he died at seven years of age, and it was for him that I had prayed. 
 There seemed a great distance between him and me, so that it was 
 impossible for us to come to each other. Near him stood a vessel 
 full of water, &c. ... By this / knew that my brother was in pain, 
 but I trusted I could by prayer relieve him ; so I began to pray for 
 him, beseeching God with tears day and night, that he would grant 
 my request. The day we were in the stocks I had this vision : 
 I saw the place which I had beheld dark before, now luminous ; 
 and Dinocrates with his body very clean and well-clad, refreshing 
 himself, and instead of his wound a scar only. I awaked, and 
 knew he was relieved from his pain" 
 
 Now I do entreat my readers not to put these citations 
 impatiently on one side ; but fairly to ask themselves the 
 question, is it possible that Martyrs and Doctors of the 
 Church should have expressed, in a natural, unsuspicious, 
 straightforward manner, such sentiments as these, if the 
 habitual feeling prevalent in the early centuries, on the 
 condition of ordinary Christians between death and final 
 salvation, had in the least resembled that current among
 
 163 
 
 English ' high-churchmen ; ' or whether it must not have 
 been much more nearly akin to the present belief of Roman 
 Catholics ? 
 
 The other subject, of which it appears to me that common 
 fairness requires a notice, is the controversy between Bishop 
 Wiseman and Mr. Palmer on the Intercession and Invocation 
 of Saints. Since, however, it might possibly appear to some, 
 that in alluding to this controversy I am going out of my 
 way to attack Mr. Palmer's views, I beg most distinctly to 
 say, that I have no personal complaint whatever to make 
 against Mr. Palmer; on the contrary, that his quotations 
 from my articles have been, on the whole, perfectly fair, and 
 that in using the severe language which he has adopted con- 
 cerning them, he has been merely performing that which, 
 according to his theological views, was even a duty. I can 
 assure him distinctly, that the great dislike I entertain to 
 those views existed in its full extent, before I could have 
 had the most distant expectation of being ever brought into 
 direct conflict with himself. 
 
 But on the controversy in question, I really think that 
 Bishop Wiseman has not received justice. The circum- 
 stance that several of his quotations were of very doubtful 
 authority, has made people forget how many remain, of 
 undeniable authenticity, and very cogent in their effect. 
 Attention has been drawn to this, in a pamphlet published 
 at the latter end of last year ; of which I should indeed find 
 it impossible to defend the tone in many parts, but which 
 seems so very strong in its main argument, as peremptorily 
 to require an answer. My business here, however, is with 
 the original controversy. 
 
 The following passages, quoted by Bishop Wiseman, are 
 allowed to be genuine by Mr. Palmer in his answer. 
 
 A monument was found at Ostia, to the following effect : 
 " A. A. Bassus and Honorata his wife with his children devout 
 to God and the Saints." (p. 39.) Mr. Palmer in his answer 
 ' fixes the transaction alluded to in the year 433.' (pp. 38, 9.) 
 
 " St. Ambrose encourages virgins to chastity, by the thought of 
 
 M 2
 
 164 
 
 how" St. Mary "will receive them at their deaths, and present them to 
 her Son as His chaste spouses," (p. 41, Palmer, p. 40.) 
 
 St. Maximus : " may this our patron " (St. Eusebius of Vercelli) 
 "... on our going out of this world . . . receive us into his abode and 
 into his bosom like Abraham, and as a happy shepherd acknowledge 
 us for his sheep." (p. 42, Palmer, p. 41.) 
 
 Martyrs " living in the body guard us, and going forth from the 
 body they receive us" (p. 42, Palmer, p. 41.) 
 
 St. Basil. " These (the Forty Martyrs) are they who, having 
 obtained possession of our country, like close-set towers defend it 
 from the incursions of our enemies." (p. 55, Palmer, p. 46.) 
 
 St. Paulinus, the friend and correspondent of St. Augustine, ad- 
 dressed the (departed) Confessor, Clarus : " Do thou also protect 
 thy equals, . . . labour in common with Martin, . . . and may your 
 wing ever protect us." f (p. -55, Palmer, p. 46.) 
 
 St. Prudentius, addressing (the departed) St. Lawrence : " Mayest 
 thou embrace thy fellow-citizens in thy bosom, and nourish them 
 with paternal love." ' (p. 56, Palmer, p. 47.) 
 
 St. Prudentius again. " She (St. Eulalia) placed under the feet 
 of God regards these things and .... cherishes her own people 
 (populos suos fovet" f ). (p. 57, Palmer, p. 47.) 
 
 St. Leo : " If anything is in our times rightly done by us, it is 
 to be attributed to [St. Peter's] work, to [St. Peter's 3 government." 
 (p. 58, Palmer, p. 48.) 
 
 St. Gregory of Nyssa says, that a certain person of St. Ephrem's 
 own name had been taken prisoner, and when in great danger and 
 " expecting death, he simply mentioned thy name " (he is addressing 
 the Saint) " saying, Holy Ephrem, help me, and he escaped the 
 snares of death." (p. 59, Palmer, p. 49.) 
 
 St. Gregory Nazianzen, addressing St. Cyprian : " Do thou look 
 down mercifully upon us, and direct our speech and life; feed or help 
 to fee.d this holy flock . . . drive away the wolves." (p. 60, Palmer, 
 p. 49.) 
 
 Pope Damasus, the patron of St. Jerome, addressing St. Felix : 
 " Thou who givest all things to them who diligently come to thee." f 
 (p. 63, Palmer, p. 51.) 
 
 St. Prudentius. " Unworthy, I acknowledge and know to be heard 
 by Christ Himself; but through the patronage of the martyrs he may 
 obtain a cure." f (p. 64, Palmer, p. 51.) 
 
 f On these quotations Mr. Palmer observes that they occur in poetry. Valeat 
 quantum.
 
 165 
 
 Several more passages might be quoted, the genuineness 
 of which is equally acknowledged by Mr. Palmer. With- 
 out at all intruding myself into the controversy between 
 Mr. Palmer and his new assailant, which is not yet, I sup- 
 pose, brought to a close, the following observations of 
 the latter writer are surely too true to admit of any 
 denial. 
 
 " Let [any Anglican clergyman] in a sermon before the most 
 enlightened audience that England can produce, before the Uni- 
 versities, or the very bench of Bishops, use the expressions which 
 are so common in the homilies of the Fathers . . . about the inter- 
 cession of the Saints, their patronage and protection, the veneration 
 due to them and their relics ; let him even guard all these expres- 
 sions with explanations ; still he will be considered as broaching doc- 
 trines the most unsound and dangerous to the Church." * 
 
 Or, in other words, doctrines, which widely prevailed 
 throughout Christendom in the fourth and fifth centuries, 
 would not be for a moment tolerated by ordinary English 
 ' high-churchmen ' in the nineteenth. 
 
 7. As the controversy proceeds, it will not be a matter of 
 surprise if ' high-churchmen ' abandon their own ground, and 
 take refuge in the three first centuries. Considering indeed 
 that the Councils, which give any sanction to the damnatory 
 clauses in the Athanasian Creed, belong wholly to the later 
 period, and considering too how firm a ' locus standi' these 
 Councils have been ordinarily considered by ' high-church- 
 men' to afford, such a step would be a bold one. On the 
 other hand, of course at a time when the whole Christian 
 world was kept in a state of separation and depression by 
 repeated persecutions, there was much less opportunity for 
 its real nature to display itself than at later periods ; and 
 those accordingly who are really, though most unconsciously, 
 opposed not merely to later developments, but to Apo- 
 stolical Christianity itself, will be less triumphantly and 
 signally refuted from the scanty remains of those centuries, 
 
 s Character of Rev. W. Palmer as a controversialist, &c. p. 5G.
 
 166 
 
 than from the copious records of the Nicene era. However, 
 should such a position be openly maintained and defended 
 by ' high-churchmen,' then will be the time for those com- 
 petent to the task to assail and overthrow it.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 ON THE LUTHERAN DOCTRINE OF JUSTIFICATION. 
 
 I. IT is very plain then, that our present system can lay 
 claim to no protection from adverse criticism, on the ground 
 of any supposed similarity to the system of earlier ages ; 
 and having therefore disposed of this obstacle in our path, 
 we may at once proceed with our inquiry. Moreover, since 
 the one vitally important question, in regard to any religious 
 body, is the nature of that inward and personal religion 
 which its system tends to foster ; and since all outward forms, 
 ordinances, rules, discipline, are more worthless than chaff 
 or dust, except so far as they minister to such religion ; the 
 first matter for our consideration will be, the real value of 
 that religious type or character now in esteem among us. 
 Hence we must examine at starting with some little precision, 
 however incompletely, the great and cardinal question of 
 Justification ; for the general religious character seen in any 
 Church, depends of course mainly on the answer given by 
 each one for himself to the inquiry, ' by what feelings and 
 acts shall I most please God ? ' or, in other words, ' whereby 
 am I justified?' 
 
 On the Lutheran answer to this inquiry, which has an 
 extensive reception and still more extensive influence within 
 our Church, it may perhaps be remembered, that language 
 has been used of no ordinary severity 3 in some articles of the 
 British Critic. This language (which has given occasion to 
 much comment) I now proceed to defend ; and in doing so, 
 it will be impossible perhaps to act more safely, in order to 
 determine the real essence of Lutheran doctrine, than by 
 taking along with us the remembrance, what it is which 
 
 a ' Rabid violence of language ' is imputed to me by the Bishop of Ossory.
 
 168 
 
 Lutheranism professes to accomplish. Now its great 
 achievement, according to the unanimous voice of all its 
 advocates, is, that it provides a full security for personal 
 holiness, at the same time that it rescues the believer from 
 all fear of God's wrath to come. It is impossible then to 
 adopt a course more free from the possibility of cavil, than to 
 make this, its pretension, the test for discovering its real 
 nature and meaning; an attempt of no ordinary difficulty, 
 when we consider the cloudy language and inconsecutive 
 thought so prevalent among its supporters. b And not to 
 incur the imputation (which would indeed be well deserved) 
 of taking an unfair advantage, by comparing a system which 
 at least lives and energizes, not with another living system, 
 but with the uncertain and unpractical theories built by 
 speculative men on ancient records and writings, I will 
 willingly and most gladly take, as the representative of 
 Catholicism, the Roman doctrine, as decreed at Trent and 
 as practically carried out in foreign Churches : a course by 
 which I shall at once consult my own preference, and give to 
 my opponents every advantage they can possibly desire. 
 
 The fact to which I have adverted, I mean the extremely 
 vague and wavering statements put forth by such defenders 
 of Lutheran doctrine as I had met with, and the extraordinary 
 intellectual feebleness which seemed to characterize their 
 efforts, I had always felt as a painful difficulty, when duty 
 
 b Mr. Scott, of Aston-Sandford, speaks very candidly of ' that amazing diversity 
 of opinion, and that unaccountable inconsistence and perplexity, which are observable 
 in the conversation, sermons, and writings of many evangelical persons, on this appa- 
 rently plain and most important subject,' (viz. the nature of saving faith,) p. 691, of 
 the edition of 1834. 
 
 c I have read great part of Luther's Commentary on the Galatians ; none of 
 Calvin's works, except a few pages of his Institutes on the subject of faith, which 
 have been shewn me. I had no intention of alluding to Luther personally, as his 
 name occurs very seldom in my articles ; but as I happened to hear, that an authority 
 Of some weight had expressed an opinion that I had spoken against Luther, without 
 knowing more of him than the extracts from his writings in Mcehler's ' Symbolism ;' 
 and as I wish to meet all the tangible charges which I am able to hear of ; I hope 
 it will not appear impertinent to introduce a note here, and to defend myself from 
 this imputation. I answer, first, that I do know more of Luther than extracts ; 
 having read continuously great part of his principal work : and, secondly, that
 
 169 
 
 seemed to require the expression of my intense abhorrence 
 of the doctrine itself. I will not deny at all, that I attributed 
 
 the extracts alone, with which one meets, whether in Mrehler or elsewhere, are 
 quite sufficient to justify all that I have ever published in his individual dispa- 
 ragement. First, I most certainly took up the Commentary on the Galatians, with 
 an expectation of finding much to agree with. I did not expect to find it very 
 different from other ' evangelical' works ; and in them I had often met with 
 very much which made me feel great sympathy with the writers, and which 
 deepened my perception of the points of agreement among all serious Christians ; 
 even though united with more or less of a painful character, and certainly with 
 a far lower standard of holiness, with far less realisation of the sinfulness of sin, 
 and far less depth of spiritual experience, than I find in Roman Catholic devo- 
 tional works. Alas ! I found, in Luther's commentary, no such points of sym- 
 pathy and agreement as I hoped. Never was my conscience so shocked and re- 
 volted by any work, not openly professing immorality. On looking at it again 
 more recently, I think I hardly did it justice in my first perusal ; probably 
 the naked expression of his doctrine on Justification (which, in its undisguised 
 deformity, had never been previously presented to my imagination) so seized 
 on my mind, that I did not sufficiently observe the various happy and cre- 
 ditable inconsistencies which were to be found in it. I now perceive in one place 
 (and very likely the same may be found in other passages), that he distinctly 
 admits that Christians after justification, continually advance in conquest over 
 sin ; an admission which, however inconsistent with his fundamental principle, 
 (on which I speak in the text,) is still a comfortable fact in judging of 
 his personal character. Still, however, I can see nothing in it shewing any spi- 
 rituality of mind whatever, or any deep and true insight even into human corrup- 
 tion, much less into the marvels of grace ; while there is very much of a most contrary 
 character. 
 
 His general principle is very plainly stated in a multitude of passages ; of 
 which I shall be doing him every justice in taking, as a sample, those which 
 follow. ' We thus teach faith and the true method of Christianity ; that man is 
 first instructed by the Law in knowledge of himself, that he may learn to say 
 
 "to Thee only I have sinned," &c Then at length he rightly 
 
 understands what Paul means, when he says that man is the servant and 
 captive of sin. . . . Here then arises a sigh of this kind : " who then can bring 
 me help ? " for man, thus terrified by the Law, wholly despairs of his own 
 strength, he looks around and sighs for the help of a Mediator and Saviour. 
 Here then comes in season the saving word of the Gospel, and says, " be of 
 good cheer, my son, thy sins are forgiven thee ; believe in Jesus Christ, crucified 
 for thy sins." . . . This is the beginning of salvation ; in this manner we are freed 
 from sin, are justified, and eternal life is given us, not for our own deservings or 
 
 works, but for the faith whereby we apprehend Christ Christ definitively is 
 
 not a lawgiver, but a Propitiator and Saviour.' On chap. ii. v. 16, vol. 5. pp. 308,9. 
 (The references are made to the edition in seven folio volumes, dated WitenbergEe, 
 1554.) 'Hence it maybe sufficiently understood what is the difference between 
 the Law and the Gospel. The Law does not justify, because it only
 
 170 
 
 this cloudiness of statement and thought to the circumstance, 
 that no consecutive thinker could adopt this doctrine, without 
 
 teaches what we ought to do ; but the Gospel .... teaches what we ought to 
 receive. Therefore the Law and the Gospel are two doctrines wholly contrary. 
 .... Moses, with his Law, is a task-master, ordering us to work and give : 
 in a word, he requires of us. On the contrary, the Gospel does not require of 
 us; but gives grace, and desires us with outstretched hands to receive what is 
 
 offered If the Gospel is a gift, and offers a gift, therefore it requires 
 
 not/ting.' 1 (On chap. iii. v. 2, pp. 329, 330.) ' When thou seest a man filled with 
 fear and sorrow from the consciousness of sin, say, Thou distinguishest not rightly 
 brother ; thou placest the law over thy conscience (ponis legem in conscientiam) 
 which should have been placed over thy flesh. Awake, rise up, and think that 
 thou must believe in Christ, the conqueror of the Law and sin ; by that faith 
 thou shall pass over the Law and enter into grace, where is no Law nor sin. Al- 
 though the Law and sin are, yet are they nothing to thee, for thou art dead to the 
 Law and to sin.' (On chap. ii. v. 19, p. 316.) 
 
 ' Here foolish reason is again offended, and chides us, saying, ' in that ye teach 
 that men should do nothing for the obtaining of so great a gift, except hearing the 
 word, this seems .... to make men careless, sluggish,' &c Our adver- 
 saries think that faith, by means of which the spirit is received, is a thing 
 altogether trifling and of no account.' Here then, observe, he applies himself to 
 meet this objection ; to explain in what the difficulty of salvation consists. ' But 
 how difficult and arduous a thing it is, I experience myself, and so do all who with 
 me seriously embrace it. It is readily said, that by the hearing of faith alone, the 
 Spirit is received ; but not so easily heard, received, believed, and retained as 
 said.' (On chap. iii. v. 2, p. 331.) In another place he explains his meaning more 
 clearly ; and particular attention should be paid to this passage. ' But this is the 
 work, this the labour, that one thus terrified and dismayed by the Law be able 
 again to raise himself and say : " Now I am enough bruised in heart and dis- 
 turbed ; the time of the law has afflicted me enough ; now is the time for grace, 
 and for hearing Christ, from Whose mouth proceed the words of grace.". . . Yea, so 
 great is the foolishness of the human heart, that not only it does not, in that conflict 
 of conscience, when the Law has done its duty and exercised its true function, 
 seize the doctrine of grace which most certainly promises and offers remission of 
 sins for Christ's sake, but even seeks for more of laws whereby it may provide 
 for itself. " If I live longer," it says, " I will amend my life ; I will do this and 
 that ; I will enter a monastery ; I will live most sparingly, content with bread 
 and water ; I will walk bare-footed," &c. Here, unless thou doest the very contrary, 
 unless thou dost leave Moses, with his Law, for the careless and hardened, and 
 in those fears and horrors of mind dost seize Christ, as having suffered, having 
 been crucified, and having died for thy sins, thy salvation is desperate, (plane 
 actum est de salute tua.)' (On chap. iii. v. 19, p. 359.) The one difficulty of 
 salvation, he says in another place, is to believe that our own sins, grievous as 
 they are, are fully forgiven for Christ's sake. It is easy to believe that lioly 
 men are forgiven ; but to believe that I, a most miserable sinner, am forgiven, 
 this is most difficult. ' Thou wouldest easily say and believe that Christ the Son of
 
 171 
 
 being prepared to plunge, theoretically at least, into the lowest 
 depths of depravity ; whereas all must allow, that on every 
 
 God was given for the sins of Peter, Paul, and tlie other Saints, whom we account 
 worthy of such a grace. But it is most difficult that thou, who judgest thyself 
 unworthy of that grace, shouldest say and believe from thy heart, that Christ 
 
 was given for thy sins, thy unconquered, infinite, and vast sins Here 
 
 weak nature and reason' recoil, here they dare not approach God, nor promise 
 
 themselves that so great a treasure is to be given them freely In this 
 
 therefore is the whole force of eternal salvation placed, that these words [' for our 
 sins'] are taken as serious and true.' 
 
 The sins of one seeking justification are thus described in a passage 
 just preceding the last sentence. x ' O Satan . . . why dost thou require 
 from me righteousness, when I possess nothing except sins, and those true 
 and most grievous, not feigned or slight ? such as ... the extreme of 
 unbelief, (summa infidelitas,) . . . contempt of God, hatred of Him, igno- 
 rance of Him, blasphemy of Him,' &c. (On chap. i. v. 4, p. 281, 2.) And the 
 essence then of Luther's Gospel is this, that a person so affected has only 
 one great struggle to go through, in order that he may obtain the indefectible 
 promise of eternal salvation ; and that struggle is, not against those sins, but 
 against his own conscience, which would fain impede his full assurance of 
 immediate pardon. Let him only firmly believe that notwithstanding these 
 sins he is for certain saved, and no more, says Luther, is required ; he is for 
 certain saved. This doctrine does not come in accidentally here and there ; it 
 is the one burthen of the greater part of the commentary. When conscience has 
 performed its office of frightening and alarming the sinner, its usefulness is over ; 
 from that time it is no longer man's guide to salvation, but the one only im- 
 pediment in the way of his attaining salvation. Well was it for Luther that he 
 had enjoyed the unspeakable blessings of a Catholic education and monastic 
 discipline, and so had learnt to feel in some slight measure the real sinfulness 
 and evil of sin, before he turned his mind to the invention of these blasphemies. 
 He speaks, in many places, of his own great difficulty in acquiescing in the 
 system he had devised ; and from himself he seems to have argued to others ; so 
 that, as I observed in the British Critic, ' any one who knows ever so little of 
 Luther's writings must see how painfully aware he is of the opposition presented 
 by human instincts to his lax system ; and how anxiously he endeavours to de- 
 ceive both others and himself as to the potency of the remedy, which he had 
 the almost incredible boldness of devising from his own invention, against the 
 plainest testimonies of Scripture, against the unceasing and continuous voice of 
 the Church.' (On Arnold's Sermons, p. 309.) All this is very pleasing, in con- 
 sidering his personal character ; but what has he to say in argument against 
 even the shamelessly profligate Anabaptists ? Let any one read the Commentary, 
 from the thirteenth verse of the fifth chapter, and see the miserable shifts to 
 which he is reduced. ' If grace or faith,' he says, ' is not preached, no one is 
 saved : for faith only justifies and saves. On the other hand, if faith is preached 
 as it must be preached, the greater part of mankind understands the doctrine 
 concerning faith in a carnal sense, and changes liberty of the spirit into liberty
 
 172 
 
 single occasion I have taken the utmost possible pains to 
 do justice to the great amount of earnestness and self- 
 
 of the flesh. We may see this at the present day in all classes of life .... 
 This unworthiness sometimes makes me so impatient, that I often wish that 
 swine of this sort, who tread pearls under foot, Here still under the tyranny of 
 
 the Pope.' Nay, he confesses very curiously of himself, ' We ourselves 
 
 perform not our duty now that we are in the light of truth, with so much dili- 
 gence and earnestness as we did it formerly, when in t/te darkness of ignorance. 
 For the more assured we are of that liberty procured for us by Christ, the more 
 cold and sluggish are we in ministering the word, in praying, in doing good works, 
 in enduring evils.' 1 &c. (On chap. v. ver. 13, p. 413.) And he proceeds in a 
 similar strain. Does he give then any test, whereby true faith, which produces 
 holiness, may be distinguished from false faith which leads into profligacy ? He 
 makes no such attempt ; he passes off under the veil of vague and unmeaning 
 generalities as best he may. 
 
 Of course it should be most fully acknowledged, that he expresses a confident 
 opinion that justifying faith will always lead to good works. For instance : 
 ' Because thou hast by faith seized Christ, through whom thou art righteous, begin 
 now to do good works, love God and thy neighbour, pray, give thanks, &c. These 
 are truly good works, which flow from that faith and joy of heart which we receive, 
 in that we have free forgiveness of sins through Christ.' (On chap. ii. ver. 15, 
 p. 309.) This also is of great importance, when the question is raised concerning 
 Luther individually. Several other considerations should also here be mentioned 
 bearing in the same direction. First : the Commentary, considered intellectually 
 as a theological effort, is perhaps one of the feeblest and most worthless productions 
 ever written ; this of course gives the greater ground for hope, that he had not at 
 all fully realised his own principles. Next, many indications appear from time 
 to time of personal amiableness and simplicity of character. Again, there is a 
 number of very beautiful passages, some of which are carefully brought forward 
 by Mr. Newman, and which certainly imply that in his vague and inaccurate 
 way he was dimly conscious of some very precious Gospel truths. Thus : 
 ' Christ lives in me : he is my ' form,' adorning my faith, as when a light adorns 
 a wall; 'and, again, ' this gem (Christ) I possess, as though set in a ring:' and 
 many others in like manner, wherein he speaks of the blessedness of ' appre- 
 hending' Christ ; both are very beautiful in the Catholic sense of such words, and 
 seem to shew that he was not himself without glimmerings of that sense. Then, 
 again, he shews the greatest misconception of Catholic doctrine ; so as still 
 further to encourage us in the hope that he did not sin against full light. Thus, 
 over and over again, he speaks as if the very inclination to do penance, on the 
 one hand implied a keeping away from Christ ; and on the other hand proved the 
 existence of an idea that sin can be in a strict sense atoned for by penance, and 
 consequently proved a very inadequate perception of the heinousness of sin. 
 Now religious persons know full well how widely different is the real tmth ; 
 they know full well, that in proportion as Christians realise the deep and serious 
 guilt they have incurred by their sins, and throw themselves for pardon on the 
 merits of their Lord, in that very proportion are they more earnestly led to the
 
 173 
 
 devotion, frequently found united with its profession. Still 
 it was always open for others to say, that accurate thinkers, 
 
 desire of penance and self-chastisement : those even know of this desire, who 
 are the most remiss in obeying it ; nay, those must know it, who, being pos- 
 sessed by an heretical theory, are compelled to consider it a desire which it is 
 wrong to gratify. The fact, then, of Luther labouring under this misconception 
 is fatal to the hypothesis of his having been, when he wrote the Commentary, 
 in any true sense a religious man : for a religious man, without experience of 
 Christian repentance, is the same contradiction as would be a religious man 
 without experience of humility, or of self-denial, or of godly fear, or of love to 
 God. Still on the other hand, if we bear in mind this his mistake of fact, we 
 shall see a very true and edifying sense in some passages, which would otherwise 
 altogether scandalise us. St. Augustine says, ' vis fugere a Deo, fuge ad Deum ; 
 and Mr. Newman, " The most noble repentance .... the most decorous 
 conduct in a conscious sinner is an unconditional surrender of himself to God ; 
 not a bargaining about terms, not a scheming (so to call it) to be received back 
 again, but an instant surrender of himself in the first instance." (Sermons, vol. iii. 
 p. 103.) Now this same doctrine seems confusedly implied in several passages 
 of this Commentary, such as one of those above quoted : and attaches a far more 
 innocent meaning to them than could otherwise be given. Lastly, he seems to 
 a great extent possessed by the idea (as modern ' Evangelicals'" are), that Catho- 
 lics are slow in confessing or seeing the miserable imperfections which sully 
 our best actions, and that they uphold outward works apart from inward sanctity ; 
 and this furnishes another excuse for many of his most offensive passages. Still 
 the following extract will shew that he had means of knowing, that even in 
 that age the ' good works' of monks were often of a very different stamp. 
 " Under the Papacy it was counted for a most spiritual action, when the monks 
 sitting in their cells meditated on God and His works ; when inflamed with the 
 most ardent devotion they bowed the knee, prayed, and contemplated heavenly 
 things with so much delight, that for much joy they shed tears. Here was no 
 thought of women, nor of any other creature ; but only of the Creator and His 
 marvellous works. And yet this thing, most spiritual in the judgment of reason, 
 is, according to Paul, a ivork of the flesh. Wherefore all such religion .... is 
 idolatry : and the more holy and spiritual it is in appearance, so much the more 
 pernicious and pestilential it is ; for it turns aside man from faith in Christ,' &c. 
 (On chap. v. ver. 20, p. 424.) In the omitted and the contiguous passage, he speaks 
 of these services as done ' to the exclusion of Christ the Mediator, and without the 
 word and commandment of God.' The meaning of this most extraordinary and 
 most irreligious statement, I rather fancy, from other passages, to be, that Christians 
 ought to meditate only on the works of redemption, not of creation. 
 
 Another short work of Luther's, which I have looked through, is his Sermo de 
 Matrimonio, preached, let it never be forgotten, publicly before a large congregation. 
 Let those who speak of him as a spiritually-minded man read that sermon. Quota- 
 tions, however, of that kind are better omitted. The following are extracted from 
 certain ' Disputationes pro Veritate Inquirenda,' vol. i. p. 54. 
 
 1 5. It is certain that thy sins are forgiven, if thou believest them forgiven.
 
 174 
 
 if they should apply themselves to its defence, would rescue 
 it from the imputation of leading to such pernicious conse- 
 
 1 8. Those who found forgiveness of sins on contrition, build the faith of God on 
 sand, that is, on man's work. 
 
 25. The priest has before him sufficiently clear marks of contrition, if he perceives 
 that the sinner seeks and believes his forgiveness. 
 
 26. Indeed it is far more important to inquire whether he believe himself to be 
 forgiven, than whether he sorrow worthily. 
 
 40. Suppose an impossible case, that he who is to be absolved should not be con- 
 trite, and should yet believe himself to be absolved, lie is truly absolved. 
 
 The following quotation is made by M. Audin in his life of Luther (p. 265, English 
 translation) with the reference to 3 f. 1 77. 6 : but I have not access to the same edi- 
 tion ; so the quotation is made on M. Audin's authority. . 
 
 ' Thus the human will is placed in the middle, like a beast of burden ; if God rides 
 on it, it wills and goes whither God will .... if Satan rides on it, it wills and goes 
 as Satan will ; nor is it in its own choice to run to either rider, or seek him, but the 
 riders themselves contend to obtain and possess it.' 
 
 The following are from Mahler's ' Symbolism,' English translation. 
 
 ' Luth. in Gen. c. xix. " In spiritual and divine things which regard the salvation 
 of the soul, man is like to the pillar of salt into which Lot's wife was changed ; yea 
 he is like a trunk and a stone," &c. (Moehler, vol. i. p. 124.) 
 
 ' Luther de Captiv. Bab. torn. ii. fol. 264. " So thou seest how rich is the 
 Christian ; even if he will he cannot destroy his salvation by any sins how grievous 
 soever, unless he refuse to believe. For no sins can condemn him, except un- 
 belief alone. All others, if faith in the divine promise made at Baptism return 
 or remain, are absorbed in a moment through tlie same faith.' 1 '' ' (Moehler, vol. i. 
 p. 183.) 
 
 Here I may add a quotation I made in the British Critic, (on Heurtley's Four 
 Sermons, p. 438.) 
 
 ' Be thou a sinner and sin boldly, but still more boldly believe and rejoice in 
 Christ. Sufficient is it that through the riches of the glory of God we know the 
 Lamb who taketh away the sins of the world ; from Him sin shall not separate 
 us, no, though a thousand thousand times in every day we should commit fornication 
 or murder.'' 
 
 The following shall conclude my series of quotations. The first is from an article 
 in the Edinburgh Review, (October, 1834,) which it can be no discourtesy to 
 attribute to its universally acknowledged author, Sir W. Hamilton ; the second is 
 published by the same gentleman with his name. Sir W. Hamilton's authority is 
 a sufficient voucher for the accuracy of the quotations ; but unfortunately he does 
 not specify his references. He divides his classes of quotations from Luther's writ- 
 ings into the heads of ' speculative theology,' ' practical theology,' and ' Biblical 
 Criticism.' 
 
 I. God pleaseth you when He crowns the unworthy ; He ought not to dis- 
 please you when he damns the innocent. All things take place by the eternal and 
 invariable will of God, who blasts and shatters in pieces the freedom of the will. 
 God creates in us the evil, in like manner as the good. The high perfection of
 
 175 
 
 quences, as appear inevitably to flow from it. It gave me 
 therefore peculiar gratification to fall in, a few months ago, 
 
 faith is to believe that God is just, notwithstanding that, by His will, He ren- 
 ders us necessarily damnable, and seemeth to find pleasure in the torments of the 
 miserable.' 
 
 II. ' We (Luther, &c.) cannot advise that the licence of marrying more wives 
 than one be publicly introduced, and, as it were, ratified by law. If anything were 
 allowed to get into print on this head, your Highness easily comprehends that it 
 would be understood and received as a precept, whence much scandal and many dif- 
 ficulties would arise. Your Highness should be pleased to consider the excessive 
 scandal ; that the enemies of the Gospel would proclaim that we are like the Ana- 
 baptists, who have adopted the practice of polygamy, and that the Evangelicals, as 
 
 the Turks, allow themselves the licence of a plurality of wives But in certain 
 
 cases there is room for dispensation .... In fine, if your Highness be fully and 
 finally resolved to marry yet another wife, we judge that this ought to be done 
 secretly, as has been said above, in speaking of the dispensation ; so that it be known 
 only to your Highness, to the lady, and to a few faithful persons obliged to silence 
 under the seal of confession ; hence no attacks or scandal of any moment would ensue. 
 For there is nothing unusual in princes keeping concubines ; and although the lower 
 orders may not perceive ilie excuses of the thing, the more intelligent know how to 
 make allowance. 
 
 III. ' The books of the Kings are more worthy of credit than the books of the 
 
 Chronicles Job spake not therefore as it stands written in his book, but 
 
 hath had such cogitations. It is a sheer argumentum fabulae. It is probable that 
 Solomon made and wrote this book .... This book (Ecclesiastes) ought to have 
 been more full ; there is too much of broken matter in it ; it has neither boots 
 nor spurs, but rides only in socks, as I myself when in the cloister. Solomon 
 hath not therefore written this book, which hath been made in the days of the 
 Maccabees by Sirach. It is like a Talmud compiled from many books, perhaps 
 in Egypt, at the desire of King Ptolemy Euergetes. So also have the Proverbs of 
 
 Solomon been collected by others The book of Esther I toss into the 
 
 Elbe I am so an enemy to the book of Esther, that I would it did not 
 
 exist ; for it Judaizes too much, and hath in it a great deal of heathenish naughti- 
 ness. Isaiah hath borrowed his art and knowledge from the Psalter. . . . The 
 
 history of Jonah is so monstrous that it is absolutely incredible That the 
 
 Epistle to the Hebrews is not by St. Paul, nor by any Apostle at all, is shewn by 
 chap. ii. 3. It is by an excellently learned man, a disciple of the Apostles. It 
 should be no stumbling block, if there be found in it a mixture of wood, straw, hay. 
 The Epistle of James I account the writing of no Apostle. It is an epistle of 
 
 straw The Epistle of Jude is a copy of St. Peter's and alledgeth stories 
 
 which have no place in Scripture In the Revelation of John much is wanting 
 
 to let me deem it Scriptural. I can discover no trace that it is established by the 
 Spirit.' 
 
 The next quotation I make is from a pamphlet by Sir W. Hamilton, on the Scotch 
 Kirk. 
 
 ' There is no obligation more anxiously inculcated by the Gospel than chastity,
 
 176 
 
 with a work written by the present Bp. of Ossory on the 
 subject ; and I read it through with great interest and 
 avidity. Dr. O'Brien lias treated, in his Charge, on one or 
 two subjects closely akin to this, with extreme clearness and 
 force of argument : d here then seemed an opportunity of 
 
 and no virtue has been regarded as more peculiarly promoted by the Reformation. 
 Take this precept then, and take it in the hands of the Reformed theologians. 
 Look to the Anabaptists but no ; this instance may be objected to and I pass 
 on. Look, then, to the great authors and the great guides of the great religious 
 revolution itself to Luther and Melancthon ; even they, great and good as they 
 both were, would, had they been permitted by the wisdom of the world to carry 
 their theological speculations into practice, have introduced a state of things, which 
 every Christian of every denomination will now confess, would not only have turned 
 the Reformation into a curse, but have subverted all that is most sacred by moral 
 and religious law. 
 
 * Among other points of Papal discipline, the zeal of Luther was roused against 
 ecclesiastical celibacy and monastic vows ; and whither did it carry him ? Not 
 content to reason against the institution within natural limits and on legitimate 
 grounds, his fervour led him to deny explicitly, and in every relation, the exist- 
 ence of chastity, as a physical impossibility ; led him publicly to preach (and 
 who ever preached with the energy of Luther ?) incontinence, adultery, incest 
 even, as not only allowable, but if practised under the prudential regulations 
 which he himself lays down, unobjectionable, and even praiseworthy. The epi- 
 demic spread ; a fearful dissolution of manners throughout the sphere of the Re- 
 former's influence, was for a season the natural result. The ardour of the bois- 
 terous Luther infected, among others, even the ascetic and timorous Melancthon. 
 Polygamy awaited only the permission of the civil ruler to be promulgated as 
 an article of the Reformation ; and had this permission not been significantly 
 refused, (whilst, at the same time, the epidemic in Wittemberg was homoeopa- 
 thically alleviated, at least, by the similar but more violent access in Munster,) 
 it would not have been the fault of the fathers of the Reformation if Christian 
 liberty has remained less ample than Mahommedan licence. As it was, poly- 
 gamy was never abandoned by either Luther or Melancthon as a religions specula- 
 tion; both, in more than a single instance, accorded the formal sanction of their 
 authority to its practice by those who were above the law ; and had the civil 
 prudence of the imprudent Henry VIII. not restrained him, sensual despot as 
 he was, from carrying their spontaneous counsel into effect, a plurality of wives 
 might now have been a privilege as religiously contended for in England as in 
 Turkey." 
 
 He afterwards mentions that he bases this opinion in part " on a Dispuiatio sive 
 consultatio, scripta anno 1531, die 23 Augusti,a Philippo Melancihone de Digamia 
 Reyis Angliae ; which advice, with the fact which it alone establishes, has remained 
 as far as he is aware, hitherto unnoticed, either by English historians or eccle- 
 siastics." 
 
 d The direct object of the Bishop's observations is an application of Catholic 
 principles, which differs in many particulars from the present Roman application
 
 177 
 
 viewing the Lutheran doctrine at its best advantage ; handled 
 by a writer who had shewn himself fully conversant with the 
 laws of reasoning, and fully able to state his convictions in 
 the clearest and most precise language. Some of the results 
 of my perusal shall here be stated. 
 
 Nothing can be more unequivocal than Dr. O'Brien's ex- 
 pression of his principle. 
 
 ' Faith in Christ is trust in Christ, or in God through Christ, 
 founded upon' an assent of the understanding ; ' an entire and unre- 
 served confidence in the efficacy of what Christ has suffered for 
 us ; a full reliance upon Him and upon His work.' p. 14. 
 
 ' The error, by which obedience to God's will is made part of the 
 notion for which faith stands, .... rests exclusively upon doctrinal 
 views .... entirely irreconcilable to the fundamental principles 
 of the scheme of mercy which it is the object of the Bible to 
 reveal.' p. 34. 
 
 To ' apprehend that this arduous course of obedience to His will 
 is demanded of them as the price or condition of reconciliation' is a 
 ' gross misconception of the true nature of the Gospel.' p. 42. 
 
 Also the following are in the number of passages from 
 Protestant confessions of faith which the author cites, to shew 
 the complete agreement of all the Reformers on the sub- 
 ject ; and of which passages, as of others which he quotes, 
 he says, ' I agree with them upon all points of real importance 
 connected with this doctrine.' p. 374. 
 
 ' Our Churches teach that men are freely justified through faith, 
 when they believe that they are received into grace, and that their 
 sins are remitted for the sake of Christ, who by His death made 
 satisfaction for our sins. This faith God counts for righteousness in 
 His sight.' p. 362. 
 
 ' But when the mind has been terrified by the voice (of con- 
 science) accusing of sin, let him hear the promise peculiar to the 
 Gospel concerning the Son of God, and let him firmly believe 
 (statuat) that his sins are freely forgiven him for the sake of the 
 
 of them ; so that any formal consideration of the argument in the Charge, on this 
 subject, does not come within my present scope. Incidentally, however, what I 
 shall have to say may bear more than a little on the subject. 
 
 N
 
 178 
 
 Son of God, &c. ; when he is comforted by this faith, it is certain 
 that remission of sins is given him .... and that Christ works 
 within us and quickens believers by His Spirit,' &c. p. 362. 
 
 ' That faith which justifies is not only a knowledge of the [Gospel] 
 history, but it is to assent to the promise of God, whereby remission 
 of sins and justification is offered for Christ's sake ; and that no one 
 may suspect that it is only knowledge, we add further, it is to wish 
 for and to receive the promise of remission of sins and of justifica- 
 tion.' p. 312. 
 
 ' Faith is not only knowledge, &c., but also a sure confidence, 
 enkindled in my heart by the Holy Ghost through the Gospel, 
 whereby I rest in God, surely believing that not to others only but 
 to me also remission of sins, eternal righteousness and life, hath 
 been given : and that freely, from the mercy of God, for the merit 
 of Christ alone.' p. 314. 
 
 In like manner Melancthon, included in the author's gen- 
 eral approbation above quoted. 
 
 'Let there be contrition, but let faith be added, whereby each 
 one may truly believe and determine that to him himself his sins 
 are freely forgiven for the sake of the Son of God, not of any 
 deservings of his own. By this faith a man obtains for certain the 
 remission of his sins, and is comforted again and quickened; that is, 
 his fears are relieved, and the Holy Ghost is received, and a new 
 life and joy.' p. 329. 
 
 In another place Dr. O'Brien designates the objection, 
 that even according to his view justification is not free, in his 
 sense of the word free, because faith itself is a work, he 
 designates this objection as ' a miserable refinement,' (p. 
 162,) and says that, 
 
 ' With less than this (act of faith required for justification) our 
 part in this procedure could not have been intelligent and volun- 
 tary.' p. 106. 
 
 In another place he makes still clearer his sentiment, that 
 justifying faith is prior to the most elementary Christian 
 virtues. 
 
 ' The graces of filial love and filial fear, which is its inseparable 
 companion, from whence spring a genuine desire to obey, and genuine
 
 179 
 
 sorrow at all our failures in obedience, are . . . wrought through the 
 Spirit of God mainly through the instrumentality of that faith 
 which he has bestowed. . . . And to describe the possession of 
 these graces as essential to the genuineness of faith, is to mistake 
 the nature of faith, to misrepresent the order of the Spirit's gifts, 
 and in its direct tendency to frustrate all the effects of faith and the 
 whole design of the Gospel.' p. 47. 
 
 Again he says : 
 
 ' Those who are justified will certainly bring forth good works, for 
 such obedience to God's will is the proper consequence of the prin- 
 ciple by which they have been justified.' p. 125. 
 
 Again : 
 
 ' The assurance with which we hold the truth of the sanctification 
 of believers is built upon multiplied and unequivocal promises of 
 God.' p. 212. 
 
 And in another place he distinctly states, what his theory 
 indeed implied all along, that * from believers the fear of 
 punishment is taken away.' p. 221. 
 
 Nothing then appears clearer than his account of the case. 
 Justifying faith is no general belief in Gospel truth ; but a 
 man's special belief that his own sins are remitted, through 
 no merit of his own, but wholly through his Lord's merits. 
 It is a self-abnegating trust in Christ ; which, though it leads 
 inevitably after justification to the greatest personal exertion 
 and self-discipline, in itself involves so little of personal 
 exertion, that to call it ' a work ' is a 'miserable refinement;' f 
 which so plainly carries with it its own evidence, that be- 
 lievers may always know themselves to be such ; which so 
 certainly, necessarily, inevitably produces final perseverance, 
 that believers not only know themselves to be such, but as 
 
 { Dr. O'Brien disavows altogether such an interpretation of his words as that 
 faith is no work, only because it is the Holy Ghost's work and not our own. He 
 quotes with complete approbation Melancthon's answer : " Others say that 
 faith is no work, because it is the gift of God. This answer is foreign to the 
 purpose, for when it is said ' we are not justified by works,' those virtues also 
 are understood, love, chastity, patience, which are enkindled by the Holy Ghost." 
 p. 405. 
 
 N 2
 
 180 
 
 such are saved from all fear of future punishment. Both 
 these latter sentiments are undeniably involved in the quo- 
 tation last made from the work. 
 
 One cannot desire certainly more complete security against 
 fear of wrath to come, than this doctrine, if true, would 
 provide. But now comes the real stress of the whole 
 difficulty; the security, namely, given by the same doc- 
 trine, I will not say for sanctity, but for the most ordinary 
 morality. And here a surprising change comes over the 
 author's whole language. Let the following passage be fairly 
 considered. 
 
 * Faith in the Redeemer is founded on the overthrow of pride, 
 and makes a provision for its extirpation.' ' It is founded upon 
 the ruins of human pride : for it only exists in the degree in 
 which self-dependence is vanquished ; and grows, advances, and 
 strengthens, as the subjugation is completed. It is not only 
 founded upon the knowledge of what the Bible communicates to 
 us of our nature and condition, of our guilt, degradation, weakness, 
 and wants but the principle requires that this conviction shall be 
 so complete and intimate, as to vanquish all dependence upon our- 
 selves or on any thing in ourselves, and lead us to rest our 
 eternal welfare upon the work of the Redeemer and it alone. Its 
 very essence consists in the abjuration from the heart of all merit 
 in ourselves, and unfeigned ascription of all glory to Him. What 
 obstinate resistance this vice makes before it surrenders, and how 
 often it renews the struggle, none can require to be reminded who 
 have ever sustained the conflict. Even where the criminality of 
 our conduct is too clear to be denied, &c. But if we reluctantly 
 condemn our known vices, how much more slowly and reluctantly do 
 we yield to the conviction, that the very acts upon which we most 
 pride ourselves partake of the same ungodly character ! ' p. 1 84. 
 
 ' And even after we are convinced that if we would stand before 
 Jehovah, it must be in the righteousness of Another, not our own ; 
 that we must, before Him, withdraw all plea of merit for our works ; 
 how often are we found preposterously substituting for this the 
 merit of our faith ! And driven from this more absurd form of pride, 
 still clinging to the notion of some merit in the humility with 
 which we renounce all merit, both of faith and works ; and even 
 when we discern the folly of all such pretensions clearly, far from
 
 181 
 
 being secure from a worse form of self-dependence, a reliance upon 
 the clearness of our religious views and the soundness of our reli- 
 gious principles ; whatever place our language may give to the 
 Redeemer, still in our inmost thoughts recurring to ourselves .... 
 insomuch that you will often find men, who have passed a great 
 part of their lives in maintaining the doctrine of justification by faith, 
 as much strangers to this simple exclusive trust in the Redeemer's 
 work, as those who have been their life long opposing it. ... It is 
 only through that Spirit, that a man is ever brought to come to 
 Christ simply as a blind and needy sinner ; to cast down himself 
 and all that he prides himself upon his works, his faith, his 
 humility, his knowledge all at the foot of the cross of the Re- 
 deemer glorying only in it, desiring in life and death and judg- 
 ment to be found in Him that suffered upon it, and in Him to find 
 every thing wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and 
 redemption. Now this and nothing short of this is faith in the 
 Redeemer.' pp. 185, 6. 
 
 All religious Catholics, throughout the world, would most 
 cordially agree with the general doctrine of this beautiful 
 passage ; in acknowledging, namely, the deep subtlety with 
 which pride ever insinuates its temptations, and the para- 
 mount importance of a continued struggle, by God's grace, 
 against its dominion. But observe the strange confusion 
 of ideas in the writer. This, the most arduous, the most 
 vital, the most lasting conflict, in which regenerate man has 
 to engage, is, on Dr. O'Brien's principles, to be carried on 
 with no assistance from Christian grace : not until it is con- 
 cluded, until victory is gained, and the enemy lies prostrate at 
 our feet, does justifying faith obtain an entrance. Certainly 
 this doctrine cannot be said to err on the side of laxity. What 
 Catholic will hesitate most fully to admit, that a Christian, in 
 whom every germ of pride shall have been eradicated, may 
 look forward with unclouded certainty (should he know the 
 fact) to ultimate acceptance ? Justified Christians indeed 
 would be absolutely sinless upon this hypothesis ; for where 
 pride is absent, what other sin can be present ? But then 
 what happiness can there be in Gospel tidings, what comfort 
 to the penitent, what rest to the afflicted, if no one has any
 
 182 
 
 part in those tidings who has not faith ; and any one may 
 know for certain that he has not faith, if he experience even 
 one transient emotion of pride and self-complacency ? Com- 
 pare with this strange medley the Catholic doctrine. 
 
 ' Men are disposed to righteousness (or justification) ; [1.] when 
 (dum) excited and assisted by Divine grace, conceiving faith by 
 hearing, they are freely moved towards God, believing those things 
 to be true which are divinely revealed and promised, and especially 
 this, that the sinner is justified by His grace, by the redemption 
 which is in Christ Jesus ; [2.] and when, perceiving themselves to 
 be sinners, from fear of Divine justice by which they are profitably 
 alarmed, by turning themselves to consider God's mercy, they are 
 raised to hope, trusting that God will be merciful to them for 
 Christ's sake ; [3.] and begin to love Him as the source of all 
 righteousness ; [4.] and are therefore excited against their sins by 
 a certain hatred and detestation, that is, by that repentance which 
 must be realised (poenitentiam quam agi oportet) before Baptism ; 
 [5.] lastly, when they propose to receive Baptism, to begin a new 
 life, and to keep God's commandments." e 
 
 Such faith as this is not built on the ruins of pride, for it 
 is the preparation for that grace, whereby alone pride can be 
 effectually combated. Love, not faith, is in the Catholic 
 scheme the contradictory to pride ; and whereas believers 
 have no promise that in this life their love can be fully ma- 
 tured, so neither have they a promise that their pride can be 
 wholly subdued : humility will grow, in proportion as other 
 Christian graces grow. 11 Nor yet again does such faith as 
 this confer a certain assurance that the believer will persevere ; 
 but then this is a characteristic which no Catholic applies to 
 faith at all in any sense, and which cannot be applied to it, 
 without incurring by implication the anathema of Trent.' 
 
 The subject of pride, which has a most important place in 
 this controversy, will presently come before us again : here it 
 will be better to confine ourselves to the criticism of Dr. 
 O'Brien's treatise. Similar representations to that above 
 
 % Sessio VI., cap. vi. 
 
 h See Newman's Sermons, vol. iii. pp. 102 105. 
 
 1 Sessio VI., cap. xvi.
 
 183 
 
 quoted will be found in other parts of the work ; one espe- 
 cially in p. 60, which I had marked for quotation, but do 
 not think it necessary to transcribe. The first two sentences 
 of the above cited passage are worded as though the author 
 had some faint perception of the inconsistency into which he 
 was betrayed, and desired to guard himself against it : but 
 some of the words I have put in italics sufficiently shew that 
 I have not mis-stated his meaning. In like manner, when 
 about to quote some of the sentiments of the foreign Re- 
 formers, he seems anxious to establish some * via media' 
 between the intolerably lax, and the intolerably harsh, 
 versions of the Lutheran principle. ' They neither taught,' 
 he says, ' nor countenanced, under the name of faith, any 
 fanatical impressions of peculiar personal favour ; or allowed 
 as faith any confidence towards God, which was not grounded 
 upon a believing and intelligent application to ourselves of 
 the offer of mercy which His word makes alike to all.' p. 312. 
 All such attempts however are utterly vain ; and are in- 
 teresting mainly, in that they shew the struggles of a 
 religious man, unhappily committed to an irreligious prin- 
 ciple. Take one of the author's most careful and elaborate 
 accounts of faith. 
 
 Faith is ' the act of one who feels himself condemned by God's 
 righteous law, and by its sentence a sinner in thought, word, and 
 deed ; and who feels too the certainty of his danger as well as the 
 reality of his guilt ; and who seeks relief from this terror and 
 remorse in none of those refuges of lies by which such salutary 
 alarm is so often mitigated and finally extinguished ; but who, 
 feeling the nothingness of them all and renouncing them all, has, 
 under this sense of sin, and danger, and helplessness, come in sin- 
 cerity to Christ for every thing for safety and innocence and 
 strength.' p. 45. 
 
 Now there is no question at all that, in proportion as the 
 Christian grows in grace, this passage truly expresses his 
 religious experience ; that he more and more renounces, with 
 alarm and dismay, all thought of resting on any righteousness 
 of his own ; that he more and more feels Christ his only and
 
 184 
 
 his sufficient portion, and comes to Him ' for safety, and 
 innocence, and strength.' But when this consciousness is re- 
 presented as the one characteristic of justifying faith, either 
 far too much is included or far too little. These words ' feels 
 himself condemned' and other similar expressions must ne- 
 cessarily mean one of two things ; either something which is 
 below the beginning of a Christian life, or else something 
 which is beyond its last earthly attainment. They must 
 either mean that the sinner holds the opinion, grounded on 
 authority, evidence, reason ; that he is by nature powerless 
 and exposed to God's wrath ; that his best deeds are wholly 
 unable to endure the severity of God's judgment, and the 
 like : or else they must mean that the miserable experience of 
 this is a most integral and intimate part of his moral nature ; 
 that the sense of it is deeply, practically, unceasingly present 
 to his mind ; that self-dependence, even in its most subtle and 
 plausible shapes, has wholly and for ever left him. If the 
 former be their meaning, they may be truly applied to 
 numbers who are openly and avowedly irreligious ; if the 
 latter, they can not be truly applied to the most holy and 
 humble Christian living. And the continually repeated 
 fallacy of Lutheran writers, the principal art by which they 
 bewilder both themselves and others, is, that when they are 
 extolling the freedom of the Lutheran scheme of salvation 
 they use these words in one sense, and when they are 
 defending its moral tendencies they use them in the other. 
 According to the sense in which such words are taken, 
 their favourite doctrine is either so immoral that the basest 
 of men could not bear to realise and believe it, or so strin- 
 gent that under it no one born in original sin could hope 
 for salvation ; it either asserts that a head-knowledge of the 
 most elementary Christian truths will lead for certain to 
 eternal Life, or else that one momentary lapse from the 
 most profound humility disproves the existence of justify- 
 ing faith. 
 
 Considering now that the question, on which the Bishop 
 has betrayed this extraordinary confusion of ideas, is no 
 episodical or subordinate discussion, but the very cardinal
 
 185 
 
 point of the whole controversy, he does seem distinctly ob- 
 noxious to the severest charge which can be brought against 
 a theologian as such: for he has taken no pains whatever 
 to give a precise and definite sense even to the very chief 
 technical terms which he employs, and to keep in his mind 
 that sense whenever he uses those words ; and has thus 
 allowed his doctrinal language to be, not the accurate tran- 
 script of a religious man's experience, but the accidental 
 and frequently inconsistent reflection of external systems. 
 I say, as a theologian : I bring no imputation against his 
 private religious excellence ; for men continually act on 
 religious instinct, even when they write on a theory. 
 
 2. It will be better, however, before going further, to state 
 with some greater definiteness the points which it will be 
 necessary to bring to issue. In the first place then, there 
 need be no controversy on man's helpless and deplorable con- 
 dition by nature. True it is that that disregard of moral 
 principle, which is the very essence of Lutheranism in the 
 abstract, has, at some times and places, so infected its in- 
 dividual professors, as to lead them into the most monstrous 
 statements on the worthlessness of moral obedience among 
 heathens : still such statements are at present consciously re- 
 ceived, I suppose, by very few ; and no more therefore need be 
 said about them. Further, the following most essential and vital 
 truths are admitted on all hands. 1. That whatever child of 
 Adam, since the fall, has been saved from eternal condemna- 
 tion, has been so saved only through the merits (if before 
 His coming, through the foreseen merits) of our Lord Jesus 
 Christ. 2. That so much as the first impulse or inclination, 
 which leads towards the way of Christian salvation, cannot 
 be experienced, except through the express and most gra- 
 tuitous moving of the Holy Ghost, purchased for us by 
 Christ's merits. 3. That the very best and holiest Christians 
 (putting aside the case of St. Mary, as a matter of contro- 
 versy on which it is unnecessary to enter) have their very 
 best and holiest works defiled by numberless imperfections ; 
 nay more, that from the clearness of their spiritual vision 
 and their strict conscientiousness, so absorbed are they in the
 
 186 
 
 thought of these, as to feel an almost irresistible tendency to 
 consider themselves the most wicked and offensive to God of 
 all living creatures : a phenomenon this last, which is ex- 
 emplified by the Saints of the Church, in a manner abso- 
 lutely peculiar and unapproached. 
 
 These are points of agreement. The controverted questions 
 on which it will be necessary to insist, are two : first, whether, 
 at the moment in which pardon is given, an ineffable and 
 supernatural inward spiritual gift be or be not also imparted ; 
 secondly, on what terms is that pardon given, and by what 
 evidence is its continuance known ? The latter of these 
 questions is even far more fundamental than the former, and 
 it will be well to complete its discussion separately in the 
 first instance : though it may occupy considerable space. 
 
 The Lutheran answer then to this inquiry must inevitably 
 be, 1, that the pardon is complete and final, involving no terms 
 or conditions whatever ; 2, that the trust in Christ, on which 
 it immediately follows, is a feeling which carries with it its 
 own evidence, and which leads necessarily, without any 
 special pains or effort on our part, to a holy life. This is a 
 perfectly consistent and intelligible answer ; and if admitted, 
 would fully bear out the pretensions of Lutheran doctrine : 
 it would unite holiness of life with security as to our future 
 lot. But no answer short of this is either consistent or 
 intelligible. The very boast of the Lutheran doctrine, let it 
 never be forgotten, is, that it protects serious Christians from 
 misgiving as to their final condition after death ; and no 
 formula therefore, which fails in affording such protection, 
 can be a legitimate exponent or representative of that 
 doctrine. Well indeed can I understand the feelings, 
 which naturally lead earnest men to seek and cherish 
 such a religious principle. When first the practical truth 
 is brought home to an individual, that an eternity of 
 misery may possibly be reserved for him hereafter, well 
 can I understand how welcome to him is any teacher, 
 who may promise to relieve the oppressive dismay which 
 overpowers him. What remedies there may be within the 
 range of Catholic truth, to soften and mitigate this dismay,
 
 187 
 
 is a consideration among the most deeply interesting which 
 can be conceived, and something may be said on it presently; 
 though to treat it fully would carry us very far beyond our 
 present scope. That, after all possible mitigations, the con- 
 tinual knowledge and remembrance of so fearful a possibility 
 will impart a very marked and distinctive feature to the 
 Christian character, is a most certain and most important 
 truth. Nor is it to the purpose to ask, whether the spiritual 
 mind, in proportion to its illumination, would desire the 
 removal of this uncertainty ; but whether it would desire 
 that particular mode of removal which Lutheranism proposes, 
 and which alone indeed (to speak of all except very extra- 
 ordinary cases) is consistent with the conditions of our ex- 
 istence here below. 
 
 Let us then again repeat our statement of the Lutheran 
 doctrine ; which I have been compelled myself to put into 
 this shape, because I have not been able to find any con- 
 sistent account of it whatever in the writings of its defenders. 
 And the statement here framed, being the foundation of the 
 whole argument that is to follow, I must beg those of my 
 readers, who may be disposed to advocate or extenuate the 
 doctrine itself, to examine this statement carefully point by 
 point ; I must beg them to consider the reasons here adduced, 
 why it must be so worded as it is, if Lutheranism is to succeed 
 in its professed object, that of securing holiness, and yet ex- 
 empting believers from fear of punishment. The only con- 
 sistent and substantial account then, as it appears to me, which 
 can be given of the Lutheran theory of man's justification, 
 is as follows : 1 . ' pardon once given is complete and final, 
 involving no terms or conditions whatever ; ' 2. ' the trust in 
 Christ, on which it follows, is a feeling which carries with it 
 its own evidence, and which leads necessarily, without special 
 pains or effort on our part, to a holy life.' If the ' pardon 
 once given' be not ' complete and final,' then our anxiety is 
 not removed on our future lot : for it is very possible that 
 we may lose that pardon. If it ' involve' any 'terms or 
 conditions ' whatever, then the same anxiety remains : for it is 
 possible that we may not fulfil those conditions ; and more-
 
 188 
 
 over in innumerable cases we shall be involved in all the 
 tumult and distress of a doubtful mind, from not knowing 
 whether or no we have fulfilled them. This objection is 
 pressed with great force by Lutherans against Catholic 
 writers: it is urged with undeniable truth, that when once 
 holiness is admitted as a condition, all certainty and peace 
 (in their sense of that word) is gone; for in proportion to 
 the advances made by any one in a holy life, will be his per- 
 ception of his own sinfulness, and of the miserable stains 
 which sully his best endeavours. Further ' the trust in 
 Christ, on which pardon follows, is a feeling which carries 
 with it its own evidence ; ' for if not, how do we obtain that 
 freedom from anxiety, which in Lutheran eyes is so inesti- 
 mably precious ? And, lastly, it ' leads necessarily, without 
 special pains or effort on our part, to a holy life.' By the 
 word ' special ' (which requires explanation, and which I here 
 use in a technical sense) I mean to express, any further 
 pains or effort, than that which it will be our actual 
 delight to give, in consequence of our gratitude for mer- 
 cies received, our hatred of sin, and our desire of holi- 
 ness. Thus a son, who is filled with love and gratitude 
 to his father, will go through many sacrifices for his sake, 
 not from any calculation of duty, but from the spontaneous 
 impulse of affection ; it would be painful to him to abstain 
 from them. But there may be other cases, in which he feels 
 that a certain sacrifice is called for, and makes that sacrifice ; 
 while yet he makes it not in consequence, but in spite of his 
 predominant inclination ; not as the direct and natural result 
 of his love, but as one principal means of increasing his love. 
 Sacrifices of the former kind may be calculated on with un- 
 erring certainty ; for he possesses a principle, of which they 
 are the necessary result : those of the latter kind, on the con- 
 trary, we cannot for certain expect, for they depend on the 
 question, whether or no, in particular instances one after the 
 other, he act conscientiously on his idea of duty ; a question 
 which none except God can answer before the event. No- 
 thing can be clearer than the distinction between these differ- 
 ent kinds of self-denial : nor can any thing be clearer either,
 
 189 
 
 than that the former alone, according to the Lutheran scheme, 
 is required under the Gospel; that such holiness as is ne- 
 cessary to adorn the Christian character, must, upon that 
 scheme, flow forth as the direct and spontaneous result of 
 justifying faith. For if it be required of the Christian, that 
 from time to time he thwart his predominant inclination 
 under a sense of duty, how can he know that he may not at 
 some future time fail in the performance of this important 
 exercise ? or how can he know at any given period whether 
 he have sufficiently performed it ? It is plain, without saying 
 another word, that if self-denial in the latter sense be required 
 of a Christian, there can be no undoubting assurance of 
 safety, no unclouded prospect of heaven. 
 
 The ordinary language used by religious men who profess 
 the doctrine under examination, fully bears out this latter re- 
 mark ; which will not indeed, I fancy, be denied by any one. 
 No expression is so commonly heard from such persons, as that 
 the spiritual illumination, which follows our forgiveness, is in 
 itself a certain and sufficient stimulus to a holy and religious 
 life. Thus to open the Christian Observer almost at random : 
 
 ' The justified Christian is born anew to good works ; sin has 
 no longer dominion over him ; and precisely for the very reason 
 that he is not under the Law, but under Grace. It has become his 
 delight, as it is always his duty, to do the will of God ; he works 
 cheerfully and diligently ; not to perfect his justification, but be- 
 cause, being justified, he is also regenerated ; and in accordance 
 with his renovated nature he desires to live no longer to himself, 
 but to Him that loved him and gave Himself for him. (Jan. 1844, 
 p. 48.) 
 
 The Churchman's Monthly Review : 
 
 ' It is the pervading principle of Aristotle's philosophy, that we 
 become righteous by acting righteously ; as Luther has observed, the 
 converse rather is true,' (Feb. 1842, p. 86.) 
 
 In like manner Mr. Scott himself : ' 
 
 1 Mr. Scott's Essay on 'Saving Faith in Christ,' from which this extract is 
 taken, though as an argumentative and theological work misty and confused,
 
 190 
 
 ' These affections, when vigorous and permanent, being con- 
 nected with a firm dependence on the promises of the new covenant, 
 and maintained in exercise by " communion with the Father and 
 with His Son Jesus Christ," through the sacred influence of the 
 Holy Spirit, are fully adequate to the ends for which they were 
 intended, and cannot but impel and constrain the lively believer to the 
 most self-denying and devoted obedience.' (p. 678.) 
 
 And with regard to the whole formal statement which has 
 just been illustrated, the phrases in common use among 
 ' Evangelicals ' will sufficiently vindicate its accuracy , every 
 single particular involved in it must be carefully retained, if 
 there is to be any meaning in those ordinary phrases. 
 Nothing is more common, even in the case of those 
 who may have lived an utterly irreligious life, should 
 they have more serious thoughts on their death-bed, than 
 to find it regarded as sufficient ground for our most 
 confident belief in their salvation, the circumstance that 
 they have died, not with a humble and tremulous hope, 
 but with a full assurance of pardon. Over and over 
 again it is said of the departed, as if in their praise, that 
 they died in a frame of undoubting confidence in their per- 
 sonal salvation. ' The eternal law of God,' it has been 
 said by others, ' is not binding on the conscience of him who 
 has faith in Christ.' Language, again, such as the following, 
 is familiar to all of us. ' Other systems have attempted to 
 melt the heart and restore our corrupt nature by severity, 
 threats, or motives of expediency ; but the Gospel alone has 
 dared to trust itself to the principle of free and unconditional 
 favour, yet with success as signal as has been the failure of 
 all other methods ; for the mere preaching of reconciliation 
 with God, the doctrine of pardon, the command to take and 
 enjoy the blessings of redemption, has been found to act upon 
 the soul in a remarkable way for its conversion and renewal.' 
 The very mark of a regenerate mind is considered by multitudes 
 to be the adoption of the latter alternative. To pursue the 
 
 like the common run of ' evangelical writings,' contains very much of a practical 
 character, I think, with which the well-instructed believer would most deeply 
 sympathize.
 
 191 
 
 path of humble, watchful, anxious, minute obedience is con- 
 tinually represented as the bondage of the Law ; to practise 
 holiness in that degree which flows from gratitude for our 
 free pardon, and from no other motive than that gratitude, 
 as the liberty of the Gospel. These statements, one and all, 
 are absolutely unmeaning, if any one part be subtracted 
 from the account of Lutheranism which I have given ; as 
 will at once be seen, by imagining any such subtraction. 
 
 3. Attempts indeed have been made to escape from this 
 plain and definite position ; but they only lead those who 
 make them into endless confusion and self-contradiction. We 
 have already seen this in the case of Bishop O'Brien ; the 
 present Bishop of Chester, in a tract which has made some 
 stir, exhibits the same spectacle. The following sentence, 
 if it be not presumptuous to say so, is most honourable to his 
 Lordship's religious feeling and principle, but surely quite 
 inconsistent with his Lutheran profession. 
 
 ' He (the Christian) has no satisfactory evidence that he is 
 entitled thus to depend upon his Lord and Saviour, unless his 
 conscience bears testimony that, " denying ungodliness and worldly 
 lusts," he is living " righteously, soberly, and godly in this present 
 world," and striving to be " perfect, even as his Father, who is in 
 heaven, is perfect." ' m 
 
 Who that has any even tolerably clear view of Gospel 
 requirements, who that has any true perceptions of spiritual 
 things, who that enters even a little into the real meaning 
 of the words ' righteousness, sobriety, and godliness,' will 
 
 m Compare with this a sentiment quoted by Mr. Newman from Calvin. ' Equi- 
 dem si ab operibus aestimandum sit qualiter affectus sit erga nos Dominus, id 
 ne tenui quidem conjectura possemus assequi fateor ; sed quum simplici et gratuitaB 
 promissioni respondere fides debet, nullus ambigendi locus relinquitur." Calvin, 
 Instit. iii. 2. n. 38. (On Just. p. 30.) 
 
 On the other hand, Dr. O'Brien, (exhibiting the same moral superiority of opinion 
 over the extravagances of the sixteenth century, which our ' evangelicals,' as a 
 body, have so strikingly exhibited ; but losing in consistency what he gains in 
 morality,) observes : Good works are the 'necessary results of justifying faith, 
 and essential marks of justified persons ; so that, ivhen these are absent, we may 
 collect the absence of that infernal principle, which we can only discern in others 
 by its proper effects ; and what may be a guide in the case of others, answers the 
 far more important end of a safeguard in our own." 1 (p. 126.)
 
 192 
 
 dare so to speak of himself ? What serious Christian is 
 not rather bowed down by a sense of his miserable short- 
 comings and imperfections, and is not inclined to confess of 
 himself (the more inclined so to confess and so to think in 
 proportion as the confession is wide of the truth), that " all 
 his righteousness is but as filthy rags" ? Self-loathing, self- 
 abhorrence, these are among the surest marks of growth in 
 grace ; but the more they exist, the more surely will they 
 indispose and incapacitate the believer's ' conscience' from 
 ' bearing any such testimony ' as the Bishop requires. A 
 man's ' conscience may bear testimony,' indeed, that he is 
 free from external acts of gross and overt sin; but Bp. 
 Sumner surely would be the last man living to allow of this 
 as sufficient for salvation. Again : it would of course be 
 wholly unreal and untrue to deny that ' religious men, really 
 such, recollect in the course of years that they have become 
 very different from what they were ;' nay, it would be wholly 
 unreal and untrue to deny that even at an early period of 
 their Christian course, those who are habituated to self- 
 discipline and self-examination may have a sufficient con- 
 sciousness of being free from mortal sin, and honestly desirous 
 of serving God: these are among the grounds of humble 
 hopefulness, which Catholic doctrine supplies. Still such 
 tests are negative ; a Catholic Christian, who has made any 
 real advances in holy living, cannot bear to think of his 
 positive attainments, so keenly does he feel their miserable 
 deficiency ; nor, again, does he even dare to realise and dwell 
 upon the good (not his own, but of the Holy Spirit) which 
 in fact may be in them, lest pride take possession of him, 
 and he fall from grace. 
 
 I have called the tests negative, by means of which we are 
 able legitimately to obtain a humble confidence, whether that 
 we are in God's favour or that we are growing in grace, be- 
 cause they consist in noting, not the presence or increase 
 within us of given virtues, but the absence or diminution of 
 given defects ; and for the same reason, as was implied above, 
 they cannot be made available except by those, who live in 
 the habitual and coitstant practice of self-discipline and self-
 
 193 
 
 examination. Whether it is to such tests as these that the 
 Bishop in point of fact alludes, it is difficult precisely to 
 know, because of the extreme generality and vagueness of 
 his language ; a characteristic almost universally found in 
 the advocacy of Lutheran doctrines. Certainly the very 
 ominous absence of all allusion to those religious exercises, 
 just mentioned as indispensable, makes it most probable that 
 he had no very distinct impression on his mind of any such 
 tests. At all events, the writer is necessarily involved in 
 the following dilemma ; the humble Christian who seeks in 
 Lutheranism some refuge from doubt and misgiving, is either 
 referred by the Bishop to a standard, which can give no 
 peace except to the most blinded and carnal conscience, (viz. 
 the observation of his own virtues,) or else learns from him a 
 doctrine, which in its substance diverges not by one hair's 
 breadth from that of Mr. Newman, which he professes to 
 oppose ; and in its expression differs only from Mr. Newman's 
 statement, as being indefinite, confused, and perplexing, in- 
 stead of precise, clear, and edifying. 
 
 It is impossible, then, to introduce any further security for 
 holiness of life into the Lutheran scheme, than that which is 
 included in the above statement of that scheme ; n the attempt 
 
 n A position is indeed conceivable, which, as being conceivable, ought perhaps 
 to be distinctly noticed ; though it may safely be asserted, that it has never been 
 maintained by so much as a single writer on the subject. It may be held then, 
 without any formal inconsistency, that the knowledge of our acceptance indeed 
 is attainable by no other means than those specified in the text ; but that cer- 
 tainty of salvation follows upon that knowledge, forasmuch as God preserves 
 from falls those who are consciously in a state of grace. This theory is no less 
 truly different from Lutheran than from Catholic doctrine : for the former in- 
 variably considers a knowledge of pardon to follow immediately on the grant of 
 pardon ; which is inconsistent with such a theory. It may suffice to have men- 
 tioned this ; or if it be worth while gravely to argue against it, we may point 
 out how directly it is refuted by plain facts. It is refuted, not only by the very 
 many unhappy instances, when those who have once attained this well-grounded 
 belief of God's favour have afterwards fallen from grace, but even by cases in 
 which, through God's infinite mercy, men have been spared this misery, but 
 testify with one voice that they owe their safety to the very circumstance of having 
 lived in habits of constant watchfulness and precaution ; habits which have been 
 only engendered by their deep sense that they are every moment exposed to the 
 danger of falling from grace. 
 
 O
 
 191. 
 
 to do so destroys its very essence, and transmutes it into 
 Catholic and Tridentine truth. The Lutheran scheme asserts, 
 and must assert if it is to have any meaning or consistency, 
 (once more to repeat my words,) that the pardon given under 
 the Gospel is complete and final, involving no terms or 
 conditions whatever ; and that the trust in Christ, on which 
 it immediately follows, is one which carries with it its own 
 evidence, and which leads, without any special pains or effort 
 on our part, to a holy life. And now let us endeavour to 
 suppose it possible that this scheme shall be really and 
 heartily embraced ; and let us compare its practical results 
 with the working of Catholic doctrine, first in the case of 
 Christians before, and next in the case of Christians after, 
 that they have received this alleged pardon, and are conscious 
 of this alleged trust. 
 
 4. A religious parent, well instructed in the pure Gospel, 
 begins at the earliest possible period to train her child in 
 that which is to be the one great business of his life ; the 
 contending against his evil dispositions one by one, and 
 bringing gradually every thought into subjection to the 
 obedience of Christ. She well knows that one single humble 
 action, performed in secret from a sense of duty and against 
 the influence of strong temptation, is the one noblest fact in 
 the whole world ; that which most of all earthly phenomena 
 fills angels with joy and devils with dismay : and she desires 
 to obtain for her offspring as early as it is by any means in 
 her power, by means of precept and example, the blessing 
 and dignity of performing such acts. Careful and regular 
 habits of prayer, of self-examination, of repentance, of con- 
 fession, these are the really precious legacies which a parent 
 may bequeath to her child ; for they are the best, the only 
 path to heavenly treasures. ' Not so,' says the Lutheran : 
 ' that faith alone is true Christian faith, which leads to holi- 
 ness without watchfulness or self-discipline : so long as these 
 are the means whereby your child seeks his sanctification, he 
 is a stranger to the Gospel of Christ, he is under the Law, he 
 is under a curse.' What means are placed, according to the 
 Lutheran system, wkhin reach of those who are unjustified
 
 195 
 
 that they may obtain so great favour, it is difficult to say. 
 I believe it is by no means unusual for clergymen of our 
 Church to tell their flock, directly or by implication, that 
 they can do nothing, but remain quiet and expectant, 
 until it shall please God to visit whom He will with His 
 grace. Luther again and the Continental Reformers with 
 one voice proclaimed, so at least it seems generally acknow- 
 ledged, that the most abandoned sinners were as likely to re- 
 ceive grace, as the most moral and conscientious men living : 
 such indeed is the only possible meaning of their repeated 
 attacks on the Catholic doctrine of congruity. According to 
 this view of the case, the most sedulous ' training of a child 
 in the way he should go ' confers upon him absolutely no 
 benefit whatever in the way of salvation ; or indeed may be 
 even worse than useless, as interfering with the work of 
 grace. Principles substantially such as these have been 
 lately, I believe, in more than one case, maintained by mem- 
 bers of dissenting communities ; though the task even of 
 specifying and reciting them seems almost a pollution. 
 
 Bishop O'Brien however implies, as I understand him, 
 a very important modification of this view of the case. He 
 appears to consider (for he is very far indeed from speaking 
 plainly, in a case where the utmost plainness is imperatively 
 called for) that although in all cases full, unconditional, and 
 final pardon is given immediately upon trust in Christ, still 
 those are perhaps the more likely to be moved by the Spirit 
 to such trust, who have led sober and virtuous lives in times 
 past. This doctrine, I admit, is entirely consistent formally 
 with the Lutheran scheme, as stated above ; still it is very 
 different in spirit, and entirely contravenes the arguments on 
 which those of his school usually insist. For if, as Lutherans 
 commonly say, it is impossible, without ' self-righteousness,' 
 to hold that works done even in the Spirit have an effect on 
 our final destiny, how much less possible surely it must be, 
 
 I have not been able to light upon this passage in my subsequent reference to 
 the Bishop's work : but I have little doubt of having seen there some such expres- 
 sion as this ; that whether or not abandoned sinners are less likely to have justifying 
 faith, their pardon, if they have it, is in no one particular less final, complete, and 
 unconditional than that of others. 
 
 o2
 
 196 
 
 consistently with humility, to believe that works have such 
 an effect, done (as on this view such works are done) either 
 by men's unaided strength, or at least before the reception of 
 Christian grace ! If Catholics, who believe that no one can 
 know his real condition in God's sight as compared with that 
 of others, still must be necessarily self-complacent because 
 they believe that such relative conditions depend on the 
 respective faithfulness of Christians to God's grace given ; 
 how much more necessarily self-complacent will Lutherans be, 
 who know (so their doctrine runs), that they are in a state of 
 justification, if they learn that the being in such a state im- 
 plies a probability, that their life before justification was bet- 
 ter than that of others ! 
 
 However, whether or no Bp. O'Brien holds this sentiment, 
 it is one which very easily may be held, and which therefore 
 requires our consideration. It must be observed however 
 that, so far as it goes, it is precisely the scholastic doctrine of 
 congruity ; and those who hold it, if they repudiate Tract 
 90, must reconcile the opinion with our Articles as best they 
 may. Of course we cannot but gladly hail all approach 
 to the true doctrine ; especially on the part of those whom 
 we would willingly honour and admire : and it is interesting 
 to observe that this modification, how consistent soever 
 it may be formally with Lutheranism, is yet greatly in 
 advance of the doctrines universally attributed to the here- 
 siarchs of the sixteenth century. Still, even taking this 
 estimation of the works of the unjustified, very painful 
 consequences cannot but follow. That the careful educa- 
 tion of a child in principles of obedience and devotion, 
 even in cases where the child himself most fully corres- 
 ponds with the education given, and contends against the 
 world, the flesh, and the devil, through his whole life, 
 even in this case that such education and such cooperation 
 will for certain lead to an escape from eternal torments, no 
 
 It should be observed, that a declaration, recently signed by a considerable body 
 of our clergy, and which has attracted some attention, specifies for reprobation, 
 among others, the following doctrine ; viz. " that works done with divine aid in 
 faith before justification, do dispose men to receive the grace of justification."
 
 197 
 
 Lutheran can consistently allow. For it is a fact which no 
 one, I suppose, will deny, that many persons have carried on, 
 under God's grace, this life-long conflict, and have exhibited 
 to those constantly in their company the surest marks of all 
 Christian graces, of humility, patience, zeal, diligence, un- 
 worldliness, the spirit of prayer, the love of heavenly things, 
 who yet have lived and died without that confident assurance 
 of personal salvation, which, as we have seen, is inseparably 
 connected with justifying faith, in the Lutheran sense of 
 that phrase, even if it be not the very same thing. p These 
 then have died unjustified, and now await eternal torments. 
 Nay, even to those in whom justification is supposed to 
 follow, what will have been the value of their early dis- 
 cipline ? Those habits of watchfulness and self-restraint, 
 that sensitiveness at the very approach of evil resulting from 
 a fear lest it tempt to sin and ruin, the germs of habits 
 such as these it will be the very first object of a right- 
 minded parent carefully to implant ; as being the sole 
 foundations whereon the Christian character can be reared. 
 But under the Lutheran aspect their character is changed ; 
 no savour have they of the Gospel, no compatibility with 
 grace. They are not rudiments of the Christian character, 
 but rudiments of the world ; useful perhaps or even neces- 
 sary while the ' bondage of the law ' continues, but to be 
 changed for fearlessness and security when Gospel grace is 
 given. Lastly, although on this view Christian faith is more 
 likely to follow where the early habits have been pure, still 
 in those (not unfrequent) instances where those receive faith 
 whose past lives have been profligate, no detriment whatever 
 is suffered (so says the theory) in consequence of that cir- 
 cumstance, nor have those, who have been saved from gross 
 sin, in one single tittle or particular, any spiritual advantage 
 
 P The Christian Observer must be admitted as an unexceptionable witness 
 on this side of the Question. We read there, (January, 1844, p. 16,) 'Thousands 
 of deeply penitent and humble-minded persons have lived many years, and per- 
 haps died, in a state of deep depression, because they could not attain to that 
 confident assurance that their sins were pardoned, which they were told was 
 essential to salvation ; while murderers have gone to the gibbet exulting in strains 
 of rapture, as though they were being carried to the stake as faithful martyrs of 
 Jesus C'hrist.'
 
 198 
 
 over those who have been most deeply plunged in its pollu- 
 tions. When we consider the inveterate corruption of human 
 nature, its obdurate resistance to discipline and restraint; and 
 on the other hand the unceasing energy, activity, and for- 
 bearance which is involved in the very idea of a good educa- 
 tion, both on the part of the teacher and the taught ; it 
 requires very little thought to see what must be the ine- 
 vitable result, in proportion as a doctrine should obtain 
 currency, which so incalculably disparages the importance 
 and benefits of that education. 
 
 And now let us consider the condition of those, who shall 
 have arrived at full maturity of years under the dominion of 
 habitual sin ; but who shall have been so far visited by 
 God's grace, as heartily to desire release from their thraldom 
 and admission into the glorious liberty of the children of 
 God. To such the Church at once unlocks her treasures of 
 grace ; and with Christian grace within, and the whole circle 
 of Christian motives acting from without, the will has fully 
 sufficient power, by means of unceasing care and discipline, 
 to effect its emancipation, and proceed onwards on its noble 
 course even to the end. But let us suppose, that even the 
 modified form of Lutheran doctrine were proposed to a 
 sinner so circumstanced ; let us suppose him told that justi- 
 fying faith may be given him at any moment, and that 
 when given it assures his pardon, and is accompanied by 
 grace which will lead him, without ' special' pains or effort, 
 to a holy life ; that if justifying faith be not given, no 
 amount of prayer and self-denial can be the means of 
 Christian salvation ; lastly, that such prayer and self-denial 
 confers this benefit and only this, that in consequence of it 
 the gift of justifying faith may be hoped for with greater 
 probability. Who is so mad as to doubt that the unhappy 
 victim, with habits of evil immeasurably strengthened by 
 indulgence, and habits of good immeasurably enfeebled by 
 neglect ; beset with passions ' craving like harpies for their 
 accustomed indulgence ;' repeatedly tempted from time to 
 time by the idea of sin reinvested with its brightest and most 
 alluring colours ; staggering and faint perhaps at the same 
 moment, from the weariness and arduousness of the path of
 
 199 
 
 self-watchfulness and self-denial ; presented with nothing 
 which approaches to a certain promise of salvation even 
 should he persevere, or a certain threat of condemnation 
 should he give way ; receiving as an admitted truth, that if 
 even 011 his death-bed he can work himself into an assurance 
 of salvation, his salvation is assured ; who is so mad as to 
 doubt that this unhappy man will be paralyzed and crippled 
 in all his exertions by this hateful spell, that he will become 
 an easy prey to Satan, and return to the vomit he had left ? 
 And if this be so under the most favourable form of Luther- 
 anism, how much more will the same result follow if the or- 
 dinary doctrine be inculcated ; if he be told, that this prayer 
 and self-denial are literally of no advantage whatever in bring- 
 ing him nearer to Christ, or into the way of eternal salvation ! 
 
 Such will be the effects of this doctrine on those whom it 
 considers not yet justified. What will it be on those whom 
 it considers justified ? 
 
 No one can be more fully aware than myself, of the com- 
 plete unreality both of that part of the discussion just con- 
 cluded, and of that now about to commence : it proceeds 
 upon an hypothesis, (an hypothesis, blessed be God, wholly 
 chimerical,) that it is possible for the abstract doctrine now 
 in question to be really and heartily embraced by the human 
 mind, and to proceed unimpeded to its legitimate effects. 
 The present then is a task similar to that of the mathema- 
 tician, who calculates the velocity of a projectile, without 
 taking into account the resistance of the air. That calcula- 
 tion is wholly theoretical, yet is an absolutely essential pre- 
 liminary to the discovery of results the most practical : and 
 in like manner the present inquiry must of necessity be first 
 carried through, in order that we may be prepared for that 
 subject which will come next in order ; the consideration 
 namely of the results which follow from this principle, not 
 imagined hypothetically as an isolated motive, but viewed as 
 connected with, and restrained by, those other motives which 
 must always be found, in varying degrees, in its company, the 
 desire of obeying conscience, the religious instinct, the sense of 
 justice, deference to public opinion, social feeling, and the like.
 
 200 
 
 This too will be a fit place for introducing an explana- 
 tion, which it is very necessary to introduce. In objecting 
 to the position that justifying faith carries with it its own 
 evidence, it is not for one moment intended to deny, that 
 there are truths which carry with them their own evidence. 
 Nothing indeed could be more preposterous than such a 
 denial ; for as all reasoning proceeds from truths known to 
 truths unknown, unless there were truths known previously 
 to all reasoning, the reasoning faculty itself could have no 
 materials whereon to exercise its functions : there would be 
 no premises, and therefore no conclusions. I am myself in- 
 deed deeply convinced, that the highest and most precious 
 truths which can possess the mind may be received by the 
 religious Christian on the strongest and most certain grounds 
 of proof, with no support whatever from induction, or rati- 
 ocination, or any other form of external argument. But 
 we have a right to require that nothing shall be proposed 
 for our acceptance on such grounds as these, unless at the 
 same time practical rules are given, to discern truth from 
 falsehood, to place the dictates of conscience in strong and 
 unmistakeable contrast over against the capricious suggestions 
 of impulse or imagination. In the present instance it is a 
 fact acknowledged on all hands, that many, who professed a 
 full assurance of salvation, have lived lives of open and un- 
 blushing profligacy ; there is no one duty then more peremp- 
 torily incumbent on * evangelicals,' than the laying down some 
 test whereby this spurious faith shall be distinguished from 
 the Gospel virtue. Till this duty is performed, that very 
 feeling of security from fear of punishment, which is their 
 great boast, has no more warrant than a madman's dream ; 
 and yet there is no one duty (and this is saying a great deal) 
 in which they have so signally failed. It is of course no 
 matter of blame to any one, that he has failed in doing that 
 which is in itself impracticable ; but until they either find it 
 practicable, or else abandon their theory, we possess the most 
 undeniable right of imputing to them the position, that all 
 persons who confidently and without doubt expect eternal 
 salvation, are warranted in expecting it, and will certainly
 
 201 
 
 obtain it. In this shape however their system, I suppose, 
 will find but few supporters. 
 
 This advantage, however, though most certainly legitimate, 
 I am content to waive ; I am content, for argument's sake, 
 to admit that it is possible to allow assurance to ordinary 
 believers, without countenancing the self-deceit of profligate 
 fanatics ; I am content, for argument's sake, to admit that 
 there is some distinct principle, called faith, which may be 
 recognised by its own evidence, and which warrants assurance 
 of salvation. It remains for them to defend the other part 
 of their statement ; that this principle leads, without -special 
 pains or effort on their part, to as much holiness as the 
 Gospel requires. They will not deny, indeed strangely 
 enough they accuse Catholics of denying, that ' the infection 
 of nature doth remain, yea, even in the regenerate ;' that 
 even justified Christians have from time to time, nay fre- 
 quently, a very inadequate perception of spiritual things ; 
 and that their evil propensities are innumerable and most 
 unceasingly active. Let us now therefore fix our ideas, by 
 imagining the statement in question carried out in a par- 
 ticular case and in actual life. 
 
 A believer, fully possessed by this doctrine, and consider- 
 ing himself endued with this principle of so-called ' faith,' 
 wakes in the morning, his thoughts running on some interest- 
 ing event of the previous day, a missionary meeting or a 
 charity sermon ; he finds himself altogether disinclined to 
 remove his mind from such interesting topics, and to fix it 
 wholly on God in prayer or meditation. * He will mourn 
 over this new proof of the strength of the flesh and weakness 
 of the spirit,' he will ' wish earnestly that he were more in- 
 tent upon things of the spirit ;' q but he will be in no way 
 bound to resist by an effort his predominant inclination, for 
 that would be one of those very acts of self-denial, as has 
 been fully shewn, which on Lutheran principles are not re- 
 quired under the Gospel. Unprotected then by that at- 
 mosphere of good, with which the Christian's morning de- 
 votions well performed encompass him, he goes forth to his 
 i ' On Heurtley's Sermons,' p. 438.
 
 202 
 
 daily duties. He is tempted to exceed in eating or drink- 
 ing ; sometimes indeed or often it happens, (let us grant it,) 
 that his love of God makes him fully realise the baseness of 
 these gross temptations ; but there are other moments (as 
 our adversaries themselves must grant) in which his spiritual 
 emotions are not so lively, and the temptation becomes real : 
 when it becomes real, on these principles he is under no 
 obligation to resist it. His temper naturally is not happy ; 
 though when his affections are enkindled by the thought of 
 God's mercy, its influence is hardly felt. Again, there may 
 be many moments in which its influence is felt, but in which 
 he also feels an inclination to pray against its dominion ; this 
 inclination is a proof of the spiritual mind, and should be in- 
 dulged. But if he feels his temper seriously tried, while he 
 feels no accompanying inclination to resort for his protection 
 to the spiritual weapons of prayer and self-restraint, it is 110 
 part of his duty to do so, or to adopt any other means of 
 striving against his natural infirmity. It is unnecessary to 
 proceed farther with the picture ; it will be sufficiently seen, 
 that unless in very extraordinary cases, nothing less than 
 open and unblushing profligacy would necessarily flow, from 
 the consistent adoption of this doctrine. 
 
 On the other hand, the Catholic-minded Christian has 
 learned such lessons as the following : 
 
 Self-denial of some kind or other is involved, as is evident, in 
 the very notion of renewal and holy obedience. To change our 
 hearts is to learn to love things which we do not naturally love 
 to unlearn the love of this world ; but this involves of course a 
 thwarting of our natural wishes and tastes. To be righteous and 
 obedient, implies self-command ; but to possess power we must have 
 gained it ; nor can we gain it without a vigorous struggle, a perse- 
 vering warfare against ourselves.' r 
 
 He believes that to cease from ' his daily and hourly op- 
 position to present inclination, would be very soon to fall 
 from grace ; he exercises himself in such opposition, as the 
 one warrant for his hope of salvation. Such an one disclaims 
 
 r Plain Sermons, vol. v. p. 57.
 
 203 
 
 then from his very innermost heart the possession of any 
 such principle, as will lead him without ' special ' pains or 
 effort to a holy life ; he disclaims, that is, the possession of 
 that which alone, on Lutheran grounds, is justifying faith : 
 and he must be regarded by the consistent ' Evangelical ' as 
 alien to the Gospel covenant. In what single particular then 
 did I overstep the truth, (though I have been accused of 
 ' calumnious misrepresentation,'*) when I made the follow- 
 ing statement ? ' That obedience to the will of God, with 
 whatever sacrifice of self, is the one thing needful ; that sin 
 is the one only danger to be dreaded, the one only evil to be 
 avoided ; these great truths are the very foundation of natural 
 religion : ' but ' this modern system denies these to be essential 
 and necessary truths, yea, counts it the chief glory of the 
 Gospel that under it they are no longer truths.' 4 Is it not 
 as plain as day that such a Christian as I last supposed, 
 though he should have 'obeyed the will of God' with the 
 greatest ' sacrifice of self;' though he should have, by God's 
 grace, made almost incredible progress in the subjugation of 
 pride, indolence, uncharitableness, and the whole circle of 
 vices ; though he should be most frequent and earnest in 
 prayer, living in the thought of God, abounding in love to 
 man ; still if he believe his own salvation insecure, is, accord- 
 ing to the views, termed as if in mockery ' evangelical,' no 
 justified Christian at all ? What then can be more certain 
 than that, if those views were true, confidence in our sal- 
 vation would be a ' thing ' more * needful ' than holy ' obe- 
 dience,' and an alarmed conscience a * danger ' more to be 
 ' dreaded ' than wilful ' sin ' ? 
 
 The Bishop of Ossory has introduced a very important 
 modification into the Lutheran doctrine, which I may quote 
 in his own words. 
 
 " Besides those differences in the future happiness of moral agents, 
 which naturally results from the difference of their moral state, 
 we have good reasons to look for distinctions in their con- 
 dition hereafter, depending also on these moral differences ; not, 
 however, like the former, resulting naturally from them, but from a 
 direct appointment grounded on them" 
 
 Bp. of Ossory ' Charge, p. 190. ' 'On St. Athanasius,' p. 390.
 
 204 
 
 It will be felt by most that this is far from akin to the 
 general spirit of that doctrine ; and he frankly says, that al- 
 though it is * clearly taught in God's word,' ' it is likely to 
 startle and offend many real Christians.' (p. 408.) On the 
 other hand, it must be admitted to be in statement perfectly 
 consistent ; and I have so worded what I have said, as most 
 fully to include this modification in all my remarks. 
 
 It is much to be observed, that it is only in opposing our 
 predominant inclination, that the sense of duty can possibly 
 be called into practical exercise. Acts which flow spon- 
 taneously from present impulse, may be most fully sanctioned 
 by the conscience ; but it is unmeaning to speak of them as 
 caused by it, or as tending to strengthen and cultivate its 
 influence. The orthodox believer makes this sense of duty 
 the one prominent subject of his care ; it is the one faculty 
 which is visited by Divine grace, and which, under that 
 grace, leads him onward to salvation. Hence the extreme 
 advantage, in many cases, of voluntary self-denial, as a means 
 of giving practice and strength to that habit, which it is of 
 such essential importance that we preserve in full vigour and 
 activity. But from what has been just said, it is plain that 
 according to the abstract Lutheran doctrine, even with the 
 addition of Dr. O'Brien's supplement, a Christian may be 
 fully assured of salvation, who has not the slightest intention 
 of ever resisting the decided bias of the moment, and there- 
 fore of so much as calling this faculty into distinct and con- 
 scious existence.* 
 
 ' I should be sorry to omit so justly and forcibly expressed a passage as the 
 following, which is found in Dr. O'Brien's work ; how utterly alien in spirit from 
 any part e. g. of Luther's Commentary on the Galatians ! " The unheeded 
 events of every day and every hour are doing something to form for eternity the 
 character of every human being, calling into exercise some moral principle, de- 
 veloping some propensity, renewing that strife between conscience and passion, 
 which tends to the advancement or degradation of our moral nature, according 
 to its conduct and its issue, strengthening some vice or confirming some virtue. 
 What hour in fact of our waking existence, carefully reviewed, even by ourselves, 
 at its close, would not be seen to have brought with it some intelligible demand 
 upon temperance or fortitude, or self-denial ; upon forbearance, or benevolence, 
 or active exertion ; upon zeal for God, or love for man ? And as these claims 
 are answered or not, as conscience and that Spirit who strives with our spirit 
 prevail over evil dispositions and indolence or yield to them, are we not plainly 
 advancing or retrograding in the moral course in which we are treading ; and in
 
 205 
 
 Again, the orthodox believer, as knowing that at any 
 moment he may be called on to thwart and oppose his pre- 
 vailing inclination under a sense of duty, even in the mo- 
 ments of greatest relaxation preserves his feelings and affec- 
 tions in a real, however latent, subordination to his consci- 
 ence, and thus preserves his conscience itself in subordina- 
 tion to God. This is that virtue of watchfulness, held in so 
 peculiar value by all who really embrace Catholic doctrine. 
 There is probably no grace, which in its highest earthly per- 
 fection is so distinguishingly characteristic of the saintly 
 mind, and which in its various degrees may be taken as so 
 fair a measure of the degree of our Christian advancement ; 
 for none other is called into such habitual, such unceasing 
 practice. The consciousness too of its growth within us, is 
 the most comfortable assurance we can possibly have in 
 regard to our future prospects. This grace can have no 
 place whatever under the Gospel, according to any consistent 
 form of Luther anism. Its very existence implies that we 
 have long realised a most serious danger of our falling from 
 God ; the very consciousness of our justification, upon the 
 Lutheran theory, implies that we have held from the very 
 beginning of our Christian course, as a matter of divine 
 faith, that there is no such danger. To contend with vigour 
 at special seasons against evil inclinations, with the hope of 
 increasing our heavenly reward, this Dr. O'Brien's principles 
 will fully sanction ; but to watch at all seasons against the 
 danger of falling away, is a virtue which can be practised by 
 none, except by those who from their heart repudiate the 
 heresy of personal assurance. 
 
 5. In proceeding to the practical inferences which follow from 
 this theory, to the consideration of the moral effects produced 
 by Lutheran doctrine as actually witnessed, it is necessary to 
 guard at the outset against two opposite misapprehensions. On 
 the one side it has been supposed, that those who gladly ac- 
 knowledge the very great piety and seriousness of character, 
 which have been frequently seen in * Evangelicals,' confess 
 thereby that there is nothing very deeply pernicious in Lutheran 
 
 either event fitted for some station in the world that we are hereafter to inhabit, 
 for the society with which we shall dwell for ever? " p. 231.
 
 206 
 
 doctrine ; on the other hand it has been thought, that this 
 whole method of judging doctrines by reference to their prac- 
 tical effects, implies that one sits in judgment, as if from some 
 vantage ground, on one's fellow-men, and professes to dis- 
 pense praise and blame to each according to his several de- 
 serts. The following extracts from the British Critic will, 
 I trust, sufficiently clear up the latter misapprehension ; 
 and they will include also some incidental allusion to the 
 former. 
 
 1 In our own age and country it is perhaps hardly too much to 
 say, that the greater part of high-minded and sensitive, if at the 
 same time strictly conscientious, men, will hardly find their rest in 
 any existing school of opinion, or religious system, or accurately 
 expressed theory. Our supposed learner then will be even compelled 
 to the conclusion, that he can regard no single channel as the one 
 appointed medium, through which God shall convey light to his soul ; 
 he must look for that light as transmitted to him partly from one 
 quarter, partly from another, refracted, as it were, in its course by 
 the various exhibitions of morality which surround him on all sides. 
 And yet in how different a spirit will his search be carried on, from 
 that eclectic method, which is to religion in general what Protest- 
 antism is to Christianity in particular I For let us compare, in imagin- 
 ation, the process adopted by disciples of these respective systems. 
 The one makes the reasoning faculty the single arbiter to which all 
 the remaining powers of the mind must be content to minister, the 
 other makes conscience such. The one regards his fellow-men as 
 witnesses to be called into court, and questioned at his own bidding : 
 the other thinks of them as his teachers, and in some sense his superiors ; 
 as commissioned by God, each after his measure, to build him up in 
 the entire truth' 
 
 ' But what then ? because we cannot have all, shall we have 
 nothing ? . . . Because [our] Church does not teach with distinct- 
 ness and authority, shall we take refuge in that strange modern 
 doctrine of ' private judgment on the text of Scripture' ? Surely it 
 would be as unwise as it is undutiful to do so. True the Holv 
 Ghost speaks not to us now articulately through the Church to 
 which we belong, but does He not speak to us through the holy 
 men around us, whom he inhabits ? True, there is much profession 
 
 u ' On Goode,' p. 42.
 
 207 
 
 without reality, much self-deceit, much inconsistency ; still has not 
 our Lord Himself said, ' by their fruits ye shall know them/ and 
 may not the inquirer, who is really in earnest, find on all sides 
 proofs of holiness not to be mistaken ; self-denial, purity, humility, 
 zeal ? Let this then be our protection against idiosyncrasy, self- 
 complacency, or a low and disproportionate standard ; let us, under 
 circumstances, make to ourselves in heart a Catholic Church ; let us 
 cling anxiously to the marks of the Holy Ghost wherever we can 
 find them. True it is that we shall find among religious men much 
 essential difference of statement, much estrangement and mutual 
 suspicion ; but the more gratifying will prove the task of tracing, 
 as best we may, the principle of goodness in its different stages, 
 through all this variety of external dress. 
 
 This then is the point to which for some time past our argument 
 has been tending ; ' the only way,' says Mr. Newman, ' in which 
 the members of our Church, so widely differing at this time, can be 
 brought together in one, is by a turning of heart to one another : 
 
 till we try to love each other, and what is holy in each 
 
 other, and wish to be all one, and mourn that we are not so, and 
 pray that we may be so, I do not see what good can come of argu- 
 ment.' No mathematical axiom is more certain than this moral 
 one, that where the fruits of holiness shew themselves, there is the 
 Holy Ghost, and there is really [so far as it goes] true doctrine ; 
 for the doctrine which supports men's spiritual life, the principle on 
 which they live, may very easily be true, while the language in 
 which they have learnt to clothe it, may be almost to any extent 
 erroneous and dangerous. We do not wish to extenuate the evil 
 arising from profession of false doctrines ; it must to a certain 
 extent, in some more in others less, vitiate the principle itself within 
 them : and of this we are well-convinced, that in proportion as we 
 correct, enlarge, strengthen our own moral feelings by this affec- 
 tionate throwing of ourselves on the thought and example of holy men, 
 and in proportion as our obedience keeps pace with our convictions, 
 we shall learn to appreciate the [superiority even in kind of the] 
 holiness which has ever on the whole accompanied the profession 
 and explicit belief of Catholic doctrine ; we shall fall back upon 
 Catholic tradition as feeling it the correlative of our nature ; and 
 shall be rescued from the delusive and heretical sophisms of the 
 Protestant schools.' * 
 
 x ' On Arnold's Sermons,' pp. 334, 5.
 
 208 
 
 In the present profoundly disturbed and unsettled state of 
 theological sentiment, no one who has not the happiness of 
 resting with secure and undoubting confidence in some safe 
 harbour, will allow himself wilfully to shut his eyes to any 
 exhibition of virtue and self-denial, from whatever quarter it 
 may present itself; by so doing, he incurs serious danger of 
 losing hold of that thread, which can alone guide him safely 
 through the bewildering labyrinth of opinion which surrounds 
 us. But in proportion as he learns the opposite habit, as 
 he familiarizes himself with the reverent observation of reli- 
 giousness and consientiousness in all their different shapes, 
 he will go on more and more to discern the lineaments of the 
 full Catholic character. He need not look beyond our own 
 Church to find models of that character, which \vill still 
 further assist him in the study ; and the contemplation of 
 them will enable him to appreciate still more adequately 
 the same features of mind, as witnessed in their highest earth- 
 ly perfection by the Saints of the Church. He will more 
 and more understand that that character is, even in its early 
 rudiments, one, distinct, unmistakeable ; as truly and pointed- 
 ly differing from the Christian character conceived by religi- 
 ous Protestants, as that in turn differs from the Socinian or 
 Mahometan. 
 
 Having so far guarded myself against misconception, I will 
 relieve my own feelings by saying plainly, as I have said in 
 print more than once before, that though I feel bound at all 
 fitting occasions and in all fitting ways to protest heart and 
 soul against the ' Evangelical' system, I fully recognise many 
 who have at various times professed that system, as so ex- 
 ceedingly my own superiors that the very notion of even a 
 comparison is most painful. Who indeed can so much as 
 mention the names of Cecil, or Scott, or Martyn, without 
 adding from his heart expressions of honour and reverence ? 
 but I allude not only to such unusual specimens as these, but 
 to great numbers of admirable men, who, especially at the 
 latter end of the last century and the beginning of this, fol- 
 lowed in their train. ' Earnest persons naturally, nay, 
 rightly, embrace that form of opinions, which they find in
 
 209 
 
 their own time to be coexistent with earnestness ; and in pro- 
 portion as the voice of their conscience is brought into dis- 
 tinctness, in the most heretical propositions they will see and 
 realise great and Christian truths.' y They learn to say that 
 we are justified by faith without inherent righteousness; they 
 mean only that holy men rest their hopes of salvation, in no 
 way on the thought of such inherent righteousness, but solely 
 and indivisibly on the merits of their Lord. They learn to say 
 that the justified have assurance of salvation ; they mean only 
 to express, as Catholics would express, their humble yet hearty 
 confidence, that ' He who has begun a good work in them will 
 perform it until the day of Jesus Christ,' provided only that 
 they remain (as, by His help, they fully purpose to remain) 
 faithful to His grace, watchful against the approach of sin, 
 diligent in the practice of virtue. Thus their conscience, and 
 religious instinct, and holy obedience, neutralize their heretical 
 creed : and the evil which accrues to them from that creed is of 
 a negative not a positive nature. Still very serious evil there 
 most certainly is ; for, unless a Christian has. either himself 
 intellectually embraced the whole Catholic doctrine, or else 
 lives under a system which is informed and animated by that 
 doctrine, he cannot enjoy the benefit of those various methods 
 of religious culture and discipline, which are indispensably 
 necessary for the formation, even in its very elements, of the 
 true Catholic character. Nay, even so much of excellence 
 and devotedness as I have fully acknowledged to exist in 
 many ' Evangelicals,' will perhaps rarely be found, unless in 
 cases where God by painful visitations, mercifully, however 
 imperfectly, supplies the absence of those salutary correctives 
 furnished by the Church. Have not all the great lights of 
 ' Evangelicalism ' been sorely oppressed either by sorrow, or 
 bodily pain, or contempt and persecution ? or if by none 
 of these, then by such hardships as necessarily attend the 
 missionary life ? a life which, though its original choice was 
 voluntary and most highly admirable and honourable, yet 
 when chosen hardly admits of retreat, and furnishes one 
 continued discipline to the Christian who has had grace to 
 follow so high a calling. 
 
 i ' On Heurtley's Four Sermons,' p. 446. 
 
 P
 
 And now, to pass by a sudden transition from the highest 
 to the lowest specimens of those professing * Evangelical' 
 principles, it must not surely be forgotten, that from the 
 invention of those principles to the present day there have 
 always been some among their professors, who (I do not say 
 have carried these principles to their full and true results ; 
 the basest of mankind could not bring themselves to that ; 
 but) have united a confident assurance of salvation with 
 open and undeniable habits of profligacy and depravity. We 
 see this in the abandoned Anabaptists contemporary with 
 Luther, and among some English fanatics contemporary with 
 Charles I. ; nay, I fear, from what more than one clergyman 
 has said, there can be no fair room for doubt, that the same 
 exists in a considerable degree among various classes of dis- 
 senters at the present time. It is very well to say that this is 
 a corruption or perversion of Luther's system : but he himself 
 deduced a sanction for polygamy from that system : and for 
 the reasons already given, I can only look on these disorders 
 as the natural, direct, and even mitigated consequences of 
 that doctrine, which some have dared to call the ' articulus 
 stantis vel cadentis ecclesiae.' 
 
 It is most fully acknowledged, however, that no members of 
 our Church are implicated in such extreme results. Both 
 the habits of education and the force of public opinion so far 
 enlighten their conscience, that they would recoil from open 
 wickedness, and instantly renounce any such principle as 
 appeared to them to involve it. Again, regular habits of 
 morning and evening prayer are, I suppose, universally con- 
 sidered essential ; though I have never happened to meet in 
 their books with any very urgent practical advice on the 
 extreme difficulty, and yet the indispensable importance, of 
 keeping our mind, at times of prayer, really fixed on the oc- 
 cupation. And at all events, when we consider the profound 
 subtlety of Satan and the complicated deceitfulness of the 
 human heart, we shall expect to find that those, who lay no 
 prominent stress on the duty of self-examination and of hearty 
 unremitting warfare against their old nature, remain subject 
 to sins of a more secret character, without being even visited 
 by any suspicion of their own captivity ; much more without
 
 making any vigorous and successful struggles for liberty. 
 This I believe to be the case with multitudes ; and in very 
 many instances to an extent wholly inconsistent with Chris- 
 tian acceptance, or, as we say technically, to an extent 
 involving mortal sin. A very few examples will make clearer 
 the sort of sins which this statement contemplates. 
 
 Undue reliance on wealth in those possessed of it. The 
 Bible statements on this subject, if we would fairly listen to 
 them, would surely lead us to imagine, that all professing any 
 reverence for Scripture, who either enjoy or expect wealth, 
 would be filled with misgivings and dismay. Under this 
 feeling, holy men at various times, from an earnest desire 
 of salvation, have ' given all that they have to the poor and 
 followed' Christ, as fearing lest to possess earthly weath, 
 might dim their perception of the preciousness of the true 
 riches. Now surely such persons as experience these 
 misgivings, this dismay, even if they do not feel called, 
 or have not the heart, to follow these high examples, 
 will deeply reverence them, and endeavour, at least at 
 humble distance, to profit by their lessons. But 'Evan- 
 gelicals' of the present day seem unable even to conceive 
 any motive for such sacrifices, except a desire of ' purchasing 
 heaven.' A remarkable witness truly against themselves! 
 a witness, that declarations, perhaps the most emphatic that 
 are to be found in all Scripture, and uttered by our Lord 
 Himself, awaken no responsive chord whatever in their own 
 minds. And I believe it is very far indeed from an imaginary 
 apprehension, to feel deeply alarmed lest there be many 
 Christians, who would treat as a suggestion of Satan a 
 passing doubt on the certainty of their own salvation ; and 
 who yet allow themselves to take pleasure in the thought of 
 their own wealth, of their power to satisfy their own desires, 
 and to exercise an influence over others ; and to rest for sup- 
 port on this pleasure ; in a degree totally inconsistent with 
 that lively sense of dependence on God and on the merits of 
 Christ, which are peremptorily required for salvation. 
 
 A kindred temptation, addressed to a much larger class, is 
 that which leads to an idolatrous reverence of wealth, or again 
 
 p 2
 
 rank and station, possessed by others. I willingly take the pre- 
 sent opportunity of expressing a very confident opinion, that 
 the unhappy relations, established three centuries ago between 
 Church and State, have had a most miserable influence in 
 fostering this sin ; for the effect of those relations extends 
 far more widely than might be supposed, and most materially 
 affects the respective position of squire and clergyman in 
 almost every parish in the land. However this may be, it is 
 very much indeed more difficult to prevent ourselves from 
 being dazzled and carried away by rank and station than 
 might have been supposed ; insomuch that he who is not 
 conscious of the difficulty, gives great ground for fearing 
 that he is very deeply plunged in the sin. To feel as much 
 abhorrence for the callous selfishness and insensibility of the 
 rich as for the peevishness, querulousiiess, and discontent of 
 the poor ; for the luxurious self-indulgence of the one as for 
 the more coarse and brutal sensuality of the other; for 
 indolent and slothful waste of time and talents in the former 
 as for confirmed laziness in the latter ; this is an achievement 
 which few of us perhaps (even though knowing the importance 
 of the object) have at all adequately reached. I ' am not 
 speaking of our outward demeanour ; which ought of course 
 to differ according to the difference of ranks in those whom 
 we address : but of inward sentiment in regard to matters of 
 plain right and wrong, And very few have any idea, until 
 they have thought of the subject, to how wonderful an extent 
 their judgments in such matters are distorted, by the presence 
 or absence of worldly and adventitious advantages. Unless 
 we are most carefully on our guard, there is the most serious 
 danger lest the habit of courting the favour or notice of such 
 persons, if we happen to .depend on them or to be thrown 
 near them, may be carried to an extent, quite irreconcilable 
 with the habit of making eternal salvation our principal ob- 
 ject ; in other words, quite irreconcilable, unless repented 
 of, with the hope of that salvation. ' Evangelicals ' have been 
 very frequently accused of courtliness and low adulation ; 
 and a priori there can be little doubt, unless there be far 
 more habitual self-discipline than I see at all enforced in
 
 213 
 
 their writings, that they will in many cases not think of strug- 
 gling against the temptation, and so will forfeit grace. y 
 
 From the same cause other sinful habits also, habits of cen- 
 soriousness and uncharitable judgment, of pride, of envy, of 
 discontent, of covetousness, and the rest, exist, it is to be feared, 
 in several cases to such a degree as wholly to banish the pre- 
 sence of the Holy Spirit ; and in very many most seriously to 
 obstruct His gracious influence ; and that, among those who 
 conceal both from themselves and others the wickedness of their 
 heart, by a fluent use of Scripture language, and self-com- 
 placent eulogies on their sense of their own sinfulness. Indeed 
 it is a most startling consideration, and one which should 
 surely alarm many who expect most confidently their own 
 certain salvation, that no one, I suppose, embraces ' Evan- 
 gelical' opinions, who does not hold his own salvation to be se- 
 cure. Now when ' Evangelicals ' come to make up so large a 
 class as at the present time, it really demands the most 
 anxious thought, in those who remember the Scripture de- 
 clarations on the ' strait gate,' how they can safely stake their 
 eternal interests on such a doctrine ; a doctrine, which would 
 seem to represent the really serious as bearing so ominously 
 large a proportion to the worldly and irreligious. 
 
 II. It is an eternal and irreversible truth of natural 
 religion, that beings whose will is not as yet wholly sub- 
 ordinate to the rule of right and the will of God, have this 
 one paramount duty imposed on them before all other duties, 
 viz. to exercise themselves in obedience to the voice of con- 
 science, by unceasing efforts to reduce their will into a fuller 
 and more complete subjection. The form which this eternal 
 truth assumes under the pure Gospel, is very much as follows. 
 Converts to Christianity, at their Baptism, by faith are jus- 
 
 T The subject only leads me to speak in the text of ' Evangelicals ;' but be- 
 lieving as I do that the safeguard, given by the pure Gospel against this habit of 
 sycophancy, is a reverence for the spiritual power as such, I fully think that all 
 classes of Christians will, as classes, be greatly infected with this sin, who are not 
 altogether indignant and dissatisfied with the present relations of Church and State : 
 nor will individuals of those classes commonly escape from the infection, except 
 by means of anxious watchfulness directed to this special purpose. The history 
 of our Reformed Church may be confidently appealed to, as bearing out this re- 
 mark.
 
 214 
 
 tified ; by faith receive pardon for their past sins ; by faith 
 are endued with a most precious inward gift, and are brought 
 into new relations, into a new sphere of unseen agencies. 
 Then begins a new course of solemn trial and conflict, far 
 more solemn indeed than any they can have hitherto known ; 
 a trial which so closely concerns them, that on their be- 
 haviour during its progress depends nothing less than their 
 everlasting destiny : and that trial is no other than this, how 
 carefully and watchfully they shall retain that faith which 
 now is theirs, and to how great an extent, by following 
 zealously their sense of duty, they shall engraft on it the 
 habit of love. And whereas, although nothing can be more 
 distinct than the conscience's claim to obedience, few things are 
 more feeble than its power of enforcing it ; whereas its very 
 voice is instantaneously overwhelmed by the impetuous irrup- 
 tion of present impulses and inclinations ; and whereas the 
 resistance of corrupt human nature to that discipline and re- 
 straint, which is indispensably requisite for the continual im- 
 provement required of us, is most unceasing, energetic, and 
 obdurate ; the Gospel directs its most powerful motives, 
 collected as it were from all quarters, to the strengthening of 
 this one faculty, which is so peculiarly in need of strength. 
 
 And if I begin by mentioning, as among the principal of 
 these motives, the fear of punishment, let it not be supposed, 
 as it is often supposed, that lovers of Ancient Truth have 
 low and carnal notions of the desirableness, for its own sake, 
 of a religious life, or the spontaneous hatred of sin as such, 
 which good men feel. Such passages as the following would 
 shew sufficiently how groundless is this imputation. 
 
 ' This excellence and desirableness of God's gifts is a subject again 
 and again set before us in Holy Scripture. Thus the Prophet Isaiah 
 speaks of the " feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the lees ; of 
 fat things full of marrow, of wines on the lees well refined." z And 
 again, under images of another kind : " He hath sent Me .... to 
 give . . . beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment 
 of praise for the spirit of heaviness, that they may be called Trees 
 of Righteousness." a Or again, the Prophet Hosea : " I will be as 
 the dew unto Israel : he shall grow as the lily, and cast forth his 
 z Isaiah xxv. 6. a Isaiah bd. 1 3.
 
 roots as Lebanon. His branches shall spread, and his beauty shall 
 be as the olive-tree, and his smell as Lebanon. They that dwell 
 under his shadow shall return ; they shall revive as the corn, and 
 grow as the vine ; the scent thereof shall be as the wine of Le- 
 banon." 1 ' And the Psalmist: "O that My people would have 
 hearkened unto Me . . . the haters of the Lord should have been 
 found liars, but their time should have endured for ever. He should 
 have fed them also with the finest wheat flour, and with honey out 
 of the stony rock should I have satisfied thee." c You see all images 
 of what is pleasant and sweet in nature are brought together to 
 describe the pleasantness and sweetness of the gifts which God 
 gives us in grace. As wine enlivens, and bread strengthens, and 
 oil is rich, and honey is sweet, and flowers are odorous, and dew is 
 refreshing, and foliage is beautiful ; so, and much more, are God's 
 gifts in the Gospel enlivening, and strengthening, and rich, and 
 sweet, and fragrant, and refreshing, and excellent. And as it is 
 natural to feel satisfaction and comfort in these gifts of the visible 
 world, so it is but natural and necessary to be delighted and trans- 
 ported with the gifts of the world invisible ; and as the visible gifts 
 are objects of desire and search, so much more is it, I do not merely 
 say a duty, but a privilege and blessedness to " taste and see how 
 gracious the Lord is." . . . 
 
 ' I wish it were possible, my brethren, to lead men to greater 
 holiness and more faithful obedience by setting before them the 
 high and abundant joys which they have who serve God : " In 
 His presence is fulness of joy," " the well of life ;" and they are 
 satisfied with " the plenteousness of His house," and " drink 
 of His pleasures as out of a river ;" but this is, I know, just 
 what most persons will not believe . . . Alas ! this is the very 
 thing I lament, that God's service is not pleasant to you. It is 
 not pleasant to those who do not like it : true ; but it is pleasant to 
 those who do. Observe, this is what I say ; not that it is pleasant 
 to those who like it not, but that it is pleasant to those who like it. 
 Nay, what I say is, that it is much more pleasant to those who like 
 it, than any thing of this world is pleasant to those who do not like it. 
 This is the point. I do not say that it is pleasant to most men ; 
 but I say that it is in itself the most pleasant thing in the world. 
 Nothing is so pleasant as God's service to those to whom it is 
 pleasant. The pleasures of sin are not to be compared in fulness 
 and intensity to the pleasures of holy living. The pleasures of 
 b Hos. xiv. 57. c Ps. Ixxxi. 1316.
 
 216 
 
 holiness are far more pleasant to the holy, than the pleasures of sin 
 to the sinner. O that I could get you to believe this ! O that you 
 had a heart to feel it and know it ! O that you had a heart to 
 taste God's pleasures and to make proof of them ; to taste and see 
 how gracious the Lord is ! ... 
 
 4 Till our eyes are opened spiritually, we shall ever think religion 
 distasteful and unpleasant, and shall wonder how any one can like 
 it. Such is our miserable state, we are blind to the highest and 
 truest glories, and dead to the most lively and wonderful of all plea- 
 sures ; and no one can describe them to us. None other than 
 God the Holy Spirit can help us in this matter, by enlightening 
 and changing our hearts. So it is ; and yet I will say one thing, 
 by way of suggesting to you how great and piercing the joys of re- 
 ligion are' And so the writer proceeds." 1 
 
 Those who cordially acquiesce in these sentiments cannot 
 be accused, with any fairness, of disregarding or under- 
 valuing the indescribable peace of mind and joy in believing, 
 which are the portion of an earnest Christian ; nor would I 
 deny for a moment that sinners even at the first moment of 
 their turning honestly to God, much more children who 
 have never altogether abandoned Him, are allowed a precious 
 foretaste of that heavenly gift. That which I professed lately 
 to establish, by an appeal to every-day experience, is not the 
 contradictory of this, but a very different proposition ; viz. 
 that this foretaste is not such, that a Christian can in any 
 way depend on it as a sufficient preservative against even the 
 most flagrant and permanent apostacy from God. The real 
 habit of love, the habit whereby, from the mere appreciation of 
 holiness and hatred of sin, we mortify the deeds of the flesh, 
 this can only be genuinely engrafted on a keenly sensitive 
 conscience ; this is increased in strength and enlarged in 
 range, only in proportion as watchfulness and self-denial have 
 wrought their perfect work. How is it possible, indeed, for 
 heavenly peace and love really to exist within the mind, ex- 
 cept, so far as carnal thoughts and affections are rooted out ; 
 thoughts which, from their radical contrariety, cannot but 
 disturb that peace and stifle that love ? Any professed feeling 
 of religious rapture, which grows not on this foundation, 
 
 d Plain Sermons, vol. v. pp. 124 127.
 
 217 
 
 and which is fostered without assistance from these means, 
 is no holy enthusiasm, but a Satanical illusion ; such as 
 have often shewn plainly their real family and parentage, by 
 gliding almost imperceptibly into breaches of the seventh 
 commandment. e The question then is, what motive is 
 divinely vouchsafed, to help the tottering sense of duty in 
 the arduous task of creating, under God's grace, this 
 sensitiveness of conscience ; in giving the believer that deep 
 conviction, which can result only from personal experience, 
 how revolting and self-contradictory is the very idea of a 
 religious life, divorced from this watchful and minute 
 obedience ! Hope of heavenly reward, love of heavenly good, 
 these become in due time most powerful and efficacious 
 instruments in the hands of God ; but, as is evident at once, 
 they presuppose the existence, in some considerable measure, 
 of spiritual desires and affections. What is it which is to give 
 strength and courage to the will, in those early stages of the 
 conflict with our old nature, which are a previous and necessary 
 condition for the growth of such desires? Whil%our tastes 
 and likings are still so preponderatingly carnal, and while 
 the temptations which assail us are carnal, must not the 
 motive which defends us be addressed to our carnal nature 
 also ? No one surely can ever experience Christian love, who 
 has not begun with godly fear. 
 
 How strange then and unreal appears a sentiment of 
 Bp. O'Brien, that the efficacy of fear as a motive has been 
 much exaggerated by Catholics ! Take the case (which has 
 been the lot perhaps of most religious men among ourselves) 
 of one who turns to God, after having rebelled against Him 
 by habitual worldliness, even if not by gross sin. When the 
 first fervour of his conversion has subsided, and the first 
 disgust at past sinfulness has become far less intense, how 
 feeble, uncertain, fluctuating are his religious affections ! how 
 powerful, restless, importunate his sinful temptations ! By 
 what means, short of a miracle, could Almighty God support 
 him in his course and save him from a relapse into his for- 
 saken pollutions, unless by placing strongly before his mind 
 
 e See on this most important matter, Mr, Newman's ' Sermons on Subjects of the 
 day,' pp. 1 35, 6.
 
 218 
 
 
 
 the fears of wrath to come ? a motive surely this, which in 
 power and importunity is alone fitted to carry on an active 
 conflict against the enemies of his salvation. 
 
 Nor, again, can there be in the whole world a more 
 pernicious, a more fundamental error, than to suppose that 
 that careful obedience to God in the details of daily life, of 
 which I have so often spoken, and which so peculiarly dis- 
 tinguishes the Catholic from all Protestant exhibitions of 
 Christianity, that this habit is, at best, but necessary for us 
 here below, through the frailty and instability of our nature. 
 So far from this, it is the very blessedness of Saints and 
 Angels, that their will, at every moment of their existence, is 
 wholly and unreservedly in submission to the w T ill of God. 
 This feature of the Catholic character is merely a conformity 
 with the first principles of natural religion and morality ; to 
 disparage it, is to blaspheme against those eternal and im- 
 mutable principles. It is not that Catholics consider this 
 feature essential, because they believe that a strict judgment 
 is to come,; but on the contrary God has revealed a strict 
 judgment to come, that our frail nature may be supported in 
 its efforts to attain what conscience proclaims as essential. 
 These efforts do not become a duty, because God has ordered 
 us to fear ; but God has ordered us to fear, because these 
 efforts are in themselves a duty. Since, then, God could not 
 possibly (unless again by a miracle) imprint this feature on 
 the mind of beings constituted like ourselves, except through 
 this motive of fear, it is not that he who is influenced by this 
 motive is below Christianity., but that he who is not in- 
 fluenced by it (no special revelation supposed) is below even 
 natural religion. 
 
 An orthodox Church then, in her anxiety to rescue her 
 children from the dominion of Satan, dares not to omit any 
 one part of man's complicated nature ; but addresses her 
 urgent appeals, derived from every quarter, to their hearts and 
 consciences. Nor does this particular motive of fear lose its 
 importance, even when great attainments have been made in 
 the Christian life, and hope and love have become very 
 powerful incentives to holy obedience. In one sense, indeed, 
 fear becomes continually more intense and absorbing; for
 
 219 
 
 there is no surer mark of growth in grace, than that the 
 thought of Judgment to come is more constantly and unre- 
 mittingly present to the mind. And though it be true, that 
 in ordinary Christians that thought issues rather in reverence 
 and wary caution than in any transports of alarm, it is also 
 true that, in the case of several Saints, it has been one especial 
 trouble allowed for their purification, that to the very end 
 of their earthly life they have been visited from time to time 
 by violent accesses of fear, nay, by temptations to absolute 
 despair ; fears and temptations, which have arisen from their 
 power of more clearly perceiving their own miserable sinful- 
 ness, and the infinite holiness of their Judge. 
 
 And this will be a fit place to notice distinctly an objection 
 that may be made ; though an answer to it has been implied 
 in what goes before. It may be asked, if the absolute 
 necessity of this habit of watchfulness be a truth of natural 
 religion, why will not the natural conscience, without help 
 from this lower motive, discern it to be such, and take 
 measures for its acquirement ? The answer involved in our 
 previous statement is two-fold : first, that conscience is, from 
 its great feebleness, unable, unless supported by some strong 
 external motive, to instigate the whole man even to so much 
 as a gradual, however distant, approximation towards a 
 model which it may think desirable ; and secondly, that 
 natural conscience in its rudimental state, previously to moral 
 cultivation and spiritual enlightenment, will not perceive this 
 particular model to be desirable ; conscience, I say, will not 
 perceive it to be desirable, until so much experience has been 
 obtained of its real nature, as cannot be attained without the 
 continuous and prolonged agency of this motive of fear. 
 This will elucidate a statement, made a few pages back, that 
 on any consistent modification of the abstract Lutheran 
 doctrine, the virtue of watchfulness could have no place 
 under the Gospel. For it is not implied in this statement nor 
 is it true, that when this habit of watchfulness has been once 
 acquired, it may not be conceivably retained without further 
 support from that lower motive ; from the intrinsic power 
 possessed by it in common with all habits, and from the per- 
 ception, now fully possessed, of its intrinsic excellence, of its
 
 220 
 
 indispensable necessity as a constituent of true holiness. Very 
 few Christians, of course, to the last, could be safely 
 delivered from the influence of fear, and who they are, God 
 only can know ; but it was incumbent to make this expla- 
 nation, because, as if in contrast with the Saints lately 
 mentioned, there have been other Saints on record, to whom 
 God has vouchsafed, before their death, a revelation of their 
 final acceptance. St. Paul has often enough been quoted as 
 one of their number ; who, though at an early period he 
 ' counted himself not to have apprehended ' and made 
 strenuous efforts ' lest he should be reprobate,' shortly before 
 his death rejoices in the thought that ' he has fought the good 
 fight and finished his course,' and in the prospect ' henceforth 
 is laid up for me a crown of righteousness.' 
 
 The last few pages must not be considered a digression 
 from the immediate subject ; for they have been quite 
 necesssary, that we may the more distinctly understand the 
 unfavourable influence exercised by Lutheran doctrine on 
 the moral character of its professors. And whereas the first 
 allegation made was, that ' Evangelicals ' remain under the 
 dominion, very frequently of even mortal sins, without 
 suspecting their bondage ; so the second shall be, that even 
 when aware of the sinful tendencies which possess them, they 
 continually remain tranquil and secure in mind, without 
 making any really serious effort to overcome them. Of 
 course the same exception must be made as before ; they 
 are so far unfaithful to their own theory, that they will 
 usually make strenuous exertions, rather than give way to 
 open and undeniable sins of the flesh : nor is it extravagant 
 to say, that it is really fortunate for an ' Evangelical' should 
 he, from circumstances, have serious difficulty in overcoming 
 such temptations ; for it familiarizes him with the idea of 
 conflict, and insensibly moulds his character into a more 
 Christian shape. But as to other sins, such as envy, sloth, 
 discontent, passionateness, and the like, there is every reason 
 to believe, that an upholder of this principle will often con- 
 fess to himself that they have command over his mind in no 
 ordinary degree ; and that after a lapse of time the same con- 
 Cession will be repeated ; and yet, though he does not even
 
 fancy himself to have made any real or serious attempt in 
 the interval, by God's help, to subdue them, he will 
 experience no deep repentance in that no such attempt has 
 been made, but rather a certain confident self-complacency ; 
 as though the mere consciousness of their existence, and a 
 sentimental sigh breathed over their sinfulness, were a full 
 proof of the spiritual mind, and a full assurance of security 
 against future judgment. And what else can be expected than 
 this, if the sense of duty acting against predominant inclina- 
 tion be, as I have endeavoured to shew, the one special means 
 of conquering our spiritual enemies; and if these principles, so 
 far from bringing all possible helps to the support of this 
 sense of duty, confesssedly, and as it were boastfully, put its 
 idea altogether in the back ground ? The very essence of the 
 Gospel is considered by multitudes to be, that under it the 
 motive of duty is superseded by the motive of gratitude, and 
 they hold that so far as we act on the former we descend from 
 our Christian position ; in other words, as I have expressed 
 it in the British Critic, ' that self-denial is An ti -Christian.' 
 And since the real truth is completely the reverse of this ; 
 since it is in support of this very sense of duty, that Christian 
 grace is engrafted within and Christian motives addressed 
 from without ; and since the very condition required for our 
 final acceptance is, that we shall, by help of this grace and 
 these motives, carry on to the end an intrepid, persevering, 
 and successful contest against our spiritual foes ; it follows, 
 that those who allow themselves in the state of acquiescence 
 I have just described, unless they repent or have the plea of 
 invincible ignorance, are excluded from all hope of Christian 
 salvation. 
 
 The corruption indeed and sluggishness of our nature are 
 such, that fallen man will gladly and eagerly seize any pre- 
 text, to excuse himself from that painful task of self-discipline 
 and self-improvement, which he is sent into the world for the 
 very purpose of performing ; and true religion accordingly op- 
 poses itself at every turn to all such pretexts. It may perhaps 
 then almost count as the master-piece of Satan's craft, that a 
 system has been devised in these latter days, whereby such
 
 222 
 
 sinful impulses are counted almost as Christian graces, and 
 whereby a promise is held out to self-deceiving men of en- 
 joying at once carnal security and spiritual peace. This is, 
 I fear, only too true a description of the Lutheran system 
 in its practical working. For, in the first place, the con- 
 sciousness of that struggle, described in Romans vii., is com- 
 monly considered by disciples of this heresy to be the de- 
 cisive mark of a safe spiritual condition. Yet this con- 
 sciousness proves nothing more, than that there is some vague, 
 capricious, and, it may be, wholly inoperative wish for holiness, 
 and some sense of the misery of sin ; whereas it is plain that 
 this wish for holiness may be, and is, entertained by num- 
 bers, who are even plunged in the pollutions of overt and 
 gross sin ; f while the sense of the unspeakable misery of sin 
 cannot but be experienced by all subject to it. How much 
 more then will men who, though not gross sinners, are to 
 the last degree sluggards and idlers in the race set before 
 them, how much more will these become hardened to the 
 voice of conscience, and confirmed in belief of their own spiri- 
 tuality, by the adoption of this test ! In the second place, a 
 strange idea is spread abroad among the same class, (1.) that 
 earnest and continued efforts for advancement in holiness 
 are connected with some peculiar danger of pride and self- 
 righteousness; (2.) that this danger is our one principal 
 spiritual antagonist ; and (3.) that we are preserved against it 
 by abstaining from such especial efforts. From all this it 
 readily follows, that our safest and humblest course is to 
 acquiesce in the consciousness of our evil nature, rather than 
 make any active and vigorous exertions for overcoming it. 
 Here then distinctly the sinful impulse of sloth is blasphe- 
 mously honoured by the sacred name of Christian humility. 
 
 Is it denied then by Catholics, it may be asked, that there 
 is an especial danger of pride, in those who press zealously 
 forward to perfection ? I answer, there is not only a danger, 
 but a certainty of pride existing, not only in those who are 
 zealous of good works but fully as much in the careless and 
 
 f Even Balaam said, ' Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end 
 be like his.'
 
 223 
 
 irreligious, 8 unless special pains be adopted to guard against 
 its inroads. The danger of pride is not a reason for slacken- 
 ing our efforts, but for increasing them; we must watch 
 against the intrusion of self-complacent thoughts, as of other 
 sinful emotions ; we must pray for support against pride, as 
 against all other wickedness. It is plain then that they will 
 be most free from pride, who have acquired the greatest 
 power in commanding their thoughts, and governing their 
 emotions ; in other words, those who are the greatest profi- 
 cients in habitual self-denial. And the small extent to which 
 this self-command reaches among the great body of ' Evan- 
 gelicals,' is one concurrent cause of the fact, that spiritual 
 pride exists among them, perhaps in a more offensive and 
 hateful form than in any other body of religionists whatever. 
 III. Another concurrent cause of this pride is the absence 
 from their system of the duty of repentance. In religious 
 Catholics, the practise ends only with their life, of going over 
 in their mind, from time to time, all that they can remember 
 of their past sins, and humbling themselves before God at 
 the remembrance. Every advance they make in spiritual 
 discernment they apply to this purpose among others, that 
 they may understand more fully the sinfulness of those sins, 
 and exercise for them a less unworthy repentance. But or- 
 dinary ' Evangelicals ' acknowledge no such duty, as humbling 
 themselves before God for their individual sins. They speak 
 indeed sorrowfully of their sinful nature : and they say that 
 the love of God, which arises from pardon received, of itself 
 inspires them with lively grief for having in time past been 
 strangers to His love. But acts of penance and special 
 humiliation they characterise as anti-Christian : so that on the 
 whole they are led rather to pride than humility. For their 
 sinful nature is shared by them with the most holy men that 
 ever lived, and cannot therefore be a very humbling thought; 
 
 f " Nor yet ... is this ' self-righteousness ' greater in him who fasts and prays 
 formally, than in him who lives avowedly to the world ; as will be at once evi- 
 dent, if we consider the sensitiveness to insult, the blindness to good above their own 
 standard, the idolizing of such worldly virtues as they have, whether honesty, or 
 kindness, or honour, which is so plainly visible in irreligious men." ' On Heurtley's 
 Sermons,' p. 440.
 
 224- 
 
 the sinful habit, for which they feel this lively grief, belonged 
 to a state which they consider to have wholly passed away, 
 and cannot therefore be a very humbling thought either; 
 while they rest with satisfaction on the thought of this sorrow 
 for their sin, as being in itself a proof of their present spiritual 
 discernment. 
 
 IV. Next let us compare the respective views of the two 
 religions, on the true type of the Christian character. The 
 most advanced Christian, according to a Catholic's judgment, 
 is he, who feels most deeply that it is his one great duty to 
 be ready at every moment to obey his Lord's bidding. Such 
 an one, therefore, aims unremittingly at bringing all the various 
 affections and propensities of his nature under the full control 
 of his will, in order that the whole man, without delay, 
 without internal discord or rebellion, may be fully prepared, 
 day by day, to follow every call from above. Hence he de- 
 vises ever fresh methods of self-denial, and subjects his lower 
 nature to rules more and more nearly inflexible ; h hence, in 
 part, the unspeakable benefit of monastic and conventual 
 institutions, of holy resolutions, of solemn vows. What 
 would be in general professed by the ' Evangelical' as his 
 ideal of sanctity, it is very difficult to discover : as far as I 
 know their writings, they seem in general very remarkably 
 unwilling to confess that it consists in unreserved submission, 
 in even the smallest particulars, to the will of God ; nay, 
 they seem unconsciously to regard such a view of it (fearful 
 to say) as legal or Jewish. 1 There is perhaps nothing which 
 
 h I mean inflexible, as against the wayward and capricious impulses of the lower 
 nature itself, not as against the dictates of a higher and more immediate duty. 
 In fact, there is a certain formalism in the earlier stages of Christian obedience, 
 which we observe gradually to diminish in those who make real advances in that 
 path ; a formalism displayed in the inability to understand aright what those cases 
 are, in which our positive rules should give way, in order to the more adequate 
 performance of some moral duty. As Christians become more confirmed in well- 
 doing, they are able more certainly to distinguish such instances as these from the 
 very different instances, in which the flesh seizes some pretext of duty with a view 
 to its own gratification ; and thus to act aright on the former, with less fear of con- 
 fusing them with the latter. 
 
 * I am not denying that vihen afflicted by sickness or sorrow, they will acknow- 
 ledge submission to God's will in that respect to be their only wisdom or duty ;
 
 225 
 
 so forcibly brings home to one's mind the close affinity of 
 Lutheranism to Antichrist, 11 as this most truly observable 
 circumstance. If it is possible to analyze their way of looking 
 at things, it would appear that they regard complete inde- 
 pendence of God's will, as worldliness and carnality; complete 
 and (so to speak) abject dependence on it, as superstition, 
 legality, and monkery ; that they consider true Christianity to 
 consist in a certain ' via media,' whereby in very important 
 matters our own will goes spontaneously in the same di- 
 rection with God's will, in other matters we follow our own 
 will without fear or responsibility, but in neither case are 
 called on to submit our own to His. 
 
 Certainly the Protestant religionist bears witness against 
 himself, that he has no sympathy with the view here laid 
 down as Catholic : for when he hears of those who have at 
 various times resorted to such methods of self-discipline as I 
 have specified, he can find no place whatever for them in his 
 theory. He professes to discover, with especial quickness of 
 sight, the snares and temptations involved in worldly engage- 
 ments ; yet what is his comment, when holy men shew their 
 keen and vivid appreciation of the same truths, when such 
 men, still making the world and concourse of men the main 
 sphere of their exertions, take nevertheless the most infal- 
 lible means to escape these temptations, to prevent any worldly 
 affections from encumbering them in their duty of following 
 the Lord's call ; when they break off, accordingly, all worldly 
 ties, and look for rest and comfort only to spiritual exercises 
 and heavenly thoughts; when this takes place, what, I ask, is 
 the Protestant's comment ? It is not that he merely considers 
 such a course mistaken, (which alone indeed would be miserable 
 enough,) but that he can literally give no explanation of a be- 
 haviour which appears to him so alien to all true religion, ex- 
 cept by referring it to ' self-righteousness,' and to pharisaical 
 confidence in the merits of their own works. Nothing in- 
 
 but I deny that, speaking of them as a class, they receive the general principle, 
 that in all cases this slavish subjection of the will to God, is that in which alone 
 true holiness essentially consists. 
 k ' av^af,' 2 Thess. 
 
 Q
 
 226 
 
 deed, (not to speak here of the extreme moral sinfulness of 
 such an opinion,) nothing can be more extravagant intellec- 
 tually than this account of the case : for there is no one fact 
 to which history bears a more undeviating witness, than to 
 the unparalleled humility of such holy men ; their most 
 painful and ever-increasing sense of their own miserable short- 
 comings and imperfections ; their undivided trust for salva- 
 tion in Christ's Atonement. 
 
 And as to ' self-righteousness,' under which system are 
 we ordinary men most exposed to its inroads ? Under the 
 one, we look up to these exalted specimens of our common 
 nature with the most unbounded reverence and love ; we 
 regard them as called to a life far higher than we have had 
 the heart to pursue : we dwell on the thought of them as a 
 continual memento of our own sinfulness, and a continual in- 
 centive to our own exertion. Under the other system, should 
 our conscience be for a moment aroused and alarmed by the 
 view or thought of these eminent servants of God, of their 
 unwearied labours in Christ's cause, their independence of 
 earthly comforts, their single-minded regard of heavenly 
 things, their patience, humility, zeal, and devotedness, it will 
 be immediately lulled again by the pleasing opiate of our 
 Lutheran profession. We shall remind ourselves, that for 
 all this these men are strangers to the true Gospel, and on 
 their way to eternal condemnation ; while we, who avoid this 
 unchristian excess of self-sacrifice, who shew our knowledge 
 of the true Gospel by our ungrudging enjoyment of all the 
 various earthly blessings offered by our lot in life, and guard 
 against all danger of self-righteousness by recoiling with horror 
 from all voluntary self-denial, that we may continue the same 
 way of life in tranquillity of mind, enjoying our heaven-sent 
 confidence in the certainty of our salvation. So long as pride 
 and sloth are among the most dangerous and besetting sins 
 of our nature, and Satan retains his subtlety in the mode of 
 addressing himself to that nature, which system appears 
 most to deserve the name of ' Satanical,' 1 that or this ? m 
 
 1 Bishop of Chester's Charge. 
 
 * The following, though not a very strong, is an amusing instance of the
 
 227 
 
 V. This leads naturally to a further observation ; viz. in 
 how small a degree real sanctity, in any shape, is appreciated 
 
 readiness with which the argument from practical fruits is put aside by ' evan- 
 gelicals,' when it seems to tell against themselves ; though none are so ready to 
 adopt it in their own defence. I frankly acknowledge, indeed, that I very much 
 deprecate the answer usually given by ' high-churchmen' to such appeals, as if 
 they were almost beside the true question ; whereas ' by their fruits ye shall 
 know them,' is the very direction given by our Lord Himself for the discernment of 
 truth from falsehood. The extract is from the ' Churchman's Monthly Review ' 
 for June, 1841, (pp. 350 4,) and the article begins by making a most creditable 
 and honest confession of an existing evil among ' evangelicals.' The writer, 
 having quoted from the British Critic a satirical description of an ' evangelical ' 
 clergyman, proceeds to say, ' It would be self-delusion to set the whole down as 
 a fiction, a mere calumny. . . . The lovers of Evangelical truth have been re- 
 joicing of late years perhaps too hastily and unthinkingly in the rapid progress 
 of their views almost universally has the inevitable danger been over- 
 looked, that as evangelical religion became more popular and more fashionable, 
 it might become in its turn more pliable and more accommodating. The world 
 could not quietly come into the Church without bringing a mass of worldly prin- 
 ciples and maxims along with it.' Not very far after this most honourable 
 avowal, the writer proceeds : ' We were much struck the other day with the 
 description given of a continental Romish priest, by one who had escaped the 
 snares of that apostate Church. He spoke with no fondness of the communion 
 he had left, when he said, " The priest of my parish was most laborious, most 
 charitable, most devoted. If he had twenty sick persons on his list, he would 
 allow no day to pass without seeing every one of tJiem. And I have known him 
 not unfrequently part with every thing lie Jiad in tfte world, except the mere 
 clothes he wore, in ministering to their necessities.' These ministers of Rome 
 are multiplying in England. Many of them are monks vowed to poverty. 
 Against such an one, if really enthusiastic, devoted, and laborious, what kind of 
 contest can be maintained by the ' flash evangelical young clergyman ' described 
 by the British Critic ? In estimating the powers of the opposing prin- 
 ciples, there is one thing which we ought never to forget ; and that is, that 
 while false principles generally act with their full force, the truth always acts 
 with diminished force. . . . Let a man lacerate his body, like the flagellants in 
 the Church of Rome, or like some recent followers in fasting, 'bodily exercise,' 
 &c. at Oxford ; and let him expect by these austerities to gain the favour of God 
 and a place in heaven to such attempts Satan will offer no opposition. He 
 will rather encourage such a worshipper in his mistaken course ; knowing that 
 Christ is the only Way to the favour of God ; and that all other ways, however 
 holy or meritorious they may appear, in reality tend from heaven and holiness 
 
 and not to them The Romish devotee, believing that his labours and his 
 
 self-denial are working out his salvation, and being left by the Tempter in this 
 his fatal error, swims with the stream of natural corruption, and is aided by 
 Satan's flatteries and counsels. The believer in the Gospel, on the other hand, 
 knowing that a man is not saved by the works of the Law, and shunning there- 
 fore all rel iance on his own doings, is immediately beset by the temptation to do 
 
 Q 2
 
 228 
 
 by the common run of ' Evangelicals.' The religious Catho- 
 lic, while he enjoys a deep peace of mind unknown to the 
 disciple of any other religion, obtains this on the very tenure 
 of renouncing all carnal security : just as part of the very ha- 
 bitual frame of mind, which insures that peace, is a conscious- 
 ness that it may be his duty at any moment to follow some 
 new call of God : so part of it also is a consciousness that at 
 any moment he may be called to realise, in an increased de- 
 gree, some practical virtue. In all the circumstances then of 
 daily life, he is eager and forward to discern the indications 
 they may convey to him of God's will : and in like manner, on 
 all his fellow-men, who may be brought before his notice, he 
 fixes what we may call an earnest and loving attention, in the 
 hope that he may perhaps learn from each some new feature 
 of the Christian character which he has not yet considered 
 with sufficient distinctness, or at least obtain a warning and 
 incentive for the more faithful performance of those duties 
 which he has habitually recognised. Thus it is that he avoids 
 any thing ' one-sided or disproportioned in his own religious 
 development,' and obtains that inestimably precious gift, a 
 quick and true perception of the good qualities of others. 
 Thus also it is, that should he be habitually in the company 
 of eminently holy men, his contemplation of their character 
 grows daily in interest and intensity ; and he learns to ap- 
 preciate, beyond the possibility of all mistake, and with 
 ever-diminishing inadequacy of comprehension, its depth, 
 consistency, unearthliness. But the ' Evangelical ' dwells for 
 assurance of his salvation, on a mere inward feeling of con- 
 nothing to look upon his salvation as already secured, and thence to relax in 
 any exertions, either for his own growth in grace or for the good of others. The 
 corruptions of human nature and the arts of the Tempter thus help forward the de- 
 votees of a false religion ; while they retard, by every possible means, the pro- 
 gress of one who is in the right way." In other words any sanctity visible in 
 one, who anathematizes with abhorrence the Lutheran formula in its natural 
 sense, may be safely ascribed to diabolical agency. I should be very sorry not 
 to do justice to the great candour implied in acknowledging so much as is acknow- 
 ledged in this article, of the present tendency of some among the ' evangelicals ' to 
 unholiness and laxity ; but it is evident that such a view of the case as is here 
 stated, so long as it lasts, must steel the writer's conscience against all appeals 
 founded on the visible fruits of the Holy Spirit.
 
 fidence, which he considers himself to recognise infallibly as 
 existing in his soul : and so far therefore from improving his 
 own most narrow and partial idea of the Christian character 
 by his observation of external models, he is tempted more 
 and more to measure and judge of them by reference to his 
 own dwarfish and disproportioned standard. As though 
 * sitting in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is 
 God,' he is tempted more and more to make himself the 
 measure and rule of holiness, whereas God alone is such ; and 
 to sit, as it were, apart from the vulgar herd, in judgment on 
 the various classes of men who are brought under his notice. 
 One is daily receiving some new surprise, and I have often 
 heard the observation from others, in seeing how little ap- 
 preciation of real sanctity is displayed by ' Evangelicals,' and 
 how indescribably low and paltry are the temptations, which 
 they consider unconquerable even by Christian grace ; nor 
 is it at all matter of wonder, that some of them go on even to 
 deny in terms the Pentecostal Gift, and to speak as though 
 internal righteousness were some mere figment or delusion. 
 
 VI. Closely connected with this habit of mind is the 
 ' Evangelical ' rule of faith. More than once indeed in the 
 British Critic I have fully acknowledged, how much higher 
 both morally and intellectually is their doctrine on this funda- 
 mental question, than that adopted whether by Archbishop 
 Whately and his school, or else by ordinary English * high- 
 churchmen.' For both these latter classes undisguisedly 
 refer the Christian, as the ground of his belief in all that 
 most deeply and intimately concerns his eternal welfare, to 
 a methodical exercise of the intellect, to a conscious and 
 deliberate examination: to considerations therefore, which 
 are wholly inaccessible to the chosen objects of God's love, 
 the poor ; and which are appreciable in proportion not to 
 our moral, but our intellectual attainment. They openly 
 and undisguisedly bid us derive our knowledge of Christian 
 truth from a critical interpretation of the Sacred Volume, 
 or a careful and discriminating study of the Fathers of the 
 Church. It is hardly possible to use language too strong 
 
 It is desirable to lose no opportunity of impressing on our minds, how utterly
 
 230 
 
 in expressing one's hatred of such carnal and worldly-wise 
 views ; which, except for our inveterate prepossessions, must 
 carry with them, one would think, their own condemnation 
 in the eyes of all serious and religious men. Still the ' Evan- 
 gelical rule of faith, though far removed from such lament- 
 able rationalism, has its own tendency to ill effects of no 
 ordinary magnitude, and contributes in no slight degree to 
 that habit of self-deification specified in the last paragraph. 
 The belief that individual study of the Bible, with prayer, 
 will lead by Divine promise to Christian truth, considering 
 the peculiar structure of the Sacred Volume, which is so 
 very far indeed from forcing its true meaning on those who 
 may be unprepared or unwilling to receive it, this belief 
 seems a certain method of still further obstructing the ave- 
 nues, by which new religious truths might otherwise find ac- 
 cess to the mind. Here, as in the former instance, if such 
 views be admitted, the whole company of believers become, if 
 I may use such a phrase, so many independent centres of 
 truth, when they should be rather distinct atoms tending by 
 the force of gravitation to the One Only Centre. For we find 
 by experience, as might have been safely predicted a priori, 
 that the vast majority of ' Bible Christians,' day after day, 
 rise from the perusal of their chapter of the Sacred Volume, 
 holding the very same religious sentiments with which they 
 began it; we find them reaping no other doctrinal fruit from 
 its habitual study tht.n this, that opinions which are in 
 
 untenable intellectually (over rnd above its moral odiousness) is this last strange 
 and extravagant theory. ' If any one has preserved up to this period a floating 
 idea, that personal study of the Fathers is capable of becoming an available 
 rule of faith to the private Christian, by which he can test the formularies of 
 his own Church, or criticise those of other Churches, this volume and these 
 notes (Mr. Newman's edition of St. Athanasius's Doctrinal Treatises) must, 
 we imagine, undeceive him. To think of an ordinary person having to examine 
 for himself the question, how far St. Athanasius's doctrine agrees with St. Hilary's 
 and St. Basil's, and how far it is the legitimate development of Ante-Nicene 
 statements, (in many particulars so different) ; and on what principle the va- 
 rious Eastern councils were not ecumenical and authoritative between the Xicene 
 and the Constantinopolitan, but these were : and how far St. Athanasius's 
 severe language towards the Arians was from the accident of his position and the 
 habit of his time, or how far it claims our deference, &C., &c.' (' On St Athana- 
 sius,' p. 412, note.)
 
 231 
 
 reality the offspring of their education or other preconceived 
 bias, obtain an adventitious sanctity and importance in 
 their minds, as being supposed to flow directly from the 
 Word of God, brought home to their souls by His promised 
 blessing. 
 
 And the probability of this will be still more plainly seen, 
 when we consider what I myself most undoubtedly believe 
 to be the method really appointed by God, for discerning in 
 the Bible the principal doctrines, which, by His Providence, 
 it contains. No single man, (I would most earnestly main- 
 tain,) however wise, however intellectually gifted, however 
 religious, can really, even in a tolerable degree, understand 
 the text of Scripture, so far as to obtain from it its very 
 choicest and most valuable treasures ; none can ' penetrate, 
 and as it w r ere become diffused throughout the recesses of 
 God's Word, so as to apprehend the whole counsel of God 
 contained in it, unless it be the whole Church, the temple of 
 that Spirit " Who searcheth all things, yea, the deep things 
 of God :" ' nor have ecclesiastical statements and decisions 
 on the subject, weight, or authority, except as the formal 
 expressions and results of this collective contemplation. Ac- 
 cording to that divine scheme, which we in England through 
 our fathers' sins have for the present forfeited, one and 
 the same doctrine in essentials was to be taught by an ex- 
 ternal living authority to all members of the Church ; and 
 in proportion as an individual Christian should receive and 
 act upon this doctrine, in connection with a generally strict 
 and blameless life, and should study with humble reverence 
 the text of Scripture, he would obtain a conviction of their 
 absolute harmony and agreement, incomparably deeper than 
 could be gathered by any collation of texts, and most utterly 
 beyond the power of external arguments in the opposite 
 direction. Hence it follows, that in our own degraded con- 
 dition, our best chance of discerning the precious and won- 
 derful truths, stored up within the bosom of Scripture, will 
 be not the isolated and unbiassed study of its pages, but the 
 very contrary ; to preserve watchfully and realise laboriously 
 
 ' On Arnold's Sermons,' p. 325.
 
 232 
 
 the doctrines we have already learned, to look out with 
 wistful and anxious eyes for an external guide, and to put 
 ourselves, as far as possible, in communion with the thoughts 
 and feelings of holy men throughout the Christian world. 
 It would not be necessary, on any other subject or with any 
 other opponents, to state explicitly that I am not for a 
 moment impugning the great and important doctrine, that 
 the Holy Spirit Alone teaches Christian truth, but only 
 speaking of the means whereby He teaches it." p 
 
 VII. Another observation naturally follows in this place, 
 which may be expressed in words I have used in the British 
 Critic. ' So long as [the Lutheran] system had undivided 
 sway in the religious world, so long as those who aimed at 
 something higher than the mere careless performance of 
 outward and social duties, who thirsted for a life of more 
 extended prayer and more spiritual contemplation, so long as 
 these, speaking generally, acquiesced almost as a matter of 
 course in this scheme of religion, doctrinal discussion was of 
 little importance. . . [The disciples of this system] fix their 
 spiritual gaze not on him ivho is without them, but on the 
 supposed marks of His presence within them : on those sup- 
 posed proofs of a renewed heart, which satisfied them both of 
 the soundness of their creed and the sufficient rectitude of 
 their conduct.' q Hence not only is their apprehension so 
 vague, fluctuating, and unstable of other doctrines, whether 
 belonging to natural or to the Christian religion, but even (a 
 greater matter of surprise) so comparatively little of attach- 
 ment to the person of our Lord, or to the thought of His 
 sufferings, is generally found in their writings ; though from 
 their professions, indeed, one might suppose that they 
 engrossed all such feelings to themselves, and that Catholics 
 have no heart, save for outward ceremonies or the worship of 
 Saints. But 'let us consider how certain a fact it is in 
 
 P For a fuller account of the mode in which, as appears to me, Holy Scrip- 
 ture may be expected under our present circumstances to lead forward rightly 
 disposed Christians towards a reception of the full truth, I may be allowed to 
 refer to the article, ' On Whately's Essays,' pp 286, and ' On Goode,' pp. 54 
 58. 
 
 > 'On St. Athanasius,' p. 391.
 
 233 
 
 human nature, that love for an individual displays itself in an 
 anxious and eager earnestness of curiosity about all his ways 
 and actions ; we love to hear and dwell upon the thought 
 of his words, his deeds, his very gestures ; we have a relative 
 and subordinate love to all which has come closely into con- 
 tact with him. He then, who really loves his Lord, will be 
 expected to make the Four Gospels his principal study and 
 delight ; to have engraven on his heart even the little 
 peculiarities (if it be right so to speak) and the minute 
 subordinate circumstances, but much more the general tone 
 and bearing, of His manner of life on earth. Now it forcibly 
 illustrates the substantial truth of the accusation so often 
 brought against the ' Evangelicals,' that it is not Christ 
 whom they love and worship, but the supposed signs of love 
 for Him which they try to recognise within them, when we 
 observe how little is the picture [I] just now drew a true 
 image of their habit of mind. It is not where Christ is 
 mentioned in Scripture, but where faith is mentioned, that 
 they are active and awake and dwell with interest on the 
 inspired page ; it is not He whom they profess to love, but 
 the (supposed) absence of self-righteousness, which would 
 appear (as far as outward signs can shew) to engross their 
 regard and affection.' To what single work can they point, 
 written by one of their number, which exhibits, within any 
 assignable degree of approximation, such loving and reverent 
 contemplation of the details of our Lord's life and passion, as 
 is seen in multitudes of Catholic Works, like Father 
 Thomas's ' Sufferings of Christ,' St. Alphonsus's ' L' Amour 
 des Ames,' St. Bonaventure's * Life of Christ,' St. Ignatius's 
 ' Spiritual Exercises,' &c., &c. ? l True love forgets self in 
 the thought of the object ; they forget the Object in the 
 thought of self. And as to the other mark of which [I] 
 spoke, the love, from thought of Him, of all which has come 
 near Him, so far are they from even professing a tender 
 reverence for her, in whose bosom He lay, to whom He 
 approached with such -ineffable proximity, that they even 
 (O shocking thought !) denounce such reverence as Anti- 
 christian.
 
 234 
 
 " Think too, as a further instance of this lack of sensitive- 
 ness for his honour, that the writer who by common consent 
 is accounted the most orthodox of living Dissenters, and who 
 certainly at one time enjoyed a very high reputation within 
 the English Church, has been found to sanction and praise 
 the [language r ] of Mr. Abbot, who in speaking of him, says 
 that " the spectacle of this deserted and defenceless sufferer, 
 far exceeds that of Napoleon, or even that of Regulus," and 
 that from " delicacy he refrained from speaking of (His 
 death) to those who were to reap its fruits." And a divine 
 enjoying no less degree of respect and confidence in the 
 * orthodox Protestant' world than Dr. Chalmers (as indeed 
 who can speak of him without true respect ?) has been 
 found 3 .... to realize so little who it was that lived on 
 earth and died on the Cross for us men, as to call it a proud 
 thing for the religion He died to found, that it was embraced 
 by Sir Isaac Newton.' 1 
 
 In these passages, I have spoken as though this exceeding 
 blindness to religious truths were altogether the immediate 
 result of their habit of unhealthy self-inspection : whereas it 
 partly results from an intermediate result of the same habit ; 
 I mean from their great deficiency, to which I have so often 
 adverted, in moral and religious discipline. For it is a truth 
 of natural religion, that only in proportion to our attain- 
 ments in holy obedience, can we receive into our minds any 
 just and accurate representation of spiritual realities ; and 
 hence those who are not really zealous and careful in aiming, 
 by all practicable means, at this obedience, live in the dim 
 twilight caused by a most inadequate refraction of Gospel 
 rays, when they might otherwise enjoy the full effulgence 
 of their blaze. 
 
 It may be as well here to allude to another instance, which 
 
 r I have omitted here a harsh expression ; nor can I mention Mr. Abbott's 
 works at all in terms of reprobation, without alluding to that interesting letter, 
 sent by Mr. Newman to the ' English Churchman,' on the subject of his visit to 
 Littlemore. I trust he would not be pained by the tone of my remarks as they 
 now stand. 
 
 See British Critic for July, 1839, p. 244. 
 
 * ' On Goode,' pp. 79, 80.
 
 235 
 
 has often of late been the subject of comment, in which 
 ' Evangelicals' practically deny this essential truth. They 
 consider, namely, that men plunged in wilful and habitual 
 wickedness will be able at once to receive so deep and 
 sufficient a knowledge of our Blessed Lord's Atonement, 
 that the thought of it will excite in their minds the same 
 horror of sin and perception of its hatefulness, which that 
 thought does excite in Christians of practised holiness ; nay, 
 that it will be a fully sufficient motive, to sustain them in 
 life-long faithfulness to God. And I have one reason among 
 others for mentioning this, that I may draw a broad line of 
 distinction between this manifestation of their heresy, and 
 a practice very common among Roman Catholics of the 
 present day, which has been confused with it by revered 
 members of our own Church. This is not the place to 
 discuss the reasons which made the ' disciplina arcani ' of 
 such exceeding importance in the early ages : but whatever 
 may have been the reason, I would most earnestly submit 
 that a certain principle was not the reason, or any part of it ; 
 I mean the principle, that the doctrine of the Atonement 
 is not a most perfectly fit topic to urge, along with others, 
 in endeavouring to rouse sinners from their fatal lethargy. 
 I see no principle on which it can possibly be maintained, (it 
 was part of Luther s system indeed to maintain it,) that the 
 promises as well as threats of the Gospel should not be most 
 fully urged on such unhappy persons ; and I believe that in 
 very many cases affectionate or high thoughts, which may 
 have been slumbering within their breast overlaid with evil 
 habits and carnal tendencies, have been called into active and 
 intense energy, by the wonder of Redeeming Mercy ; when it 
 has been set before them most lovingly and tenderly, by 
 devoted servants of Christ, and received by them even in 
 such utterly inadequate and disproportioned measure, as 
 that in which they are capable of receiving it. The real dis- 
 tinction between Catholic and 'Evangelical' principles appears 
 at the next stage : for the ' Evangelical ' supposes that when 
 the sinner's heart has been reached by such appeals, his 
 continuance in holiness and final salvation are irreversibly
 
 236 
 
 assured ; while the Catholic, on the contrary, regards this as 
 no more than the first beginning of that arduous and all- 
 important conflict, which is to be henceforward the great 
 business of his life, and on the issue of which depends his 
 final destiny. Accordingly, the object to which Catholic 
 preachers at once apply this newly awakened fervour, is to 
 lead the disciple into preparing himself diligently for a 
 general confession. Thus the fundamental necessity of 
 moral discipline is at once brought before his mind; and 
 after such light and almost nominal penance as the infancy of 
 his Christian habits will enable him to bear, he is then led, if 
 possible, into a short spiritual retreat, in order that the 
 great truths of death, judgment, heaven, and hell, may 
 be impressed on his conscience and' imagination, before he 
 returns to the troubles and temptations of the world. Such 
 seems the fit application, under present circumstances, of 
 the important principle we have been discussing ; but a per- 
 version, rather than fit application, would be a one-sided 
 inculcation of the severe doctrines of the Gospel on the 
 worldly and irreligious : an inculcation, which in many cases 
 might terrify and overpower them, and even quench some 
 faint stirrings of God's grace leading them to repentance. 
 
 VIII. Here may be fitly introduced a description, which 
 applies to many ' Evangelicals ' within the Establishment, 
 not less truly than to Dissenters without it. 
 
 ' Indeed so natural is the connection between a reverential spirit 
 in worshipping God, and faith in God, that the wonder only is how 
 any one can for a moment imagine he has faith in God, and yet 
 allow himself to be irreverent towards Him. To believe in God, is 
 to believe the being and presence of One who is All holy, and All 
 powerful, and All gracious ; how can a man really believe this of 
 Him, and yet make free with Him ? it is almost a contradiction in 
 terms. Hence even heathen religions have ever considered faith 
 and reverence identical. To believe, and not to revere, to worship 
 familiarly and at one's ease, is an anomaly and a prodigy unknown 
 even to false religions, to say nothing of the true one. Not only 
 the Jewish and Christian religions, which are directly from God, 
 inculcate the spirit of " reverence and godly fear," but those other
 
 237 
 
 religions which have existed, or exist, whether in the East or the 
 South, inculcate the same. Worship, forms of worship, such as 
 bowing the knee, taking off the shoes, keeping silence, a prescribed 
 dress, and the like, are considered as necessary for a due approach 
 to God. The whole world, differing about so many things, differing 
 in creed and rule of life, yet agree in this, that God being our 
 Creator, a certain self-abasement of the whole man is the duty of 
 the creature ; that He is in heaven, we upon earth ; that He is All- 
 glorious, and we worms of the earth and insects of a day. 
 
 But [some among us] have in this respect fallen into greater than 
 pagan error. They may be said to form an exception to the con- 
 cordant voice of a whole world, always and every where ; they 
 break in upon the unanimous suffrage of mankind, and determine, at 
 least by their conduct, that reverence and awe are not primary 
 religious duties. They have considered that in some way or other, 
 either by God's favour or by their own illumination, they are brought 
 so near to God that they have no need to fear at all, or to put any 
 restraint upon their words or thoughts, when addressing Him. 
 They have considered awe to be superstition, and reverence to be 
 slavery. They have learnt to be familiar and free with sacred 
 things, as it were on principle. I think this is really borne out by 
 facts, and will approve itself to inquirers as true in substance, how- 
 ever one man will differ from another in the words in which he would 
 express the fact itself.'" 
 
 IX. The respective peculiarities of character exhibited by 
 * Evangelicals ' which I have already mentioned, all tend in 
 various degrees to spiritual pride, or, to use their own ex- 
 pression, ' self-righteousness ;' a temper of mind which appears 
 to me generally characteristic of ' Evangelicals ' in the present 
 day (with whatever honourable exceptions) far more than of 
 any other part of the religious community. To sum up then 
 what has been said merely in this point of view, their system 
 tends to Pharisaical and complacent self-exaltation, 1. as en- 
 couraging self-ignorance; 2. as providing no sufficient in- 
 centive to self-restraint and government of the thoughts, and 
 so a sustained contest against the insidious and most subtle 
 advances of this sin of pride ; 3. as not inculcating special 
 remembrance, one by one, of past sins, an ever-increasing 
 humiliation of heart and prostration of soul before God, and 
 u Plain Sermons, vol. v. pp. 169, 70.
 
 earnest cries to Him for mercy, caused by that remembrance ; 
 4. as tending most materially to diminish, or even destroy 
 that reverence for an austere and mortified life in others, 
 which is so great a security for personal humility in our- 
 selves ; 5. as fostering self-satisfaction in that it blinds its 
 adherents to the piety of all those whose mind is cast in 
 a different mould from their own ; 6. as inflating them with 
 an idea of their own spiritual knowledge, in that it permits 
 them unmolested to mistake their own prejudices for Scrip- 
 ture doctrines, and conceals from their view truths which are 
 most certainly in the Bible, and may be most distinctly and 
 undoubtedly there discerned by those who study it in the 
 right method ; 7. as depriving them of what would be so 
 peculiarly efficacious in inspiring lowly thoughts of tuem- 
 s elves, the real and unfeigned contemplation of the awful 
 truths of natural religion, and of the still more sublime 
 verities which the Gospel discloses ; and 8. as taking from 
 them that safeguard for humility, which would be afforded 
 by a spirit of reverence and self-abasement in contemplating 
 and addressing Almighty God. And I now add, 9thly, that 
 their very cardinal doctrine, their belief in justification by 
 a personal inward feeling, connected with no habitual self- 
 examination, nor carefully confronted with the whole circle 
 of external duties, this belief in itself and by itself, tends 
 mos powerfully and unceasingly to the same result, to en- 
 graving day by day on the heart, with ever increasing dis_ 
 tinctness, the Pharisee's sentiment, ' Lord, I thank Thee, that 
 I am not as other men.' 
 
 In order that we may judge more fairly how far experience 
 confirms this observation, it may be useful to observe, that a 
 quickness to take offence, the habit of actively resenting or 
 else angrily brooding over real or imaginary slights and in- 
 juries, these are among the most infallible marks of a proud 
 and unhumbled spirit. On the contrary, to carry out gladly 
 and rejoicingly the full spirit of our Blessed Lord's precept, 
 " whoever shall smite thee on the right cheek, turn to him 
 the other also ;" to receive the most galling and contemptuous 
 treatment as infinitely less than the just due of their sins ; 
 and thus to derive even the highest joy and gratification from
 
 239 
 
 such treatment ; this will be the demeanour of Christians, in 
 proportion as they are really humble. And though Protest- 
 ants have from time to time exhibited in their measure such 
 a temper of mind, I know no class of Christians whatever 
 where this temper shines forth in its full Christian perfection, 
 or of whom it can be considered as among the most prominent 
 characteristics, except the Saints of the Church Catholic. 
 Nor do the general run of Protestants leave us to derive 
 our knowledge of their sentiments on the subject from mere 
 argument or observation ; they are loud and earnest in con- 
 temning or denouncing all especial exhibitions of this part of 
 the saintly mind, as the results of formalism, or superstition, 
 or mental imbecility. The very idea of what Christian humi- 
 lity is, must be far from the mind of those, who allow them- 
 selves in language such as this. 
 
 X. It must not be supposed, because I have just spoken of 
 those defects in the ' Evangelical' character already specified, 
 in the particular point of view of ministering to pride, that 
 I forget the evil influence which they exert in numberless 
 other directions also ; an evil influence, frequently of a very 
 extreme character. They all seem very remarkably to foster 
 pride, but they have many other miserable results too, and 
 in those which remain to be mentioned, that individual evil 
 seems to me by no means so prominent as in those which have 
 gone before. The next particular I shall mention, is the 
 tendency of these principles to a certain indescribable and 
 most repulsive formalism, which results of necessity from the 
 empty, unreal, shadowy, delusive nature of the whole theo- 
 logy in question. To believe that all who really entertain a 
 confident expectation of salvation are warranted in this ex- 
 pectation, is a sentiment from which, honourably to them- 
 selves, the conscience of ' Evangelicals' recoils : on the other 
 hand, to hold that by means of habitual self-discipline a hope 
 of salvation may be indulged, continually better grounded 
 and more assured, never however, except in most extraor- 
 dinary cases, amounting to a certain promise, to hold this 
 would be to overthrow their whole structure of doctrine from 
 its very foundation. In this dilemma then, having no really 
 spiritual basis on which to rest, refusing to adopt that
 
 240 
 
 test of holiness which Catholic doctrine would supply, and 
 which I have already mentioned, they are obliged to take as 
 their test some more external form, either necessarily uncon- 
 nected, or not at all necessarily connected, with the inward 
 life of the soul. 
 
 Of the former kind is the use of certain (as we may most 
 truly call them) l cant" 1 terms and phrases; the fluent and fami- 
 liar enunciation of which, seems considered by multitudes an 
 almost unfailing note of spirituality, and the absence of which 
 is taken as a quite unfailing note of worldliness. True it is, no 
 doubt, that w r hereas religious Catholics have impressed on their 
 moral perception various most definite, most important, most 
 individually distinguishable, ideas, during the course of Church 
 History technical terms have been invented to express those 
 ideas. Such terms too it is of the very utmost importance 
 to appropriate most scrupulously to the particular object 
 for which they were devised, else well-instructed Catholics 
 must be indefinitely baffled and perplexed, and the less- 
 instructed could be hardly guided into the true reception of 
 these ideas themselves. But though technical terms are 
 always confined to particular ideas, these ideas on the con- 
 trary are also expressed in every variety of wwtechnical 
 terms. St. Athanasius, (to take an extreme case,) the pro- 
 verbial champion of strict orthodoxy, hardly uses in his works, 
 so we are told by learned men, that very word 6 ( aooy<r<ov, 
 which was the technical term then in dispute ; and nothing is 
 more common than to read Catholic books, in which the deep 
 orthodoxy of the writer appears in every page, but into 
 which no terms whatever of the kind have found their way. 
 On the other hand, the ' Evangelical,' using his technical 
 terms r not to express already existing ideas, but to conceal 
 from others and from himself the absence of all such, is full 
 of trouble and dismay at the slightest variation from the 
 established formula. The Catholic, as being sure of his 
 ground, conscious of his position and of his doctrines, expa- 
 tiates throughout all the range of ordinary language, adopting 
 now this expression now that, as best may suit his momentary 
 purpose ; but the * Evangelical,' should you omit one single 
 phrase on some occasion which, according to their strange
 
 241 
 
 and pedantic etiquette, is considered to require its use, has 
 no means left whereby to judge the soundness of your belief; 
 for he has no idea to fall back upon. No ! no one substantive 
 idea is in his mind, distinguishing him from the orthodox, but 
 only a confused medley of conflicting and inconsistent ideas, 
 drawing him one this way one that; some leading in all 
 consistency to sanctity in the fullest sense, some leading in 
 all consistency to wickedness of the deepest dye. He has no 
 idea then which he can recognise as his characteristic mark ; 
 and so is obliged to constitute as such, the stiff stereotyped 
 adoption of certain strange and uncouth expressions. 
 
 Belonging to the latter class of forms I specified, are 
 exercises, worthy of all honour in themselves, but which 
 sometimes become snares to the soul rather than means of 
 grace, when an external compliance with them is made the 
 sufficient passport to Christian brotherhood. The principal 
 of these is the strict observance of Sunday ; an observance 
 of which I would not for the whole world speak disparagingly, 
 and which, I cannot doubt, has been blessed as a means of 
 grace to thousands, and has rescued them from much of the 
 pernicious consequences flowing from their religious views. 
 It is very plain, however, that men of the most unsanctified 
 hearts, of the most worldly and carnal affections, will readily 
 compound, by a scrupulous performance of ceremonial duties 
 (such as going to Church and reading at home none but 
 religious books) on one day of the week, for the free and 
 unbridled exercise of their thoughts during the other six. 
 While on the contrary those who during the week have been 
 engaged, not merely in their worldly occupations, but in an 
 incessant struggle against the temptations, whether in a more 
 open or more subtle shape, which encounter them amidst 
 those occupations, require on their day of rest much more of 
 actual relaxation and refreshment than would otherwise be 
 needful : a circumstance this last, which on every account 
 deserves especial notice. 
 
 That ' self-righteousness' and ' formalism,' the very charges 
 which religionists of the day are so fond of bringing against 
 Catholics, should in so remarkable a manner recoil on them-
 
 242 
 
 selves, is merely one instance of what seems a certain inherent 
 fatality. Thus, as has been often enough said, no sect is so 
 superstitiously formal, as the Quakers who boast of rejecting 
 forms ; few so unreasonable, as the Rationalists who profess 
 to go by reason ; none (says Mr. John Mill) are so incom- 
 petent judges of history, as those who think to build political 
 science on history ; none argue themselves so weakly, as those 
 who accuse Catholics of arguing weakly ; none most certainly 
 are so shallow intellectually, as those who dream of sup- 
 porting religious conviction on an intellectual basis. 
 
 XI. Again, an evil of which I spoke several pages back as 
 necessarily resulting from the abstract tenet of Lutheranism, 
 flows from it, in no small degree, as found existing in real 
 life. ' Evangelicals' have, I should say in general, very far 
 from an adequate impression, how deeply important is the 
 early training of their children in habits of obedience." 
 Some I know, perhaps many, consider all punishment as 
 wrong, and supply its place by prayer in their closet for the 
 child's conversion. This arises probably from an idea that 
 fear is no really Christian motive ; but it will not be con- 
 sidered necessary, I suppose, by any of my readers, that I 
 should trace in detail the most pernicious consequences that 
 must flow from such a course. 
 
 A further observation here suggests itself, bearing however 
 on the effects of * Evangelical' principles on others rather 
 than on their upholders. The ordinary language used by 
 these religionists, as to the necessity of passing through a 
 stage of doubt and alarm into a state of unclouded peace, 
 this language so unreal, so technical, so contradictory to all 
 genuine experience, must most seriously impair, in many 
 cas.es even destroy, the influence over the youthful mind 
 which religious precepts might otherwise attain. I know 
 myself a young man of extreme seriousness and strictness of 
 
 u Mr. Burns has published a beautiful little tale called ' Little Alice and her 
 Sister,' which impresses on the mind true ideas on this most deeply important 
 subject, more successfully than any other I have happened to see ; though I dare 
 say, if I were well acquainted with his series, others also would be found equally 
 excellent. There could hardly be, I should think, a more useful present to a child 
 than this little tale.
 
 life, who on reading Doddridge's ' Rise and Progress of 
 Religion,' (a work in many respects so beautiful and so 
 instructive,) was perfectly bewildered and amazed by meeting 
 with a sentiment of the kind. It is impossible indeed to 
 conceive the degree in which the young may be perplexed 
 and confused by such statements ; nay, the more sensitive 
 may be brought by it almost to utter despair and recklessness 
 of living. 
 
 XII. Lastly, it is involved in the ' Evangelical ' theory, that 
 the misery of man in his natural state consists, not in the 
 sense of sin, but in the fear of punishment. This, I say, 
 is involved in the * Evangelical ' theory ; because while on 
 the one hand it is acknowledged by all that it is the very 
 object of the Gospel to relieve this misery, 'Evangelicals' 
 proclaim that a knowledge of our personal pardon is the 
 great Gospel gift, and denounce Catholics for considering 
 inherent righteousness to be such. Peace of mind, say they, 
 follows on an assurance of certain salvation, even before 
 sanctification has begun ; it cannot exist without that as- 
 surance, though an inward gift of sanctity be poured into 
 the soul. It is difficult to conceive any principle more 
 contrary to all experience, and more disparaging to the attri- 
 butes of God : certainly the latter, for the universal recon- 
 cilement of happiness with holiness may be taken as the 
 elementary truth of natural religion ; and certainly the 
 former, for it is even proverbial that sin and sorrow are 
 indissolubly connected, that our evil passions are our 
 worst and most deadly enemies. " The happiness of the 
 soul consists in the exercise of the affections : . . . this is our 
 real and true bliss, not to know, or to effect, or to pursue ; 
 but to love, to hope, to joy, to admire, to revere, to adore. 
 Our real and true bliss lies in the possession of those objects 
 on which our hearts may rest and be satisfied. .... The 
 thought of God, and nothing short of it, is the happiness of 
 man ; for though there is much besides to serve as subject 
 of knowledge, or motive for action, or instrument of excite- 
 ment, yet the affections require a something more vast and 
 more enduring than anything created. ... If we are allowed 
 
 R 2
 
 244 
 
 to find that real and most sacred Object on which our heart 
 may fix itself, a fulness ' of peace will follow, which nothing 
 but it can give. In proportion as we have given up the love 
 of the world and are dead to the creature, and on the other 
 hand are born of the Spirit unto love of our Maker and 
 Lord, this love carries with it its own evidence when it 
 comes. " x 
 
 This being so, it follows that a continued mortification of 
 our earthly affections is the one only road to true peace of 
 mind ; for by that means alone can our heart be opened, in 
 ever-increasing measure, to the presence of God. But ' Evan- 
 gelicals' consider that peace of mind is sufficiently secured by 
 the emotions which follow from a knowledge of our pardon ; 
 and the result is, that when they feel a blank and dreary 
 melancholy stealing upon them, not understanding that its 
 remedy must be sought in a vigorous and self-forgetting con- 
 templation and performance of duty, they endeavour by a 
 direct effort of the will to stimulate and renew these emotions. 
 It is not necessary here to speak of the extreme and most 
 deplorable consequences which have at various times flowed 
 from this, especially among Dissenters whether here or 
 in America ; we may confine ourselves to what persons, 
 even with but little experience, have witnessed in mem- 
 bers of our own Church. ' A revulsion of mind ensues ; 
 a violent distaste for what pleased them before ; a sickness 
 and weariness of mind ; or a great disappointment ; or a con- 
 fusion and perplexity and despondence.' " The way of peace 
 they have not known," yet are bound by their principles to 
 consider themselves as infallibly knowing it. I believe that 
 even madness in some shape has before now ensued from a 
 similar state of mind. 
 
 And thus I bring to an end this most invidious part of my 
 task ; a part in regard to which I feel, that nothing can 
 excuse me for having entered upon it, except absolute 
 necessity : yet surely quite necessary it is. I most gladly 
 and willingly acknowledge it as one of the many benefits our 
 
 Newman's Sermon's, vol. v. pp. 357 363. But read the whole of this won- 
 derful Sermon.
 
 245 
 
 Church has received from the ' Evangelical ' party, that they 
 have borne a steady and consistent witness to the extreme 
 importance of holiness, as a test of religious truth. So far 
 am I from being able to follow those who protest against such 
 a view, and appeal rather to the argumentative collation of 
 Scripture texts or patristic writings, that I know no ultimate 
 result, short of atheism itself, in which such a line of argu- 
 ment must consistently issue : as I hope to express more at 
 length in a future chapter. I am most deeply convinced, that 
 next to the plain voice of our own conscience, the one great 
 note given by God to guide us into the truth, is the visible 
 work of the Holy Ghost in others ; nay, that the latter has 
 no inconsiderable place in checking and directing our con- 
 science itself. I most fully agree with the ' Evangelicals ' 
 then on the ground of appeal; what remains, but to join 
 issue on that ground ? What line of argument have I been 
 pursuing, which their own line of argument does not clamour- 
 ously call on me to pursue, when I desire to hold up to hatred 
 and obloquy their characteristic principles ? The Bishop of 
 Ohio in his charge, as one among many others, appeals to 
 the universal confession even of opponents on the spirituality 
 of ' Evangelicals,' as a proof of their doctrines ; and what 
 single ' Evangelical' has expressed himself on the subject, 
 who has not appealed to the alleged formalism and ' self- 
 righteousness' of Catholics as a conclusive argument against 
 their system ? They have themselves chosen the topic, I only 
 adopt their choice. That Catholics are not, as such, formal 
 and ' self-righteous,' it is one principal object of great part of 
 the present work to prove ; that ' Evangelicals ' as a body are 
 not in any true sense 'spiritual,' is what I have been just now 
 attempting to establish. Nor have I resorted for my materials 
 to the mere accident of chance observation, but in every case 
 have shewn the connection between the faults I complain of 
 and the doctrines of those I am accusing; nor yet have 
 I drawn merely theoretical deductions from abstract pre- 
 mises, but have laboured carefully to confine my remarks 
 to what I believe will on the whole be borne out by an ex- 
 tensive experience. That even at the present day there are
 
 246 
 
 many ' Evangelicals,' far more attached to the truths acci- 
 dentally connected with their system than to the heresies which 
 essentially distinguish it, I most gladly believe ; nor could any 
 result be more deeply gratifying to my own feelings, than if 
 only one such should be led, by means of what I have put 
 forth, to perceive how much more deeply and genuinely the 
 same truths are witnessed, in the pure and undefiled Gospel 
 preserved through every age by the Church Catholic. 
 
 One misconception which might perhaps ensue, both from 
 what has been said and from what remains to be said, had 
 better be distinctly removed in this place. On looking back 
 at what I have written for the last fifteen or twenty pages, 
 I am not without fear that I may be considered as represent- 
 ing the Christian life in gloomy, cheerless, and repulsive 
 colours. Nothing, however, kas been farther from my in- 
 tention ; and nothing, I am quite sure, can be farther from 
 the truth. To take the most obvious case, all that has been 
 said on the perpetual watchfulness of conscience, is in no way 
 inconsistent with the fullest allowance of necessary relaxation 
 and refreshment of mind. It is not to be denied, indeed, that 
 saintly men find continually more delight in heavenly and 
 spiritual occupations themselves ; but this is no reason why 
 we, who are not saintly men and therefore require other en- 
 joyments, may not, with the fullest sanction of our conscience, 
 enjoy in the highest degree innocent gaiety and exhilaration 
 of spirits. As a father regards with affectionate complacency 
 the sports of his infant* children, so we may represent our 
 conscience, as regarding from the inward recesses of our 
 mind our external and superficial merriment, ready to inter- 
 pose at any moment, if anything dangerous or doubtful 
 should be introduced. And to speak of what is so infinitely 
 more important, true peace of mind and deep happiness ; 
 what is there which can compare, in that respect, with our 
 gradual emancipation from the power of sin? Those, too, 
 who are conscious to themselves (as we may be y ) of purity 
 of intention, derive unspeakable relief, in the midst of 
 their increasing perception of sin, (for the perception of sin 
 
 y See this explained and vindicated, Newman's Sermons, vol. v. serm. 16.
 
 247 
 
 increases in a far greater ratio than conquest over sin,) from 
 the thought of the infinite mercy of God, shewn forth so 
 preeminently in our Lord's Atoning Death. Again : the 
 study, one by one, of the events and sufferings of His life ; 
 the contemplation of Christian doctrine in its full and varied 
 range ; the exercises of private and of public devotion ; in 
 their degree, even the wonders of Catholic art, and the so- 
 lemnity of religious ceremonial (should these be accessible) ; 
 above all, the reception of the most Holy Sacrament ; all 
 these are full of sweetness and consolation to the soul, which 
 is wearied with the toils and temptations of life, and with the 
 remembrance and deep feeling of sin. 
 
 6. Now a little consideration will shew us, that the practical 
 importance of the discussion just concluded extends to great 
 numbers among ourselves, besides those against whom it has 
 been more immediately directed; that the vitally funda- 
 mental truth, which Lutheranism formally denies, is, to say 
 the least, disparaged and most inadequately apprehended by 
 very many, who cannot with any justice be ranked in the 
 ' Evangelical' party. There are indeed, I fear, comparatively 
 few among us, who do not consciously or unconsciously en- 
 tertain the idea, that habitual and laborious watchfulness ; 
 the painful effort to change our will and purify our hearts by 
 exercising ourselves day by day in the events of ordinary 
 life as they occur ; the humbling ourselves and doing pe- 
 nance in remembrance of our past sins, one by one ; the 
 labouring constantly to keep before our mind the thought of 
 Death, Judgment, Heaven, Hell ; that all this is at least not 
 so imperatively required under Christianity, as under natural 
 religion. Whereas in truth the peculiarity of Christ's re- 
 ligion is not that, in any the smallest particular, it dispenses 
 with the obligation to obedience, (a righteous God cannot 
 dispense with that obligation,) but that it gives most won- 
 derful and unprecedented help towards carrying out obe- 
 dience ; and since ' to whom much is given, from him will 
 much be required,' it follows that the amount of obedience 
 which God demands at our hands is so much the greater, by 
 how much Christian gifts are more wonderful and transcend-
 
 248 
 
 ant. This it is, I say, which all the various heretical parties 
 within our Church in one way or other disparage, and which 
 I heartily wish that even the more orthodox in general more 
 fully realised. Men speak as though, in some sense at least 
 and in some degree, the Gospel were a reversal of the natural 
 Law ; instead of being solely and exclusively its complement. 2 
 And I would beg of my readers to pay particular attention 
 to this statement; because it is the very central point of that 
 view of our present circumstances, which it is the object of 
 this work to submit with deep deference to my brethren. 
 And it is because this truth seems to me so all-important at 
 the present time, and the Lutheran doctrine of Justification 
 is that particular heresy which plainly and in terms denies it, 
 that I have felt bound from time to time in the British Critic 
 to protest so emphatically, and in language of such unbound- 
 ed and indignant reprobation, against that doctrine. 
 
 The objection which is at once in every body's mouth 
 against the truth I am defending, is such as the following : 
 that it implies some slight on the peculiar doctrines of the 
 Gospel, especially the Atonement and Sanctification by the 
 Holy Spirit, if Christians, who have been favoured with their 
 knowledge, are still bound not less than before to impress on 
 their minds an habitual sense of the truths of natural religion, 
 and to act laboriously on those truths ; that Christ would 
 almost seem to have come upon earth in vain, and the Holy 
 Ghost to have descended in vain, if duty, repentance, self- 
 denial, fear of Judgment to come, are still to remain, (as the 
 
 z 'That the Church, during her whole course from first to last, has made it 
 so prominent a part of her office that nothing whatever has been more so, to bear 
 witness to the holy and eternal Law of God ; this is very obvious, and is seen on 
 the very surface of her history. It is evidenced alike in the strict discipline and 
 careful adjustment of penitential inflictions prevalent in the early ages ; in the 
 scientific theory on the subject, in the detailed examination of the sources, the 
 comparative turpitude, and the remedies of each several transgression, which 
 Catholic doctors in the mediaeval period so carefully elaborated ; and in the nice 
 and subtle questions of casuistry, in which the same principle has naturally issued, 
 under the complicated and entangled circumstances of modern civilization, in the 
 hands, whether of foreign theologians or of those among ourselves (such as Sanderson 
 and Taylor) who have drank most deeply of the genuine Catholic spirit.' ' On the 
 Synagogue and the Church,' p. 21.
 
 249 
 
 Church has ever proclaimed that they do remain,) so promi- 
 nently in the very front ground of the Gospel system, that 
 they may not be displaced nor set aside, no not a hair's 
 breadth, even by those most wonderful and gracious doc- 
 trines to which I have alluded. There are three several 
 answers which may be given to such a representation of the 
 case ; either of which alone would amply suffice, and which, 
 when taken together, issue in nothing less than a complete 
 and triumphant overthrow of this very plausible objection. 
 
 1. These doctrines and precepts of natural religion, to 
 which I have adverted, receive unspeakable accession of light 
 and of sacredness, by means of the Gospel ; insomuch that 
 the latter has no more precious peculiarity, than the super- 
 natural dignity and elevation which it gives to those doctrines 
 and precepts. For let us consider to what extent the laws 
 of natural religion are observed, or its truths known, in a 
 state of unaided nature. That man feels a most deep and 
 intimate perception of the ideas conveyed by the words 
 ' right ' and ' wrong ;' that he feels the essential duty of 
 humbling himself and doing penance for evil deeds ; that he 
 has a consciousness, whether latent or developed, that it will 
 be the worse with him through all eternity in consequence of 
 these last ; all this cannot be denied, and it is very important 
 that it be distinctly affirmed. But over and above this, I 
 am sure we shall be stating the matter even beyond its best 
 advantage, if we suppose existing in his mind such convictions 
 as the following : a real and firm belief in the All-Holy, All- 
 mighty, All-merciful God ; a knowledge of the more promi- 
 nent and essential features of the natural law ; and a humble 
 hope that by honestly doing what may be in his own power 
 towards the following after blamelessness and purity of life, 
 even though little else than repeated failure and disappoint- 
 ment be the result here on earth, he may obtain some un- 
 known but precious reward hereafter. And if even all this 
 be supposed, still how miserable is his state ! The original 
 and deep disease of his nature remains unstaunched ; and 
 only inflicts on him a keener consciousness of misery, for 
 every new attempt he may make to escape its influence. The
 
 250 
 
 Law stands over against him, not indeed understood in all its 
 fulness, but still sufficiently recognised to overwhelm him with 
 dismay, to make it continually clearer to him how hopeless 
 is the effort of making any sustained progress towards its 
 fulfilment. The feeling of repentance and humiliation is, by 
 his very aspiration after good, called into a more grievous 
 and ceaseless exercise ; and alternates with the renewed com- 
 mission of those very skis for which it has been called forth. 
 The consciousness of a gradual approach to his standard of 
 right, of evil tendencies continually weakened and good con- 
 tinually strengthened, of a consistent, however imperfect, 
 fulfilment of the whole law ; in a word, the experience of a 
 good conscience, which should sweeten the path of self-denial 
 and repentance, and impart rest and peace even in the midst 
 of godly sorrow and godly fear ; all this is unknown to him, 
 and beyond the power of his attainment. The reward held out 
 to him on earth for a sustained attempt at well-doing is, that 
 his sense of the great want of his nature shall become to a 
 fearful extent keener and more overpowering, and his con- 
 viction, how powerless man's natural strength to supply that 
 want, more intense and habitual. What then is even the 
 truly religious course for one so circumstanced ? ' Surely to 
 be in gloom, to view ourselves with horror, to look about to 
 the right hand and to the left for means of safety, to catch 
 at every thing yet trust to nothing, to do all we can and try 
 to do more than all, and after all to remain in miserable 
 suspense,' wholly unable to judge whether we have honestly 
 exerted ourselves according to our power ; to wait ' naked 
 and shivering, among the trees of the garden, for the hour of 
 His coming, and meanwhile to fancy sounds of woe in every 
 wind stirring the leaves about us, in a word, to be super- 
 stitious, is nature's best offering, her most acceptable service, 
 her most matured and enlarged wisdom, in the presence of a 
 holy and offended God. They who are not superstitious 
 without the Gospel, will not be religious with it.' 
 
 It is not at all necessary to discuss the question, how far 
 it might be humbly hoped that in point of fact spiritual aid 
 * Newman's University Sermons, p. 106.
 
 251 
 
 would be extended to a heathen, who should really so exert 
 himself as is here supposed : for that aid would be no part 
 of the natural system : it would be but a partial anticipation 
 of Gospel gifts, and due to the foreseen merits of our Lord 
 and Saviour. Now let us suppose, for a moment, that 
 Christ's coming had done no more than this ; viz. imparted 
 the power of avoiding for ever, by means of prayer and 
 watchfulness, all mortal sin (all such sin, that is, as strictly 
 implies the will's rebellion against God) ; and that as regards 
 all other sin whatever, it had both assured men's pardon, and 
 given them the means of gradual victory ; that it had pro- 
 mised forgiveness even of mortal sin on certain conditions 
 of repentance and penitential exercises; that it had dis- 
 tinctly revealed future judgment according to works, and 
 promised to faithful disciples such an eternity of happiness 
 as consists in the perfection and full gratification of our 
 natural faculties ; nay, further, if you will, that in order to 
 give mankind a pledge in action, of what their sinful con- 
 sciences make them so slow to believe in promise, the death 
 on the Cross had followed, merely as an assurance and 
 visible demonstration of the loving mercy of God. Had 
 Christianity done no more than this, how much would it not 
 have done ! what a message would it not have been to the 
 wretched and degraded heathen, as of life from the dead! 
 Now for the very first time, would the natural duties of 
 obedience, repentance, fear, hope, diligence, love, begin to 
 assume, by degrees, that very shape and those very mutual 
 relations for which they were intended, and into which 
 nevertheless, without special help from God, in vain they 
 attempted to rise ; .now for the very first time would the 
 religious character display the rudiments of that harmony 
 and proportion, for which man had before possessed the 
 materials but not the power, the external form but not the 
 quickening, animating spirit. Every act of natural duty, 
 every ceremonial of natural religion, would be a fresh 
 homage to the wonders of revelation : and every new triumph 
 of nature would be a fresh ground for the thankful remem- 
 brance of grace.
 
 But, blessed be His name, Christ's Gospel is all this, and 
 far more ; His death is not merely a pledge of God's loving 
 intention towards us, but the means whereby it works, the 
 price of our redemption ; it is the death of God, who died on 
 the Cross as Man, that He might make men as gods. The 
 power, whereby we are enabled to fulfil, consistently and 
 in illimitably increasing measure, the natural Law, is no 
 mere complement of our natural faculties, but a most marvel- 
 lous and supernatural gift ; ' a well of water springing up into 
 everlasting life ;' an inward spiritual presence, which raises 
 us indefinitely in the scale of creation; by means of which 
 our acts of penitence, self-denial, obedience, become other in 
 kind from what they were ; and the direct issue and con- 
 summation of which is no lower and less determined gift 
 of eternal bliss, but the ' beatific vision,' the seeing of God 
 face to face. The Gospel does not then remove these pri- 
 mary and essential duties of natural religion from their place, 
 but to an unspeakable extent elevates and sanctifies them in 
 their place ; their habitual and unceasing inculcation can 
 involve no disparagement of 'Christ's Atonement and the 
 Spirit's Mission, for they are what they are in consequence of 
 those great Gospel Verities. 
 
 This also must be remarked, to complete our view, that 
 the God of natural religion not only becomes more deeply 
 and intimately known to Christians because of His Presence 
 within them through His Spirit, but also because of His 
 Manifestation without them through His Son. Through 
 
 O O 
 
 His words and deeds in the flesh, our knowledge of the 
 Divine attributes becomes incalculably more consistent and 
 persuasive ; 'His Majesty, His love, His mercy, His holiness, 
 His fearful anger,' become ideas with a far more impressive 
 and definite meaning. 3 Thus then all the duties of natural 
 religion, worship, repentance, faith, obedience, penance, and 
 the rest are raised, in the case of us Christians, in regard to 
 our knowledge of the Object to whom they are addressed, 
 not less than in regard to the power whereby they are done. 
 Add to this, that the most solemn among all the truths 
 
 * See Newman's University Sermons, pp. 35 37.
 
 253 
 
 of natural religion, that of Judgment to come, is emphatically 
 * christianized,' by our knowledge of that most encouraging, 
 yet almost overpowering fact, that, not God the Father, but 
 God the Son, He who has lived among men as he that 
 serveth, is to judge men one by one at the Great Day. 
 
 And as it is with the duties of natural religion, so it is also 
 with the precepts correlative to those duties. If consistently 
 obedient men be the fountains from which moral truth flows 
 to the world, and if, without special grace, consistent 
 obedience be unattainable, we shall be prepared to expect 
 what in fact we find, how miserably inadequate was that 
 knowledge and perception of the Eternal Law of God, which 
 was generally diffused before Christian times. It is not till 
 the first promulgation of the Gospel, that we find among 
 men in general any tolerable appreciation of the Law ; but 
 ' from that period downwards we find that which was before 
 but hypothesis and capability, converted into actual achieve- 
 ments, into living and energizing results. For eighteen 
 centuries and upwards has the Church faithfully witnessed 
 the great truths of morality and natural religion in their full 
 circle, whether against Manichaean heretics in earlier, or 
 Lutheran in later times. She has drawn out the scientific 
 statement of God's nature ; b she has proclaimed and enforced 
 the various holy tempers required by the natural law, 
 explored the theory of their mutual relations and de- 
 pendency, discussed the mode of their application to the 
 outward state of things at each succeeding period of her 
 progress, and provided her children with invaluable help and 
 support for their attainment; all this she has done with 
 a confidence, completeness, depth, and illumination of view, 
 so absolutely beyond comparison with any feeble efforts in 
 that direction which may have existed in heathen times, 
 
 b See e. g. Petavius ' De Deo Deique proprietatibus.' 
 
 c It would of course require great acquaintance with heathen literature to 
 pronounce a confident opinion on their real progress in philosophy. Mr. Newman 
 has not hesitated to say that the ' great endowments of mind ' which existed in 
 those times ' had been expended on vanities or dissipated in doubt and specula- 
 tion.' (Univ. Serm. p. 314.) And a very different writer has drawn attention
 
 254 
 
 as most fully to justify Bp. Butler's remark, that it would be 
 difficult for us adequately to appreciate the blessings we have 
 obtained through the Gospel, even without reference made 
 to the information and gifts peculiar to itself.' d 
 
 But, without doubting in the slightest degree the extreme 
 and indispensable importance of scientific statements, it will 
 not be questioned, that the idea of holiness is impressed on 
 our minds with incomparably greater clearness, precision, and 
 persuasiveness, by the presence of living examples, or the 
 record of such in past ages ; and in this respect, even more 
 signally than in the other, has Christianity established and 
 enforced for the first time the full truths of natural religion. 
 
 Here immediately a circumstance occurs to our mind, 
 which must be placed altogether by itself, as absolutely one, 
 singular, and unapproachable, in the whole history of the 
 world. The circumstance, I mean, that God has taken on 
 Him our nature ; that in that nature He has visited this 
 very earth of ours, and vouchsafed in person to represent to 
 us outwardly that Law which He has implanted deep within 
 our hearts : nor only this, but that his words and actions in 
 the flesh have been preserved to this day in an inspired record, 
 for our reverent observance and contemplation. This is that 
 fact, so marvellous beyond all power of our previous con- 
 ception, ' that it might well have been doubted by the Holy 
 Angels, w r hether men could bear to hear of it without losing 
 their senses.'* And this is that record, on which all the Blessed 
 Saints, as one after another they have appeared on the scene 
 of life, have supported their faith, by which they have 
 enkindled all holy affections, and which they have made 
 their one great model, the one great interpreter to them of 
 the Eternal Law of God. From the ' Mystery of His 
 Incarnation, His obscure birth, His hidden life, the labours 
 of His public ministry, His sufferings, His ignominies, 
 
 to the barrenness of heathen philosophy, with a view of gaining support, from that 
 consideration, to the wretched sentiments he is endeavouring to uphold. I allude to 
 Mr. Macauley's article on Lord Bacon. 
 
 d ' On Mill's Logic,' p. 401. 
 
 e ' On St. Athanasius,' p. 487.
 
 255 
 
 His death, the work so merciful of our Redemption, His 
 all-glorious Resurrection, the earnest and lively faith of the 
 Saints has ever, without wearying of the occupation, derived 
 new feelings of gratitude and love, astonishment and shame, 
 contrition and confidence. That lively faith which pos- 
 sessed them was a restless impulse, which, from the sight 
 of what the Saviour had done for them, continually urged 
 them on to the practice of humility, of poverty, of peni- 
 tence, of patience ; to works of zeal, to all the labours of 
 a Christian and Apostolic life, and to realising in their own 
 hearts the mystery of his death and resurrection. It ceased 
 not to place before their minds Jesus Christ acting or speak- 
 ing, Jesus Christ praying or fasting, Jesus Christ living 
 among men and mixing with them, Jesus Christ preaching, 
 Jesus Christ enduring with incredible sweetness the revilings, 
 cruelty, and ingratitude of the Jews, Jesus Christ travelling, 
 or taking his repast, 6 &c., and they applied themselves to the 
 task of doing the same actions in union and conformity with 
 those of the Saviour.' f And for us also, to read that record 
 as we ought should be one habitual study of our lives : to 
 bring home to our feelings and imaginations the events there 
 described, not in that barren, lifeless, unreal manner in 
 which too often the sacred narrative is read, but in all fulness 
 of detail and circumstance as living and breathing facts ; yet, 
 on the other hand, to impress on our minds with equal care, 
 with sedulous caution, with laborious effort and meditation, 
 Who it is that fills the principal place in those pictures, to 
 what an unspeakable extent all that we read is matter of 
 personal interest to ourselves one by one, that each one of 
 us redeemed Christians was as fully the object of His love 
 and thought during His earthly humiliation, as though no 
 other being lived in the whole universe. 
 
 But just as, while acknowledging the Four Gospels to be 
 in a singular and peculiar degree raised above the rest of 
 Scripture, we yet believe all Scripture to be inspired, and 
 
 e Members of our Church may now see, in the translation of St. Bonaven- 
 ture's ' Life of Christ,' a specimen of this most prominent feature in the saintly 
 character. 
 
 f Npotien, ou PEleve de Sanctuaire, (Lyon, 1837,) p. 82.
 
 256 
 
 endeavour to learn from every part its intended lesson: in 
 like manner, the recognition of the unapproached eminence, 
 on which our Blessed Lord's life stands out in the history of 
 the Church, implies no denial of the excellent fruits to be 
 derived from the recorded lives of all His Saints. These are 
 in every age the great external evidences of Christianity, the 
 great visible notes of the Church. They bear witness in their 
 own persons, a far surer witness than could be borne by any 
 other external sign or proof, to the depth, reality, and effica- 
 ciousness of Christian doctrine ; their living example is the 
 warrant, whereby we receive the recorded actions of holy 
 men in times past as possibilities and truths ; their habits 
 and ways of thought, their very personal presence, are as it 
 were the quickening and informing spirit, whereby the great 
 events of the Church start from the canvass, and present 
 themselves to our imagination as realities with a definitive 
 existence and meaning ; while at the same time the same holy 
 men, not by means of formal calculation but by the spon- 
 taneous impulses of the Holy Ghost within them, are the 
 great originators of that infinite variety of external shape, 
 which the one Ancient Truth assumes in every successive 
 period, that it may cope with the peculiar evils and meet the 
 peculiar exigencies of that period. 
 
 Such are the benefits which their contemporaries derive 
 from their life on earth ; nor is their history less productive 
 of fruit, when they have gone to their reward, and reign with 
 Christ in Heaven. In two particulars, indeed, departed 
 Saints may serve as our models, where their Master's ex- 
 ample will not in any way attain the same object. For, first, 
 they have been men like ourselves, born like us in original 
 sin, and endued with no higher privileges than are granted 
 to us also ; while He, though fully invested with human 
 nature in all its completeness, still had no human personality, 
 was not a man but God-man ; so that the power is granted 
 to ordinary Christians of indefinitely near approach to them, 
 while from Him they must ever remain infinitely removed : 
 and, secondly, our examples, whether of saintly self -discipline 
 or of saintly penitence, must of necessity be derived only 
 from them ; for they only had sins to repent, they only had
 
 257 
 
 the rebellion of nature to keep in check. Can there be 
 a more deeply touching or profitable task, than to con- 
 template the gradual triumph of Saints over temptations, 
 whether from within or from without, similar to those of 
 which we have ourselves daily the miserable experience ; or 
 to study the manner and degree of their repentance for sins, 
 far less grievous and hateful to God than those which we 
 have committed in the same kind ? ' When we read how 
 many young noblemen and tender virgins have despised the 
 world and joyfully embraced the cross and the labours of 
 penance, we feel a glowing flame kindled in our own breasts, 
 and are encouraged to suffer afflictions with patience, and 
 cheerfully to undertake suitable practices of penance. Whilst 
 we see many sanctifying themselves in all states, and making 
 the very circumstances of their condition, whether on the 
 throne, in the army, in the state of marriage, or in the de- 
 serts, the means of their virtue and penance, we are persuaded 
 that the practice of perfection is possible also to us in every 
 lawful profession, and that we need only sanctify our employ- 
 ments by a perfect spirit and the fervent exercises of religion, 
 to become saints ourselves without quitting our state in the 
 world. When we behold others framed of the same frail 
 mould with ourselves, many in age or in other circumstances 
 weaker than ourselves, and struggling with greater difficulties, 
 yet courageously surmounting and trampling upon all the 
 obstacles by which the world endeavoured to obstruct their 
 virtuous choice, we are secretly stung within our hearts, 
 feel the reproaches of our sloth, and are moved from our 
 state of insensibility.' f Then, too, in studying the endlessly 
 various specimens of the saintly character, we more and 
 more clearly discern, ' in each one of those individuals, in- 
 definitely varying from each other in natural disposition, 
 in period, rank, education, sex, and age, a certain inward 
 character surprisingly similar to that of all the rest,' and 
 * evidencing a certain complete and singular fulfilment of 
 the natural law.' 8 Thus we learn the peculiar expansiveness 
 and elasticity of the Gospel Gift, and the wonderful capa- 
 bilities of human nature, so infinitely beyond all that could 
 f Butler's Lives, p. xlii. * ' On Mill's Logic,' p. 417. 
 
 S
 
 258 
 
 have been even imagined before Christ came ; and by means of 
 these \ve bring home to our imaginations (which is my present 
 subject) the perfect and entire Law of God, with a minute- 
 ness, particularity, and diversity of exhibition, which could 
 in no other way have been attained. Above all, the lives of 
 Saints are as it were spiritual ladders, by which w T e rise into 
 a continually fuller and less inadequate appreciation of His 
 Life, "Who is the One Full Embodiment of that Law. 
 
 This then is the first answer that may be made to the ob- 
 jection in hand. To lay a very prominent stress on the pre- 
 cepts of natural religion, implies no blindness to the para- 
 mount value of Gospel peculiarities ; for that we know those 
 precepts as we know them, and are able to perform them in 
 the consistent, though imperfect, measure, and in the super- 
 natural manner, in w r hich we do perform them, this is one of 
 the most admirable among those Gospel peculiarities. 
 
 II. Next, I lately drew attention to part of our common 
 nature, (that nature which has been in no way reversed under 
 the Gospel, and of which, in this respect at least, no religious 
 man surely would desire the reversal,) that only in proportion 
 to our moral culture are we enabled to apprehend religious 
 truth. The Christian, who is frequent in self-examination 
 and constant in self-discipline, derives incomparably more of 
 real Christian knowledge from two or three verses of the 
 New Testament, or from a single repetition of the Creed, 
 than could be obtained by one careless in such matters, even 
 by perusing chapter upon chapter of Scripture, or by study- 
 ing whole volumes of theology : or rather indeed the latter 
 derives no Christian knowledge \vhatever ; however fluent 
 he may be in the use of sacred terms, or ready in the 
 citation of texts, the impression he derives from w r hat he 
 reads is altogether wide of the mark, altogether heterogeneous 
 from that real and true impression, which is received, in 
 various measures, by the rightly prepared disciple. It is 
 plain at once, then, how extravagant is the allegation, that 
 zeal for such culture implies indifference to revealed truth ; 
 for even were that culture in itself not a duty, still it would 
 be cherished and exercised by all Christians, exactly in pro- 
 portion to the earnestness of their love and keenness of their
 
 desire for Christian knowledge. Moral culture being the 
 only path to Christian knowledge, he who best loves the 
 latter will most practise the former. Suppose (if it be not 
 too light an illustration) that a man should apply himself 
 to learning the German language, for the express and sole 
 purpose of reading the works of some German poet ; and 
 that he should be found deeply plunged in all the intricacies 
 and difficulties of German grammar: what sense would 
 there be in the charge, that all this careful and methodical 
 study implied some latent preference of grammar to poetry ? 
 
 III. And, lastly, I will fairly challenge objectors to devise 
 any other means, by which these very truths, the Atonement 
 of Christ and Sanctification by the Spirit, shall be (I do 
 not say so rightly apprehended, that I have just been urging, 
 but) so habitually present to the Christians consciousness as 
 they are by this very habit of moral watchfulness. In no 
 other way will the feeling be so deeply and indelibly im- 
 pressed on our very innermost heart, of the fearful and 
 miserable amount of our sins and imperfections ; for in no 
 other way shall we have obtained light to see one thousandth 
 part of those which we thus obtain the power of seeing, and 
 in no other way shall we be enabled to preserve the remem- 
 brance of them so constantly in the mind, amidst all the 
 tumult of the external world, the excitement of pleasure, or 
 the engrossing occupation of thought and study. Nothing 
 can effect this except habitual self-mastery ; self-mastery 
 comes but gradually, and only by one kind of agency, by 
 successive acts of conflict against dominant inclination. Now 
 it is plain, without saying another word, that as habitual as 
 is the thought of our own sinfulness, precisely so habitual is 
 the thought of the Atonement, and as deep as is the sense 
 of our own sinfulness, so deep is the sense of the benefits we 
 derive from the Atonement, and so real our gratitude to 
 Him who died for our sins. Nor is a constant remembrance 
 of the Holy Spirit's influence less intimately bound up with 
 watchfulness and self-denial, than is a constant remembrance 
 of Christ's Atonement. For it is those who use most constant 
 diligence in removing those obstacles within them which 
 thwart the free movings of the Holy Ghost, who are also 
 
 s 2
 
 260 
 
 most unceasingly sensible of the presence of that supernatural - 
 Power; a Power, wholly alien in origin from their own 
 natural powers, and which carries them onwards, as if with- 
 out their will, from grace to grace, with no assistance on 
 their part beyond that negative cooperation, the unwearied 
 and self-mortifying exercise of which I have spoken so much. 
 This conciousness it is, which is the deep origin of that su- 
 pernatural humility characteristic of the mortified and ascetic 
 Christian : this it is which impels the faithful, in proportion 
 to their zeal, diligence, and self-denial, to use in the most 
 natural and straightforward way that language about their 
 own utter unworthiness, which many doubtless adopt from 
 affectation or imitation of others, and which to men of the 
 world appears so singularly paradoxical and extravagant. 
 
 7. The specious difficulty then, lately mentioned as stand- 
 ing in the way of this all-important truth, seems most 
 satisfactorily disposed of; nor does it appear to me any 
 exaggeration to say, that the neglect of the truth itself is 
 the sufficient cause of all the spiritual evils which surround 
 us. Without alluding to individuals, I can see no system 
 in this country, except the Roman Catholic, which attaches 
 any particular weight whatever to a principle, which if 
 true must deserve more weight than all others put to- 
 gether : I can see no system, which wholly or even partly 
 bases its inculcation of Christian truth on its careful enforce- 
 ment of moral discipline. The Roman Catholics indeed, in 
 this as in so many other respects, have witnessed the pure 
 Gospel to a blind and carnal age. I am told on the best 
 authority, that no serious Roman Catholic would omit any 
 one day the usual ' examen of conscience,' without making 
 the omission a subject of mention as a sin at his next con- 
 fession; while in religious houses and seminaries for the 
 priesthood they frequently enforce the 'particular examination' 
 (of which more hereafter) three times in every day. To this 
 we should add repeated meditations, according to a set plan, 
 on such subjects as 'sin,' 'death,' and 'judgment to come;' 
 and moreover the practice itself, which alone would so 
 powerfully tend to secure moral discipline, of Sacramental 
 Confession. But our own Church, (not to speak here of the
 
 261 
 
 Dissenters, who are even more in fault,) whether in the recog- 
 nised system of education or of later instruction, most ob- 
 viously implies a belief, that the reading of the Sacred Volume 
 will convey religious and practical truth to a mind unpre- 
 pared by special and wisely-devised discipline. A more 
 senseless and perverse superstition cannot be conceived. 
 
 And what is the result of this most monstrous and fanatical 
 notion ? The cultivation of conscience is indissolubly bound 
 up with self-denial, if it be not even the same thing in 
 another shape ; self-denial is of all exercises the most 
 repugnant to man's fallen and corrupt nature ; therefore 
 if this duty be not enforced with the most urgent, energetic, 
 and repeated appeals, it will by inevitable consequence either 
 be performed with utter inadequacy, or wholly neglected. 
 The voice of conscience then, being thus allowed to remain 
 dormant, is confused, without possibility of distinction, with 
 the caprice of imagination, or with individual peculiarities 
 and associations. Hence it follows, that those who (like, I 
 suppose, most ' Evangelicals ' and Protestant Dissenters) 
 regard themselves as visited with some personal divine 
 illumination, are led to look upon even their narrowest 
 prejudices or absurdest imaginations, as the very dictate 
 of the Holy Ghost; to look upon themselves and the few 
 whose prejudices and peculiarities agree with their own, as 
 the fountain of divine truth ; to shut their eyes to the 
 plainest marks of sanctity in those who abhor and denounce 
 their ' cant ' phrases ; and to regard with a compassion closely 
 bordering on contempt us ordinary men, who earnestly 
 disclaim any such personal illumination in ourselves, and 
 refuse to recognise it in them. I most gladly believe that 
 many are more or less involved in this strange way of 
 proceeding from the accident of their circumstances and 
 position, to whose better nature it is far from congenial, 
 and who, consciously or otherwise, feel their system a galling 
 chain and grievous impediment : but I speak of the system 
 itself, and not of individuals ; and most sorry should I be 
 to appear wanting in deep respect and sympathy for such as 
 these. 
 
 Even this system, however, is very far from the most un-
 
 262 
 
 spiritual which has been devised, in these dark ages wherein 
 we live. Here, as in so many other cases, from lowering 
 their practice men have gone on to lower their theory. 
 Having taken effectual means, from the absence of all 
 exhortations to moral discipline and all stress laid upon 
 it, that ' as many voices as there are in the world,' so many 
 consciences shall there appear to be, they go on to deny 
 plainly that conscience has, when duly cultivated, one 
 plain, clear, articulate voice ; and to maintain that we may 
 discover religious truth, without submitting ourselves, for 
 such truth, to its sacred dictates. Some have openly upheld 
 the shocking principle, that Scripture will teach us Christian 
 doctrine if we interpret it according to the maxims of 
 criticism which we apply to classical writings ; that a 
 knowledge of Hellenistic Greek, and a just estimate of 
 the force of prepositions in compound words, will give us 
 a more valuable proof of the Atonement, than we could 
 otherwise obtain. And others have referred us to a critical 
 study of the early Fathers, with the same object in view; 
 and called on us to submit both reason and conscience to 
 what we gather from them on sound principles of critical 
 interpretation. More monstrously untenable this last indeed 
 in one respect even than the former: for the Bible is the 
 Word of God, intended to illuminate and instruct the Church 
 in every age ; however perverse the Protestant attempts to 
 discern the sacred doctrine which it contains : but on what 
 possible principle have the writers of one particular age ' do- 
 minion over our faith '? Speak indeed to us of their sanc- 
 tity, and we acknowledge from our heart's depth their claim 
 to be heard with reverence and docility ; nor can there be 
 a task more full of interest and more pregnant with prac- 
 tical results, than drawing forth the deep harmony which 
 exists between saints of every age, their absolute agreement 
 in substantial truth, their interesting and even edifying 
 diversity in matters of inferior moment. But when, instead 
 of a procedure which at last involves no real difficulty 
 whatever, the very contrary course is adopted; when we 
 hear the words of early Saints wrongfully and perversely 
 quoted, to censure the words of men whom no one can
 
 263 
 
 consider less holy ; when we hear St. Chrysostom brought as 
 an antagonist over against St. Bonaventure, or St. Cyril 
 against St. Alphonsus Liguori, we shudder at (the most unin- 
 tentional) profaneness of such daring and reckless criticism. 
 
 Nay, to such an extent has this mania for external 
 evidence been carried, that a principle is most plainly 
 implied by numbers amongst us, though its maintenance by 
 any sane person would have been incredible but for general 
 experience, that it is lawful to summon Dissenters to leave 
 that community wherein God has placed them, wherein they 
 have learned sacred truths from their parents or teachers, and 
 with which their most holy associations are interwoven, to 
 summon them, I say, to such a course, not by appeals to 
 their conscience ; not by leading them through their system 
 to another, and fixing their minds on those truths which it 
 contains, till from them they go on into further truths ; 
 nor yet, again, by awakening their spiritual desires for a gift, 
 which Sacramental grace can alone supply ; but by an argu- 
 mentative exposition of Apostolical Succession and the Divine 
 right of Bishops. In other words, it is considered (though I 
 am conscious that the naked statement looks like a burlesque) 
 that religious men of the lower classes cannot estimate a higher 
 idea of sanctity, when fairly set before them, but can do justice 
 to both sides on such questions as these; 1, whether Epis- 
 copacy, though universal in early times, be necessary, while 
 prayers for the dead, which were equally universal, are not so 
 considered ; 2, whether Episcopacy did universally exist in 
 early times, with an examination of the famous passage of 
 St. Jerome, and the famous examples of Corinth and Alexan- 
 dria ; 3, whether in point of fact the English Church has the 
 succession, with an historical digression on the Nag's Head 
 controversy, and a ritual discussion on the forms necessary 
 for ordination; 4, and chiefly of all, whether visible union 
 with what is considered to constitute the rest of the Church 
 Catholic be not also necessary; visible union, on which 
 learned men tell us that so much more stress was laid in 
 early times, than on the Apostolical Succession. And it is 
 seriously implied by multitudes of English Churchmen, that 
 Dissenters may, without grievous sin, leave the community
 
 264 
 
 which to them has been in so high and true a sense the 
 ordinance of God, from no better reason than the ridiculous 
 child's play of professing a view on such questions as these ; 
 and that ministers of our Church may, without grievous sin, 
 tempt them to such a course. 11 
 
 h The author of the most able and valuable ' Appeal to the Members of the 
 Society for promoting Christian Knowledge,' (p. 11,) mentions with reprobation 
 a sentiment of the Bishop of Chester's, that " if a man feels that he has been 
 personally benefited by the instructions of a Dissenting teacher, the only 
 instructions within his reach, no argument can persuade him that he ought 
 never to have listened to them ;" and censures also the Bishop's further remark 
 that " perhaps it is too much to expect that .... all men should think alike 
 upon such subjects as diocesan episcopacy, or infant Baptism,'' &c. For one, I 
 incline to be more hopeful than the Bishop of the ultimate reunion, by God's 
 grace, of all Christians ; but take the matter in a practical light, can the ex- 
 cellent writer really mean that ordinary Christians are able to form a judgment 
 on such matters as these last, or that they are not able to form a very sufficient 
 judgment on the plain question, whether, by help of advice from a Dissenting 
 minister, they have been able to contend more successfully against habits of 
 sloth, or selfishness, or impurity, or anger ? It may be better, lest I be mis- 
 understood, to add here a note belonging to one of my articles. ' Would it 
 be thought a promising trait, if a Wesleyan, e. g., born of parents religious up 
 to the average, were, at the age of ten years, seriously to consider the question 
 whether or not he were in a state of schism, and how far the institution of 
 Bishops was apostolical ? And if not at ten years, what is the proper age for 
 him to call in question all that he has been taught, and sit in judgment on his 
 parents and elders ? On the contrary, surely the position of our Church as 
 regards Dissenters, if we rightly view it, is no unfavourable one. We believe 
 Catholic doctrine to be perfectly consistent with our formularies ; and we know 
 it to be such that, in proportion as it is adequately exhibited, it attracts most 
 powerfully the religious instincts of the serious mind, under whatever system 
 trained. We believe too that after the conscience has been awakened and a 
 course of obedience begun, the heart of those with whom we have to do, is still 
 unsatisfied and their mind restless, from their want (however unknown to them- 
 selves the cause) of that inward gift, which the English Church for one is 
 entrusted by God with the power of dispensing in her Sacrament. No need of a 
 spurious liberalism, or of any the least compromise of truth. Let us aim at 
 making the English Church such, that by her appearance and bearing she may 
 exhibit outwardly what she contains within : and let us hold, whether by words 
 or actions, this language to Dissenters : " We are witnesses to a doctrine and 
 dispensers of a blessing far higher than you can attain in your present position, 
 and which are the appointed medicine for the ills and miseries from which in 
 vain otherwise you will seek an escape. Act the more diligently, in conse- 
 quence of what we say, on your existing principles ; the greater your diligence, 
 the earlier will be your conviction of the comparative worthlessness and inefficacy 
 of your present system, the greater will be the eagerness with which your 
 whole moral nature will yearn for what we can give you." It has been said
 
 265 
 
 However such a mistake of principle as this, however 
 grievous, can lead to little of practical evil, though it will most 
 seriously obstruct the spread of practical good. Attempts to 
 convert Dissenters by such methods of procedure will fail 
 signally, as they deserve to fail ; and very much doubtless of 
 energy and time, which might have been employed to great 
 advantage, will have been unprofitably wasted : still this is not 
 in itself a positive, but a negative evil. On the other hand, those 
 respective religious theories now so prevalent, which, as I 
 lately shewed, depend for any appearance of truth they may 
 possess on a denial of the supremacy of the well-disciplined 
 conscience, these are positive and very serious evils ; still 
 neither from them can I fancy any real danger to impend. 
 No ! As regards those who will influence the course of 
 opinion within our Church for the coming period, I have 
 no fear whatever that they will either adopt ' evangelical ' 
 sentiments, or perpetuate an illusive distinction between the 
 earlier and later ages of the Church : nor yet again, that 
 they will become what is sometimes called ' sound and 
 attached members of the English Church,' or in other words, 
 that they will concur with Mr. Palmer's general views. 
 I am not speaking of that multitude of men, who have 
 neither great moral sensitiveness, nor great intellectual keen- 
 ness; they doubtless in every age accept very readily the 
 state of things in which they find themselves placed, and 
 
 that great numbers of Dissenters are in a state of the most abandoned profli- 
 gacy. Whether they are worse in this respect than churchmen, we have no means 
 and no wish to decide ; of course in such cases the English clergyman would 
 " be instant in season, out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort," as claiming 
 authority, and appealing to their conscience in confirmation of his words. And 
 should he succeed in any one such case in " converting the sinner from the 
 error of his way," there could not be much question that the poor rescued 
 soul would gladly follow, with implicit deference, the spiritual instruction of his 
 preserver. But he has not this argument in dealing with persons who are not 
 grossly vicious ; and the question before us is, how is he to address them ? . . . . 
 That a Dissenter may have been often enough perplexed and confused by being 
 confidently, and as if angrily, told he is in a state of schism (as though he had 
 placed himself there) we can readily conceive ; that he may have been deterred 
 by it from religious action altogether, under a persuasion of the impossibility of 
 discovering truth, this we can imagine ; but that he should have been persuaded 
 by it, and become a sound and docile churchman, this we cannot fancy. Can any 
 one ?' ' On Church Authority,' pp. 216, 7.
 
 266 
 
 profit by it more or less according to its value and their 
 diligence : nor can any thing be more praiseworthy than that 
 they should do so, except so far as this deficiency of moral 
 sensitiveness is attributable to their own fault. But I 
 speak here of those more consistent spirits, who in every 
 generation determine most certainly, for good or for evil, the 
 character of the following generation : and of these I say, 
 (and I beg most earnestly to submit this to the careful 
 and deep consideration of those, who think that all will go 
 smoothly with our Church, if they can but expel from it, or 
 silence in it, the advocates of Roman doctrine,) that the 
 danger to be feared, should they by whatever motive be 
 repelled from the course w r hich leads to full, consistent, and 
 complete, Catholicism, is very far more serious and alarming 
 than the attempt to reinvigorate the ' Evangelical ' or ' High- 
 Church' party. 
 
 In truth, systems have been devised, most imposing from 
 the brilliancy, depth, and varied ability of their inventors, 
 which having 'slain their tens of thousands' in Germany 
 and France, are endeavouring, with secret but mighty force, 
 to obtain a footing here. These systems, though it would 
 be the most cruel injustice to charge the disciples in general 
 with intentional and conscious, or even as yet virtual, unbe- 
 lief, still are in themselves, and in their inevitable issue, 
 absolutely infidel in character. The name of Mr. Carlyle 
 will suggest one class of these systems ; the writings of Kant, 
 which are very much and increasingly studied in this country, 
 a second; Mr. Michelet's history, (which has been just 
 now warmly advocated as a subject for study in England,) a 
 third ; Mr. Milman's History of Christianity, (though less 
 deep than the others,) a fourth. 11 The principles, implied in 
 different ways and degrees through these respective writings, 
 are widely different indeed from the shallow, unscrupulous, 
 and rancorous sophisms, put forth by infidels of the last 
 century ; they are far deeper, and therefore far more danger- 
 ous. Such writers as most of those whom I just mentioned, 
 have the fullest disposition to do justice to Christianity, ' as 
 
 h Let me again repeat, as I have mentioned the name of a clergyman of our 
 Church, that I am speaking exclusively of tendencies.
 
 267 
 
 a fact in history.' ' There are men,' we are told by the able 
 and interesting writer in the Edinburgh Review, ' who, not 
 disguising their own unbelief, have written deeper and finer 
 things in vindication of what religion has done for mankind, 
 than have sufficed to found the reputation of some of its most 
 admired defenders.' 1 Nay, many of such thinkers will even 
 admit the main facts contended for by Paley ; and will yet con- 
 sider the Gospel to have been rather a divine and gracious in- 
 terposition (for the purpose of introducing a higher range of 
 sentiments, and a more perfect morality 11 ) than to be authori- 
 tatively binding on ourselves as a law. And to shew still 
 more plainly, how little we can calculate that respectfulness 
 of language guarantees the absence of fearful error, it is to 
 be observed that even Strauss, who denies (if one may give 
 utterance to such words) the personal existence of our Blessed 
 Lord, writes, we are told, in a spirit of great calmness and 
 sobriety ; nor may it be useless to add, that a friend of 
 mine was told by an eminent foreign bookseller in London, 
 that he sold more copies of Strauss's work than of any 
 other in his shop. And let it not be supposed that this 
 leaven is not very widely working, and very rapidly 
 spreading, because it has not yet appeared much on the 
 surface ; the present state of the English mind, so unfavour- 
 able to all free and consecutive speculation, good or bad, 
 accounts sufficiently for that : and I cannot but fear, that a 
 wide experience will on the whole bear out the truth of what 
 I am now saying. I believe that the unspeculative, common 
 sense, Procrustean, spirit, which has hitherto governed English 
 thought, is most certainly destined to fall, and is even now 
 fast falling : it may be succeeded by something far better, or 
 by something far worse ; but it will certainly be succeeded 
 by something very different from itself. 1 This danger and 
 
 1 Jan. 1844, p. 2. 
 
 k See Tracts for the Times, No. Ixxxv. p. 99. 
 
 1 ' There seems a sort of atmosphere of unrest and paradox, hanging around 
 many of our ablest young men of the present day, which makes me very uneasy. 
 I do not speak of religious doubts, but rather of questions as to great in moral 
 and intellectual matters ; where things which have been settled for centuries 
 seem to be again brought into discussion. This restless love of paradox is, I be- 
 lieve, one of the main causes of the growth of Newmanism ; first, directly as it leads
 
 268 
 
 its remedy have been observed, now seven years since, by the 
 great seer of our time, whose words it will be well to quote. 
 Having related a vision of St. Martin's, Mr. Newman pro- 
 ceeds : 
 
 ' The application of the vision to Martin's age is obvious ; I 
 suppose it means in this day, that Christ comes not in pride of 
 intellect, or reputation for ability. These are the glittering robes 
 in which Satan is now arraying. Many spirits are abroad, more 
 are issuing from the pit : the credentials which they display, are the 
 precious gifts of the mind, beauty, richness, depth, originality. 
 Christian, look hard at them with Martin in silence, and then ask 
 for the print of the nails."* 
 
 I think in fact that a student of able and enlarged mind, 
 and endued with great intellectual ardour, who should be 
 mad enough and miserable enough to seek for truth by 
 taking up a position external to all existing systems, rather 
 than by humbly and diligently working in that where God 
 has placed him, till his conscience shall tell him to advance 
 from it ; that such an one would see much in Catholicism, 
 attractive to him in the same sense in which worldly systems 
 attract him. 'Evangelicalism' or ordinary 'Anglicanism' he 
 would altogether put aside ; for he would not understand the 
 moral persuasiveness exhibited by those respective schemes to 
 persons trained in them, while he would see very plainly their 
 utter theoretical baselessness and incoherency. But in Catho- 
 licism he would see a wonderful harmony of parts, depth of 
 view, and consistency of progress ; he would fairly recognise 
 it as the majestic and wonderful development of a real idea ; 
 and he would acknowledge in it a surprising suitableness to 
 human nature under certain aspects : he would see moreover 
 how plausible an account it gives of a vast number of external 
 facts, which it is at first sight difficult otherwise to under- 
 stand; and again, in an aesthetical point of view, he would do 
 justice to its great and perhaps unapproached excellence. 
 
 men to dispute and oppose all the points which have been agreed upon in their own 
 country for the last two hundred years . . . than when a man finds that he is cutting 
 away all the ground under his feet,' &c. Dr. Arnold's Correspondence, p. 225. I 
 wish ' Newmanism ' were likely to be the only gainer by this. 
 k ' Church of the Fathers,' p. 414.
 
 269 
 
 Such truths as these, unbelievers and misbelievers of the 
 present day, unless grossly narrow-minded and uncandid, 
 fully admit. But notwithstanding, he would consider him- 
 self to see in Catholicism a certain want of enlargement and 
 comprehensiveness : a certain formalism, stiffness, and absence 
 of elasticity ; an incapability of adapting itself to circum- 
 stances ; an excessive regard of detail ; nay, still more than 
 this, a something, which would even excite his contempt, as 
 imbecile, superstitious, and anile. As an eminent instance of 
 this, what we see of the language and arguments, adopted 
 even by religious Protestants, may give us some little idea, 
 how indescribably childish and contemptible the doctrine of 
 the Eucharistic Presence would appear to one, who should 
 have been neither educated in its belief, nor disciplined by 
 moral and religious action. And in addition to all this is the 
 consciousness, most influential even though latent in deterring 
 him from accepting the Church's authority, that it would 
 curtail his licence of action and speculation ; that it requires 
 a submission of reason and will to no ordinary extent. 
 
 And the consequence of all this will be, that he will con- 
 sider it an incomparably more philosophical and more reason- 
 able course, to give some account of such external facts as 
 those I just alluded to, which may have considerable show 
 of reason and plausibility, and yet not imply the duty of 
 humbling himself before the voice of the Church; rather 
 than suppose that a system, as he thinks so deplorably 
 superannuated, has any claims on his reception. He will 
 avail himself of the difficulties which surround the question 
 of Inspiration, (difficulties wholly insuperable to the mere 
 intellect,) in order more certainly to convince himself and 
 others, how little the Bible, any more than the Church, can 
 have been intended to furnish a strict and inflexible rule of 
 faith or morals. He will enlarge on the duty of adapting 
 the Christian scheme to the wants of each successive period ; 
 and since the very circumstance, of his having taken up his 
 present position on merely intellectual grounds, proves him 
 wholly ignorant that holy obedience is the one illuminating 
 principle which enables us to distinguish the essential from 
 the accidental, and that saints are accordingly the only autho-
 
 270 
 
 rities we can safely follow on such subjects, he will enter 
 on the unspeakably arrogant task, of determining for himself 
 these vital questions by the mere light of intellect, and under 
 no higher influences than the carnal spirit of the age. Should 
 he believe in our Lord's Resurrection (on which I suppose 
 the external evidence is very difficult of evasion) ; and should 
 he be pressed by the argument, how impossible it is to 
 conceive that so wonderful an event should have taken place, 
 and yet that the religion, founded on that event, should con- 
 tain no definite, substantive, unalterable body of doctrine, 
 to be received by faith and grown into by obedience ; this 
 argument, which to serious Christians appears so very cogent, 
 will strike him with no force whatever. He will say, that the 
 results of Christianity have been most glorious and noble ; 
 that in the early and in the middle ages it assumed that very 
 form which most suited those ages ; and that all he wishes 
 is, to adopt it himself in the form most suited to this. Nay, 
 he will perhaps fully acknowledge, that such events as those 
 to which Catholics point as marks of God's especial Provi- 
 dence, for instance the absence of the later emperors from 
 Rome and consequent growth of Papal power, are marks of 
 such Providence : for that the very errors of Mediaeval 
 Christianity were matters of salutary belief, much more was 
 the Church polity, then existing, admirable and beneficent in 
 its results. 
 
 Now I cannot deny that one cause of this painful appear- 
 ance, presented to such minds by the Church, is the circum- 
 stance, to which I must hereafter return, that Catholicism 
 abroad lias in the present age been very far from intel- 
 lectually adequate to the exigencies of its position ; and has 
 been, I suppose, very much excelled by human philosophies, 
 in the genius and powers of mind, which it has, quite of late, 
 called forth and cultivated. But another much more powerful 
 reason is the obvious fact, that these other theories have 
 never come in direct contact with the masses, nor influenced 
 at all, much less in a very wide extent, the course of practical 
 life. A system, which has for so many centuries acted so 
 conspicuous a part in the busy and practical scene of life, 
 must in all necessity have its prosaic side as well as its
 
 271 
 
 poetical ; while those will naturally be more attractive to 
 the imagination, which have their main origin in the imagina- 
 tion. This reason however seems to a considerable extent 
 included in the two which follow, and which appear to me to 
 approach more nearly the bottom of the question. 
 
 First, the sacred and essential truth is cherished and dis- 
 played in every detail of the Catholic system, of the infinite 
 superiority of moral over intellectual greatness ; the truth, 
 that one temptation to evil consistently overcome, through 
 God's grace, by the humblest Christian, is an infinitely nobler 
 object of contemplation, than the most brilliant theories, or 
 the most wonderful generalizations and deductions. Now 
 a Christian who, to the most enlarged mind and profoundest 
 wisdom, should superadd the possession, so infinitely more 
 precious, of a tender and watchful conscience, causes in the 
 mind of a candid observer, who may happen not to sympathise 
 with this latter, a peculiar admixture of surprise and con- 
 tempt with whatever there may be of admiration. Such 
 a Christian appears, after having proposed to himself the 
 most exalted and comprehensive designs, to be restrained 
 by weak and superstitious scruples from measures which 
 are necessary to follow them out. Or he will neglect their 
 prosecution at an important moment from the call of duty, 
 or as it will appear to those not understanding such a call, 
 from the mere effect of feebleness of mind, and religious 
 caprice. Or his habitual trust in the aid of Providence, and 
 anxious dependence on slight intimations of God's pleasure, 
 will produce an effect, which looks like deficiency in the 
 power of pursuing a continued and well-planned course of 
 action. Or even without reference to its bearing on political 
 exertion, the continual check on the free course of thought 
 and conversation, caused by habitual watchfulness against sin ; 
 e. g. against any thing approaching to slander or profaneness ; 
 appears to ' them that are without' stiff and pusillanimous. 
 Again, the love and desire of suffering, to which a very 
 sensitive conscience infallibly leads, the hair-shirt, or self- 
 inflicted stripes, or long fasts, if they do not appear most 
 admirable and excellent, appear childish and superstitious. 
 Or when the worldly-wise observer, reasoning only from
 
 analogy, may expect that some particular line of conduct, 
 which is expedient, will be thought wrong by such a Chris- 
 tian, he will find the reverse ; and the reasons given for the 
 distinction between this and some other line which he did 
 think wrong, will appear hair-splitting and frivolous in the 
 very highest degree. It is most important always to bear in 
 mind, that this last is precisely the appearance presented, by 
 all attempts to explain the most real and fundamental dis- 
 tinctions to those, who, from not having cultivated the 
 appropriate faculties, have not at present the power of ap- 
 prehending that particular class of truths. To take a very 
 serious instance: even the more religious men at present 
 have a tendency to consider the differences, between ortho- 
 doxy and Arianism or Nestorianism, at all events less vital 
 and fundamental than they were considered by contemporary 
 Catholics. To take a more familiar case : a person destitute 
 of taste for music will consider any attempt to explain, in 
 methodical language, the toto-coslo difference in kind between 
 the effect caused on the mind respectively by Beethoven's 
 and Rossini's music, as over-subtlety, or over- imaginativeness, 
 or the two united. Just so, any one who has not lived in the 
 habit of hourly regulating his conduct by a regard to the 
 rule of right, will be blind to the most essential distinctions 
 of morality, and will consider the attempt to explain them 
 sophistry, and the habit of acting on them dishonesty. 1 And 
 thus it will happen, that the wisest and most sagacious Saint 
 would be considered by the world at large, if they have not 
 deep faith in Catholic Christianity, to unite no small degree 
 of littleness of spirit, nay, of positive moral obliquity, with 
 his undeniable genius, greatness, and power of mind. Nor 
 would it be difficult, were it worth while, to draw a similar 
 picture, in the case where his sphere is that of abstract specu- 
 lation, not of practical action. And from all this, we see at 
 once how similar will be the effect produced by the Church 
 herself ; which, in her united action, may be expected to dis- 
 play on the whole the same principles and qualities of mind. 
 
 1 It must be observed, that I am not denying that dishonest casuistry has existed 
 within the Church, but am only saying that honest casuistry will certainly to multi- 
 tudes of men appear dishonest.
 
 273 
 
 The other characteristic of true Christianity, to which 
 attention should be directed in this connection, is, that whereas 
 rival systems of philosophy have their seat in the fancy or 
 imagination, the Gospel has its seat in the affections. But, 
 ' in the case of all our deepest emotions, it is the very law of 
 our nature, that those possessed by them shall appear in the 
 world's eye to dote on trifles and be childishly intent on 
 forms; that they shall cherish, with a loving and reverent 
 regard, every thing which may serve to remind them of, 
 every thing which has the most distant connection with, the 
 beloved object.' 1 " Now supposing hypothetically for a 
 moment (what is the very contrary of the truth), that such 
 peculiarities and tendencies implied any the slightest weak- 
 ness of mind, even then we know how great a part of the 
 interest of life in worldly men, whose minds and affections are 
 at all elevated above the herd, arises from the indulgence of 
 such feelings; nor is it obvious e. g., why to kiss fondly 
 a mother's portrait or lock of hair is more manly, than to 
 cherish and bear about a crucifix or a fragment of the true 
 Cross. And the contrast becomes much greater, when we 
 consider the common herd of irreligious men ; for surely the 
 taking of pains to secure the comforts of every day life, 
 the being solicitous about the cooking of our dinner, 
 the finding it difficult to refrain from unwholesome in- 
 dulgence in the article of food, the greediness of present 
 praise or posthumous renown, the powerlessness of com- 
 manding our temper, in the little minor miseries of life, the 
 difficulty of bearing sickness cheerfully, and a thousand 
 similar weaknesses, to which in various measures most of us, 
 1 suppose, must plead guilty, and to which certainly very 
 eminent philosophers and mathematicians have been in sub- 
 jection, but from which saintly men are eminently eman- 
 cipated, all these are surely, on any possible view of things, 
 incomparably lower and more contemptible, than even what 
 some might call a superstitious regard to sacred relics or 
 images. But then human philosophy, being as I have said 
 
 m ' On the Synagogue and the Church,' p. 1 5.
 
 274 
 
 unpractical and imaginative, puts aside from our view this 
 degrading aspect of human nature, it represents its hearers 
 as the ideal personifications of intellectual power or artistical 
 grace. Here then we see great cause for the ridiculous 
 mistakes continually committed by the Protestant or man of 
 the world, in judging the great luminaries of the Church. 
 In their case human affections and emotions indefinitely 
 purified and exalted, and fixed on a Heavenly Object, are 
 the very vital principle of their conduct. This it is which 
 gives unity to their life, whether speculative or active ; the 
 earnest habitual devotion of their whole heart and soul, not 
 to some abstract principle, but to a Living Person, and for 
 His sake to those most dear to Him. Those mental habits 
 then and external practices, to which in the case of worldly 
 heroes, philosophers shut their eyes, that they may gaze on 
 what appears to the carnal perception more great, splendid, 
 and glorious, these cannot be removed fnom public sight in 
 the Church of Christ ; but are then most prominently dis- 
 played and most zealously defended, when the most arduous 
 conflicts are to be waged, or the most noble deeds to be done. 
 To be ashamed of devotion to the Blessed Saints, or to the 
 relics of their earthly tabernacles, or to holy images, is to be 
 ashamed of the Cross of Christ, and to lower the standard of 
 high and heavenly philosophy before the supercilious, specious, 
 empty, philosophy of the world. For by so doing, we shrink 
 from publicly professing the great Christian truth, that ardent 
 personal love to Christ, whose friends those Saints are, who 
 has dwelt by the agency of the Holy Ghost within those earthly 
 tabernacles, and who is Himself represented in those images, 
 that this ardent personal love for Him is the very centre of 
 all true philosophy, and, as from an eminence commands all 
 the powers of our intellect and imagination submissively to 
 bend before it and do its bidding. 
 
 These are I think the principal reasons of the certain fact, 
 that ' Christ crucified,' as preached by the Church, is in great 
 measure 'foolishness' to the philosophical world now, as it 
 was in the first ages of the Gospel ; and that men of high 
 aspirations and capabilities, if undisciplined and unchastised,
 
 275 
 
 will be far more readily attracted by the dazzling brilliancy 
 of human philosophies, than by the severe and unearthly 
 grace of the Bride of the Lamb. I have said, as in the first 
 ages ; but I should rather say incomparably more than in the 
 first ages ; for, in this as in very many other particulars, 
 there is even a marked contrast between this and the primi- 
 tive period on the very matter in hand, on the respective 
 position of the Church and those that are without : a contrast 
 which gives much greater force to the argument. Then 
 human philosophies were effete, unattractive, 'waxen old,' 
 while the Church came forth as it were unto an unoccupied 
 arena, promising to 'declare Him whom they ignorantly 
 worshipped;' but now, while the Church has to bear the 
 responsibility of all the assailable points in her past history, 
 which must of necessity have arisen from her long and close 
 proximity to the world, human systems have come out new 
 and glittering, and as it were with the gloss on them ; which, 
 as being the products of the age, have a natural suitableness 
 and promise of satisfaction at least to the more obvious and 
 superficial requirements of the age. n And thus it is now, as 
 I have just said, that the undisciplined and unchastised, should 
 they be endued with high aspirations and great capabilities, 
 will be attracted by the 'shams' rather than by the reality; 
 and for the very same reason those who are duly disciplined 
 and chastised will cling to the reality, and despise the 'sham.' 
 Those in whom powerful intellect, brilliant genius, active 
 imagination, lord it over the other faculties, will suffer the 
 penalty of their misconduct by following the ignis fatuus 
 which lures them from their true rest and peace ; but those 
 others who, whether by the right use of outward sorrow, or 
 the right application of inward discipline, have a sensitive 
 conscience, and a tender heart, will be irresistibly attracted 
 by such very characteristics as those I lately named, which 
 
 n Of course a very far more important point of contrast is afforded, in the high 
 and admirable religious attainments of great numbers among the Protestants ; 
 a fact forming so marked an opposition to any thing witnessed in the heathen world, 
 during the early conflicts of the Church. This consideration I omit in the text, 
 merely as not bearing on the subject I am now upon. 
 
 T 2
 
 276 
 
 promise support and satisfaction to the conscience, and con- 
 solation to the heart. 
 
 But the intellectual and philosophical results, which flow 
 from a denial of the supremacy of conscience, must be pressed 
 still further ; and that alas ! not only to shew theoretically 
 in what direction we may be unawares going, but to shew by 
 living examples how far we have already gone. Now, first, 
 a denial of the supremacy of conscience is a denial of its 
 existence ; if conscience really exist, and speak with an arti- 
 culate voice, then in all moral and religious subjects it must 
 be absolutely paramount and dictatorial ; the intellect must 
 confine itself to the humbler, yet most honourable, office of 
 classifying and connecting phenomena, that they may be fairly 
 submitted to it ; and again of rightly interpreting its dictates, 
 and scientifically analyzing and expressing them. This is 
 evident at once : for conscience is the only guide which 
 even professes to give us knowledge on the invisible world, 
 or on the eternal laws of right and wrong ; it must be there- 
 fore either a delusion, or authoritative and without appeal. 
 This is so very obvious, that no one has ever denied it ; all 
 without exception who professedly deny its authority in any 
 particular on which it speaks, deny the very fact that it does 
 speak, and attribute the phenomena in question to other 
 causes, such as excited feelings or delusive imagination. 
 Now I wish to put forward plainly and in the face of day 
 this further truth, which is equally evident ; if conscience 
 does not speak, ^ve can neither apprehend the idea, nor have 
 any ground for believing the existence, of God Himself. 
 A very few words will suffice to shew this. The idea of 
 God has no archetype, either in the visible course of things 
 whereof our senses give us experience, nor yet in the a priori 
 field of space and time whereof alone the intellect is ex- 
 clusively cognizant : we can neither derive the idea then 
 from our intellect, nor from our senses, nor from any faculty 
 which does not possess the power of putting us into com- 
 munication with realities and essences : in other words, only 
 
 See this explained at greater length ' On Mill's Logic.' pp. 400 402, 407, 8.
 
 277 
 
 from our conscience ; for no other faculty even professes this 
 power. It is accordingly acknowledged, I believe, by all 
 philosophers at the present day with one voice, that the 
 consideration of final causes is most edifying indeed to the 
 religious believer, and most useful as a support to languishing 
 faith, by exhibiting as it were a visible pledge of God's power 
 and attributes ; but that, as a sufficient basis for Theism, 
 it is absolutely and completely worthless. This is very im- 
 portant ; for vast multitudes are fruitlessly endeavouring to 
 occupy some middle position, between granting all to con- 
 science and denying all ; yet is it so very plain, that, not- 
 withstanding its great importance, I can find no words to 
 make it plainer. Let me then repeat what I have said. 
 If conscience be not on all moral and religious subjects 
 paramount, then it does not really exist ; if it do not exist, 
 we have no reason whatever, nay, no power whatever, to 
 believe in God. 
 
 This, I have already said, is no mere theory. I was 
 obliged, in writing an article on Mr. Mill's Logic, to express 
 a most serious doubt whether he could fairly be considered, 
 from his system, to possess religious belief of any kind : and 
 I certainly am not aware of any living English intellectual 
 speculator, in a non-theological line, who appears to me at 
 all Mr. Mill's equal in power and acquirements. Since I 
 wrote that review, I have read great part of a work, which 
 Mr. Mill cites with the warmest approbation, and without one 
 word of qualification as to its religious tenets. I allude to 
 M. Comte's * Cours de Philosophic Positive.' Here is to 
 be found a series of plain, direct, and even earnest disavowals 
 of Theism in all possible shapes, and the expression of a con- 
 fident expectation, that in a few centuries hence the very 
 existence of any religious belief will be only known as a 
 matter of history. Moreover, the very argument on which 
 M. Comte grounds his Atheism, is the one of which I have 
 been speaking ; the circumstance, that (as he considers) we 
 have no such faculty as a conscience. 11 I hardly think that 
 
 P I was told in the shop of a foreign bookseller in London that this work enjoys a 
 considerable sale in this country.
 
 278 
 
 under any circumstances, such views as these can ever obtain 
 extensive reception ; naturam expellas,' &c., and even M. 
 Cointe, very much more Mr. Mill, shew plain marks that at 
 last conscience is more than a match for them. But though 
 firm and undoubting disbelief in the power of knowing 
 God's existence may be always rare, I fear that a very 
 extensive subversion of firm and undoubting belief in Him, 
 that belief which alone can enable man for a continuance to 
 resist the evil tendencies and temptations which assail him, 
 this I fear is very far from improbable : indeed it seems to me 
 the precise issue and consummation, to which the course of 
 speculation (judging from what one hears of it) in the Euro- 
 pean world is fast tending. For many years among our- 
 selves (who are most creditably backward in the race) phy- 
 sical science has been cultivated, on principles absolutely 
 inconsistent with belief in the efficacy of such prayers as we 
 have, for ' rain ' or for ' fair weather ;' and multitudes even of 
 clergymen have pursued scientific studies on these principles. 
 To the best of my belief, not one of them has ever seemed so 
 far to realise the doctrine of intercessory prayer and Provi- 
 dential interference, as even to observe this discrepancy ; 
 much less has any of them attempted to solve the difficulty. 
 In many quarters the task is in progress (I think very health- 
 fully in itself) of extending the principles of physical science 
 to psychological and political ; and Mr. Mill's Logic is a very 
 interesting repertory of facts illustrating this statement. Even 
 so admirable and high-minded a periodical as ' the Christian 
 Remembrancer ' contained an article on Mr. Mill's work in 
 the October number, the writer of which seemed to have no 
 suspicion of the Atheistical taint with which the work is 
 infected. In my article on the subject, I have endeavoured 
 to shew the perfect consistency between the free progress of 
 experimental science, and complete disbelief in that ' fatal ' 
 course of physical nature, which had hitherto been assumed 
 as its fundamental tenet. But the authority whence the 
 principles were derived which, I really believe, establish 
 this most conclusively and satisfactorily, was no ' scientific ' 
 clergyman, no writer of Bridgewater treatises, but an old
 
 279 
 
 article of Mr. Newman's on " Milman's History of Chris- 
 tianity." Seeing then that even in the most unsuspected 
 quarters this atheistical leaven has made (of course wholly 
 unknown to themselves) such alarming encroachments, what 
 have we not to fear from the continued progress of human 
 thought, if we do not obtain grace from God to abandon 
 our proud rationalism, and restore His Voice within us to 
 that place of honour and supremacy, from which almost all 
 parties just now seem madly conspiring still further to 
 dethrone it ? 
 
 Such then is the course which speculation seems certain to 
 take among us, unless we be wise in season, and precipitately 
 retrace our steps. We find that even those whom so many 
 of us are disposed more or less to trust as our guides in 
 moral inquiries, the profound philosophers of this world, 
 will be at last but ' blind leaders of the blind,' and lead us 
 with continually accelerated progress towards ' the ditch.' 
 Moral and religious truth must be acquired by moral and 
 religious discipline ; we must stoop to enter by that ' narrow 
 way,' if we desire ever to wing a sustained and lofty flight 
 in the atmosphere of pure and invigorating philosophy. 
 
 8. But now when we are pressed overwhelmingly with this 
 preliminary difficulty, where are we to learn this inward dis- 
 cipline of which I speak, and in what school to practise and 
 foster it ? Conscience is in the main a critical not an active 
 faculty ; it must be cherished and supported by continued 
 help and motives from without, or else, almost before it be 
 called into conscious existence, the various evil passions and 
 propensities of our nature will have hurried on the whole 
 man, into a sinful course which will blind conscience. There 
 must of necessity then be for all of us some constant and 
 uniform external guidance from the first ; or ' the light that 
 is in us will be darkness,' and we shall be left to grope our 
 way at random. And the considerations we have been lately 
 pursuing, shew us that the same is the case even with those 
 possessed of the highest intellectual gifts. We have found 
 that these have no real advantage over more ordinary Chris- 
 tians in their means of discerning the Divine Will : there is
 
 280 
 
 no royal road opened to the wisdom of this world ; not ' one 
 law for the rich and another for the poor ;' the temptations 
 to a false judgment are different in the two cases, but are 
 equally real temptations. Conscience alone can guide us 
 aright; and by following our intellect instead of our con- 
 science, we shall be led even more fearfully and widely astray, 
 than by acquiescing in the more humble but not more sinful 
 suggestions of indolence and self-interest. In what school 
 then, and under what instructors, are we, all of us, rich and 
 poor, educated and uneducated, intellectually deep and in- 
 tellectually shallow, to learn that degree of moral discern- 
 ment and self-mastery, which may enable us to see aright 
 what further step it may be God's pleasure that we take ? 
 
 Blessed indeed with unusual blessedness are those who, 
 in whatever age and country, have been placed from the 
 first by God's Providence within a pure and orthodox 
 Church, and have been led by His grace to cooperate faith- 
 fully with her teaching. These go on day by day purifying 
 their hearts more diligently by the methods wherein she has 
 trained them, appropriating more deeply and entirely the 
 doctrine she has taught them, and exercising more joyfully 
 and exultingly the habits of mind, acquired by these funda- 
 mental duties, in the exercises of private or public devotion, of 
 secret meditation or Solemn ceremonial, which she places before 
 them. And then as time goes on, and their various tendencies 
 and capabilities are manifested, they will find one by one the 
 fullest provision for their requirements in her Divine System. 
 
 Are they, for instance, endued with high and piercing in- 
 tellectual power ? They apply themselves to the deep study 
 and further development of that wonder in the world's 
 history, the edifice of dogmatic theology which the Church 
 has reared, and which all, who have given their minds to it, 
 with one voice proclaim, to be an intellectual prodigy, as ab- 
 solutely singular, as absolutely beyond all possible comparison 
 with the achievements of human philosophy, as heaven is 
 above earth, or the wisdom of God above the theories of 
 man. Thejintellect is then only the best of its kind, when it 
 rightly understands its place ; and that it should consider
 
 281 
 
 itself as a supreme arbiter in moral and religious questions, 
 implies a deficiency which must unfit it for the due perform- 
 ance of its own functions. An intellect which oversteps its 
 fit province, shews itself, by that very circumstance, to be 
 a shallow intellect ; but placed where God would have it 
 placed, in humble and abject submission to the conscience, 
 then at length it is able to develope its wonderful powers, 
 and rise to those lofty heights which might have been thought 
 wholly beyond its range. q This then is the central position, 
 from which Catholic students of philosophy will view the 
 current theories of the day ; and the assumption of which 
 will enable them to impart valuable and even necessary acces- 
 sions to the fabric itself, from the truths accidentally dis- 
 covered or illustrated in those theories. Such is the legiti- 
 mate and most satisfactory scope for those high and rare 
 powers of mind, which God has granted to some, and which 
 so often, by being allowed to conflict with our higher 
 nature instead of bending before it, become a snare or 
 burden, rather than a blessing, to those possessed of them. 
 
 Others again, instead of this, are endued with a brilliant 
 fancy or warm imagination ; and these are allowed ample satis- 
 faction in all the aesthetical and poetical side of the Church's 
 ordinances. Those who are rather called to a life of practical 
 exertion, may kad the life of missionaries or of parish priests 
 almost like missionaries, by help of the admirable training 
 the Church has given them for that purpose, and the ad- 
 mirable machinery with which she puts them into connection. 
 Others, who are led rather to deep spiritual contemplation, 
 will find a sphere of mental exercise most appropriate to 
 their disposition, by sounding the depths of the Church's 
 ascetic and mystical theology, and becoming fit guides in the 
 spiritual life to the higher and purer souls who may desire 
 their help. Others, from continued sickness or sorrow, will 
 
 i The pure intellect really exhibits to the full its astonishing capabilities, I think, 
 only on two subjects : pure mathematics, which are its creation, and in which it 
 legitimately claims absolute supremacy ; and dogmatic theology, in which it submits 
 contentedly to the only position allowed it on the field of morals and religion, the 
 humble and dutiful subserviency to the spiritual nature.
 
 282 
 
 come to the Church rather for comfort than for means of 
 usefulness ; and will obtain what they seek. The multitude 
 of men again, who are immersed in secular business, will 
 desire from the Church, not a new calling, but continued 
 direction and edification in their calling; and these will 
 receive at her hands, through her various instruments, such 
 deep and holy lessons as their necessities require. But all 
 without exception, in proportion as they have submitted 
 themselves with faithful and true hearts to the lessons they 
 learn, from whatever side they view the great fabric in con- 
 nection with which God has placed them, (speaking only of 
 secondary causes, and without allusion to the great Gift 
 which gives such causes a supernatural effect,) obtain, both 
 from personal experience and from the mysterious sympathy 
 which exists with others like-minded, a conviction of the 
 divine and unearthly character of this ' pillar and ground of 
 truth,' of its claims on their hearty allegiance and unques- 
 tioning belief, far deeper and more intimate than any other 
 conviction of which our nature is susceptible/ 
 
 But, alas ! speaking generally, for us English the practical 
 question is, not how those who have learned the pure Gospel 
 from their childhood acquire a conviction, which may rather 
 be called even knowledge, that their Church is a trustworthy 
 and heavenly guide, but how those who have been placed 
 under systems in various degrees imperfect or erroneous, 
 may learn to better their doctrine or even their position. 
 Now surely, if we would only discard theories and look at 
 facts as they really stand, we should have no real difficulty 
 
 at all in answering this question. The conscience, it appears, 
 \ 
 
 r ' If any one should suppose the idea itself of unquestioning submission to 
 authority, in its appointed sphere, unworthy of a rational being, let him fancy 
 the imaginary case of a son blessed with an infallible father. With what a 
 confiding and enthusiastic tenderness he would regard him ! Yet how hopelessly 
 would he attempt to recall to his mind all those incidents, in every hour of every 
 day for so many years, which, taken together, justify such confidence ! how confused 
 would he be if questioned on the subject ! how enraged, or rather astounded, shocked, 
 and bewildered, if seriously advised, nay, clamorously called upon, to investigate his 
 father's claims on his deference, with an impartial and critical eye !' 'On Mill's 
 Logic,' p. 393.
 
 283 
 
 may be called into active exercise from a very early period ; 
 cannot however be so called forth or fostered without a 
 present and active external guide ; and cannot choose for 
 itself, with any prospect of success, one guide rather than 
 another, until it has arrived to a very considerable growth 
 and maturity. Where can our eyes be, if we do not at once 
 see the fact, so signally and conspicuously placed over 
 against this fact, in God's dealings with the world ? Why is 
 the child to seek, what God has placed immediately in 
 contact with him ? Is not the sacred and mysterious parental 
 tie the holiest of all God's natural ordinances ? are not a 
 child's parents, according to the arrangements of Providence, 
 addressed by almost every imaginable motive, which can 
 lead them to guide him aright, at least during his earliest 
 years, in matters of principal importance ? and have not 
 children themselves, as the mysterious correlative to this 
 last circumstance, a deeply implanted tendency to accept 
 with the most implicit and unsuspicious confidence all that 
 their parents place before their minds ? And when we have 
 these plain facts before us, what madness to theorize about 
 Apostolical Succession, or Visible Unity, or independent 
 study of Scripture, and to call on the young, who have 
 hardly, or not yet, left the tutelage of their parents, to tear 
 up by the roots their most sacred prepossessions, and enter 
 forsooth on the solemn mockery, of a free and candid inquiry 
 into the religious doctrines they have learned ? 
 
 Far different is the divinely appointed method of acquiring 
 new religious truth. ' How early a course of probation 
 begins with children, need not be said ; nor what decisive 
 influence their deportment under that probation has on their 
 future fortune. The word of their parents, from the very 
 first, supplies to them the place of the external voice of God, 
 correlative and responsive to His voice within them. In 
 proportion to their confiding trust and ready eager obedience, 
 does that inward faculty give a deeper and fuller meaning to 
 the lessons of truth which they so acquire ; while that which is 
 false in statement or even in principle, as meeting with no 
 kindred atmosphere, like the notes of a musical instrument
 
 284 
 
 in a space exhausted of air, convey no definite meaning to 
 the conscience. Such are God's ordinary dealings with 
 children ; nor is this process interrupted, when the parent 
 commits them to a school-system, or trusted friend, or 
 ultimately to some religious community; they repose their 
 confidence in this new object of regard with the same 
 implicit, unreserved, submission as before. How long this 
 simple, peaceful, heavenly, course of action will proceed, 
 varies of course indefinitely with all varieties of external 
 statement or inward endowments ; but whenever it ends, it 
 has left the pupil in certain and unalienable possession of an 
 invaluable stock of moral principles, of whose truth his 
 conviction is most certain and secure, and which will be in 
 time to come his main stay and support, in temptations from 
 without, in perplexities from within.' s 
 
 Whether we should endeavour spontaneously to shake the 
 confidence of a person, so situated, in his first instructors, 
 depends on the doctrines they profess. Should their teaching 
 express in words, more or less directly, Lutheranism or vir- 
 tual Antinomianism, as is the case, I suppose, with very 
 many dissenters, and certainly with a great number of ' Evan- 
 gelicals ' in our own Church; then doubtless, when the time 
 of full intelligence has arrived, we should appeal to the 
 Christian's conscience and higher feelings, either by w r ords 
 or by bringing before him a better system, and do our utmost 
 in drawing his attention to the utter incompatibility which 
 exists, between the doctrines he hears and the first principles 
 of morality. Nay, even before the period of full intelligence, 
 should he be seriously dispirited and perplexed by the strange, 
 unreal, anti-moral, language held by his instructors, we should 
 do well in relieving him, as far as possible, from his anxiety, 
 by imparting to him a knowledge of the pure Gospel ; though 
 we should earnestly endeavour so to guard all we say, as to 
 involve the least possible reflection on those, whom it is so 
 highly his duty to reverence. In other cases, we should 
 rather fix his mind on the truest and highest parts of his cx- 
 
 5 'OnGoode,'pp. 39, 40.
 
 285 
 
 isting system ; not concealing perhaps from his knowledge 
 those further truths towards which we hope to attract him, 
 but at the same time earnestly impressing upon him the 
 maxim, that it would be even sinful in him to leap forward, 
 as it were, to reach them, before his conscience should be 
 fully ripe for their reception. Above all, we should, with 
 our whole heart and soul, urge upon him the continued 
 practice of such duties, as daily self-examination, habitual 
 watchfulness of conscience, frequent prayer ; for these are 
 the only safeguards he can possess, against liability to the 
 most outrageous and extravagant delusions. The greater 
 stress he lays on these duties, the deeper sense he acquires of 
 the sinfulness of sin and the craft and constant hostility of 
 his great spiritual enemy, the more zealous and earnest will 
 he be in pressing forward towards a new range of doctrine, 
 which may promise him increased help and support against 
 their assaults. It will frequently happen, that he will sud- 
 denly observe himself to have reached, by such means as 
 these, a series of truths, the very contradictories of which he 
 had otiosely held in times past : here is a most unexception- 
 able mode of abandoning early prepossessions. Or if he be 
 intellectually gifted, he may discern that the doctrines, wit- 
 nessed to him by his conscience, are theoretically inconsistent 
 with some of his traditionary opinions, to which his conscience 
 bears no witness : here also he will obviously please God by 
 giving up those traditionary opinions. 
 
 But what shall we say of other opinions he has imbibed in 
 a similar manner, and which have therefore the sacredness of 
 early association : which however conscience does not witness 
 on one side, nor yet does either conscience or intellectual in- 
 ference from conscience contradict on the other ? As a strong 
 illustration of what I mean, I may instance the sacredness 
 he may have learned to attach to the ministers or ordinances 
 of his religious community. Most certainly it may be his 
 bounden duty to abandon such opinions ; but as certainly 
 the ' onus probandi' lies signally and emphatically with those 
 who call on him to do so. He has learned these opinions from
 
 286 
 
 God Himself, for they were part of that very system to which 
 God consigned him for early instruction ; nothing then short 
 of the most urgent and irresistible proofs, will justify him in 
 resigning them. This is a question of the deepest practical 
 importance at the present time, as is very plain ; and I hope 
 in a future chapter to consider it with greater particularity. 
 Here I will only add, that it has often struck me, as one 
 conceivable reason for that inscrutable dispensation of Pro- 
 vidence, whereby the English Church is placed in her present 
 most anomalous condition, gifted with the power of dis- 
 pensing sacramental grace, and yet wholly destitute of ex- 
 ternal notes, and wholly indefensible, as to her position, by 
 external, historical, ecclesiastical, arguments ; d one purpose, 
 I say, designed by this may be, that the whole Church 
 may have her mind attracted to those all-important truths, to 
 which I drew so particular attention in the second chapter, and 
 which there seemed great danger of many among her members 
 forgetting ; the absolute supremacy of conscience ; and the 
 high sacredness of hereditary religion. This latter most im- 
 portant principle is one of the two great conservative elements 
 in our moral nature ; the other being (what I have spoken of 
 * usque ad nauseam,' and only wish that I practised it as con- 
 stantly as I mention it) the laborious realisation of the doctrines 
 we profess, the careful and habitual practice of watchfulness, 
 self-examination, prayer : while the impulsive element arises 
 indeed from the last-named conservative element; and is 
 that tendency, whereby the spiritual mind, in proportion to 
 
 d In saying this, I am hardly saying more than Mr. Newman in his last volume, 
 who says, that the outward notes of our Church are ' partly gone and partly 
 going.' (p. 378.) The existence of those inward notes which he mentions, I most 
 undoubtingly believe ; the only point on which I cannot follow his teaching on 
 the subject (waiving perhaps one or two difficulties, which are mainly ques- 
 tions of words, and if the very mention of difference from him be not unpar- 
 donable presumption, as I humbly trust it is not) is this ; that putting aside the 
 outward mark which consists in the visible fruits of the Holy Ghost in others, 
 (a mark indeed by far the strongest in kind of all external marks,) I am wholly 
 unable to discern the outward notes of which he speaks, during any part of the last 
 three hundred years.
 
 287 
 
 its enlightenment, presses eagerly forward in every direction 
 in search of fuller satisfaction, and day by day, even uncon- 
 sciously, develops its existing creed into fresh results, derives 
 more of admirable and sublime truths from Scripture, and 
 assimilates to itself and inwardly appropriates fresh nutriment 
 from every object which meets its view. The eagerness with 
 which this is done, is simply an excellence under the head of 
 a theological virtue ; being quickness of faith : nor is it pos- 
 sible for the mind to be too actively and unceasingly devoted 
 to the task, so long as it is steadied and directed by those two 
 conservative elements of which I have spoken. 
 
 Reverting now to the observations a few pages back, on 
 the inevitable consequence which would result in regard to 
 the more intellectual, ardent, and imaginative minds, from 
 that most sinful course, an unbiassed and independent search 
 for moral, philosophical, or religious truth ; let me again 
 entreat for what I have said, the careful consideration of 
 those, who disparage, in one way or other, the sacredness of 
 individual conscience, and substitute, as our guide to Christian 
 knowledge, criticism from without in the place of develop- 
 ment from within. It matters not whether they do so in the 
 shape of inculcating a free examination of the text of Scrip- 
 ture, or of the writers reputed orthodox during the early 
 centuries, or. of the various external notes of truth which 
 different bodies at this time may present. These different 
 applications of the principle are the symbols, as is well 
 known, of very different theologies : but the principle, the 
 most sinful principle, is common to them all. See then, I 
 beseech you, in what your exhortations will issue. They 
 will not effect the more ordinary and acquiescent minds : 
 these, except for strong external impulse, will always remain 
 contented with their existing position. Nor yet will they 
 affect the most spiritual and heavenly-minded Christians, who 
 may be ill furnished with intellectual gifts : for their mind is 
 wholly insensible to the force of any argument on the opposite 
 side, though they often fancy themselves to be influenced by 
 reasoning on their own side ; the real truth being, that, though 
 they learn parrot-like to repeat reasoning on their own side,
 
 288 
 
 their conviction does not depend 011 argument at all, but on 
 far higher, more legitimate, and more satisfactory grounds. 
 As regards either of these two classes, your exhortations will 
 pass over their heads as ' idle wind,' neither controverted, nor 
 yet regarded, nor even understood. Others, more weak and 
 unstable in faith, and possessed of sufficient intellectual power 
 to understand a difficulty, without sufficient power to devise 
 its solution ; such men as these you may, in very great 
 numbers, frighten, perplex, and discourage, so far as to 
 render them faint-hearted and cowardly in their Christian 
 course, and distrustful of their ability ever to discern religious 
 truth : to that extent you will succeed in shaking them, and 
 no further ; and a truly honourable victory you will obtain. 
 But it is those of whom I was speaking a few pages back, 
 and whose course of opinion will be incalculably influential 
 on the fortunes of our Church, it is these and these only, 
 that you will really persuade into adopting the course you 
 recommend ; these will understand your meaning much better 
 than you do yourselves, and have already only too much of 
 evil inclination corresponding to your evil words. These men 
 you will succeed in moving ; and in what direction ? not 
 towards Catholicism, nor towards ' Anglo-Catholicism,' nor 
 towards ' Evangelicalism/ nor towards moderate ' Church-of- 
 Englandism :' but towards infidelity. That a nominal recep- 
 tion of Scripture itself is no security whatever against this, 
 was always evident enough from abstract reasoning; but 
 German examples have proclaimed the truth, beyond all pos- 
 sibility of doubt or mistake. 
 
 You above all, O Roman Catholics in England, what 
 madness urges you to a course, so contrary to your 
 own principles, so fatal to your own claims ? Members you 
 are of that Church, which, by special Divine Gift, is so 
 spiritually and mysteriously ordered, that the course of 
 submissive and dutiful loyalty to any existing system leads 
 forward humble Christians, in proportion, on the one hand, 
 to the devotedness of their spiritual exertions, and on the 
 other hand to their opportunity of removing misconception, 
 of recognising their own doctrines, and of knowing yours,
 
 289 
 
 leads them forward, I say, in that proportion to love and 
 reverence for that Church. And what madness then urges 
 you to check their course in that very path, which is leading 
 them in your direction, and to impel them, of purpose 
 aforethought, into the highway of free inquiry and specula- 
 tion, where they will find other philosophies far more daz- 
 zling and attractive to their, as yet carnal, sight than your 
 own ? I am not speaking of your wish to include imme- 
 diately within your fold those whom in doctrine you consider 
 already ripe for admittance ; nor even of appealing to those 
 who are less advanced in opinion, still on the ground of 
 their sympathy with your religious system, your faith, your 
 sanctity : as regards these indeed I humbly but firmly ex- 
 press my utter dissent and bitter sorrow at many of your 
 usual methods of procedure ; but still I see much naturally 
 to be urged in your defence. I am speaking of a habit far 
 more obviously indefensible ; that habit whereby you sum- 
 mon inquirers indiscriminately, without regarding in any 
 way their moral preparation of heart, to a sifting investiga- 
 tion on the first principles of their belief ; whereby you en- 
 deavour, whether in print or in personal addresses, to shake 
 their confidence in all the doctrines and principles which 
 they most certainly hold, and exhort them at once to 
 abandon, on recognising its lack of argumentative basis, 
 the system they have learned to revere. That attempts 
 so utterly contradictory to the dispensation of nature have 
 hitherto met little success, I gladly acknowledge : but were 
 you to succeed in your baleful endeavours to unsettle 
 and disturb, what would follow ? For one hundred whom 
 you might render dissatisfied with their existing position, 
 I doubt if there is so much as one whom you would attract 
 and retain in your own Church : all classes of the commu- 
 nity would have cause to sorrow for your success, but none 
 such bitter cause as yourselves. What ! is it by means of 
 free inquiry that the very sympathy and reverence for 
 yourselves has been created within our Church, of which you 
 think thus to take advantage ? was it by free inquiry that 
 Mr. Froude was led first boldly to sound the note of love
 
 290 
 
 and honour to Rome ? nay, was it by free inquiry that any 
 one of your more distinguished converts was led the first 
 ninety -nine of the hundred steps which placed him among 
 you ? You know very well how far this is from the fact ; 
 and be sure of this, as of a first principle, that free inquiry 
 may perform, and that in a very short time, the office of 
 making a religious people sceptical (for that, witness the Re- 
 formation) ; but it must be a very opposite method which 
 will bring them back, or give you any hope of completing 
 your benevolent and religious desires for our highest welfare. 
 
 9. This whole question will come before us again, and with 
 greater detail, in a future chapter; when I hope to shew 
 more at length the intellectual emptiness of this proud and 
 carnal philosophy : enough at all events has been said here 
 (and it is the purpose for which it has been introduced) to 
 shew the extreme importance of the subject. Such then 
 being the fearful mischief with which the rationalistic view is 
 pregnant, it bears closely on our purpose to observe, that it 
 never could have existed in our Church with any degree of 
 plausibility, but for the extensive and blighting influence of 
 Lutheran doctrine ; a doctrine which in its abstract profession 
 wholly repudiates, and in its practical effect so fatally dis- 
 parages, the most primary and fundamental truths of natural 
 religion. Had such duties as those to which I have so 
 repeatedly referred, watchfulness of conscience, self-examin- 
 ation, and the like, been enforced among us in a degree 
 bearing even any ascertainable proportion to their indis- 
 pensable necessity, the clearness and articulateness with 
 which conscience pronounces its dictates, and the deep unity 
 which really exists on moral and religious matters among all 
 who make holy obedience their first, their one, care, this fact 
 would have forced itself on the notice of many even uncandid 
 inquirers. At the same time ordinary Christians would have 
 learned to see more and more into the depth and unearthliness 
 of the saintly character ; and thus the religious experience of 
 eminently holy men would have been generally admitted, as 
 the appointed corrective and guide to the individual conscience. 
 
 Now how full of hopefulness is this whole view of the matter,
 
 291 
 
 in respect to that object, which must be so very near to the 
 heart of all who love their Lord with any life and sincerity, 
 the ultimate reunion of all faithful Christians ; and the 
 consequent reedification of the Church in all its characteristic 
 glory, as the rallying point of all that is high and holy : 
 whereby the forces of good might be concentrated in 
 action against their common enemies, instead of being 
 weakened and exhausted by their intestine divisions, and 
 thus affording an easy triumph to the powers of the world ! 
 Oh ! to whom would not the labour of a life appear but 
 dust in the balance,' if it were permitted before death to see 
 even a distant prospect of so glorious a consummation ? And 
 how deeply interesting then is the present discussion, if the 
 views here maintained be indeed well-founded ! For surely 
 there is no religious community in the land, among whose 
 members we might not be able to circulate (in writing or 
 otherwise) such appeals to their conscience as these ; appeals 
 which should make it a point of careful solicitude to avoid 
 all allusion to such matters of infinitely minor importance, as 
 external ritual or other outward forms; nay, which might 
 put aside matters, in themselves so vital and essential even 
 as sacramental grace, but which belong to a later period 
 in the religious course, and will be eagerly accepted, nay 
 sought for, by those who begin in the humble path of 
 obedience and self-denial ; appeals which should lay their 
 whole stress in enforcing on the conscience of all, those great 
 duties, to which the conscience of all would most surely, 
 sooner or later, be found to respond. I am not meaning, of 
 course, that such appeals should be confined to barren and 
 general exhortations, which would be next to useless. But 
 every thing surely might be hoped from more definite and 
 practical addresses ; as, e. g. the description, in its various 
 details, of the real Christian character ; of the humility, non- 
 censoriousness, charitableness, contentment, cheerfulness, 
 zealous labour in our worldly calling, humiliation for past 
 sin, and the rest, which are its characteristic features : again, 
 from the suggestion of definite practical rules, minute, accu- 
 rate, details and helps for the real and earnest performance, day 
 
 u2
 
 292 
 
 by day, of such duties as the following, and the performance 
 of them as being duties : careful self-examination, regular 
 and well-performed prayer, earnest and habitual meditation. 
 
 But if there would appear so much ground for hope even 
 in dissenting communities among us, how much more in that 
 Church where God's mercy has placed us, and where the 
 Prayer-book itself affords such powerful cooperation in mould- 
 ing the youthful mind on an anti-Lutheran model. It will be 
 my anxious endeavour, then, in the two following chapters, 
 and on a subject so painfully serious and important I earnestly 
 wish and pray for God's guidance to my endeavour, to 
 express at least in some very inadequate degree, 1st, the 
 extreme, the almost incredible corruption of our actual 
 system in such particulars ; and 2dly, the kind of practical 
 remedies which promise most hopefully for a gradual resto- 
 ration. But in addressing members of our own Church, to 
 God be the praise, this need not be all. A Church which, 
 even in the dark times that have succeeded the Great Sin of 
 the 16th century, has borne, in some limited measure, so 
 constant a witness to many great Catholic truths, affords 
 common-ground in several other matters, besides this great 
 foundation of all. I trust I may be able to shew English 
 ' high-churchmen,' on how very wide a field, without going 
 one jot or tittle beyond their existing principles, they may be 
 able fully to cooperate with many, whom they now regard 
 with distrust and uneasiness ; and how willingly these last 
 would reciprocate any confidence that might be reposed in 
 them, by most strictly confining their practical exertions to 
 the same objects. A further point then will be, to shew how 
 miserably imperfect is the witness borne by our present 
 system to doctrines, which all ( high-churchmen ' agree in 
 considering paramount and essential ; I mean even such as 
 our Blessed Lord's Divinity itself. And from this, the subject 
 will naturally lead to such other particulars mentioned in 
 my second chapter, as cannot be considered, by any possibility, 
 to tend, even distantly, towards the transgression of what are 
 sometimes called * the distinctive principles ' of the English 
 Church. How far, should we ever succeed in carrying out
 
 293 
 
 even to a limited degree, the wow-distinctive principles of 
 the English Church, (those I mean which ' high-churchmen ' 
 hold in common with the whole Catholic world,) the said 
 ' distinctive ' principles will be found to possess any solid 
 existence whatever; this is a question, on which I have 
 my own very definite opinion, but which I would most gladly 
 leave to be determined by the event. 
 
 And I beg in all sincerity and humility to repeat what I 
 said some way back. When I feel called on to use strong 
 language about the corruption of our own Church, or the 
 sinfulness of the Reformation, or similar matters, I really 
 am not at all conscious of being influenced either by 
 desire of eccentricity, or by a spirit of undutifulness. The 
 words I use do not even fully express the convictions that 
 are among the very deepest I feel. And I use them, 
 that I may, at fit time and place, bear my witness against 
 those opinions on the subject of English purity and Roman 
 corruption, which seem to me not only not innocent and 
 amiable mistakes, but among the greatest snares and tempta- 
 tions which lie in our path. Nay, even if any one is perfectly 
 convinced that he will always differ from me in his view of 
 such matters, I beg at least that he will prefer doing so after 
 consideration of what I have to urge, rather than without that 
 consideration. 
 
 10. I must not however conclude the present chapter, how- 
 ever disproportionate the length to which it has swollen, 
 without taking a parting view of the Lutheran doctrine. 2 We 
 
 1 In doing so, I am inclined to notice distinctly an objection to the preceding 
 denunciation of this doctrine, which on the surface has an ingenious appearance. 
 It is asked, can any one say that the average of Evangelicals is conspicuously 
 inferior in Christian excellence to the average of Roman Catholics ? And if not, 
 how misplaced all these severe attacks ! A moment's consideration shews the 
 fallacy. No one, I suppose, adopts ' Evangelical ' opinions, who does not profess 
 religion to be his chief concern ; nay, who does not consider himself quite cer- 
 tainly in God's favour. The only fair comparison then is, not with the mass of 
 worldly Roman Catholics, but with those of them who are in a similar category : 
 of those, that is, who are regular at Confession and Communion. Take the com- 
 parison in this, the only fair way, and most striking is the contrast. If we com- 
 pare the average specimens, multitudes of the ' Evangelicals,' from the fearful 
 amount of their ' self- deceit,' are in most imminent danger of eternal ruin : and
 
 294 
 
 have just concluded our consideration of that its fundamental 
 extravagance, whereby it considers the Gospel to be in some 
 sense the reversal, and not merely the complement, of the 
 Natural Law. Another parallel error is, that it considers 
 grace in some sense the reversal, and not simply the com- 
 plement, of nature. The utter mistake of such a view is at 
 once obvious. What ! 
 
 " Does then the Christian, in proportion as he is imhued with 
 the spirit of the Gospel, lose his appreciation of music or of natural 
 beauty ? does the ' monitus locorum et temporum' no longer appeal 
 to his affections ? does he find himself endued with some sudden 
 and intuitive perception of religious truth, without graduation of 
 progress, without medium of communication ? On such a point the 
 appeal is to fad,, not to reasoning ; and will any one say that the 
 picture we lately attempted to draw, is not true, as far as it goes, of 
 Christians in particular, not less than of men in general ? Those 
 theoretical dreamers, who speak as though they fancied that the 
 Christian religion revolutionizes (if we may so speak) man's moral 
 nature, shew the utter baselessness and unreality of their language, 
 exactly as often as they are compelled to confront facts. This is 
 one, out of the many reasons which may be given, for the signal 
 failure of any attempt to form a theology on ' evangelical' prin- 
 ciples. Certain persons have devised a theory, that under the 
 Gospel, whether from the nature of its spiritual influence, or (as 
 they more commonly represent it) of the truths which it discloses, 
 gratitude for mercy received is a sufficient foundation, whereon a 
 life of consistent holiness may be reared. And what is the result ? 
 This, that they cannot give one single practical rule, no not one, 
 for the exercise or improvement of any virtue, without plainly 
 abandoning their fundamental principle. No I Christianity makes 
 no profession of performing on any one, who may have a taste for 
 the experiment, an immediate, sensible, radical transformation, as 
 though by some magical enchantment ; ' the Kingdom of God 
 cometh not with observation,' whether to the individual or to the 
 world The natural man forms habits of virtue by single 
 
 if we compare the best specimens, on the one side we have the Saints of the 
 Church, on the other side a body of men who, however excellent, possess not, to 
 speak generally, (from what I know of their recorded lives I should incline to con- 
 sider the exceptions extremely few,) so much as the first rudiments of the full 
 Christian character.
 
 295 
 
 acts of obedience and self-denial, looking to God for help, and with 
 his thoughts fixed on heavenly truths ; so also does the Christian : 
 but, beyond any comparison, the spiritual influence which acts on 
 his soul is more mighty and ' instrengthening,' a and the heavenly 
 truths, on which his faith is supported, more awful and trans- 
 porting." b 
 
 But it will be here very pertinently and justly asked, if 
 nature be not changed by grace, what force can be given 
 to such very primary and important passages of Scripture, as 
 those which speak of the ' new creation/ ' all things be- 
 coming new,' our being ' born again ' ? nay, is not the very 
 phrase ' change of nature ' adopted by both parties in modern 
 controversy ? The reply to this, includes in it a reply to the 
 remaining one of those two fundamental questions at issue, 
 which I mentioned towards the beginning of this chapter; and 
 this reply though I have been compelled in several places 
 already to forestal it, it may be better to repeat once for all. 
 Since the Day of Pentecost, our justification has consisted, not 
 in the mere forgiveness of sins, (which indeed is all that the 
 word itself means in Scripture, ) but in the presence of the 
 Holy Ghost himself within us. He does not supersede 
 our natural faculties, but the very contrary : He elevates, 
 invigorates, quickens, and informs them, making them in a 
 very true sense His own organs and ministers ; d He develops 
 their hitherto latent capabilities, and moulds them into forms, 
 which, but for His Presence, would be unsustainable. That 
 the result of this His wonderful working is a most sufficient 
 fulfilment of these texts, the Protestant himself bears a most 
 unsuspicious witness. For when he reads of mortified hermits, 
 or missionary monks, or holy ascetics ; their enthusiastic hu- 
 mility and self-abnegation ; their love of suffering, contempt, 
 privation, celibacy ; their deep-seated love of orthodoxy, as 
 
 a Dr. Pusey's translation of i^vvx^autiri in one of his sermons. 
 
 b ' Church and Synagogue,' pp. 11, 12. 
 
 c See Newman on Justification, chap. 3. 
 
 d See an expression, parallel to this, defended and shewn to be consistent with 
 the fullest and most entire recognition of the freedom of the will, in Suarez de 
 Gratia, lib. vi. chap. 5, 6, 7.
 
 296 
 
 some most dear personal possession, and repugnance for 
 heresy, as for some distasteful and deadly poison ; their life 
 of unwearied labour, devotedness, prayer, and their joyous- 
 ness in that life ; their most tender and unspeakable love of 
 the brethren, as witnessed in the incredible pains they will 
 take to turn only one sinner from the error of his ways ; their 
 love above all things, and in all things, of their Saviour, 
 insomuch that the thought of Him is the one great vision 
 whereon they support life, and the moment in each day of 
 receiving Him in the Eucharist is felt as the most sufficient, 
 nay, superabundant, refreshment for all their toils and sor- 
 rows; when the Protestant reads or hears of all this, he 
 half-pities and half-despises them, and calls their life * un- 
 natural.' ' Unnatural ' is the misbeliever's way of expressing 
 the idea ' supernatural. 1 
 
 11. It may be as well to mention, in order to prevent mis- 
 conception, that in speaking of the Catholic doctrine, in the 
 particular of pride and 'self-righteousness,' I rest not merely 
 on the formal decrees of the Council of Trent, but also on all 
 the devotional works that have repute and celebrity in the 
 Roman Church, and on the universal sentiments of all Saints, 
 whether in early or later ages. I mention this, because I 
 am not prepared to deny that in one or two dogmatic treatises 
 there may be expressions on the subject of merit, which are 
 more or less painful to the ear ; expressions which probably 
 have their origin in the circumstance, that the writers did not 
 see at the moment the precisely fitting and sufficient answer, to 
 those Lutheran blasphemies which they were called on to op- 
 pose. One or two quotations had perhaps better follow here, 
 from works which enjoy the very highest authority; but 
 must be taken merely as specimens of an innumerable multi- 
 tude. 
 
 The first is from Rodriguez on ' Spiritual Perfection.' The 
 author is a Jesuit, and the work is generally considered, I 
 believe, the best practical ascetic work in the Church. 
 
 " How just and holy men may, with truth, look upon themselves 
 as the worst and last of men ; and style themselves the greatest 
 sinners in the world.
 
 297 
 
 " Having shewn that we ought to try to arrive so far, as to 
 reckon ourselves the least of all, and to look upon ourselves as the 
 greatest sinners in the world ; it will not be a vain curiosity, but a 
 very profitable inquiry, to explain how the greatest saints could 
 
 truly have such thoughts of themselves as these To him 
 
 that is truly humble, it is easy to look upon himself as the least of 
 all. For, in his brethren he sees nothing but what is good, and 
 nothing in himself but his own faults ; and he is so taken up in 
 considering, and seeking how to amend them, that believing he has 
 cause enough to weep for them, he never looks up, to behold what 
 is amiss in others ; and for that reason he has a good opinion 
 of all his brethren, and an ill one of himself alone ; nay, the 
 more he increases in sanctity, the more easy he finds it, to humble 
 himself in this matter ; not only because, as he makes proficiency 
 in other virtues, he does so in humility, and in the knowledge of 
 himself, and comes thereby to have a greater contempt of himself; 
 but also because the more sensible he is of the goodness and 
 mercy of God, the more acquainted he is with his own misery ; and 
 thus, one abyss carrying him into another ; from the abyss of the 
 gratness of God, into that of his own nothingness ; he sees by the 
 light of grace into the very least of his own imperfections. Now, 
 if we set any value upon ourselves, the reason is, because we have 
 little knowledge of God, and are not illuminated with light from 
 heaven ; the rays of the Sun of Justice have not yet penetrated into 
 our soul ; and so far are we from being able to discover the least 
 atoms of dust, which are our small faults, that we become so 
 blind as not to discern the greatest imperfections. . . . 
 
 " St. John Climacus says, that the devil, who seeks nothing but 
 our destruction, endeavours to set continually our virtues and good 
 actions before our eyes, that so he may make us proud ; and that 
 God on the contrary, who desires only our salvation, gives particu- 
 lar light to His elect, to make them perceive even the least of their 
 imperfections ; and hides the favours He bestows upon them in 
 such manner, that often they perceive not when they receive them. 
 All holy writers teach the same doctrine ; and St. Bernard says, 
 that it is by a particular disposition of the divine goodness, which 
 is pleased to keep us humble, that the greater progress one ordi- 
 narily makes in perfection the less he thinks he has made ; for when 
 any one is arrived to the highest degree of virtue, God permits that 
 something of the perfection of the lowest should yet remain to be
 
 298 
 
 acquired, that he may not think he is advanced so far as he is. 
 Thus the comparison, which is made between humility and the 
 sun, is a very just one ; for as the stars disappear, and hide them- 
 selves before the sun, so when humility shines truly in souls, all 
 other virtues hide themselves before it in such manner, that they 
 who are humble indeed, seem to themselves to have no virtue at all. 
 They are the only persons, says St. Gregory, who see not in them- 
 selves the exemplary virtues which all the world admires. When 
 Moses came down from Mount Sinai, where he had forty days 
 conversed with God face to face, his countenance shone so bright, 
 that all the children of Israel, says the Scripture, beheld it, and he 
 alone knew not that his face was shining, because of the conversation 
 he had had with the Lord. So it is with the humble man ; he alone 
 sees not his own virtues ; and whatever he does see in himself, 
 appears full of imperfections ; nay, he even thinks, that he sees but 
 the least part of his faults ; and that those which he sees not, are 
 much more numerous ; and thus can he easily look upon himself as 
 the least of all his brethren, and believe that he alone is the greatest 
 
 sinner in the world 
 
 " When St. Francis was one day pressed by his companion 
 to tell him, how he could have so low an opinion, and speak 
 of himself as he did, I am, said the saint, fully convinced, 
 that had the greatest sinner received the same favours that I 
 have, he would have made better use of them than I have done ; 
 and, on the contrary, I firmly believe, that did God withdraw His 
 hand from me but one moment, I should fall into the most extra- 
 vagant enormities in the world, and be the worst of men ; therefore 
 do I look upon myself as the greatest and most ungrateful of all 
 sinners. This answer is very just, and flows from a great stock of 
 humility, and at the same time contains admirable doctrine. For 
 it is thoughts of this kind moved the saints to humble themselves, 
 and to stoop to the very centre of the earth ; and made them fall 
 down at every one's feet, and truly reckon themselves the greatest 
 sinners. The knowledge of our own weakness, which is the root of 
 humility, was so fixed in their hearts, that they easily distinguished 
 what they were in themselves, from what they were by grace ; 
 wherefore considering, that if God had left them but one moment, 
 they might have grown the greatest sinners, they always looked 
 upon themselves as such ; and upon the gifts of God, as borrowed 
 favours, which instead of making them less humble, did, on the
 
 299 
 
 contrary, inspire them with a more profound sense thereof. Because 
 they always thought, that they made not that use they ought, of the 
 benefits they had received ; so that on whatever side we turn our 
 eyes, whether we cast them down upon what we have of ourselves, 
 or lift them up to behold what we have received from God ; we shall 
 always find occasion, to humble and esteem ourselves less than all 
 others." 6 
 
 The following is from that celebrated little work, ' The 
 Spiritual Combat;' a work which every Roman Catholic, 
 I suppose, of any seriousness, has in his possession. 
 
 " The third kind of temptation is vain-glory. Dread nothing so 
 much as giving the least way to an opinion of yourself and your 
 good works. Take no glory but in the Lord, and acknowledge that 
 all is due to the merits of His life and death. To the utmost/- verge 
 of life, look upon yourself only with hatred and contempt ; let your 
 humility increase every moment, and never cease giving thanks to 
 God, as the author of all the good you have ever done. Beseech 
 Him to succour you ; but beware of esteeming His assistance to be 
 the reward of your merits, even though you may have gained the 
 most signal victories over yourself. Be ever in fear, and confess 
 ingenuously, that all your endeavours would be vain, unless God, in 
 whom is all your hope, crowned them with success. Follow this 
 advice, and rest secure that your enemies cannot hurt you." a 
 
 The last shall be from St. Bonaventure's Life of Christ. 
 
 " As pride is the groundwork of all sin, so is humility of all virtue, 
 and the first step to salvation. It is but a tottering edifice that is 
 not built upon the foundation of humility. Trust not then to your 
 chastity, to your poverty, or to any other virtue you may possess, 
 except it be joined with humility ." b 
 
 12. It may be observed that I have avoided in this chapter 
 all discussion of the Scripture argument, and all allusion to 
 the Sacraments. In any case the former argument would 
 
 e Vol. ii. pp. 247252. 
 a Chap. Ixv. 
 
 b p. 72. (New Translation " For Members of the Church of England," 1844.) 
 c A short allusion however in a note to the latter subject may be perhaps 
 allowable ; to point out how singularly inconsistent are ' Evangelicals,' in ob-
 
 300 
 
 have been out of place, in a work like tins : for there is of 
 course no room for a commentary on the Epistles to the 
 Romans and Galatians ; and except some chapters of these 
 Epistles, and one or two of our Lord's parables and sayings, 
 I know not any part of the New Testament which can appear 
 to any mind, not absolutely blinded by prejudice, as sanc- 
 tioning the Lutheran doctrine. I should as soon think of 
 setting to work gravely to prove from Scripture our Lord's 
 Resurrection, or St. Paul's Conversion, as of proving from 
 it the truths which that doctrine contradicts. Since how- 
 ever, when orthodox persons acknowledge the difficulties in 
 St. Paul's Epistles, notwithstanding they have the sanction 
 of St. Peter's authority, it is often regarded by ' Evan- 
 gelicals ' as a confession of weakness ; I beg to state my 
 strong conviction, that those very chapters in those Epistles 
 on which they rely, present incomparably more formidable 
 difficulties in the way of Lutheran than in the way of Catholic 
 doctrine. 
 
 But the main reason is the same for both omissions ; I am 
 very anxious to urge the certain truth, that Lutheranism is 
 not chiefly a heresy against revealed, but against natural, 
 religion. To denominate it, as some excellent men do, the 
 * anti-baptismal ' heresy, is to say what is true, but absurdly 
 less than the truth. Doubtless it disparages a principal 
 ordinance of the Gospel ; but in addition to this, it denies 
 essential and fundamental truths of natural religion, and 
 contradicts eternal and immutable principles of morality. 
 Without caring to distinguish accurately here between these 
 really distinct classes, and including both under the common 
 
 jecting to the Scriptural doctrine of the ' opus operatum.' They continually 
 complain of Catholic theology, as tending towards Pelagianism, and leading men 
 to forget the necessity of grace and the helplessness and sinfulness of unaided 
 nature. Now no doctrine can be devised, which would more habitually impress 
 on the memory and imagination the very truth, for which Evangelicals contend, 
 than does the ' opus operatum ;' the very meaning of which is, that grace comes 
 wholly from without, and that men, though afterwards under an obligation of faith- 
 fully cooperating, are in the first instance wholly passive recipients of the Christian 
 Gift ; who may indeed oppose a barrier to its entrance by means of mortal sin, 
 but have no active work whatever in its first admission.
 
 301 
 
 head * natural religion,' I will mention two or three among 
 the great number of such truths, which the abstract Lu- 
 theran doctrine denies and the practical Lutheran doctrine 
 disparages. 
 
 I. That to do what is right because it is right and from 
 a motive of duty, is the highest and noblest of all habits ; for 
 example, far nobler than the doing what is right out of 
 gratitude for free pardon or for other mercy received. Or in 
 other words, that beings, whose will is not as yet wholly 
 subordinate to the rule of right and the will of God, have 
 this one paramount duty imposed on them before all other 
 duties, viz. to employ unceasing efforts in the task of reducing 
 their will into a fuller and more complete subjection. Or 
 again, (which comes to very much the same thing, and is the 
 mode in which I have expressed it in the British Critic,) that 
 obedience to the rule of right, at whatever sacrifice of self, is 
 the one thing needful, and that sin is the one only danger to 
 be dreaded, the one only evil to be avoided. 
 
 II. That deep repentance, self-abasement, and the spirit of 
 penance, is an indispensable and primary duty in all who 
 have seriously sinned. 
 
 III. That moral and religious truth can only be appre- 
 hended in proportion to moral discipline. 
 
 IV. That holiness and happiness are indissolubly con- 
 nected ; insomuch that every sinful act or thought lessens the 
 happiness of our final lot, and every good act or thought 
 increases it. 
 
 V. That in no other way than a course of right acts, can a 
 habit of acting rightly be acquired. 
 
 VI. That the true misery of unregenerate nature is not the 
 fear of punishment, but the consciousness of sin ; and conse- 
 quently that a revelation would afford no relief to that misery, 
 which should remedy the former evil and not the latter; 
 which should give assurance of pardon, without infusing 
 inherent righteousness. 
 
 Lutheranism then is wholly inconsistent with the essential 
 principles of natural religion. Again, considered in its Chris- 
 tian aspect, * it corrupts,' as I have expressed myself in the
 
 302 
 
 British Critic, ' the very principle of orthodoxy itself.' For in 
 the first place it leads its victims to fix their gaze on the in- 
 ternal workings of their own minds, instead of the great Object 
 of Revelation, as their main stay and encouragement : and in 
 the next place, orthodoxy has neither meaning nor basis, except 
 as the correlative of holy obedience ; and a theory therefore 
 which disparages the paramount duty of obedience, is equally 
 hostile to the whole fabric of Christian doctrine. And lastly, 
 Lutheranism is also a specific heresy ; for it denies the essen- 
 tial dogma of inherent righteousness. I trust then that 
 I have sufficiently explained the meaning of various most 
 severe expressions, which I have used on the subject in the 
 British Critic; explained them at least so far as this, that 
 even those who may continue to dissent from the views I hold, 
 will acknowledge that I used such expressions with a precise 
 and definite meaning, not with inconsiderate and hasty vehe- 
 mence. Since however these expressions have been so often 
 quoted, I think it will be better again to put down on paper 
 the principal among them ; as a proof that I have every desire 
 to repeat, in my own name, the extremely condemnatory lan- 
 guage which I have used anonymously. 
 
 * The two grand heretical paradoxes prevalent among serious 
 minds in this age and country are ... . 1. That the news of 
 forgiveness of sins can convey peace to the afflicted soul before 
 holiness is implanted; or, in other words, that man's misery in his 
 natural state is fear of punishment only, and not consciousness of 
 sin : 2. that such news of forgiveness, if really apprehended, will 
 lead, without pains and trouble on our part, to obedience and holi- 
 ness ; or, in other words, that self-denial is anti-christian.' d 
 
 ' In the Catholic church, from first to last, there has been one 
 and only one consistent type of the interior life. The Christian 
 pilgrim has felt himself placed in this world in the midst of a severe 
 and unceasing conflict, his demeanour under which determines his 
 lot hereafter ; contending for a prize which needs all his efforts to 
 secure it; climbing up towards it by a severe and rugged path 
 (certain indeed of saving him, be he true to himself and faithful to 
 God's guidance, yet so arduous that sluggishness or self-security 
 
 d ' On Arnold's Sermons,' p. 38.
 
 303 
 
 will be certain ruin) ; surrounded on all sides by supernatural 
 agencies, evil angels assailing him, good angels supporting him ; a 
 spectacle in his struggles to the whole heavenly court ; gifted 
 indeed by God with blessings the most ineffable and transporting 
 even here, even in his pilgrimage, yet but faint foretastes these of 
 the far greater bliss in store for him when he shall reach his 
 Home : every suffering rightly endured, every exertion daringly 
 and religiously ventured, increase, as he feels, the reward purchased 
 for him by One who " first bore His own cross," a cross infinitely 
 heavier and more grievous than He has laid on any that follow 
 Him. Apostles, prophets, saints of the early, of the mediaeval, of 
 
 the later Church, whatever differences they may have 
 
 had in their objective theology, (differences however in no way 
 affecting the highest Object of faith,) have had this one uniform 
 subjective view of the Gospel scheme ; and this the Lutheran 
 system cuts down at its very root. For labour cheered by hope, it 
 substitutes the listlessness caused by assurance ; in the place of sin 
 as the one only evil to be dreaded, the one only enemy to be feared, 
 it puts its absurd chimera of " self- righteousness" (as though there 
 were almost as much danger in obeying too much as too little) ; 
 for spiritual blessings reaching to the very innermost heart and 
 soul, it speaks of the cold knowledge of our external and forensic 
 pardon ; for a noble and sustained triumph over the old man, it has 
 as if peevish and querulous complaints of his power. To speak 
 as if this latter scheme of doctrine were in itself otherwise than 
 radically and fundamentally monstrous, immoral, heretical, and 
 anti-christian, shews but an inadequate grasp of its antagonist 
 truth .... 
 
 ' And in proportion as we believe that this hateful incubus 
 cripples the noblest energies, stifles the loftiest aspirations, op- 
 presses the tenderest feelings of those whom it has claimed as its 
 own, will we from time to time lift up our voice in plain and intel- 
 ligible warning, if haply its victims may bethink themselves of testing 
 its strange and arbitrary decrees by we care not what standard 
 which even professes to be divine, by Scripture, by conscience, by 
 the voice of the Church.' 6 
 
 ' The very first aggression then of those, who labour to revive 
 some degree at least of vital Christianity, (in the room of those 
 gross corruptions and superstitions, which have in these latter days 
 
 e ' On Heurtley's four Sermons,' pp. 445, 6, 7, 8.
 
 . 304 
 
 among ourselves overlaid and defaced the primitive and simple 
 truth,) their very first aggression must be upon that strange 
 congeries of notions and practices, of which the Lutheran doctrine 
 of Justification is the origin and representative. Whether any 
 heresy has ever infested the Church so hateful and unchristian as 
 this doctrine, it is perhaps not necessary to determine: none 
 certainly has ever prevailed so subtle and extensively poisonous. 
 It is not only that it denies some one essential doctrine of the 
 Gospel (as, e. g. inherent righteousness) ; this all heresies do : it is 
 not only that it corrupts all sound Christian doctrine, nay the very 
 principle of orthodoxy itself ; though this also it certainly does : 
 but its inroads extend further than this ; as far as its formal state- 
 ments are concerned it poisons at the very root, not Christianity 
 only, but natural religion. That obedience to the will of God, with 
 whatever sacrifice of self, is the one thing needful ; that sin is the 
 one only danger to be dreaded, the one only evil to be avoided ; 
 these great truths are the very foundation of natural religion : and 
 inasmuch as this modern system denies those to be essential and 
 necessary truths, yea counts it the chief glory of the Gospel that 
 under it they are no longer truths, we must plainly express our 
 conviction, that a religious heathen, were he really to accept the 
 doctrine which Lutheran language expresses, so far from making 
 any advance, would sustain a heavy loss, in exchanging funda- 
 mental truth for fundamental error. Our readers must admit that 
 we have never been slow in acknowledging how much of sincerity 
 and self-devotion there has in fact been among those who have 
 embraced this heresy, and to how very great an extent, where that 
 has been the case, individual conscientiousness has neutralized the 
 anti-religious infection. But neither may we forget, on the other 
 hand, how miserably also has this same system in its turn crippled 
 and enchained the religious instinct of its victims, and prevented 
 them from carrying that instinct forward to its legitimate develop- 
 ment, the Catholic scheme. Hence the inconsistency, both moral 
 and intellectual, which is so surprising a phenomenon among the 
 " evangelicals ;" surprising, that is, at first sight, but no longer 
 surprising, when we regard them as possessed really with religious 
 feelings which draw them to Christ, but possessed also by a human, 
 traditionary, and most unscriptural system, which draws them 
 directly from Him. Hence that feebleness, ambiguity, uncertainty 
 of doctrinal statement, that inequality, unshapeliness, dwarfishness
 
 305 
 
 of spiritual stature, which persons at all conversant with Catholic 
 models are so pained and disappointed in finding (with very few 
 exceptions) in what they hear or see of religious Protestants/ 
 
 ' ' Evangelicals' . . . cleave to the soul-destroying heresy of Luther 
 on the subject of Justification. ' s 
 
 ' A religious person who shall be sufficiently clear-headed to un- 
 derstand the meaning of words, is warranted in rejecting Lutheranism 
 on the very same grounds which would induce him to reject Atheism ; 
 viz. as being the contradiction of truths, which he feels on most 
 certain grounds to be first principles.' 1 ' 
 
 ' If it be true that the idea of duty is more deeply rooted in our 
 nature even than that of God (though it is painful to make such 
 comparisons) a serious result follows in regard to Lutheranism. . . . 
 When ... we speak of Lutheranism, we speak of an abstract doc- 
 trine, which cannot, we verily believe, be held consistently even by 
 the devils ; but which is held to an alarming extent among ' Evan- 
 gelicals' though inconsistently. And of this abstract doctrine we 
 now say, that the considerations in the text shew it to be worse, that 
 is, to be more fundamentally at variance with our higher and better 
 nature, than Atheism itself.' ' 
 
 And speaking still of the said abstract Lutheran doctrine, 
 there is no one circumstance connected with my humble 
 efforts in the British Critic, on which I look back with so 
 much satisfaction as on this ; that I have ventured to charac- 
 terise that hateful and fearful type of Antichrist in terms 
 not wholly inadequate to its prodigious demerits. 
 
 f 'On St. Athanasius,' pp. 90, 91. 
 
 s ' On the Synagogue and the Church,' p. 63. 
 
 h ' On Church Authority,' p. 232. 
 
 1 ' On Mill's Logic,' pp. 406 407.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 ON OUR EXISTING PRACTICAL CORRUPTIONS. 
 
 1. IT now becomes my business, in accordance with my 
 promise in the last chapter, to enter upon the more directly 
 practical part of the present inquiry. It might have been 
 expected indeed with the utmost confidence, that such duties 
 as those on which this repeated stress has been laid, 
 would be most inadequately practised in a Church, where a 
 doctrine had been allowed extensively to nourish, formally 
 denying their paramount necessity. For so repulsive are 
 these duties to our fallen and corrupt nature, that nothing 
 but the most urgent and strenuous exhortations, the most 
 careful discipline, can ensure so much as their tolerable per- 
 formance. No wonder then, when principles have been so 
 long tolerated among us, which expressly discourage, nay 
 denounce, such exhortations, that the pure Gospel should 
 have been darkened and overgrown by human traditions and 
 practical corruptions. 
 
 2. To ascertain this fact in detail, let us first turn our 
 eyes to that most essential of all a Church's duties, the 
 education of the poor. Other duties are very holy and im- 
 portant, but none so holy and important as this. Incalculable 
 as is the value of a religious education to all men, to the poor 
 it is far, far greater than to any. For men of other ranks 
 have their intellect in numberless ways sharpened and 
 quickened, so as to retain the power of apprehending in a 
 general way new ideas that may be laid before them; and 
 thus their mind always remains open, in a certain sense, to 
 religious appeals : and moreover should they, either in 
 consequence of such appeals, or by the internal workings of 
 their own mind, be led to take a serious turn, they have 
 sufficient access to means of instruction and edification. But
 
 307 
 
 for the poor, it is a matter of common experience, how 
 infallibly, unless their mind be softened and disciplined by 
 early education, a torpor creeps over the faculties, and the 
 very avenues are frozen up by which religious truth might 
 find access to the mind ; while the heart within is, on 
 spiritual subjects, cold as a very stone. Add to this, that 
 from the absence of taste for more refined enjoyments, 
 the lower propensities of our nature, at their appointed 
 season, assail them with overwhelming force ; and, unless 
 they be protected by confirmed habits of obedience and 
 self-mastery, hurry them madly along at their pleasure. On 
 the Church then, to an indefinite extent, hangs the alternative, 
 whether in the midst of the cheerless and ill-requited toil to 
 which they are called, they may be allowed the unspeakable 
 peace imparted by the Holy Ghost to a good conscience, a 
 peace whose depths remain unruffled by all the external 
 tumult, anxiety, and pain, which agitate the surface ; or 
 whether their lot shall be the dark, sullen, indescribable 
 misery, which results from the union of moral wickedness 
 with physical suffering, and which is relieved only by 
 momentary snatches of feverish and unlawful gratification. 
 Such is the issue which depends to so great an extent on the 
 Church's system of education. Full-grown men, hardened in 
 insensibility to religion, are almost beyond her reach ; but 
 those inestimably precious years, when the character is easily 
 impressed, the affections easily moved, and habits of docility 
 and obedience easily implanted, these years are her own. 
 On every account, too, the poor must be considered the 
 objects of her tenderest care ; both because that condition of 
 life has been so especially singled out by our Lord Himself 
 as sacred, and because of that helplessness and dependence 
 which so touchingly appeal for guidance and direction. Can 
 there be a fairer test of the purity or corruption of a Church, 
 than the success with which she acquits herself of this most 
 urgent, most solemn duty ? 
 
 The habits whereby a religious life is secured, or in which 
 it consists, are such as these. Chiefly of all, the power of 
 resisting evil inclination, the wandering eye, the hasty word, 
 
 x 2
 
 308 
 
 the slothful or discontented thought ; and, as indispensably 
 necessary for this purpose, habitual watchfulness of con- 
 science and remembrance of God's presence ; regular and 
 earnest prayer ; deeply-imprinted knowledge of our own 
 peculiar weaknesses, whereby the enemy of our souls finds 
 the readiest access ; a profound sense of our miserable 
 sinfulness, and utter powerlessness to support ourselves, even 
 one moment, against serious temptation, by our own unaided 
 strength. I am speaking, it will be observed, only of moral 
 and religious habits, not of Christian doctrine ; but it is only 
 by means of these, as I argued at length in the last chapter, 
 that Christian doctrine can so much as find an entrance into 
 the mind in any true shape : these therefore it will be 
 necessary to consider first in order ; and reserve the question 
 of doctrine for a connected view, at a later period of the 
 present chapter. Here then will be the first object of every 
 right-minded Church; to make this her one principal and 
 paramount care, that Christians shall not be removed from 
 her more immediate guidance and launched into the turmoil 
 and trials of life, until chiefly by the initial acquirement of 
 such habits, and partly also by receiving at her hands wise 
 and admirably adjusted rules for their future conduct, there 
 may be every reason to anticipate that, so only they do their 
 part in faithful co-operation, they may by God's infinite 
 mercy stand unharmed against the temptations which will 
 assail them. Let us consider therefore how this may best be 
 done ; for it is plain that habits such as these, are so pointedly 
 and directly antagonist to the whole family of evil inclinations 
 let loose by original sin, that their acquirement will be a mat- 
 ter of incomparably greater labour, and to instruct in their 
 acquirement an office of incomparably greater arduousness 
 and difficulty, than in the case of any other habits whatever. 
 
 We desire to impress on the Christian's mind a deep sense 
 of his sinfulness, when by nature he is proud and * self- 
 righteous.' How is it possible to do this, except by carefully 
 instructing him day by day in the primary duty of self- 
 examination ; beginning by the more open and obvious sins 
 of his daily life, ill-temper, sloth, gluttony, and going on
 
 309 
 
 by degrees into the more refined and subtle forms of evil? a 
 We wish to teach him gradually the habit of self-mastery ; 
 we must carefully then impress the habit on his mind, not 
 by theorising about it, but by shewing him its practical ap- 
 plication in small matters ; encouraging, praising, and assisting 
 him, when he is using his best endeavours to acquire it ; re- 
 buking him and remonstrating, with tenderness indeed, yet 
 with the most earnest warmth, when he relaxes such endea- 
 vours. We wish him to learn the all-important habit of 
 regular prayer : we must begin then by teaching him short 
 prayers ; we must continually examine him as to the progress 
 he makes in giving them his undivided attention, interrogate 
 him as to the principal difficulties which impede him in the 
 effort, and give him practical rules for the removal of these 
 difficulties. We feel it to be of great importance that he 
 should bear about with him a continual sense of God's pre- 
 sence : daily self-examination will help him in this ; but a very 
 necessary help also will be, that he should be taught for some 
 short period in the day or in the week to employ himself 
 exclusively in meditating on God's Presence. 5 We know it 
 to be indispensable, that when he is of mature years he may 
 be well acquainted with all the more material particulars, 
 which make up his duty to his neighbour : we must begin 
 then now by carefully teaching him his present duty ; the 
 duty of honesty, veracity, fidelity, courteousness, obliging- 
 ness ; for in this manner, as his duty gradually grows and 
 expands, so also will his knowledge of its extent. Of this 
 nature is the fundamental and most absolutely indispensable 
 part of Christian education ; and any Church, not perversely 
 corrupt will feel such exercises as these to be so primarily 
 important, that to their due performance every other branch 
 
 * The strange idea that humility can be implanted in the mind by telling men 
 the doctrine of the Atonement, or that the Holy Spirit will ever implant it in the 
 mind by bringing home to it that doctrine, independently of careful self-discipline in 
 the Christian himself; this immoral and fanatical delusion has been fully exposed in 
 the last chapter. 
 
 b I will make it plain, further on, that meditation on some part of our Lord's life 
 is one very good, probably the best, way of performing this duty.
 
 310 
 
 even of Christian knowledge, much more of secular, must 
 yield the undisputed precedence. 
 
 I fear I shall appear jesting on a very serious matter, when 
 I simply express what appears, as far as I can discover, the 
 view taken of her duties on this head, by a Church calling 
 herself pure above other Christian Churches. Our practical 
 system, I believe, professes to prepare Christians for a manly 
 behaviour in the great conflict which we are sent on earth to 
 wage, by teaching them to read, putting before them the 
 Scriptures, and then (for I will suppose the most favourable 
 case) explaining them as clearly as they admit of being ex- 
 plained to minds not disciplined in holy obedience ; or, for in 
 my opinion it comes to the same thing, not explaining them 
 at all. c Now to judge of this conduct as it deserves, I will 
 be content to admit for argument's sake the supposition, that 
 Holy Scripture was intended or adapted to teach ordinary 
 Christians, one by one, their practical duty : a most pre- 
 posterous supposition indeed, still for argument's sake I am 
 content to admit it. And now let us suppose that those who 
 wished to teach a child the art of baking, should first teach 
 him to read, then put into his hands the best rules that have 
 
 c As about the most favourable example that can be taken, let us refer to the 
 'Scheme of Lessons, 1 mentioned in the Report of the National Society for 1843, 
 as existing ' in the boys' central school : ' which I understand to be appended as a 
 kind of official model for other schools. The ' Religious Instruction ' is specified 
 as follows : ' For the fourth class " Catechism, with Analysis. The Psalter 
 read daily with Catechetical explanations." For the third class " The Cate- 
 chism with Analysis and Scripture proofs ; Types, &c. The New Testament 
 read every day. The Gospels." For the second class " The Catechism with 
 Scripture proofs and Analysis. Liturgy, and Sacred Chronology. The New 
 Testament read daily. The Evangelists or Acts of the Apostles." For the 
 first class " Catechism with Scripture proofs ; Liturgy ; Prophecies ; Types ; 
 Chronology, &c. The Holy Bible read daily. One chapter in the Old Testa- 
 ment, and one in the New, alternately ; occasionally the Books of the Prophets 
 and the Epistles." ' (pp. 49, 50.) Not the most distant allusion to such matters as 
 ' examen of conscience,' ' mental prayer,' or the like ; and yet without such 
 foundations as these, what, alas ! is the sort of paper theology here expressed, but 
 as ' sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal' ? " Music " is taught both in " theory and 
 practice;'''' for small indeed would be the musical attainments of the pupils, if they 
 were taught music as they seem to be taught religion. I have not alluded to Cate- 
 chisms, &c. in the text, because they only profess to bear on ductrine, not in any way 
 on moral tliscijilinc*
 
 311 
 
 been yet devised for making a loaf, explain them with the 
 utmost clearness compatible with the absence of practical 
 guidance and instruction, and then, having placed him in a room 
 with the necessary ingredients, expect him without further 
 help to produce a loaf. The reader perhaps is tempted to 
 laugh at the illustration. "Well ! That method which, from its 
 intense absurdity, we cannot hear of without laughing, in the 
 lowest and most mechanical art, we apply with no conscious- 
 ness of the ridiculous, with no sense of shame, to the noblest, 
 the most all -important, and very far the most difficult and 
 complicated of all arts ; the art .of holy living. We dream, 
 like madmen, that the deep corruption of human nature can 
 be remedied by so superficial an application, as the head- 
 knowledge of Scripture texts ; that we can teach men religion, 
 without instructing them, one by one, in individual habits of 
 religion ; that men can learn to recognise the first approaches 
 of sin, to flee temptations, to fix their thoughts on God in 
 prayer, to order their daily life as in His Presence, to open 
 their heart by self-discipline to the gracious, cheering, and 
 peace-bearing influences of the Holy Ghost; that men can 
 learn all these most difficult acquirements instinctively, or by 
 accident ; certainly without any methodical discipline ad- 
 dressed to the object. When such has been our idea of 
 education in Christianity, it is not so very extravagant as 
 it seems at first sight, that not many years since a multitude 
 of well-intentioned and respectable persons were found, who 
 thought to benefit the poor by superseding, at least to some 
 extent, education in Christianity, by education in physics. 
 But I beg the candid inquirer fairly to consider, whether 
 I go in the least beyond the limits of sober judgment in 
 making the following statement. " Should the pure light 
 of the Gospel be ever, by God's grace, restored to 
 this benighted land," d I do believe that our posterity, 
 when they hear that two rival parties, in the earlier portion 
 of the nineteenth century, to a great extent divided the 
 country between them ; one of whom sought to train the 
 people in habits of self-denial and virtue by teaching them 
 d ' On Arnold's Sermons,' pp. 339, 40.
 
 312 
 
 to read Scripture, and understand its meaning in that sense 
 in which alone the carnal mind can understand it, and there 
 leaving them, while the other sought to remedy this deficiency 
 by teaching them mechanics and astronomy ; moreover 
 that the age of which the latter party was the product 
 boasted of peculiar enlightenment, and the Church of which 
 the former party was the representative claimed as its distin- 
 guishing characteristic the epithet ' pure and apostolical :' 
 and lastly, that both age and Church looked down with no 
 little contempt on the thirteenth century, as barbarous in 
 comparison with the nineteenth ; I do believe, that when 
 they hear of this, they will be tempted rather to suppose all 
 the documents spurious which assert it, than to believe it pos- 
 sible that partakers of our common nature, much less men 
 possessed of so very much practical wisdom in other ways 
 as the English most undeniably display, could, on this one 
 subject, have sunk into such ignorant and infatuated arro- 
 gance, such abject imbecility of intellect. 
 
 I have not here alluded to the great excitement now ex- 
 isting within our Church on the subject of education, because 
 it hardly seems to bear 011 the subject. It is very well known 
 that our Church for years most shamefully neglected this 
 duty; but that of late she has been wonderfully awakened 
 to its importance, and that much admirable munificence and 
 admirable zeal are now devoted to its full performance. It is 
 well known also that * high-churchmen' contended as zealously 
 and jealously for her 'purity and apostolicity ' at a time 
 when, according to the present confession of her function- 
 aries, she most sinfully neglected her very principal duty, as 
 they do now, when she is very religiously attempting to 
 execute it. The subject however leads me only to consider, 
 not the amount of diligence with which, at any particular 
 time, her system may be carried out, but the value of that 
 system itself. 
 
 Take the following, and contrast it with our own method 
 of teaching the young. A friend of mine went into a Roman 
 Catholic school in Lancashire, where he found a troop of 
 very young children, quite lately taken in from the streets,
 
 313 
 
 and not yet so much as knowing their alphabet. His 
 conductor asked them in his presence the following 
 questions : " How many gods are there ? " "How many 
 Persons are there in the Godhead ? " " Where will you 
 go, if yo take care to do what is right ? " " Where will 
 you go, if you do what is wrong ? " They answered 
 these, of course, very accurately ; and when mentioning 
 Heaven, appeared very much impressed with the great hap- 
 piness reserved for them there. My friend's conductor told 
 him, that they impress these fundamental truths on their 
 minds in every variety of shape, so that they thoroughly ap- 
 prehend them, before they proceed further. In the mean 
 time they were occupied in learning their letters, and had 
 got as far as F. But when the truths above mentioned had 
 sunk deeply into their hearts, their instructor would then 
 proceed to explain to them a few more of these funda- 
 mental Verities of the Faith. Then at the age of seven 
 the practice of confession ordinarily begins ; a practice 
 which not only disciplines the young in the duty of self- 
 examination with an efficacy to which no other institution 
 could bear a moment's comparison, but also, by means of the 
 peculiarly confidential intercourse between priest and peni- 
 tent, gives the full opportunity of training the pupil in such 
 other duties as I specified above, with an union of authori- 
 tativeness, afiectionateness, and minute particularity, which 
 no other machinery could possibly admit. 
 
 The same substantial account is furnished me by a Roman 
 Catholic priest, who has had a very wide experience in paro- 
 chial ministrations. 
 
 " The first things," he says, " taught to [a child] .... are the 
 Lord's Prayer, the Apostles' Creed, the Angelical Salutation, and 
 the acts of faith, hope, charity, and contrition, which afterwards 
 became the necessary part of his morning and evening prayers. So 
 also the first book he is taught to spell is the catechism-book, or an 
 abridgment of the four parts of the doctrine of our religion, namely, 
 the doctrine concerning faith, hope, charity, and grace : hence it 
 generally happens, that when a Catholic child reaches the age of 
 reflection, which, according to the discipline of the Church, is the
 
 314 
 
 age of seven years, a child is prepared for Confession ; and every 
 parish priest in the Catholic Church takes care every year, that all 
 children who are arrived to that age should go first every day for 
 two or three weeks to the parish church to be instructed, and then 
 should go to Confession. 
 
 " Children go to Confession at that age in which they may be 
 deceived by Satan ; in order to make peace again, if necessary, with 
 God by a sincere repentance, a purpose of amendment, and the 
 Sacramental Absolution by which Christ cleanses their souls in His 
 infinitely precious blood. Thus, as they are apt to relapse by the 
 inexperience and ignorance of their age, as well as by the tempta- 
 tions of the world and the violence of their youthful passions, so they 
 are taught to go often to Confession ; because Confession is not only 
 a remedy for sins committed, but a preservative from relapsing into 
 sin. Then it is that they receive a great deal of advice ; and not in 
 general^ but in particular) for their own spiritual wants. Then it is 
 that they are directed in the path of virtue ; then that they are 
 taught to love God above all things, and to hate sin ; to fear hell ; 
 the judgment of God ; and so to live, as not to fear death, which at 
 every moment may be at hand ; and then it is, that, in order to im- 
 press the more their minds with these truths, they are taught to 
 meditate ; namely, they are instructed in mental prayer. 
 
 " Another pious practice we very much insist upon is the exa- 
 mination of conscience at night ; and children are taught to direct 
 their attention to the resolutions taken in the morning meditation, 
 and to examine themselves first on them, and then on the faults they 
 have committed against the Ten Commandments, and the others of 
 the Church. 
 
 " I say nothing of the continual instructions on morality that 
 are given to them, by which they are accustomed to admire, love, 
 and esteem virtue, and to have a horror and detestation for vice; 
 but I will only say, that the Catholic Church, whilst it does not 
 neglect the cultivation of the mind, takes particular notice of the 
 hearts of her children, and directs every attainment of their mind 
 to the improvement of the other. Man is not made for this world, 
 but for heaven ; he must be then educated for heaven, and not for 
 the world ; this is the principle of the Church, and the desertion 
 from this principle is the cause why we see no education at all. 
 But man cannot be educated for heaven, unless he is taught and 
 brought up in the principles and practice of true religion. Hence
 
 315 
 
 it is, that children are brought up in the practice of vocal and 
 mental prayer, in the practice of examining their conscience, and of 
 frequenting the sacrament of Confession, which is the medicine of 
 our spiritual infirmities." 
 
 And now, as this mention has been made of it, a word on 
 the subject of Sacramental Confession. The next chapter 
 will shew, that I feel as strongly as any one can feel, the 
 fearful evils which would inevitably result from the prema- 
 ture introduction amongst us of its compulsory performance ; 
 and the writer of the admirable and most tenderly considerate 
 article on the subject in the British Critic has very strongly 
 expressed the same opinion. Let us only in some poor mea- 
 sure learn to realise the inveterate corruption of our own sys- 
 tem, and the excellent lessons we may learn from the Roman 
 Church, towards supplying our deficiencies on such points as 
 these : let this be really acknowledged ; and it is hardly 
 possible that the actual introduction of external and formal 
 changes can be too gradually or cautiously made. On the 
 other hand, many serious objections are made by most ex- 
 cellent men to the practice itself in the abstract ; objections 
 which appear to me, I confess, worthy of no consideration at 
 all, when comparison is made with its great recommendations. 11 
 But in this, as in so many other cases, argument in point 
 of fact appears superfluous ; the truly difficult and important 
 step (and it is indeed most difficult and most important) is to 
 introduce a full recognition of the primary necessity of this 
 habit of self-examination ; let this only be accomplished, and 
 for one I have no belief at all in so much as the possibility of 
 our remaining content without the Sacramental ordinance. 
 
 But when the poor man has gone forth into the world, pre- 
 pared by the best education that can by possibility be given, 
 and furnished with the best rules for guidance that theory 
 can furnish, how innumerable are the temptations which 
 beset him in his course, not only unknown to those more 
 favoured by fortune, but which it is most difficult for them 
 
 d On the commonest class of these objections I need hardly refer the reader to 
 what he probably knows very well, the most excellent observations in the British 
 Critic, No. Ixvi. pp. 325 8.
 
 316 
 
 in any degree, even by laborious effort, to understand and 
 realise ! Frequent want, importunate anxiety, corroding care, 
 these are his appointed lot ; he has neither the opportunity 
 nor the taste for many innocent enjoyments ; nor has he that 
 great assistance, which the restraints of society and the cul- 
 tivation of mind give to those above him in earthly sta- 
 tions, in preferring the future to the present, the real to 
 the apparent. Thus is he situated throughout his weary 
 pilgrimage : with little power of choosing either his occupa- 
 tions or his companions: fighting his forlorn battle in the 
 midst of a hostile world as best he may : every thing around 
 soliciting him towards sin ; oppression or harshness towards 
 sullenness, anger, or discontent ; friendly companionship to- 
 wards sloth or sinful gratification ; nay, the mere force of 
 suffering towards the omission of spiritual duties and forget- 
 fulness of God. Against this he has to support an unceasing 
 conflict, in which even one failure exposes him to the most 
 fearful danger of not recovering his footing ; and in which, 
 nevertheless, continued success, even with full help of the 
 Holy Ghost, seems to his desponding mind far more than 
 the frailty of human nature can possibly hope. Oh ! how 
 unspeakably cheering, refreshing, soothing, comforting to 
 the Christian so circumstanced, is the Confessional ! to the 
 careless and worldly, the proud, selfish, and luxurious, an 
 object doubtless of unmixed distaste and repulsiveness ; but 
 to the weary servant of God, trying with a faithful heart to 
 serve Him in the heat and dust of the world, a very harbour 
 of rest and refuge. Here he may find that ' prime want of 
 man,' ' true guidance in return for loving obedience ;' e here 
 he may find a friendly ear into which, with perfect security, 
 he may pour his tale of temptations, perplexities, and mis- 
 givings, perhaps of serious sins; here may he listen to a 
 friendly voice, which he may safely hear without danger of 
 being led astray, and whose accents will comfort and reassure 
 him, and pour peace into his troubled soul; here he may 
 gain some support to his languid faith, by spiritual intercourse 
 with the priest, who stands before him as the visible repre- 
 
 e Carlyle.
 
 317 
 
 sentative of God in an evil and treacherous world, How 
 incalculable the help he may obtain for his daily efforts 
 against sin, by the thought of this one period in the week, 
 and the censure or praise he may then receive ! 
 
 What help do we give the poor man similar to this ? In 
 the first place, how many of our clergy believe and realise, 
 that to urge their flock, one by one, to a life of daily conflict 
 with their sins, open and secret, and to encourage, direct, 
 and assist them in that conflict, is so absolutely their prin- 
 cipal duty, that all others are utterly, nay immeasurably, sub- 
 ordinate ? This is a question on which it is better to leave 
 readers to answer according to their own experience, than to 
 venture on a positive opinion : though we may quite safely say, 
 that clergymen who do not see the indispensable necessity of 
 disciplining the young carefully in habits of prayer and self- 
 mastery, will not commonly see the desirableness of carrying 
 on such discipline in after life. It is, however, a less invi- 
 dious test as involving less of comment on individuals, while 
 it is even more to my purpose, to inquire what means are 
 resorted to in our Church for indoctrinating our clergy with 
 a sense of the unparalleled importance of the methodical 
 moral training of their flock one by one. And to give this 
 inquiry all the force of a practical comparison, I will append 
 an account sent me for publication by the Superior of a 
 priests' seminary in France, who is describing a system of 
 which he has had for years the personal cognizance and 
 direction. It must be acknowledged, I think, that priests 
 so trained are likely to enter on their parochial ministrations, 
 with no very inadequate conception of the primary necessity 
 of spiritual discipline, and no very inadequate power of un- 
 derstanding and sympathizing with the spiritual difficulties 
 and distresses of the humblest of their flock. 
 
 " In order to form our candidates for the priesthood to the holiness, 
 necessary to the state of life for which they are destined, the rule 
 prescribes the following methods : 
 
 1. " Vocal prayer at half past five in the morning. It is short, 
 and proceeds as follows : 1. The student puts himself in the presence 
 of God, by a special act of faith in the truth of His universal pre-
 
 318 
 
 sence, and adores Him. 2. He thanks God for the gift of the day, 
 thus beginning, and consecrates to Him, all its actions, promising 
 to do them all in imitation of Him. 3. He recites in the ecclesi- 
 astical language the Pater Noster, Ave Maria, and Credo. 4. He 
 commends himself to the Blessed Virgin, to his patron Saint, to his 
 guardian Angel, that they may watch over and protect him during 
 the day, and by their prayers obtain for him the grace of which he 
 has need. The whole concludes with acts of faith, hope, and 
 charity, of contrition and renewal of baptismal promises. 
 
 II. " Mental prayer or a meditation : in which the student first 
 bows down in adoration before God, acknowledging himself unworthy 
 of keeping himself fixed in His divine presence, and calling upon the 
 Holy Spirit to help him in his meditation. He then enters on 
 the consideration of the object proposed for meditation, all the 
 while frequently entering into himself, by acts of humiliation, by 
 making good resolutions, and one special good resolve for that very 
 day. These two exercises, the vocal prayer and meditation, last 
 half an hour. In those seminaries directed by the community of 
 St. Sulpice they last an hour. 
 
 III. " The holy sacrifice of the Mass. It is offered up imme- 
 diately after the meditation. During the first part each one present, 
 by prayers and special thoughts, offers himself up with our Lord 
 Jesus Christ. At and after the Consecration, each one adores 
 Christ really present on the Altar ; immolates himself with Him ; 
 and communicates in His Sacrifice, either sacramentally, if he has 
 permission from his Confessor, or spiritually. 
 
 IV. " Holy Scripture. Every one is in the morning to read a 
 chapter of the Old Testament, and in the Evening one of the New. 
 The rule warns us that the object to be sought for is the quickening 
 of the heart (vie pour le coeur). It would be a departure from this 
 object, if any one were to read the Scriptures at this time in order 
 to improve himself in learning, or to satisfy his curiosity. 
 
 V. " Spiritual reading. This takes place either in the morning, 
 or in the evening. The books recommended, are the Imitation, the 
 Spiritual Combat, the Christian perfection of Rodriguez, the Memo- 
 riale vita? Sacerdotalis, &c. 
 
 VI. " Examination of conscience. A quarter before twelve all 
 go to the chapel for the particular examination. This means an 
 examination as to the progress made in some virtue specially pro- 
 posed by each for his own acquisition, or in conquering some vice
 
 319 
 
 proposed in the same way for correction. The book used in this 
 exercise is Father Tronson's ' Exaraens Particuliers,' a work full of 
 profit for the ecclesiastic. This particular examination does not 
 supersede the general examination made in the evening, and which 
 includes all the thoughts, feelings, words, and actions of the day. 
 
 VII. " Visit to the Holy Sacrament. Each student is bound to 
 go every day for a quarter of an hour into the presence of the Holy 
 Sacrament. This exercise, the special joy of the devout soul, 
 consists in adoring our Lord present under the eucharistic elements 
 (especes), in thanking Him for the happiness of being in His holy 
 presence, in begging His pardon for the faults which we have com- 
 mitted, in asking of him to grant us the graces of which we have 
 need, and in praying that He will deign to manifest to us His holy 
 will, and lead us on to do it. 
 
 VIII. " Spiritual conference. This name is applied to a religious 
 discourse spoken every evening by the Superior to the whole com- 
 munity, from half past six to a quarter to seven. It is a familiar 
 instruction on the duties of a Christian, and of a Clergyman in 
 particular. 
 
 IX. " The Chapel. After the discourse of the Superior, each 
 student recites five decades (dixaines) of the Pater Noster, and Ave 
 Maria. These prayers are sweet to a Christian's mouth, and never 
 seem long, however often they may be repeated. Advice is given 
 that at each decade the person reciting the chaplet should think 
 upon some virtue which he would acquire, and beg of God to grant 
 it to him by the intercession of the Blessed Virgin. 
 
 X. " Evening Prayer. This finishes the day. The prayers then 
 said are the Lord's Prayer, the Angelical Salutation, the Apostles' 
 Creed. The confession of sin is made by a prayer, called the 
 Confiteor ; then acts of faith, hope, and charity, and of contrition, 
 are made. Prayers are offered up for the dead. In conclusion, 
 the Superior gives out the subject for next day's meditation. 
 Sometimes the choice of it is left to the students. The rule advises 
 them to fix their thoughts upon it just before going to sleep and as soon 
 as they awake. 
 
 XL " I had almost forgotten to say, that the studies, lectures, 
 (classes,) and meals, are begun and concluded with prayer. Also, 
 in the morning, at mid-day, and in the evening, the prayer called the 
 Angelus is recited, and this is done to pay honour to the mysteries 
 of the Annunciation and Incarnation.
 
 320 
 
 XII. " Confession. Every student is bound to confess at least 
 once a fortnight. Few of them wait so long. The object of this 
 confession is, to obtain absolution, and leave to communicate. 
 
 XIII. " Holy Communion. The rule does not prescribe Com- 
 munion, but it expresses a wish that all should communicate at least 
 every Sunday. The Confessor, in the secrecy of the holy tribunal, 
 determines how often the holy Sacrament should be received. He 
 judges by the state of the penitent's soul. In order to communicate 
 frequently, it is requisite that the recipient lead a life of faith (vie de 
 la foi), and that by his spiritual progress he make it evident that this 
 heavenly food does him good. For some years past we have had the 
 comfort of seeing our students communicate some two, others three, 
 four, five, or six, times a week. We are indebted for this consola- 
 tion to the good state of the smaller seminary, from which ~our stu- 
 dents come to us almost entirely formed. 
 
 XIV. " The monitor. Every pupil is bound to choose one of his 
 fellows for a monitor. The pupil who agrees to undertake the office 
 is obliged to warn him to whom he is monitor of all that he sees 
 wrong in him. This advice given in a spirit of charity, is commonly 
 of great benefit. 
 
 XV. " The spiritual director. Every pupil is also obliged to take 
 from among his masters a director, to whom he from time to time 
 applies to confer with him on his spiritual state (ses dispositions inte- 
 rieures) on the way to correct, improve, and perfect it. This laying 
 bare of the heart to the director thus chosen, contributes in an espe- 
 cial way to the spiritual welfare of the students, provided it is made 
 in a great spirit of faith. Generally each pupil makes choice of his 
 Confessor for his director. 
 
 XVI. " The relations with the superior. The rule advises the 
 student to enter into communication with the superior, to visit him 
 often in order to receive his advice, and if need be his private rebuke. 
 This wise provision enables the superior to gain a knowledge of the 
 pupils, to form them, and to assure himself of their vocation.* For 
 this reason his door is never shut against them : and he feels him- 
 self called upon to give them all his time. The Superior of a semi- 
 nary must thus cease at once to be a man of study. He must give 
 up the notion of being a learned man, otherwise he will not be able 
 to do the good which the diocese expects of him. 
 
 XVII. " The retreat. The year commences and finishes with a 
 
 f i. e. to the high and laborious office of a Roman Catholic priest.
 
 321 
 
 retreat. The retreat which ensues on the meeting of the seminary 
 after the vacation lasts three days, exclusive of the day which opens 
 and that which closes it. All these days are passed in silence. 
 Each one then examines his conscience, confesses, makes plans for 
 the good employment of his time, and prescribes himself with this 
 object in view a special rule, in order to help himself on in the ways 
 of Christian and clerical perfection. In some seminaries the retreat 
 lasts nine days. The retreat at the end of the year is shorter. Its 
 object is the good employment of the vacation. 
 
 XVIII. " The vacation. It lasts three months. The rule makes 
 them long, less for the sake of giving rest to the students, than in 
 order to give them an opportunity of trying their faith in the world. 
 During this time their superiors are the priests of their respective 
 parishes, who have them in charge, and from whom they are obliged 
 to bring a certificate to bear witness to their life. 
 
 <c This is what the rule prescribes ; but all the students add to 
 this a certain number of little schemes practised by them in private. 
 These consist in frequent liftings up of the heart to God, little 
 visits to the chapel, spiritual conversations with their superiors in 
 recreation time, conventional means to recall a sense of the presence 
 of God. They place on their table for this purpose small crucifixes, 
 pictures of the Holy Virgin, or of those Saints with whose history 
 they are best acquainted. A number of them agree to pray together 
 or to give each other charitable warnings, and these associations have 
 the happiest results." 
 
 I have sufficiently explained on former occasions, that in 
 proposing similar examples, I am very far from meaning to 
 imply, that the particular details there mentioned could be 
 suitably introduced among ourselves ; but am only bringing 
 it forward as a clear and distinct indication of principles, 
 which are as necessary for us as for them. I can hear 
 no where in our Church of any establishment, for training 
 whether the clergy or other educators, where it seems in the 
 least understood, that personal religion is in no way secured 
 by bringing pupils together for public worship, with what- 
 ever help from the charms of music or of architecture : nor 
 can it be secured, unless the chief pains be bestowed on what 
 must be the basis of the whole, the formation of a spiritual 
 and devotional character in individuals. And those who
 
 322 
 
 have been taught on a radically vicious method, will teach 
 others on a similar method; so that the matter is one of most 
 overwhelming interest and importance. 
 
 It must be acknowledged then, that whatever proportion 
 of our clergy there may be, who feel the direction and as- 
 sistance of the individual conscience to be their one primary 
 duty, they have certainly not learnt that opinion from our 
 Church ; her whole system tends in the opposite direction. 
 And such being the case, we might fairly anticipate, that 
 neither does the same system furnish any very efficacious 
 machinery for carrying out this opinion. Accordingly, there 
 is no one thing on which the voice of all such clergymen 
 is so unanimous, as on this. They complain that our Church 
 has absolutely no hold at all on the popular mind ; that the 
 poor man goes on day after day, cold, hard, utterly insensible 
 to religious considerations, and that they know not how to 
 reach his heart and conscience. They say that our Church- 
 service passes as it were, over his head; that it interests 
 neither his feelings nor his imagination, and is not even 
 partially received by his understanding. Were it in an 
 unknown tongue, helps, translations, paraphrases, would be 
 offered him in great abundance : some of which might suit 
 his particular bent or capacity, and give him an interest in 
 divine worship : but as it is, the service professes to be 
 intelligible to him, and therefore the clergyman gives him no 
 substantial help; while Latin itself could hardly be more 
 foreign to his daily habits of thought. 
 
 It will be replied perhaps that, though it may be true that 
 few clergymen really feel the paramount necessity of personal 
 and individual intercourse with the several members of their 
 flock, still those who do feel this have the means in their 
 own hands of supplying the omission. That this is partially 
 true, I hope even to urge in the next chapter : but it must 
 be wholly by methods of their own devising ; there is no 
 part of our system which gives them any help whatever in 
 this fundamental duty. What our Church has formally 
 done on the subject is, to abolish the obligation of Sacra- 
 mental Confession : while she bears witness against herself, by
 
 enunciating in the Prayer-book the principle of Confession 
 and Absolution, and thus shewing that it was through no 
 deliberate adoption of a wrong opinion, that she has allowed 
 the practice to fall into desuetude. Let us consider then 
 what is the value of so much religious communication as oc- 
 casionally takes place between our clergymen and their adult 
 parishioners, under our present loss of compulsory Confession. 
 The ordinary domestic visit, which is all that is left, will 
 seldom surely afford scope for communications on matters of 
 such deep moment; and even when it does, when the clergy- 
 man's advice is asked on some point of conscience or on the 
 means of encountering some temptation, (though on minor 
 matters he may often be of great service,) if it be really a 
 case which is closely bound up with the whole spiritual being 
 of the applicant, no real benefit will be obtained. For no 
 advice can be given with any ground for believing that it 
 may not be even most pernicious, unless there is a far 
 greater security for the whole circumstances being fully 
 and fairly put before him, than can possibly be obtained, 
 where confession is not sacramental ; where there are not the 
 most powerful spiritual sanctions, to break through that 
 barrier of false shame, which restrains the penitent from 
 the temporary misery of a full disclosure, and also to ensure, 
 on the part of the priest, the most sacred and inviolable 
 secrecy. Then even were this difficulty surmounted, it 
 is essential that the faithful Christian shall have had 
 cause to repose such entire confidence in the priest's com- 
 petence, that his injunction shall be, without doubt or 
 question, at once obeyed. Further ; for one person who 
 is bold enough to ask advice in a spiritual difficulty, 
 there will ever be a million who are sunk in carelessness and 
 disregard of religious obligation, who yet might possibly be 
 reclaimed if confession were required of them ; and hun- 
 dreds who may feel a strong desire to unburden their souls, 
 but cannot force themselves to the requisite effort. In 
 both these cases our present system is confessedly power^ 
 less ; the clergy must stand looking on with folded arms, 
 while these classes are, the one daily more hardened in their 
 
 y 2
 
 324 
 
 careless way of life, the other from want of that support 
 which our Church does not give them, are carried away, at 
 some fatal moment, by the eddy of temptation, and from 
 that time forward seek in vain to recover their firm anchorage. 
 So that, with the exception of a few most rare and fortunate 
 cases, a really confidential communication with the priest 
 does not take place, till heavy sickness comes on, and death 
 and judgment seem close at hand; w r hen advice is asked, not 
 that the conflict on earth may be less unworthily sustained, 
 but that the approach of death may be less tremblingly and 
 cheerlessly expected. 
 
 But now, even supposing a most extreme and imagi- 
 nary hypothesis : supposing that compulsory confession of 
 penitent to priest were suddenly resumed on a wide scale 
 among us : the effect would be most mischievous. Why ? 
 Because the nature of those perplexities which cloud the 
 conscience and bewilder the judgment of faithful servants of 
 God in the lower ranks of life, or of those sins which oppress 
 their memory, cannot be understood in their real nature, or 
 rather will be most utterly misunderstood, by one whose 
 whole past experience has been of the most opposite 
 character; unless indeed he unite the rarest moral and 
 intellectual gifts. Unless you expect every parish priest 
 to combine the highest qualities of genius and imagination 
 with the most winning gentleness, tenderness, forbearance, 
 compassionateness, he will chill the heart of Christ's little 
 ones, by treating as light and fantastical, perplexities, which 
 they feel deeply to be most serious and to require most 
 careful consideration ; or he will crush and overwhelm them 
 by forming a harsh and severe judgment on sins, quite 
 opposite in character to those towards which he has ever 
 been tempted, but which, if he were able distinctly to place 
 before his imagination the whole circumstances of the case, 
 he would at once feel were rather subjects for tender and 
 loving expostulation than for stern rebuke. Nothing can 
 possibly prevent this, except what I mentioned in my second 
 chapter, the existence of a recognised body of moral and 
 ascetic theology ; and the making it among the most essential
 
 325 
 
 parts of a priest's whole education, that he shall be sufficiently 
 versed in the main particulars of these sciences. In foreign 
 Catholic countries this is made more prominent than any 
 other single study, in preparing a priest for his high office ; 
 insomuch that M. Gueranger, who desires to claim a larger 
 share for liturgical studies than has of late been given, 
 addresses the French clergy even in complaint of their too 
 exclusive devotion to preparation for the Confessional. With- 
 out giving any opinion on the justice of this remonstrance, it 
 shews us in the most lively manner how singular a stress they 
 lay on it ; and it is plain that a priest of no uncommon abili- 
 ties, who learns by such an education the ordinary temptations 
 and sins of humble life, their relative magnitude, and the fit 
 conduct of a Confessor in dealing with them, and who after- 
 wards adds to this theoretical knowledge daily practice in the 
 Confessional, will dispense on all sides of him the highest and 
 most admirable blessings ; and that he will naturally draw to 
 himself from the flock that deep affection and reverence 
 which is so proverbially the general lot of Catholic priests. 
 
 Here it may be objected, that from time to time there must 
 still be instances which, whether from peculiarities of out- 
 ward circumstances or of inward character, will exceed the 
 competency of an ordinary priest ; which will refuse to admit 
 of solution, either from the formal system he has learnt, or 
 from the resources of his own mind. This is most true ; but 
 it does not interfere at all with the general statement, that the 
 vast majority of serious Christians in the lower ranks will be 
 almost certainly directed right by priests who have been 
 carefully trained for the Confessional, and will be almost 
 certainly directed wrong by those who have not been so 
 trained. Again, should an exceptional case derive its dif- 
 ficulty from some unusual complication of external facts, the 
 priest will of course forward it to the recognised body of 
 doctors in moral theology ; who give themselves wholly to 
 its study, and are ready to bring its general principles and all 
 the other facts whereof they are cognizant, fully to bear on 
 any new case brought before them. It is by this very mode, 
 by hearing continually of new cases, that their science con- 
 tinually enlarges its grasp and completes its view.
 
 326 
 
 But it may easily happen that Christians here and there 
 shall exist, who are perplexed by unusual and eccentric 
 troubles of mind, and whose mental disease is of a more 
 recondite and anomalous character ; or again, who, from 
 walking constantly by God's grace in the higher paths of 
 devotion and obedience, are brought within the sphere of 
 temptations and troubles unknown to more ordinary Chris- 
 tians. In such case the good Roman priest, who may feel 
 himself unequal to the task of disciplining and directing such 
 souls, will think no pains too great, no arrangement too 
 troublesome, that he may accomplish the object of bringing 
 such Christians into communication with some one, more 
 deeply acquainted than himself with the mysteries of the 
 human mind, and more profoundly versed in the deep secrets 
 of ascetic theology/ What is the existing practice of the 
 Roman Church in such cases, I do not happen to know : but 
 if my readers are at first tempted to consider it a fanciful 
 refinement to suppose that the course of active life is seriously 
 to be interfered with, that a weak brother's scruples may be 
 alleviated, or that advice may be given under temptations 
 and distress which they may be inclined to fancy equally 
 imaginary ; if that thought cross their minds, they bear 
 against themselves stronger evidence than words or argu- 
 ments of mine can bear. They shew themselves to be so 
 spiritually blinded by the carnal and worldly atmosphere of 
 our Church-system, by the foul atmosphere of Lutheranism 
 
 f In case my observations in the second chapter may not have sufficiently ex- 
 plained the distinction between moral and ascetic theology, it may be as well to say 
 here a few words on the subject. The former (in technical language) is an a priori, 
 the latter an experimental science ; the former decides on ends, the latter on 
 means. What thoughts, words, or actions are right or wrong, and in what degrees, 
 whether to societies or to individuals, and under every variety of external cir- 
 cumstance, all this is contemplated by moral theology ; which includes, accord- 
 ingly, casuistry as a small part of itself, and contains also the very interesting 
 controversies of the last and previous centuries on probabilism. Ascetic theology 
 considers such questions as these ; what habits, observances, rules, method of 
 self-discipline, will best help to the attainment of certain qualities which moral 
 theology teaches to be virtues, or the abandonment of certain others which 
 moral theology teaches to be sins. And mystical theology is the ascetic theology of 
 those, who are unusually advanced in the Christian course, and leading a life of 
 unearthly and noble sanctity.
 
 327 
 
 which as some pestilential vapour overspreads us, that the 
 sight which God and the Holy Angels behold with far more 
 interest and sympathy than any other earthly object, the 
 solitary and severe conflicts of a holy and spiritual soul, they 
 think of little moment, when compared with the undisturbed 
 and unruffled course of this world's affairs. 
 
 It must not be forgotten, that in many parts of Catholic 
 Christendom a poor man who, at any period of his life, is 
 strongly impressed by religious truth, and moved by the 
 Holy Ghost to a higher and stricter life, may join a religious 
 order, in which, without at all diminishing the amount of 
 manual labour which his earthly vocation involved, he may 
 add to it devotional and penitential exercises of inestimable 
 value, and may have the blessing of a Confessor who is no 
 ordinary parish priest, but (as Confessors to monastic bodies 
 are bound) deeply versed, not in ascetic only, but in mystical 
 theology. A community of this kind may now be seen in 
 Leicestershire by any who have the curiosity ; and a con- 
 versation with any of the monks (who are all of the lowest 
 classes, and work all day long in the fields) will afford matter 
 both of surprise and edification . g And if in early years a 
 strong religious disposition is evinced, in all Roman Catholic 
 countries a ready access is open, even from the humblest ranks 
 of life, (nay the more ready from the humblest ranks,) to the 
 priesthood ; the aspirant is separated from an early age for his 
 future calling, and receives a careful and complete education. 
 
 I should not conclude this part of my subject, without giving 
 two different accounts, received from the best authority, 
 on the subject of institutions, which the Roman Catholics 
 call ' missions ;' the object of which is to revive the embers 
 of piety, and powerfully summon the multitude to more 
 serious thoughts. Let it be observed, how much of family 
 likeness there is to the ' religious revivals' of dissenting com- 
 munities; and yet how securely it is protected against the 
 fearful dangers which attend those religious observances, by 
 the uniformly moral character of the preaching : how the 
 
 8 Those who have been struck by the picture of monastic habits in the life of St. 
 Stephen Harding, will be peculiarly interested in the strict observance of the Cister- 
 cian rule by these monks.
 
 328 
 
 ' missionaries' speak not of feelings but of duties; not of 
 experiences but of sins : how all, whose mind is awakened, 
 are at once relegated to the Confessional, that their good de- 
 sires may not remain inoperative, but be committed at once 
 to good effects. The latter of the two accounts has come 
 into my possession from a priest who has frequently conduct- 
 ed a * mission.' 
 
 I. " There are several religious orders, and associations of secular 
 priests, for the purpose of giving missions ; i. e. of preaching during 
 a limited number of days in a town or village, on the great truths of 
 salvation. Such are the Missionaries (the religious of St. Vincent 
 of Paul) as they are called in Italy, from being specifically devoted 
 to this duty, the Jesuits, the Redemptorisls, (founded expressly for 
 this purpose by St. Alphonsus Liguori see the lessons of his office 
 in the Brev. Aug.) the Passionists, &c. Among recent associations 
 of priests is that of " the most precious Blood of our Lord" esta- 
 blished by the Canon Del Buffalo, who lately died, 28 Dec. 1837, 
 at Rome, in the odour of sanctity, and by whose intercession a 
 splendid miracle was last year wrought at Nice, and at whose 
 preaching the writer has had the happiness of attending. (It may 
 be observed how the very names of every one of these orders declare 
 that Christ Crucified is the subject of their preaching, and that they 
 do not lose sight of Him and His merits.) Besides these, the 
 Capuchins, Reformed Franciscans of the B. Leonardo a Porta 
 Maurizio, and other religious orders, are ever ready when called to 
 give missions. 
 
 II. " The entire lives of St. Francis de Girolamo above referred 
 to, and that of Ven. Paul of the Cross, the Founder of the Passion- 
 ists, may be said to be made up of the details of the missionary 
 life. The xxix. chap, of b. i. of the latter (p. 116, Rome, 1786,) 
 gives the method which he pursued. 
 
 III. " In general a mission is composed of at least two, generally 
 more, priests. They make a solemn entry into the town or village, 
 being met outside by the people, clergy, and authorities, and con- 
 ducted chaunting to the Church, or often, for want of room there, to 
 some public square or open space. This is in the afternoon, and an 
 introductory discourse, at the foot of a large crucifix, is delivered, 
 upon a platform, round which the members of some confraternity 
 stand. The mission is in fact the Spiritual Exercises [see postea] 
 preached, instead of meditated on. In country places and small
 
 329 
 
 towns they are divided between early in the morning and late in 
 the evening, that the people may be able to attend to their work. 
 As early as four a.m. they assemble in the Church, and an energetic 
 discourse is delivered on one of the great Truths as death, or 
 sin, &c. A familiar catechetical address follows, expounding some 
 great duty in a popular way, then mass. In the evening, there is 
 another catechetical discourse generally on preparation for Con- 
 fession and Communion, then another sermon on a great truth of 
 salvation. The rest of the day is filled up with the Confessional, 
 reconciling feuds, (a particular duty of the missionary,) instructing 
 the children, seeking the conversion of notorious sinners, and the 
 correction of scandals ; perhaps in giving some retreat in a convent, 
 or in preaching to prisoners or the sick. In this way Del Buffalo 
 used, when in mission, to preach ten, twelve, and sixteen times in 
 one day. (Short MS. inedited life in writer's possession.) The 
 lives before referred to, and those of St. Alphonsus and many 
 others, furnish most interesting examples of the wonderful and often 
 miraculous success of these missions. But they are of ordinary 
 occurrence. The writer has seen the congregation of an entire village 
 crowded in its church, all melted in tears, sobbing aloud, and calling 
 on God for pardon. The mission ends by a general communion, 
 and bad books, cards, and dice, and unlawful arms, are often 
 publicly burnt in the market place. A marked improvement in the 
 moral condition of the population is sure to follow ; and many a per- 
 manent conversion follows. 
 
 IV. " Bishops who are zealous for their flocks will procure such 
 a mission in every town and village at least every three or four years. 
 The missionaries go from place to place, and sometimes are out for 
 many months without rest. Not only is the machinery there and 
 at work, but so far from there being any lukewarmness in the mis- 
 sionaries, there is perhaps a more active spirit among them than there 
 has been at any former period." 
 
 " These retreats [see postea] are one of the most powerful means 
 to convert sinners, to enlighten penitents, and to make the perfect 
 advance rapidly in the way of sanctity ; hence it is, that in every 
 Catholic community, regular or secular, a retreat is performed once 
 a year, and in some of them twice ; and, that those who do not live 
 in communities should not be deprived of so great a blessing, it is 
 customary in Catholic countries to give a retreat at different times to 
 whole parishes, or villages, or towns.
 
 330 
 
 " A retreat in such a case is called a mission, because three, four, 
 five, or more priests are sent by the Bishop to assist in so holy a 
 practice. 
 
 " A mission is a body of reserve, in the continual war that the 
 militant Church wages against sin. When, for some cause or other, 
 or by the natural weight of our corruption, the Christian fervour 
 decays in a parish or a town, the Bishop sends a mission, as the only 
 remedy against all evils, and the effect is infallible. 
 
 " The mission is announced a month or two before, that every 
 one may so arrange his temporal occupation, as to be present 
 at it. 
 
 " Then, at the appointed day, the whole clergy of the town or 
 parish go forth in procession with all the confraternities to meet 
 the missionaries, who many times travel the whole or a great part 
 of the way on foot ; and as soon as they arrive, all the bells are 
 rung, and without declining to the right or to the left, they repair 
 with the procession to the church, or to the spot where they have to 
 preach, (if the mission is to be given in the open air,) and im- 
 mediately begin, by inviting all the town to come every day to listen 
 to the word of God, to the embassy that they have to deliver to them 
 in the name of Christ, saying, that the Lord sends peace to them, 
 and mercy, that He does not wish to punish them, but to call them 
 to repentance. Then they give them a rule of life, to be followed 
 during the ensuing days, and the distribution of hours for the spiritual 
 exercises during the retreat. 
 
 " Four sermons are delivered to them ; two in the morning, and 
 two in the evening. Masses and prayers are said in the morning 
 before and after the sermons, and in the afternoon psalms and 
 canticles are said or sung, and a spiritual book is read at different 
 times suitable to the occasion ; so that the people continue in the 
 church almost all the day long in a succession of different spiritual 
 exercises. 
 
 " It would be long to give all details ; but I will only say, that 
 after a few days you would say that the face of the earth there is 
 changed. Public houses are deserted, enemies are reconciled, 
 stolen things restored, wrong connections given up, bad books 
 burnt, detractions retracted, children asking pardon of parents 
 for their bad conduct, the town solemn and still ; passing along 
 the shops, you would hear men at work saying prayers; some ask 
 publicly pardon of the whole town for their scandals ; others resolve
 
 331 
 
 to leave the world and become monks or nuns ; the covetous give 
 abundance of alms to the poor ; several poor girls are married who 
 otherwise would be in danger of seduction ; the baptismal promises 
 are solemnly renewed ; the confessionals crowded day and night ; 
 so that, like St. Peter, the missionaries are obliged to send for all 
 the clergy of the neighbouring parishes, and to beckon to them for 
 assistance to draw the nets to the land ; and in the last day, after 
 all being reconciled with God, they all go to communion. Then you 
 would see thousands and thousands approaching the holy table, in 
 tears of such devotion and such fervour, that you are overpowered, 
 and cannot refrain from shedding with them tears of consolation, 
 and blessing the Lord, saying, This is the change of the right hand 
 of the Most High.' 
 
 " A procession takes place in the afternoon to some spot, where 
 a large cross is carried and planted, as a memorial of the mission 
 given in such or such a year, and as a monument of the covenant 
 renewed by the people of that place with God. There the resolu- 
 tions are publicly and solemnly repeated, and offered to God, and 
 then blessed by the missionary, who implores the peace of God and 
 His blessings upon the ecclesiastical and civil authorities of the place, 
 upon all parents, upon all children, upon the poor, &c., &c. ; and 
 after having sung a solemn Te Deum, the mission finishes. 
 
 " You may understand that such a work (which, after all,is the 
 work of God, and His grace) is not like a passing storm, but it con- 
 tinues to stand for years, and sometimes for many years ; and when 
 at last is forgotten, it is revived by another mission." 
 
 And what is the effect on the general character of our 
 poor, resulting from this absence of spiritual discipline ? 
 Here there is an universal agreement as to phenomena, how- 
 ever wide the differences or the cause of the phenomena. It 
 seems agreed on all hands, that our agricultural poor, con- 
 sidered as a class, are oppressed by a dull, heavy, torpid 
 stagnation of the faculties, which renders all attempts to in- 
 terest them in religious subjects hopeless ; while the most 
 frightful immorality extends in all directions, which even 
 those who do not practise it hardly feel to be sinful. It seems 
 agreed that our manufacturing poor, taken as a class, if their 
 intellect be sharper, are only in consequence more actively
 
 332 
 
 inimical to religion ; if they be less obtuse and unimpres- 
 sible, are only the more arrogant, self-conceited, and turbu- 
 lent. God forbid that we should exercise any severity of 
 judgment, on that which to so fearful an extent is our own 
 work ! no, not even in those extreme cases, when self-defence 
 requires vigorous measures of repression and punishment. 
 Without presuming to sound the unfathomable abyss of 
 God's judgments and dealings with man, or conjecturing 
 what unknown means of probation He may have in store for 
 those, who seem here on earth to sink, almost without fault 
 of theirs, into the gulf of wickedness, opening wide its jaws to 
 receive them, it will be well at all events to impress on our 
 minds the following passage of Scripture : " When I say 
 unto the wicked, thou shalt surely die : and thou givest him 
 not warning, nor speakest to warn the wicked from his wicked 
 way, to save his life : the same wicked man shall die in his 
 iniquity, but his blood will I require at thy hands" 
 
 We make our boast of professing what we are pleased to 
 call a Scriptural religion: let us compare our system with the 
 test of Scripture. Some years since a member of our Church 
 was so unhappy as to imply, that " the highest state of mo- 
 ral and religious elevation can be attained only by the edu- 
 cated and polished classes of society, and even among these 
 by none except persons of higher intellectual powers ; " while 
 the " less abstracted and contemplative minds " are capable 
 only of " strong though not refined feelings of devotion." 
 On this Mr. Froude, burning with holy indignation, expresses 
 himself as follows : 
 
 " What ! are we to be told that the fishermen of Galilee were 
 strangers to the high devotion of a modern philosopher ? Is the 
 Gospel of St. John a methodistical rhapsody, resulting from ' strong 
 though not refined feelings of devotion ? ' and what shall we say of 
 Mary, the sister of Lazarus, and of the other Mary, whom ' all 
 generations shall call blessed ? ' and who are they that shall ' sit on 
 thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel,' when ' the last shall be 
 first and the first last ? ' 
 
 " In fact, this notion is one which cuts at the very root of the 
 Christian spirit ; and instead of teaching us to love the things
 
 333 
 
 which Christ commands, and desire that which He doth promise, 
 proposes to us a new calling, whereunto He has not called us. 
 ' Ye see your calling, brethren,' says one, ' incapable of abstracted 
 contemplation ;' ' how that not many wise men after the flesh, not 
 many mighty, not many noble are called. But God hath chosen 
 the foolish things of the world to confound the wise ; and God hath 
 chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things that 
 are mighty ; and the base things of the world and the things which 
 are despised hath God chosen, yea, the things that are not, to bring 
 to nought the things that are ; that no flesh should glory in His 
 presence.' 
 
 " The religion of Jesus Christ is in an especial manner the religion 
 of the poor ; and it was to these that the Gospel was first preached ; 
 it was these that heard it gladly. The fisher's cot by the lake of 
 Gennesareth, the shop of the wandering tent-makers at Corinth, 
 and of the purple-sellers of Thyatira, these were the good ground 
 where the seed of the true Faith fell, and brought forth its thirty, 
 its sixty, and its hundredfold." k 
 
 Now let us fairly ask ourselves the question, Have we 
 ever realised the fact, or when we look at the poor as we 
 find them around us, can we by ever so great an effort bring 
 ourselves to realise the fact, that the Mother of God, the 
 holy Apostles, the great body of early Christians, belonged 
 to the same class with our agricultural and manufacturing 
 poor ? Would it not involve a revolution in all our habits of 
 thought, fully to believe that those devoted to life-long 
 manual labour may contemplate heavenly things as habitually, 
 desire spiritual blessings as earnestly, and despise earthly 
 joys or sorrows as triumphantly, as the most educated of us 
 all ? Would it not be our immediate tendency to ridicule the 
 idea of a man with rough hands, soiled dress, and homely 
 speech, oppressed with bitter sorrow for some deficiency in 
 the hearty performance of the labour covenanted with his 
 employer, or for some one discontented or angry thought, 
 or seriously complaining of the aridity which he from time 
 to time experiences in prayer and meditation ? Yet such is 
 the account we over and over again read, of Saints or saintly 
 k Remains, 2d part, vol. i. pp. 306 8.
 
 334 
 
 men in the Catholic Church. How deeply and fundamentally 
 opposed then are our habits and tendencies to that Scriptural 
 standard, which Protestants profess to follow, but to which 
 the Church Catholic alone has faithfully witnessed ! 
 
 3. Let us now turn our eyes to the educated classes ; 
 and let us again begin with the beginning; viz. the care 
 taken by the English Church of their education. Here as 
 before Confession enters into the foreign system with the 
 greatest advantage. If either of the parents have a pro- 
 fession of religiousness, her Confessor impresses on her the 
 duty of carefully training her child in habits of prayer and 
 obedience, and instructs her in the best means of training 
 him. At the age of seven, the child's own time of confession 
 begins ; and thus the Church brings to bear directly upon 
 him, through her specially educated minister, those maxims 
 and rules, by means of which his whole education, secular or 
 theological, may be throughout leavened with a religious 
 spirit, and wholly grounded on a religious basis. This 
 affords us an excellent test, to discover what are the real 
 reasons for that dislike of Sacramental Confession, so general 
 among us ; whether we really agree with Roman Catholics 
 on the paramount importance of moral discipline, and only 
 object to Confession because of evils supposed to attend it 
 (' priestcraft ' or others) ; or whether we are in real truth 
 miserably blind to the fundamental duty of early inculcating 
 moral and religious habits. For if the former were the case, 
 how zealous would our Church be in supplying by other 
 means the need which she so deeply regrets her inability to 
 supply by this means ! how numerous would be the manuals 
 of self-examination placed in the hands of the young, or 
 books devised for the purpose of instructing parents in the 
 best mode of religiously educating their children ! How 
 systematically and uniformly would the priest lay before 
 those parents in his parish, who do not send their children 
 to the church school, the indispensable importance of at least 
 carefully disciplining them at home in prayer, religious 
 meditation, hatred of sin, self-denial, penitence ! 
 
 Instead of all this, what do we find ? in what single
 
 335 
 
 particular can our Church be said so much as to concern 
 herself with the education of those above a state of pauperism ? 
 She acts, as though her authoritative scheme of instruction 
 were very well for those who could get for themselves no 
 better; but that where she is not asked to give education 
 gratuitously, 1 she has no duty of labouring that it be given 
 religiously. Nay, even if a parent be earnestly desirous of 
 doing her duty in this particular, and painfully and dis- 
 tressingly conscious of its unspeakable importance, what 
 systematic, well-devised scheme, complete in its parts 
 theoretically, adjusted to human nature practically, does our 
 Church offer ? where is this or any thing like this to be 
 found ? On questions so essential above all others as whether 
 punishment be necessary or even allowable, whether even the 
 most essential duties should be directly taught the young or 
 they should be left to gather them from personal study of 
 Scripture, whether they ought or ought not to be at least 
 encouraged to confess particular sins which they may have 
 committed, such questions as these, with a multitude of 
 others, are as freely discussed and as variously decided, as 
 though there were nobody among us at all, which professed 
 it as her function to educate the young. And, in recipro- 
 cation, our Church seems to look on as contentedly and 
 unconcernedly, while these discussions proceed, as though 
 she were in no way called on to arbitrate in the matter ; as 
 though she laid no real claim to the prerogative of educating 
 her own children ; but only professed such a claim, as if by 
 a sort of etiquette, when any overture to Dissenters is made 
 by the civil power. 
 
 Let us now contemplate members of the same class, who 
 have advanced from a state of childhood. The tempta- 
 tions which beset these as they advance in years, are 
 strikingly opposite in character to those experienced by the 
 poor. The sins to which these latter are solicited, are of a 
 nature which are at once recognised as sins by all whose 
 conscience is not absolutely hardened ; for even sullenness, 
 
 1 I am not quite sure that the word ' gratuitously' is strictly correct ; I have 
 heard, at least, that a nominal sum is frequently exacted, on the principle that people 
 in England value nothing but what they pay for.
 
 336 
 
 discontent, sloth, anger, in the shape they wear among the 
 poor; or again, neglect of daily and regular devotion, these 
 impress their real nature even on men under their influence, 
 unless they "nave fairly abandoned the very profession of a re- 
 ligious character. Far different is the case with those who have 
 a competent provision of the necessaries of life. In these, first 
 of all, as I said more at length in the second chapter, a deep, 
 subtle, all-pervading worldliness may exist, wholly unsus- 
 pected by themselves, sullying their best actions, nay even 
 fatally tainting them, and depriving them of real acceptable- 
 ness in God's sight. The poor, speaking generally, have no 
 present enjoyment to tempt them, which does not bear on its 
 very surface the brand of sin ; if they preserve respectability, 
 decorum, and a formal observance of religious duties, they 
 preserve very much more also ; if they do what is externally 
 right, they do it on high and religious grounds. While 
 those who live in the midst of gratifications which are 
 attractive and absorbing, and yet not in themselves sinful, 
 may be well assured, that unless they be provided with some 
 special and sharp discipline, their affections and interests will 
 be centred on things of earth, without any violent shock 
 being given to their moral feelings ; and they will be led on 
 to the most fearful peril of forfeiting their salvation. 
 
 In exercises of what kind should this special discipline 
 principally consist ? Before considering this, let us observe 
 a farther contrast which exists between the higher and lower 
 classes, not unlike that which I mentioned in a previous 
 chapter as distinguishing later from earlier times ; I mean, 
 the great prominence given among the former to self-con- 
 sciousness : the circumstance, that the observation and know- 
 ledge of their own thoughts, habits, feelings, and acts, will be 
 immeasurably greater in educated men than in uneducated ; 
 in refined than in rude ; in those who, as being free from 
 external anxiety of an overpowering and absorbing nature, 
 have leisure to look within, than in those whose life is an 
 unceasing conflict with the inclemency of their outward lot. 
 Over and above this, as though God would impress on our 
 minds at every turn the impossibility of avoiding misery here 
 below, unless we place our trust and rest in Him, it is found
 
 337 
 
 universally, that as men are brought beyond the range of one 
 kind of distresses or temptations, they are only brought within 
 the sphere of another, which are neither understood, nor even 
 suspected to exist, by those not exposed to their influence. 
 In the former rank may be placed the pang of unrequited 
 affection, the keen sense of loneliness and yearning for sym- 
 pathy, sorrow from domestic trouble, the mere feeling of 
 unhappiness without assignable cause, perplexing and dis- 
 turbing scruples of conscience, peculiar agitations of mind 
 connected with the anxious conflict of opinion now proceeding, 
 and a thousand others; in the latter, (what is included in the 
 observations of the last paragraph,) idolatry of family and 
 friends ; and, again, the more subtle, but often even more 
 deadly, forms of envy, pride, vanity, discontent, sloth, self- 
 complacency, disregard of others, not to mention that most 
 fearful of all, scepticism of one or other kind. These often 
 assail the mind of those removed from more ordinary trials, 
 with an acuteness and intensity of torment, which naturally 
 enough has no justice done to it, nor receives any adequate 
 sympathy, from those who have not experienced it. While 
 then the rich are exposed to a most powerful and continued 
 temptation, from which the poor are free, viz. to seeking a 
 refuge for their sorrows in the thought or enjoyment of 
 worldly goods, instead of applying to them the true medicine ; 
 it seems really to admit of fair doubt, whether in all cases 
 those sorrows themselves are less oppressive and severe. 
 
 For both these reasons, then, it appears that the primary 
 discipline, under our present circumstances, should be a 
 mental discipline. For the first, because if we must un- 
 avoidably dwell more or less constantly on the thought of 
 ourselves, the task is one of no ordinary labour and difficulty 
 to take care that we think not on our own good qualities, but 
 on our bad ; not on the slights we may have received from 
 others, but on the slights we have ourselves offered to God ; 
 not on the sufferings God may have sent us, but on the 
 benefits with which He has so abundantly blessed us : and 
 also, because if we are almost compelled in so great a measure 
 to know our own thoughts, the duty is on that ground the 
 
 z
 
 338 
 
 more incumbent, in an equally increased measure to watch 
 and regulate our own thoughts. For the second; because 
 the only real remedy for mental disorders is the re-establish- 
 ment, by the agency of the Holy Ghost, of that inward 
 harmony of our nature, and subordination of our will and 
 affections to God, which was lost by the fall. The secondary 
 means, therefore, which those must apply, who suffer under 
 these peculiar troubles and distresses, are such as may best 
 provide, that the first-fruits of these more recondite and 
 complex feelings, now first called into active energy, should 
 be more and more undividedly offered to God ; in other 
 words, these means must be mental, rather than bodily, 
 observances. On the other hand, it must not be forgotten 
 that, without constant discipline, it is quite impossible for 
 us to grow in faithfulness to our Master's service, or 
 rather quite certain that we shall decline in it. Those 
 whose mind is thronged by sinful, by painful, by busy 
 thoughts, have abundant scope for the exercise of this dis- 
 cipline, in resisting the first, preserving the sense of over- 
 flowing thankfulness to God notwithstanding the second, and 
 at fixed times by a strenuous effort banishing the third, that 
 the mind may be given wholly to God. But so far as this is 
 not the case with any one of us, and so far as severe and 
 continued external sufferings sent by God do not supply the 
 place for purposes of discipline, in that proportion the neces- 
 sity of serious bodily self-inflictions becomes more obvious 
 and undeniable. 
 
 Two different kinds of mental discipline, prominently 
 enforced by the Roman Church, seem fitted in a very 
 peculiar way to these two kinds of mental peril, each to 
 each ; i. e. to the peril arising from self-consciousness, and 
 that arising from what we may call intellectual and imagina- 
 tive refinement of the feelings. The first kind is the system 
 of self-examination, on which such careful guidance is given ; 
 and of which a very general outline shall here follow, not 
 derived from any recondite sources, but from the ' Garden of 
 the Soul :' the manual which is in the hands of nearly all 
 Roman Catholics in this country.
 
 339 
 
 " An Examination of Conscience for every night. 
 
 [" First place yourself in the presence of God ; humbly adore 
 Him, and give Him thanks for all His blessings, especially those 
 bestowed on you this day.] 
 
 " ' O Almighty and eternal God, whose majesty filleth heaven 
 and earth, I firmly believe Thou art here ; that Thy adorable eye is 
 on me ; that Thou seest and knowest all things, and art most 
 intimately present in the very centre of my soul. I desire to bow 
 down all the powers of my soul to adore Thee ; I desire to join my 
 voice with all the angels and saints, to praise Thee and glorify 
 Thee now and for ever. I give Thee thanks from the bottom of my 
 heart, for all Thy mercies and blessings bestowed upon me and upon 
 Thy whole Church ; and particularly for those I have received from 
 Thee this day, in Thy watching over me, and preserving me from 
 so many evils, and favouring me with so many graces and inspira- 
 tions, &c. O let me never more be ungrateful to so constant and 
 liberal a Benefactor I And now, dear Lord, add this one blessing to 
 the rest : that I may clearly discover the sins that I have committed 
 this day, by thought, word, and deed ; or by any omission of any 
 branch of my duty to Thee, to my neighbour, or to myself; that no 
 part of my guilt may be hidden from my own eyes ; but that I may 
 see my sins in their true colour, and may detest them as they ought 
 to be detested.' 
 
 [" Then examine yourself, how you have passed the day ; how 
 you have performed your prayers, and other spiritual exercises ; in 
 what manner you have acquitted yourself of the duties of your 
 calling ; what care you have taken to perform well your ordinary 
 actions of the day ; what company you have been in, and what your 
 conversation has been ; and, in particular, how you have behaved 
 yourself with regard to your customary failings and your predominant 
 passions. 
 
 " After having diligently examined your conscience, and dis- 
 covered the faults you have been guilty of, endeavouring to be 
 heartily sorry, humbly beg pardon of the Divine Majesty for them, 
 saying for this purpose the psalm ' Miserere, Have mercy on me, 
 O God,' &c. 
 
 " Then make a firm purpose of amendment for the future, and 
 especially resolve to be more watchful over yourself the following 
 day ; to be more diligent in flying the occasions of your sins, and to
 
 340 
 
 take such and such precautions with regard to the faults you are 
 most subject to. 
 
 " Conclude this exercise by endeavouring to put yourself, as much 
 as possible, in the condition you would be glad to be found in at 
 the hour of your death : in order to this, make the best acts you are 
 able, of a lively Faith, of an humble Confidence in God, and of a 
 perfect Resignation to His holy will : embrace with all the affections 
 of your soul Christ crucified, and aspire to an eternal union with 
 Him. For which end you may pray as follows, &c.]" 
 
 " This or the like examen of conscience," adds the writer, 
 " ought never to be omitted by such as desire to serve God in 
 good earnest, and to secure their soul's eternal welfare." 
 
 This account includes what is called the 'particular ex- 
 amination.' A few words, however, may be added on the 
 latter subject, from that most admirable and standard work, 
 the ' Treatise on Spiritual Perfection' by Rodriguez. 
 
 " The Devil takes all care imaginable to know the most feeble 
 part of our souls, to make his attack afterwards in that part, that 
 thereby he may more easily reduce us to his subjection. Let us 
 make use of this admonition, to keep ourselves on our guard, and to 
 take precaution against our enemies. Let us attentively seek and 
 find out which is the weakest part of the soul, and the most naked of 
 virtue ; let us see where our natural inclination renders an attack 
 more easy, and what part is most of all decayed and ruined by ill 
 habits ; and let us labour everywhere to repair and fortify the weakest 
 places by strong ramparts . . . Let us overcome that vice in vis which 
 is king of all the rest, and we shall easily tame and vanquish all the 
 others. 
 
 11 When we have any exterior defects that offend and scandalise our 
 neighbours, it is these that we must begin to retrench by means of 
 our particular examen, though we should have interior defects far 
 more considerable. For example, if one speaks too much, or too 
 harshly, or too sharply to his brethren ; or lets himself be carried so 
 far, as to say things that affect their reputation ; and, in fine, if one is 
 subject to other failings that may hurt the neighbour, reason and 
 charity oblige us first to correct ourselves in what may give pain' or 
 trouble to our brethren." vol. i. pp. 352, 4. 
 
 " There are three times for this examen, [he is speaking directly 
 of regulars, who of course are bound by a much stricter rule than those
 
 341 
 
 who live in the world,] and of these three there are only two in 
 which we can examine ourselves. The first is in the morning when 
 we awake ; at which time we have nothing else to do, but to make a 
 firm purpose to abstain during the day, from what vice or imperfection 
 we aim at correcting. The second time is at noon before dinner. . . . 
 the third time is at night before we go to bed ; and then we must 
 
 renew the examen we made at noon But to root out still more 
 
 readily any vice or defect, which we wish to free ourselves from, 
 St. Ignatius gives us four excellent instructions. The first is, that 
 every time we fall into the defect or vice, we presently make an act 
 of repentance, laying our hand upon our breast ;... secondly, that after 
 the examen of night we compare the points we have noted with those 
 noted in the morning, to see if after dinner there be an amendment ; 
 the third and fourth, that in like manner we compare the points of 
 the day with those of the day before, and those of that week with 
 those of the week before." p. 370. 
 
 " We must take particular notice that ... all the virtue and efficacy 
 of our examen consist in compunction and true repentance for our 
 faults and in a firm resolution not to relapse into them ... A real 
 compunction and true repentance of our faults is a powerful remedy 
 to hinder us from relapsing ; and it is [of the greatest] importance 
 to dwell sometime and remain hereupon in our examens." pp. 372, 4. 
 
 " There are five points in the general examen of conscience. The 
 first is to give thanks to God for the benefits we have received ; and 
 this is put in the first place, that by afterwards comparing His 
 benefits with our sins, we may be moved to greater sorrow and con- 
 fusion The second point is to beg grace to obtain a perfect 
 
 knowledge of all the sins we have committed. . The third, to call 
 ourselves to account how often we have sinned, since the last re- 
 solution and good purpose we made ; beginning with the examination 
 of our thoughts, and afterwards continuing it on our words and actions. 
 The fourth is to beg pardon of God for all those sins into which we find 
 we have fallen, and to repent and conceive a great sorrow for them. 
 The fifth is, to purpose a firm amendment, and afterwards end with 
 reciting the Lord's Prayer. This general examen ought always to 
 be joined to the particular ; and to this end the first thing we ought 
 to do every morning when we get up, is to offer to God all the 
 actions we shall do during the day. For though in speaking of the 
 particular examen I have said that as soon as we awake we should 
 purpose to abstain from that vice we have undertaken to correct and
 
 342 
 
 that in this we should employ the beginning of our examen ; yet this 
 ought not to be done, till after we have offered up to God all our 
 thoughts, words, and actions, referring them all beforehand to His 
 greater glory. And having made a firm purpose and resolution not 
 to offend Him, and having begged His grace for this end., we must 
 afterwards twice a day, at noon and night, join the general examen 
 with the particular." p. 378. 
 
 "Sickness itsdf, which dispenses with our ordinary hour of mental 
 prayer, dispenses not with our general or particular examens. We 
 must hold it therefore for an infallible maxim, that we must never 
 exempt ourselves from it on any account whatever." p. 351. 
 
 This examen, as I lately observed, is considered so essen- 
 tial by Roman Catholics, that the omission of it on any one 
 day would be made a subject of confession. There is 
 a different exercise also, called by the same name of par- 
 ticular examination, commonly adopted, I believe, in Semi- 
 naries over and above the other. It consists in taking the 
 various parts of the Christian character in succession, and 
 making them the subject of meditation ; so as to impress our 
 minds at once with the full idea of what we ought to be, 
 and also our own miserable short-comings and imperfections. 
 The book commonly used in France on this subject is 
 M. Tronson's ' Examens particuliers sur divers sujets pro- 
 pres aux Ecclesiastiques, et a toutes les personnes qui veulent 
 s'avancer dans la perfection.' (Lyon.) In fact, much the 
 greater part bears practically on all serious Christians, as 
 well as on regulars or seminarists. To shew the plan of this 
 work, I cannot do better than take, almost at random, a few 
 specimens. 
 
 " 107^ Examen. On conformity to the will of God. 
 
 " First point. 
 
 " Let us adore our Lord ; who during his whole life, but especially 
 at the approach of His Passion, shewed forth a wonderful conformity 
 to the will of His Father. The most cruel torments and most 
 terrible afflictions present themselves in a crowd before His eyes, 
 and however the lower part of His soul may shrink from them, He 
 submits Himself to them with a loving resignation. O rare and 
 beautiful example of conformity to the will of God !
 
 343 
 
 " Second point. 
 
 " Let us examine ourselves if we have had a perfect conformity to 
 the will of God. 
 
 " Have we not desired other places or employments, than those 
 which God's providence has given us, and should we not have been 
 well-pleased to choose for ourselves those which might be to our 
 taste and inclination ? 
 
 " Have we been satisfied with the talents which we have received 
 from His divine goodness, without complaining that we had not as 
 much as some others ? 
 
 " Have we been contented with the condition in which He has 
 placed us ? and have we not wished some other more convenient, 
 more conspicuous, or more suitable to our fancy ? 
 
 " Have we received all troubles as coming from the hand of God ; 
 and instead of wasting the time in complaining of them and thinking 
 of them, have we considered that God sent them for our salvation and 
 for His glory ? 
 
 " When we have thought of death and contemplated its approach, 
 have we done so without trouble or murmuring, and with a perfect 
 resignation ? 
 
 " Have we had the same resignation in public calamities ; such as 
 wars, pestilences, famines ; looking on all these calamities as flowing 
 from the will of God, who disposes them according to the secret 
 counsels of His wisdom, and to derive from them the advantages 
 most suitable to His glory and His service ? 
 
 " Have we not desired with inquietude spiritual enjoyments ; so as 
 to be discontented, uneasy, and despondent, when God has permitted 
 us to be deprived of them ? 
 
 " Finally, have we adored the Providence of God in adversity as 
 in prosperity ; in spiritual aridity as in spiritual consolations ; in 
 privations as in enjoyments ; and have we put our trust in Him for 
 time and for eternity ? 
 
 Third point. 
 
 " O my God, since it is certain that nothing can happen in the world 
 except by Thy governance, and that worldly blessings and sufferings, 
 death and life, poverty and wealth, come equally from Thee, it is 
 most meet that we submit ourselves to Thy hand with love and with 
 reverence, and receive with grateful heart all that happens, painful 
 or pleasing. This it is, O my God, which I am resolved to do in 
 future by means of Thy holy grace. ' My heart is ready, O Godj
 
 344 
 
 my heart is ready ; it is ready for adversity, it is ready for prosperity.' 
 Augustine. 
 
 " 109^ Examen. On the love of our Lord. (The 108th was on the 
 same subject.) 
 
 " First point. 
 
 " Let us adore our Lord, resplendent in the glory of His Father, 
 and possessing the fulness of His treasures. Nothing so beautiful, 
 so worthy of love, as this divine Jesus. ... In Him His Father is well 
 and fully pleased ; is it not right that He should be the only object 
 of our love ? He is our Father, our Saviour, our Master, our 
 Shepherd, our Head, our Spouse, our All. Let us love Him, love 
 Him again, embrace him as nearly as we can. 
 
 " Second point. 
 
 " Let us examine if we have conceived for Him all the love that 
 His attributes deserve. 
 
 " Have we loved Him as Man-God, above all things, more than 
 all creatures and than ourselves ? 
 
 " Have we had delight in considering that He is the very Living 
 God ; and have we had supreme joy in gazing on all the greatness 
 and perfection which He possesses in that respect ? 
 
 " Have we loved Him as our Saviour, being ready to do all and to 
 suffer all in return for what He has vouchsafed to do and suffer for 
 our salvation ? 
 
 " Have we loved Him as our Sovereign Lord, having towards Him 
 the obedience of a servant, the faithfulness of a subject, the depend- 
 ence of a slave, and being enraptured to think that He has over us 
 that right of life and death which His sovereign power confers ? 
 
 " Have we loved Him as our Master, submitting teachably to His 
 instructions, embracing His maxims, maintaining His doctrine, and 
 having no greater wish than to see it spread over all the world ? 
 
 " Have we loved Him as our Head, wishing to receive from Him 
 alone movement and life, offering all that we have to defend His 
 glory, as the members offer themselves to defend the head ? 
 
 " Have we loved Him as our Shepherd, who nourishes us with His 
 own blood? and have we been disposed to give Him our blood in 
 return, and to shed it for His love ? 
 
 " Have we taken delight in listening to His Voice and following it, 
 and sought no other pastures except those to which He guides us ? 
 
 " Have we loved Him as the best of Fathers, having for Him a
 
 345 
 
 love of tenderness, reverence, and trust ; and fearing no one thing so 
 much as to displease Him ? 
 
 " Have we loved Him as the only Spouse of our soul ; have we no 
 other interests at heart but His ; desiring only what He wills, and 
 placing all our idea of happiness for time and for eternity in being 
 inseparably united to Him ? 
 
 " Lastly, have we loved Him as our All ; Who wishing to be every 
 thing to us, ought Alone to occupy our hearts and fill our affections ? 
 ' He who gave Himself for us, seeks from us our heart also whole.' 
 St. Bernard. 
 
 " Third point. 
 
 " When I consider, O my Jesus, on how many grounds Thou 
 deservest to be loved ; and that Thou dost without ceasing solicit us 
 to give Thee all our affections, and that Thou dost cover those who 
 love Thee with grace and favours : what sorrow ought I not to feel, 
 to find myself as yet so little affected with love for Thee I Grant, 
 O my God, that my heart may be wholly enkindled with love of 
 Thee, and that I may not be so miserable as to be included in the 
 anathema pronounced by Thy Apostle, ' If any man love not the 
 Lord Jesus, let him be Anathema Maranatha.' 
 
 "11 Oth Examen. On the love of our neighbour. 
 " First point. 
 
 " Let us adore the infinite wisdom of our God which shines forth 
 with lustre in the manner whereby He commands us to love one 
 another. He knows the great benefits which we should derive" from 
 that love ; but since He foresees that the flesh and the Devil will 
 exert all their effort to destroy it, or at least greatly to lessen it, 
 not only He makes it an express commandment ; but He wills that 
 the love which we have for ourselves should be the measure of that 
 which we shall have for our neighbour. ' Thou shalt love,' He says, 
 ' thy neighbour as thyself.' Let us return thanks to this God of 
 goodness and of love. 
 
 " Second point. 
 
 " Let us examine ourselves whether we have loved our neighbour 
 as ourselves. 
 
 " Have we entered heartily into all his interests, and made them 
 our own personal concern ? 
 
 " Have we rejoiced at his blessings, and taken as much interest in 
 the good that befals him as though it befel ourselves ? 
 
 " Have we felt as sensibly his sufferings and annoyances as our own ?
 
 346 
 
 " Do we take as much care of him as of ourselves ? Do we seek 
 the means of being able to help him ? are we beforehand with him 
 in his necessities ? Are we always ready to serve him ? 
 
 " In all the conversations, work, business, in which we come in his 
 path, do we shew him a great deference, a Christian courtesy ; do we 
 carefully avoid all that may pain him ? 
 
 " Is his reputation as dear to us as our own ? Have we endeavoured 
 whenever we could do it without failing in our duty, to hide his 
 faults, excuse them, extenuate them, and turn the conversation when 
 others speak of them ? 
 
 " Do we interest ourselves with love and zeal for his health and all 
 that concerns him? 
 
 " Have we his salvation at heart? do we make aspirations and 
 prayers in his behalf? do we shed tears for the faults or sins which he 
 commits ? do we observe with joy the graces which he receives, and 
 his faithfulness in corresponding to them ? 
 
 " Lastly, have we followed those two great rules which the Scrfpture 
 gives us : Do not to another what you would not have done to you, 
 and do to him what you would have done to you ? 
 " Third point. 
 
 " O my God, how well do we learn the manner in which Thou 
 desirest that we should love our neighbour, from what Holy Scripture 
 says of the love of Jonathan for David ! ' The soul of Jonathan was 
 knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own 
 soul.' Thus it is that we desire henceforward to love our neighbour : 
 we most humbly beg this grace of Thee, O my God, and we beg it of 
 Thee by the great love which Thou Thyself hast borne to us." 
 [There are nine further examens on this subject.] 
 
 Such exercises as these must have the most powerful 
 tendency towards the due regulation of our thoughts, words, 
 and actions ; being a remedy mainly founded in that very 
 self-consciousness, from whence flow the evils to be reme- 
 died. From the other characteristic of the refined classes 
 to which I drew attention, arises that unprecedented 
 divergence of individual character, so observable in our 
 times; the very great extent to which peculiarity and 
 ' individuality' of mind extend on all sides of us. Now 
 the soul, as I just now observed, cannot receive aright the 
 Spirit of God, and thus obtain that wholesome and invigo-
 
 rating quality which alone will brace and strengthen it against 
 the temptations peculiar to such a character, unless the first- 
 fruits of these habits of mind be offered up more and more 
 undividedly to God. It is quite necessary then that the 
 Church should teach and encourage a practice, of more 
 individual, free, natural, unrestrained, heartfelt, personal 
 prayer, than consists with the exclusive adoption of ap- 
 pointed forms ; that to divergence of individual character 
 should correspond variety of individual devotion; and that 
 each peculiarity of mind should have its full and unfettered 
 scope, in fastening itself on some Heavenly Correlative. On 
 the other hand, Mr. Newman in one of his Sermons 1 has 
 drawn out a formidable array of the evils which may probably 
 result, from the use of such individual and self-devised prayer; 
 irreverence, wandering thoughts, over-excited feelings, and 
 others. Now is it possible for human wisdom to conceive 
 a plan more fitted to meet the necessity for such prayer 
 which I just now urged, while it guards against those 
 dangers which Mr. Newman urges, than the whole system 
 of meditation, as practised in the Roman Church ; and 
 which I believe there are very few of the educated classes, 
 who think of going on at all into real strictness of life, who 
 would not be earnestly exhorted by their Confessors to 
 practise ? If it be said that religious men are, without taking 
 all this pains about it, at spare moments throughout the 
 day praying in a natural, unconscious manner, this only makes 
 such discipline as I speak of more important, in order that 
 such habitual prayer may be of higher and more practised 
 quality. 
 
 In this, as in the former instance, the advice placed before 
 ordinary English Roman Catholics in the ' Garden of the 
 Soul,' will be the most appropriate account with which to 
 begin : though indeed to understand at all fully the various 
 counsels which have been given to secure concentration of the 
 mind in mental prayer, the various editions of the * Spiritual 
 Exercises ' should be read. 
 
 1 Vol. I. Sermon xx.
 
 348 
 
 " Instructions for Meditation, or Mental Prayer, proper to be 
 made every Morning. 
 
 " I will meditate on thee in the morning. Psalm Ixii. 7. 
 
 " The wise man will give his heart to resort early to the Lord 
 that made him, and he will pray in the sight of the Most High. 
 Eccles. xxxix. 6. 
 
 " Meditation, consisting of considerations on the great truths of 
 Christianity, pious a/ections, and manifold elevations of the soul to 
 God, and serious resolutions of devoting one's self to Him, is allowed 
 to be one of the most important exercises of a Christian life, and 
 such as ought to be performed daily, by as many as would serve 
 God in good earnest. The time most proper for it is the morning ; 
 the most proper place one's closet, or any other where one can be 
 most recollected. The chief subjects to be meditated on, especially 
 for beginners, are, the end for which we came into this world : the 
 benefits of God, and the many motives we have to love and serve 
 Him : the vanity of the honours, riches, and pleasures of this life ; 
 and how very suddenly all these things vanish away : the enormity 
 of sin, and the multitude of our own sins in particular : the certainty 
 and uncertainty of death ; and the necessity of preparing for it : 
 the account we must one day give to an all-seeing Judge : the 
 eternal joys of heaven, and the eternal torments of hell : the 
 presence and majesty of God : the life and death of Jesus Christ : 
 the examples of His saints : the state of our own interior, in order 
 to the knowledge of ourselves, our passions and vices, &c. 
 
 " The method of meditation prescribed by that great master in 
 spirituality, St. Francis de Sales, in his Introduction, part the 2d, 
 is as follows : First, Place yourself in the presence of God, by a 
 lively faith that He sees and beholds you, and is most intimately 
 present in the centre of your soul : prostrate yourself in spirit before 
 Him, to adore this sovereign Lord, whose majesty fills heaven and 
 earth ; make an offering of your whole being to Him ; and humbly 
 beg His pardon for all your past treasons and sins. 
 
 " Secondly, Implore with fervour and humility His light and 
 grace, that you may perform this important exercise as you ought. 
 
 " Thirdly, Consider attentively upon the subject which you have 
 chosen for your meditation (which you ought to have prepared over 
 night), and let the truths of heaven sink deep into your soul. 
 Dwell most upon such points as you find yourself most affected 
 with.
 
 349 
 
 " Fourthly, From these considerations draw pious affections of 
 the love of God, of gratitude for His benefits, repentance for your 
 sins, and the like, which are the principal part of mental prayer, and 
 what you ought most to insist upon. 
 
 " Fifthly, From these affections pass on to good resolutions of a 
 serious amendment of your life, particularly with regard to such 
 failings as you are most subject to : and determine with yourself to 
 begin that very day to put these good purposes in execution on such 
 occasions as shall offer. 
 
 " Sixthly, Conclude by thanksgiving to God for the affections 
 and resolutions He has given you : offer them to Him, and beg His 
 blessing on them. 
 
 " Seventhly, Lay up in your mind such points of your meditation 
 as have touched you most, and oftentimes in the day reflect upon 
 them : which the saint compares to gathering, as it were, a nose- 
 gay, in the garden of devotion, to smell at all the day. 
 
 " Eighthly, Such as find difficulty in meditation may help them- 
 selves by using some good book, reading leisurely, and pausing 
 upon what they read, and drawing proper affections and resolutions 
 from it." 
 
 Then follow ' Ten Meditations out of the first part of 
 St. Francis de Sales' Introduction : which may serve as 
 examples of this exercise ; and are very proper to bring a 
 soul to a resolution of serving God:' which it is not necessary 
 to transcribe. 
 
 The following is a valuable account, in short space, of 
 ' mental prayer :' it is taken principally from the works of 
 St. Alphonsus Liguori, and is prefixed to the English trans- 
 lation of his ' Preparation for Death.' 
 
 " Mental prayer is not absolutely necessary ; but it certainly is 
 morally necessary in order to obtain perseverance. This necessity 
 arises from two causes : the first is, that the eternal truths are seen, 
 not with the eyes of the body, but by the reflection of the under- 
 standing. Hence he who neglects meditation does not see these 
 truths ; and, in consequence of not seeing them, he shall scarcely 
 see the importance of salvation, the means which he ought to 
 adopt, and the obstacles which he has to overcome ; and thus he 
 shall scarcely be saved. Secondly, the soul that neglects medita-
 
 350 
 
 lion does not pray for God's graces ; but to pray for them is neces- 
 sary, not only because it is strictly commanded, but also because it 
 is a means without which we cannot observe the Divine precepts, 
 since God does not ordinarily give His graces to any adult unless 
 he prays for them. Now, he who does not make mental prayer, 
 neither sees his spiritual wants, nor the necessity of asking aid 
 from God to resist temptations and save his soul. Hence he seldom 
 or never prays for God's assistance, and, by neglecting to pray 
 for it, he is lost. They who neglect mental prayer, pray with a 
 distracted mind ; hence many who say the Rosary, the Office of 
 the Blessed Virgin, and other prayers, continue to live in the state 
 of sin. But it is impossible for him who continues to make mental 
 prayer to remain in sin ; he shall either give up meditation, or 
 renounce sin. 
 
 " Mental prayer contains three parts : the preparation, the medi- 
 tation, and the conclusion. In the preparation there are three 
 acts : first, an act of faith of the presence of God : secondly, an 
 act of humility ; thirdly, a petition for light. They may be made 
 in the following manner. 1. My God, I believe you present 
 within me, and I adore you from the abyss of my nothingness. 
 2. Lord, I ought now to be in Hell on account of my sins ; I am 
 sorry for having offended You ; pardon me in your mercy. . Eter- 
 nal Father, through the merits of Jesus . . . give me light, that I may 
 draw fruit from this meditation . . . The preparation should be short, 
 but made with fervour. 
 
 " In the meditation, after reading the points, reflect on the part by 
 which you feel your devotion most excited. But remember that the 
 advantage of mental prayer does not consist in reflecting on the 
 truths of faith, so much as in the three great fruits of meditation. 
 More of the time of mental prayer should be given to reflections on 
 the eternal maxims by those who live in the world, than by those who 
 live in religious communities, and devote a good deal of time each 
 day to spiritual reading and other devout exercises. 
 
 "The three principal fruits of meditation are first, pious affect ions; 
 secondly, fervent petitions to God for all the graces necessary for 
 our salvation ; thirdly, firm resolutions to perform some particular 
 acts of virtue, or to avoid some particular defect. The first fruit of 
 meditation consists in pious affections; that is, in making interior acts 
 of the different virtues, such as acts of adoration and praise of God's 
 majesty, acts of thanks for His infinite benefits, acts of love of His
 
 351 
 
 infinite goodness and perfection, and desires to love Him as much as 
 He wishes and deserves to be loved by us ; acts of acknowledgment 
 of our unworthiness to receive from Him- any thing but Hell : ac- 
 companied with acts of confidence in His infinite goodness, mercy, 
 and power, and in His promises to save all who invoke His aid, and 
 in the Passion of Christ, and the intercession of His mother and 
 the saints ; acts of sorrow for our past sins ; acts of resignation to 
 the Divine will in all things ; and acts of oblation of ourselves to 
 God, that He may dispose of us as He pleases. Some of these, or of 
 similar acts suggested by our reflections, should be made in all our 
 meditations. But there are three of them which should never be 
 omitted in any meditation. First, acts of sorrow for all our past 
 sins ; secondly, acts of resignation to the Divine will, and of oblation 
 of ourselves, and of all that we are and have, to the love and glory of 
 God for time and for eternity ; thirdly, acts of the love of God, and 
 desires to love Him as much as the angels love Him in Heaven, and 
 as much as He deserves to be loved by us. These acts must be 
 made with the heart ; but they may be also expressed in words. 
 
 " The second fruit of mental prayer consists in fervent petitions to 
 God for the lights and graces which we see in our meditations that 
 we stand in need of, and for all the graces necessary to bring us 
 infallibly to eternal life. This is, perhaps, the most important and 
 essential part of meditation, or mental prayer ; because, of all the 
 different kinds of prayer, that which is called PETITION is the most 
 indispensable. It is this kind of prayer that all theologians commonly 
 teach to be as necessary for the salvation of adults, as baptism is for 
 that of infants : and as no infant can enter the kingdom of Heaven 
 without baptism ; so no adult shall obtain eternal life without asking 
 of God the graces necessary for salvation. Hence St. Liguori relates 
 that the celebrated Father Segneri said of himself, that, until he 
 studied theology, he was accustomed to spend the greater part of the 
 time of his meditations in reflections and pious affections ; but that 
 afterwards God opened his eyes, and thenceforward he employed 
 himself generally in asking God's graces. And he adds, ' If there is 
 any good in me, I ascribe it to this practice of recommending myself 
 to God. St. Liguori tells the reader to do the same. On account 
 of this strict and indispensable necessity of asking God's graces, 
 St. Liguori says that he made it a rule of his Order, that in every 
 mission conducted by the members of his Congregation, there should 
 be a sermon on prayer. Hence he says that every preacher should
 
 352 
 
 in almost all his sermons, exhort his hearers to the practice of 
 prayer, and should admonish them never to cease to call for aid in 
 all their temptations . . . Hnce he concludes his book on prayer in the 
 following words : ' I say, and I repeat, and I shall repeat while I 
 live, that our salvation depends altogether on prayer, and that, on 
 that account, all writers in their books, all preachers in their ser- 
 mons, and all Confessors in the tribunal of penance, should con- 
 tinually exclaim and repeat : Pray, pray, and never cease to pray ; 
 for, if you continue to pray, your salvation is secure : if you give up 
 prayer, your perdition is inevitable.' 
 
 " In our meditations we should ask, not one, nor two, nor a 
 thousand graces, but all the lights and graces, without a single ex- 
 ception, which are necessary to bring us, and to bring us efficaciously 
 and infallibly, to eternal glory. ' All things, whatsoever you ask 
 when ye pray, believe that you shall receive, and they shall come 
 unto you.' c The Son of God was not content with saying, all things, 
 or, whatsoever; but, to exclude the possibility of a single grace being 
 excepted, he said, All things, whatsoever you ask when ye pray, 
 shall come unto you. Prayer, then, is an universal means, by which 
 every single grace necessary to bring us infallibly to eternal life, may 
 be obtained as infallibly as that the Son of God cannot be a liar. 
 In this respect it differs from the Sacraments, from penitential works 
 and the other means which God has given us in order to obtain 
 eternal life. These are particular means, each producing or procuring 
 particular graces ; Baptism produces one grace, and Penance another ; 
 the same for the other Sacraments or means of salvation. But, to 
 none of these, nor to all put together, without prayer, has God 
 promised all the graces necessary for eternal life. Prayer is the only 
 means to which He has promised all the efficacious helps and graces 
 necessary for our salvation. Hence, in meditation, when the heart is 
 excited to fervour by the consideration of the eternal truths, we 
 should make frequent and fervent petitions in the name of Jesus 
 Christ, for all the efficacious lights and helps and graces which are 
 necessary to secure infallibly our eternal happiness. These petitions 
 must be always made in the heart, but may also be expressed with 
 the tongue. But, though we should ask in our meditations for all the 
 graces we stand in need of, and especially for the graces suggested by 
 our reflections, we must be careful to pray in every meditation for 
 three graces in particular, first, for the pardon of our past sins ; 
 
 c Mark xi. 24.
 
 353 
 
 secondly, for the gift of the love of God ; and thirdly, for the gift of 
 final perseverance. We should ask these three graces not only in 
 our meditations, but also at mass, after communion, and in all our 
 spiritual exercises. We ought first to pray for the pardon of all our 
 past sins ; because we do not know, and shall not know till death, 
 whether they have been pardoned or not. The Scripture tells us 
 that we know not whether we are worthy of love or hatred.* 1 And 
 though God had revealed to us that our sins were forgiven, we 
 should still continue till death to beg of Him to wash us still more from 
 our sins, and to cleanse us from our iniquities; for, after the guilt of 
 sin has been remitted, the temporal punishment due to it frequently 
 and generally remains. Among the temporal punishments due to 
 sin, after the remission of its guilt, the Saints count the withholding 
 of many of God's graces. From eternity God prepared for us all 
 abundant graces to work out our salvation. Some of these graces 
 were necessary to lead us to a high degree of perfection, and to make 
 us Saints; 'others were so necessary for our salvation, that without 
 them we should not be saved. In punishment of sin, even after its 
 guilt has been remitted, God sometimes withholds both these classes 
 of graces ; and, therefore, our past sins, after they have been forgiven, 
 may be the cause of our damnation, by preventing God from bestow- 
 ing upon us certain graces, without which we shall be certainly lost. 
 Hence the Holy Ghost tells us not to be without fear about sin 
 forgiven. " De propitiate peccato noli esse sine timore." 6 In order 
 then to secure not only the pardon of all our past sins, but also 
 the graces which may be withheld in punishment of them, and 
 particularly the graces without which we should be lost, we must 
 pray frequently and fervently in our meditations for the complete 
 and entire remission of all our sins, and of all the penalties due to 
 them. By frequent and fervent petitions for these objects, every one, 
 even the most abandoned sinner, however enormous his crimes may 
 have been, can easily and infallibly avert the chastisement of sin, 
 which consists in the withholding of God's graces ; and may thus 
 infallibly prevent the danger of his past sins being the cause of his 
 damnation, after their guilt had been remitted. Secondly, we must 
 ask with fervour the gift of God's love. St. Francis de Sales 
 says, that the gift of Divine love should be the object of all our 
 prayers, because it brings with it all the other good gifts of God. 
 In begging the grace of God's love, we ought to ask the gift 
 
 d Eccl. ix. 1. e Eccl. v. 5. 
 
 2 A
 
 354 
 
 of perfect resignation and conformity to the Divine will in all things, 
 particularly in all crosses and afflictions. Thirdly, we must, above 
 all, pray with great fervour in our meditations for the grace of 
 final perseverance. This is the grace on which our salvation de- 
 pends : if God gives it to us, we shall be saved ; if not, we shall be 
 lost. This is the gift which distinguishes the elect in Heaven from 
 the reprobate in Hell : if the elect had not got it, they should be 
 lost ; and if the damned had received it, they should now be in 
 glory. It crowns all the other gifts of God : without it they 
 shall be a source of greater damnation. This gift God gives to 
 infants without any co-operation on their part, by taking them 
 out of life before they lose their baptismal innocence. But St. Au- 
 gustine teaches that God never gives it to any adult that does not 
 pray for it. The Council of Trent has declared that the grace of 
 final perseverance is a special gift, which we cannot merit by good 
 works. We cannot merit it by the sacraments, nor by penitential 
 austerities, nor by almsdeeds. God has given us only one means of 
 infallibly obtaining it, and that is by praying for it continiciH// 
 till our last breath. It is not enough to ask this gift once, nor 
 twice, nor for a year, nor for ten years : our petitions for it must 
 cease only with our life, and must be frequently offered in medita- 
 tion, which is the fittest time for asking God's graces : we should 
 also often ask the grace to persevere till death in praying for God's 
 graces. This part of mental prayer, which consists in asking of 
 God all the graces which we stand in need of, is most important 
 for all Christians, but particularly for priests, who are exposed to all 
 the dangers of persons living in the world, and who are at the 
 same time bound by the obligations of the priesthood and by the 
 daily and hourly and awful obligations arising from the care of souls. 
 It is by attending to this part of meditation that we acquire a 
 habit and a facility of turning to God for help in all difficulties, 
 dangers, and temptations : without attending to it, we shall scarcely 
 ever acquire this habit and facility. Now, without this habit, it 
 will be impossible to avoid mortal sin in the discharge of our duties, 
 and in the difficult temptations by which we are often assailed. 
 St. Augustine teaches that ordinarily God does not give, even to 
 the Saints, grace to fulfil difficult precepts or duties, unless they 
 pray for it. Without our asking it, God gives us all grace to do 
 what is easy, but not what is difficult. Even to the Saints He only 
 promises to give grace to pray for strength to do what is difficult.
 
 355 
 
 and to conquer violent temptations : and this grace He grants to 
 the pagan as well as to the saint, and has given it to every adult 
 that ever lived, from the time of Adam to the present day. Now, 
 all Christians, and particularly Priests, whose obligations are all 
 very difficult, have frequently to discharge duties which are painful 
 and very difficult to flesh and blood, and to combat with violent 
 temptations to neglect these duties and to offend God. If then we 
 do not send up frequent petitions for it, God will not give us the 
 strength necessary to fulfil these difficult obligations, and to resist 
 these violent temptations. Moreover, every human being, the mo- 
 ment he arrives at the use of reason, engages in a warfare with 
 the world, the flesh, and the devil, three powerful enemies, who 
 are actively employed every instant of his life, in laying snares for 
 the destruction of his soul. This warfare shall cease only with his 
 life. Can he expect to be victorious in his daily and hourly strug- 
 gles with these enemies, unless, by unceasing petitions to the throne 
 of mercy, he obtains the omnipotent grace of God to enable his 
 weakness and sinfulness to conquer, and to persevere till death 
 in conquering, such powerful opponents ? Of the rebel angels, St. 
 Gelasius says that, ' receiving the grace of God in vain, they could 
 not persevere, because they did not pray.' The rebel angels were 
 pure spirits ; they were more perfect than we are ; they had not to 
 contend with the corruption of their own flesh, for they had no 
 bodies : but our flesh is constantly rebelling against the spirit. 
 They were not subject to the corrupt inclinations of concupiscence; 
 all their natural inclinations led them to love God above all things : 
 our inclinations constantly draw us away from God, and lead us to 
 sin. They had no temptation from the world ; for all creatures 
 only served to inspire them with sentiments of admiration of the 
 power and goodness of the Creator : but every object around us 
 fixes our heart on the world, and takes away our thoughts and 
 affections from Heaven and God. Neither had they any devil to 
 tempt them : but all the devils in Hell are leagued against us ; they 
 are constantly going about like roaring lions, seeking whom they 
 may devour. Now, if, in spite of all their perfection, though free 
 from all the attacks of the enemies by which we are constantly 
 assailed, the angels fell, and could not but fall, because they did 
 not pray, shall we, who are all weakness and corruption, without 
 continual prayer, be able to persevere till death in victoriously re- 
 pelling the unceasing assaults of the world, of the flesh, and of the
 
 356 
 
 devil ? No ; unless, by making, in our meditations and other spiri- 
 tual exercises, frequent petitions to God for His graces, we acquire 
 a habit and a facility of turning to Him for help against our enemies 
 in all difficulties and temptations, it will be morally impossible for 
 any Christian, and particularly for any Priest charged with the 
 care of souls, to persevere till death in the faithful discharge of all 
 the difficult duties and obligations that shall fall upon him, and in 
 escaping all the dangers of perdition to which he shall be exposed. 
 To enable weakness and sinfulness like ours to conquer till death 
 the enemies that are constantly opposed to us, God must impart to 
 us His own omnipotent grace ; and that He will not do unless we 
 ask it continually. To preserve and perfect and render permanent 
 the habit acquired in meditation, of begging God's graces, it will be 
 very useful to accustom ourselves every day to raise our hearts to 
 God at least once in every hour, when we hear the clock strike, 
 and to offer to Him ourselves, and all our thoughts and words and 
 actions, through Jesus Christ, to His glory, and to obtain for our- 
 selves the grace of eternal life, and always to accompany that obla- 
 tion with a secret petition for the three graces mentioned above ; 
 that is, for the pardon of all our sins, for the gift of God's love, and 
 for the gift of final perseverance. In the chapter on meditation, 
 in the Nun Sanctified, etc., St. Alphonsus recommends religious to 
 raise their hearts to God every quarter of an hour. By this custom 
 we shall fulfil the obligation of praying always ; because by offer- 
 ing all our actions to God through Jesus Christ, in order to obtain 
 eternal glory, we make every act of our life a prayer for the grace 
 of eternal life. The third fruit of mental prayer consists in making 
 a firm resolution to do some particular good acts, or to avoid some 
 particular defects. It is always necessary to ask God's help to be 
 faithful to our resolutions ; otherwise we shall certainly violate them. 
 " The conclusion contains three acts : first, an act of thanksgiving 
 to God for the lights received in meditation ; secondly, a firm 
 purpose to practise the resolutions made; thirdly, a petition to 
 
 the Eternal Father, through the merits of Jesus, 
 
 for grace to be faithful to them. Let the meditation be closed 
 with a Pater and Ave, to recommend to God the souls in Pur- 
 gatory, the Prelates of the Church, all sinners, and all our rela- 
 tives, friends, and benefactors. We should never omit to pray at the 
 end of our meditation for the holy souls in Purgatory, and for poor 
 sinners. At the end of our meditation, we should, according to
 
 357 
 
 St. Francis de Sales, gather a nosegay of flowers ; that is, we should 
 call to mind some sentiment which we would remember during the 
 day, and thus excite our fervour in God's service. St. Alphonsus re- 
 commends all to make two meditations every day, each of half an 
 hour, or, at least, one meditation of half an hour every morning." 
 
 . It is shewn still further, how carefully, in giving rules for 
 meditation, attention is bestowed upon the object which I just 
 now mentioned, viz. giving scope for the peculiar taste and 
 bias of individuals, by the continually repeated precept, to 
 dwell on any point which comes home to your feelings and 
 interests you deeply, even though you spend all the time that 
 remains of the meditation in that one particular. Thus M. 
 Tronson's work, from which I lately quoted, in the examen 
 on mental prayer, asks the question : 
 
 " Have we profited by the advice given by masters of the spiritual 
 life, not so far to attach ourselves to these various acts of devotion 
 [which have been just recounted one after the other] as to go on to 
 perform them all, even ivhen God gives us a particular taste for some 
 in particular, which are of themselves sufficient to occupy us in 
 prayer ?" 
 
 In saying, some pages back, that mental discipline appeared 
 more directly and primarily important than bodily, under our 
 present circumstances, I did not rest on so precarious a basis, 
 as the conclusion which a private individual might draw from 
 his own theories on the human mind ; but on the plain fact, 
 corroborating such theories, that the Roman Church has so 
 decided. When we observe how completely at variance is 
 the modern Roman practice with that of Antiquity, and on 
 the other hand when our reasonings from probability and 
 experience would precisely lead us to expect such variance, 
 here is surely proof of the strongest and most cogent sort. 
 This variance has been frequently mentioned, sometimes as 
 a reflection upon Antiquity, oftener upon modern Rome; but 
 surely it is both happier and more reasonable, rather to con- 
 sider that at each period the Church adopted that discipline, 
 which was most adapted to her children's spiritual needs. 
 ' If there be one problem more deep and inscrutable than 
 another in the science of mind, it is the apprehension of the
 
 358 
 
 recondite and subtle principles which are at the bottom of 
 that external fact, the change which human nature itself 
 almost seems to undergo, from change of manners and habits.' f 
 As great and striking as is the contrast between modern and 
 ancient character and way of life, so great and striking is the 
 contrast between the modern and ancient discipline of the 
 Church in Communion with Rome : can we have a stronger 
 corroboration of the divine wisdom of both ? It must be 
 remembered indeed, that it is only as regards the great body 
 of serious Christians, that the Roman Church has so re- 
 markably relaxed her discipline ; that the rules which she 
 has almost revolutionised, are those only, which are binding 
 on her members without exception, who are not incapable of 
 observing them by reason of bodily infirmity. But those who 
 desire a more stringent and severe discipline, she in every 
 way cheers and encourages : as men go on to perfection, now 
 as of old, they in a degree almost miraculous forsake and 
 renounce the ordinary supports of life; nor can any one 
 observe the slightest inferiority of bodily austerities in her 
 later Saints, as compared with those of far earlier times. 
 
 What judgment has our own Church passed on this most 
 essential and practical question ? Here again, notwithstanding 
 the extreme seriousness of the subject, one cannot express 
 the inquiry without a consciousness of the ridiculous. As far 
 as her formularies go, she advocates the stricter determina- 
 tion : for all the fast days remain in the Calendar, exactly 
 as they were 300 years ago. But then the question is, how 
 far circumstances, which have reached their present state since 
 that period, affect the subject ; and on that matter, the very 
 few changes she has made during the interval cannot be said to 
 imply any authoritative view ; while for the last almost 200 
 years she has preserved a profound silence. And certainly, 
 if we turn to living authorities, we should not gather the 
 conclusion that our present rulers desire to enforce those 
 'antiquated' laws; for, not to mention more familiar facts 
 which are known to all, the greatest of all the extraordinary 
 festivals which have occurred for fourteen years, the Queen's 
 Coronation, was fixed, apparently with the full sanction of 
 f ' On the Synagogue and the Church,' p. 27.
 
 359 
 
 the dignitaries of pur Church, on a day marked in the 
 Prayer-Book as a fast. Some again of those high in station 
 among us would deprecate all special discipline whatever, 
 and urge us, if we would lead a religious life, to stimulate 
 our affections by the thought of the Atonement. However, 
 that in point of fact the anxious soul, who may be tossed 
 about by a tempest of most oppressive and bewildering 
 troubles, will meet with neither guidance, advice, nor even 
 sympathy, from any recognised function of our Church, this 
 may be asserted without the possibility of contradiction. 
 
 Turn now to our public Schools and Universities ; the 
 acknowledged seminaries of the principal part of our clergy, 
 as well as a great proportion of our laity, and placed almost 
 exclusively under the control of ministers of the Church. 
 It would be most unfair to deny the surprising improvement 
 which has taken place of late years, in the religious discipline 
 of those bodies, and the great amount of piety and zeal which 
 have been brought to their support. In speaking of these 
 in connection with public schools, the lamented name of 
 Dr. Arnold will at once be in every one's thoughts ; nor can 
 we either read his Sermons or his Letters, without being 
 deeply impressed with his great and paramount anxiety to 
 make his school a place of really religious education : while 
 from Dr. Moberly's interesting and most honourable avowal, 
 (Arnold's Life and Correspondence, vol. i. pp. 171 3, g ) one is 
 confirmed in the opinion, that Dr. Arnold was the one great 
 and sole originator of the new life now breathed into public 
 schools. Let us take then Rugby at its best ; what were the 
 means which our system placed at Dr. Arnold's disposal, in 
 order to leaven his boys with religious principles and habits ? 
 A very striking and plain sermon once in the week ; two or 
 three lessons in the Greek Testament ; the imperceptible in- 
 fusion of more or less of a religious tone into the ordinary 
 lessons ; and an appeal to religious rather than secular motives 
 in cases which came before him for censure or punishment. To 
 this may be added, the very important and unusual influence 
 
 s Had some of the materials in this work been accessible to me when I wrote on 
 Dr. Arnold's Sermons in the British Critic, I should not have used one or two of the 
 expressions in pp. 361, 2.
 
 360 
 
 exercised by him, over the affections of those who were high 
 enough in the school to be acquainted with him personally. 
 Now it is obvious at once to remark, that all the more essential 
 particulars here mentioned had no reference whatever to the 
 English system, and could not outlive the individual. Very 
 few clergymen indeed, as all the world knows, possess the 
 gift of preaching sermons, which will in the least interest 
 boys or young men ; not one schoolmaster in a million will 
 have Dr. Arnold's power of influencing minds by the mere 
 instrumentality of ordinary conversation, as distinct from the 
 Confessional ; and as to the remaining principal agency, viz. 
 the infusion of a religious spirit into classical teaching, on 
 which I shall presently speak more at length, when did our 
 Church, as a whole, ever consider this most important sub- 
 ject ? what combination of wisdom has been devoted to its 
 deep and methodical investigation ? what uniform view is 
 recognised throughout our Church ? or rather, as Dr. Arnold 
 might have his theory on the best mode of doing so, and 
 Dr. Moberly his, is it not equally certain that Dr. Arnold's 
 successor will also have his, and Dr. Moberly's successor (if 
 by accident he be equally impressed with the importance of 
 the subject) will have his ? And all these theories, grant- 
 ing fully the very best intentions in the teachers them- 
 selves, will be thoroughly mixed up with the individual 
 peculiarities of each, and will to a perfect certainty, be most 
 miserably inadequate to the necessity of the case. To a per- 
 fect certainty ; because in so very difficult and complicated 
 a question, no one individual can ever approach to a true re- 
 sult : this result must be the ultimate issue of long continued 
 labours, undertaken by a series of profound and highly -gifted 
 men. 
 
 But, again, let us take the system as practically worked by 
 Dr. Arnold himself. We all understand the careful practice 
 and discipline, by which the schoolboys one by one learned 
 the difficult art of construing or of wo-iting Greek ; how the 
 first poor efforts gradually improved, from the master being 
 ready at hand to correct mistakes; and how the student, 
 when quite at a loss how to perform his appointed task, was 
 able at once to apply to some master for help and instruction.
 
 361 
 
 But where was this common-sense process adopted, in teaching 
 them the far more difficult art of daily examining their 
 consciences, of fixing their thoughts on God while at prayer, 
 of keeping in their minds a constant sense of God's presence, 
 of recognising the first approach of a sinful thought, of fight- 
 ing against it when it persists in knocking for admittance ? 
 You will say that this art, however difficult, cannot be taught 
 in class : so / say ; therefore you must have the Confessional. 
 Here will be another very seasonable opportunity, for dis- 
 covering the real cause of that aversion to Sacramental 
 Confession, which is so general amongst us. For if it really 
 arises from some innocent motive, and not rather from a 
 most sinful disregard to the necessity of moral discipline, 
 what zeal would not have been displayed in all directions, to 
 supply the absence of this efficacious instrument, by other 
 methods which should most nearly approach it in potency 
 and comprehensiveness ! Has this, or any thing like this, 
 been the case ? Public opinion will give a sufficient answer 
 to the question. 
 
 Every one knows, how loudly the praises of our public schools 
 have at various times been sounded, as affording so admirable 
 a preparation for the busy scene of life, in that they impart ha- 
 bits of manly independence, vigorous exertion, sturdy reliance 
 on self. I am not here inquiring whether such praises have been 
 well deserved, though presently I may have something to say 
 on the subject : certainly if the system has been good, it has 
 been so by a surprisingly happy accident; though on the other 
 hand it cannot be denied, that there is at first sight much 
 plausibility in the grounds of defence above stated. However, 
 the chief object of a school is not to prepare men for active 
 life in this world, but for active Life in the next ; and the 
 most bigotted of Conservatives cannot gravely maintain, that 
 to this object any happy accident has adapted our school 
 system : no one can say, that the habits of boys at our public 
 schools are eminently fitted to discipline them for an Eternity 
 of praise and divine contemplation. The chapter of accidents 
 then having here at least confessedly failed, whither are we 
 to look for the deep spiritual wisdom which certainly does
 
 362 
 
 seem a more promising agent for such a task ? Those who 
 have had influence in our public schools, have not trusted to 
 accident for the pupil's progress in Greek or Latin ; but to 
 what else have they trusted for his progress in all holy living ? 
 Can there be a more striking or more unspeakably disgraceful 
 contrast, than that which exists between the stream of Lexi- 
 cons, Grammars, Prefaces to Hecuba, Editions of ^Eschylus, 
 &c. which has perennially flowed, and the most ominous 
 dearth (ought we not rather to say total absence) of works in- 
 tended to teach the young what sins are most likely to assail 
 Christians placed in their position ? what will be the fittest 
 remedies against them ? what will be the best mode of per- 
 forming that duty, (difficult beyond all others to a serious 
 boy, placed in the midst of a multitude far from like-minded 
 with himself,) the uniting deep and watchful conscientious- 
 ness with the absence of all that is peevish and puritanical ? 
 How infinitely more precious in God's sight is the Chris- 
 tian course of one single boy, amidst such temptations 
 trying to serve Him, than the progress of hundreds in 
 Latin Verses or English Essays ! but can it be said that our 
 system is formed on such a principle ? I most willingly 
 admit, that very admirable and praiseworthy efforts have 
 been lately made, to amend the more atrocious part at 
 least of this great wickedness ; and sorry indeed should 
 I be, to forbear from expressing all gratitude and honour 
 to those who have made them. 8 But taking all that has 
 been done at its utmost, can it even now be said with any 
 approach to truth, or would not the very idea excite un- 
 bounded astonishment, that a boy entering one of our 
 public schools would be daily impressed with the supreme 
 and unapproached importance of religion ? that he would 
 feel the spiritual welfare of himself and his fellow scholars to 
 be the one central object on which the whole system con- 
 
 S Dr. Moberly has republished an excellent work of Bp. Ken's for the use 
 of the Winchester scholars ; a devotional and practical work has been compiled, 
 by desire of the present head master of Rugby, for the use of the boys there, 
 which contains very much of an edifying and improving tendency ; a manual, in- 
 tended to give help in the methodical practice of self-examination, has been ex- 
 tensively circulated in Eton school : all these are cheering movements in the r'ght 
 direction.
 
 363 
 
 verges ? that he would find no questions meet with so ready 
 and full an answer from his instructors, as applications for 
 advice under the influence of this or that temptation ? 
 
 Consider, as a contrast to this, some particulars in the plan 
 pursued at St. Mary's, Oscott ; which I the rather mention, 
 because I may add from my own personal observation, (when 
 I was there more than a whole day nearly three years ago,) 
 that a more lively and joyous assemblage of boys and young 
 men, with greater appearance of youthful happiness and buoy- 
 ancy, and more complete absence of the most distant approach 
 to gloom or restraint of manner, I can never expect to behold. 
 All, at a fixed time in each evening, perform their examen of 
 conscience. All above the age of seven go regularly to Con- 
 fession ; few, I believe, less frequently than once in a fortnight : 
 insomuch that the routine of study is altogether interfered 
 with on the Saturday, that time may be given for this holy 
 exercise. Every time they go into the public study or to a 
 class, a prayer, with ' Veni Sancte Spiritus,' &c. is recited 
 by the person on duty or the Professor ; so that every new 
 act of study is commenced by prayer. At the three different 
 times in the day when the ' Angelus ' sounds, the appropriate 
 prayer is recited; if it be in recreation time, play is for 
 the few minutes suspended. In the course of every day all 
 attend Mass, hear a chapter of the New Testament, a visit 
 is made to the Blessed Sacrament with an appropriate prayer, 
 and part of some spiritual work is read, and explained, if 
 necessary, by each master to his class. It need hardly be 
 said, of course, that the priest who hears their Confession at 
 stated times, would be most ready and delighted to give 
 them advice and help at any time ; nor would there be any 
 backwardness on their part in consulting him. 
 
 Two particulars there are of extreme moment, which it is 
 impossible to leave the question of public schools without 
 briefly noticing. The first will be fitly introduced by a 
 passage from one of Mr. Newman's Sermons, which was cited 
 in a former chapter, but shall here be given at length. 
 
 " Men who indulge their passions have a knowledge, different in
 
 364 
 
 kind from those who have abstained from such indulgence; and when 
 they speak on subjects connected with it, realize them in a way in 
 which others cannot realize them. The very ideas which are full of 
 temptation to the former, the words which are painful to them to 
 utter, all that causes them shame and confusion of face, can be said 
 and thought of by the innocent without any distress at all. Angels 
 can look upon sin with simple abhorrence and wonder, without humi- 
 liation or secret emotion : and a like simplicity is the reward of the 
 chaste and holy ; and that to the great amazement of the unclean, 
 who cannot understand the state of mind of such a one, or how he 
 can utter or endure'thoughts which to themselves are full of misery 
 and guilt. And hence sometimes you find men of these days, in 
 which the will of the natural man is indulged to the full, taking up 
 the writings of holy men who have lived in deserts or in cloisters, or 
 with an angel's heart have ruled Christ's flock, and broken with holy 
 hands the Bread of life, and viewing their words in their own murky 
 atmosphere, and imputing to them their own grossness ; nay, carping 
 at the words of Holy Scripture, which are God's, and at the words 
 of the Church, as if the sacred mystery of the Incarnation had not 
 introduced a thousand new and heavenly associations into this ivorld 
 of sin." 1 ' 
 
 The inestimable value of the high and lovely grace here 
 eulogized, and the absolute impossibility of regaining it if it 
 be once lost ; not to mention the misery beyond expression 
 of the remorse stored up for future years, by those acts or 
 thoughts which destroy it (that is, if the unhappy victims 
 are to be penitent and to save their soul) ; all this must ever 
 place its careful preservation and culture among the dearest 
 objects proposed to herself by any Church, not utterly blind 
 to her primary duties. An ignorance, indeed, that might be 
 simply admirable in one destined for a life of monastic seclu- 
 sion, is full of imminent danger for those who are to mix in 
 the world, whether as priests or laymen; for they might perish 
 almost without knowledge of their danger. 'But though it is 
 quite necessary that their mind be carefully and deeply 
 impressed with a sense of the peril which awaits them, nay, 
 and of the dazzling and attractive dress which it often wears 
 
 h Vol. vi. pp. 287, 8.
 
 365 
 
 in order that the mode of encountering it may be the 
 better understood ; it is only for that reason the more im- 
 portant, that during the season of youth it may never be 
 placed before them, surrounded with any other associations 
 than the hideousness and depravity of its own natural shape. 
 It is deadly poison to the soul, that for one moment it should 
 consider this most hateful enemy, as either on the one hand 
 a matter for mirth and merriment, or on the other hand as 
 connected with aught that has any attraction either for the 
 affections or the imagination. Now it would, I suppose, be 
 difficult to find books which more contravene this principle, 
 which tend more to lessen the reader's horror of wickedness, 
 by either treating it in a light mirthful tone, or clothing it in 
 an attractive garb, than some of those commonly read in 
 schools. To suggest distantly as a reply to this, that 
 classical taste cannot be acquired without real danger of 
 this kind, is merely to acquit yourself of a charge of gross 
 neglect by pleading guilty to a sin of deliberate and set 
 purpose. As soon as indignation allows one to find words, 
 one asks, which will be most important to a Christian for all 
 Eternity, a pure soul, or a classical taste ? or which would 
 a teacher have rather to confess at the Great Day, neglect in 
 the former or in the latter particular ? If such an answer 
 be given, so far from extenuating, it increases the sin ten- 
 fold. 
 
 Let it be observed, however, that I by no means ac- 
 knowledge the justice of the allegation, that a classical taste 
 cannot be implanted with perfect freedom from all stain of 
 sinful suggestion : I feel convinced that it can ; though it 
 would carry me too far to pursue the subject. Nor yet am 
 I complaining, that the Church of England takes a different 
 view of this matter from that which appears to me the true 
 one. If, under the implicit and practical sanction of the 
 English Church, a number of religious men, fairly and in 
 the presence of God, set themselves to consider the subject, 
 and came to the conclusion, that to read works, in which 
 immorality is made the occasion of exquisite wit and humour, 
 or else is decked out in all the graces of poetry, that this is
 
 306 
 
 not deeply and irretrievably injurious to the youthful mind, 
 my present charge would not be preferred. I must be al- 
 lowed, indeed, altogether to doubt the probability of such 
 being their decision ; but that is another matter : the charge 
 I am now bringing is, that whereas the system, pursued at 
 our public schools under the sanction of ministers of our 
 Church, has on the surface every appearance of transgressing 
 Christian rule, and of most seriously impairing the Christian 
 character, there has been given no deep and methodical 
 discussion of the subject whatever. A question, as import- 
 ant in its bearing on the final destinies of all her children as 
 any that imagination can conceive, seems to have excited no 
 deep and permanent interest in her authorities ; but the 
 present system is left to take its own course, as the accident 
 of the moment, or the taste and judgment of an individual 
 schoolmaster may happen to decide. 
 
 It may very probably be replied, that however desirable is 
 this innocence of mind in itself, in a miscellaneous body, con- 
 ducted on the plan of our present public schools, it is unat- 
 tainable ; that the boys must learn evil from each other, even 
 if not from any recognised part of the system. I do not 
 deny this allegation : I admit it. Then pray let us put this 
 overwhelming and prodigious evil, side by side with the 
 ' manly independence, vigorous exertion, sturdy reliance on 
 self,' which have been the subjects of such' unbounded eulogy. 
 There are two opposite ideas of a great school, which it is 
 impossible to combine together; we must choose between 
 them. The one considers the boys, out of school-hours, to 
 form a sort of little commonwealth together; a few being 
 entrusted by the master with power over the rest. He him- 
 self very seldom interferes with anything which takes place 
 in those hours, unless especially called in ; and then appears 
 as a magistrate, to perform a judicial act, and to be guided by 
 a fixed code of rules. And exactly as in civil society, accord- 
 ing to the common remark, punishments, and not rewards, are 
 the main-spring of the whole machinery ; exactly so ; however 
 full he may himself be of the milk of human kindness, 
 he is compelled by his very office to retain an external front
 
 367 
 
 of dignity and severity ; to act as a judge rather than a 
 father; to punish extreme cases of turbulence and disobe- 
 dience, rather than by encouraging smile, gentle accent, af- 
 fectionate interest, support and cheer the gentle, conscientious, 
 and sensitive. Except in the case of boys very high up in 
 the school, he cannot, without certain imputation of favour- 
 itism, notice any one more than his companions on any such 
 ground. This is the idea of an English public school. Its 
 advantages, as stated at their very best, have been just recited. 
 Its disadvantages are such as these : that a false standard 
 of right and wrong is by absolute necessity most widely dif- 
 fused; that the many bad are overbearing and tyrannical, 
 the few good pusillanimous, timid, enfeebled ; that the great 
 majority, who are open to impressions either way, and whose 
 course is. the peculiar test of the value of the system, are 
 generally turned to bad rather than good ; that that part of 
 school-life which is really moral discipline, (for good or bad,) 
 is far more at the ' arbitrium ' of the boys than of the 
 masters, and is unrestrainedly swayed to and fro, by the 
 mere accident of the character of the more influential members 
 at any particular time ; that in most cases (I think Dr. Ar- 
 nold has shewn that it need not be so necessarily in all) that 
 sort of purity which I before mentioned is an unattainable 
 virtue. 
 
 The opposite idea requires, for its tolerable fulfilment, a 
 much greater proportion of masters to boys, and a much more 
 carefully-disciplined class of men for masters. Its principle is 
 to make the master as nearly as possible supply the place of 
 the parent ; that he should sympathize fully, even when he 
 does not share with all the amusements of the boys ; that he 
 should be always in their company, insensibly guiding their 
 thoughts and ideas to good, while he is no check whatever to 
 their gaiety or exuberance of spirits. Punishment of course 
 will not be omitted ; but the chief agent at work will be affec- 
 tionate help and encouragement. It is plain at once, that to 
 unite firm and uncompromising principle with a perfect ab- 
 sence of pedantry or formality, is the indispensable requisite 
 for a master under such a system ; and indeed there would
 
 368 
 
 be commonly special discipline for the education of such 
 masters. I have been told, that those abroad who have 
 given their mind to the subject of education, apart from re- 
 ligious considerations, on the mere principle of fitness and 
 expedience, adopt more and more such a view as here stated ; 
 and the name of M. Fellenberg has been mentioned as a very 
 prominent instance of this. What may be the value of his 
 authority, I know not ; but my informant told me, that his 
 pupils in all their after-life retain even a passionate attach- 
 ment both to the school and master. In one particular, the 
 statement went on, M. Fellenberg confesses failure ; he con- 
 fesses that when his pupils arrive at a certain age, he has 
 discovered hitherto no method of restraining them from open 
 sin. Strong testimony indeed to the powerlessness of all, 
 save Christian, methods to effect this object ! JJowever, 
 whether or not M. Fellenberg's name deserve weight, such 
 on the whole as I have described, seems the general system of 
 Roman Catholics ; and it is plain at once that the ordinance 
 of Confession harmonizes most appropriately with such a 
 scheme of discipline. 
 
 The question between these two respective ideas is one of 
 very considerable importance ; though like so many of a 
 similar nature, it will be far more satisfactorily solved by 
 experience than by argument. To me it does seem most 
 plainly a providential appointment, if anything in the 
 whole world deserves that name, that young persons 
 shall not be exposed, without human protection, to the 
 assaults of evil, until, by long discipline in a peaceful 
 and holy moral atmosphere, they shall be sufficiently 
 clothed in that panoply of grace, which may resist with- 
 out receiving injury the 'fiery darts' of the evil one. And 
 to reverse that appointment, in the degree our public schools 
 do reverse it, to open so wide an access at so early an age to 
 the polluting and degrading knowledge of evil, seems a 
 degree of hardihood, which could not have been expected in 
 ministers of a Christian Church. However, the one method 
 which carries God's blessing with it of reforming a bad 
 system, is first of all to load the existing framework with all
 
 369 
 
 possible good : if it bear it, well ; if not, God Himself has 
 solved for us the question, and the system breaks down with 
 no direct agency of ours. Our gratitude then to those emi- 
 nent men, who have been or are engaged in the great work of 
 reforming English education, need not be one jot qualified 
 or disturbed, by any serious doubts we may entertain of the 
 possibility of that precise task they are at present proposing ; 
 nor will the fruit of Dr. Arnold's labours be less immensely 
 great, though their ultimate (or even early) result should be, 
 not the firmer establishment, but the more speedy overthrow, 
 of the whole system of our public schools, as it now exists. 
 
 The second question to which I was proceeding, when I 
 was drawn aside by this digression, is the general effect of 
 classical reading on the student's character. If the religious 
 belief, prevalent at some period, has so great a share as we 
 all think in forming the habits of that period ; if its influence 
 be so deep and extensive on the conceptions not less of the 
 admirable and of the beautiful than of the good ; surely it 
 must be a matter requiring the gravest consideration, that 
 the higher classes of .this country have placed before them, 
 as the principal instrument of their education, a heathen 
 literature and philosophy. There can, I fear, be no fair 
 doubt, that the majority of young men leave a public school, 
 with their ideas of beauty and of virtue formed far more on 
 a heathen than on a Christian model ; and that they are 
 wholly unprepared to regard with that deep reverence which 
 is its due, (can it be said that they are even prepared to re- 
 gard without pity or contempt,) that character which should 
 be the most perfect fulfilment of our Lord's precept : " Who- 
 soever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the 
 other also." I am not saying, that a less proportion of clas- 
 sical instruction should be given; I have formed no such 
 opinion : I am not here even saying, that at least a most 
 powerful corrective is imperatively required ; though on that 
 I have formed a very decided opinion : I am only drawing 
 attention to the total indifference of our Church on so mo- 
 mentous a subject. The flower of the English youth, at 
 that age when impressions are most readily and permanently
 
 370 
 
 received, and the character most easily moulded for good or 
 bad, are supplied by ministers of our Church, from heathen 
 Antiquity, with the principal objects on which their aspira- 
 tions, tastes, and affections may rest. And though this most 
 astonishing fact be undoubtedly true, and has been so for a 
 long series of years, in vain do we look for any trace of that 
 anxious solicitude as to the possible results, or the appro- 
 priate remedies for such results, which one could not have 
 thought it possible, before the event, that any Church calling 
 itself Christian could have failed to display. 
 
 It will not be necessary to speak at any length of our 
 University system ; for all that could be said on the subject 
 has been already implied. On every account, indeed, our 
 existing evils are very much less here than in schools. An un- 
 dergraduate at the University is able to command the fullest 
 privacy, and to choose to a very great extent his own society ; he 
 is saved from the necessity of witnessing any public exhibition 
 or defence of evil ; while, again, he is less exposed to danger 
 from its assaults. Add to this, that from his being older 
 and the tutor younger, very much more of confidential and 
 intimate acquaintance between them is possible than at 
 school; a circumstance which, I conceive, bears far more 
 closely on the real religious advantage of the place, than do 
 the lectures, whether theological or other. Here, however, 
 the same melancholy contrast is exhibited, to which I just 
 now drew attention. How many are the books published 
 almost every year, with the object of giving facilities for the 
 examination or other similar purpose ! and where is there so 
 much as one, which a tutor can place into the hands of an un- 
 dergraduate on his arrival, advising him as to the details of his 
 daily life ; how much time he should devote to prayer ; what 
 will be the most favourable time to choose ; whether his 
 prayers should be mainly mental or vocal, or on what prin- 
 ciple the choice between those two classes should depend ; 
 what will be the fittest method for daily self-examination, 
 and what the especial sins to which his new way of life is 
 likely to expose him ; on what principles he should decide 
 the proportion of his money to be given away in charity, and
 
 371 
 
 other like particulars ? The scheme which I lately mentioned 
 of self-examination and mental prayer, would be of the 
 greatest service to young men at the age they come to Oxford 
 and Cambridge; but special advice might well be added, 
 suited to the peculiarities of their position. Merely as one 
 instance, where very many might be given, who can deny 
 the most real and serious danger which exists, that even 
 those who are considered the most praiseworthy and exemplary, 
 may habitually pursue their studies even more from a desire 
 of human distinction, than from the wish to do right and 
 please God ? Most unwilling should I be to appear at all 
 harsh or inconsiderate, in judging of temptations different 
 from my own. But surely, if the chief thought which en- 
 courages the student to rise early, to avoid late hours and 
 much company, and to apply himself diligently and inces- 
 santly to his studies, if the chief vision which floats before his 
 eyes while he does all this, be the prospect of Academical dis- 
 tinction ; and if the thought of God be plainly secondary and 
 subordinate in the whole matter ; I do not see how it is possible 
 to call his condition by a less severe name, than an habitual 
 state of mortal sin. What powerful machinery have the 
 clergymen in our colleges devised, to guard the souls of those 
 committed to them from a sin, which in some respects is even 
 more deadly than others, in that it does not so plainly carry 
 with it its own condemnation ? Of course Confession not 
 being supposed I am not dreaming that they should en- 
 deavour to find out, whether this or that pupil on the whole 
 pursues his studies with a pure intention; the question I 
 ask is, what powerful machinery have they adopted to im- 
 press on all the students the danger which threatens them, 
 and so, it may be, awaken the conscience of individuals to the 
 fatal nature of a habit, into which they might otherwise fall, 
 with no suspicion of its real character ? In truth, however 
 undoubted and important in itself is the obligation to culti- 
 vate and invigorate the understanding, still, considering 
 the absorbing interest and self-exalting tendency of such 
 pursuits, until we have some discipline incomparably more 
 efficacious for preserving to conscience its despotic supremacy, 
 
 2u2
 
 I do not see how we could regard a sudden revival of intel- 
 lectual ardour at our Universities as less than a public ca- 
 lamity. We shall be fit for the vigorous and independent 
 thought which is said to have characterized Oxford in the 
 middle ages, when we shall have regained the habits of prayer 
 and religious belief inculcated in the middle ages. 
 
 The absence of Confession indeed is an evil felt, not by one 
 age or profession, but by all ages and all professions. I 
 spoke in the second chapter of the duty incumbent on a 
 Christian priest, to admonish most constantly and impressively 
 the wealthy who may be under his care, of the very serious 
 perils which attend their worldly calling ; of the rocks, all 
 the more dangerous from being sunken, which threaten to 
 make shipwreck of their religious course. Should he fail in 
 this most important duty; much more should he accept of 
 help for religious purposes from, and allow himself to mix 
 in familiar society with, one, whom he has some reason to 
 think really possessed by the secret yet most deadly sins of 
 deep pride and selfishness, and whom he has nevertheless not 
 yet warned plainly of his danger, (whether in plain and 
 direct addresses from the pulpit, or in other ways,) surely 
 he almost makes himself partaker of his sins. Now the 
 Roman discipline of Confession affords a ready method to 
 acquit himself of this difficult and necessary task, without 
 compromise and yet without any sense of awkward intrusion. 
 Communion, and Confession as preliminary to Communion, 
 is required by the Roman Catholic Church of all her mem- 
 bers once in every year. If a wealthy man, in his un- 
 christian pride and arrogance, refuse compliance, he is ipso 
 facto excommunicate: he may still externally attend the 
 religious assemblies of the Church, but he is severed from 
 the heavenly body and from the ordinary path to salvation. 
 He has had then his warning ; he knows that the Church 
 has denounced him; and she, in denouncing him, acquits 
 herself of responsibility for his sin. On the other hand, if 
 he obey her requirements, here is the very opportunity the 
 faithful priest desired ; an opportunity, to warn him solemnly 
 of his especial danger, to interrogate him on such particulars
 
 373 
 
 as tend to prove the justice of the suspicion, and, if necessary, 
 even to defer his absolution till he may give proof of his in- 
 tention to amend. 
 
 Indeed, let us place before our minds the ideal picture of a 
 wealthy man, encrusted in all that intense pride and selfish- 
 ness, which so naturally results from the unlimited power of 
 gratifying his wishes, and from his habit of seeing all men 
 and things around him placed at his disposal. Conceive him 
 kneeling before a humble priest, praying absolution at his 
 hands, answering his questions on the habits of his daily life, 
 receiving stern rebukes or earnest exhortations ; who can fail 
 to see that this is the very medicine suited to his disease, the 
 very moral discipline which may at least make a beginning of 
 that necessary task, (and the beginning is proverbially the most 
 difficult part of any task,) the gradual overthrow of his anti- 
 christian habits and principles ! Well the English Church 
 has destroyed this discipline ; what has she substituted in its 
 place ? She cannot destroy the unparalleled denunciations 
 found in Scripture against the rich as a class; and she 
 professes herself preeminently a Scriptural Church ; in what 
 single particular does her practical system recognise those 
 denunciations? It has been profoundly observed by Mr. 
 Froude, that obedience to spiritual rulers is the same trial to 
 the rich, that obedience to temporal rulers is to the poor: 
 but our Church has sunk all claim to the former, in her 
 earnest and repeated inculcation of the latter ; she has given 
 up that part of the Ancient System then which bore hardly 
 on the rich, and added new strength to that which bears 
 hardly on the poor. This does not seem in accordance with 
 the Scriptural model.' 
 
 There is no particular in which the depraving effect of 
 riches is more signally displayed, than the habit of mind, 
 whereby the wealthy man tends unconsciously to consider 
 
 1 " Our Church bears and has ever borne the marks of her birth ; the child of 
 regal and aristocratical selfishness and unprincipled tyrrany, she has never dared to 
 speak boldly to the great, but has contented herself with lecturing the poor. ' I will 
 speak of Thy testimonies even before kings, and will not be ashamed,' is a text which 
 the Anglican Church, as a national institution, seems never to have caught the spirit 
 of." Life and Correspondence of Dr. Arnold, vol. ii. p. 372.
 
 374 
 
 the poorer classes of society almost as beings of a different 
 nature from himself ; to fancy that they are bound from their 
 very position to labour incessantly for his convenience and 
 enjoyment, while he incurs from his position no corresponding 
 duty of self-denying labour for their benefit. The only 
 effective manner, of course, in which a Church can possibly 
 witness against, and tend to remedy, this miserable sin, is by 
 displaying the opposite principle in the most lively and 
 energetic manner in her own practical action ; by shewing, in 
 a manner not to be mistaken, how dear to her are the poor, 
 with what sympathy she regards their sorrows, with what 
 consummate wisdom, with what ungrudging devotedness of 
 purpose, she labours for their removal. That this cannot be 
 said of our own Church at present with the most distant 
 approach to truth, seems now pretty generally acknowledged. 
 On her then, far more than on any other body, (as professing 
 to be the National Church,) lies the grave and serious respon- 
 sibility, of that wide gulf of separation between rich and 
 poor; that contrast of selfish and careless neglect on one 
 side, with the union of rankling suspicion and hollow, cow- 
 ardly servility on the other; which (whatever honourable 
 exceptions may exist) is now so actively and increasingly 
 mischievous throughout our social system. But if a Church 
 should be not even content with this acquiescence in evil ; if 
 in urging on the rich the Christian obligation of educating 
 the poor, she lay her principal stress, not on the duty of 
 repairing in some very slight degree their most wicked 
 negligence in times past, but, instead of this, on the un- 
 utterably base motive, that unless the poor be rightly 
 educated the rich cannot hope for secure enjoyment of their 
 earthly goods; in such a case, she would distinctly imply, 
 that the rich may without grievous sin make their own 
 enjoyment the main object of their dealings with the poor ; 
 and she would thus overtly and directly sanction that prin- 
 ciple, which it is a sin and a shame to her that she does 
 not actively and energetically denounce. 
 
 To come now to another class, very different in many 
 respects are the temptations of those who are enjoying wealth,
 
 375 
 
 and those who are acquiring it. The latter are ordinarily 
 exposed to such passions as these ; feverish thirst of gain ; 
 corroding care and anxiety, arising from the fluctuations of 
 prosperity and the vicissitudes of trade ; sour, uneasy, envious 
 dislike of their neighbour's gains. Such temptations as these 
 are, in the main, common to those who are playing for a 
 stake of millions or of hundreds of pounds ; whatever 
 minor difference there may be between the two cases. 
 Truly ' the love of money is the root of all evil ;' for can 
 there be more formidable obstacles than these, to the 
 peaceful and equable Life of God in the soul of man ? Even 
 a secular writer (as I quoted in the second chapter) has been 
 able to see, that the desire of wealth is, to speak generally, 
 the only principle which acts at present with real life and 
 energy on the middle and upper classes. Has our Church 
 seen this? If so, where are we to look for her wise and 
 watchful agency in applying remedies to so fatal a disease, 
 and in guarding the minds of the rising generation against 
 its infection ? It will be in place here to mention more par- 
 ticularly the Roman discipline of the Spiritual Exercises ; for 
 it will, I think, be acknowledged, that they are hardly less than 
 a Divine medicine for the disease on which I have been speak- 
 ing ; and that no system could have been devised by human 
 wisdom, more exquisitely adapted to calm the tumult of the 
 soul, and still the throb of trouble, restlessness, and anxiety. 
 
 On the present discipline in the Roman Church on this 
 matter, and the facilities afforded, I cannot do better than 
 insert the following communication which has been made me 
 on authority that may be relied on. 
 
 I. In every College and religious house, whether of men or 
 women, there is at least one spiritual retreat every year. In Italy 
 in Colleges there are two ; one at the commencement of term after 
 the long vacation, another before Easter. One of them is generally 
 of ten days', the other of three days' duration. In most religious 
 houses it is the same. Thus the Sisters of Mercy have one full 
 spiritual retreat in August ending with the Assumption, and another 
 at Christmas for the renewal (as it is called) of the vows. Besides 
 which they must devote the first Sunday in every month, to pre-
 
 376 
 
 paration for death, in retirement. (La Regola e la Costituzione delle 
 Religiose nominate Sorelli della Misericordia. Parte I. Cap. x.) 
 
 II. Before receiving the tonsure or minor orders, a retreat of three 
 days is usual, but not obligatory. Before each of the three holy 
 orders a retreat of ten days is of obligation. This is enjoined in 
 the Constitution of Alexander VII. Apostolica Solicitudo,' Aug. 7, 
 1662, and by the Decree of the Congregation of Bishops and 
 Regulars (a Congregation of Cardinals that administers affairs 
 involving their rights) issued by order of Innoc. XI. 9 Oct. 1682. 
 (V. Monacelli Formularium Legale practicum Fori ecclesiastici 
 torn. i. p. 61.) The Epist. Encyclica Clem. XI. 1 Feb. 1710, enjoins 
 that Regulars also make the same spiritual retreat before orders, 
 only in their own houses ; a privilege likewise granted to some 
 Colleges, as the German, English, Irish, and Scotch. Otherwise the 
 retreat for orders must be made in the house of the Congregation of 
 the Mission (the order of St. Vincent of Paul) in Rome. 
 
 " Exercitia Spiritualia ante Diaconatum, aliquando a Vicario 
 Urbis, vigore Rescript! (a special rescript from the Pope) dis- 
 pensantur, sed in iis duntaxat, qui Apostolicam dispensationem 
 super extra tempora obtinuerunt, ac insuper ratione Canonicatus, 
 Beneficii seu Cappellanise ad Sacros Ordines arctantur, tempusque 
 habent valde limitatum. Non sic Exercitia Siibdiaconatus et Pres- 
 byteratus, quse nunquam omnino dispensata aut diminuta fuerunt, 
 etiamsi supra dicta aliseque causa intervenerint." Praxis Secretarise 
 Tribunalis Cardinalis, Urbis Vicarii, auctore Romualdo Honorante, 
 Roma, 1772, p. 59. All this is in force, and rigidly observed. 
 
 III. In many dioceses (indeed wherever there is convenience for 
 the necessary arrangements) there is a spiritual retreat for the 
 clergy generally every year. This is the case in all the dioceses of 
 Ireland, and in England. This year there have been retreats for 
 the Clergy, during the vacation at most of the seminaries, for the 
 London, Central, Yorkshire, and Northern Vicariates. The present 
 Cardinal Feretti, when Bishop of Rieti, built and endowed from his 
 own patrimony a house for the retreat of his clergy, having three 
 retreats of ten days a year, so that all might have opportunity for 
 going through one, he joining all three. There is an admirable 
 pastoral of Bened. XIV. while Archbishop of Bologne, (Institutiones 
 Ecclesiaticae P. Lambertini, &c. Romae, 1747, fol. Inst. c. iv. p. 512,) 
 in which he strongly exhorts all parish priests to retire into retreat 
 once a year as advised by Clem. XI. in his Encycl. " ut semel per
 
 377 
 
 annum Jiaec Spiritualia Exercitia aggrediantur." ... " Insuper 
 omnibus Ecclesiasticis plurimum commendamus, ut conveniant fre- 
 quentes ad spiritualia exercitia," &c. [In the same Institution or 
 pastoral he lays down the rules for retreats before orders as given 
 above, and quotes in addition the decree of St. Charles Borromeo in 
 the 5th Provinc. Synod of Milan in 1576, to the same effect.] His 
 Institutio XLI. is on the establishment of an annual retreat for the 
 Clergy. (p. 263.) Many, indeed most, of the clergy, including 
 Cardinals and Prelates, even where it is not obligatory, make an 
 annual retreat, as do many laymen. 
 
 IV. For this purpose there are houses in great Catholic cities 
 for the purpose of allowing persons of different ranks to make 
 retreats. This distinction is of course necessary, as the order 
 followed and the instruction given must vary according to the state 
 of life and education of the parties. 
 In Rome there are the following : 
 
 I. The house of St. Eusebio, conducted by Fathers of the Society 
 of Jesus for ecclesiastics and persons of education. A director and 
 assistants reside there entirely devoted to this purpose. Persons 
 are admitted singly, or in companies of about thirty, at certain 
 stated periods. Perhaps it may not be out of place to refer to the 
 history of Dr. Augustine Theiner as related by himself. He was 
 brought up a Catholic, but with his brother (Professor in the Uni- 
 versity of Breslaw) took the lead in the semi-protestant movement 
 against celibacy, the Roman liturgy, &c., in Silesia about 1820-27, 
 and published several very learned works on Canon-law. He 
 quite lost his religion, and travelled in England and France, and 
 at last came to Rome in a most unhappy frame of mind. He 
 allowed himself to be persuaded to go into this house in holy week 
 1 833 ; and entered chiefly through curiosity and the idea of writing 
 a description in some paper of what he should see. Before many 
 days were over, his heart was completely changed, and he came 
 out quite a new man. He lived for some time with the Jesuits, and 
 then joined the Oratorians, having a deep veneration for their 
 founder St. Philip Neri, and the Ven. Card. Baronius. He has 
 received orders, and is now engaged in continuing the Annals of 
 that great historian. See the full account in his " Seminario 
 Ecclesiastico,'' Rome, 1834, pp. 1 41. 
 
 II. Ponte Rotto, a house so called from being near the remains 
 of a ruined bridge, a large establishment for retreats for the poor
 
 378 
 
 and soldiers. The latter are paid for by the Government, the 
 former by charity of the rich. The house is conducted by priests 
 who gratuitously devote themselves to it. The good done by this 
 house is incalculable, among both classes : and the eagerness of 
 persons to get tickets of admission is truly great. Some go in 
 perhaps from curiosity, others are sent in by authority, (e. g. all 
 who have not fulfilled the precept of paschal communion,) some 
 enter from the worst motives, (some have been sent in by secret 
 societies to disturb the retreat, &c.) but it is rare if they come out 
 unreformed and unconverted. I do not know what to compare them 
 to better than to the water one sees in the filtering machines in 
 shop windows mud when it goes in, and pure crystal water when 
 it comes out. The conversions made are remarkable for their dura- 
 bility. The writer has had much consolation in attending the 
 soldiers in the great hospital of the Holy Ghost in Rome, when 
 sick or dying, and has been surprised to find many leading the most 
 regular and truly Christian life ; but in every instance this had 
 begun with a spiritual retreat. 
 
 III. A house for laymen, similarly conducted in the street of Le 
 Mantellate. 
 
 IV. For ladies, besides two public retreats each year in the 
 Oratory of the Caravita, there are several convents to which they 
 may retire for the purpose of making one. 
 
 V. And for both ecclesiastics and laity, there are many houses 
 of religious communities which are always open to persom wishing 
 to make a retreat. The lessons of St. Vincent of Paul in the 
 Breviary (July 1 9. lee. v ) mentions this of his order the Lazarites. 
 The same may be said of the Jesuits, Passionists, Redemptionists, 
 and many others. 
 
 VI. It is customary in Catholic countries (and in some places at 
 least in England) to make a spiritual retreat before the first com- 
 munion. In Rome there are two houses expressly devoted to this 
 purpose for boys. One is part of the Roman College, contiguous 
 to the cell (now a chapel) of St. Aloysius Gonzaga, thence called 
 "Le Camarette di S. Luigi," the other is near the Basilica of 
 St. Maria Maggiore, and has the same name, from being destined 
 to the same purpose. For young people of the other sex there is 
 the house of the " Divino Amore," the " Bambino Gesu," and 
 others conducted by religious women. 
 
 One of the best books for explaining the system or mechanism
 
 379 
 
 of the Spiritual Exercises, is the Abbate Rosmini's " Manuale dell' 
 Exercitatore," in addition to the Directorium usually annexed to St. 
 Ignatius's Exercitia. There are many works in which the medi- 
 tations are expanded, among which the most distinguished are 
 Bellecius, Siniscalchi, the younger Segneri, Daponte, &c., &c. 
 
 There is an interesting work by Rosignali, entitled " Notizie 
 memorabili degli Exercizi Spiritual!," printed in the third volume 
 of his works, Venice, 1723, and lately published separately in Rome. 
 It contains accounts of the wonderful effects of the Exercises. See 
 also the " Vita di S. Francesco di Girolamo," libro i. cap. viii. His 
 entire life (4to. Rome., 1839,) is most interesting, respecting 
 Missions, &c. 
 
 As to the course of the exercise, an analysis of it is given 
 in the ordinary French edition of the ' Spiritual Exercises,' 
 a small part of which it may be better to insert. The original 
 plan was disposed for a month's course ; and the writer I 
 quote expresses a doubt, whether its present compression into 
 a week or ten days be not very seriously detrimental to its 
 fruits. It would be better, he considers, if, instead of com- 
 pressing the whole four weeks' course into little more than 
 one, some one of the four weeks were chosen, and its course 
 given entire. 
 
 ' One person,' he says, ' for instance, makes a retreat, to fit 
 himself for a good Confession : he needs only the exercises of the 
 first week. Another wishes to retire some time from the world, 
 that he may make choice of his state in life, or to examine his 
 present state and amend : the exercises of the second week will suit 
 him. A pious soul is in trouble : the exercises of the third week 
 may give him rest. If one desires only to purify himself, and go on 
 more and more unto perfection, after having taken up some exercises 
 chosen from the first three weeks, it is those of the fourth to which 
 he should unite himself.' p. xxvi. 
 
 ' By the word ' week' is not understood [in the original exercises] 
 the precise space of seven days : some of these weeks may be 
 shorter and others longer. To obtain remission of sins, which is 
 the end of the first week, some may require much more than seven 
 or eight days ; others much less. The weeks then must be length- 
 ened or shortened according to the needs of those who perform the 
 exercises.' p. xxiv.
 
 380 
 
 First Week. 
 
 The foundation of all the exercises, or the fundamental exercise 
 by which we ought always to begin, is the end of man. It is essen- 
 tial to penetrate our minds deeply with this truth. 
 
 The next meditations are on sin : plans for a first and second 
 meditation on sin, and two repetitions of those exercises. 
 
 Then a meditation on hell : plan of this meditation. 
 
 To this it will be well to add, meditations on death, judgment, 
 in a word, on all the great truths of religion. 
 
 St. Ignatius supposes that these meditations will occupy the 
 whole first week, until the Confession is made. But if they do not 
 suffice, it will be possible, in order to prepare one still more in 
 detail for Confession, to meditate on the Commandments, the dif- 
 ferent kinds of sin, &c. These meditations will help greatly for 
 the examen of conscience, p. xxix. 
 
 Rules to be followed in the Meditations of the First Week. 
 
 To avoid all thoughts which can cause joy ; however pious the 
 thoughts may be. 
 
 To deprive one's self during the meditation, as far as possible, of 
 the light of day. 
 
 To avoid all laughter and cheerful discourse. 
 
 To look at no one without indispensable necessity. 
 
 Objects to be 'proposed to one's self in the First Week. p. xxx. 
 
 We have already said, that the object of the first week is to 
 purify our conscience by contrition and confession of sins. 
 
 All the subjects of the meditation tend to inspire us with contrition. 
 
 The means of arriving at a good confession, is to dispose our- 
 selves for it by an exact and rigorous examen. St. Ignatius gives 
 two methods of examen. 
 
 [Confession, particular examen, external penances and morti- 
 fications, here follow.] 
 
 But since it is hardly possible that a soul should think seriously 
 of conversion, without being at once exposed to the suggestions of 
 the evil spirit, who seeks to disgust or at least disturb it by violent 
 temptations, by scruples, sometimes even by illusions, our Saint 
 gives the most exact and wisest rules about scruples. In the 
 same way he gives them admirable protection against all the snares 
 of the devil, by his rules on the discernment of spirits, p. xxxi.
 
 381 
 
 Second Week. 
 
 After having exactly purified the* conscience, by the exercises of 
 the first week, our business now is to begin to govern our life. To 
 govern it well, it is Jesus Christ whom we must take for our example. 
 He gives us two different models of life ; one of simple and common 
 life, all the merit of which consists in observing the necessary com- 
 mandments of God ; the other of a life which reaches forward to 
 evangelical perfection. 
 
 The first of these two states is necessary for all ; we must make 
 up our mind absolutely to embrace it ; then we must examine 
 whether God does not call us to the second state, and how far He 
 calls us. 
 
 This week then must be divided into two parts. During the 
 first days we make our resolution to practise faithfully the es- 
 sential part of Christianity, on the model of the thirty years of the 
 hidden life of Jesw Christ, which He passed wholly in obedience 
 and submission. St. Ignatius consecrates the first three days 
 to exercises bearing on this object. The rest of the second week is 
 employed in examining what God requires of us ; and consequently 
 in choosing for ourselves a state of life, if we have not yet decided, 
 or in strengthening ourselves in what we have chosen, if it be irre- 
 vocable. 
 
 St. Ignatius gives the wisest rules to determine well and surely 
 what God requires of us. p. xxxiii. 
 
 Subject of the Meditations of the Second Week. 
 
 The first is the foundation of all the others. To determine our- 
 selves to imitate the obedience of Jesus Christ to all the will of 
 His Father, and even of His parents after the flesh, we begin by 
 realising to ourselves that Jesus Christ is our King, whom Only 
 we ought to follow. Then we meditate on His Incarnation, Birth, 
 Presentation, Flight into Egypt, and the other mysteries of His 
 hidden life, &c. 
 
 The fundamental meditation for the second part of the week, is 
 that of the two standards ; one of Jesus Christ our King, the other 
 of the Devil His enemy. It is followed by another, hardly less 
 essential, on the three different classes into which we may reduce 
 all men. 
 
 We can hardly give sufficient attention to what St. Ignatius says 
 on the manner of making a good choice. We may employ all the
 
 rest of the week upon it ; but we must at the same time meditate 
 in detail on all the mysteries of^lhe public life of Jesus Christ, &c., 
 &c. p. xxxv i. 
 
 Third Week. 
 
 . . . Jesus Christ is still the model which we should place be- 
 fore our eyes. During the second week we have meditated on the 
 mysteries of His life ; the third is fixed for meditation on those of 
 His passion and death. These objects, still more interesting and 
 touching, are beyond doubt the most fit for strengthening us in the 
 good resolutions which the meditation on the actions of His life have 
 led us to form. 
 
 All the meditations then of this week are on the passion of Jesus 
 Christ. 
 
 During all this week we should endeavour to procure ourselves 
 inward sadness and desolation by the memory of what Jesus Christ 
 suffered for us ; and absolutely banish from our mind every con- 
 soling thought, p. xxxix. 
 
 Fourth Week. 
 
 The exercises of the first week are those of the ' via puraativa,' 
 of the second and third the ' via illuminativa,' of the fourth the 
 ' via unitiva.' The object of these last is to put the crown and 
 finish to the spiritual work ; Jesus Christ Risen is the model of it ; 
 it is the mysteries of Jesus Risen which should be the subjects of 
 meditation during its course. 
 
 The essential exercise of the ' via unitiva' is doubtless charity. 
 It is then to the object of extending, purifying, perfecting, charity, 
 that our constant study should be given ; to that end all the other 
 exercises should be referred. For that purpose, it will be very im- 
 portant to make carefully and often repeat the beautiful meditation 
 on the ' love of God/ &c., p. xlii. 
 
 The priest who gives the exercises adjusts them to what 
 he discovers to be the moral and religious needs of the re- 
 cipient ; again, to his power of mind and body, &c. The 
 Confession is very useful in guiding him as to the future 
 course.' And it is of course understood, that during the 
 
 " The following extract of a letter from a Roman Catholic priest illustrates 
 the benefit of these exercises, even under very disadvantageous circumstances : 
 " I remember that Archbishop Folding, when he was in England, stated that 
 the [Roman] Catholic convicts [in Australia] had for a time been placed en-
 
 383 
 
 whole retreat there is an absolute retirement from the world 
 without, and all thoughts, not bearing on the exercises for 
 the day, are sedulously banished from the mind. 
 
 These retreats are admirably fitted also to answer another 
 purpose, which I specified in the second chapter. I have heard 
 it stated, that there is no more common cause of insanity in 
 England at the present time, than sudden reverse in worldly 
 business. An unhappy man feels that the very object, on 
 which his interests and desires have been mainly anchored, 
 gives way ; he is adrift, as it were, in a barren and 
 pathless sea ; his affections wander to and fro in search of 
 an object, and find not what they seek. Who can tell the 
 blessing such a man would derive, were access at all times 
 open to some place of holy seclusion, where those heavenly 
 objects might be placed before his mind which are best fitted 
 to step, as it were, into the vacant throne, and placed before 
 it in that very manner which shall be most winning and - 
 attractive ? Or perhaps from some other cause a sinner's 
 heart is softened ; he begins to feel that in being * troubled 
 about many things' he has ' forsaken the better part,' and to 
 desire to make peace with God whom he has left and 
 insulted. Surely, if he be wise, he will be anxiously desirous 
 to save himself from the temptation caused by the imme- 
 diate presence of those objects, which have been hitherto the 
 resting-place of his affections ; he will wish not to expose 
 himself again to their influence, till he may have, in some 
 faint measure, known the power of those truths which he 
 now hopes may be the guiding star of his life, and been 
 disciplined in those religious habits which he now hopes may 
 continue even to the end. He will at once seek then, if it may 
 
 tirely under him and his priests, at certain hours, for several days together. The 
 poor men had, by the neglect of their religious duties, and by the contagion of 
 their companions, fallen into a frightful state of spiritual sickness, and this in- 
 duced the worthy prelate, whom God had sent to t!ii-a, to petition that it might 
 be permitted that he might give his full attention to them, and they their full 
 attention to him. The authorities kindly consented ; and so happy were the 
 results, that every facility has since been given to the priests in their labours 
 amongst these unhappy men perhaps I should call them happy men. Thousands of 
 them now approach the Sacraments, who, in the state of things that existed a few 
 years ago, could not possibly have done so." The ' Sacraments' include Confession.
 
 384 
 
 be found, an institution where holy men, instructed both by 
 theory and experience in the needs and temptations of 
 penitent souls, may bring their power to bear in his own 
 behalf, and prepare him for the arduous and relentless con- 
 flict he has now before him. 
 
 Arduous indeed and relentless may the conflict well be 
 called, even when holy men have done with him their best, and 
 he returns to the sights and sounds of earth. We all know 
 the strange untowardness with which a man in advanced life 
 applies himself to the acquirement of some new habit ; of 
 reading, say, or writing : how difficult he finds it to accom- 
 modate himself to these new ways ; and how uncouth, 
 probably, even to the last, are his attempts at the exercise. 
 But in this case the new habit to be acquired is not merely to 
 be occasionally practised or displayed, it is to be a new habit 
 of thought throughout the day : it is not to be added to the 
 existing stock of habits, but substituted in their place : to 
 the exceeding difficulty of cultivating and directing the new, 
 is added the still greater difficulty of combating and sup- 
 planting the old. Those who have deferred repentance " are 
 overwhelmed with the arrears of their great work ; they are 
 entangled and stumble amid the intricacies of the Divine 
 system which has progressively enlarged upon them." Under 
 such circumstances as these, the very alternative of success 
 or failure in the attempt at consistent obedience may depend, 
 humanly speaking, on the question, whether a spiritual 
 adviser be at hand, well versed in the depths of the human 
 character, and the multiform arts of Satan : a Confessor, who 
 will, by his advice, guard the penitent faithfully from 
 relapse into wilful sin, without attempting to hurry him 
 prematurely into high and austere virtue; who will direct 
 and chasten the first transports of conversion ; who will 
 carefully distinguish between the sloth of lukewarmness or 
 indifference, and the feebleness and tenderness which result 
 from the worldly life he has in time past pursued. Where 
 has the English Church her training-school for such spiritual 
 advisers ? 
 
 In allusion to the subject of insanity from mental distress, 
 
 Newman's Sermons, vol. i. p. 1 20.
 
 385 
 
 to which I lately adverted, the following extract from the 
 Dublin Review, which I give as I find it, deserves notice. 
 The writer says, that the number of serious Roman Catholics 
 who go out of their mind, is far smaller, in proportion, than 
 of other classes : but statistics of this sort always require 
 ample examination and confirmation, before a wise man will 
 place any confidence in them. The other observations are as 
 follows : 
 
 ' A mind well disciplined in our religion can scarcely ever fall 
 a victim to mental disease, unless it arises from the irresistible 
 pressure of positive physical causes. Cases of this kind are 
 wonderfully few, in comparison with the number of those that are 
 produced by imaginary woes ; by mere want of power to resist the 
 temptations to evil ; ... by the state of nervous excitement to which 
 uncertainty as to salvation often gives birth ; by the absolute want 
 of any substantial light for the intellect to turn to, when its path 
 becomes clouded by misfortune ; and by the destitution of all re- 
 source when the poor, hunted, wearied stag falls trembling in its 
 agonies on the ground. 
 
 . . . ' For the more deeply seated maladies of the intellect, those 
 that are traceable chiefly to the wants of the mind itself ; to fears 
 connected with future stages of existence ; to the absence of any firm 
 reliance upon modes of faith which . . . are destitute of the great 
 charm of truth ; the medical practitioner has no remedy what- 
 ever. All cases of this character belong to the Divine. It is he 
 who must administer to minds affected by diseases of this class ; 
 diseases much more numerous than many persons suspect or will 
 easily believe : and we will take it upon ourselves to assert, that it is 
 in the bosom of our Church alone, are to be found the ministers, 
 who can really afford substantial relief in all such maladies as these, 
 or indeed, in any of the intellectual maladies arising from other than 
 mere physical causes. 
 
 ' The soothing language of our Church spoken by her clergy, 
 generally men mild in their demeanour and most conversant, from 
 their practice in the Confessional, with the human heart, having 
 no object to promote save the eternal welfare of those committed 
 to their guidance, would seldom fail of finding its way even to that 
 reason wandering through the labyrinth in which despair, grief, 
 misfortune, passion, disappointed ambition, ill-requited affection, 
 
 2 C
 
 386 
 
 jealousy, or remorse may have involved it. The very grandeur of 
 our public worship . . . would of itself dissipate from the oppressed 
 bosom a thousand woes.' May, 1841, pp. 368 371. 
 
 In connection with the class of subjects I have been dis- 
 cussing, as an illustration of the sympathy which deep and 
 poignant feelings of repentance are themselves likely to 
 receive in general amongst us, let me ask whether there are 
 not multitudes, even of the more religious^ who, on 
 hearing of the practices adopted by individuals in Roman 
 Catholic countries and sanctioned by the Church, of scourging 
 themselves, or walking barefoot in penance for sin, will not 
 at first experience a feeling far more nearly akin to contempt, 
 than is any of which they are conscious on hearing of some 
 serious sin ? As though, not the commission of grievous sin, 
 but the avenging it on ourselves, were really unworthy our 
 Christian illumination. 
 
 In conclusion, a biief allusion may be made to two further 
 and very important purposes, which are answered by Sacra- 
 mental Confession : viz. that those whose pursuits are 
 mainly intellectual, are saved by it, in some degree, from the 
 evil tendencies to which, as I said, in the second chapter, 
 (p. 35,) such men are peculiarly liable ; and secondly, that the 
 great encouragement held out to making, from time to time, 
 a general confession of their whole past life, is of the utmost 
 benefit in deepening and realising repentance for past sin. 
 It is hardly necessary to observe that the English Church 
 has taken no measures for securing either of these benefits. 
 
 4*. The topics on which I have now touched, will suggest 
 to the reader's mind a vast number of similar particulars, 
 which it is not necessary individually to rehearse. My 
 object has been, to shew the miserable failure of that system 
 
 A friend of mine was told by an eminent London physician whose practice 
 has been in cases of insanity, that he considered its chief causes in England to 
 be, 1, the unsettled state of religion, and, 2, the pressure of our commercial 
 system upon weak minds, both from the ruin in which it sometimes involves 
 whole families, and from the constant strain upon the faculties in the endeavour 
 to get on.
 
 387 
 
 which has oppressed our Church and nation a long three 
 hundred years, in performing one of the two fundamental 
 and essential duties incumbent on every Church ; and that 
 duty too, which is the necessary basis and condition for the 
 other : I mean, the duty of moral and religious discipline. 
 What has been the result in these our days of this most 
 sinful neglect, I am spared the invidious task of reciting at 
 length. Holy men in our Church (including some in their 
 number whose deep attachment to her no one can dispute) have 
 lifted up their voice in solemn admonition and complaint ; 
 they have deplored the absence among us of so much as an 
 appreciation of even the most obvious and striking features 
 of the saintly character; the low and carnal standard of 
 religion which has prevailed; the positive discouragement 
 offered to those who are impelled, by aspirations within 
 them, towards a higher mark. Most humiliating facts indeed 
 if true ; and I see not how their truth can be doubted. 
 The task I have here undertaken then has been wholly of a 
 subordinate character : theirs has been the responsible office 
 of protesting loudly and zealously against the spirit they 
 have found predominant ; I have humbly endeavoured to 
 specify those defects and corruptions in our system, which 
 will have amply sufficed to produce that spirit. In one 
 sense indeed what I have said may be considered to corro- 
 borate their conclusions i for taking my stand on facts which 
 no one can dispute, I have endeavoured to shew a priori that 
 certain results must, to a practical certainty, follow ; and 
 these are the very results, to which, as matters of their own 
 experience these writers had drawn attention. The reason- 
 ings then here contained may strengthen their testimony to 
 facts they conceive themselves to have observed ; while that 
 in turn adds increased probability to the justice of these 
 reasonings. 
 
 If our Chuch has been so incredibly supine and indifferent 
 to her very principal duty, as guardian of, and witness to, 
 , morality, that of carefully training her children one by one 
 in holy living, it is not to be supposed that she would 
 have taken any pains in the performance of other duties 
 incumbent on her in that capacity, but which are of a less 
 
 2 c 2
 
 388 
 
 vitally momentous character. Accordingly, to choose one 
 from a multitude of cases, when subjects have been discussed 
 so closely connected with right moral action as the question, 
 to what extent the duty of a barrister towards his client 
 supersedes his general duty to society ; the very idea seems 
 never to have occurred to any of her authorities, that it is a 
 matter with which, as a national Christian Church, she has 
 any concern or interest. Or to turn our thoughts into a 
 different channel; when the most grave and serious doubts 
 have been entertained, whether the principles on which our 
 Indian Empire has been acquired, and on which it is retained, 
 are justifiable on grounds of Christian morality, or whether 
 we are not, as a nation, daily committing a grievous sin in our 
 demeanour towards the subjects of that Empire ; any such 
 conception, as the duty of a national Church to protest (if so 
 be) against a national sin, seems never to have practically 
 found admittance into the mind of either Church or nation. 
 It is very questionable indeed on which side the surprise 
 would be greatest, the Church-authorities or the State- 
 authorities, if a proposal were gravely made, to begin a 
 solemn inquiry, with the view to an Ecclesiastical decision on 
 this great question. I must guard myself against being 
 supposed to have any bias, which way a fair inquiry would 
 be likely to terminate ; for I really have none : but the 
 doubt has been felt in many a Christian mind, and affords 
 therefore matter for illustration, on the general ' blindness 
 which prevails to the very existence of so important a part 
 of the Church's duties. Nor can it be either expected or 
 desired that she should turn her thoughts to such questions, 
 while her apathy remains unshaken, on duties so incom- 
 parably, I may with truth say so infinitely, more momentous, 
 as those on which the present chapter has been hitherto 
 occupied. 
 
 In like manner, since the origin of every science has 
 ordinarily been the practical requirements of some art, it 
 was not to be expected that a Church which has taken so 
 little pains in teaching her children the art of holy living, 
 should have given herself any particular pains to cultivate 
 the corresponding sciences. Accordingly few English clergy-
 
 389 
 
 men, I suppose, have so much as heard the name of moral 
 or ascetic theology ; and as to mystical theology, since it has 
 been for some time past the common belief in England that 
 Saints and saintly men do not exist in the later ages of the 
 Church, it is hardly to be supposed that attention would 
 have been given to the investigation of principles, for the 
 religious discipline of these holy men. 
 
 5. Let us now turn our thoughts to the other primary 
 duty of a Church ; the preservation of orthodox doctrine. 
 And here at first sight my task might seem easier ; for 
 although, as is natural, members of our Church are very 
 unwilling to admit that we are inferior to earlier times in 
 cultivation of the inward life, they almost make it matter of 
 boast that we are less zealous than Christians of a former age 
 in laying stress on what they would call the more minute 
 peculiarities of the Gospel Creed. Every one knows how 
 languidly a charge of Sabellianism or Nestorianism is 
 responded to by the ' religious world ; ' and how general the 
 opinion, that belief in these heresies is perfectly consistent 
 with spirituality and heavenly-mindedness. However, one 
 doctrine there happily is, which is still maintained among us 
 as essential, as placed beyond the sphere of lawful compromise 
 or concession : I mean, of course, the doctrine of our Blessed 
 Lord's Divine Nature. It will be well then to base the 
 present inquiry on an examination of this particular ; of the 
 faithfulness with which the Church of England has really 
 guarded this most precious deposit ; for we shall thus mea- 
 sure the value of her system by that very test which the 
 advocates of that system would most desire. I am not 
 of course really conceding, that Nestorians and Sabellians 
 can possibly believe the doctrine of the Incarnation ; but 
 only arguing 'ad homines' against religionists of the day, 
 that we may see whether they can defend their position on 
 the very ground they have themselves chosen. The well- 
 instructed believer will indeed enter upon this inquiry, with 
 the decided anticipation of an adverse result; for where there 
 is no provision for ensuring a strict life or a sensitive con- 
 science, the very soil is not supplied, in which alone a sound 
 faith can firmly plant its roots : while on the other hand,
 
 390 
 
 those who by habitual discipline are ever actively engaged in 
 weeding out all carnal desires and affections, these have 
 heavenly truths brought before their spiritual sight with 
 a liveliness, power, and keen reality, of which we ordinary 
 men can form no conception : though even from our own ex- 
 perience, on occasions of increased watchfulness and care, 
 (independently of the great moral principle involved in this 
 statement,) we should be fully prepared and disposed to 
 receive the testimony of holy men to that effect. Such 
 subjects of contemplation as the protecting arm of God 
 the Father, ' the Horn of our salvation and our Refuge : ' 
 or the human nature of God the Son ; the unspeakable 
 beauty of his human soul, and sweetness of His human 
 affections : or the inward presence of God the Holy Ghost, 
 binding all Christians into one mystical body : such subjects 
 as these fill pure and mortified souls with indescribable peace 
 and delight. To defend the Faith is with them not merely a 
 labour of love, it is a struggle for the only objects they value 
 in the whole world. No wonder then that the monastic bodies 
 have in every age been the great defenders and champions of 
 orthodoxy ; for they have been also the great witnesses and 
 exemplars of an austere and supernatural life. But we have 
 no monasteries, no recognised exemplars of the supernatural 
 life ; what then is to be the security for our orthodoxy ; who 
 is to be the guardian of our faith ? Still it is quite possible 
 to preserve one's judgment unbiassed in the inquiry; how- 
 ever strong may be the prepossession, that it will issue in one 
 particular result. 
 
 The doctrine that He, Who was born in a manger, Who 
 was subject to St. Mary and St. Joseph, Who mixed familiarly 
 and conversed with sinners, Who died on the Cross, is Al- 
 mighty God, the Creator of His disciples, and His murderers, 
 nay and of the Holy Angels ; Who was from all eternity 
 in the bosom of His Father, when space and time did not 
 exist ; this is surely most difficult to believe, and one might 
 think almost impossible in any degree to realise : nor can it 
 be impressed, in any real measure, on the moral nature of an 
 individual, without the most careful and diligent labour be- 
 stowed for that end. This is quite plain at starting : and the
 
 391 
 
 only question which can be doubtful is, whether our Church 
 has bestowed this great labour. And let us, as before, 
 begin with the highest class in Christ's Kingdom, the 
 poor. 
 
 It will be urged at once, that the New Testament reveals 
 our Lord's Divinity, and that our Church is now at least, in 
 every quarter, more effectually performing the duty of 
 teaching her children to read the New Testament. That 
 this doctrine is contained in almost every sentence of the 
 New Testament, and will be more and more seen there by 
 the well-grounded Christian in almost every sentence, I do 
 not admit only, but most earnestly maintain. But it is 
 a widely different thing to say, that a poor uneducated person, 
 who is by degrees taught to read, and then, as long as his 
 parents can leave him at school, spells text after text, that 
 such a person as this will learn, from such reading as this, 
 so wonderful, so inconceivable, a mystery. To suppose that 
 such a result is possible, seems paradoxical almost to the 
 degree of insanity ; unless it be alleged, that by special 
 Divine promise, the efforts of all, who open the New Testa- 
 ment to learn for themselves Christian truth,? will be super- 
 naturally blessed and directed. However, we may let this 
 pass, to go to a much more important subject. For surely 
 all serious Christians will agree, that as well might this awful 
 truth be disbelieved altogether, as believed only by the head; 
 that a practical realisation of it is the object to be desired : 
 a hearty appropriation of these most blessed and incredible 
 tidings ; a living and energetic consciousness, that He Whose 
 words and acts they may learn one by one, is a Living Friend, 
 Who created them, Who redeemed them, Who had them, 
 one by one, in His thoughts, during His agony, and His 
 passion ; Who is ever close to them seeking for admittance, 
 labouring to soften their hearts, to shield them from tempta- 
 tion, to give them final perseverance ; and Whom they may 
 
 P On this, not uncommon, allegation, I spoke in the last chapter ; where 
 I said that, however unable to adopt such a sentiment myself, nay, however 
 persuaded that most serious and multiform mischief must come from it, I still 
 cannot but very much prefer it to either of the views which may be respectively 
 called by way of distinction, Archbishop Whately's view, and the ordinary ' high- 
 church' view. Sec pp. 229232.
 
 392 
 
 address in prayer with the sure confidence of being heard and 
 loved. Now it is quite plain, as I said at starting, that a fact, 
 so utterly diverse in kind from all sights and sounds of this 
 world, cannot be constantly in their mind, nor can a habit so 
 alien to all their naturally acquired habits be really formed 
 within them, unless by some special discipline suited to the 
 purpose. For instance, if it were the habit of the teacher, 
 after they have read some miracle or other action of our Lord, 
 to impress on their imaginations the scene of which they have 
 been reading, as a living and breathing fact : and then, while 
 our Lord's very figure and gesture, as it were, remain full 
 in their thoughts, to teach them to kneel down and pray to 
 Him for help against the trials and temptations of life. Or 
 again, if for only so much as five minutes in each day a child 
 were taught to fix his attention on the thought of his Lord, 
 as revealed in any part of the Gospels, and then, with that 
 thought deeply impressed on his mind, confess before Him 
 his sins, and pray for strength to resist them. And there 
 may be probably many other methods for reaching the same 
 result;* 1 but to say that the mere reading of Scripture is such 
 a method, shews that he who says so has never fairly placed 
 before his imagination the object to be attained. 
 
 How widely a belief in the statement, that our Blessed Lord 
 is God, extends among the poor, I cannot tell ; that among the 
 educated classes of our Church it is general, and caused 
 by the agency of our Church, I willingly admit. At the 
 same time, as to them also, no pains whatever is taken by our 
 Church to indoctrinate them with that kind of belief, which 
 alone is of real importance. For instance, a very common 
 subject among Roman Catholics for such daily meditations as 
 I lately spoke of, is some event in our Blessed Lord's life ; 
 
 1 I have already protested in the strongest terms, against any attempt to intro- 
 duce among us directly the devotion to St. Mary, which exists so extensively 
 abroad. I shall not be misunderstood then when I say, that as the Church's 
 protest against Nestorianism is considered by learned men to have occasioned 
 the special and peculiar devotion offered by Christians of later ages to the 
 Blessed Virgin, so that devotion (whatever may be its incidental dangers) must 
 be at all times a very strong and unfailing defence against the inroads of that 
 same Nestorian heresy, from which our Church at this time is so deeply suf- 
 fering.
 
 393 
 
 which they thus view intently for half an hour or an hour to- 
 gether as the case may be, making it the central point, for the 
 time, of their devotions and religious affections, and bringing 
 before their imagination, in every possible way, the truth that 
 the Principal Agent in these scenes is Almighty God. A work 
 in eight volumes by Pere Nouet, called ' L'homme d'oraison ' 
 is wholly occupied by meditations of this kind, arranged for 
 every day in the year ; so also is a small work in one volume 
 in English called ' The Journal of Meditations ;' so, again, is 
 that exquisite book, St. Bonaventure's * Life of Christ ;' r we 
 have seen how great a part of the ' Spiritual Exercises' is 
 similarly arranged ; and there are other books with a like object. 
 All this is plainly a most powerful instrument for impressing 
 the minds of Christians, in continually increasing measure, 
 with this fundamental Verity; but I know no instrument 
 whatever, employed by our own Church for a similar purpose. 
 And it might be concluded almost with unfailing certainty, 
 even before recurring to practical experience, that a truth, 
 which requires such effort and habitual discipline in any 
 degree to master, as does this awful mystery, will, in cases 
 where this effort and discipline have not been bestowed, 
 possess no real hold on men's minds ; that it may be professed 
 with their lips, and received in a certain most inadequate 
 sense by their understanding, but will be in no true sense 
 apprehended by its only appropriate correlative, the spiritual 
 nature. And the mere fact that English Churchmen still 
 w r ith one accord profess belief in it, is plainly no presumption 
 whatever against what I have said ; for nothing is more 
 common, in every age and on every subject, than for a dry 
 formal statement to be nominally received, while the vital 
 spirit which ought to animate it has almost or even wholly fled. 
 Members of our Church are fond of pressing this undoubted 
 principle against the Church of Rome ; they are fond of 
 urging, that to profess in words our Lord's supreme Divi- 
 nity, is in itself no guarantee that He reigns supreme in 
 their hearts. The principle, I say, is undoubted, whatever 
 
 r Except that in this latter instance there is no orderly arrangement for successive 
 days.
 
 394 
 
 / 
 
 force there may be in their particular application of it; and 
 they can make no complaint therefore, when I adopt the same 
 principle in arguing against themselves. 
 
 But it may be objected to this representation, that members 
 of our Church not only profess in words this belief, but are 
 most honourably and eagerly zealous for it in act and protest. 
 But here is no valid objection ; for this phenomenon, again, 
 constantly recurs : men learn from their fathers, not the 
 statement only of some principle, but zeal for that state- 
 ment; while yet the principle itself has almost entirely 
 escaped them. The Roman emperors never dared assume 
 the title of king ; so zealous were the people for the name of 
 liberty, years after they had lost the reality without a 
 struggle. However, in this instance there is a further reason ; 
 which by itself fully accounts for that zeal, without imply- 
 ing any real attachment to the doctrine. For the statement 
 of our Lord's Divinity is absolutely necessary, as a condition 
 for the statement of His Atonement : and the latter state- 
 ment again is absolutely necessary, in order to belief in the 
 non-necessity of careful self-discipline, and of penitential 
 exercises ; and in order to the habit of pitying, or even con- 
 demning, an austere and monastic life, in the place of reve- 
 rencing it with deep humility and awe. To say that the 
 sacred doctrine of the Atonement is wrested to such a pur- 
 pose, implies no disparagement to that marvellous and ever- 
 blessed work of mercy ; nor yet, again, any extenuation of 
 these unchristian tempers of mind. No doctrine can be con- 
 ceived more essential, than that of God's mercy, or, again, 
 than that of God's justice ; yet open Antinomians pervert the 
 former to serve the cause of immorality, and Novatians 
 have before now perverted the latter to serve the cause of 
 heresy : and the very zeal and affection we entertain for the 
 truths themselves, make us more uncompromising and ardent 
 in opposing their wicked distortion. Nay, it has often most 
 truly been said, that Antinomians and Novatians do not hold 
 really the very truth they seem to hold exclusively ; and, in 
 like manner, those who, consciously or unconsciously, are 
 more or less deeply tainted by the Lutheran heresy, do not
 
 395 
 
 rightly apprehend that very doctrine of the Atonement, on 
 which they profess to build their system. The deeper then 
 our sense of the unspeakable sacredness of this doctrine, (the 
 central point, as it has been well called, on which the whole 
 Christian scheme converges,) the more will our holy indigna- 
 tion be roused against that miserable perversion, which would 
 make it the minister of lukewarmness and carnal-mindedness. 
 Still if it be true, that a very large portion of our Church is 
 really, in one degree or other, inoculated with this fatal in- 
 fection, one symptom of their very disease will be, a self-de- 
 ceiving zeal for the formal statement of our Lord's Divinity. 
 
 It is plain that to prove demonstratively the prevalence of 
 a certain temper of mind among large classes of men, is from 
 the nature of things impossible ; one may have the strongest 
 grounds, from observation and experience, to hold an opinion 
 on the subject, and yet have comparatively little of pro- 
 ducible evidence to bring fo-rward. It happens however in 
 the present case, that there is much more evidence, and of a 
 more cogent character, than could a priori have been expected, 
 from the very nature of that allegation which I desire to 
 maintain. And first, I will mention a work, to which I al- 
 luded in my last chapter, which, in one of its most prominent 
 and most striking passages, said, in speaking of our Lord, 
 that the " spectacle of this deserted and defenceless sufferer 
 . . . far exceeds that of Napoleon, or even that of Regulus :" 
 the spectacle of God Incarnate 'far exceeds even that of 
 Regulus ! ' I am most anxious to avoid any disrespectful 
 allusion whatever to the writer of the work himself; I wish 
 to think merely of its reception here, as a test of the sensi- 
 tiveness to our Lord's honour, really felt by our ' religious 
 world.' Where was the loud protest, or the silent distress ? 
 where the stern rebuke ? or where the deep-felt pity for the 
 state of mind indicated by such a sentiment ? Where indeed ? 
 The ' Evangelicals ' as a body praised the book in very high 
 terms, and circulated it in all directions ; nor did any ex- 
 posure of its real nature come from what are called the more 
 sober members of the ' high-church ' party ; until a Tract for 
 the Times spoke plainly and strongly on the question. It is 
 not often that so decisive a proof can be brought to bear on
 
 396 
 
 so indefinable and indeterminate a matter, as the practical 
 belief of a class of men. 
 
 But other instances are ready at hand ; and in citing them, 
 I beg to say, once for all, that neither here nor elsewhere 
 had I ever the most distant intention of charging any clergy- 
 man of our Church with conscious Socinianism, with in- 
 tentional denial of our Lord's Divinity or of His Atonement : 
 I firmly believe that there is not one of her ministers, who 
 would not recoil from the very idea of formally contradicting 
 those doctrines. I may have elsewhere spoken of the direct 
 implication or meaning of particular passages, and here I am 
 speaking of the wraconscious and practical belief which really 
 energizes in some men's minds ; but in neither case have I 
 even dreamt of imputing the deliberate and conscious denial 
 of these solemn Verities. Let me now draw attention to a 
 view, taken by Archbishop Whately in many parts of his 
 works, and to which I alluded in my article on ' St. Athana- 
 sius.' The main object of his second * Sermon ' is, to prove 
 that Christ is the authorized image of God ; insomuch that 
 on that ground we are bound to pay Him divine worship. 
 " The question is," he says, " whether God was with Jesus 
 of Nazareth only as with a most eminent prophet, or in some 
 such manner as authorizes and requires us to worship God in 
 Christ" (p. 40.) It is sometimes, he says, replied by Trinitarians 
 to those who charge them with idolatry, that it cannot be 
 idolatry, since we intend to direct our worship to God ; but this 
 is no valid reply, for idolatry has its very essence in the worship 
 of the true God in some unauthorized image, emblem, or re- 
 presentation ; and " the same act may be idolatrous or not, 
 according as this divine appointment is wanting or not." 
 For instance, when God first revealed Himself to Moses, " in 
 the appearance of a flame of fire" . . . Moses "fell on his face 
 and worshipped. Now if Moses had . . . himself kindled a 
 fire, and worshipped before it as a suitable emblem of the 
 Lord, he would clearly have been guilty of idolatry." He 
 proceeds with other illustrations, and then " applies " what 
 he has said " to the great question," which he thinks will " be 
 settled by these considerations. . . . Those who pay divine 
 worship to Christ Jesus .... are cleared, if the Scriptures
 
 397 
 
 authorize and enjoin us to worship God in Christ. . . . We 
 differ from the worshippers of any mere man, ... or of a 
 graven image, or of a fire, in this the essential circum- 
 stance, that their worship is unauthorized, presumptuous, and 
 vain, while ours is divinely appointed." Moreover, " Jesus 
 Himself describes Himself, as not only conveying to us a 
 notion of the Father's character, but as possessing the Father's 
 power, offices, and attributes, and claiming the honour due to 
 the Father," so that he is " an image in which God is to be 
 adored." (pp. 40, 55.) ' It is pretty clear from all this, that 
 supposing any baptized Christian to have lived, by special 
 privilege, free from venial as well as mortal sin, and fully 
 possessed by the Spirit of God, the author would consider it 
 as a matter of formal and positive commandment, not of 
 abstract propriety, whether God might not appoint that He 
 should be worshipped in that Christian ; and when we have 
 imagined this hypothesis, and supposed further some indefi- 
 nite and provisional communication of Divine " power, offices, 
 and attributes," we shall have formed the whole idea which 
 Dr. Whately thinks deducible from Scripture, of our Lord's 
 Divine Nature.' 1 " 
 
 Now the belief, which the religious Christian, who has 
 once learned it, would rather die a death of torment, than 
 abandon the belief enshrined in the very depth of his 
 spiritual nature ; the belief which is the one main external 
 motive animating his courage, elevating his religious per- 
 ceptions, drawing his affections to the invisible world, is 
 a belief that He, who lived and died on earth for us, is 
 not an authorized image only, or emblem, of Almighty God, 
 but is Almighty God. The difference between these two is 
 absolutely infinite : we love our Blessed Lord as a Person ; 
 is His Personality human or divine ? This is no question of 
 scholastic subtlety: but it is the question, whether the 
 Christian's most cherished affections and aspirations have been 
 rightly bestowed or wrongly ; whether he be allowed to retain 
 that belief which is the happiness of his life, or be rudely 
 summoned to part with it. And should such a summons 
 come from those who profess, nay, consider themselves, to 
 r On St. Athan. pp. 3, 7.
 
 398 
 
 agree with him in all essential matters, but who call on him 
 not to refine unduly, nor insist on a particular form of 
 words, if it come from these, rather than from the profes- 
 sors of open heresy, surely the attack is even more painful 
 and distressing. " It is not an open enemy that hath done 
 me this dishonour, for then I could have borne it; but it 
 was even thou, my companion we walked in the house of 
 God as friends." 
 
 The contrast between the Archbishop's statement and 
 the Catholic doctrine will be placed in a striking light, 
 as I observed in the British Critic, if we take the instance of 
 our Blessed Lord's prayers. " When He prayed to His 
 Father," says Mr. Newman, " it was not the prayer of man 
 supplicating God, but of the Eternal Son of God, Who had 
 ever shared the glory of His Father, addressing Him, as 
 before, but under far other circumstances, and in a new way ; 
 not according to those most intimate and ineffable relations 
 which belonged to Him Who was in the bosom of the Father, 
 but in the economy of redemption, and in a lower world, viz. 
 through the feelings and thoughts of human nature" But the 
 Archbishop had before ruled, that to suppose that God, 
 when He said " Let us make man," addressed himself to 
 the Son, approaches very closely to the Arian Tritheism, 
 (Logic, Article, " Person") ; and according to his statement 
 just quoted, what can these prayers have possibly been (if 
 they were not a mere external representation and mockery) 
 but prayers of the Man Christ Jesus to that God, Who 
 dwells in Him without measure ; Whose authorized image He 
 has been constituted ? What real or substantial difference is 
 there between this and the Socinian statement? what dif- 
 ference is there not, as the very instinct of a well-instructed 
 Christian will perceive, between this statement and the Ca- 
 tholic Faith ? 
 
 The object of this examination is not the comparatively 
 unimportant and very invidious one of commenting on the 
 belief of an individual, but the object, extremely important 
 and free from all personal invidiousness, of commenting on 
 the belief prevalent in our Church. For the Archbishop of 
 Dublin, however much his opinions have been disliked
 
 399 
 
 on various matters of minor importance, most certainly 
 is not generally considered unsound on the highest points 
 of faith ; or in other words, language, which would inex- 
 pressibly shock the highest feelings of those who practically 
 believe and realise our Lord's Divinity has not, in point of 
 fact, at all shocked the great body of even serious and re- 
 ligious persons in our Church. Again, the sentiment just 
 quoted had been expressed many years ago still more plainly 
 by Dr. Hinds, whose works are frequently referred to by the 
 Archbishop, and with great praise. 
 
 ' In Christians, as in Christ Himself, there is an union of the 
 Godhead with man ; but we must beware of supposing that in the 
 two cases it is the same. Scripture declares that it is different ; but 
 does not further explain the difference, than by intimating that He 
 was individually, we only collectively, the temple of God. " T 
 
 A pamphlet, published nine years since, drew attention to 
 this quotation among others, and made the plain comment, 
 that " no Socinian that ever lived would scruple to acknow- 
 ledge " our Lord's Divinity in such a sense.* However this 
 may be, here was the passage fairly exhibited to the public, 
 and their judgment, as it were, demanded on it. Every one 
 knows, that that pamphlet was considered by numbers of 
 serious persons at the time to state things a great deal too 
 strongly ; while on the other hand no general feeling even of 
 alarm, much less of horror, seems to have been elicited by 
 such a passage as that of Dr. Hinds. The same tone, again, 
 is remarkably exhibited by Mr. Milman in his " History of 
 Christianity," as I observed in the same article. ' As in- 
 stances where this tone breaks out into the language of open 
 disbelief in His proper Divinity, I may mention such as 
 the following ; though they might be multiplied, I believe, 
 indefinitely, for I have almost taken the first which came to 
 hand. After the murder of St. John Baptist, " indications 
 of hostility from the government seem to have put Jesus on 
 
 ' Hinds' Three Temples, p. 48. 
 
 ' ' Foundation of the Faith assailed in Oxford,' p. 31.
 
 400 
 
 His guard" (p. 240.) Shortly before our Lord's Passion, 
 " at every step He feels Himself more inextricably within 
 their toils:" He dwells with a profound, though chastened 
 melancholy on His approaching fate."' (p. 300.) And in this 
 instance too, though 011 other grounds the work has been un- 
 popular, this, infinitely its most serious defect, has hardly, I 
 believe, received notice. In other words, the majority of 
 those who have read it, have not themselves any deep and 
 practical perception of that truth, which such a tone as I 
 speak of essentially contradicts. 
 
 It will now be clearer to the reader's mind, what is the 
 sort of practical unbelief which I impute to vast numbers in 
 our Church. From my own observation I should say, that 
 among many who would be reputed even preeminently ' safe 
 and orthodox,' there is a great repugnance to the use of 
 such plain and straightforward expressions, as ' God died 
 for us,' ' God was smitten on the face,' or St. Paul's own 
 phrase, ' God's Blood.' I do not mean that such persons 
 would merely shrink from using such expressions on light 
 and trivial occasions ; but that they would dissuade us from 
 framing them in our own heart at the most serious moments ; 
 in solemn addresses, prayers, or meditations. They would 
 prefer confining themselves to the phrase, ' Son of God ;' 
 which of course was amply sufficient before heresy rose, nay, 
 would be amply sufficient in a Church not pervaded by a 
 deeply heretical atmosphere ; but which, in such cases as I 
 speak of, cannot be even plausiby attributed to any other 
 cause, than an unwillingness fully to look in the face the 
 true doctrine, that ' The Man Jesus,' is not only the Son of 
 God, but is God ; and that He is the Son of God, not in that 
 He is Man, but in that He is God. 
 
 Mr. Oakeley has expressed the same opinion with great 
 clearness of language. 
 
 ' Among the heresies, upon the brink of which we stand, a certain 
 Nestorianism is far from being the least rife, as it is certainly one of 
 the most fearful. This peculiar spirit, the absence of a firm and 
 confident grasp of the great doctrine of our Lord's Divine
 
 401 
 
 Personality, seems to operate in different ways, according to the 
 character of the mind which it influences. The less reverent fall, 
 under it, into a painfully familiar way of speaking upon our Lord's 
 actions as Man, just as if ... He were ' a man,' as any other man, 
 and not God made Man. Thus persons speak of Him in words which 
 can be hardly breathed without profanation, as ' the greatest of 
 men,' or the like ; as though mere heroism might be predicated of 
 Him, who was Perfect God in every the least and lowliest of his 
 actions on earth. . . . With reverent minds this loose hold of 
 Catholic doctrine operates in quite another, far less dangerous, and 
 yet very dangerous, way. Not starting with a confident possession 
 of the great Athanasian Verity, that our Lord was one Christ, 
 . . . ' by taking of the manhood into God,' they are, so to say, shy 
 of confronting the doctrine of the Perfect Humanity in all its 
 bearings and necessary consequences. They cannot think of our 
 Blessed Lord, at least in detail, as Perfect Man, without an 
 apprehension, (worthy in them of all respect,) lest what they give 
 to the idea of His Humanity should be so much taken from His 
 Divinity. Thus they tend, however unconsciously, and at whatever 
 distance from formal heresy, to reduce the Manhood of our Lord to 
 a kind of shadowy existence.' * 
 
 Let us now then once more revert to the proofs which may 
 be adduced for the justice of this allegation. 
 
 Another very significant symptom of the same disease is 
 the general feeling towards the Gospels. If we in real truth 
 heartily believed, that the words and acts of God Incarnate 
 are, by the unspeakable mercy of God, preserved for our 
 reverent contemplation, we should look upon that record 
 with feelings wholly different in kind from our regard to the 
 rest of Scripture, however great should be our veneration for 
 the whole : other parts we should read, but this part we 
 should, as it were, pore over and spell. And this has been 
 found to result, in times or countries in which men have 
 really believed in Him as God. They have dwelt on every 
 little particular of the visit of the Shepherds, and worship 
 of the Magians ; or they have counted His last words, and 
 honoured, one by one, His adorable wounds ; just as they have 
 looked with feelings of awe and love towards the ground 
 
 ' Introduction to translation of Life of Christ,' p. xxiv. 
 
 2 D
 
 402 
 
 which His sacred feet trod, and felt it a scandal and a shame 
 that infidels should possess it. But so far is this from being 
 the case amongst ourselves, that men of very different religi- 
 ous parties have united in professing that the Epistles are 
 even a. preferable study for the Christian. They defend this 
 statement, by saying that Christian doctrines will there be 
 found most clearly drawn out : were we to grant this for argu- 
 ment's sake, what would follow, but that they love our Lord's 
 doctrines more than His Person ? the very charge childishly 
 and absurdly brought against Catholic believers. And if we 
 love His doctrines more than His Person, we either love cer- 
 tain doctrines more than we love God, or we do not practi- 
 cally believe in Him as God. 
 
 Again, observe to how great an extent the very idea had 
 gone out from our Church, until quite lately, of afflicting 
 ourselves at stated times in sympathy with His sufferings, 
 or of so realising His sufferings as to make the thought of 
 them a matter of personal sorrow and depression of heart. 
 Is it in human nature to read such accounts as those con- 
 tained in our services for Holy Week, and to know that each 
 sin of ours bore its part in aggravating the pangs He en- 
 dured, and yet feel nothing like distress and anguish of mind, 
 if we really love Him ? or shall we say, that those multitudes 
 in our Church, to whom the notion of such distress and an- 
 guish has seemed strange, fantastical, unaccountable, contain 
 in their number none who really love God ? If this be, as I 
 most readily acknowledge, an unbearably harsh censure, what 
 follows (as in the last case) but that they do not really feel 
 that He is God ? 
 
 To the same head may be referred the strange misconcep- 
 tion, so common among Protestants, on the Catholic belief in 
 the Real Presence. Members of our Church have quite com- 
 monly regarded the doctrine in question, as being nothing more 
 (if such words may be uttered) than a sort of unmeaning con- 
 juration ; and have felt no little contempt for those, who 
 could erect it into a sacred article of faith. Now, whether 
 or not they ought themselves to accept this doctrine (which 
 is another matter), that this should be their opinion of its 
 real nature, is a fact which I find it very difficult indeed to
 
 103 
 
 reconcile, with any real belief on their part (speaking of them 
 as a class) in another doctrine which they do consider them- 
 selves bound to accept. For if union with God be our only 
 happiness here below, a belief in that closer and more intimate 
 union, which must result from His mixing, as it were, His 
 human nature with ours, and thus drawing us into ineffable 
 proximity with the Divine Essence, such a belief must be to 
 those able to receive it an occasion for the liveliest joy and 
 gratitude. And those who are unable to fancy that any real 
 value is attached to it, and regard the zealous and unflinching 
 maintenance of it as the mere mark of formalism and unspiri- 
 tuality, afford surely the strongest presumption, that they have 
 no real and true grasp of that fundamental doctrine, which gives 
 this other belief its meaning and its preciousness, the union of 
 the divine and human natures in One Divine Person. In- 
 deed, there is no subject on which the contrast is so striking, 
 to which I have had formerly to draw attention, between the 
 intellectual apprehension of those who spiritually realise a 
 doctrine and of those who do not. For a religious Catholic 
 regards this miracle as the very master-piece, the very crowning 
 instance, of exuberant love ; beyond which even God's Infinite 
 Mercy can hardly find it possible to have vent: and its 
 scientific discussion and definition he contemplates with that 
 deep and breathless emotion, which is naturally called forth 
 by the mere circumstance of the mind being occupied, for a 
 length of time, in the thought of what it prizes beyond words. 
 And as the believer regards this as the sublimest display of 
 Divine Mercy, so does the unbeliever (may he be forgiven the 
 blasphemy !) as the lowest exhibition of human imbecility. The 
 astonishment of the Infidel or the Protestant is as full of 
 bitter contempt, as the wonder of the Catholic is animated by 
 the highest emotions of love, gratitude, and adoring awe. 
 
 Lastly, the circumstance of the question being even en- 
 tertained, whether modern Unitarians are in any true sense 
 Christians, implies, in those who entertain it, a strange ig- 
 norance of the truth which Unitarians deny ; for surely their 
 point of difference with orthodox Christians, is incomparably 
 more momentous than their point of difference with avowed 
 
 2 D 2
 
 404 
 
 infidels. In fact, who can compare in moment the question, 
 whether God has, or has not, made, by His servant, a special 
 revelation, with that other question, whether He has, or has 
 not, Himself taken on Him our nature and visited this earth ? 
 or how is it possible for those, who answer the latter question 
 in the affirmative, to regard their opponents in any other 
 light, than as rejecting that one fact, which gives to human 
 nature itself its unapproachable interest and importance? 
 If those are looked upon as on the whole brethren, who agree 
 with us in the external visible facts of Christianity, but who 
 differ, not less than infinitely, as to the real meaning of those 
 facts; while those are looked upon as adversaries, who dis- 
 believe the external facts also ; those who take such a view 
 of things (considering them as a class, and allowing for in- 
 dividual instances of prejudice or intellectual indistinctness) 
 bear witness against their own belief, and testify that they 
 have hardly a more real appreciation of the meaning of those 
 facts, than have the Unitarians themselves. But that a pro- 
 fessed Unitarian should come among a body, which claims to 
 be the chief pillar of an orthodox Church, and should re- 
 ceive at their hands, not courtesy merely or attention, but 
 public honour ; that in a place where the students recite 
 many times in the year the Athanasian Creed, with its dam- 
 natory clauses, and where a profession is made of teaching 
 them accordingly, of teaching them that, except for invincible 
 ignorance, an Unitarian is wholly out of the way of Christian 
 salvation, that in such a place a project should have been 
 entertained of introducing an individual openly avowing that 
 heresy into the Academical assembly, with a highly eulogistic 
 speech, and placing him 'honoris causa,' before the eyes of 
 those students, in the highest rank; nay, that this project 
 should either have succeeded, or have failed of success only 
 by an unforeseen accident ; this is a circumstance, which of 
 itself might lead one seriously to ask, how soon open apostacy 
 from the faith is likely to take the place, among us, of the 
 huge mass of secret and unconscious unbelief. 
 
 I trust no one can attribute either this statement, or the 
 course taken on the occasion to which I allude, to feelings of
 
 405 
 
 personal hostility or Academical discontent. Those who 
 then acted a most painful and trying part, certainly took 
 every means in their power to guard against such a miscon- 
 ception. And again, speaking for myself, I am sure that the 
 language I have used in the British Critic towards Mr. John 
 Mill, whom his writings have compelled me to charge with 
 far worse unbelief than Unitarianism, may shew that I have 
 no desire to join in an indiscriminating and fanatical outcry. 
 But surely it is one thing to make every allowance for indi- 
 viduals, under the fearful eclipse which the Truth now suffers, 
 or even to be ready and anxious in displaying all courtesy 
 and considerateness in our private demeanour ; and quite a 
 different, or rather a very contrary thing, to allow them to 
 forget that we consider the matter at issue between us as in- 
 finitely momentous, or to give them public honour in an in- 
 stitution founded on Christian belief. The very contrary 
 thing, I say ; for it is precisely that feeling of personal con- 
 siderateness and tenderness inclining us to the first, which 
 would also at once forbid the last. They may be wholly 
 blameless in their unbelief; it is impossible to form even a 
 guess whether they are not so ; but we cannot be blameless, 
 if, seeing the truth, we take one single step which may lessen 
 their sense of the importance of seeking it. u 
 
 Indifference then to the very central Verity of the Gospel 
 being prevalent among us, to the fearful extent I have 
 endeavoured to describe, we cannot wonder, however keenly 
 we may mourn, at the decline and fall of dogmatic theology. 
 When the faith itself becomes again precious in our eyes, so 
 also will that superhuman science, which alone can defend 
 and secure it. As it is, the great body of ' high Churchmen' 
 seem hardly more alive to its preeminent dignity than others. 
 For example, Mr. Newman's translation and notes on St. 
 Athanasius' doctrinal treatises, have hardly excited the least 
 sensation ; though that work (to say nothing more) is certainly 
 
 u ' Seeking it :' 1 mean, of course, not by Scripture exegesis or free inquiry, 
 but by more earnestly acting on their existing principles ; by self- discipline, much 
 prayer, devotional reading of Scripture, and studying the life and the belief of holy
 
 406 
 
 the most remarkable accession to dogmatic theology that has 
 been made within our memory, and is perhaps the greatest 
 of all his works. Nay, and the very authorized education for 
 Orders seems to consist far more (a thing that would have 
 been thought incredible in other ages) in the exegetical 
 interpretation of Scripture, or else the discussion of such 
 merely ecclesiastical subjects as Episcopal jurisdiction and 
 the validity of lay Baptism, than in the scientific analysis 
 and exposition of those great Mysteries, the Trinity and the 
 Incarnation ; those Mysteries, the science of which has ever 
 been considered in the Church the one fit and adequate ob- 
 ject for the Christian intellect, as the thought of them is the 
 life and happiness of the Christian soul. All our attention 
 seems directed to the outworks ; while we leave the world to 
 wonder, what can be the cause of that jealous care with which 
 we labour to preserve them, when we ourselves speak so little, 
 and seem to think so little, of the very treasure which they 
 were given to defend. Dr. Wordsworth, as one symptom of 
 this, publishes a volume, (Theophilus Anglicanus,) ' the occa- 
 sion and object of which,' so his preface tells us, ' is to supply 
 a book suited to the purpose of catechizing scholars in the 
 highest class of a Grammar School ' such as Harrow. The 
 whole work is, if I may use such a phrase, ecclesiastical : 
 no methodical teaching about sin, original and actual; the 
 efficacy of prayer ; the gift of grace ; the union of the Divine 
 and Human natures in our Blessed Lord ; the mysterious 
 Trinity in Unity ; or whatever else most closely concerns the 
 inward life : but all his energy is directed to such matters, as 
 ' lawful ministry,' ' uninterrupted succession,' ' Church and 
 State ;' topics in themselves quite essential to be considered 
 in due time and place, but which cannot surely be made 
 the prominent features of any exhibition of Christianity, 
 ' without causing our notions of religious faith and precept 
 to be stiff, barren, and most distressingly formal.' 
 
 I cannot be supposed to mean any thing disrespectful to 
 Dr. Wordsworth personally ; for I am merely citing this work 
 as an example, ready at hand, of a method of procedure, which 
 seems even on the increase among us, as 'high-Church'
 
 407 
 
 principles advance. And what can be the result of all this in 
 our pulpits and general teaching, except that, according to a 
 quotation I lately cited from the Christian Remembrancer, 
 doctrines are held by our flocks, according to the accident 
 of their locality and opportunities, irreconcilably discordant 
 from each other on matters which are the most intimately 
 bound up with the life of the soul; nay, on all matters, 
 except only our Church's immaculate purity and Rome's 
 incurable corruptions. And hence it further follows, by 
 necessary consequence, as I said in the second chapter, that 
 to a miserable extent the people fall into a habit of hearing 
 religious words without attaching to them any definite mean- 
 ing, and the voice of the preacher becomes to them almost 
 as ' sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal.' 
 
 Such being the practical disbelief of English Churchmen 
 in the truth, which they consider themselves to prize beyond 
 all others, it will not astonish us that in particulars, which 
 they themselves consider less important, as till greater indif- 
 ference exists. The doctrine, which may be perhaps con- 
 sidered to come nearest in practical moment to that which we 
 have been discussing, is the Indwelling of the Holy Ghost. 
 This is almost in terms denied by numbers, who preeminently 
 claim the character of spiritual Christians ; they plainly pro- 
 fess, that our works done under the Gospel are, as a matter of 
 doctrine, 'filthy rags:' or in other words, are not intrinsically 
 acceptable to God. Since then they cannot believe that the 
 Holy Ghost is the Agent of these works, they are led to con- 
 fine his office to the inspiration of good desires ; and since it 
 is certain that Christians have the Holy Ghost in some distinct 
 sense from heathens, the more clear-sighted and consecutive are 
 led on to Luther's shocking sentiment, that the heathens had 
 no good desires. So few are sometimes the steps, which lead, 
 from abstract heresy, to practical paradoxes the most repulsive 
 and demoralizing. Yet even of those among us who are not 
 avowedly infected with this heresy, numbers are so far at 
 least tainted as to shrink from calling it heresy ; or, in other 
 words, to be unconscious of its utter irreconcilableness with 
 the most essential principles of the Gospel. In like manner,
 
 a doctrine which, as belonging to natural religion, is even 
 more primary than the most sacred of Revelation, I allude 
 to future judgment according to works, is formally repu- 
 diated as antichristian by multitudes of the same class ; and 
 even those who do not proceed to such utterly fanatical and 
 immoral lengths, are sometimes slow, in positively affirming 
 that our future reward is proportioned to our works done in 
 the Holy Ghost on earth ; and still oftener slow, in affixing 
 the brand of heresy on the error which denies this. 
 
 We cannot wonder then that a dimness of spiritual vision, 
 which could not beforehand have been thought possible in 
 ordinarily serious Christians, does in fact characterise great 
 part of the more religious among ourselves. Nothing, e. g., is 
 more common, in attacking Roman Catholics, than to say that 
 Purgatory (as it is more ordinarily received among them) is 
 a frightfully cruel doctrine, because it speaks of purgatorial 
 flames as being equal in intensity to those of Hell. Roman 
 Catholics answer, that souls in purgatory preserve not faith 
 only and hope, but even the love of God; and that this 
 makes the widest possible difference between the two cases. 
 But such a reply is continually treated as a * hair-splitting ' 
 subterfuge, a mere evasion. Yet St. Alphonsus, like other 
 spiritual writers, not once only, but repeatedly expresses the 
 sentiment, that where love of God exists, there must be 
 really happiness, whatever the accompanying pain ; and that 
 where it is absent, there must be misery, whatever the accom- 
 panying pleasure. The distinction then between having and 
 not having the habit of love, is not merely not unimportant, 
 but beyond all others important ; yet Protestants (even some 
 who appear not destitute of religious seriousness) continually 
 speak, as though the very idea of the happiness caused by 
 this habit were a stranger to their mind. What I have said 
 will probably recall to the reader's mind a number of similar 
 instances, which are perhaps more often met in this particular 
 controversy than in any other ; but which it is not necessary 
 to specify. 
 
 Lastly, when a Church not only omits to take the neces- 
 sary means for teaching orthodoxy, but manifestly and in
 
 409 
 
 the face of day tolerates heterodoxy, a still graver matter 
 is suggested for our consideration. It is a notorious fact that 
 from the Reformation downwards three parties have, in 
 varying measures, divided among them the English Church ; 
 the 'high-church,' the ' evangelical,' the ' latitudinarian :' and 
 all have received practical toleration. Those who graft the 
 Gospel on natural religion, those who have devised or in- 
 herited a Gospel which contradicts natural religion, and 
 those who deny that there is any one assemblage of doctrines 
 which possesses an exclusive right to be called the Gospel, all 
 these it has been sometimes, in the blindness of our arrogance, 
 made a matter of boast that the English Church includes within 
 her pale. And to go to other controverted questions, (not so 
 vitally important indeed as these, but still of exceeding im- 
 portance,) the experience of the last few months shews, that a 
 public denial of Sacramental grace, and an assertion of the 
 right possessed by each man to draw his faith for himself from 
 Scripture, may be publicly and formally put forward by a 
 number of her ministers, with no censure from ecclesiastical au- 
 thority. The extracts again, which I made from Archbishop 
 Whately, have received no formal censure or disavowal ; nay ? 
 a writer, whom the present Bishop of London characterises 
 as a Socinian, died a Bishop of our Church. x A Society so 
 ordered, may be still, by God's inscrutable mercy, a channel of 
 Divine grace, as our Church is ; but it is literally unmeaning 
 to speak of it as a Dispenser or Witness of religious Truth. 
 We cannot learn doctrine from the English Church, if we 
 would ; for she teaches no uniform doctrine to be learned. 
 
 6. So powerless has our Church been to train her children 
 in these most essential of all requisites, an obedient life and 
 an orthodox faith ; it is no matter of wonder then that we 
 see among us so few who exemplify, nay, who possess the 
 power of appreciating, the true Catholic character. For we 
 
 * Bishop Hoadley. The Bishop of London compares with this case that of 
 Pope Leo X., whom he represents to have been an infidel. Waiving the historical 
 controversy, such an opinion could not be based on his writings or on any overt act, 
 but only on surmises and rumours, well or ill-founded. But this makes the whole 
 difference between cases which a Church can notice and those which it cannot. 
 Bishop Hoadley's heretical opinions were plainly avowed, and yet not censured.
 
 410 
 
 shall perhaps not wander far from the truth, if we say that 
 wherever such characteristics are found as the following; 
 1. a consistent, however frail and imperfect, fulfilment of the 
 whole law ; 2. a belief (implicit or explicit matters not) in 
 such fundamentals as the Trinity, the Incarnation, and the 
 Office of the Holy Ghost ; 3. a practical realisation of the 
 Communion of Saints in daily devotion and daily action ; 
 there the Catholic character exists in all its essential and 
 universal features: and most certainly we shall not wander 
 from the truth, when we confidently assert the converse ; 
 that wherever any one of these features should be absent, 
 (supposing the impossible case that one could be absent while 
 the others remain intact,) an indispensable constituent of that 
 character would be wanting. Now on the mutual action and 
 reaction of the first two, among the three characteristics just 
 recited, enough has been said in what has gone before : while 
 the last may readily be implanted as an offshoot from either 
 of those two ; from the first, as springing from that veneration 
 of the saintly character which holy obedience inspires ; from 
 the second, as intimately connected with a fit appreciation of 
 the Office of the Holy Ghost. It follows then at once, as 
 I started by saying, that it is no possible matter of surprise, 
 when we observe how little the Catholic model is understood 
 among us, and how small the amount of gratitude due to our 
 present system even for that little. It follows also, that those 
 who desire, in their place and according to their power and 
 opportunity, to assist in the great task now in progress of 
 building up our unhappy and prostrate Church, must con- 
 centrate their energies on this one object; the object of 
 devising the means whereby, saving her existing framework, 
 she may be able to perform, with less deplorable inefficiency, 
 these her primary duties. 
 
 Indeed until these are in some adequate measure per- 
 formed, others are incapable of performance. For instance, 
 that attention to the public Service of the Church both in 
 its more frequent and more solemn celebration, which is 
 doubtless one of the many cheering features of our time, 
 must surely be considered rather as encouraging for the
 
 411 
 
 future, than conferring any extensive benefit for the present ; 
 and must so be considered, until our attention shall have 
 been more generally and methodically directed to the main- 
 tenance and cultivation of personal obedience and personal 
 orthodoxy: for, as I observed in the second chapter, any 
 formal and stated service of prayer, ' if not closely connected 
 with a strict government of the inward life, by an inevitable 
 necessity declines more or less into hollowness and formalism.' 
 On the other hand, it must never be denied or concealed ' that 
 an ordered and minute ceremonial, solemn ministrations, pros- 
 trations, obeisances, and other external signs of our religion, 
 that all these, which to the world appear but the dictates of 
 a miserable and contemptible formalism, are full of beauty 
 and delight to the Catholic mind. It is the very charac- 
 teristic of all beauty, that those who happen not to have 
 a temperament disposed to receive its impressions, regard 
 those impressions as absurd and fantastical. What can ap- 
 pear more trifling and childish, than the love of natural 
 scenery, except to those who feel it as beautiful and trans- 
 porting ? That a rational being shall derive pleasure from 
 fixing his eyes on a mere assemblage of trees, hills, and 
 hedges, nay, shall go a journey of many days, and of much 
 trouble and expense, with the sole object of enjoying such 
 a sight, how weak and ridiculous ! Just so argue men of 
 the present day, when there is a question about Catholic 
 Ceremonial; they fall into the common mistake of the 
 bigotted and narrow-minded, and fancy that external objects 
 cannot be to others most ravishing and transporting, merely 
 because to them they are but empty husks and an unsub- 
 stantial outside. Even of Shakspeare's often-quoted eulogy 
 on music (' the man that hath not music,' &c.) a celebrated 
 commentator has been found to say : 
 
 * This passage . . .furnishes the vacant fiddkr with something to say 
 in defence of his profession, and supplies the coxcomb in music with 
 an invective against such as do not pretend to discover all the 
 various powers of language in inarticulate sounds ;" 
 
 > Steevcns ad locum.
 
 412 
 
 where we find that tone of bitter and contemptuous sarcasm, 
 even in regard to so very general a taste as that for music, 
 which will at once remind my reader of the would-be philoso- 
 phical Protestant, in his remarks whether on the Athanasian 
 Creed, or (which is more to the present purpose) on the 
 Apostolical Liturgies. 
 
 However, as I began by fully acknowledging, nothing but 
 formalism can result, if we make outward ceremonial our 
 first or most prominent object ; nor can we therefore revive 
 it with any advantage, until we have made a foundation for 
 it by implanting the first elements of the Catholic character. 
 Take, again, such other duties of a Church as I specified in 
 my second chapter ; and first consider what may be called her 
 intellectual duties. For example, how can an authorized 
 view of Biblical Criticism be obtained, unless that science be 
 wholly based on a living, energetic, and consistent fabric of 
 dogmatic theology ? Until we have deeply and fully realised, 
 as a whole, the faith which St. Paul preached, how can we 
 profitably distribute it, as it were, rightly among the various 
 passages of his Epistles ? Who would tolerate a similar ab- 
 surdity in common life ? who would profess to interpret the 
 letters addressed by some human philosopher to the students 
 he has instructed, without first acquainting themselves, by 
 every attainable means, with the philosophical doctrines he 
 had taught ? Nor is this any denial of the truth, that Scrip- 
 ture furnishes a sufficient proof of Christian doctrine to those 
 who have learned it from the Church ; so far from it, that in 
 the parallel case there could not be devised by possibility a 
 more satisfactory proof, that the inquirers had rightly under- 
 stood the philosophical system, than the circumstance, that it 
 would give a meaning to these letters, so far deeper and more 
 pregnant than they would otherwise receive. Biblical Criti- 
 cism then will ever remain on the whole a delusive science, 
 (whatever valuable materials may be in course of preparation 
 for the Catholic Expositor, through the intellectual power 
 and activity of Protestant inquirers,) until it shall be culti- 
 vated by thinkers, who have been, as a preliminary, deeply 
 imbued with the Catholic Faith. Just as no one could un- 
 derstand the spirit and drift of Luther's expressions, one by
 
 413 
 
 one, except he who shall have laboured to imbibe what may 
 be calle*d the Lutheran atmosphere of thought ; so neither 
 can any one enter into the deep words of Scripture, except in 
 proportion as he shall have been indoctrinated in the faith by 
 a pure and Scriptural Church. And as to Catholic history 
 and Catholic philosophy, it is still more evident, on the very 
 statement, that they can be only promoted by one deeply 
 rooted in the Catholic Faith. 
 
 And this is even more the case, with what I have called 
 the Church's political duties. How can she hope to obtain 
 so much as a hearing from a luxurious nobility, or from a 
 legislature almost compelled to be the slave of momentary 
 shifts and time-serving expedients, or from a middle class 
 wholly absorbed in the ceaseless press of secular business 
 and the feverish thirst of worldly gain, how can she, I say, 
 hope to obtain so much as a hearing, (not from this or that 
 individual, but) from these classes of men, when she endea- 
 vours, as God's Vicegerent on earth, to impress on their con- 
 sciences the duties of their several stations, and eagerly and 
 clamorously warns them against their besetting sins ? How 
 can she hope to 'cry aloud and spare not,' and meet with 
 aught in return save insolent contempt or forcible suppression 
 of her voice ? There is only one fashion of instruments, which 
 will avail her ; of one and one only kind are the weapons, which 
 she can oppose to worldly haughtiness and cruelty : these in- 
 struments, these weapons, are Saints and saintly men. The 
 very presence of a class of Christians, who shew in their 
 whole lives and demeanour that they are dead to secular cares 
 and pleasures, and that their hearts and aifections are ab- 
 sorbed in Heavenly realities ; men who live a mortified life, a 
 life above the world ; who choose poverty, and vow celibacy, 
 and refuse wealth and distinction even when offered ; this it 
 is, which is an evidence of the unseen world that none can 
 gainsay or resist, and which exercises an influence over the 
 most careless or the most obdurate, against their will, almost 
 without their knowledge. Contempt here is impossible ; 
 respect and admiration are extorted from the mass of men, 
 in spite of themselves. And for that other alternative, to
 
 414. 
 
 which I just alluded, the silencing them by force, (an alter- 
 native, in respect of which we have already very significant 
 indications, how far greater a tendency there will be to its 
 adoption, than the maxims now generally current would lead 
 us to imagine,) let it be remembered, that such men as I 
 describe will impose on their oppressors the full labour and 
 odium of persecution carried to its extreme length. Nothing 
 will stifle their importunate clamours, except irresistible 
 physical force ; and it is by this time pretty well understood 
 in politics, that such force, when exerted against a righteous 
 cause, inflicts on the individual a suffering which he covets, 
 and carries forth to every corner of the land the truth which 
 he witnesses. 
 
 Still more obvious is the truth here maintained, in regard 
 tp by far the most important part of all a Church's political 
 duties ; the protection and consolation of the poor. On this 
 subject, human science is even at the present moment 
 brought to a stand, like some powerful steam-engine with- 
 out hands to work it, for want of a mass of data, which, with 
 our present machinery, cannot by possibility be supplied. 
 Let us see a band of enthusiastic men, self-devoted to the 
 cause, many of them following at an infinite distance the 
 steps of Him ' who, though He were rich, yet for our sakes 
 became poor,' all of them like to the poor in their manner of 
 life, and like to the rich in their knowledge and education, 
 except that the latter is deeply impregnated, in every par- 
 ticular, with the Catholic doctrine and spirit; let us see such 
 men as these dispersed, as one may say, in swarms, among 
 our crowded manufacturing towns, bringing by their very 
 presence both encouragement and edification ; full of that 
 tender loving-kindness, which Catholic discipline alone im- 
 plants ; and looking on the poor, in the light which Catholics 
 do look on them, as sacramental tokens of the Lord's nearer 
 presence ; what would not be the result ? Soon would that 
 suspicion dissolve, which is perhaps even the most fearful 
 sign of the times, that deep and rankling suspicion enter- 
 tained by the poor, that those above them are not really 
 interested in their happiness and well-being ; soon would
 
 4-15 
 
 they open all their griefs to these loving and intelligent sympa- 
 thisers : what distresses, bodily or mental, most severely press 
 upon them ; what are their chief spiritual or temporal 
 enemies; what the causes of their most corroding anxiety, 
 or their most desponding apathy ; these and a thousand 
 other particulars, now so hopelessly concealed from those 
 who might devise a remedy, would come forth to light ; and 
 human science, powerless while confined to definitions and 
 abstractions, might now at length exert its mighty aid in 
 devising means of solace and relief. 
 
 Nor are these holy men, or again, devoted women, less 
 imperatively required as ministers of relief, than as investi- 
 gators of distress. Science is no less hopelessly unequal to 
 the task of relieving without a body of special and trained 
 ministers, than to that of theorizing without a body of 
 diversified and well-authenticated facts. Never has there 
 been a more ill-omened separation, than that which has 
 taken place of late years, between the spirit of exuberant 
 and religious charity and the deliberate calculations of 
 methodical and cool-headed science. It is perfectly con- 
 ceivable, for all that I know it may be quite true, that the 
 existing race of political economists have been shallow and 
 superficial ; but to deny that there is a science on the 
 subject, and one most closely concerned with human happi- 
 ness in such a state of Society as our own, this is one 
 of the most extraordinary allegations that has been made 
 even in our age ; an age so fertile in extraordinary alle- 
 gations. y And on the other hand, to dream that such a 
 science can in any the slightest degree supersede, or can 
 have by possibility a more worthy or more important func- 
 tion than to direct and facilitate, the personal self-sacrifice 
 and self-devotion of the rich, is a fancy that tends even to 
 excuse the former allegation ; and is the dictate of a more 
 stupid and bigotted fanaticism, than any of which I ever 
 heard in the history of religions, true or false. The presence 
 
 y See an admirable article of Mr. John Mill's on the province of Political Economy, 
 in the London and Westminster Review : now published separately with a few ' 
 other essays.
 
 416 
 
 of such men as I have described, among our crowded and 
 miserable population ; imparting such spiritual discipline 
 and instruction, as that to which I have alluded in the early 
 part of this chapter; and administering also the temporal 
 relief supplied by the Church's richer members, according to 
 a wisely-devised and well- digested plan ; their presence, 
 I say, would be as some fertilizing and irrigating stream, 
 which should be caused to flow upon a parched and dreary 
 waste. True comforters would they be, true ministers of 
 the Holy Ghost in His Blessed Office ; performing, as His 
 instruments, the work which the Church in communion with 
 Rome yearly prays Him to perform : 
 
 " O Lux Beatissima, reple cordis intima tuorum fidelium. 
 
 " Sine Tuo Numine nihil est in horaine nihil est innoxium. 
 
 " Lava quod est sordidum, riga quod est aridum, sana quod 
 
 est saucium, 
 " Flecte quod est rigidum, fove quod estfrigidum, rege quod est 
 
 devium" z 
 
 When we consider the festering mass of misery prevailing 
 among our poor population, of which I gave a few specimens 
 in the second chapter, and which even the most reckless 
 begin now to regard with something like dismay, insomuch 
 that the continued preservation among us of our idolized 
 ' peace and order,' seems almost a standing miracle ; surely 
 the promise of rearing such a body of men is one which the 
 mere worldly politician will hail with sympathy, and with an 
 anxious hope to find the promise fulfilled. But the notion of 
 rearing them without the discipline of the Confessional, or 
 without the inculcation of the full Orthodox Faith, is a theory 
 than which no dream of Utopia was ever more fantastical ; 
 reason disproves it, experience refutes it. Strange as it 
 might have seemed, the science of dogmatic theology has a 
 more essential place in the conferring of temporal benefits on 
 our large towns, than (what I am sure I have shewn no 
 disposition to under-rate) the science of political economy 
 
 z Sequence on Whitsunday. This most beautiful hymn, ' Veni Sancte Spiritus,. 
 is attributed to Innocent III.
 
 417 
 
 itself. The indispensable and paramount importance of the 
 former science, is indeed a subject of which I must not be 
 considered to have exhausted my defence, in the few hints I 
 have thrown out in the present work ; so far from it, that I 
 have only touched the more superficial features of the sub- 
 ject. To draw out the full case for it, would require by itself 
 not less than a volume : and it would both take me much too 
 far from more immediate and pressing matters, and would 
 also require the application of more careful thought and 
 analysis, than my present time allows. Even in the political 
 world, Mr. John Mill has made the striking observation, 
 that, " speculative philosophy, which to the superficial ap- 
 pears a thing so remote from the business of life and the out- 
 ward interests of man, is in reality the thing on earth which 
 most influences them ;" and when the facts are brought into 
 full light which corroborate this remark, it will be a compara- 
 tively easy task to shew, how far more deeply and extensively 
 true would be the same observation, applied to dogmatic theo- 
 logy. Having guarded myself then against misconstruction, 
 I will here add another incidental benefit of this study, 
 closely bearing on the present subject. 
 
 If any one supposes, that we can enjoy the services of a 
 large class of men, who shall be ardent and enthusiastic 
 in their devotional feelings, and yet precise, technical, and 
 measured in the language of their religious and practical 
 addresses, he is of course extravagantly mistaken. Those 
 who are really, and not as a mere matter of words, impressed 
 with the necessity of unremitting individual exertion in order 
 to escape condemnation, will call on their hearers, like 
 St. Paul, to save themselves; those who really feel the 
 efficacy of personal ministrations, will speak, with the same 
 holy Apostle, of saving others ; those who desire that their 
 hearers shall understand the great benefit of preaching or 
 the unspeakable power of prayer, will say, with St. James, 
 that ' the word ' or that ' prayer ' is able to ' save ,-' a those 
 
 ' By hope we are saved' (Rom. viii. 24) ; ' In doing this thou shalt sure 
 thyself (1 Tim. iv. 16) ; ' The word is able to save your souls,' (James i. 21) ; 
 ' If by any means / might save some of them' (Rom. xii. 14) ;' How knowest
 
 418 
 
 whose thoughts are ever with the citizens of the New and 
 Heavenly Jerusalem, will exhaust the human language in 
 finding epithets to praise worthily the Blessed Saints and 
 their Queen. And so far will all this be from implying a 
 momentary forgetfulness of the doctrine of the Atonement, 
 or of the infinite superiority of God over His Saints, that on 
 the contrary the deep and habitual impression of these truths 
 on their mind, the full possession and appropriation of them 
 as of first principles, will prevent them from even suspecting 
 the possibility of such language leading to misconception: 
 nor, in a healthy state of things, will it lead to misconception 
 unless indeed possibly in the last case, of which more a few 
 lines on. But among us at present, ordinary Christians, 
 nay, men of a confessedly indevout and careless life, have 
 the effrontery to carp at such expressions as those just 
 cited, and to criticise the individual phrases of holy and mor- 
 tified men ; not as calling them injudicious, (which is quite 
 a different matter,) but as gravely imputing to them unsound- 
 ness of faith. This habit of wanton and most presump- 
 tuous suspicion must cease to receive one moment's tolera- 
 tion from our rulers, if they desire really to obtain the 
 services of holy and devoted men. It is impossible for 
 Christians to ripen into Saints, if ordinary men are allowed 
 to sit in judgment on their conduct and expressions ; any 
 more than in practical life a man could learn a difficult art, 
 if he were required to adjust his course of study to the wishes 
 of the uninstructed multitude. There must be the fullest 
 and liveliest acknowledgment, that self-discipline and holy 
 obedience are the only keys which will unlock the treasure 
 of religious truth ; and that the multitude have to learn from 
 them, not they from the multitude. We cannot unite con- 
 tradictories ; we cannot have Lutheran doctrine and saintly 
 
 thou whether thou shalt save thy husband ' (1 Cor. vii. 16.) ; ' The prayer of 
 faith shall save the sick' (James v. 15) ; ' He shall save a soul from death ' 
 (ib. 20) ; ' Others save with fear' (Jude 23) ; ' By hope we are saved' (Rom. viii. 
 24) ; ' By the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost he saved 
 us' (Tit. iii. 5) ; ' Baptism saves us' (1 Pet. iii. 21). 
 
 These instances, except the last, are taken from Dr. Pusey's first Appendix to his 
 Sermon for the 5th of November.
 
 419 
 
 practice: we cannot have Christ and Antichrist; we must 
 make our choice between them. 
 
 Now as to those who cannot fairly say that, in any true 
 sense, the doing of God's will is one principal object of their 
 life day by day, when such men express an opinion on 
 their own responsibility as to religious doctrine, they perpe- 
 trate the same absurdity, as if a person who has not learned 
 his letters were to criticise another's orthography ; and they 
 should receive no reply, except stern rebuke and reprehen- 
 sion. But it is a very different matter with serious and 
 earnest Christians ; nor can any thing be more deeply de- 
 plorable, than that Christ's true servants should be kept 
 asunder by mutual misunderstandings and suspicions, in- 
 stead of uniting as one body against sin and the world. 
 Such men should remember, that however invaluable their 
 conscience may be as a guide to themselves in important 
 matters, and however quick and sagacious in recognising 
 holiness and detecting unreality and hypocrisy, it can give 
 them no help whatever in understanding the individual 
 statements of a holy man. And this they would learn, to 
 come to the more immediate point, if there were an author- 
 ized body of doctors, who have made dogmatic theology the 
 one study of their lives, and whose practical pursuit is to 
 keep guard on it, as it were, throughout the Church. No 
 one hears of a vulgar prejudice against Newton's theory, 
 however strange or paradoxical it must appear to the popular 
 mind ; and theological prejudice would be equally rare, if 
 there also a body of instructors existed, accordant in their 
 decisions, and possessed of the people's confidence. These 
 would be able by deep acquaintance with the subject, and 
 a practised habit of observing the phenomena connected with 
 it, to see at once the real and deep orthodoxy of such holy 
 men ; an orthodoxy so incalculably more real and deep 
 than that of the objectors. And seeing this, they would lead 
 the praiseworthy zeal for purity of faith, which they have 
 found existing, into a more wholesome channel, by directing 
 it against those who, possessed neither of a single-minded 
 zeal nor of lofty spiritual aspirations, are in real truth 
 
 2 K 2
 
 420 
 
 sapping the foundations of religion by introducing the intel- 
 lect as lord of the spiritual heritage ; and whose sentiments 
 are the more poisonous, from the very circumstance that the 
 abstract discussion turns on points, whose unspeakable im- 
 portance cannot be made clear to the non-theological eye. 
 At the same time this body of dogmatic teachers, while 
 doing the fullest and most loving justice to the deep ortho- 
 doxy and holiness of these quasi-missionaries, might exercise 
 their judgment on a farther point, viz. how far such language 
 about the blessed Saints might at least be of a misleading 
 tendency : and thus it might quite possibly happen, that 
 certain expressions, fully allowed and approved for private 
 devotion, should be proscribed by the Church's rulers, acting 
 under the advice of these theologians, as addressed indiscri- 
 minately to the people. 
 
 I must not however quit the subject, from which I have 
 been led into this digression, without one additional course 
 of remark. For it has been so generally professed of late 
 years, that a Christian Society is bound to be a 'poor man's 
 Church,' and that it is the high and peculiar prerogative of 
 the Church to alleviate the misery of the humble and 
 oppressed, that the task seems incumbent on me, however 
 ungracious, of estimating the praises heaped on the English 
 system, by this standard also. Let me ask then, while all 
 the frightful and accumulated mass of misery which now 
 oppresses our land, was gradually during the last sixty years 
 growing to a head, where was the voice of the National Church 
 heard in drawing attention to its growth ? That the civil 
 government, who are obliged to cope day by day with present 
 and passing emergencies, should not have had the leisure or 
 the thought to take a deliberate and far-seeing view of our 
 social condition, this is hardly a matter of blame : but where 
 was the ' poor man's Church' ? How is it conceivable that she 
 can at that time have really thought or cared for the poor, 
 without becoming cognizant of the fatal disease in progress, 
 and loudly proclaiming its existence to the country and to 
 the world? What other appellation than that of 'grossly 
 and miserably corrupt' can we give to a system, under which
 
 421 
 
 such monstrous neglect was so much as possible ? Well, at 
 length, through no agency of hers, the attention of the 
 whole nation has been called in some insufficient measure to 
 the perils under which we lie ; all honour to Lord Ashley 
 and his precursors and coadjutors in the noble task ! Has 
 the English Church at least exhibited the grace of humili- 
 ation and repentance ? Has the blush of shame been visible 
 on our cheek ? have her ministers sorrowfully and contritely 
 confessed their sinful and unpardonable dereliction of duty, 
 and taken on themselves bitter shame, as fact after fact was 
 brought to light ? facts, which it was their bounden duty long 
 since to have dragged into the face of day, and which place 
 in still stronger colours the godlessness and depravity of vast 
 portions of her flock. Incredible as it might have appeared, 
 the very conception would seem never to have occurred to 
 them ; with unruffled brow and complacent voice they have 
 still repeated the insane watchwords ' pure and apostolical,' 
 ' holy and venerable,' Church, and have dared to speak of 
 the corruptions of other Christian bodies, when they should 
 rather have been in lowly and penitential abasement, mourning 
 those of their own. 
 
 Or again, have we witnessed on the whole within our 
 Church, since the existence of this misery has been un- 
 derstood, an anxious desire to make the services of the 
 one day of rest as soothing and refreshing, as our cur- 
 taile d ritual will allow, to these afflicted souls ? Has there 
 been an anxious and burning desire to crowd every innocent 
 gratification into our service, while we endeavour to keep 
 alive their views of religious truth on the Lord's Day ? By 
 what process of effrontery can we bring ourselves so much as 
 to breathe the name of ' the poor man's Church ' in connection 
 with our own system, if we are compelled to acknowledge 
 that nothing like this has been the case ? For more than ten 
 years the great principle has been echoed from mouth to 
 mouth, that our Church is no creature of the State, that she 
 derives her duties and her privileges from a far Higher and 
 more August Authority. Has the zeal, displayed f r this 
 principle, been only caused by our desire of having some-
 
 thing to say which shall close the mouth of Roman Catholic 
 and Dissenter ? Or if not so, how is it that we have failed to 
 see, that the more triumphantly we vindicate this great truth, 
 the more plainly we publish our own shame ? for if it be 
 directly by God, and not by the State, that the poor are 
 committed to our charge, no supineness or neglect of our 
 civil governors can do aught but even aggravate our own 
 guilt, in that we did not compensate for their slackness and 
 insensibility, by a double measure of zeal and watchfulness. 
 When members of a Church, which has thus basely betrayed 
 her trust, find it even difficult to conceive that some among 
 their brethren can, without the most serious moral delin- 
 quency, abhor and denounce the system, under which such 
 betrayal was possible ; when they accuse us of violence, eccen- 
 tricity, and paradox, because we cannot consider a Church 
 pure, which neither bears witness against wealth, nor protects 
 poverty ; I can only say, that our hatred of the existing 
 system cannot more offend them, than their toleration, nay, 
 admiration of it, perplexes and astonishes us. 
 
 7. The sum then of this most painful review of our 
 present system has been, that it most signally fails in 
 performing, or more truly makes no efforts whatever to 
 perform, those very duties, without which it can perform no 
 other duties aright. One observation is so painfully forced 
 on my mind by this review, that I cannot conclude without 
 giving it expression. There has arisen during these later 
 times, as we all know though we give very different accounts 
 of its origin and real nature, a very hateful habit of mind, 
 which we call Rationalism. Perhaps no better definition 
 can be given of its essence, than that it consists in an exalt- 
 ation of the claims of reason over those of conscience. 
 Hence immediately follows a denial of the all-important 
 truth, that the spiritual discernment of a holy man is 
 the one fountain-head, from which true interpretations of 
 Scripture as a whole, and indeed true doctrines on all 
 religious subjects, flow forth to the Church ; and again, 
 that the edification of the faithful is the one object, w y hich 
 every part of a pure Christian system, every intellectual
 
 423 
 
 effort, every practical exertion, ought directly or indirectly 
 to subserve. 
 
 Now the sciences on which I have already so often spoken, 
 dogmatic, moral, ascetic, mystical theology, most especially 
 the former, are model-instances of the fitting application of 
 intellectual power to religious inquiries. For all of them, 
 though the first certainly calls forth in its service, and 
 gives full scope to, higher mental powers than does any 
 human philosophy, all, I say, nevertheless, compel the 
 intellect, while engage^ on them, into not less than slavish 
 subordination to the conscience ; while again the one central 
 and paramount object, on which their separated streams con- 
 verge, is the spiritual benefit of the little ones of Christ's 
 flock. These sciences therefore the rationalist neglects and 
 despises, that he may occupy himself in a more congenial 
 field. First of all, whereas it is a labour of love with 
 Catholics, to contemplate the deep oneness of faith, spirit, 
 and principle, implanted by the Holy Ghost, in every age 
 and country wherein His abode, the Church, has taken up 
 her position; and to see daily with greater clearness, how 
 wholly unaffected, in the case of saintly men, is this vital 
 unity, by the accidental variety of external circumstances, of 
 doctrinal statement and development, (a variety indeed 
 which serves only to place in clearer and fuller light this real 
 and profound agreement,) the opposite process is the first 
 achievement to be attempted by the Rationalist. That the 
 intellect may find admission as judge and arbiter on sacred 
 ground, this 'great sight,' the wonderful and mysterious 
 harmony which exists in the voice sent forth by the 
 conscience of holy men, must be concealed from our eyes, 
 and its very existence denied. Accordingly the rationalist 
 takes up a position ab extra, and is copious in his comments 
 on the different dress worn by Christianity at the different 
 periods of its progress: this he does, that he may deny the 
 real identity of inward character and faith impressed by 
 means of a religious life ; that he may claim the right 
 of calling holy men as witnesses, before the tribunal of his 
 own intellect : that he may criticise the fourteenth or the
 
 424 
 
 eighteenth century by an argumentative comparison with the 
 fourth and fifth, or these last again by an argumentative 
 comparison with the first three, or (to which it soon comes) 
 all ages of the Church indiscriminately by his own critical 
 interpretation of the sacred text. 
 
 Here then we have already the 'mouth speaking great 
 things ; ' here we behold Antichrist ' sitting in the temple 
 of God ; ' he has effected his entrance ; what shall be 
 his next step ? The rationalist has come to think, that a 
 grammar and dictionary are fitter exponents of the words of 
 Revelation, than is the conscience of a humble and holy man, 
 inhabited, after his measure, by the Spirit which inspired 
 those words ; but how can he rest here ? A further question 
 remains to be decided ; what claim has Scripture itself on 
 his deference and regard ? The grammar or dictionary then 
 are put on one side, till sufficient progress may have been 
 made in this inquiry ; and accordingly he soon doubts this 
 book of Scripture, makes a distinction in the case of a 
 second, absolutely rejects a third. In the mean time his 
 intellect, now more unblushingly asserting its usurped and 
 baleful supremacy, grapples with that phantom, which has so 
 long baffled and perplexed its inquiries, the belief in inspira- 
 tion. A shadowy and unsubstantial phantom this in truth, 
 when projected, as it were, on the range of the carnal, 
 unchastened, unhumbled intellect ; and weak and poor are 
 the efforts it can make in that most uncongenial sphere, for 
 resistance and self-protection. The extreme issue of this 
 unhappy history, is when the victim of his principle sees the 
 necessity of fairly grappling with the preliminary question of 
 all, the trustworthiness of his impressions on duty and on 
 God; when he finds still less of reality in them even than in 
 his former subjects of inquiry; (for on the one hand surely 
 there is much less of external evidence for them than for 
 Scripture, and on the other hand he has become by habit 
 more insensible to the kind of proof really appropriate to 
 these inquiries ;) and he becomes a feeble, irresolute sceptic, 
 neither daring wholly to disbelieve, nor able wholly to 
 believe, and seeking perhaps, in the pursuit of gain or of
 
 sensuality, to drown the misery brought on him by his per- 
 verse and unhappy speculations. 
 
 All these are but different stages in the same ladder, 
 different links in the same chain. And now, being uncon- 
 scious of any save the simplest and most loving intention, 
 I would, with the utmost earnestness and importunity of 
 supplication, beg those many most excellent men, who are 
 disposed to defend or extenuate the English Reformation 
 and the system which it has introduced, fairly and impar- 
 tially to consider, in how great a degree we have been 
 involved by that movement in the very same spirit. In con- 
 sidering its ultimate results among ourselves (just as we do 
 in considering foreign rationalism) and viewing therefore the 
 spirit, which has had almost undisputed possession of our 
 Church from 1688 to 1833, what essential difference do we 
 find between Reformed England and Protestant Germany ? 
 Holiness of life and orthodoxy of faith cannot have been less 
 cared for abroad than here : for here the inculcation of them 
 has been utterly neglected ; and more cannot by possibility 
 be said of any Society calling itself Christian. Dogmatic, 
 moral, ascetic, mystical theology, are as strange to us as to 
 the German Protestants. Who can affirm that the worse than 
 Sabellianism of Archbishop Whately has excited greater 
 distress or commotion in England, than the (I believe not 
 worse than) Sabellianism of Schleiermacher, in Germany ? 
 Who can affirm that the perplexities of a sensitive conscience, 
 or the distresses of the poor, or the meek cry of the gentle 
 and humble, have received from us a more tender, loving, and 
 considerate response, than from the most hardened and un- 
 spiritual rationalist of the whole number ? Who can affirm 
 that saintliness has been more reverenced, celibacy more 
 honoured, earnest and habitual prayer more cultivated and 
 cherished, by the school of Tomline, or of Warburton, or of 
 Tillotson, than by that of Neander, or even of Paulus ? Nay, 
 to come to a more shocking thought still ; English * high- 
 churchmen' are in the constant habit of attributing to the 
 most holy and mortified men, to St. Bonaventure, to St. 
 Bernardine of Sienna, to St. Alphonsus Liguori, a close ap-
 
 426 
 
 proach at least to positive idolatry ; what more fearful 
 approximation to blasphemy against the Holy Ghost has the 
 wildest German ever devised ? 
 
 If it should be objected, that in dating the full development 
 of this spirit from 1688, I have implied that the political 
 events of that period, rather than the Reformation, were its 
 main origin, I answer that such an objection cannot be fairly, 
 nor even plausibly, maintained: there is no fact in history 
 clearer, than that this spirit has had a very deep and exten- 
 sive influence in our Church from the very first dawn of the 
 Reformation ; as indeed must have inevitably followed, 
 putting aside all other considerations, from the mere fact 
 of Puritans and Latitudinarians having been crowded into 
 the same Society with * high-churchmen' of all various grades. 
 Again, that very feature of our theology, with which, as with 
 the most fearful of all, I concluded the last paragraph, is 
 alas! even more signally characteristic of 'high-churchmen' 
 than of others. I have no desire to impute any blame to 
 those most admirable persons, who have but dutifully handed 
 down what they have received, and have in no way personally 
 realised their statements ; I am speaking only of the class, 
 without occupying myself with the invidious task of adjusting 
 and distributing the individual blame. But I do most 
 earnestly submit, that the class, as a whole, have invented 
 for themselves a principle, new in the history of Christian 
 theology, and in many respects even more conspicuously 
 offensive in God's sight than the more avowed results of the 
 rationalistic spirit. For surely it does seem even more wil- 
 fully and presumptuously sinful, more justly provocative of 
 God's wrath, to appreciate and reverence, in some sufficient 
 measure, the graces of Athanasius or Augustine, and then 
 bring ' railing accusations' against Hildebrand or Bonaven- 
 ture, than to put out of sight altogether the very idea of 
 Catholic sanctity, and to profess that the whole Church, from 
 the death of the Apostles to the birth of Luther, was little 
 better than a manifestation of Antichrist. 
 
 If there is one feature more than another in rationalism 
 grossly repulsive to the serious mind, it is this; that men,
 
 427 
 
 highly gifted with learning and ability, are not carefully 
 trained to a deep veneration for uneducated sanctity, nor to 
 feel it the highest honour if they may be allowed to exercise 
 the humblest ministration in its service ; but on the contrary, 
 are allowed to indulge in arrogant and besotted dreams of 
 exaltation, and to consider that they have peculiar access to 
 the fountains of religious and moral truth, while such access 
 is barred against the unintellectual. Hence they fancy that 
 they may, without grievous sin, criticise the faith of humble 
 and devout believers ; not as being imperfectly analysed and 
 erroneously expressed, (for to analyse and express is an office 
 of the intellect,) but as being, even in matters which bear 
 the weight of daily and hourly spiritual action and reali- 
 sation, erroneous, superstitious, nay, contemptible. This 
 is that self-exalting spirit of Antichrist, which, in these 
 our days, has been unchained among us ; and where has 
 it exercised more certain and unmistakeable influence, 
 than in our own ' high-Church ' theology ? It is the very 
 principle on which this theology is based, that men, whose 
 lives have displayed a love of God beyond our power even 
 to apprehend ; a love of man venting itself in the most 
 incredible and sustained toils for the service of their bre- 
 thren ; a profound humility ; a rejoicing in contempt, and 
 persecution, and suffering ; a mortification of the senses, nay, 
 an unceasing crucifixion of self ; that these men, whose ' con- 
 versation is in Heaven,' whose thoughts and affections have 
 rested without interruption on the invisible world, have had } 
 for all this, their spiritual vision so dim and clouded, that 
 they were (not mistaken in this or that minor particular, 
 nor again injudicious and unguarded, for the sake of others, 
 in this or that expression, but were) in the habitual com- 
 mission of that cardinal sin, giving to the creature the 
 honour due only to the Creator: that they, whose spiritual 
 gaze was for ever fixed in heaven, mistook the comparative 
 radiance of heavenly objects ; b and that it requires only 
 
 b In a future chapter I hope to give a few quotations, merely by way of 
 specimen, to shew the words of fervent, and tender, and glowing, love and de- 
 votion, with which St. Alphonsus Liguori was in the habit of speaking of our
 
 428 
 
 a critical knowledge of the Fathers of the early centuries, to 
 justify ordinary men in taxing them with this sin, and in 
 claiming for themselves, in consequence of these studies, a 
 higher degree of spiritual illumination. Who can wonder at 
 the small degree of favour which God seems to have shewn to 
 the Anglican ' high-Church ' principle, when it has its very 
 origin and life in this appalling blasphemy ? 
 
 At an earlier part of this volume, I implied that I was 
 unprepared with an opinion, whether or no the course of 
 Protestantism had been more disastrous here or abroad. 
 This doubt arose, I trust, from no absence of hearty admira- 
 tion and reverence for the noble and most evangelical virtues 
 of Andrews, or Ken, or Wilson, or Butler ; c much less from 
 any insensibility to the wonders which God is now working 
 in the midst of us. But considering, not individual instances, 
 but the general atmosphere which has pervaded our Re- 
 formed Church, and remarking that the natural tendency 
 of Germans is towards being too exclusively intellectual, of 
 
 Blessed Lord ; a devotion, to which, I believe, one may read the whole works 
 of English 'high-church' theologians, without finding the most distant parallel: 
 and I say this with a full remembrance of Bp. Andrews's most beautiful 
 Preces.' Here indeed I may as well add, that St. Alphonsus, in his Sermons, 
 urges on all his hearers without exception, as a primary duty, that every day of 
 their lives they should meditate intently at least a quarter of an Jtour on our 
 Blessed Lord's Passion. How many of those who censure him as dishonouring 
 our Lord, teach such doctrine as this ? I hope it may not be irreverent to him, if 
 I put forth what some may mistake for a defence or an apology ; but it is of course 
 simply our loss and not his, if we fail in giving him his fitting honour ; and it is 
 wholly for our sake and not for his, that I wish to remove stumbling-blocks from 
 members of our Church, to do what may lie with an individual, that they may 
 be saved from the most grievous sin under which so many unconsciously lie, of 
 criticising, nay condemning, Saints. Mr. Palmer, who has read his life, and 
 does not profess any doubt of its trustworthiness, speaks against the Blessed 
 Saint in language, which I should myself be unwilling to use, in speaking of the most 
 ordinarily serious Christian. 
 
 c If my preceding observations appear to imply the reverse of this, let it be 
 remembered, (as I have often enough observed in the British Critic,) that it is no 
 disrespect whatever to good men if we hold opinions (such as I may hold about 
 the Saints) which they merely did not hold ; that is, of which they did not hold the 
 contradictories. But it is the most blasphemous irreverence to think, on our own 
 responsibility, that a belief is idolatrous which Saints lave held. I believe that 
 good men in our Church have inherited this shocking sentiment, and not held it on 
 their own responsibility.
 
 429 
 
 English towards being too exclusively practical, I should 
 be glad to feel more assurance than I do at present, that 
 there is any greater difference between the two cases than 
 this : that the same evil spirit, which in them has led to a 
 self-willed and arrogant questioning of all that has been re- 
 ceived as most sacred, has led among us (in accordance with 
 our national character) to such phenomena as those with 
 which we are familiar : an unbridled thirst for gain ; selfish 
 neglect of the poor ; disregard of the claims and of the dis- 
 tresses of conscience ; a habit of miserable and cowardly com- 
 promise ; a deeply and widely extending secularization of the 
 Church. To be lukewarm, to be insensible of her own cor- 
 ruptions, to be loud in her own praise, are the notes given in 
 Scripture of that Church, which our Blessed Lord will ' spue 
 out of His mouth ' (Rev. iii. 16, 17) ; to retain the faith and be 
 zealous against doctrinal error, (Rev. ii. 6, 13,) as redeeming 
 features even in the midst of many corruptions. What is 
 His judgment of our Church's practical system ? a system, 
 under which she tolerates almost every variety of condemned 
 and branded heresy ; and under which her authorities seem 
 really offended and disgusted at one only class of opinions, 
 those which speak of her present condition as corrupt and 
 almost apostate. The closest approximation to denial of 
 our Lord is permitted, as I have shewn, without protest, 
 much more without condemnation ; but an imputation on 
 herself she cannot forgive.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 ADDITIONAL SUGGESTIONS IN THE WAY OF REMEDY. 
 
 AN article appeared in the ' Foreign and Colonial Quarterly 
 Review' for October, 1843, from which I have already made 
 one quotation ; an article distinguished for a peculiar kindness 
 of language and tone, in regard to a class of theologians, from 
 whom the writer himself widely differs in many most im- 
 portant particulars. There has hardly yet appeared so 
 encouraging an omen on the prospects of our Church, as 
 is afforded by such thoughtful considerateness : surely if all 
 serious persons among us would but agree to put aside the 
 spirit of anger and acrimonious censure, to dwell with loving 
 eagerness on their points of agreement, and aim at obtaining 
 a full comprehension and appreciation of each other's mean- 
 ing on points of difference, daily would our points of agree- 
 ment increase in number, and our points of difference 
 diminish ; and the eyes of us all would be gradually opened 
 to discern, what is that body of external and substantive 
 doctrine, which really corresponds to the perceptions, the de- 
 sires, and the aspirations, of the holy and spiritual mind. I 
 wish that the writer of that article, and those who agree with 
 him, could fully understand, how acute is the pain which many 
 who dissent from their views experience, when a plain sense 
 of duty urges us to put forward direct and open statements, 
 which we cannot but know will occasion them much distress 
 and misgiving ; and how earnestly we desire them to believe, 
 that the most frank and uncompromising opposition to their 
 fundamental views, on what may be termed ecclesiastical 
 politics, implies no want of the deepest respect and sympathy, 
 not only for their high personal character, but also for the
 
 431 
 
 straightforward and unflinching zeal, with which they bear 
 witness to the claims of religion in the face of statesmen and 
 worldly politicians. 
 
 The immediate reason of my allusion to this article, is the 
 writer's mention (p. 595) of ' that deadly chill with which 
 many of our ' ordinary writings' in the British Critic ' freeze 
 the very life's blood of many that repair to them to be 
 taught, how they may unite loyal love to their own immediate 
 mother, with a true acknowledgment of brotherhood to the 
 Roman Church.' If I wished to be critical, I should rather 
 demur to the last expression ; I trust certainly for myself, 
 that none even of my earlier writings in the British Critic 
 imply any such equality of the English Church to the Roman, 
 that I should presume simply and without qualification to 
 call Roman Catholics, as such, brethren ; and indeed all 
 through his comments on the * extreme section of theo- 
 logians within the Church of England,' he understates the 
 amount of reverence, gratitude, sympathy, and faith, which 
 for myself certainly I always desire to feel towards Roman 
 doctrine. In this particular, I am bound to acknowledge 
 Mr. Palmer's description as more just and accurate than 
 the Reviewer's ; for when the former says that ' it is quite 
 curious to observe how on all occasions this devotion to the 
 Papal See manifests itself,' (p. 55, note,) though the imme- 
 diate occasion of the remark is an article by another .hand, 
 it does no more than justice to my own habitual wish and 
 intention. It is plain however that this very under-state- 
 ment in the Review, of which in reference to my own 
 feelings I should be tempted to complain, is itself caused 
 by the writer's kind and friendly disposition towards the 
 objects of his criticism. 
 
 The general bearing, however, of the objection which he 
 makes, so far as it has not been already met in the third 
 chapter, is, I suppose, such as follows : that the British Critic 
 has confined itself to bitter and sweeping denunciations of 
 our existing system, without taking any pains to suggest 
 definitive remedies ; that those who might desire on the whole 
 to concur with the principles there advocated, and to serve the
 
 432 
 
 English Church with earnest and affectionate zeal on those 
 principles, instead of being guided, cheered, and inspirited 
 in their most admirable and necessary course, would rather be 
 depressed and repelled, through the representation, there so 
 frequently implied, on the hopelessness of our prospects and 
 the imminent approach of our fall. Should such be indeed a 
 faithful account of the general tone of the British Critic, it is 
 most deeply to be lamented ; for I am fully persuaded that 
 there is hardly one Englishman living, perhaps not one, 
 whatever his position in Church or State, whatever his 
 intellectual powers and peculiarities, whatever his degree of 
 moral advancement, who has not opportunity, if he will, of 
 bearing his part in the great task now in progress ; the task 
 of endeavouring to restore our Church to a more Christian 
 position, and to eradicate one by one those evils, which the 
 Reformation, and our other sins, national, ecclesiastical, per- 
 sonal, have let loose upon us in such fearful profusion. I hope 
 indeed that what has been already said, especially the pre- 
 ceding chapter, has sufficed in great measure to evince the 
 truth of this remark ; while on the other hand to draw out 
 in detail the various particulars of every kind which would 
 place it in the fullest and most unclouded light, would both 
 require volumes, and would imply a far greater amount of 
 practical knowiedge and experience than any to which I lay 
 claim. All that can be further expected is, that I shew the 
 kind of remedies which are within the reach of the respective 
 classes of churchmen, and the promise which they hold forth 
 of efficaciousness and success. 
 
 Were I called upon indeed to shew, that it is possible to 
 w r ork the machinery of our existing religious Societies with 
 any prospect of a good result, I should indeed be met by 
 insurmountable difficulties. If there be any truth in the re- 
 presentation I have made, that at least two principles most 
 vitally and fundamentally opposed to each other (to omit here 
 any mention of the Latitudinarian party) are struggling with- 
 in our Church for mastery, it is plain how idle, or rather 
 how deeply sinful, is any idea of compromise or conciliation. 
 Those who graft the Gospel 011 the law of nature, (to
 
 433 
 
 repeat a classification already introduced,) and those who 
 have devised or inherited a Gospel opposed to the natural 
 law, profess doctrines which, as doctrines, must ever wage an 
 unrelenting and internecine war one with the other. I am 
 not for a moment implying, that we should put from us the 
 hope of conciliating religious ' Evangelicals ; ' so far, so ex- 
 ceedingly far, from it, that, as has been observed by the 
 author of the article on Bishop Jewel in his * explanation,' 
 there is no more auspicious result which may be hoped from 
 a fuller and freer development of Catholic Truth, than that 
 an embodiment and visible witness of Divine wisdom and 
 holiness will be shewn forth, which will more and more 
 persuade and absorb into itself the more religious minds 
 from among all parties of our Church. But ' Evangelicals' 
 must be reclaimed, not by mitigating our expressions of 
 abhorrence and detestation for the abstract principles which 
 characterise their profession, but by shewing them more and 
 more, how utterly at variance are those principles with their 
 religious instincts and aspirations. To unite with their pro- 
 fessors in the prosecution of religious measures on a large 
 scale, would be insane as a matter of policy, and misprision 
 of heresy as a matter of morality. I am not speaking of 
 a momentary combination, for some one defined and specified 
 object : but I say, that we cannot unite in ' propagating the 
 Gospel,' with those who differ from us fundamentally as to 
 what the Gospel is ; or in forwarding the great work of educa- 
 tion, with those whom we deem mistaken on the very first 
 principles of education ; or in * promoting Christian know- 
 ledge,' with those who uphold, as Christian truth, principles 
 which we anathematize as condemnable heresies. And if there 
 be one class of men with whom each party would be still more 
 unwilling actively to cooperate than with the party most 
 opposed to itself, it would be the class who regard the matters 
 at issue as secondary or unessential. None who shrink from 
 fairly anathematizing Lutheran doctrine as a heresy (saving 
 individual cases of intellectual weakness and misconception) 
 can have any real hold, as a body, on Catholic and Christian 
 truth. And the whole of the last chapter is one continued 
 
 2 F
 
 434 
 
 comment on this sentiment ; for who can say that those who 
 have been opposed to the ' Evangelical' party in our Church, 
 have displayed any enlightened zeal, nay, on the whole any 
 more zeal than 'Evangelicals' themselves, in raising a firm 
 and stable foundation of moral and religious discipline, 
 whereon Christian doctrine may in safety repose ? Or who 
 can say that those Societies, to which allusion has just been 
 made, have given proof of so much as a passing thought 
 bestowed in that direction, anymore than if 'Evangelicals' 
 themselves, who professedly disparage the truths of natural 
 religion, alone made up the entire sum of their members ? 
 No ! those who hold Lutheran doctrine, or those who refuse 
 to denounce it as heretical, may be very probably innocent 
 in their sad error ; but they can be no fit parties for the 
 practical cooperation of orthodox Christians. We may love 
 and admire the various graces which distinguish members 
 of their body ; but they differ from us, in external pro- 
 fession, as to first principles. While on the other hand 
 those who embrace and realise this one great unalterable 
 axiom, which it has been my one object in this work to 
 illustrate and enforce, however they may differ as to the 
 ultimate results they expect, agree in first principles. All 
 ' high- churchmen' then who are prepared to embrace this 
 axiom and act on it, may I think confidently indulge in the 
 hope that a lasting and cordial union will be the result ; they 
 may confidently expect that when certain further questions, 
 from being theoretical, shall have become immediately prac- 
 tical, it will not be until, from having been points of dif- 
 ference, they shall have become points of agreement. 
 
 The same consideration leads to a remark in another di- 
 rection. A very general sense has been quite of late mys- 
 teriously growing up, of the incalculable benefits that might 
 be derived under our present circumstances from the revival 
 of monastic bodies ; a most cheering circumstance indeed as 
 a sign of the times, and a most honourable opinion to those 
 who entertain it. Now, considering that our Reformed 
 Church had its beginning in the overthrow of these institu- 
 tions, and has had its continuance in the contempt and slander
 
 of them, it might have been confidently anticipated, that this 
 opinion at all events implied some adequate consciousness of 
 our deplorable defects and corruptions. But no. The blind 
 idolatry of our present system, so carefully instilled from his 
 earliest years into the mind of the English Churchman, has 
 shewn itself, in dreaming that we are already prepared for 
 such institutions on a large scale. The same arrogance and 
 self-complacency, which till lately impelled our Church to 
 denounce the word Catholic, is now in many places only at 
 work under another shape in urging her to claim it. Ex- 
 cellent men have omitted to consider the profound sagacity 
 and experience, required for the ordering and governance of 
 such institutions as those which I have mentioned, and the 
 unbounded humility and self-sacrifice indispensable in their 
 inmates : or if they have not omitted to consider it, they 
 fancy that such qualities are readily and widely attainable 
 among ourselves at a moment's notice ; or at least without any 
 long course of previous preparation, which might be founded 
 on a new and wisely- devised system of education and moral 
 culture. Nay, as if it were their wish to bring our Church 
 into contempt, they have talked of appointing our present 
 Bishops visitors of such bodies ; prelates of whom surely it 
 is no disrespect to say, that they have not, as a body, dis- 
 played in their public language any deep and unquestioning 
 reverence for the doctrines . of asceticism and mortifica- 
 tion, nor professed any profound and systematic acquaint- 
 ance with the science of saints. Surely the very dilemma 
 involved, either in proposing such an arrangement, or in pro- 
 jecting an extensive monastic scheme without it, should shew 
 how little prepared our Church is at present for such a 
 sudden development. I am not of course denying, that in- 
 dividual Christians, who share in the Catholic feeling which 
 now springs up on all sides of us, will derive great benefit, 
 and edification, and happiness, from uniting themselves 
 voluntarily into small societies bound together by definite 
 rules and frequent offices of devotion ; but arrangements of 
 this kind may be quite safely, and will be far more profitably, 
 left to adjust themselves : while any expectation of esta- 
 
 2 F 2
 
 436 
 
 blishing such a system on a fixed and recognised basis within 
 our Church is altogether visionary, until many well and 
 wisely employed years shall have elapsed. No ! we must 
 direct all our energy to devise some really powerful and 
 available machinery for the moral education of the many, if 
 we desire to reap any sufficient harvest of the mortified and 
 contemplative few. 
 
 And on similar grounds, in consequence of the deplorable 
 disorganization which prevails among us, and the fearful 
 heresies which are allowed to remain without authoritative 
 check or discouragement, many ordinary maxims of ecclesi- 
 astical order become altogether obsolete and inappropriate. 
 I will mention one instance, that I may more precisely 
 illustrate the principle for which I am contending. If things 
 were so ordered among us, that one doctrine in essentials were 
 inculcated throughout our Church, there would be no more 
 obvious and natural duty, than attending ordinarily divine 
 worship, each one in his own parish ; while under our present 
 circumstances no precept could be more extravagant and 
 paradoxical. If a preacher enforces doctrines which, in your 
 certain deep conviction, are adverse to the first principles of 
 morality, and destructive to the souls of men, (and such are 
 the doctrines you will frequently hear from ' Evangelical ' 
 pulpits,) it seems at first sight almost a dereliction of duty to 
 afford so much encouragement to these impieties, as must 
 result from being present without remonstrance during their 
 utterance. Add to this, that not a few Catholic-minded 
 persons experience, from the mere sound of very extreme 
 heresy, a keen and piercing distress, differing in kind from 
 any other to which our nature is exposed. If it be replied, 
 that suffering is our very condition here below, I answer, 
 that there is one kind of suffering, from which it has always 
 been the very office of a pure Church to protect her children ; 
 and in regard to which, the most direct and certain proof 
 must be given, before we believe even in any single case that 
 duty requires our exposure, to its infliction : I mean the suf- 
 fering which arises from the near presence of heresy and im- 
 morality. Let it be distinctly observed, that I am only ad-
 
 437 
 
 vocating a general principle, not attempting to deal with in- 
 dividual cases of casuistry, for which this is not the place. 
 Each case must be decided on its own merits as it arises, 
 and there are various conflicting considerations which we 
 must endeavour to take into account. Those who have 
 families and dependents, will shrink from exposing them to 
 spiritual danger, even when not unwilling to expose them- 
 selves to pain. Of those again who have only themselves to 
 consider, some will attend the Church prayers under such 
 circumstances, and attempt to leave the Church unnoticed 
 before the Sermon begins ; or will abstract their mind from 
 the Sermon, and read the Bible or some Spiritual book; but 
 others again endure a similar suffering in kind, however in- 
 ferior in degree, from the very mode of ordering and per- 
 forming the service which heretical principles occasion. It 
 is plain, that those who are so keenly sensitive, should feel it 
 their bounden duty to take very considerable trouble, and 
 expose themselves to very considerable worldly sacrifice, that 
 they may not be exposed to this dilemma; while, on the 
 other hand, I quite believe that there may be several cases, 
 in which an individual will most fitly perform his duty to our 
 Church, by remaining at home, and reciting throughout the 
 Church of England office for the day ; putting himself into 
 spiritual communion with the various members of our Church, 
 who, throughout the land, are at the same time putting up 
 the same prayers, reciting the same Psalms, pondering on 
 the same passages of Scripture. 
 
 One last preliminary remark shall here be made. An 
 individual Christian, on first turning to God from evil 
 courses, will practise himself for some considerable time in 
 the duties of obedience and repentance, before he will think, 
 unless imperatively required, of so marked a profession as 
 is implied in rebuking or publicly witnessing against his 
 brother's sin. The case is not materially different with 
 Societies ; and the English Church, after having so long neg- 
 lected so much of her duty, must begin by teaching the 
 teachable, and affectionately warning the reclaimable, before 
 she thinks of putting herself forward in the way of public pro- 
 tests, before she attempts to exercise acts of discipline ; acts
 
 438 
 
 which may hereafter indeed be just and salutary, but which ill 
 correspond with her present degraded and corrupt condition. 
 When she has, by a long course of moral training and of or- 
 thodox teaching, established her empire over the hearts of a 
 faithful and orthodox laity, she may be able gracefully, and 
 we may humbly hope successfully, to declare war in the name 
 of the Lord against wickedness in high worldly places ; and 
 to draw the spiritual sword, which has so long rusted in its 
 scabbard. 
 
 2. In proceeding now to the general and merely super- 
 ficial task which, as I have said, is all there can be room for 
 in a work like this, let us take as the first instance the priest 
 of a country parish. If he should be persuaded of the 
 general truth of such principles as have been hitherto 
 enforced, the effect on his practical conduct is not difficult to 
 conceive. He will endeavour to lay his foundation within 
 the heart of his flock ; he will not consider any attendance 
 of theirs on Divine Service, even the most regular, even (if 
 so be) daily as well as on Sunday, to be any real security 
 for so much as the beginning of a truly Christian life. It is 
 the feeling of accountableness throughout the day, the 
 habitual thought of judgment to come, the careful regulation 
 of thoughts, words, and actions, which he will impress on 
 his flock as the one thing needful. Their presence in Church 
 may be useful as giving him the power to address them, but 
 he will use that power for the very purpose of impressing on 
 their mind, that true religion must have its spring from 
 within. With those who are more promising, he will most 
 earnestly seek opportunities of private and confidential con- 
 versation: and in such conversation, he will endeavour to put 
 before them the duties one by one of their daily life ; the 
 duty of combating against sloth, against discontent, against 
 anger, or other worse thoughts ; the duty of fixing their 
 whole mind at stated times, by ever so great an effort, on 
 God ; the duty of avoiding all evil conversation, and the 
 demeanour which they ought to adopt when such conversa- 
 tion is hazarded by others in their presence ; and the rest. 
 From this he will seek to instruct them in the indispensable 
 habit of daily self-examination ; that habit which alone can
 
 439 
 
 succeed, and which by itself is almost certain to succeed, in 
 impressing on the conscience and imagination of Christians 
 an unceasing sense of their accountableness and responsibility. 
 Again, he will teach them to understand how sacred and 
 inviolable is his obligation to secresy, in the case of any 
 confidential communication in their spiritual perplexities and 
 distresses, which they may desire to impart ; he will make 
 them understand that no earthly compulsion whatever can 
 make it lawful for him, and that none shall in fact induce 
 him, to violate the sacramental trust they may repose in him. 
 He will make them clearly see, that no one subject has more 
 engrossing interest with him, is more certain immediately to 
 arrest his deepest attention, than any communication they may 
 wish to make, any question they may wish to ask, on the right- 
 governing of their daily thoughts and acts. He will en- 
 courage them more and more to look on him as their truest 
 and most unfailing earthly friend ; and to fix their thoughts, 
 through him, on that their Heavenly Friend, who has deputed 
 him to act towards them in His behalf, and as His visible 
 representative, till He come again and claim His own. 
 
 But of course he will have, beyond any possible com- 
 parison, better hope of influencing the young, than those who 
 have grown up in habits of carelessness and indifference. In 
 the schools under his direction, the children will feel deeply, 
 that the training them up in habits of careful conscientious- 
 ness is the one object, on which every single detail and 
 particular of the system converges. To perform aright their 
 daily examen of conscience ; to fix their thoughts on God in 
 prayer without distraction ; to contend one by one against 
 evil thoughts ; to imbibe habits of humility, reverence, and 
 docility ; they will be conscious every moment, that no 
 interest is so near the heart of those set over them, as that 
 they may learn ever to make advance in such holy and 
 necessary exercises as these. It will be impressed on them 
 beyond the possibility of mistake, that their priest is in- 
 finitely more anxious that they should pray well, than that 
 they should spell well ; that they should know their own 
 faults habitually, than that they should read the Scriptures 
 fluently ; that they should open their heart to the influences
 
 440 
 
 of the Holy Spirit, than that they should trouble their heads 
 with adducing texts which prove His Personality. At the 
 fit age he will encourage and counsel them, so far as he feels 
 that he safely can do so, to the practice of Sacramental 
 Confession ; but he will so deeply feel the serious evils which 
 may flow from misdirection, and the serious danger, arising 
 from his deficiency in any special education directed to that 
 object, of his possibly directing them amiss, that he will be 
 even forward in urging on them, that they should cease from 
 the practice, if they find on a fair trial that they do not 
 profit by his advice. By such methods as these, their hearts 
 will become that well cultivated and rich soil, in which the 
 seed of Divine truth takes a firm and abiding root; and their 
 acquirement of Christian doctrine, their religious perusal of 
 the text of Scripture, will spring up in fruit thirty-fold, 
 sixty-fold, one hundred-fold. 3 
 
 It has often struck me, that w r e do not at all make that use 
 of the four Gospels, in addressing the poor, which their capa- 
 bilities, and their very structure, seem almost clamorously to 
 suggest. Roman Catholics of the educated classes, as I said 
 in the last chapter, are very much in the habit of meditating 
 methodically day by day on the sacred narrative ; but even 
 among them much use hardly seems made of them for the 
 poor. Now surely it is the merest truism to say, that no one 
 possible habit could be so beneficial to the poor, could serve 
 them so w r ell as a preservative against every kind of sin, a se- 
 curity for the growth of every kind of virtue, a charm to soothe 
 and relieve every kind of sorrow, as the unceasing thought 
 of our Lord's intimate and mysterious presence, so to speak, 
 
 a The two little works of my own, which I mentioned in an earlier chapter, 
 were occasioned by my strong conviction of these principles. The first was in- 
 tended as a manual of self-examination, for young persons even in the lower ranks 
 of life ; the second as an illustration of the sort of Christian doctrine which, as 
 appears to me, the same class may most profitably learn, and the great use which 
 may be made of our Catechism as the means of instruction in such doctrine. As 
 to this latter work, (Questions and Answers on the Church Catechism,) I derived 
 the greatest help from a little work by another hand, which was withdrawn soon 
 after its publication ; the compiler of which deserves the undivided credit of the 
 suggestion, and most part of the credit of the execution. But both his work, and 
 also my own on self-examination, were almost exclusively adapted from the most 
 ordinary Roman Catholic sources.
 
 441 
 
 close beside them; the thought of Him as of their Living 
 Friend, who created them, redeemed them, and loves them 
 with unspeakable love. True it is, that any thing in the 
 way of formal meditation would be probably unsuitable 
 to their circumstances and to their intellectual powers ; 
 but what if, before going forth to their daily work, pains 
 were taken to put before them some miracle or other 
 event in our Lord's life, in all the reality and indivi- 
 duality, which such a work, e. g., as St. Bonaventure's ' Life 
 of Christ ' is eminently calculated to ensure ? Particularly if 
 from their early years they were exercised in such a practice, 
 this one scene would be, as it were, the central picture 
 present throughout the day to their mind's eye, on which 
 all their acts of meditation, worship, self-restraint, watch- 
 fulness against evil thoughts, would converge ; and which, 
 before the day ended, would be indelibly impressed on their 
 memory and imagination. When we consider the surprising 
 diversity and variety of character, so conspicuous in the 
 pictures presented to us by the Evangelists, and the mys- 
 terious and unearthly stamp with which they are impressed, 
 it can hardly I think be doubted that the acquisition of this 
 habit would most powerfully tend to refresh and support the 
 spirits ; to cheer the most monotonous employment ; to pre- 
 serve them even against the more subtle temptations of pride 
 or self-will, much more against the grosser forms of evil 
 which are their more frequent assailants. And this is the 
 more true and important, in proportion as the employment of 
 the steam-engine, and other causes, confine the ordinary work- 
 man more and more to a class of labour, in which his mind 
 is unoccupied, and in imminent danger of becoming torpid and 
 stagnant, even when his hands are most busily and fatiguingly 
 employed. Nor should we forget, that the essential truth of 
 our Blessed Lord's Divinity, which, as I said in the last 
 chapter, we just now incur such alarming danger of letting 
 slip, would by such means as this be really impressed on the 
 mind of the poor, in the most healthful, natural, and persua- 
 sive manner that can be possibly conceived. 
 
 The people are now so generally taught to read, (in itself 
 a very great matter of thankfulness, if more important things
 
 had not been neglected,) that the object would be sufficiently 
 attained, if some work were carefully written, most closely 
 adapted to their capacities and habits of thought, which 
 might assign for the diiferent days in the year portions of 
 our Lord's history, and give such hints in each section as 
 might best help the reader to call up into his imagination the 
 scene described ; and if the portion for each day were read 
 by them every morning, before going to their worldly occu- 
 pations. There can be no question however, that this would 
 be more effectually done, if a priest, thoroughly fitted for 
 such a task, were to read the passage viva voce, and supply 
 such comments at the moment, as his knowledge of the indi- 
 viduals present might suggest as most calculated to arrest 
 their attention. Did a clergyman feel himself capable of 
 doing this, I conceive that there is nothing in the Ecclesias- 
 'tical Laws now existing which would at all interfere with his 
 desire. He might fix the daily service at so early an hour, 
 as to meet the convenience of those engaged in work ; and 
 might preface the service with a short lecture of the kind 
 here in question. Nor would it at all follow, that all who came 
 for the benefit of the lecture would be expected to remain 
 throughout the service : on the contrary, after having, e. g., 
 joined in the early penitential part and in the Psalms, as 
 many as pleased might reverently withdraw. There is no 
 allusion in our prayer-book to any obligation of individuals 
 (not clergymen) remaining through the entire service ; and 
 indeed the daily prayers are plainly not arranged on a model 
 at all appropriate for such a requisition. 
 
 This subject indeed deserves mention as a separate parti- 
 cular. I cannot but fear that multitudes absent themselves 
 wholly from daily service, in parishes where it is celebrated, 
 who would most gladly avail themselves of some short por- 
 tion, but have really not the time to give from labour and 
 necessary refreshment, which is occupied by our entire office 
 of morning prayer. This will in one way be even more felt, 
 should vital religion, by God's blessing, gain ground among us; 
 for many will learn that there are other religious duties of far 
 greater importance even than public worship, because more 
 immediately personal ; such, e. g., as private self-examination
 
 443 
 
 and prayer : and these duties, having by right a prior claim 
 on them, will still more completely prevent them from attend- 
 ing the whole public service. And surely it might very easily 
 be understood that no disrespect or irreverence whatever is 
 implied, but the veiy reverse, in coming to Church for the 
 privilege of reciting even a single prayer or a single psalm, in 
 company with our brethren, and ' in the courts of the house 
 of our God.' Till this principle indeed be fully admitted, at 
 least as regards week-day prayers, we shall never succeed in 
 getting rid of that chill air of stiffness and formality, which 
 now hangs, like a dead weight, on all the ministrations of our 
 Church, repelling the affections of the humble, and oppressing 
 the aspirations of the ardent and devotional. 
 
 Another great difficulty which parish priests will more and 
 more feel, on the subject of the public services attended by 
 our poor, will be the impossibility of their following the 
 words of our prayers. To keep up our attention, as one idea 
 follows another in the Prayer-book, requires an intellectual 
 strain and effort of no ordinary kind ; insomuch, that those 
 of us even who are habitually versed in intellectual studies, 
 find it, I suppose, a matter of extreme difficulty. I am not 
 here speaking of the moral difficulty, implied in keeping our 
 thoughts arid affections away from earthly objects while we 
 are engaged in prayer; this is a moral difficulty, and is con- 
 quered only by religious means: it is not the educated, 
 but the obedient and the spiritual, who are more and more 
 emancipated from its influence. But I here speak of a matter 
 altogether distinct, the intellectual difficulty which arises 
 from the quickness with which one idea follows another in 
 our Prayer-book, and the consecutiveness of thought, the 
 quasi-aryumentativeness, of great part of our prayers. Until 
 some remedy for this has been devised, surely it will be next 
 to impossible to make Divine Service a really devotional act 
 to the poor ; for they neither understand what is going on 
 there, nor yet are they taught how to occupy their thoughts 
 devotionally while it is going on. Here I think we may 
 learn a very important lesson from the Roman Catholics. 
 Their mass-service, in itself, is fully as unintelligible to the 
 poor as our Prayer-book ; some will say more so, because it
 
 444 
 
 is in Latin ; and others, because many parts of it are even 
 ordered to be said ' secreto.' What is the course adopted, 
 in order that hearing mass may be a really intelligent and 
 devotional exercise ? The faithful are carefully taught the 
 meaning of each part of the ceremonial they witness, and are 
 ordered at definite times to join their intention with that of 
 the priest. This gives the service its congregational character. 
 At other times, they use prayers accommodated to each suc- 
 cessive stage of the Holy Sacrifice ; but by no means all the 
 same prayers. It is plain that one kind of language is best 
 adapted to impress devotional ideas on the educated, another 
 on the uneducated ; one on the old, another on the young ; 
 nay, that each variety of character has its peculiar needs and 
 requirements. In the case then of the poor, who have not 
 the opportunity of choosing for themselves, the Confessor 
 puts into their hands such books, to accompany the mass, as 
 he thinks best adapted to their individual 'captus.' And 
 thus we have one way, whereby this great difficulty is sur- 
 mounted ; the service is in one sense congregational, while 
 yet each individual Christian is able also to make it, in the 
 fullest sense, personal and individual. If a similar plan were 
 not considered objectionable among ourselves, I conceive that 
 the very greatest benefit might be derived from it'; from put- 
 ting into the hands of our poor short sentences of prayer, 
 which might be used by them when their attention is fatigued, 
 in lieu of their attempting to follow in their mind the whole 
 prayer read by the priest. For instance, one penitential sen- 
 tence, such as, ' Forgive me and all my brethren our grievous 
 sins, O Lord, for Jesus Christ's sake,' might be recited to him- 
 self over and over again by an uneducated person, while the 
 'general confession' is going forward. By such means he 
 would be not the less fully conscious of his communion with 
 all present, for he would know that the meaning of the public 
 prayer is the very same ; while he would have time, in some 
 sufficient measure, to realise and ponder on the devotional 
 act itself, instead of being, if I may so speak, utterly be- 
 wildered, hurried, and confused, in the devotional act, by the 
 arduousness of the intellectual act. A similar plan might 
 surely be adopted for all the different prayers; and again,
 
 445 
 
 some acts of prayer on the subject of Holy Scripture might 
 be given him, in order that he may make use of them, in 
 case, which must so commonly happen, that great part, e. g., 
 of the first lesson, is wholly unintelligible, and as such un- 
 profitable. 
 
 In this respect, then, the Roman Church seems an ad- 
 mirable model for our imitation ; in another, (if I may ven- 
 ture on imperfect knowledge to express a criticism,) she seems 
 hardly herself to have framed a definite and uniform plan of 
 action : I mean, training her poor in a devotional use of the 
 psalms. In some cathedrals abroad, indeed, I have heard of 
 the whole people chaunting the Latin Psalms with one voice 
 and with every appearance of enthusiasm ; as though, by 
 help of the vernacular translation, they were able to enter into 
 them and enjoy them. But in England, they often substitute 
 some English service on the Sunday afternoon for the regular 
 Vespers ; and again, where the latter are recited, the people 
 in no way join in them, but meditate, as at mass, from their 
 private devotional books. The whole subject indeed of the 
 desirableness of public services in the vernacular (as distinct 
 from the mass) is, I believe, one on which there is a very 
 growing spirit of inquiry among Roman Catholics, in 
 whatever way it may be likely to terminate. Certainly 
 the Psalms, as being poetical rather than, like the rest of our 
 Prayer-book, (what I have called) argumentative; and, again 
 in consequence of the quality which seems to characterize 
 more or less, every part of the Inspired Volume ; require, 
 for their fit apprehension and appreciation, far more an obe- 
 dient life and a spiritual mind, than a cultivated understand- 
 ing. Under our present circumstances, we hear of the very 
 religious poor being wonderfully affected by various parts of 
 their contents ; and the same edification and enjoyment would 
 spread far more widely, if they were carefully taught the 
 Christian meaning of such phrases as ' Israel,' ' Jerusalem,' 
 ' our enemies,' * the arrow and the bow,' and other like ex- 
 pressions. A still further help towards the purpose of re- 
 ceiving readily the Christian sense of the Psalms, would be 
 a practice, advocated in one of those beautiful articles in the 
 British Critic on the Church service ; I mean, if the people
 
 446 
 
 were taught to vary the application according to the season 
 of the Christian year ; to recite the Psalms during Lent in 
 the person of Christ Suffering, during Easter of Christ 
 Triumphant, in the weeks after Pentecost of the Church left 
 behind Him and fighting in His name and strength against 
 her spiritual and worldly enemies. 
 
 It is quite unnecessary to add the very great desirable- 
 ness of making our services attractive to the poor, by all out- 
 ward emblems and lively ceremonial ; and still more of 
 teaching them music, and encouraging them to devote the 
 knowledge to religious celebrations ; for all this is much and 
 increasingly felt among us ; there is far ^less danger at present 
 of our neglecting such helps as these, than of our fancying 
 that we can make the flock good Christians, without some far 
 deeper and more personal cultivation. 
 
 3. In turning now to the corresponding task, of throwing 
 out hints for the consideration of those clergymen who are 
 brought more directly into connection with the educated 
 classes, it is necessary to repeat, with much greater promi- 
 nence and distinctness, a warning already given in the last 
 section ; a warning against any attempt, under our present 
 circumstances, I will not say to make Sacramental Con- 
 fession compulsory, but even to urge it strongly and perse- 
 veringly on those who feel unwilling to adopt it. How 
 sensitive is the Roman Church on the sacred rights of the 
 individual conscience, will appear from an anecdote, in which 
 two Saints are the parties mainly concerned. St. Jane Frances 
 de Chantal and St. Francis de Sales, before they ever met, 
 saw each other severally in visions ; and though the former 
 Saint had made a vow to her original director that she would 
 never submit herself to other guidance, yet as his spiritual 
 counsel was not found adapted to her needs, St. Francis con- 
 sidered that this vision was sufficient warrant for considering 
 the vow dispensed with. The result was, that she derived 
 the greatest benefit from his direction. It is not necessary 
 to discuss the truth of this story with Protestants, who will 
 of course disbelieve it ; because the fact of its commonly re- 
 ceiving credit among Roman Catholics is amply sufficient for 
 the point I desire to establish. It appears then, that not
 
 447 
 
 only every penitent has the privilege of irresponsibly choosing 
 his own director, but also even a vow of obedience to some 
 particular director should rather be violated, than a holy 
 soul left in the hands of one, who is not able rightly to un- 
 derstand the case with which he has to deal, and so will be 
 deficient in that deep tenderness, wisdom, considerateness, 
 which are so indispensably necessary. Nor does the existence 
 of a precept of confession at all interefere with this argu- 
 ment : for in the first place the hearing of a Confession by 
 no means implies of necessity so much as spiritual direction ; 
 and in the second place, considering the multitudes of priests 
 in every rank of life, and with every variety of bias and natu- 
 ral disposition, who are educated for the Confessional, it is 
 indeed an extravagant supposition to imagine, that one may 
 not easily be found, competent to deal even with the more 
 eccentric tendencies of individual minds. 
 
 With us it is unnecessary to say how striking is the 
 contrast. The most competent Confessors we could possibly 
 supply, can have had extremely little of practical ex- 
 perience ; and there is literally no theoretical system re- 
 cognised among us, to fall back upon in default of such 
 experience. Surely then it is impossible to be too wary 
 and cautious in feeling our way. Grievous as are the 
 evils which flow from our present anomalous and anar- 
 chical condition, great as is the amount of careless and 
 unholy living it has engendered, even more fearful and 
 miserable would be the result, if there were any approach to 
 an attempt on the part of any section of our clergy to ex- 
 ercise arbitrary or dictatorial power. Can we, by the utmost 
 stretch of our imagination, conceive any misery (not resulting 
 from sin) more exquisite, than that of one who with a sen- 
 sitive conscience, shrinking delicacy of mind, and strong tend- 
 ency even to morbid peculiarities and idiosyncrasies, should 
 be subjected to the irresponsible power of some (say) con- 
 ceited young clergyman, who might entertain strong views 
 on ' the power of the keys,' and little sense of the fearful 
 magnitude and importance of the task he undertakes ? And 
 most serious as is this evil in any case, there are circumstances 
 in our position which make it very far more serious in our
 
 448 
 
 own. A Roman Catholic will have been at least educated 
 in a strict and definite system of moral discipline; and even 
 though he should fall from grace and remain long a stranger 
 to God, still, on his return, he will have his early habits and 
 associations to fall back upon. But I fear it is no exaggeration 
 to say, that in our own Church the very idea of responsibility 
 for our acts of every hour of the day will come on us at first 
 quite by surprise ; and our first effort to act on such an idea, 
 will bring us into a region of scruples and harassing anxieties 
 of mind, which we had little suspected. Every one knows 
 how great is the blankness and dreariness of feeling, which 
 attends the first attempt to adjust our feelings and habits to 
 any wholly new manner of life; precisely similar will the 
 case be, though in a far more grievous degree, in the present 
 instance. Here then is a fresh and very great evil, which 
 must result from any attempt to enforce a rude and indis- 
 criminating rule of arbitrary dictation : for these perplexities, 
 of which I speak, will vary indefinitely in each individual 
 case, according to the particular direction which licence 
 and self-indulgence may have taken ; and in many cases 
 they will not be at all understood, except by a director, who 
 shall have devoted the rarest powers of mind, joined with 
 the most affectionate and anxious watchfulness, to the 
 inquiry. 
 
 Another admonition of considerable importance may also 
 be derived from contemplation of the Roman model ; and it 
 will be fitly introduced by a quotation from the British 
 Critic. ('On Mill's Logic,' p. 409.) 
 
 ' The art of morals, be it then observed, while making incidental 
 use of an indefinite number of other sciences, employs as habitually 
 the science of psychology, as that of morality itself. For instance, 
 I have injured my neighbour's fame by random talking ; the science 
 of morality pronounces as the dictate of natural justice, that I am 
 bound to make him restitution, humble myself before God for my 
 sin, and take pains to reform my character in respect of unguarded 
 use of the tongue. Waiving the second of these duties ; to perform 
 the first, I must have recourse to a knowledge of practical life ; to 
 perform the last, I consult the study of psychology. In the first, 7 
 receive no help from practical religious works ; nor witt a serious
 
 449 
 
 Christian be likely to understand better, rather worse, than others 
 the best means of performing the object in view : in the last, on the 
 contrary, I receive every help from such books ; and religious men, 
 from the interest and care which they, and they only, take in such 
 matters, understand the way to such an object incomparably better 
 than other men : but in either case the source of the knowledge is 
 experience' 
 
 My readers, who remember a note in the last chapter, will 
 at once see that it is ascetic theology which treats on such 
 subjects as these last mentioned. Now it is the dictate of 
 common sense, that a priest shall decide very far more 
 peremptorily on subjects which he has studied, than on 
 subjects which he has not; and it is his province to study 
 both moral and ascetic theology. Accordingly -a very little 
 observation of Roman practice will shew us, thft priests 
 not unfrequently exercise a judgment altogether final and 
 authoritative, not only in ruling certain classes of words, 
 thoughts, and acts, to be sinful, but in dictating the means 
 whereby a cure may be best effected ; in deciding the signs 
 of repentance and amendment to be required, before they 
 will give absolution ; in ordering this or that penance ; and 
 in giving other rules of a similar kind. On the contrary, 
 as I observed in the second chapter, ' the infinitely various 
 particular application of true principles, to particular circum- 
 stances and events ; that immensely large class of moral acts, 
 on which it is impossible for one man to judge what is right 
 in his neighbour's case ; all this is left mainly to his indi- 
 vidual responsibility and sense of right.' It will continually 
 happen, that on questions like these the penitent (even 
 under all the risk of dealing unfairly with himself) will be 
 a far better judge than the priest: because he has much 
 more of that knowledge of the course of worldly things 
 which gives their whole character to acts of the kind ; and 
 again, a much, very much, more lively perception of the 
 various facts of the case, than he can by possibility communi- 
 cate to another. It will generally happen then that on such 
 matters as these, whether a man ought to enter upon this or 
 that line of business, fix his residence in this or that place, 
 live in this or that degree of external splendour, and a 
 
 2G
 
 450 
 
 thousand other particulars, a priest will not wish to intrude 
 advice at all ; and, if specially consulted, give it only with 
 great qualification and reserve. It may quite possibly indeed 
 happen, that circumstances of this kind do turn on questions 
 absolutely within the priest's sphere and cognizance ; and 
 when the case is otherwise, a faithful director would con- 
 tinually put general principles before the mind of his penitents, 
 which he might think them in danger of forgetting, even 
 where he might altogether leave the particular application 
 to themselves. Now I believe, both from probability, and 
 from my knowledge of individual cases, that there is no 
 effect which the earnestness now reviving within our Church 
 will more certainly be found to produce, than the craving for 
 spiritual direction and for habits of confidential communica- 
 tion with* a religious guide. If this be so, it is difficult to 
 exaggerate the importance of the consideration I have just 
 been urging; the neglect of which might entail more evil 
 than they suppose, both on the director and the directed. 
 And if it be further granted as true, that it is any attempt 
 of priests to overstep the line here laid down, which in a 
 very peculiar degree excites the jealousy and suspicion of 
 worldly men, another reason will have appeared for its im- 
 portance ; because, though, if a thing be right the world's 
 hatred of it ought only to brace and invigorate us in the 
 task of more zealously doing it ; if it be wrong, it is doubly 
 wrong when raising obstructions to the advance of truth and 
 of sound doctrine. 
 
 The distinction between Sacramental Confession and spiri- 
 tual direction, to which I lately alluded, corresponds in some 
 measure to that between moral and ascetic theology : the 
 former is required of all in the Roman Church ; the latter is 
 offered to those who desire it, and I suppose in various de- 
 grees of urgency and minuteness. There may be some per- 
 haps in our own Church who might receive the greatest benefit 
 from the first, though they may not be able to trust any 
 English priest in the second ; or on the contrary who might 
 occasionally consult a priest for advice and direction, though 
 unable to bring themselves to that unreserved openness abso- 
 lutely requisite for Sacramental Confession.
 
 451 
 
 But if cautions such as those which have preceded be 
 requisite, even in regard to confidential spiritual advice ; if 
 the cases be so numerous, in which, with all the advantage 
 of unreserved disclosure of facts, it is an impossible task to 
 understand rightly the peculiarities of individual character 
 or circumstances; how far greater is the danger of un- 
 charitable judgment, if bystanders allow themselves in severe 
 comments, who cannot even know so much as the external 
 circumstances, past or present, which influence their brother's 
 conduct ! Never was there, perhaps, a time, in which it was 
 necessary so carefully and prominently to enforce the dis- 
 tinction between acts that are undeniably wrong, and those 
 which are not so in themselves, but which there is a natural 
 tendency to regard as marks of a worldly or irreligious 
 mind. At the present time numbers have come or are 
 coming to a reception of the pure Gospel, who, perhaps 
 under the impulse of those very ardent aspirations which 
 have at last impelled them towards their true rest, have 
 been given up to every variety of self-will, in the way of 
 speculation, of feeling, of action. The cases are many, and 
 will be continually increasing, in which the mere endeavour 
 to impress on the mind a sense of constant responsibility, to 
 perform religious exercises with strict and punctual regu- 
 larity, and to keep himself unspotted by mortal sin of 
 thought or action, when this is in itself so anxious, laborious, 
 dreary a task, to the humble beginner, that any attempt to 
 press him unduly forward into modes of action or be- 
 haviour not absolutely required for his salvation, would be 
 unspeakably harsh and inconsiderate ; nay, might have the 
 result of overstraining the bow, of ' breaking the bruised 
 reed,' and of ' quenching the smoking flax.' To conceive, even 
 within any assignable degree of approximation, the trials and 
 distresses of those, who in temperament and habit of mind 
 widely differ from ourselves, is an intellectual task so difficult, 
 as to be within the reach of very few ; but all may cherish 
 the virtue of Christian charity, which will accomplish the 
 same object far better than any merely intellectual candour ; 
 charity, which loves to believe all that is good of a brother's 
 state, and will shrink with alarm and repugnance from the 
 
 2 r, 2
 
 452 
 
 formation of a harsh judgment, till the proofs of misconduct 
 are flagrant, palpable, incontrovertible. 
 
 All that I have said in the way of dissuasive against too 
 eager exhortations on the part of clergymen to the practice 
 of Sacramental Confession, make it the more important to 
 urge on the consideration of religious and Catholic-minded 
 laymen the inestimable value of that holy practice ; and the 
 great importance, that they should use serious efforts to get 
 rid of any feelings of false shame or delicacy which might 
 prevent them from obtaining the benefit they really might 
 derive from its performance. That which in prospect appears 
 inexpressibly formidable and repulsive, will often afterwards, 
 when they have forced their resolution up to the mark and 
 boldly unveiled to some orthodox, considerate, and affection- 
 ate priest their secret sins and temptations, prove full of 
 sweetness and consolation. ' I state my deep conviction,' 
 says Mr. Newman, ' when I say, that nothing healthy can 
 be expected in the religion of the community, till we learn 
 that we cannot by our private judgment manage ourselves ; 
 that management of the heart is a science which it needs to 
 learn ; and that even though we have paid attention to it, we 
 are the least able to exercise it in our oa'n case, that is, when 
 we most need it. We must use in religious matters that 
 common sense, which does not desert us in matters of this 
 world, because we take a real interest in them ; and as no 
 one would ever dream of being his own lawyer or his own 
 physician, however great exposures, whatever sacrifice of 
 feeling, may be the consequence ; so we must take it for 
 granted, if we would serve God completely, that we cannot 
 be our own divines, and our own casuists.' It may be, as I 
 have most fully admitted, a duty to abstain from this 
 attempt, because of the impossibility of reposing sufficient 
 confidence in any priest to whom we have access ; but we 
 must learn to impress on our minds, that if it be so, it is 
 a duty which summons us to the renouncement of a very 
 high privilege and very signal blessing. To set this in a 
 clearer light, the reader cannot be referred to any more 
 satisfactory authority, than the admirable article on the 
 
 e ' Sermons on Subjects of the Day, 1 p. 57.
 
 453 
 
 subject in the British Critic, which I have already mentioned. 
 Here it will suffice, to specify two spiritual maladies of a very 
 opposite character, which stand peculiarly in need of this 
 salutary and invigorating medicine. 
 
 There are perhaps several persons, endued with that noble 
 and most precious treasure, a keenly sensitive conscience, 
 who suffer, and severely, from the evil tendencies which ac- 
 company this blessing, as some evil or other accompanies all 
 blessings in this fallen world. There are persons who brood 
 over faults of thought, word, or act, committed in time past, 
 with an intensity of sorrow and remorse, which forbids them 
 to see any extenuating circumstances, which magnifies the 
 sinfulness of those faults in a degree utterly disproportionate 
 (not to the faults themselves no one living sees even in 
 approximately true colours the sinfulness of sin but) to 
 their comparative magnitude as placed in the scale even with 
 other of their own faults, much more with faults of other 
 men. From this, a sort of what may be almost called 
 monomania may occasionally follow ; and more miserable 
 still, there may be a very real danger, lest the heart be 
 closed against a grateful reception of the Gospel message 
 of mercy, and the unhappy person fall from the Christian 
 virtue of hope. Much to be desired indeed it is, that there 
 were far more danger of mental disease in this shape among 
 the world at large than there is ; many, I suppose, find the 
 account of it so utterly heterogeneous from any feeling of 
 which their own consciousness gives them experience, that 
 they regard the very notion of such a suffering with a kind 
 of disdainful compassion. Blind and miserable are such 
 men : the callousness of a hardened and indifferent conscience 
 is a misery, which would be dearly purchased by ten thou- 
 sand times the heaviest agony inflicted by scrupulousness 
 and morbid anxiety. Still such pangs as I have mentioned 
 are fearfully severe ; while, as is evident, they take their 
 origin in no circumstance so much as in this, that the sufferer 
 is shut up in the region of his own consciousness, is unable 
 to find any with whom to communicate his gloomy thoughts, 
 nay, has not the courage even fairly to raise them as it 
 were to the surface for his own inspection. But the effort
 
 454 
 
 required by Sacramental Confession; the intellectual task 
 of putting into shape and expression the sins whose memory 
 tortures him ; much more than all, the mere recital of them 
 for the first time in the ear of another human being ; 
 all this, even prior to any active ministration and advice 
 from the priest, strips them of the exaggerated and fan- 
 tastic colouring with which his imagination had invested 
 them, and at once dissolves the spell which had so long 
 enchained him. 
 
 An opposite evil is perhaps more frequent: namely, that 
 a penitent may see in the clearest intellectual light the 
 wickedness of past misdeeds, but cannot bring himself to 
 realise morally their offensiveness to God ; he cannot be full 
 of shame, as he feels he ought to be ; but enjoys life with all 
 its blessings, as naturally as though he had riot grievously 
 sinned. Here too, as the author of the article alluded to 
 points out, the Confessional is the very remedy suited to his 
 disease : the shame he feels from reciting them in the pre- 
 sence of a fellow -sinner will impress on his imagination and 
 feelings, in a degree otherwise unattainable, the shame which 
 he ought to feel from having committed them in the presence 
 of God and of the Holy Angels. 
 
 In proceeding to the other religious exercises, which are 
 fully in the power of educated persons, and are most likely 
 to succeed in training them on the true Christian and Catholic 
 model, but little can be added to what was said in the last 
 chapter. Nor in what I may say further, do I profess any 
 further responsibility, beyond the mere endeavour to trans- 
 late, as it were, practices, which bear so rich fruit in the 
 Roman Church, into the language of our own habits and 
 country. As I observed then, daily self-examination assumes 
 even a more prominent importance with the higher classes 
 than with the poor, and requires still greater care and pre- 
 cision in its performance : both in consequence of the far 
 subtler nature of the sins to which they are in bondage, and 
 also the increased amount of self-consciousness which their 
 education entails. Those who have not hitherto regularly 
 observed this practice, will do more wisely perhaps if they 
 make a beginning with only the daily general examen ; but
 
 455 
 
 should make it an unde via ting rule under no circumstances to 
 omit it. When they have sufficiently disciplined themselves in 
 this foundation, the first class of particular examination 
 (see p. 340) will naturally and readily follow : and, when 
 once begun, should never be omitted without indispensable 
 necessity. The natural time for both these exercises is of 
 course the evening : but there is no reason why some other 
 part of the day (e. g. the morning) might not be chosen for 
 good reasons ; e. g. if our fatigue be often too great at night. 
 It is plain, however, that the time once chosen should be 
 faithfully adhered to. 
 
 According to the observations of the last chapter, the next 
 place should be given to meditation. And some very admi- 
 rable remarks, addressed to members of our Church who are 
 beginners in this holy exercise, will be found in the new 
 translation of St. Bonaventure's Life of Christ: remarks 
 which I wish there were room to extract in this place. 
 
 As a starting-point, perhaps a quarter of an hour at the 
 beginning of each day will be sufficient ; especially when the 
 task is found irksome and difficult. But we should not rest 
 content, till we have brought up our habit at all events to 
 Aa^-an-hour ; for this is the time recommended in Roman 
 Catholic books to all who perform the exercise at all. As 
 regards the subjects of the meditation, no book perhaps can 
 be mentioned likely to be by itself altogether satisfactory : 
 one of the most interesting and available is the ' Journal of 
 Meditations,' u which assigns some event in our Blessed Lord's 
 life for meditation almost every day in the year. Many 
 persons will probably prefer selecting from several books, 
 according to the particular bias of their mind and dis- 
 position ; a consideration this last, which from the very ob- 
 ject of the exercise, ought to be considered beyond every 
 other. Only the subject ought to be carefully chosen and 
 considered over night, that it may be present to the mind 
 the first thing in the morning, and that we may not rush as 
 it were unprepared into the presence of God. St. Alphon- 
 sus's ' Preparation for Death ' is another work, extremely 
 liked by some who have seen it, while others again are not 
 ll ' Grace and Son, 45, Capel-street, Dublin, 1834.'
 
 456 
 
 so much affected by it : the various editions of the ' Spiritual 
 Exercises' will furnish again further materials. It has some- 
 times occurred to me that an arrangement of this sort (with 
 whatever modifications) would he on the whole suitable to 
 the circumstances and needs of many among us ; if some 
 competent person would take the pains to compile such a 
 work. From Christmas to the Epiphany, the circumstances 
 of our Blessed Lord's Infancy : thence to Septuagesima the 
 most signal manifestations of His glory during His life among 
 men : from that time to Lent, His general sufferings on 
 earth, (as set forth in the latter part of the first volume of 
 Father Thomas's work,) such as ' Christ in His obedience,' 
 ' Christ in His poverty,' ' Christ in the austerity of His life,' 
 ' the obligation of living among sinners,' ' the rudeness of 
 His disciples,' ' the obstinacy of the Jews,' ' the false judg- 
 ments that were made of His actions,' &c. &c. : from Ash- 
 Wednesday to the first Sunday in Lent inclusive, the suffering 
 in particular (viz. the fasting in the wilderness) with which 
 His ministry began : from that day onwards the details of 
 that with which it ended : at Easter His glorious appear- 
 ances, including perhaps that to St. Paul; and as this would 
 not naturally fill up all the time, some passages from our 
 Blessed Lord's discourses in the third, fifth, sixth, fourteenth, 
 fifteenth, and sixteenth chapters of St. John might afford in- 
 expressibly interesting texts, on which meditations might be 
 founded, on those great doctrines the Trinity, the Incar- 
 nation, the Eucharistic Presence, which are enigmatically 
 there contained, and which our Blessed Lord may be con- 
 sidered to have revealed more clearly to his Apostles in those 
 mysterious forty days: Ascension-tide and Whitsuntide 
 supply their own subjects : from Trinity to All-Saints per- 
 haps the subject of meditation might be the second class of 
 particular examination, (see p. 342,) going over in our mind 
 the various Christian tempers, and making a practical com- 
 parison of them with our own conduct : (this would be no 
 interference whatever with the habit already spoken of in 
 regard to the poor, of still choosing some event in our Blessed 
 Lord's life to keep in our mind during the day ; for there is 
 no necessary inconvenience in making the subject of our
 
 457 
 
 recurrence, so to speak, through the day, different from that 
 of our morning meditation :) from All-Saints to Christmas, 
 the various topics involved in what is called the ' Via 
 Purgativa,' and which are contained indeed in the ' Journal 
 of Meditations ;' such as the sinfulness of sin, mortal or 
 venial ; and of our chief sins, one by one ; Death, Judgment, 
 Heaven, Hell ; and all this interspersed, as Christmas comes 
 nearer, with meditations on the events which preceded our 
 Lord's birth; and perhaps on one or two principal pro- 
 phecies or types of Him in the Old Testament. 
 
 The habit of meditation will be peculiarly valuable to 
 those, who are immersed in the turmoil of commercial life ; 
 and who, in consequence of the incessant anxiety and com- 
 petition now prevalent, have more difficulty than others are 
 able even to conceive, in reposing their mind throughout the 
 day on their True Good. Indeed, after no long time, their 
 welfare might be still further consulted, by the establishment, 
 here and there, of something in the nature of ' Spiritual 
 Retreats :' for the fit performance of which the habit of 
 meditation will have been so excellent a preparative. 
 
 Under the head of mental prayer, must also be classed the 
 regular and methodical performance of the duty of interces- 
 sion. Another kind is, where continuous help and guidance 
 is given by a book : a beautiful work of this kind, which 
 contains nothing that any ' high-churchman ' can object to, is 
 Gother's ' Sinner's Complaint.' 
 
 According to the advice given from Rodriguez and St. 
 Alphonsus in the last chapter, it would appear that daily 
 self-examination should be considered an indispensable duty 
 even in sickness ; and that, in cases where one or other must 
 be given up, mental prayer should be retained rather than 
 vocal. Of vocal prayer, of course our own Church Service 
 has the first claim upon us : and, as I said some way back, 
 should be recited by each one of us, as members, and in the 
 name, of our own English Church. A further manual of 
 vocal prayer, which will be of great help in impressing us 
 with a deep sense of the Communion of Saints, is the Roman 
 Breviary. How much of this there will be time for in the 
 day, varies of course in every degree. Some may find great
 
 458 
 
 happiness and refreshment from reciting at night Vespers and 
 Compline, who may have time for no more ; others will per- 
 haps add over-night the next day's Matins ; others again will 
 recite in the morning Lauds, with or without the Nocturns, 
 and Prime. The present Roman practice of always antici- 
 pating even the Lauds of the following day, depends on the 
 principle, that our mind is fresher in the morning and fit for 
 intent mental prayer ; while in the evening the use of a form, 
 and the sense of communion with the Church in what we recite, 
 sustains the flagging spirits and attention. As our own 
 service is recited in communion with our own Church, the 
 Breviary service would be of course recited in communion 
 with ' the Holy Church throughout all the world ;' while at 
 the same time each individual would most carefully, as a 
 matter of the plainest duty, omit any Invocations or the like, 
 for which his mind is not fully prepared ; or which would have 
 in his case any the most remote tendency to obscure the Vision 
 of the Son of God. This caution understood, there are still 
 two different arrangements of the Breviary service, which 
 find favourers in our Church. The first of these takes ordi- 
 narily the ferial office ; and introduces the festivals of those 
 Saints only, who are mentioned either in Scripture, or in our 
 calendar (including of course the 'black letter' days), or in our 
 prayer-book and homilies ; the other prefers following simply 
 the Roman arrangement of festivals, and taking the authorized 
 ' ordo recitandi' as its guide. The advantage of the first is 
 considered to be, that the ferial office is much more frequently 
 retained than according to the existing Roman practice, and 
 that it keeps more carefully within the limits prescribed by 
 our Church ; the advantage of the last, that it enables us to 
 be more simply and heartily in communion with the Church 
 Catholic, and implies less of a critical and eclectic spirit. 
 
 It may be confidently hoped, that by a continued course of 
 such devotional exercises, those three elements of the Catholic 
 character which I mentioned in the last chapter, strict con- 
 scientiousness of daily walk, strict orthodoxy on the principal 
 Gospel Truths, and a full consciousness of the Communion 
 of Saints may be realised with daily increasing depth and 
 comprehensiveness ; while on the other hand no part of what
 
 459 
 
 is here suggested can surely have any tendency to frighten 
 the timid spirit, or to assail early prepossessions with hasty 
 and rude violence. 
 
 Such advice then as this may surely be given with every 
 prospect of success, in those instances, already numerous and 
 daily increasing in number, where feelings of acute re- 
 pentance have been excited, and trembling anxiety as to 
 spiritual prospects aroused, while on the one hand there is a 
 keen perception of the hollowness and worldliness of Lutheran 
 profession, and yet on the other hand a most natural misgiving, 
 as to the possible consequences of prematurely closing with 
 what are called extreme opinions. Such religious practices 
 as I have mentioned, carry with them their own evidence 
 and warrant; and they bring comfort to the mourner, the 
 power of repentance to the sinner, the power of perseverance 
 to the weak, the power of discerning religious truth to the 
 feeble and perplexed. To do no more than realise 
 gradually those truths, which we have always professed with 
 the lips what is there in this which can alarm the most 
 cautious ? and yet what more is wanted as the true medicine 
 for all spiritual evils ? Such is the great blessing we derive 
 from that profession of orthodoxy, which our Church has 
 retained : the Creeds and the prayer-book have stored within 
 them all that the sorrowful or sinful soul can need ; all, 
 that is, except supernatural grace ; and that our Church is 
 also privileged to dispense. Why should we be downcast 
 and dispirited, however fearful the corruptions which abound 
 among us, when we have such vantage-ground as this ? what 
 need we, but firm faith in our position, and in the presence 
 of Christ with us His outcast flock ? 
 
 Two more observations will bring to a close this part of 
 the subject. Great as would be the care taken that humble 
 and dutiful Christians be not pressed unduly forward to 
 doctrines for which they may not yet be ripe, another pre- 
 caution should be even more sedulously maintained; viz. 
 that all their religious and devotional reading should breathe 
 the one true Catholic spirit. The possession of Mr. Newman's 
 Sermons is a most truly happy circumstance for our Church ; 
 and many of the more ordinary Roman Catholic works, by
 
 460 
 
 means of suitable omissions, will be very available for the 
 purpose. The other observation, to which I alluded, is 
 this, that parents in the higher ranks of life will be fitted 
 for a charge, which could hardly be intrusted with safety to 
 the uneducated classes ; and one of considerable importance. 
 They will be fully able to train their children in the habit of 
 regularly confessing to them their more serious faults, and to 
 give them suitable advice as to repentance and amendment. 
 I have known of this practice being adopted with the very 
 best effect ; nothing indeed can be more fitted for implanting 
 habits of careful conscientiousness, and preparing them per- 
 haps for regular Confession to a priest, should the opportunity 
 be presented. 
 
 4. Thus inestimable are the benefits which may be con- 
 ferred, on the spread of the Gospel within our Church, by 
 those who, from their position and their powers of mind, are 
 able to exercise an influence on 'holy and humble men of 
 heart.' Nor let these latter think that they have no share 
 in forwarding the great work. So far from it, that there is 
 no more efficacious instrument for removing misconception 
 and softening prejudice, than the personal presence of such 
 as these. A humble Christian, who shews in his whole 
 demeanour a profound humility and consciousness of sin; 
 thoughtful, unselfish, unceasing considerateness for all around 
 him ; a reverent sympathy for good from whatever quarter 
 it presents itself; an unpretending zeal in performing all the 
 duties of his state of life ; such an one (little as he dreams of 
 exercising any influence upon others) avails more than a 
 thousand controversial arguments. He proves to those who see 
 him, that the love of Catholic doctrine arises, neither from 
 blind and carnal formalism, nor from sectarian bigotry, nor 
 from a puerile love of splendour and external ornament, nor 
 from the dreams of a poetical temperament, nor from the rea- 
 sonings of deep erudition, but from a most deep and experi- 
 mental conviction, that this doctrine gives help, such as no 
 other doctrine in the world can give, towards rescuing the 
 soul from the power of Satan, and promoting its progress in 
 every Christian virtue. 
 
 5. That such are our present duties and privileges, will be at
 
 461 
 
 once admitted by all who have concurred with the general 
 statement of principles which has gone before. That very 
 much more is also required, if the work is really to be accom- 
 plished which we may humbly hope that God is performing 
 for us, if genuine Catholicism is to be restored to our desiring 
 eyes, this the same principles also establish. But in all such 
 cases, God carefully keeps from man the power of positive 
 cooperation : what will be His times and instruments in 
 forwarding His own cause ; when and in what degree He will 
 raise up men in the midst of us fitted for carrying out His 
 gracious purpose ; and on what part of our existing system 
 these men will firmly take their stand ; all this we must 
 dutifully leave to Him. To trouble our minds with con- 
 jectures on such questions as these, much more to think of 
 taking the matter out of God's hands into our own, would 
 be a mark of that worldly and scheming spirit, which occa- 
 sionally pains us in passages of the Church's history ; and 
 which is, of all tempers of mind, the most certain to fail in 
 bringing down blessings, that are really blessings, on the 
 Church. By labouring, each in his place, to keep his con- 
 science pure, and seeking to know and do His will, members 
 of our Church are fitting themselves to be His instruments, 
 should He require their services ; they are placing themselves 
 as it were, in that position for which He has predestined them, 
 and where, if He needs them, He will look to find them. 
 Nay, should the glorious work be really consummated, in what 
 degree each one has been an instrument, in what measure his 
 prayers or efforts may have contributed to the result, will be 
 among the secrets reserved for the Great Day. That there 
 may be individual exceptions to this, K admit ; but surely, on 
 the whole, such is the sober and simple truth. 
 
 But on the other hand, what may be called negative 
 cooperation is in our power ; nay, is incumbent on many, 
 according to their tastes and capabilities. We may have a 
 most certain conviction, that under such circumstances as 
 ours the existence of one or other definite class of spiritual 
 instruments, at present wanting, is indispensably necessary, 
 that the pure Gospel may really energize in our Church ; 
 and we may most firmly and acceptably labour in our
 
 462 
 
 respective spheres, in following out this conviction. Of what 
 kind, in my own judgment, these instruments are, the preced- 
 ing pages will have sufficiently shewn ; while the great space 
 I have already occupied, forcibly urges the necessity of brevi- 
 ty. I will merely then recapitulate, as concisely as possible, 
 the desiderata to which I have already alluded. 
 
 I. It is absolutely necessary, that there be manuals, from 
 which those educated for Orders may be scientifically and 
 accurately instructed in the primary elements of moral, 
 ascetic, and dogmatic theology. It is of course quite certain 
 that educated men will really (whether or no they do so 
 professedly) lay far more stress on, have a far greater portion 
 of their minds occupied with, subjects which they have studied 
 methodically, than subjects on which they merely pick up in- 
 formation at random for themselves. Till quite lately, nothing 
 was taught methodically to the future clergy as such : so that 
 at least all subjects had their fair chance. But now there is 
 a rising tendency, to train them with pains and precision in 
 the theory of Apostolical Succession, or the ecclesiastical con- 
 troversies with Roman Catholics and Dissenters, while those 
 other, infinitely more important, sciences are still wholly 
 neglected. Uuder such a system, zealous and active young 
 clergymen may spring up, who have acquired habits of mind 
 which it makes one uneasy to contemplate ; clergymen, who 
 are far more anxious to draw their flock to Church, than to 
 train them in the daily battle against sin ; who are far more 
 deeply impressed with the sin of joining Dissenters, than with 
 the sin of habitually neglecting self-examination and prayer ; 
 who are keenly sensitive to the most distant suggestion which 
 tends to extenuate the sin of schism, but remain quiet, un- 
 concerned, and conservative, though Sabellianism and Nes- 
 torianism be rampant at their very doors. It is perfectly 
 consistent to say that the Scripture, humbly studied, will 
 teach all essential truth ; but to abandon this principle, and 
 teach one minor class of truths methodically, while those that 
 are the most vital and essential are still left to be gathered by 
 individual perusal of Scripture, this is a course self-condemn- 
 ed of formalism and bigotry. 
 
 For dogmatic theology, it would be no difficult matter,
 
 463 
 
 I conceive, to a person sufficiently versed in theology, to 
 compile a work, which might answer a similar purpose with 
 us, that Perrone's lectures do abroad ; it would be of course 
 much less extensive in scope ; but should contain a clear and 
 methodical statement of the acknowledged Catholic doctrines 
 on the Trinity, Original Sin, the Incarnation, and Grace 
 a statement, not professing to go deeply into the matter, but 
 accurate and precise, and fitted for the ordinary student ; 
 while at the same time it should refer those, who may be dis- 
 posed to go more thoroughly into any particular topic, to 
 such larger works, as are most valuable and authoritative. 
 
 For ascetic theology, 6 the regular, careful, and methodical 
 study of such a work as Rodriguez on ' spiritual perfection,' 
 would be of the utmost value to a candidate for Orders ; and 
 would powerfully impress on his mind the reality and high 
 importance of ascetic science. It is true that this work is 
 intended rather to teach Christians generally how to direct 
 themselves, than to teach priests how to direct others : and 
 the same must be said of other works, which I have heard 
 most highly praised ; such as the two great works of Father 
 Lewis of Granada, * the sinner's guide ' and ' the memorial 
 of a Christian life : ' but this would be no sufficient objection 
 to its use/ I am told however on the best authority, that 
 there is a very admirable scientific work, intended for directors 
 of consciences as such, called the ' Direttorio Ascetico/ by 
 Scaramelli, 2 vols. 4to. ; in which directors are instructed how 
 to act, from the fruits of an immense experience collected 
 
 e ' Ascetic theology is the science of conducting to a holy life. It treats of the 
 obstacles to perfection, of temptations, of -sin, of the world, &c. ; of the means of 
 perfection, as prayer, meditation, mortification, &c. ; of virtues, their characteristics* 
 degrees, and means of attainment.' See also p. 326. 
 
 f It would be very desirable, that any one who should translate such a work as 
 this of Rodriguez for the use of members of the English Church, should omit, not 
 only any expressions about the Blessed Virgin, which might pain English 
 Churchmen, (of which indeed there are in this work few or none,) but also 
 a great number of legends, which in the present state of feeling among us would 
 rather cause ludicrous than edifying associations. I cannot forbear from adding 
 here, how very important a service must be in course of time rendered to our 
 Church, by the series now in progress of translation from books of Catholic 
 devotion. The editor of this series is thereby adding to his claims on the deep 
 reverence and gratitude of English Churchmen, which might have seemed hardly 
 to admit of increase.
 
 by the pious and zealous author, a most distinguished 
 missionary. 
 
 On moral theology, it will not perhaps be so easy to com- 
 pile a serviceable manual. The work reviewed in the British 
 Critic, ' le Manuel des Confesseurs,' would doubtless afford 
 many most useful hints to clergymen, who wish to make 
 some beginning in directing individual souls, but are at a loss 
 for counsel or assistance. But our circumstances are in many 
 respects so peculiar, that it can hardly be until after much 
 feeling of their way and personal experience, on the part of 
 Catholic-minded clergy in various parts of the kingdom, that 
 any really valuable rules can be given for general guidance. 
 
 Such are the most immediately pressing of our desiderata. 
 Since, however, I have alluded so frequently to mystical 
 theology, and it is to be hoped that the science of directing 
 men in the higher paths of Christian sanctity may become 
 every day more practically needful, it will be better to add 
 on this subject also, what I have received from trustworthy 
 authority. 
 
 Mystical theology is the science of comparatively few. It may 
 be said to begin where the ascetic ends ; its object is to carry for- 
 ward souls, specially favoured, into the sublimer regions of contem- 
 plative devotion, " supernatural and infused" as it is called. For 
 though the science of directing rightly such gifts may be taught, the 
 gifts themselves cannot be taught or communicated. Such are the 
 twelve degrees of contemplation, the intellectual vision of God, 
 ecstacies and rapture ; and connected with these are the mysterious 
 trials and purifications, by which the soul is prepared for them, or 
 humbled under them ; like the sting of the flesh inflicted on St. Paul. 
 Standard works on this branch of theology are the writings of 
 St. Teresa, St. John of the Cross, St. Peter of Alcantara, &c. But 
 here again the most , practical and classical work is Scaramelli's 
 " Direttorio mistico," 4to. Venice, 1754. In this, everything is laid 
 down simply but fully, and so as to guide the director in leading souls 
 through this higher walk of rare and sublime perfection. 
 
 Connected with this science is another branch of theology, which 
 may be said to be common to both the ascetic and the mystical. It 
 is what is known by the name of " Discretio spirituum," or the rules 
 for distinguishing the inspiration of the Holy Spirit from the illusion 
 of the enemy. This is a study most useful in ascetic, and absolutely
 
 465 
 
 necessary in mystical, theology. Some excellent rules for the pur- 
 pose will be found at the end of St. Ignatius's Spiritual Exercises. 
 The best modern treatise is again Scaramelli's " Discernimento de 
 Spirit!," 4to., Venice, 1800. There is a work also by Cardinal 
 Bona, " De Discretione Spirituum." 
 
 3. These studies are by no means confined to the directors of 
 religious houses, but may be useful, and sometimes necessary to a 
 general confessor. Scaramelli gives as the experience of his many 
 missions, that " in almost every place there are souls which God leads 
 forward through those extraordinary ways to high perfection,'' 
 (D. M. p. 1,) and whose Confessors therefore ought to understand 
 their direction. 
 
 , II. But such manuals as I alluded to above, on dogmatic 
 and ascetic theology, would be the mere hollow reflections of 
 an external system, rather than an exhibition of life among 
 ourselves, unless we possess also those among us, who devote 
 themselves to a really scientific and profound study of such 
 subjects. On the objective doctrines of theology, there will 
 be no difficulty at all in this ; or rather such is actually in 
 a degree the case with us at present. I believe I am correct 
 in saying, that the part of Petavius's great works to which 
 Bishop Bull objects, is an extremely small portion ; and when 
 in addition to this we consider the circumstance, that Petavius 
 is considered by learned men to have been the great reviver 
 of patristic studies in Christendom, it is plain that no ' high- 
 Churchmen' could at all object, were the careful study of his 
 works, (with the correction, as they might say, of Bp. Bull's 
 ' Defensio,') to become an acknowledged practice of leisured 
 students of Divinity in our Church. Nor must we forget 
 that, over and above the possession of Petavius's works, when 
 Mr. Newman's translation and notes of St. Athanasius's 
 doctrinal treatises, with the prefatory matter promised, shall 
 have been brought to a close, we shall possess in our own 
 Church a work on the Trinitarian controversies, which may 
 amply suffice for the most keen and ardent inquirer. 
 
 But on the subjective doctrines of theology, since they have 
 been only called into controversy in these later times, times 
 
 2 H
 
 466 
 
 in which ' high-Churchmen ' are not in the habit of consider- 
 ing Church-decrees to have been authoritative, these will 
 offer a very much greater difficulty. The objection indeed, 
 to which I have alluded, is probably not insurmountable; 
 even in very moderate quarters (Mr. Holden is a striking 
 example) the idea is becoming not uncommon, that there is 
 nothing in the abstract decrees of Rome on Justification, to 
 which English 'high- Churchmen' can fairly object ; and the 
 idea will probably become universal, in proportion as both 
 sides explain their own meaning. Still, for many reasons, it 
 would be impossible to name any existing work on these 
 subjects, which would of itself be fitted for the English 
 student, In the first place, the sort of objections and mis- 
 apprehensions which we in England are required to encounter, 
 are very different from those which would be contemplated 
 and allowed for in such books : for here one principal duty 
 is, to shew those who are implicitly orthodox, that they have 
 no real difference at bottom from Catholic doctrine ; while 
 abroad the duty is mainly incumbent on them, of exhibiting 
 the immorality and profaneness of the heretical systems they 
 oppose. In the second place, the science of these doctrines 
 is intimately connected with metaphysical questions ; and 
 foreign works could not be rightly understood here, unless 
 there were a full preliminary account of the system of 
 philosophy which they presuppose. On the other hand, if 
 it be true, which is at least probable, that much of new light 
 has been, quite of late years, thrown on the subject of 
 psychology, then it would be rather necessary to adapt these 
 treatises to the present state of metaphysical science ; a course 
 which would involve a considerable modification of their 
 language. A third particular deserving mention, is one to 
 which I must hereafter allude ; that on a most important 
 doctrine connected with these controversies, no foreign theo- 
 logical writer seems to have carried the analysis so far as is 
 absolutely required for these times. On these and other 
 grounds, no more valuable service could be conferred on our 
 Church, than a deep and comprehensive treatise on the
 
 467 
 
 doctrines of grace ; nor would the labour of a life be ill- 
 bestowed, if one competent to such a task were to devote 
 himself to this one object. 
 
 It is worth while to remark, that in such a work as is here 
 supposed, would be included the scientific statement of these 
 truths, which are the subject-matter of ascetic theology. 
 Moreover, closely connected with the psychological exposition 
 which must be its basis, would be the discussion of such ques- 
 tions as one to which I have before alluded, I mean, the 
 dangers resulting to the mind from an unmixed devotion to 
 physics ; and the best remedies for those dangers. A question 
 this, on which the admirable letters of " Catholicus" leave 
 nothing for future writers to do, except to systematize and 
 develope the views there brought forward. There are a vast 
 number too of other inquiries of a similar sort, connected 
 with the spiritual dangers of our present stage of civilization, 
 which clamorously call for a scientific and dispassionate study. 
 
 A full and systematic moral theology must be still more 
 exclusively our own work. A study of the treatises on the 
 subject in repute abroad, would no doubt be of the utmost 
 value ; but still, so far as my own knowledge or information 
 extends, I should altogether doubt whether any of them 
 singly is even fitted to form the basis, on which a work 
 should be built, which might be adapted to satisfy our 
 existing requirements in England. It is very important, 
 moreover, that much more ground should be covered, than 
 is, I believe, covered by Roman works on moral theology : I 
 mean, that questions of right and wrong connected with the 
 various employments of man in our present state of society, or 
 again with international morality, should be probed far more 
 deeply, and considered under the light of a far wider and more 
 generous induction, than, as far as I know and believe, has 
 ever hitherto been attempted. The parts of Paley's ' Moral 
 Philosophy' which treat on such matters, are in many 
 respects an insult to common-sense ; so superficial are the 
 arguments by which they are illustrated : nor can I find or 
 hear of any successful efforts in the same direction, on the 
 part of Roman Catholic writers. Nothing would be more 
 
 2 H 2
 
 468 
 
 appropriate, both as a cause and also as a sign of increased 
 attention being paid, in public affairs and the throng of prac- 
 tical life, to the category 'right and wrong,' than such a 
 work as is here specified. 
 
 III. Such particulars as I have mentioned, may in their 
 genera] outline be considered as indispensable necessaries for 
 a pure Church. Under our present circumstances it is hardly 
 less necessary, that some Christianly-minded and most ten- 
 derly compassionate, if at the same time clear-headed and 
 precise, thinker should betake himself to the study of poli- 
 tical economy. It is merely idle to suppose, that we can 
 really and permanently benefit the poor in their temporal 
 relations, unless we bring all the lights of science and of 
 system to bear on the subject. 
 
 IV. The office of christianizing the study of the classics 
 is a most important subject, to which those who are both 
 Christians and scholars might, with the utmost advantage, 
 devote the whole power of their mind. Hitherto, since the 
 ' revival of letters,' the effect of classical studies seems to 
 have been in a very high degree anti- Catholic and anti- 
 Christian. 
 
 V. I spoke in the second chapter on the great importance 
 which historical studies are just now assuming. Most re- 
 markable it is, that anti-Catholic writers have been the main 
 instruments of bringing into clear light the momentous 
 influences of the Church on European civilization. This is 
 eminently true of such historians as Thierry and Michelet ; 
 and those who have read Guizot's works say the same of 
 him. By far the most striking instance however with 
 which I am acquainted, is that of a writer whom I have 
 already mentioned, M. Comte. He professes unbounded 
 obligations to M. de Maistre for having directed him into 
 that line of historical investigation ; but as far as one wholly 
 unversed in history can judge, I should say that he very far 
 exceeds his instructor in depth and enlargement of view, as 
 to the political effects wrought by the peculiar relation of 
 Church and State in the mediaeval period. I had hoped to 
 quote part of his work ; but find that I must hurry rapidly
 
 469 
 
 over what remains of ground to be trodden. It is a very 
 anxious thing indeed to say any thing which can lead to the 
 study of M, Comte's work ; not that his irreligious argu- 
 ments have any weight, for an atheism more bigotted, 
 fanatical, and unreasonable cannot be conceived: but the 
 mere reading such works is a pollution to the mind, unless 
 guarded by special devotional exercises. However, any one 
 who will be aware of the danger, and will read the work 
 merely as a conscientious duty, may derive from it, I think, 
 invaluable help towards the discussion of a question, the full 
 consideration of which is daily more necessary ; the question, 
 namely, of the effects on the temporal happiness of man, pro- 
 duced respectively by 'Church and State according to the 
 idea of each.' And as to the new historical school generally, 
 it would be a very great help towards the great object of 
 unheathenizing our literature, and thus uriprotestantizing our 
 Church, if those who should be the first to introduce 
 generally among us the works of the school, were Catholic- 
 minded and Christian men ; who should be able to supply 
 that other side of the picture, which anti-Catholic writers can 
 never understand. Thus we might learn at once to read 
 of the ideas which constitute the life and support of Chris- 
 tian energy, which were those, at each particular period, im- 
 pressed with especial distinctness on the mind of religious 
 men within the Church, the subject of their controversy, the 
 matter of their devotions ; and also what were the external 
 efforts of the same Church, at the same period, in humanizing, 
 softening, and christianizing the world. 8 
 
 VI. The desirableness of much deeper and more en- 
 lightened principles of 'exegesis' than have hitherto pre- 
 vailed among us, has been already alluded to. 
 
 Such are some of the discussions, into which those may 
 enter with every prospect of conferring inestimable benefit 
 on our Church, whose power of mind and opportunities lead 
 them to a life of abstract study. Many of them are such, 
 
 X Under the term ' the world,' I am, as is plain, including, for convenience' 
 sake, baptized persons, who had not as yet been fully indoctrinated with the 
 Christian ideas.
 
 470 
 
 that it is impossible to pursue them without having laid the 
 foundation in a general knowledge of dogmatic theology. 
 The history of any particular age of the Church cannot be 
 understood, even in its most essential features, unless the 
 principal stress be laid on that particular Christian doctrine, 
 whose intellectual formation and development was at the 
 time mainly engrossing the thoughts of holy men ; nor again 
 can this be understood, without a general knowledge of that 
 system whereof it forms a part. Again, no Catholic Chris- 
 tian would study morals or psychology, except in the closest 
 relation to direct theology ; and in Biblical Criticism I have 
 already made the same observation. (See p. 412.) But I 
 should be inclined, with deference, to submit, that all thinkers, 
 endued with vigorous intellectual and scientific power, 
 would do far more wisely in making some course of dogmatic 
 theology part of their preparatory education ; there will be 
 otherwise, I cannot but think, very serious danger lest they 
 become less sensible of the reality and transcendent claims 
 of religious truth, and acquire the habit of balancing the 
 questions which come before them by other weights than 
 those of the sanctuary. 8 
 
 6. The considerations in the last section lead to a reflection, 
 which it would be wrong to suppress. In looking for 
 guidance in that quarter, where my own eyes are always first 
 directed when in search of spiritual wisdom, 11 I mean the 
 Church of Rome, one cannot but painfully feel, that on such 
 subjects as have been just discussed we find there at present 
 no sufficient model to follow. However the fact is to be 
 accounted for, we cannot conceal from ourselves, that in 
 those subordinate duties of a Church which I have called 
 
 t The subject does not call on me here to allude to what I have already men- 
 tioned more than once ; the very serious danger of deep and ardent intellectual 
 pursuit, whatever its subject, hardening the conscience and the heart : a danger 
 this, which nothing except an unremitting and vigorous course of Christian discipline 
 can avert. 
 
 h I mean to which, as an organized Society, my eyes are so directed : many, I sup- 
 pose, will understand and echo my feeling when I say, that the first quarter, to which 
 I always look for spiritual wisdom, is nearer home.
 
 471 
 
 ' intellectual ' and * political,' the Roman Catholic Church 
 has, in these later ages, assumed a most widely different po- 
 sition, from that which it occupied in the mediaeval period. 
 This it is, which makes worldly men, who do not understand 
 that the real life of a Church lies in the performance of 
 higher and more sacred functions, look upon that Holy 
 Church as decrepid, and tending rapidly to decay: and all 
 of us must surely acknowledge with sorrow, that the fuller 
 possession of ' such accidental and superabundant gifts as 
 are not absolutely necessary to the Church's essence,' would 
 be still of the very utmost benefit towards spreading the 
 pure Gospel ; and is an object worthy of the labours and 
 prayers of all serious and Catholic-minded Christians. As to 
 ' political ' duties, who can say that Rome, at the present 
 day, is actively influential in leavening European politics 
 with Christian principles, in protesting against unjust wars, 
 in securing subjects from oppression? And as to 'intel- 
 lectual ' duties, the following has been drawn up by a friend 
 of mine as a sample, not an exhaustive enumeration, of the 
 sort of questions, primarily important in their bearing on 
 religion, which have arisen in these centuries ; and to which 
 her doctors have not as yet appeared to give any methodical 
 and scientific consideration. 
 
 I. ' There has been no attempt to exhibit the past influence of 
 Christianity on the social and moral state of the world. 
 
 II. ' There has been neglect of the study of Exegesis and of His- 
 tory ; so that the literal meaning of the text of the Scriptures, and 
 the points of resemblance or dissimilarity between the Scriptures and 
 human historians, have to be sought from other writers. 
 
 III. ' There has been no indication of the proper use to be made 
 of the heathen classics. 
 
 IV. ' There has been no attempt to point out the nature or the 
 remedies of any of the great social evils which have grown up during 
 the last three centuries. 
 
 V. ' The allegations brought, in reference to Scripture interpreta- 
 tion, from Mythical History, have not been met.'
 
 472 
 
 And another omission, still more important than these, 
 remains to be considered in a future chapter. 
 
 On the other hand, in those two necessary and fundamental 
 duties of a Church the maintenance of moral and religious 
 discipline, and of an orthodox faith, never in any period has 
 the Roman Catholic Church shone with a brighter lustre, 
 than since the Reformation. The whole system connected 
 with the ' Spiritual Exercises ' is a standing memorial of the 
 first particular ; and such great names as Petavius, Suarez, 
 Vasquez, with a host of others, a lasting attestation of the 
 second. 
 
 7. I trust then, that during the present chapter I have 
 kept sufficiently to the engagement which I made. I trust 
 that such particulars as those which I have specified, imply 
 no allusion to any matters of doctrine, which are at issue 
 between ' high-churchmen ' of different complexions. Wiry 
 then may we not all combine in the prosecution of such de- 
 signs as these, and leave the questions, on which we differ, 
 to be decided by the practical effect which may be produced, 
 by actively following out the principles on which we agree ? 
 If it be granted, that the aiming at such objects as I have 
 ventured to put forward as desirable, implies of itself no set 
 purpose of ' Romanizing ' our Church, I must beg leave 
 to doubt whether any single one of her members entertains 
 any such purpose. For as to secret negotiations and under- 
 standings with members of that Church, these and similar 
 rumours, to the best of my own knowledge, are without the 
 very slightest foundation in fact. And surely, if high- church- 
 men are slow to cooperate in the prosecution of objects, 
 which on their own principles are desirable, from a fear of 
 the direction in which such a course might tend, they are 
 taking the most effectual way to confirm us in what they 
 consider our most serious error ; our belief, namely, that 
 high- church principles, honestly carried out on their posi- 
 tive side, must lead to Rome. If ' high-church ' principles 
 be really substantive and distinct, what possible danger can 
 there be in heartily and ungrudgingly carrying them forward
 
 473 
 
 to their results ? and if they be not substantive, who could 
 grieve that this fact should be established by means of a 
 fair trial ? For my own part, I think it would not be right 
 to conceal, indeed I am anxious openly to express, my own 
 most firm and undoubting conviction, that were we, as a 
 Church, to pursue such a line of conduct as has been here 
 sketched, in proportion as we did so, we should be taught 
 from above to discern and appreciate the plain marks of 
 Divine wisdom and authority in the Roman Church, to 
 repent in sorrow and bitterness of heart our great sin in 
 deserting her communion, and to sue humbly at her feet for 
 pardon and restoration.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 A FEW WORDS ON OUR AUTHORITATIVE FORMULARIES. 
 
 THE same reasons, which made it necessary to compress 
 the last part of the preceding chapter, compel me to put here 
 the merest sketch, in the place of a fuller discussion which I 
 had intended. 
 
 Complaint is often made against maintainers of Roman 
 doctrine, that they evade the spirit of the Articles in a very 
 disingenuous way, and ought not to subscribe them. It is 
 answered by many of these, that they do evade the spirit but 
 accept the statements ; that the original sanctioners of the 
 Articles intended those who held Roman doctrine to sub- 
 scribe them ; but that from various causes, partly the dis- 
 ingenuousness of the Reforming party, the general spirit and 
 flow of them is Protestant. This has been plainly put forth 
 three years ago, (not to mention No. 90,) by Mr. Oakeley and 
 myself; by the former historically, by myself from the in- 
 ternal evidence of our formularies. An answer soon appeared 
 to mine, to which I at once rejoined, and was not further 
 replied to. Now considering how plainly and argumenta- 
 tively those things have been said in the face of day, and 
 how extremely little has been said in the way of answer, I 
 am at a loss to understand the denunciations I hear about 
 dishonesty and the like. I have seen it said, that we profess 
 to be justified in subscribing, through the witness of our 
 conscience : I began my second pamphlet with expressly 
 repudiating any such ground ; I said it was a question for
 
 475 
 
 external argument alone ; and by external argument alone I 
 considered it. Our adversaries profess to go by argument : 
 for three years they have made no reply to Mr. Oakeley's 
 pamphlet or to mine : if they must denounce, pray let them 
 at least argue first, and denounce afterwards. 
 
 The Bishops of Exeter and Ossory have answered No. 90 ; 
 but not having happened, I suppose, to fall in with the two 
 pamphlets I speak of, they leave their line of argument un- 
 touched. On the twenty-second article, e. g., I shall quote a 
 few sentences from my first pamphlet, to which I can find 
 no answer at all in either of those works ; premising that in 
 all ages the practical system of a Church will be more or 
 less corrupt, though doubtlessly at that time it was most 
 distressingly so. 
 
 ' I have heard it said in the last fortnight, that the same prin- 
 ciples which reconcile subscription to the twenty-second Article 
 with the opinions maintained in the Tract, might reconcile sub- 
 scription to the second Article with the Socinian heresy. Now I 
 would almost stake the whole case on the fair issue of that question. 
 Can any thing be more dissimilar in manner and tone than those 
 two Articles ? The second contains an accurately drawn up dog- 
 matic positive statement of the high mystery on which it treats, 
 such as the Church has ever had recourse to for the preservation of 
 the Faith committed to her, and such as it is the tendency of the 
 present day to consider subtle and overstrained. The twenty-second 
 contains no one positive statement : it puts together four or five 
 topics, which cannot be said to be all very closely connected with 
 each other, and declares that ' doctrina Romanensium' on those 
 topics is a fond thing, &c. Would not any one naturally infer 
 from this opposition what Mr. Newman does infer ? that the framers 
 of the Articles see two things before their eyes, the Creeds which 
 have come down to them from the early ages of the Church, and 
 the corrupt system in existence practically to a great extent over- 
 laying these Creeds ; that the former they hand down as they have 
 received them, the latter they protest against, as they see it, 
 generally, and in the mass : not being careful to draw up accurate 
 statements of those true principles which are contradictory to the 
 existing abuses, nor again tracing up the latter to their [supposed]
 
 476 
 
 ultimate principles and condemning them ; but without busying 
 themselves with such investigations, requiring as they would leisure, 
 accuracy of thought, and unity of opinion, condemning what they 
 saw as they saw it, energizing and practically active throughout 
 the Church.' 
 
 Now let me carry the war into the enemy's camp ; and first 
 into Dr. O'Brien's. The two fundamental principles of his 
 theology are, 1st, that nominal Christians are divided into 
 two classes ; the justified, who also know themselves to be 
 justified, and the unjustified; 2d, that the quality on our 
 part which indicates acceptance with God, is undivided trust 
 in the Atonement : and that to say that keeping of the com- 
 mandments is that quality, is carnal and anti-Christian. 
 
 Take the first of these. What would be the public wor- 
 ship of a Church, which held such an opinion ? It is very 
 difficult to fancy : it would, I suppose, as in Scotland and 
 Germany, consist mainly in preaching ; that the justified 
 may receive comfort, and the unjustified warning. How can 
 there be ' common prayer' at all ? for the one great devo- 
 tional act of the justified would be to thank God for their 
 justification ; and of the unjustified, to pray for justification : 
 no necessity for the former to pray for holiness, since it is 
 quite certain to follow; no use in the latter doing so, for 
 holiness before ' justification' is 'hollow and carnal.' But cer- 
 tainly such worship would not most distantly resemble our own 
 Prayer-book. To use the language of those who personify 
 ' our Church's doctrine,' as though there existed some such 
 substance, if our Church held any such doctrine as this 
 division of Christians into two such classes, every page of the 
 Prayer-book must shew it: but, in fact, every page of the 
 Prayer-book negatives it. I wish there were room to illus- 
 trate this at length : but we have only to look through 
 prayers and litany to see it. " Create and make in us, &c. 
 
 that we worthily lamenting, &c. may obtain perfect 
 
 remission." Those who, on Dr. O'Brien's theory, know that 
 they have remission, and those who may know that they 
 have not, unite in praying that they may have it. In the
 
 477 
 
 Cathechism all the children ' thank God' for being * called' to 
 a ' state of salvation,' and pray Him to give them ' grace' to 
 ' continue in the same :' in both points contradicting Dr. 
 O'Brien: asserting that all the baptized are justified, and 
 that justification does not involve perseverance. And in the 
 Visitation of the Sick the priest, instead of trying to discover 
 whether the sick man is justified or not, ' exhorts' him to 
 remember the profession' made to God in Baptism ; and 
 then proceeds, ' forasmuch as after this life there is an ac- 
 count to be given unto the righteous Judge, ... I require 
 you to examine yourself and your estate,' Sec. Here, at the 
 most solemn moment of a Christian's whole life, words are 
 put into a priest's mouth in addressing him, which no ' Evan- 
 gelical' could willingly use : for surely his wish must be, to 
 discover whether the sick man is in the number of the justi- 
 fied ; and if so, there is no such fear as the Prayer-book 
 expresses, lest he be ' accursed and condemned in that fearful 
 judgment.' Let me ask, how many ' Evangelical' clergymen 
 could bring themselves to read this exhortation to their 
 parishioners at the point of death ? 
 
 The second principle is even more plainly at variance with 
 the Prayer-book. Instead of all the unjustified praying God 
 for this one grace, (Lutheran ' faith') and all the justified 
 thanking God for it, I doubt if the very idea of ' renouncing 
 trust in our own merits' is met with explicitly in the Prayer- 
 book ; except indeed in the Collect, where the whole congrega- 
 tion says, ' O God, who seest that we put not our trust in any 
 thing that we do,' which must prove, on Lutheran principles, 
 that the English Church supposes every one of her members 
 justified. In the Office for adult Baptism ( we call upon 
 Thee for these persons, that they coming to thy Holy Bap- 
 tism may receive remission of sins.' And whereas presently 
 the Office speaks of ' these present persons truly repenting 
 and coming unto Him by faith,' it very soon makes clear 
 whether the latter word be used in the Lutheran sense ; for 
 the testing questions asked them are, ' Dost thou renounce 
 the Devil . . . the world . . . and the flesh ?' ' Dost thou 
 believe in God the Father,' &c. (the Atonement not even
 
 478 
 
 expressly specified,) ' Wilt thou be baptized in this faith ? ' 
 ' Wilt thou obediently keep God's holy will and command- 
 ments?' In the Athanasian Creed 'Whosoever will be 
 saved before all things it is necessary' that he renounce all 
 trust in his own merits ? that he close with the Gospel offer ? 
 that he believe himself freely pardoned by Christ's Atone- 
 ment ? No: but 'that he hold the Catholic Faith:' 'to 
 believe not 'to trust' is the Prayer-book version of 'faith;' 
 and among the objects for belief which follow in the Creed, 
 the Atonement only receives a passing allusion. In the 
 Visitation of the Sick again, there is no attempt either 
 to find whether the sick person has a fiduciary appre- 
 hension of Christ's merits, or to teach him how best he 
 may obtain it : in other words, the priest at that awful 
 moment is called on to pursue a course, which neglects the 
 only particular that Dr. O'Brien thinks essential. The 
 priest examines him, whether he 'believes as a Christian 
 man should do,' (and then follows the Creed as before, with 
 not so much as an explicit mention of the Atonement,) and 
 whether 'he repent him truly of his sins;' he 'earnestly 
 moves' him 'to be liberal to the poor,' and 'moves' him 'to 
 make a special Confession of his sins.' But of renouncing 
 trust in his own merits, apprehending Christ's Atonement, 
 and the rest not one word. Surely if our leading Re- 
 formers were serious men and cared for religion on its own 
 account (which of course I do not myself think the case ; 
 but if so,) this proves to demonstration that their principles, 
 on the fundamental question of Bishop O'Brien's theology, 
 were precisely contradictory to Bishop O'Brien. 
 
 I make no imputation at all against the Bishop of Ossory ; 
 I quite understand how naturally persons retain what they 
 have received, without realising its full force. I see the same 
 among our own friends ; many of whom are as firmly, and 
 to me as astonishingly, convinced that the Articles in their 
 natural meaning are Catholic, as the Bishop seems to be 
 that the Prayer-book is Protestant. But I do think that Bishop 
 O'Brien, who has given his full assent and consent to the 
 Prayer-book and has declared that there is nothing in it
 
 479 
 
 contrary to the word of God, is not the person who ought to 
 have started such an idea as that of ' shifting, evasive, and 
 disingenuous sophistry' in interpreting formularies which 
 one has subscribed. 
 
 Now take the case of anti-Roman ' high-churchmen.' Their 
 controversy with ' evangelicals' turns on the question, whether 
 self-denial and a repeated exercise of the will be necessary to 
 holy living, or whether the justified possess a principle which 
 will carry them into a good life by itself. Our twelfth Article 
 is as plain as words can make it on the ' evangelical' side : 
 (observe in particular the word ' necessarily' :) of course 
 I think its natural meaning may be explained away, for 
 I subscribe it myself in a non-natural sense : but I know 
 no Article which ' Romanizers' have to distort so much, as 
 all ( high-churchmen' have to distort this. Bishop O'Brien 
 in his work on Faith (pp. 121 4, 389 396) argues very 
 powerfully on the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth Articles ; 
 and ends with thus summing up the matter : There is a 
 'justification, which we have by faith only, (Art. XI.) which 
 good works follow, (Art. XII.) which no good works pre- 
 cede, (Art. XIII.)' I strongly urge the passages above cited 
 on those, who think that ' high-churchmen' can subscribe our 
 Articles, without violently distorting, and, as I may say, dis- 
 locating them. The very phrase 'justification by faith only,' 
 invented by Luther for his heresy, is incorporated ; nay, 
 Art. XIII. seems directly to assert that Cornelius, notwith- 
 standing the angel's address to him, (Acts x. 4,) was no 
 more ' meet to receive grace,' than the most proud and 
 blinded Pharisee. I repeat it : any one who shrinks from 
 this last atrocious and most immoral sentiment, has a far 
 greater difficulty in subscribing Art. XIII. than I have 
 in subscribing the most apparently anti-Roman of the 
 number. The twenty-first Article on General Councils is 
 curiously enough left unnoticed by the Bishop of Exeter ; 
 and numbers of ' high- churchmen' wish, I suppose, to believe 
 that certain General Councils are infallible. Unless indeed 
 we think so, we fall against another rock : for who could 
 subscribe the anathemas of the Athanasian Creed, unless he
 
 480 
 
 believed that its statements are more than mere human ex- 
 positions of Scripture ? Yet the twenty-first Article is far 
 more difficult of explanation to such 'high-churchmen,' than 
 the nineteenth Article (' the Church of Rome hath erred') is 
 to me. (see p. 100.) So the notice at the end of the Com- 
 munion Service is far more difficult to reconcile with any 
 belief in the Real Presence of our Lord's Body, than the 
 twenty-eighth Article with the Roman belief, (see p. 118.) 
 As to the twenty-second Article ('on Purgatory,' &c.) the 
 real distortion seems to be the applying it to abstract Roman 
 doctrine at all : this seems to me quite a forced and unna- 
 tural construction : as much so as the construction which 
 / put on the twelfth Article. So again a comparison of 
 the sixth Article, the twentieth, and the twenty-first, will shew 
 them utterly irreconcilable in spirit with the idea of any au- 
 thorized interpreter of Scripture in times past, whether Pope, 
 Council, or consent of the Fathers ; and quite as irreconcil- 
 able with the last as with the first. Yet a Canon came out at 
 the same time ordering authority to be given to the Fathers, 
 and the Homilies exemplify the same in their language. 
 
 In some particulars 'high-churchmen ' adopt a less reasonable 
 interpretation than any others at all. For instance, the oath 
 of supremacy may most naturally be understood as denying 
 spiritual authority to the Pope, and attributing it to the 
 King : only in Article XXXVII. the Reformers shrink back 
 again from this; for 'ministering of the Sacraments' is pre- 
 cisely that prerogative in which spiritual power consists. So 
 again it is reasonable, much more consistent with Article 
 XXXVII., though much less consistent with the more obvious 
 meaning of the oath of supremacy, to interpret the latter as 
 Dr. Pusey interprets it, considering the word ' spiritual ' in 
 that oath to be merely synonymous with ' ecclesiastical ;' like 
 the other synonyms ' power, prince, potentate,' &c., so as 
 merely to refer to power in the ecclesiastical courts, &c. : 
 temporal power in things spiritual. But what is so absurdly 
 untenable, is the ordinary interpretation of this oath ; which 
 introduces into an oath of royal supremacy a determination on 
 the respective place of Pope and Bishop; which tries to
 
 481 
 
 impose a yoke on our conscience, and make us believe that 
 in that oath we deny something to the Pope which yet we do 
 not attribute to the King. An extravagance this, which need 
 only be stated to be refuted. 
 
 Are the Latitudinarians then better off in their subscrip- 
 tion ? Allusion to the Athanasian Creed, and to the strong 
 language of the Prayer-book on Baptismal Regeneration, 
 sufficiently disposes of that question. 
 
 In a word. I am firmly convinced that no one clergyman 
 of our Church, who will look honestly in the face the formu- 
 laries which he is called on to subscribe, will be able to sub- 
 scribe them all in a natural and straightforward sense. I 
 attribute this fact to the utter want of fixed religious prin- 
 ciples displayed by the leading Reformers ; a and I attribute 
 to it much of the disingenuous and unmanly spirit, which has 
 so often been the shame of religious controversy in our 
 Reformed Church. But how those who look on the leading 
 Reformers as serious men, as having been zealous for doc- 
 trine, and as having realised their religious expressions, how 
 these can subscribe our formularies, it is for themselves to 
 consider. 
 
 a Hear an admirer of the English Reformation. In that movement Dr. 
 Arnold " used to say it was necessary, above all other historical periods, ' not 
 to forget the badness of the agents in the goodness of the cause, or the goodness 
 of the cause in the badness of the agents.' " Arnold's Life and Correspondence 
 vol. ii. p. 290.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 ON THE SUPREMACY OF CONSCIENCE IN THE PURSUIT OF 
 MORAL AND RELIGIOUS TRUTH. 
 
 1. ATTACKS are continually made on integral parts of the 
 received Christian system, which imply such a maxim as the 
 following ; viz. that a fair, and unbiassed, and searching ex- 
 amination of any doctrine we have been accustomed to hold, 
 is under all ordinary circumstances a means of increasing the 
 certainty of our religious knowledge ; and that he, who when 
 fairly challenged to the task of investigation refuses to com- 
 ply, exhibits a consciousness of the weak basis on which his 
 faith rests, and a marked deficiency in the true philosophical 
 spirit. On this principle it must be, that the rationalist is so 
 loud in his complaints, or so contemptuous in his comments, 
 when notwithstanding the very serious and numerous dif- 
 ficulties he succeeds in raising on the genuineness and the 
 authority of the various books in Scripture, and the inex- 
 tricable confusion in which he is able to involve the whole 
 question of inspiration ; notwithstanding the unanswerable, or 
 at least unanswered, difficulties which he is able to place 
 in the way of those who maintain the ancient reverence for 
 the inspired volume ; Christians nevertheless proceed to read 
 the Bible as devotionally, or to draw doctrinal truths from 
 its individual texts with as much of unconcern, as much of 
 humble and unquestioning reverence, as though he had spared 
 himself the trouble of his deep research ; and as though all 
 the labours of the modern German school had been devoted 
 to some subject wholly unconnected with religion, to mathe-
 
 483 
 
 matics, or to astronomy, or to gunnery. On the same prin- 
 ciple the Socinian enlarges, with no modified feeling of 
 contempt, on the bigotry and narrow-mindedness which 
 the orthodox display. In vain does he put in the clearest 
 light the difficulties which surround their doctrine ; in vain 
 does he shew them, that their tenets are simply unmeaning 
 and self-contradictory, unless they go on to admit the whole 
 patristic scheme of technical theology; a and that no two 
 things can be more openly and undeniably opposed in spirit 
 and general bearing, than the text of the New Testament and 
 the technicalities of the fourth century ; in vain does he 
 bring before them passage after passage in Scripture, of 
 which it seems to him absolutely inconceivable that it could 
 have been so worded, were the Trinitarian doctrine Apostolic ; 
 in vain does he adduce texts to shew how little need be un- 
 derstood by the high and glow r ing language, here and there 
 applied to our Blessed Lord ; he cannot obtain from them 
 even a confession that there is the slightest difficulty in the 
 matter. ' They take for granted,' he says, ' the truth of 
 their own interpretation as unblushingly, as though they had 
 most carefully examined the whole question for themselves, or 
 as though the whole world agreed with them in opinion on 
 the subject. Not one in ten thousand will so much as take 
 the trouble to find out that there are any arguments on the 
 opposite side ; and of those even who go so far, not one 
 hundredth part will take the further step, of fairly giving 
 their mind to the task of appreciating the force of those 
 arguments.' 
 
 Nor are similar comments confined to unbelievers. The 
 Protestant is not less excited to anger, or contempt, or a mix- 
 ture of the two, by what appears to him the strangely arro- 
 gant and inconsecutive course adopted by ' high-churchmen.' 
 They profess, in the main, to base their belief on the faith of 
 the primitive ages. Now it is well known that many Pro- 
 testant thinkers, of most undeniable qualifications for histo- 
 rical research, and certainly no more (indeed much less) fairly 
 chargeable with prejudice than 'high-churchmen,' have come 
 
 a An observation of Mr. Blanco White's. 
 
 2 i 2
 
 484 
 
 to conclusions on the history of these times widely different 
 from theirs. Yet will these theologians, with unruffled brow, 
 nay with professions on their lips of the deepest and most 
 shrinking humility, speak of their opponents as 'unhappy 
 men,' or 'miserable men,' or ' misguided men,' and of them- 
 selves as beyond any possible question in possession of the 
 truth ; nay more, private Christians, who do not profess to 
 have studied the matter at all, but take their opinions on 
 trust from others, will speak of their peculiar doctrines 
 (e. g. the Eucharistic Presence) with as much undoubting 
 dogmatism, as though these doctrines rested for support, 
 not on a difficult and disputed historical inquiry, but on the 
 clearest and simplest mathematical proof. ' What can we 
 do with such men ? ' say the Protestant world ; ' we drive 
 them in argument from one position to another ; yet they 
 still confront and attack us as resolutely as ever. After all 
 their confident and boastful language on the favourable and 
 striking contrast afforded by their doctrines to the Roman 
 schools, we find them not only softening their tone every 
 year, but quietly giving up, one after another, points which 
 they had maintained as confidently as any which they still 
 maintain; nay, we find them remaining silent under the 
 irresistible attacks of Roman theologians, and yielding them 
 the victory without a struggle. Looking at the opposite 
 quarter in the midst of their assumptions on the impreg- 
 nable nature of the historical ground they have occupied, 
 we obtain from them by the way the cool admission, that at 
 last the evidence is no more than enough to prove, that 
 " there are three chances (so to say) for revelation, and only 
 two against." b And yet for all this, there they remain as 
 pertinaciously and undoubtingly upholding their present 
 views, and as unreservedly charging with moral culpability 
 all departure from them, as though they had made good 
 their historical argument to the satisfaction of all; and as 
 though they had never hitherto been mistaken, in a single 
 position which they confidently maintained." 
 
 Nay, the ' high-churchman ' himself, who, one might have 
 b Tracts for the Times, No. 85, p. 112.
 
 485 
 
 thought, would have remembered the proverb about glass 
 houses, attacks unfortunate Roman Catholics in the same 
 strain. ' You invoke St. Mary, as the ordained channel of all 
 grace ; prove to my satisfaction from Church History your 
 warrant for doing so. Or if you cannot, listen to me, and 
 I will shew you, that for five, six, seven, or eight centuries' 
 (whatever the number is) 'such a belief was never heard of 
 in the Church. Nay, consult your Bibles, which in England 
 your priests dare not take from you, and see that there 
 seems an intentional harshness in the very manner in which 
 she is addressed ; as though to protest against the great heresy, 
 which should arise in the Church in these later days under 
 the pretence of doing her honour. ' c And when the answer he 
 gets to such language is the recoil of horror, and a natural 
 and praiseworthy indignation at such a tone of language and 
 such a line of argument, he too follows the example of the 
 Zuinglian, the Socinian, the Rationalist; he moralizes on 
 the narrow bigotry of the Roman Catholic Creed, and the 
 * superior purity of our Apostolic Church.' 
 
 It must be acknowledged, that all this affords a strong 
 prima facie presumption against the maxim in question : 
 every one seems to act upon it, in dealing with those who 
 believe more than himself; and every one still more plainly 
 to neglect it, in dealing with those who believe less. Let us 
 now proceed with other presumptions in the same direction. 
 For that this maxim, as popularly received, is utterly false and 
 pernicious, is perhaps the deepest conviction I entertain ; and 
 when its untenable nature has been shewn, our course will 
 be clear, and we may proceed to consider the principles 
 which really do lead to the acquisition of moral and religious 
 truth. Nor should it be omitted, as a further preliminary, 
 that although there has been perhaps generally on both sides 
 some considerable confusion of ideas, this maxim is at 
 bottom that very principle of private judgment, which has 
 
 4 Such words as these have, alas ! been used by members of 'our Church, whom 
 their high spiritual attainments have not wholly rescued from the influence of our 
 tainted atmosphere.
 
 486 
 
 been so hot a subject of debate between writers of Protestant 
 and of Catholic sentiments. 
 
 It may be observed that the statement of this principle 
 with which I began, is far from being either full or precise. 
 In fact, no task is more invidious, than that of attempting to 
 give expression to your adversary's views ; and I am very 
 glad to be spared the difficulty and responsibility of such a 
 task, by finding it done very sufficiently to my hand. The 
 present Archbishop of Dublin has written an essay on the 
 subject, in which the following very plain statement is to be 
 found : and should it appear, as I fully anticipate, axiomatic 
 rather than paradoxical, I shall be wholly saved from an 
 imputation very frequently cast on those who anathematize 
 the Protestant principle ; the imputation of attributing to 
 their adversaries some extreme and distorted sentiment, that 
 they may proceed to make therefrom very extravagant and 
 senseless deductions, which in real truth are no necessary 
 results of the principle itself. 
 
 The Archbishop's statement is as follows : 
 
 " One who has an aversion to doubt and is anxious to make up 
 his mind and come to some conclusion on every question that is 
 discussed, must be content to rest many of his opinions on very 
 slight grounds. Such a one therefore is no lover of truth, nor in the 
 right way to attain it on any point. He may more reasonably hope 
 this, who, though he may on many points perceive some (and perhaps 
 a great) preponderance of probability on this or that side, is contented 
 to come to a decisive conclusion only on those few, which he has been 
 enabled thoroughly to investigate." And a few passages earlier : 
 " A good man will indeed wish to find the evidence of the Christian 
 religion satisfactory : but a wise man will not for that reason think 
 it satisfactory, but will weigh the evidence the more carefully, on account 
 of the importance of the question"* 
 
 I trust then that I may consider myself to have overcome 
 the temptation to unfairness, when I state the Protestant 
 maxim as follows: 'it should always be the object of our 
 careful endeavours, that our belief, on subjects of religion, 
 shall be as nearly as possible proportioned to our evidence.' 
 
 d Essays, (second series,) pp. 36, 24.
 
 487 
 
 2. Having obtained then a sufficient statement of this 
 principle, let us proceed to consider its worth. 
 
 I. The first result that it occurs to mention as flowing 
 from the adoption of such a theory, is, that a stop would be 
 at once put to all moral and religious action. Let us take two 
 particular doctrines, which I therefore choose, because the 
 denial of them is more familiar to English minds, than are 
 fortunately the more extravagant and fanatical excesses of un- 
 belief : let us take the Divinity of Christ, and the Eucharistic 
 Presence. Defenders of -the last doctrine ordinarily base it 
 on tradition as well as on Scripture ; defenders of the 
 former doctrine sometimes do the same, but sometimes also 
 they support it on the critical collation of Scripture passages. 
 It does not at all matter for my present purpose which 
 alternative be adopted : for in either case the truth depends 
 on a kind of proof, generically distinct from demonstrative or 
 mathematical reasoning. Take even the traditionary argu- 
 ment, which seems to admit of more certainty. When we 
 consider the Arianism attributed by so many writers to 
 several of the early Fathers, and the great delicacy and com- 
 plexity of the task of investigating this allegation ; when we 
 consider how many learned and accomplished men have 
 altogether denied the sufficiency of any traditionary argu- 
 ments as a proof of Apostolic teaching ; nay, when a writer, 
 who has been prominent in upholding these very doctrines, 
 and, if any, is deeply versed in primitive antiquity, says, (as 
 just now cited,) that the historical evidence at last is only 
 such that ' there are (so to say) three chances for revelation, 
 and two against ;' it must be the very extreme of narrow-minded 
 bigotry to deny, that there is, at all events, much to be said 
 on both sides; even though it be thought, on the whole, 
 clear in which direction probability preponderates. And if 
 any one says, that on the former subject, at least, the 
 Scripture evidence is more decisive ; that the study of the 
 New Testament, on the principles of exegesis, will prove, 
 with the force of demonstration, that our Blessed Lord's 
 Divinity is taught in the New Testament ; he only shews 
 (what is very far from an imputation), that he has never
 
 488 
 
 fairly given his mind to the arguments adduced on the 
 Socinian side. 6 
 
 Now, not to speak here of the outrageous paradox in- 
 volved in the idea, that men, immersed in worldly business, 
 are able rightly to hold the balance between conflicting 
 arguments of this nature, let us confine our view to the 
 studious and philosophical. These then are not to have a 
 certain conviction of the two doctrines above specified, but 
 only a probable conviction : a conviction proportioned to the 
 degree in which one side of the -argument outweighs the 
 other. Let us try and bring this strange idea home to our 
 imaginations. Let us try and conceive a person meditating 
 on the events in our Blessed Lord's life, while he endeavours, 
 as a duty, to preserve in his mind an abiding impression, that 
 the probability of His Divine Nature is three to two : or 
 praying God through our Lord's merits, under the considera- 
 tion urged by the Archbishop, that it is, at all events, the safer 
 course to do so, and that there is, moreover, a preponderance 
 of probability, that his words have a meaning. The very 
 idea of so much as the possibility of all this is so wild, that 
 we cannot form any sober conception of its hypothetical 
 
 e Consider, for instance, (as I urged in the article on Mr. Goode, p. 73,) how 
 such a passage as John x. 34 36, must strike those not previously prepossessed 
 in favour of our Lord's Divinity, not merely as in itself opposed to that doctrine, 
 but also as taking away the effect of other texts which might else appear to 
 support it ; for it appears to shew that our Lord Himself claims the appellation 
 ' God,' and yet claims it only in a figurative sense. We shall see more plainly 
 how natural would -be this effect of the text, by observing how precisely in the 
 same manner (as observed in Mr. Newman's Sermons, vol. vi. p. 161,) Protest- 
 ants pervert the parallel passage, John vi. 63, into an explaining away of His 
 declarations on the Real Presence. I alluded in the same article to such other 
 texts as Luke ii. 52 ; Mark xiii. 32 ; John xx. 17 ; 1 Cor. xv. 28 ; while the 
 negative evidence would strike such unhappy persons still more forcibly. Mr. 
 B. White again adopts the following argument : * is it conceivable that if the 
 Apostles preached in public our Lord's Divinity, the unbelieving Jews would not 
 have put, in the very front ground of their objections, the apparent interference 
 of such a belief with the doctrine of the Divine Unity, to which they were 
 so zealously devoted ? And does not the total absence of such objection prove to 
 demonstration, that no such doctrine was preached in public ? * I confess that thi 8 
 argument appears to me extremely forcible, as against those who deny that the 
 Apostles reserved this great doctrine ; that they unfolded it only by degrees to 
 their converts.
 
 489 
 
 results ; and again, there is the most imminent danger of 
 appearing irreverent ourselves, in the straightforward exposi - 
 tion of an irreverent theory started by others. Still as it is 
 very important that my readers should understand this prin- 
 ciple in its true light, let me ask, how could an earnest and 
 eager love for our Blessed Lord grow up in a Christian, whos e 
 belief should be so fantastically ordered ? nay, how could it 
 be even safe for one so minded to give himself up to such a 
 feeling, bound as he is ever to remember the adverse pro- 
 bability (two chances to three) that the solemn doctrine which 
 sanctions that love is not true ? Any one who, from his 
 habit of mind, is exposed to such temptations, knows very 
 well the misery he experiences from sceptical thoughts: he 
 knows how their intrusion falls like ice upon his heart; and 
 threatens to paralyze all vigorous and healthy action of the 
 moral nature. A right-minded person indeed, on the mo- 
 ment, by prayer and an exercise of the will, aims at their 
 violent expulsion ; and the principle shall be presently 
 stated, on which this prayer and these efforts are his duty. 
 But should he, in their stead, resort to the means of argu- 
 ment, and inquiry, and careful deliberation, the necessary 
 result must be, that in the place of a momentary chill, there 
 would grow up a callous insensibility of heart to all the 
 wonders of Redeeming Love ; and those doubts, which at 
 their first coming threatened, by their continued presence 
 would enforce, a final abandonment of Christian action and 
 devotion. 
 
 In like manner, those who rest their belief in the Catho- 
 licity of the English Church on private judgment, that is, 
 on an examination (in person or by proxy) of historical and 
 ecclesiastical arguments, are involved in the same dilemma. 
 They cannot, for very shame, say that the proof from those 
 grounds is simply demonstrative : they may say that such 
 objections as those contained for example in the fourth 
 chapter of this work, have by no means the same force 
 in their eyes that they have in mine ; but they cannot say 
 that they have no force whatever : they cannot say, that our 
 deficiency in all regular provision for moral discipline, our
 
 490 
 
 toleration, or rather encouragement, of almost omnigenous 
 heterodoxy, our loss of all visible union, nay, sympathy, 
 with those which we claim as sister-churches, they cannot say 
 that these considerations are of no weight at all, when the 
 question is to be decided on the principles of Antiquity. The 
 arguments then for our Catholicity outweigh the arguments 
 against it, in some definite and proximately ascertainable 
 proportion ; and those therefore who profess to rest their 
 belief on those arguments, are bound to attend the Lord's 
 Table in our Churches, not with a simple, undoubting belief 
 that they there receive His Body and Blood ; that would, 
 on such views, be utterly unreasonable : no, but with an 
 opinion that they receive this Gift ; an opinion, the strength 
 of which must be adjusted to the balance of evidence in its 
 favour. I look up, of course, far too lovingly and respect- 
 fully to many English ' high-churchmen,' to doubt for a mo- 
 ment that they would indignantly repudiate such an unreal 
 and hollow mockery of all religion as this absurd fancy ; but 
 what does this prove, except the very point for which I am 
 so anxious ? it proves that they radically and fundamentally 
 misstate, in their intellectual exposition, the real nature and 
 quality of their spiritual conviction ; that they profess to 
 build on history and antiquity, while they really and truly 
 adopt no such (in result) Antichristian and immoral course, 
 but build on conscience and on faith ? 
 
 II. Next let me draw attention to an acknowledged prin- 
 ciple of human nature ; viz. that persons are utterly unable to 
 form an unbiassed judgment, on questions in which their 
 feelings are really and deeply interested. To some who are 
 so affected, the strongest arguments will appear worthless and 
 contemptible ; to others, the weakest will appear sufficient 
 grounds for disquiet and alarm : nay, frequently the same 
 person will be swayed to and fro, between the former state of 
 mind and the latter. The most able and accomplished 
 physician loses all his power of judgment and true discern- 
 ment, when the question is, whether the child, in whom all 
 his hopes and affections are centred, be really on the bed of 
 death. Or, to take a still closer parallel, the miser, who
 
 491 
 
 year after year has devoted all the powers of his mind to the 
 one purpose of accumulating wealth, may be at times visited 
 with dismal and oppressive doubts, whether the object have 
 been worth the labour ; while at other times the same object 
 rises up before his imagination, clothed in the most dazzling 
 colours of reality and attractiveness : but who would look to 
 him for a calm and dispassionate summing up of the evidence 
 on both sides, and a decision upon that evidence, as to the 
 existence and worth of that supposed good to which he has 
 devoted his life ? Now it is plain that the utmost devotion 
 to wealth, which miser ever displayed, cannot even admit of 
 comparison with that devotion to heavenly treasure, which is 
 the Christian's true wisdom. The self-sacrifice of the very 
 highest Saint in the Christian Church, whose life has been 
 given us in detail and full particulars, falls short surely of 
 that, which plain reason would dictate on the hypothesis of 
 Christianity being true. Here then we see another instance 
 of the hollowness of Archbishop Whately's strange theory, 
 that we should act indeed on the safer side, but believe 
 according to the evidence. To act on the safer side, will 
 make it impossible to form a judgment on the evidence : 
 unless the Archbishop supposes, contrary to the experience 
 and the dicta of all mankind, that when a certain object 
 has been, and is, the one absorbing, animating principle 
 of a man's every thought, feeling, and action, he is in a con- 
 dition to balance evidence on the trustworthiness of that 
 object; that we may expect a philosophical view on the 
 value of glory, from a commander flushed with conquest and 
 pursuing his successes, or of physical knowledge, from one 
 who has devoted every waking hour of his life to its pursuit. 
 So much as this is plain on the surface, (though much more 
 may be said with truth,) that in order to form a judg- 
 ment on the external evidence, whether of Christianity, or 
 our Lord's Divinity, or our Church's Catholicity, we must, 
 by a violent effort, suspend for some considerable time the 
 stress and impetus of our Christian action ; that we must lie 
 on our oars, as it were, till we have become cool ; that we 
 must cease for the time to pray God in the name of Christ,
 
 492 
 
 cease to look to Him as God for protection when temptations 
 assail us, cease to seek strength in our Church's ordinances 
 against the world, the flesh, and the devil. 
 
 III. Further ; were this principle of private judgment 
 true, not the good but the clever, not the spiritual but the 
 intellectual, not the heavenly-minded but the well-educated, 
 would be the real originators of moral and religious truth ; 
 the real fountains, whence its streams flow forth to the 
 world. Those would best know whether to accept or reject 
 Christianity, who by natural power and acquired habit are 
 best fitted to deal with historical investigations ; those would 
 best know whether or not to worship Christ as God, who are 
 greatest proficients in Hellenistic Greek ; those would best 
 know whether to remain in our Church or to leave it, who 
 have the greatest genius in applying principles and under- 
 standing facts. And the poor and uneducated in every 
 country, in every age, would be drifted at random from one 
 belief into another, according to the accidental bias of the 
 philosophical world for the time being. The very idea of 
 such a dispensation fills me with such horror and detestation, 
 that I should not perhaps be able, even were it necessary, to 
 discuss it calmly ; I borrow therefore with great gratification 
 a passage from a most able and thoughtful article, in an old 
 number of the British Critic. 
 
 'Now it certainly would involve great disadvantages, if moral 
 knowledge was gained by mere intellectual processes. Uneducated 
 people would be more unable than ever to judge themselves between 
 right and wrong, and those who were most capable of guiding them 
 would not necessarily be inclined to guide them right, nay, by 
 that very knowledge would be enabled more easily to guide them 
 wrong. Much knowledge of good would be wasted on men who did 
 not wish to profit by it ; and clever persons, without much energy of 
 character, would be overwhelmed by seeing at once the extent of that 
 change of nature which they had to effect in themselves if they were 
 to conform themselves to what was really right. 
 
 ' Now, so far as moral discrimination is acquired by practice and not 
 by reasoning, these imperfections are avoided. Viewed as a means 
 of improvement for ourselves, knowledge is given where it will be
 
 493 
 
 used ; of power over others, where it will not be misused ; viewed as 
 a blessing, it is given to the deserving ; viewed as a trial, it is accom- 
 modated to the infirmity of the weak. 
 
 ' And on the other hand, who are they who require the brand of 
 ignorance to mark them in the sight of their fellow-creatures, who 
 deserve to be left without knowledge of any thing beyond their own 
 miserable desires, but those who have refused to obey such know- 
 ledge ? What wiser, and what juster, and what more really mer- 
 ciful law, than that man shall not be able to receive into his head 
 what he will not receive into his heart also ? What less to be 
 wondered at, than the sentence, dreadful as it is, that if man 
 hardens his will, God will harden his intellect against truth? 
 Surely the true difficulty in the world, if we are to find one, is not 
 that such a law exists, but that it does not exist more exclusively. 
 Surely it is only the unwarrantable value which is set on intellect 
 in this particular age, which prevents us from seeing how very 
 strange it would be, if knowledge of this kind were given only, or 
 even chiefly, to the wise in this world, to the sharp, clear-headed, 
 and argumentative, and not to the humble and conscientious lover 
 of goodness ? What business would they have with such advan- 
 
 IV. These considerations will, I hope, be sufficient to 
 alarm several most excellent persons who have unawares 
 committed themselves to this spurious philosophy, and to 
 induce them to reconsider the question and retrace their 
 steps. But more extreme disciples of the school will be 
 even confirmed by them in their evil ways of thinking : for 
 as to the last argument, they will say, that they consider 
 nothing more desirable than for intellectual philosophers to 
 be acknowledged as the oracles of moral and religious truth : 
 and as to the two former, those only furnish an additional 
 reason for what they have long held, the unreasonableness 
 of any firm belief in revealed religion ; "a belief," said one 
 of their number/ " which I will then entertain, when I see 
 a message from God written on the sun." Such topics as 
 I have already mentioned do not affect the trustworthiness of 
 
 f British Critic for January, 1841, pp. 35, 6. 
 K I think, Paine.
 
 494 
 
 their intellectual arguments; and it is on these, as on an 
 impregnable ground, that they take their stand. It will be 
 however an imputation on their intellectual acumen, if they 
 be shewn inconsistent with themselves. This therefore I 
 shall next attempt to do ; taking in an inverse order the four 
 classes with which I started. 
 
 To those then who call on the Roman Catholic to produce, 
 from Scripture or Antiquity, definite and tangible grounds 
 for his belief in the universality of St. Mary's intercession, 
 I would say, have you ever thought of producing definite 
 and tangible grounds, from Scripture and Antiquity, for your 
 own articles of belief ? That you have read both Scripture 
 and Antiquity, and seen much which coincides with your 
 views, I do not deny; but we know very well, that if all the 
 evidence bearing on a subject were produced in Court ever so 
 fully, yet if Counsel were heard only on one side, there is not 
 much doubt of the decision. Many learned and most able 
 men have thought, that there is no sufficient evidence from 
 Antiquity for the Apostolic origin of the principal doctrines 
 you hold; many other learned and most able men have 
 thought, that there is evidence from Antiquity for the indi- 
 visibility and infallibility of the Church in every age, and 
 her power therefore, in any century, of developing new results 
 (about St. Mary or any other subject), and imposing* 1 them 
 on her children. You have been habituated probably for 
 many years in a view of history distinct from either ; it is 
 perfectly idle and absurd therefore to imagine that you can 
 really judge of the evidence, unless, by a sustained and 
 prolonged effort of the imagination, you have supposed 
 yourselves in the respective position of your opponents, and 
 have endeavoured to read the examples and innumerable 
 facts of the time from their point of view. Unless you have 
 done this on principle, and not once only but repeatedly, it 
 is ridiculous to say that you ground your opinions on 
 Antiquity. If you will not accept the high ground of 
 
 h It must not be supposed from this, that the Roman Church has imposed on her 
 children the belief that St. Mary is the ordained channel of all grace ; it is a very 
 general subject of belief with them, but no article of faith.
 
 495 
 
 conscience, nothing is left for you but the low ground of 
 prejudice. Will you answer that not one man in a million 
 is capable of the task I suppose ? I think you have under- 
 stated the matter ; and should doubt if a man ever lived 
 who was competent to perform it. 1 This however is no 
 
 * The argument from Antiquity of the ' high-churchman ' with one class of his 
 opponents, I have drawn out at some little length in the British Critic, and shall beg 
 leave to append it. 
 
 ' First, let it be observed, that the question which he is to consider is one of 
 history ; a science whose real difficulties, uncertainties, and perplexities are 
 every day more clearly seen, and of which we predict that it will be one triumph 
 achieved by the present generation, that its real nature will be more fully under- 
 stood. It is getting more and more to be perceived, that the historian requires 
 not merely a profound, accurate, and most miscellaneous knowledge of facts ; 
 not merely a great measure of what is commonly called " knowledge of the 
 world," by which is meant an ever energizing insight into the motives of action, 
 the sentiments, the habits, the tendencies, of the crowd of ordinary men (though 
 this is indeed indispensable) ; if he is to be really such, he needs much more than 
 this ; he needs even more absolutely a deep and penetrating knowledge of the 
 innermost recesses of the human heart. The real movers of great events are 
 ordinarily great men ; he must have then a glowing appreciation and hearty 
 sympathy for greatness ; he must be able fully to recognise, understand, and 
 assign to its due place in the scene of life, the eccentricities of genius, the way- 
 wardness of keen sensibility. Then the subtle influence of mind upon mind, the 
 process whereby national character is formed, or again whereby each several 
 age is distinguished by that assemblage of notions and instincts peculiar to itself, 
 which by so universal and felicitous a figure is called its atmosphere ; this is 
 closely connected with the deepest metaphysical problems, and yet meets the his- 
 torian at every step, as one of the very principal facts, which claim his recognition, 
 comprehension, and explanation. But in ecclesiastical history, the powers of 
 mind he requires are even rarer, by how much he has to do with a more unfathom- 
 able element, and with phenomena less open to the ordinary view. Who shall 
 analyse the secret communings of the holy and mortified soul with its God ? Yet of 
 this kind are the materials which have even the principal share in those events, 
 which are the objects of his science. 
 
 ' To shew this more in detail, take the case of an inquirer pursuing the investi- 
 gation marked out for him in this sermon. (Dr. Jelf's 'Via Media.') First will 
 come the necessary task of obtaining a thorough and comprehensive knowledge 
 of all the religious writings and proceedings of the period. This, if he includes 
 the fourth and fifth centuries (which he must do if he is to defend, on historical 
 grounds, the doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation, as our Church receives 
 them) will, with indefatigable diligence, be the labour of many years. Next 
 comes the task of penetrating below the surface of these words and actions, and 
 imprinting on his mind a vivid and accurate picture of the whole current of 
 religious thought and feeling then prevalent ; to the achievement of this he will 
 direct all his powers of analysis and of imagination, nor can he place any con-
 
 fault of mine, but of the worthless principle you desire to 
 maintain. 
 
 Now let me ask the ordinary Protestant ; have you ever 
 carefully and deliberately, as in the sight of God, endeavoured 
 to understand the method of Scripture interpretation on 
 which the Socinian relies? Have you endeavoured to do 
 justice to his reasons for not seeing what you see in the 
 passages to which you appeal, and to apprehend clearly and 
 distinctly the light in which he regards those to which he 
 
 fidence in the success of his efforts, until he arrive at a view, which shall bear 
 with it this argument for its truth, that he will see all the religious sayings and 
 doings of the period, as natural and obvious results, which might on the whole 
 have been even predicted to follow from this their supposed habit of mind, when 
 taken in connection with their outward circumstances. But every age, as every 
 individual, has numberless peculiarities of its own, quite irrespectively of its 
 religious creed : there are ten thousand modes of thought, of expression, and of 
 action, which would have existed had a revelation never been given ; which, 
 though indefinitely affected by its influence, still exist altogether independentlv, 
 and can be in no way called part of it: while on the other hand, those very 
 truths, which the revelation has brought to light, will be necessarily viewed 
 through the colouring of this medium, and will, according to all probability, be 
 carried by the unanimous consent of the age into certain consequences, which, 
 true or not, were yet never part of revealed truth. Now it will be remembered 
 that Dr. Jelf has not sanctioned the principle of considering ChurcJi decrees as the 
 appointed method, to assist us in separating the divine from the human element, in 
 distinguishing the doctrines which are ever to remain part of the Church's heritage 
 from temporary and (to use such an expression) relative opinions. Hence our 
 inquirer will next have to discover for himself, as best he may, the nature and 
 extent of this human element ; he must study deeply the contemporaneous philo- 
 sophy, the poetry (so far as it exists), laws, institutions, language, the habits of 
 mind in which converts from heathenism have been educated, and the whole 
 range of similar disturbing forces ; for the effects of these must be all deducted 
 from the received opinions and practices of the time, in order that we may be at 
 last presented with real, vital, unadulterated Christianity. When this process 
 has been adequately performed for the ages which Dr. Jelf considers pure, it 
 must be repeated all over again for those which he considers corrupt ; and the 
 comparison then made between the two residua, in order that the final question 
 may be resolved, whether the latter be a legitimate and true development of the 
 former. Merely to state this is of course sufficiently to expose the extravagance, 
 amounting almost to insanity, which could consider one poor, frail, fallible man com- 
 petent to such a task ; sufficient to shew how presumptuous, beyond our ordinary 
 conceptions of the possible extent of human audacity, will be his procedure, who shall 
 think of taking up a position for himself apart from all early associations, and of 
 criticising one whole age of saints by his personal comparison of them with another.' 
 ' On Church Authority,' pp. 217-19.
 
 497 
 
 appeals ? Have you, as a matter of principle, read Socinian 
 books of controversy with serious and methodical attention ? 
 Have you, in short, contended by every possible way against 
 the misleading effects of those prepossessions, in which you 
 have been so carefully educated ? If not, surely the texts 
 you adduce are not really the grounds of your belief; the 
 two are as it were stereotyped in your mind together ; you 
 learn your doctrines, and you learn the texts to prove them, 
 just like an undergraduate preparing for examination. And 
 with what front then can you blame the ' high-churchman,' 
 for regarding as little your Scripture arguments against our 
 Lord's Presence in the Eucharist, as you do the Sociniari's 
 against His Divine Nature ? 
 
 And joining ordinary Protestant with Socinian, let me far- 
 ther ask them : Have you fairly investigated the origin 
 and authority of the Bible? Have you done every justice to 
 Schleiermacher's view, and Paulus's view, and Strauss's view ? 
 Or, otherwise, how can you blame those who believe, as you 
 think, without Scripture proof, when you believe Scripture 
 itself without any proof ? You will answer, perhaps, that 
 the Bible commends itself to your conscience : a very excel- 
 lent answer indeed, but one that suits strangely with your 
 philosophy. If the Bible commend itself to the conscience 
 of one, why may not the Eucharistic Presence to that of a 
 second, and the doctrines about St. Mary to that of a 
 third ? You are bound then to give some note whereby the 
 dictates of the conscience may be truly discerned, or some 
 proof why your conscience is good and your neighbour's bad. 
 If any note or proof of this can really be devised, except that 
 which it has been throughout my one great object to enforce, 
 the keeping of the commandments of God, it will surprise 
 me not a little. 
 
 And now to consider the school itself of Schleiermacher, 
 or of Paulus, or of Strauss. Surely if they proceed on un- 
 considered presumptions, they are of all men the most un- 
 reasonable : for it is their very boast that they probe things 
 to the bottom : and it is the very reproach they cast upon 
 others, that the world at large proceeds on an unreasoning
 
 498 
 
 faith. Now in all their criticisms on the Sacred Volume, 
 they assume of course, as a matter beyond dispute, the doc- 
 trines of Theism : I would ask, have they ever systematically 
 examined those doctrines ? have they ever made the deliberate 
 and methodical attempt, to resist the incalculable influence 
 which they well know must be exercised on their judgment 
 by all the prejudices of early habit and education, to do full 
 justice, both in their reason and in their imagination, to such 
 arguments and sentiments, e.g., as those of M. Comte, and 
 in fine, only to believe in God with that degree of belief, which 
 the preponderance of argument on that side justifies ? And 
 even supposing them to have done this ; have they done the 
 same as to the first principles of morality ? ' Naturam ex- 
 pellas,' &c., man cannot bring himself to this. Philosophers 
 examine the question, perhaps, whether Christian humility 
 be really a virtue, and assume in the discussion that justice, 
 liberality, veracity, are such ; yet what ground have they 
 for this belief more than for that, except the mere accident 
 that, in their time and country, one has been brought into 
 question and not the other ? Let me repeat a quotation I 
 made in the British Critic, to shew the result of this principle, 
 according to the confession of a very friend to the Reformation. 
 
 " The Reformation (which was the vehement protest that au- 
 thority was no longer the ground of belief, but that reason alone 
 could claim that title) had stirred all minds to new and vigorous 
 action ; and the philosophy of Descartes is the most striking product 
 of the newly enfranchised reason. Dissatisfied both with the scep- 
 ticism and dogmatism he saw around him ; unable to find any firm 
 ground in any of the prevalent systems ; distracted by doubts of every 
 thing high or loie, holy or trivial ; mistrusting the conclusions of his 
 own understanding, and seeing that his own senses often deceived 
 him ; he resolved to make his mind a tabula rasa, and reconstruct 
 his knowledge. He resolved to examine the pretensions of every con- 
 clusion, and to believe nothing but upon the clear evidence of his 
 reason. He began by universal doubt. He not only cleared his 
 mind of all his previous stock of opinions, but pursued his doubts 
 to the very verge of self -annihilation" 1 
 
 J Westminster Review for May, 1843, p. 383.
 
 499 
 
 V. And now let us seriously consider, to the best of our 
 ability, the chief question of all : how much knowledge 
 should we really possess, if this principle were consistently 
 carried out ? Consider the solemn truth, Theism, of which 
 I have been just speaking, what are the grounds on which 
 we receive it ? Now I will allow for the moment far greater 
 force than I believe justly due, to the argument from final 
 causes; and I will waive also the reasoning which I used iu 
 p. 276, to shew the necessity of consulting conscience for so 
 much as the very idea of God. Still Paley's argument can- 
 not at all events be considered to prove much more than 
 God's Power and Wisdom ; qualities which in fact we believe 
 Satan to possess in great excellence. But what are those at- 
 tributes of God which really interest ourselves as moral 
 and rational agents ? Goodness, (I mean, His being the per- 
 fect Concentration and Embodiment of our scattered and un- 
 connected ideas of the good and the beautiful,) Justice, 
 Mercy. Now when we consider the fearful amount of suf- 
 fering, mental and bodily, which exists in every direction, 
 even after giving its fullest weight to Paley's ingenious plea, 
 we cannot profess, with the slightest colour or plausibility, 
 that from the Visible Creation alone we should obtain a belief 
 in the Creator's infinite love for man and for His creatures ; 
 while those other attributes, Goodness and Justice, have no- 
 thing even commensurate with such arguments as Paley 
 adduces. And, in the last place, where in the natural world 
 shall we see indications of God's Personality ? k Accordingly, 
 it is, I fancy, universally acknowledged by thinkers of the 
 present day, that we must look to our moral nature for such 
 a real and convincing proof as we are in search of. Nor can 
 there be a more satisfactory response than we shall obtain 
 from that nature ; I believe, without any admixture of doubt, 
 that he who lives daily in the thought and fear of God, and 
 presses forward in all virtuous and godly living, has a know- 
 ledge of God's existence, which belongs to a kind, not less 
 than infinitely more certain and direct than any other kind of 
 knowledge whatever. But then a religious Catholic has the 
 
 k See Newman's University Sermons, pp. 23, 24. 
 
 2 K 2
 
 500 
 
 very same, on the doctrine of the Trinity, of the Incarnation, 
 and of its necessary complement the Eucharistic Presence ; 
 and, moreover, it rests at all events with ' high- churchmen' 
 to shew, that the Roman Catholics may not have a similar 
 knowledge of various doctrines connected with the Blessed 
 Virgin. 
 
 It may be said indeed that Catholic believers have some- 
 times confessed to the occasional intrusion of doubts ; and I 
 confessed this myself, two or three pages back. But these 
 were doubts which, even when present, differ in kind from 
 the certainty which we feel, and which, paradoxical as it may 
 appear, have no real power to overcloud it : for they are ad- 
 dressed to the intellect or the imagination ; while the spiritual 
 knowledge is seated in the spiritual nature. If they are 
 treated, indeed, not as trials or temptations, but as just and 
 lawful arguments which we are to ponder and consider ; in 
 other words, if we suspend that course of moral and religious 
 action, which calls forth into distinct and unmistakeable con- 
 sciousness the dictates of our spiritual nature ; then I fully 
 acknowledge that they may overthrow the firmest faith : 
 which is precisely tantamount to acknowledging, that a con- 
 tinued admission of angry thoughts will overthrow the 
 deepest patience. All this, however, may be more fitly con- 
 sidered hereafter ; the matter I wish now to urge is, that 
 doubts of the very same kind frequently knock for admit- 
 tance, on Theism as well as on Trinitarianism, on God's 
 mercy as well as on Christ's Atonement. It may be perhaps 
 true, that at a time like the present doubts on the latter 
 subject are more frequent. If so, this is only because belief 
 in a God is universal, at least on the surface of Society, 
 while the disbelief of many in the Atonement is matter of 
 notoriety: so that both our imagination is more impressed 
 with the uncertainty of the latter, because we know that it 
 is not considered certain ; and our understanding is per- 
 plexed with its difficulties, because we have been in the way 
 of hearing them. But this, even if true, shews no real 
 difference between the basis on which the respective doctrines 
 rest : had we lived five centuries ago, we should have as little
 
 501 
 
 dreamed of doubting the Trinity as the Unity ; should things 
 go on in their present course for two centuries more, un- 
 questioning belief of the latter will be as difficult as it is now 
 of the former. And certainly, if I may speak from my own 
 personal experience, being by temperament exposed to the 
 irruptions of speculative doubt, I must fairly say that the 
 case is not with me as the objection supposes. I have had 
 not a few visitations of intellectual and imaginative perplexity 
 on Theism, though even when upon me their shadowy and 
 unreal nature was very obvious, and they did not even tend, 
 as I have said, to affect my most unclouded, most certain, 
 most undoubting, conviction of that great truth. But I have 
 never had, since I turned my mind to the subject, even in 
 this form, even as addressed to the imagination or under- 
 standing, any doubt, that if Theism be true, (that is, if the 
 spiritual nature may be trusted,) Trinitarianism is true, and 
 Sabellianism, Arianism, Nestorianism, are in various ways 
 God-denying heresies, and St. Mary is the highest and purest 
 of all creatures, and so with other doctrines that might be 
 named. 
 
 But now let me draw out an incidental observation in the 
 last paragraph. I said lately, that a habit of energetic 
 obedience and devotion will supply us with a spiritual and 
 infinitely certain knowledge of this fundamental doctrine of 
 all true religion. But it is a very different question indeed, 
 whether such knowledge be attainable, even with all the help 
 derivable from internal consciousness, on the principle of private 
 judgment, on the principle of requiring examination before 
 action, and proof before belief. It is most difficult indeed to 
 try the question with so much as an approximation to fairness 
 and reality ; for so distinct and unequivocal is Nature's protest 
 against this outrageous extravagance, that the habit of belief 
 is most deeply rooted in our mind from our very earliest years, 
 while the idea of examination and the search for proof enters 
 not at all till at a far later period, and then very partially and 
 disproportionately. It is not difficult, however, to see, that if 
 the real proof of Theism must be found, where I have placed 
 it, in moral and religious action, he who has grown up to
 
 502 
 
 maturity without that safeguard, has within himself no really 
 stable proof on which he may rely. It follows then, that if 
 he be in the small number of those intellectually gifted men, 
 who are able really to inquire into the grounds of their 
 hereditary belief, (instead of playing at inquiry, while in 
 fact they merely learn by heart a parrot-like repetition of 
 professed arguments, and rest on the authority of others, for 
 their proof as well as for their doctrine,) if he be in this small 
 number, and if he have not the grace to discern the ridiculous 
 incompetency for such inquiries which his bad habits have 
 entailed on him, he must fairly give up all belief in Theism 
 to its full extent : he must content himself with an uncer- 
 tain and wavering suspicion, that there may probably be an 
 unseen world beyond this visible sphere ; and that the marks 
 of design, observable in the universe, have probably some 
 other origin than the unbending agency of natural laws. But 
 of what nature this unseen world may be, or this mysterious 
 agency, are questions, he will add, which it is our wisdom to 
 put from us, as admitting of no solution while we remain sub- 
 ject to the conditions of time and space. 
 
 But let a man have grown up in habits of constant prayer, 
 of the fear and of the love of God, and thus penetrated to 
 his very innermost heart with a sense of his Personality and 
 His Attributes ; will it follow that even such a believer as 
 this, should he be led captive in his mature years by this 
 spurious and worldly philosophy, should he be tempted to 
 exercise bona fide the Protestant's highest prerogative of 
 consciously examining the grounds of his belief, will be able 
 to retain that belief in its full security and completeness ? It 
 must be carefully observed indeed, that the very circumstance 
 of his possessing this evidence must be attributed to a 
 practical neglect of his present theory ; for it has been 
 obtained by a faithful and undoubting obedience to God's 
 commands, exercised previously to any inquiry on His 
 nature and their obligation. Then again, his power of fairly 
 estimating the testimony borne to religious truth by his 
 inward nature, will be indefinitely impeded by the well- 
 known constitution of our mind, that ' those thoughts
 
 503 
 
 which are most really precious, shrink back, as it were, the 
 more from observation, in proportion to the intensity of the 
 effort made to gaze fixedly upon them.' k But this is very 
 far from being the most efficacious instrument employed by 
 Satan, to hide religious truth from the inquirer. The one 
 phenomenon in the whole world most hateful to him and 
 to his ministers, as I have urged throughout the work, is a 
 course of consistent obedience against the influence of passion 
 and temptation. Now in proportion as any one masters the 
 theory of private judgment, which so many profess without 
 mastering, or rather indeed with the deepest ignorance of its 
 real nature, he suspends that very course, in order that he 
 may inquire into its warrant and no longer prosecute it in 
 blind faith. Indeed, as I urged some way back, and as is quite 
 plain, he cannot inquire with any thing like impartiality, 
 until he shall have for some time discontinued any vigorous 
 course of action presupposing that doctrine, which is to be 
 the subject of inquiry. 1 He gives Satan then in his own case 
 that very advantage, which of all others the latter most 
 ardently seeks ; he gives him in his own case that fulcrum, 
 by means of which, were it universally given him, he could 
 move the world from all genuine knowledge of God. From 
 the moment this course ceases, the course of earnest obe- 
 dience, habitual prayer, continual thought of God, unceasing 
 reference to future judgment, from that moment belief in 
 God is not a present consciousness, but the result of memory 
 and of reflection ; while those difficulties, from the intellect 
 or the imagination, which had been chained down and unable 
 to stir under the force of religious action, that being 
 removed break their bonds, and start up before the mind, 
 fearful in their stature and alarming in their menaces." 1 And 
 
 k On ' Mill's Logic,' p. 390. 
 
 ' See pp. 490 492. I wish the reader would, in this place, look over that para- 
 graph again ; as illustrating my present position : viz. that in order to examine the 
 evidence for religious truth, we must cease some sufficient time from religious action ; 
 and that by ceasing from religious .action, we lose the evidence itself. Hence a real 
 examination of the evidence is simply impossible. 
 
 m ' I believe that any one can make himself an atheist speedily by breaking off his 
 own personal communion with God and Christ.' ' When a man's religious practice
 
 504 
 
 as day after day the same principle is allowed, the memory 
 of past religious experience becomes fainter and more un- 
 certain, and the difficulties, of which I speak, more definite 
 in their lineaments and consistent in their mutual relations ; 
 while, for want of the accustomed motives to self-discipline, 
 the standard of morality becomes daily lower, and the power 
 of acting even on his low standard becomes daily weaker : 
 until he is tempted into that delusion, the very favourite 
 snare spread by Satan for men of powerful and irreligious 
 minds," the attribution of the clear voice of conscience to 
 highly wrought feelings, or to morbid imagination, or to un- 
 founded traditionary impression. Unless, before it be too late, 
 the unhappy victim feel the misery of his case, abandon 
 with terror and with anathema private judgment, that great 
 principle of the Reformation, and cling in faith to his early 
 creed, that once more by prayer and obedience he may learn 
 to know and realise the presence of God, unless he be so 
 favoured, what awaits him, except a gloomy and cheerless 
 scepticism, and the indescribable misery of sinking farther, 
 day by day, first from good habits, and next from good 
 desires ? 
 
 An argument in all respects precisely similar admits of 
 being carried out, on our knowledge of duty, of there being 
 such a thing as * right and wrong.' 
 
 It would appear then, from what has been said, that the 
 Protestant principle, consistently adopted, must lead us 
 to M. Comte's philosophy ; it must lead us, so it would 
 appear, to hold that the invisible world is radically inacces- 
 sible to our faculties ; that 'God' is a word to express 'not 
 our ideas, but our want of them;' and that if we are wise, 
 
 has degenerated, when he has been less watchful of himself, and less constant and 
 earnest in his devotions . . . his impression of God's real existence, which is kept up 
 by practical experience, becomes fainter and fainter ; and in this state of things it is 
 merely an accident that he remains nominally a Christian.' Dr. Arnold's Life and 
 Correspondence, vol. ii. p. 56, and vol. i. p. 280. 
 
 n A memorable lesson to those, who, having neither powerful nor wholly irreli- 
 gious minds, dabble some little way in the same philosophy, and require intellectual 
 proof for religious principles and doctrines. 
 
 This is a sentiment of the elder Mr. Mill's, in his ' Analysis of the human 
 mind.'
 
 505 
 
 we shall confine ourselves to those branches of knowledge 
 which are realities and not illusions, those, namely, which are 
 conversant wholly with phenomena, and which are advanced 
 by means of a further acquaintance with those fixed and 
 unalterable laws which regulate the universe. But is this 
 really so ? or how can we possibly know that fixed and 
 unalterable laws regulate the universe ? I know no more 
 wonderful fact in the whole history of philosophy, than the 
 simple, easy, natural, unsuspicious manner, in which M. 
 Comte, after having declaimed and argued against all a 
 priori ideas, subsides as a matter of course into the a priori 
 idea of fatalism. What, let me ask, do we know about fate, 
 on his principles, any more than about God? about fixed 
 and unalterable laws of phenomenal succession, any more than 
 about regular and undeviating principles of moral govern- 
 ment ? So necessary to all science is the assumption of some 
 first principle ; and so stupid and contemptible may be the 
 intellectual exhibition presented by the most powerful minds, 
 when influenced by the narrow bigotry of unbelief. 
 
 Waiving however the ' argumentum ad hominem,' it is 
 really of great importance seriously to consider the question, 
 whether we have any means of knowing, what all experi- 
 mentalists assume ivithout proof as a locus standi, that nature 
 proceeds, not in a capricious and arbitrary course, but on 
 definite and established laws ; laws which may accordingly be 
 a subject for investigation and for gradual discovery. Now 
 whether or no we have at present any really sufficient proof 
 of this, it is virtually confessed by Mr. John Mill himself, the 
 prominent champion of experimental science and of free in- 
 quiry, that when first physical investigation began, there was 
 not sufficient proof; he confesses that the proof, which we 
 now have, is owing to the discoveries made by those, who 
 believed the principle before it was proved. p Let this be 
 observed : physical science, the very result and energizing 
 testimonial, as it is generally considered, of the principle 
 of free inquiry, could not have had existence except for 
 
 P Logic, vol. ii. pp. 114, 15.
 
 506 
 
 the principle of faith : belief without proof is the very basis 
 on which it has been reared. 
 
 But have we now sufficient proof of this, and of what 
 nature ? From the progress which physical science has made 
 under the assumption of this principle, from the very great 
 number of seemingly unconnected facts which it has suc- 
 ceeded in grouping together, and of apparent exceptions to 
 general laws which it has been able to explain, let us grant 
 it to have been made in the highest degree probable, that 
 from remote antiquity up to this time there have been estab- 
 lished laws of nature. Now does this, by itself, warrant so 
 much as even the faintest presumption, that such law will 
 continue^ and so consequently that physical science can at 
 any given moment be prosecuted with reasonable hope of a 
 true result? Surely as useless as would be the experience 
 of external phenomena, unless we had the a priori idea of 
 space wherein to locate them, just so unavailable for any 
 practical conclusion would be the knowledge of past uni- 
 formity, except for the a priori idea we possess, that consist- 
 ency, harmony, regularity, are in themselves heavenly and 
 majestic qualities, and specially appropriate to the works of 
 God. Suppose two persons, one having an ear for music, 
 and the other totally destitute of it, were both listening to a 
 symphony ; the former would consider himself warranted in 
 confidently expecting the continuation of harmony, while the 
 latter would be in no way surprised by a sudden change into 
 the most barbarous and clashing dissonance.* 1 And, in like 
 manner, the most constant experience of undeviating regu- 
 larity in the course of nature up to this time, would be no 
 ground whatever for expecting its continuance, except to those 
 who should perceive something of itself more admirable in 
 order than in disorder, in harmonious government of the whole 
 than in the chance and random dispersion of parts. Will it be 
 said, that this natural judgment of mankind would be itself one 
 of the premises on which free inquiry would ground its con- 
 
 i This illustration is borrowed and adapted from Archbishop Whately in his notes 
 on King's * Predestination'.
 
 507 
 
 elusion? I ask, how is it to be shewn, that such a judgment 
 has any real value or authority ? Grant us indeed the prin- 
 ciples of Theism, or the trustworthiness of conscience, and 
 the whole is plain enough ; but excluding these, how can we 
 possibly form even a conjecture whether this sentiment, 
 however universal, may not have its origin in these very 
 fixed laws of the universe, or in the accidental disposition of 
 phenomena, or in the handywork of some lying spirit who 
 implants it in order to deceive ? 
 
 Have we now carried to its extreme point the scepticism in 
 which free inquiry must plunge us? By no means. For 
 what warrant have we for trusting our mental faculties, unless 
 there be one in their number which is cognizant of eternal 
 truth ? To take one instance, where the conception of the 
 difficulty will be less bewildering perhaps than in others 
 on what ground do we trust our memory ? ' There is no one 
 thing' on such a principle ' of which we are absolutely certain, 
 except our present consciousness. That doubtless admits of 
 no error ; that at this moment of time I am writing, that my 
 mind is occupied with certain ideas, that when I look at my 
 desk I perceive the colour of green, that on looking up I re- 
 ceive an immediate impression which I take to be that of 
 distance, that I believe in a certain chain of events as being 
 those of my past life, all this is the mere statement of a 
 matter of fact ; but when I proceed beyond this, when I 
 think that those events really had existence, when, e. g., I call 
 to mind that an hour ago I was taking a walk and pursuing a 
 certain train of thought, much more when I infer from past re- 
 membrances that walking is good for health, and also for think- 
 ing, and so on, for anything that the argument from experience 
 has to tell me to the contrary, how can I know that I am not 
 the victim of some miserable and complete delusion ? how can I 
 know that an hour since I was not seated on Mount Vesuvius, or 
 carried beyond the bounds of space and time?'? Grant indeed 
 the doctrines of Theism, and we cannot be wrong in trusting 
 the faculties which God has given us ; q but then these doc- 
 
 P 'On Mill's Logic,' p. 371. 
 
 i Sec Newman's University Sermons, p. 351.
 
 508 
 
 trines, as I just now argued, depend, for their establishment, 
 on the renouncement pro tanto of free inquiry, and on the 
 adoption of the principle of faith. And this brings me to the 
 climax of the argument. If faith be admitted, the whole 
 structure of Catholic doctrine rests on a basis which cannot be 
 shaken ; and if it be denied, we have no reason for believing 
 so much, as that we were in existence one minute ago. 
 
 3. It is very plain then that the principle of private judg- 
 ment, of proportioning belief as far as possible to evidence, 
 cannot be accepted as a full account of the process which leads 
 to moral and religious truth. That it has a place, and that an 
 important one, I am far from denying; but it has not the 
 chief place. And so long as it is acknowledged that no sight 
 in the world is more contemptible than a boaster who fails 
 egregiously in those very qualities which have been his 
 boast, it must also be acknowledged that those who have 
 allowed themselves in a spirit of scoffing derision at the 
 ' credulity ' of Catholics, while their whole studies have taken 
 for granted the trustworthiness of our intellectual faculties 
 and the permanence of the laws of nature, that these men are 
 far more appropriate objects of contempt and ridicule, as 
 having professed free inquiry to be their very forte : or rather 
 that they would be objects for this, ' except that on so 
 awfully serious a subject the sense of the lamentable over- 
 powers that of the ridiculous.' M. Comte sneers at M- 
 de Maistre, half-bitterly, half-compassionately, for invoking 
 the Blessed Virgin ; what prevents Christians from return- 
 ing in kind his self-complacent arrogance, except that on the 
 one hand religion inculcates humility, and that on the other 
 hand Atheism is so fearful an exhibition of Satan, that we 
 may not ridicule even its intellectual blunders ? 
 
 Let me now endeavour to sketch in its elements the an- 
 tagonist principle of faith, to shew its reasonableness, and to 
 trace the progress by which it leads to truth. 
 
 In the British Critic I have advocated in some detail the 
 position, that a habit of acting throughout the day under a 
 sense of responsibility, of doing what we think right because 
 we think so, that this habit, as it grows up within us, in an
 
 509 
 
 illimitably increasing extent purifies and illuminates the 
 conscience/ Over and above this, it has another very im- 
 portant effect ; that of humbling the mind, and disposing it 
 to look in all directions for external guidance. A study of 
 the visible universe tends to engender pride : for we obtain 
 a continually deeper knowledge of the laws by which it is 
 governed ; s and we are thus able to influence or make use of 
 it more efficaciously for our own purposes, by summoning the 
 phenomena, as it were, before the tribunal of our intellect, 
 collecting and weighing evidence, balancing probabilities, 
 and pronouncing a verdict according to the result of our 
 inquiry. The visible world seems placed around us, as it 
 were, for the very purpose of being made subject to our 
 arbitrary and despotic investigations and researches : we 
 examine what part of it we please, and when we please ; 
 every day we receive fresh indications of the supremacy of 
 the intellect and the sovereignty of man.* But a course of 
 moral action leads us to know the existence of realities 
 and of essences, as opposed to mere shadows and phe- 
 nomena ; it leads us to know that, wholly without those limits 
 of space and time which bound the intellect, there exists 
 an Objective Somewhat, call it, if you please, Moral Truth ; 
 that the real form and lineaments of this Somewhat are abso- 
 lutely beyond the reach of our faculties ; that we cannot pos- 
 sibly know more of it here on earth, than that (in all proba- 
 bility) infinitely small part, which happens to come in contact 
 immediately or mediately with our own conscience ; lastly, 
 that our knowledge however of that part may increase with 
 rapidly advancing progress, in proportion as we bring the 
 
 r ' On Mill's Logic,' pp. 397 406. ' A mind, habitually and honestly con- 
 forming itself to its own full sense of duty, will at length enjoin or forbid with an 
 authority second only to an inspired oracle.' Newman's University Sermons, 
 p. 22. 
 
 ' How far the instinctive reliance which all persons have, good or bad, in the 
 permanence of the laws of nature, throws discredit on the theory which I have 
 thrown out, that the proof of them depends on moral considerations, this is a ques- 
 tion which most certainly requires discussion : I only wish that I had the space here 
 to consider it. 
 
 * See Letters of " Catholicus" passim.
 
 510 
 
 intellect and the lower part of our nature into servile sub- 
 jection to our will, and that again into servile subjection 
 to this external law. Knowledge of phenomena is obtained 
 by the intellect, knowledge of realities by the conscience; 
 knowledge of phenomena by inquiry, knowledge of realities 
 by obedience ; knowledge of phenomena is obtained by us as 
 masters and as judges, knowledge of realities is obtained by 
 us as disciples and as slaves ; the one pursuit tends to pride, 
 the other indispensably requires and infallibly increases 
 humility. 
 
 He who is thus disciplined, who feels deeply his exceeding 
 blindness, helplessness, and ignorance, and the existence 
 without him of an unknown and unspeakably precious 
 Reality, will eagerly believe and appropriate whatever is 
 placed before him in the course of nature, professing to be a 
 voice from, or an economical representation of, that Reality. 
 Again, he will have fully learnt that real truth is acquired, 
 not by an enlarged view of phenomena, but by individual 
 acts of duty and sense of responsibility : that duty lies where 
 trials and occasions of obedience lie, that is, in behaving 
 rightly towards those circumstances with which we are placed 
 in immediate connection, not in voluntarily leaving their 
 sphere : that the real nature of any external doctrine cannot 
 be even approximately understood, until it has been received 
 and carried into practical action ; lastly, that the mere act of 
 argumentative deliberation on the authority which he is to 
 follow, suspends that very course of believing and un- 
 suspicious obedience, which is the one illuminating principle 
 of the moral nature. From all this it will follow as a 
 primary axiom, that a system of whose real nature, as having 
 practically obeyed it, he can know something considerable, 
 must not be left for another, of which he can really know 
 nothing, without some singularly plain and indubitable 
 reason ; in a word, that should his parents have brought him 
 into connection with some body professing to teach with 
 authority, so long as he is able to repose unchanged con- 
 fidence in that body, it is that very oracle for the conveyance
 
 511 
 
 to him of eternal truths, before which duty requires him to 
 bow." Should the case be otherwise, in a heathen country 
 ' he will be able to discriminate with precision between the 
 right and the wrong in traditionary superstitions, and will 
 thus elicit confirmation of his faith,' and accessions to it, 
 ' even out of corruptions of the truth.' x But rather would he 
 anticipate, that there is some home in which this moral 
 Reality may have a secure rest and lodgment, that it may be 
 dispensed to men according to their needs ; or at least he would 
 be drawn with a most eager and spontaneous longing towards 
 any body, which should profess to be that home. And those 
 marks, in any Society, would especially attract his view, which 
 appear to be most kindred in their natures and origin to 
 Eternal Truth itself; for instance, to use Ecclesiastical 
 language, Unity, in doctrine throughout all ages, Sanctity, 
 Catholicity, its proclaiming one and the same message in 
 all lands Apostolicity, its referring back to some signal in- 
 terference with the visible course of things from the world 
 ' beyond the veil.' 
 
 The highest and most principal of the facts which faith 
 thus learns, I need not say, is the Personality and character 
 of God. That the very idea of a Law implies a Lawgiver, 
 
 u That I may not be misunderstood here, the following extract will be in place : 
 " It may have been, that proceeding onwards in a tranquil and unsuspicious course 
 of obedience, he has come to the knowledge of some (to him) new and surprising 
 system ; or has become acquainted with the person or writings of some distinguished 
 individual : or in some other way has been brought to the perception of a 
 range of external ideas, which reveal to him depths in his own heart formerly 
 concealed from his observation ; which are the objective embodiment of truths, 
 floating hitherto in his mind unrecognised, nay, unsuspected ; or which promise 
 the satisfaction of feelings iind needs, of which, up to this time, he has been uncon- 
 sciously conscious. If indeed those truths, which he has already recognised and 
 appropriated, be not also a real and solid portion of this new system, he can give to it 
 no implicit trust ; and thus we see one most important protection he has already 
 obtained, against the temptations of dreamy sentimentality or the deceit of unreal 
 speculation. But otherwise, after due and cautious deliberation, or very possibly 
 indeed by an almost unperceived process, his confiding allegiance will be transferred 
 to this new authority, the object varied, but the sentiment of trust the same." 
 ' On Goode,' p. 40. 
 
 * Newman's University Sermons, p. 22.
 
 512 
 
 is a proposition with which I am not prepared to concur ; 
 but that it predisposes the mind, in a most signal and peculiar 
 degree for the reception of that idea, cannot surely admit of 
 doubt. And the knowledge of God, when fully realised by 
 faith and devotion, will of course give an indefinitely higher 
 sacredness to such particulars as those just mentioned. It is 
 no unknown Somewhat for whose indications the disciple 
 watches in the path of obedience, but the Voice of God 
 w r hose accents he desires to recognise; the Church of his 
 birth is not merely the oracle before which duty summons 
 him to bend, but it is the ordinance of God ; his parents God's 
 Visible Representatives ; and when he is summoned forth in 
 search of a new guide, those external marks of w r hich I spoke 
 are no mere vestiges and ' indicia' of Eternal Truth, but are 
 symbols of God's Presence and notes of His Church. 
 
 We are now then able to see, with some distinctness, the 
 fundamental maxims of the philosophy of faith. Conscience, 
 viewed in the abstract, has no power of discovering more 
 than the immutable principles of morality. But in pro- 
 portion as it is pure and well-disciplined, it discriminates 
 and appropriates moral and religious truth of whatever 
 kind, and disposes the mind to listen to this external message 
 rather than to that ; while each new truth thus brought 
 before it from without, in proportion as it is deeply received 
 and made the subject of religious action and contemplation, 
 elicits a deep and hitherto unknown harmony from within, 
 which is the full warrant and sufficient evidence of that truth. 
 Viewed then in the concrete, as found in the devout believer, 
 we may regard conscience and faith to be one and the same 
 faculty : considered as submissively bending before external 
 authority and ever deriving more of doctrinal truth, we call 
 it faith ; considered as carefully obeying the precepts of 
 which it has knowledge, and as laboriously realising and 
 assimilating the truths of which it has possession, we call it 
 conscience. 7 And thus w r e see in part the reasonableness 
 
 1 In the case of Christian doctrine ' whereas the information is supernatural, so also 
 a most wonderful gift is poured into the Christian's heart, whereby the moral action ' 
 which appropriates it is 'supernatural al.~o.' 'On Mill's Logic,' p. 402.
 
 513 
 
 of unquestioning belief ; for, on the one hand, it is by this 
 very act of firm belief, that we are able really to grasp a 
 moral opinion, and derive from it the full treasure of truth 
 with which it is charged; while, on the other hand, our pre- 
 servative against real error, is not the balancing of evidence, 
 but the witness of a good conscience. The external opinion 
 may be in greater or less degree erroneous ; but the inward 
 belief, the impression which we derive from it in our in- 
 nermost heart, in our spiritual nature, (so only our conscience 
 be pure,) may be inadequate indeed, but so far as it goes is 
 true and sound. 
 
 Another illustration of the reasonableness of unquestioning 
 belief, is derived from the circumstance that (continuing to 
 use the words in the same sense as in the last paragraph) by 
 that means our belief continues to increase in amount, and 
 our opinions to approach without limit, towards true opi- 
 nions. For it is the very characteristic of erroneous opinions, 
 so far as they are such, that they present no substance which 
 may be grasped by the spiritual nature ; hence, in proportion 
 to the action of a pure conscience upon external doctrines, 
 the attention is absorbed and engrossed by that part of them 
 which is true, while the error contained in them, even if not 
 consciously discarded, is made no account of nor practically 
 remembered ; while if there be great intellectual powers, its 
 inconsistency with the spiritual impression is discerned, and 
 it is openly banished and rejected from the mind. At the 
 same time all serious believers, whether intellectual or unin- 
 tellectual, are obtaining from all quarters fresh religious 
 truth, which will still further draw the mind away from 
 erroneous views ; and which moreover disposes them, both 
 to apprehend, and to feel, the superior attractiveness of any 
 religious creed, which may be more simply from God than 
 that which they have hitherto followed. It is a great relief 
 to be able to state the sort of shape which this process would 
 take among ourselves, in other words than my own. 
 
 4 Nothing is more common than to think that we shall gain reli- 
 gious knowledge as a thing of course, without express trouble on 
 
 2 L
 
 .514 
 
 our part. Though there is no art or business of this world which is 
 learned without time and exertion, yet it is commonly conceived that 
 the knowledge of God and our duty will come as if by accident or 
 by a natural process. Men go by their feelings and likings ; they 
 take up what is popular, or what comes first to hand. They think 
 it much if they now and then have serious thoughts, if they now and 
 then open the Bible ; and their minds recur with satisfaction to such 
 seasons, as if they had done some very great thing, never remem- 
 bering that to seek and gain religious truth is a long and systematic 
 work. And others think that education will do every thing for 
 them, and that if they learn to read, and use religious words, they 
 understand religion itself. And others again go so far as to main- 
 tain that exertion is not necessary for discovering the truth. They 
 say that religious truth is simple and easily acquired ; that Scripture, 
 being intended for all, is at once open to all, and that if it had diffi- 
 culties, that very circumstance would be an objection to it. And 
 others, again, maintain that there are difficulties in religion, and that 
 this shews that it is an indifferent matter whether they seek or not as 
 to those matters which are difficult. 
 
 * Doubtless, if men sought the truth with one-tenth part of the 
 zeal with which they seek to acquire wealth or secular know- 
 ledge, their differences would diminish year by year. Doubtless, if 
 they gave a half or a quarter of the time to prayer for divine 
 guidance which they give to amusement or recreation, or which 
 they give to dispute and contention, they would ever be ap- 
 proximating to each other. We differ in opinion : therefore we 
 cannot all be right ; many must be wrong ; many must be turned 
 from the truth ; and why is this, but on account of that unde- 
 niable fact which we see before us, that we do not pray and seek for 
 the Truth ? 
 
 * No one who does not seek the truth with all his heart and 
 strength, can tell what is of importance and what is not ; to 
 attempt carelessly to decide on points of faith or morals is a 
 matter of serious presumption ; no one knows whither he will 
 be carried if he seeks the Truth perseveringly, and therefore, 
 since he cannot see at first starting the course into which his 
 inquiries will be divinely directed, he cannot possibly say before- 
 hand whether they may not lead him on to certainty, as to things 
 which at present he thinks trifling or extravagant or irrational. 
 " What I do," said our Lord to St. Peter, thou knowest not now,
 
 515 
 
 but thou shalt know hereafter." " Seek and ye shall find ;" this is the 
 Divine rule " If thou criest after knowledge, and liftest up thy voice 
 for understanding, if thou seekest her as silver, and searchest for her 
 as for hid treasure, then shalt thou understand the fear of the Lord, 
 and find the knowledge of God." z 
 
 ' This is a subject which cannot too strongly be insisted on. Act 
 up to your light, though in the midst of difficulties, and you will be 
 carried on, you do not know how far. Abraham obeyed the call 
 and journeyed, not knowing whither he went ; so we, if we follow 
 the voice of God, shall be brought on step by step into a new world, 
 of which before we had no idea. This is His gracious way with us : 
 He gives, not all at once, but by measure and season, wisely. To 
 him that hath, more shall be given. But we must begin at the 
 beginning. Each truth has its own order ; we cannot join the way 
 f life at an y point of the course we please ; we cannot learn ad- 
 vanced truths before we have learned primary ones. " Call upon 
 Me," says the Divine Word, " and I will answer thee, and shew 
 thee great and mighty things which thou knowest not." a Religious 
 men are always learning ; but when men refuse to profit by light 
 already granted, their light is turned to darkness. Observe our 
 Lord's conduct with the Pharisees. They asked Him on what 
 authority He acted. He gave them no direct answer, but referred 
 them to the mission of John the Baptist " The baptism of John, 
 whence was it ? from heaven or from men ?" b They refused to say. 
 Then He said, " Neither tell I you by what authority I do these 
 things." That is, they would not profit by the knowledge they al- 
 ready had from St. John the Baptist, who spoke of Christ there- 
 fore no more was given them. 
 
 ' All of us may learn a lesson here, for all of us are in danger of 
 hastily finding fault with others, and condemning their opinions or 
 practices ; not considering, that unless we have faithfully obeyed 
 our conscience and improved our talents, we are no fit judges of 
 them at all. Christ and His Saints are alike destitute of form or 
 comeliness in the eyes of the world, and it is only as we labour to 
 change our nature, through God's help, and to serve Him truly, 
 that we begin to discern the beauty of holiness. Then, at length, 
 we find reason to suspect our own judgments of what is truly good, 
 and perceive our own blindness ; for by degrees we find that those 
 whose opinions and conduct we hitherto despised or wondered at as 
 
 1 Prov. ii. 3 5. a Jer. xxxiii. 3. b Matt. xxi. 25. 
 
 2 L 2
 
 516 
 
 extravagant or unaccountable or weak, really know more than our- 
 selves, and are above us and so, ever as we rise in knowledge 
 and grow in spiritual illnmination, they (to our amazement) rise 
 also, while we look at them. The better we are, the more 
 we understand their excellence; till at length we are taught 
 something of their Divine Master's perfections also, which be- 
 fore were hid from us, and see why it is that, though the Gospel 
 is set on a hill in the midst of the world, like a city which cannot 
 be hid, yet to multitudes it is notwithstanding hid, since He 
 taketh the wise in their own craftiness, and the pure in heart alone 
 can see God. 
 
 ' Let not the diversity of opinion in the world dismay you, or 
 deter you from seeking all your life long true wisdom. It is not a 
 search for this day or that, but as you should ever grow in grace, so 
 should you ever grow also in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour 
 Jesus Christ. Care not for the perplexing question which many 
 will put to you, " How can you be sure that you are right more 
 than others ?" Others are nothing to you, if they are not holy and 
 devout in their conversation and we all know what is meant by being 
 holy ; we know whom we should call holy ; to be holy is to be like 
 an Apostle. Seek truth in the way of obedience; try to act up to 
 your conscience, and let your opinions be the result, not of mere 
 chance reasoning or fancy, but of an improved heart. 
 
 ' Those who thus proceed, watching, praying, taking all means 
 given them of gaining the truth, studying the Scriptures, and doing 
 their duty ; in short, those who seek religious truth by principle and 
 habit, as the main business of their lives, humbly not arrogantly, 
 peaceably not contentiously, shall not be ' turned unto fables." 
 " The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him ;" but in 
 proportion as we are conscious to ourselves that we are - indolent, 
 and transgress our own sense of right and wrong, in the same 
 proportion we have cause to fear, not only that we are not in 
 a safe state, but, further than this, that we do not know what is a 
 safe state, and what an unsafe, what is light and what is darkness, 
 what is truth and what is error, which way leads to heaven and 
 which to hell. " The way of the wicked is darkness ; they know 
 not at what they stumble." ' c 
 
 4. From this view of things, if once admitted to be true, 
 
 c Prov. iv. 19. Plain Sermons, vol. 5, pp. 291295.
 
 517 
 
 corollaries follow, or as I may call them canons, of the most 
 unspeakable importance in religious inquiries. It would re- 
 quire volumes to illustrate and apply these in any sufficient 
 measure ; here therefore I must'perforce content myself with 
 stating some among their number, and applying them merely 
 in one or two questions, which are of pressing importance at 
 the present moment. 
 
 I. Holy men are the great fountains, from which moral 
 and religious truth flows to the world : d if a Revelation be 
 given, they are its authorized interpreters ; if there be a 
 living authoritative tribunal, their spiritual experience fur- 
 nishes materials for the decrees of that tribunal ; if no special 
 Revelation, on them must the task be imposed of collecting 
 and discriminating the various scattered traditions, which are 
 afloat in the current of human speculation. 
 
 II. In order however to apply the principles which they 
 originate, intellectual gifts of the highest and rarest kind 
 must be called into exertion. As one instance out of many 
 it is necessary to appreciate rightly, 1. the circumstances 
 under which they were placed when they gave expression 
 to some concrete opinion, not only as to their external 
 and more obvious features, but (what is very far more 
 important) as to the general habits of thought, action, and 
 feeling then prevalent, which make up the very atmosphere, 
 as it were, in which alone their words would carry to our 
 ears their true sound : and 2. the circumstances under which 
 we are placed, as to the same particulars. So difficult it may 
 be, on some occasions, from their expressions to learn their 
 opinions, and from their opinions their moral judgments. 
 
 d ' On Mill's Logic,' p. 339. ' The man of the world goes on from day to 
 day without even the thought of thwarting his present inclination, except for the 
 prospect of some other worldly good, health, wealth, respectability : the Saint 
 every minute of every day is sacrificing his own will to considerations of right. 
 Is there any other faculty we possess, of which the cultivation is one thousandth 
 part so disproportionate in different men, as this is ? and if not, we are abso- 
 lutely introducing no new law whatever into the theory of our nature, when we 
 assert that the Saint possesses within himself a guidance on moral subjects, in its 
 own sphere next to infallible ; while the man of the world has inherited this 
 punishment from his way of life, that the " light within him" has almost become 
 " darkness."
 
 518 
 
 III. Their moral judgments are themselves authoritative, in 
 proportion as the whole circumstances, bearing on the case, 
 were fairly presented to them. Hence it is highest, and it 
 may be truly said infallible, on subjects simply divine, 
 contemplative, devotional; the Trinity; the Incarnation; 
 the Eucharistic Presence ; Grace ; the immutable obligation 
 of the Moral Law ; the glory of celibacy ; the prerogatives 
 of St. Mary and other Saints ; and many others. 
 
 IV. Next to such matters as these, their judgments de- 
 serve our submission, in proportion as they refer to a 
 state of external things habitually present to their minds: 
 while even on these, an inferiority on their part of intellec- 
 tual power will most materially affect their authority; as 
 making it less probable that the facts of the case have been 
 brought before them, as it \vere for judgment, in their true 
 colours, and with all their mutual relations explained or 
 understood. 
 
 V. On a state of things, in the midst of which they have 
 not practically energized, unless they had a very high and 
 unusual degree of genius and imagination, their judgments 
 may be (if the expression be irreverent, may their powerful 
 intercession prevail on God to pardon it ! but I do not mean 
 it so) even utterly baseless, mistaken, untrustworthy. For 
 example, their judgment on the moral and religious character 
 of some heretical body, living and acting in the midst of 
 them, would probably be altogether final and decisive ; while 
 their judgment on a similar body, at a distance from their 
 own experience and sphere of action, might be of no real 
 weight whatever. 
 
 VI. I have already mentioned (II) one class of subjects, in 
 which it frequently requires the highest intellectual power, 
 to derive a knowledge of the moral judgment of Saints from 
 their expressions or even from their opinions. Under quite a 
 different head, the same difficulty is experienced; viz. in rightly 
 understanding what those Heavenly Objects are on which 
 their faith and spiritual life was fed, in the midst of the vague 
 and sometimes discordant intellectual shapes into which they 
 may have learned to throw their religious impression.
 
 519 
 
 " A very little thought will suffice to shew, how frequent a 
 case it is for men to take up externally a set of notions, which are 
 far from the rightful property of their moral nature. We are not 
 now speaking, be it observed, merely of inaccurate expressions, but 
 what may be called inaccurate opinions. A man may think himself 
 all his life long an utilitarian, or a disciple of Locke ; and yet were 
 a party to arise, to whom such principles were really congenial, and 
 who should accordingly fully appropriate them and carry them 
 forward, he might be the first to shrink back from so repulsive 
 an exhibition. Great numbers of men profess one system as it 
 were on the surface, of which alone they are conscious, and which 
 they put into formal expression; while a far higher and truer doc- 
 trine is really energizing within them, and carrying them on from 
 truth to truth without their knowledge. It is a far better test of a 
 man's real sentiments that he joins the right party, than that he 
 professes the right opinions. Let us apply then a similar principle 
 to theology. The impression conveyed, on the highest doctrines of 
 the Gospel, by the Apostles to their disciples, was surely far more 
 accurate, subtle, and delicate than any words can express, and they 
 did not directly use words." e 
 
 ' Such was the feeling of awe and love mingled together,' says 
 Mr. Newman, f ' which remained for a while in the Church .... 
 There was silence, as it were, for half an hour.' ' I avow my belief 
 that freedom from symbols and articles is abstractedly the highest 
 state of Christian communion, and the peculiar privilege of the pri- 
 mitive Church ; . . . . because technicality and formalism are in their 
 degree inevitable results of public confessions of faith.' e 
 
 ' What might be almost expected to follow from this, before the 
 Church had promulgated formal decisions on such matters ? Mr. 
 Goode (e. g, vol. i. p. 288) accuses some of the Ante-Nicene 
 Fathers of Nestorian language. Now, nothing is more common in 
 the present day than certain modes of thought, as regards our 
 Lord's acts and words, which display themselves in such ways as 
 speaking of ' His prudence/ His forethought,' or ' His infinite 
 superiority over other men,' expressions which may bear an innocent 
 meaning, but of which, as used, the real account is the Nestorian 
 heresy ; yet if those who are enslaved to such habits were asked, 
 
 f Sermons, vol. ii. p. 28. * Arians, &c., p. 14.
 
 520 
 
 ' Do they or do they not hold a human personality of our Lord?' 
 they might know the right answer to give, though they would 
 probably regard the question as scholastic trifling. Others, on the 
 contrary, may habitually so act and speak, as to make it clear to 
 the religious mind, that they do realise the Agent of those works to 
 be Almighty God; and yet may use the words ' nature' and ' person' 
 in a manner abstractedly heretical. Yet what can be more ex- 
 travagant than acquitting the former or accusing the latter of real 
 heresy ? And if Churchmen from the very first uniformly exhibited 
 this solemn, reverential, and awful tone in speaking of our Lord, 
 which sufficiently shews their deep impression how intimately His 
 Divine Nature was connected with all that He did in the flesh, 
 what an absurd, unmeaning, and narrow-minded procedure, to 
 make them the objects of our criticism, because some of them, if so 
 be (which Mr. Goode however has not attempted to prove), may 
 have fallen into language, which at a later period became the 
 symbol of heresy I In like manner the Apostles may have im- 
 pressed on the Church the full idea, that our Lord is Very God, 
 and yet God the Son; and it may be true also that the detailed 
 system, afterwards sanctioned by the Church, alone rightly expresses 
 this truth, so as neither on the one hand to involve logical contra- 
 dictions, nor yet on the other hand to lead, by necessary moral or 
 intellectual process, to an absolutely heretical result. All this may 
 be most true, as it is ; and yet the earlier Fathers, who may have 
 had the true id.ea most fully impressed on their whole being, may 
 yet have adopted certain notions, which in themselves were liable to 
 one of these two objections. How can it be any want of reverence 
 for those holy men to think so ? no one has claimed for them either 
 inspiration or infallible powers of logical discrimination ; while at the 
 same time had they seen the moral or intellectual consequences 
 contained in these notions, much more had they been witnesses of 
 a party embodying them and carrying them out, they would have 
 disavowed them with horror. But heresies had not arisen in their 
 time to require wary thought on such matters ; while even when 
 heresy was active and energetic, and the whole Church in consulta- 
 tion, it was found no easy matter to harmonize and draw into system 
 the Revealed Truth." h 
 
 11 ' On Goode,' pp. 93, 4. ' In the early centuries writers of the Church used 
 language which may bear an Arian appearance ; after the Council of Nicea thev do
 
 521 
 
 I have said, that it is difficult to discern the real Objects 
 of their faith, amidst the indistinctness of their opinions and 
 expressions : I should rather have said, impossible to those 
 who have not in other ways (e. g. as being taught by the 
 existing Church and having acted on her teaching) mastered 
 the sacred ideas ; but, on the other hand, not very difficult, if 
 there be sufficient intellectual power, to those who in their 
 measure have so done. 
 
 VII. It would appear then, that there are many cases, in 
 which the particular course adopted, or opinions expressed, 
 by a Saint, is of little or no authority, while the principles, 
 which led him to that course or those opinions, might probably 
 be of the greatest. There are other cases in which the very 
 reverse is true ; viz. when the circumstances, under which 
 the action took place or the opinion was given, were matters 
 with him of daily and most intimate experience ; part, as it 
 were, of the very atmosphere he breathed. The right action 
 in such cases as these is the spontaneous result of a holy in- 
 stinct ; the reason given is an after-thought, framed perhaps 
 on even a hurried and superficial analysis of his real state of 
 mind when he acted. The reason then is so far only au- 
 thoritative, as we have ground to consider the analysis really 
 sufficient for our purpose ; which it will very seldom indeed 
 be, except so far as the point now at issue had been then a 
 matter of controversy, and the intellect of the Saint was 
 subtle and penetrating. 
 
 VIII. From the circumstance that some doctrine, wholly 
 foreign to our own moral experience, appears to us to have 
 literally no foundation whatever either in reason or in Scrip- 
 ture, not even the faintest probability arises that it may not 
 be true. And if holy men, who have cherished and acted 
 on it, profess to prize it most dearly, and to view it as the 
 necessary result of acknowledged Scriptural principles, while 
 
 so no longer : the earlier Greek Fathers fall into expressions with a Pelagian sound ; 
 after a certain epoch such expressions cease.' On the other hand, during all the early 
 centuries, the intellectual expressions of doctrine on the Eucharistic Presence were 
 different with different writers.
 
 522 
 
 no holy men can be found who have realised it by spiritual 
 action and yet thought otherwise ; if this be so, it is the 
 wildest and most extravagant presumption, to hesitate for a 
 moment in accepting it. 
 
 IX. A reason, incomparably more worthy of respect and 
 sympathy, is sometimes given, for demurring to tenets which 
 appear witnessed by holy men ; viz. that they seem to con- 
 tradict doctrines, which we most fully and entirely realise 
 as true and divine. Thus the view taken by many Saints of 
 Predestination frequently oppresses ordinary men, as if it were 
 inconsistent with such certain truths as free will, human 
 responsibility, God's earnest desire that all men should be 
 saved, Christ's death on the Cross being an Atonement for 
 all. Again, the belief entertained, it may be said, by all 
 the Saints of later times, on the peculiar privileges and pre- 
 rogatives of the Blessed Virgin, is, it is well known, extremely 
 painful to many most admirable Christians who have been 
 differently educated, as being inconsistent with our Blessed 
 Lord's sole Mediation, or other fundamental Verities. But 
 when we consider the mystery and unearthliness of the 
 saintly character ; and the extreme fanaticism of the sup- 
 position that ordinary men can really scan their thoughts, 
 or again, measure them by their own standard, (so as to 
 suppose opinions to be inconsistent with each other in the 
 case of Saints because they find it so to be in their own 
 case,) it will readily appear, that to take exceptions on such 
 a ground would be a most exceedingly unreasonable and 
 arrogant procedure. Rather our course should be, to take 
 for granted that nothing, really held by Saints as part of 
 their spiritual nature, can be contradictory to doctrines which 
 we know for certain to be true ; to cherish these latter the 
 more watchfully and carefully, as though to assure ourselves 
 that we really possess them ; and to take it on faith, if we 
 do not at once see the proof, that these most precious and 
 holy truths were really valued by the Saints whose senti- 
 ments at first sight would seem to contradict them ; valued 
 by them, I say, not only as dearly as by ourselves, but
 
 523 
 
 rather by so much the more dearly, by how much their 
 habits and desires were more heavenly and spiritual than our 
 own. The result of this, the only humble and religious 
 course, will often be that we shall go on more to find that 
 true in fact which we had believed on principle ; and not 
 impossibly, that we shall discover in addition, that those very 
 truths, which we had fancied in peril, had been held by our- 
 selves in a disproportionate and one-sided shape, rather than 
 in their full orb and heavenly completeness. 
 
 X. I have already said, that the mere circumstance of 
 there being no producible proof whatever for a tenet 
 which believers have learned to hold, does not imply even 
 the faintest probability that it may not be true ; and that for 
 the simple reason, that religious truths are their own evi- 
 dence. On the other hand, if we consider certain errors of 
 opinion to be really injurious to the spiritual growth, it must 
 be because they interfere, either with the reception, or with 
 the full action, of some important doctrine. For both these 
 reasons, as Mr. Newman has continually remarked, the true 
 way of opposing error, is to place before its victims, by every 
 attainable means, the truth in all its fulness and harmonious 
 beauty. For instance, many excellent persons, whose opinion 
 deserves great respect, consider that the Catholic peasantry, 
 in parts of the continent, are superstitious on the subject of 
 relics or miracles to a very injurious degree. Supposing, for 
 argument's sake, that this be so, the evil of their superstition 
 arises from its contrariety to a certain higher and more truly 
 religious habit of mind. The right course then of those who 
 may desire to benefit them must be, not merely to oppose 
 their particular errors in fact or doctrine, (for were we ever 
 so successful in that, so long as their defective habit of mind 
 remains, similar or worse errors would take their place,) but 
 to implant by positive, not negative addresses that higher 
 tone of mind which we desire. Let that be done, and these 
 particular errors will at once fall off; as the very objector 
 bears witness : they shock the objector, as being inconsistent 
 with a certain high tone of religious purity ; give the peasant
 
 524 
 
 that tone, and they will shock him too. Let me again repeat, 
 I am not at all granting the justice of the accusation : 
 I really have no opinion on the subject : I am only 
 granting it for argument's sake, that I may join issue on 
 the principle. And in like manner, if I had to give advice 
 to a person, in whom I fancied myself to perceive too great 
 and exclusive prominence given to the thought of the 
 Blessed Virgin, I should set him to meditate for half-an-hour 
 in every day on the truth that our Blessed Lord created 
 her ; or that He redeemed her ; or again, that all blessings 
 whatever flow from God as from their first source ; or that 
 our Blessed Lord died for us on the Cross. As to the last 
 particular alone, I can hardly fancy any one following St. 
 Alphonsus's earnest exhortations, and meditating for at least 
 a quarter of an hour in every day on that inconceivable 
 miracle of love, who could be in real danger of eclipsing the 
 constant vision of Him by other objects of regard. In a 
 word, our endeavours should be, in such cases, to increase 
 their devotion to the highest Object, not diminish it to the 
 lower ; to take care that they honour, not the Saints less, but 
 God more. 
 
 XI. The same humility, w r hich leads sensible Christians to 
 understand their complete inability to pass judgment on 
 doctrines foreign to their moral experience, leads them also 
 another step ; it leads them (though in a far less degree) to 
 feel, how difficult and complex a question it is, to discrimi- 
 nate, among religious men whose character is known to them 
 only at second-hand, who are, and who are not, so fully 
 endowed with the whole circle of Christian graces, so com- 
 plete in all the constituent parts of a Christian temper, so 
 mortified, so saintly, as fairly to claim at their hands that 
 deference, of which so much has been said. They will be 
 anxious then, where it may be possible, to repose confidence 
 in some external body, which exhibits on its very front a most 
 loving sympathy and reverence for saintliness, and which 
 may shew them other sufficient marks that their confidence 
 will be well-placed ; rather than venture by themselves, with-
 
 525 
 
 out necessity, on so hazardous an inquiry. I have said 
 ' among religious men whose character is known to them only 
 at second-hand :' for those of whom we have an habitual 
 and practical knowledge, we may justly and unfailingly ap- 
 preciate, without reference to an external body ; much less, 
 as in the case I am glancing at, to a body whose members 
 very frequently decide on the character of such men, on no 
 ground of personal experience, but on a priori considerations. 
 It admits of great question indeed, whether any body whose 
 relations to us are merely external, can exhibit such trust- 
 worthy signs of divine Authority, as holy men in whose 
 presence or close proximity we may constantly live. 1 But 
 however this may be decided, there is a circumstance which 
 will weigh far more than any other consideration with religious 
 minds, viz. that it is under their influence, as it were, that 
 God Himself has placed us ; an influence which we will then 
 neglect, when the said external body shall bring before us, 
 carried out into living and energetic action, a higher con- 
 ception of the Christian character. 
 
 XII. This leads to a remark on the word 'private 
 judgment.' The real idea, which has possession of serious 
 men, when they speak of this habit of mind in terms of 
 extreme disparagement, whether or no they are able them- 
 selves to disentangle it, is perhaps on the whole such as the 
 following. That religious truth is obtained by humbly 
 obeying God, and following every ascertainable trace of His 
 adorable will. So far as individuals forsake this path and 
 take the matter into their own hands instead of leaving it 
 with God whether by deciding on argumentative questions 
 for which they are incompetent, or by any other mode, in 
 that degree they act sinfully. Hence a faulty exercise of 
 private judgment may quite as easily take place, in deserting 
 guides placed over us by God for some other authority, as in 
 taking up opinions of our own without reference to any 
 authority ; though whether, in this or that person, any sinful 
 
 1 This will be estimated differently by different minds. In my own case I should 
 feel this, I think, not merely doubtful, but impossible.
 
 526 
 
 element has been mixed up with his procedure, is a question 
 on which it is our happiness to know that we cannot form 
 the most distant conjecture. 
 
 XIII. It is plain, that in proportion as we give ourselves 
 up to an uninterrupted course of religious action, we realise 
 and dwell upon our positive doctrines, and forget what 
 may be called our negative opinions. To hold negative 
 opinions indeed, except on authority, is unphilosophical and 
 unreasonable ; because we cannot form even a guess on the 
 value of a doctrine, until we have morally apprehended either 
 that doctrine or its contradictory. But over and above this 
 it appears also that to lay any stress on them, (even though 
 we do hold them on authority,) is a sure mark of carnal- 
 mindedness and sluggishness in the spiritual life. There 
 would be apparent exceptions to this statement, in the case of 
 some most admirable men, who may have been taught to 
 lay stress on these negations, and who fancy that they do so ; 
 but these are not real exceptions, for it will be found that in 
 proportion as they talk naturally rather than on a theory, 
 they sufficiently shew how little real connection there is, 
 between the language they have learnt and their spiritual 
 nature. 
 
 And the converse is equally true : he who resolutely puts 
 from his mind the mere negations of his hereditary creed, 
 and girds himself to the task of carrying forward boldly 
 and unsuspiciously the positive tenets which it contains, is, 
 as one may say, already a Catholic potentially. Thus the 
 very same outward expressions of doctrine may be held by 
 different persons, Catholically or heretically, Christianly or 
 unchristianly, according as they fix their mind on what is 
 affirmed or on what is denied. A most extremely important 
 consideration this, were there room to pursue it, in judging 
 of our ' high-church' theology, and of its professed agreement 
 with primitive Antiquity. And thus we are led to one most 
 distinguishing note, which has appeared in every age, between 
 Catholic and heretical exercises of the intellect. The Catholic 
 exercises his intellect philosophically ; he endeavours to con-
 
 527 
 
 vey, as best he may through so inadequate a medium, certain 
 wonderful ideas which fully possess him, on which he is 
 energetically acting at the very time when he is scientifically 
 analysing them. The heretic, on the contrary, exercises his 
 intellect unphilosophically ; in trying to expose what appear 
 to him unmeaning subtleties and distinctions, in a matter on 
 which he has no spiritual experience ; like a blind man who 
 should ridicule those who possess the power of seeing, for the 
 unintelligible distinctions they make in trying to explain to 
 him what they see. The Arian ridicules the idea of the 
 Eternal Sonship, the Sabellian of a distinction of Persons 
 in One Substance, the Zuinglian of a Real Presence of 
 our Lord's Body. On the other hand, let us suppose the 
 case of a positive Arian, if I may use such a term : suppose 
 the case of some one whom Ulfilas should have converted 
 from heathenism to Arianism, and who should have no prac- 
 tical knowledge of genuine Christianity. I conceive that 
 such an one, if religious, would theorize on the idea of ' God' 
 now for the first time purely brought before Him ; or on 
 Christian morality ; or, it may be, on the doctrines of Grace : 
 it is even conceivable, that by religiously and heartily con- 
 templating the doctrine put before him, he might uncon- 
 sciously press it forward for himself into orthodoxy. But it 
 is quite certain, that when orthodoxy is fairly and fully 
 brought before him, to criticise it negatively would be to 
 contradict the whole habit of his past life ; he would see that 
 it is something wholly beyond his spiritual experience, and 
 therefore no subject for his criticism ; nay, can we doubt 
 that in a very short time he would heartily embrace it ? 
 
 XIV. From the truths with which we started, the rule is 
 very readily obtained for deciding what are those cases in 
 which it is unreasonable consciously to inquire and examine 
 into the grounds of our belief, and what are those in which 
 it is reasonable to do so : for where first pri uciples are 
 concerned, such a process will not lead to truth ; but where 
 the matter in hand is to apply them or argue from them, 
 it will. The application of this rule indeed may in some 
 cases occasion a good deal of perplexity ; but the rule itself
 
 528 
 
 is very plain and simple. It will be better, however, to 
 subjoin a few examples. Mathematical science requires 
 us to concede as a first principle, the trustworthiness of 
 our memory and of our intellectual faculties ; physical 
 science, political economy, social investigations, require, as 
 a further first principle, a belief that fixed laws regulate 
 the course of the phenomenal world, whether in the physical 
 or in the mental order. But these principles once granted, 
 free inquiry has its place ; and truth is obtained by means 
 of the fullest and most searching investigation, on the part of 
 those intellectually qualified for the task. Again, if the 
 question be raised concerning the genuineness and authen- 
 ticity of the books of Scripture, it is plain that the spiritual 
 nature has a most important part to play in the decision. 
 But supposing it were ruled, that that text must be con- 
 sidered authentic which was most generally received in the 
 fourth century, the further investigation of the case would 
 wholly appertain to the province of free inquiry. Once 
 more, let us suppose that inspiration were the topic discussed, 
 and that here too it were decided, that the view prevalent 
 in the fourth century is to be considered authoritative : as 
 before, free inquiry will henceforth be our one instrument of 
 discovery. But in this instance, a very important distinction 
 must be observed : the most irreligious men may discuss, 
 with great advantage, mathematical, physical, and many parts 
 of political science ; or they may, with perfect success, decide 
 on the authority and date of given Manuscripts ; but in such 
 cases as the present, they will be wholly ^competent to 
 form a judgment on the matter : not because the inquiry 
 into phenomena is to be less free and unbiassed in this than 
 in the former cases, but because the phenomena cannot be 
 apprehended except by religious men ; a thinker, who has not 
 carefully cultivated his spiritual nature, will be no more able 
 to understand St. Chrysostom's or St. Jerome's implied 
 views on inspiration, than a tyro, ignorant of Athenian 
 manners and habits and ways of thought, could understand 
 the allusions in a speech of Pericles or of Alcibiades. 
 
 We see then how wholly unfounded is the notion, that the
 
 529 
 
 philosophy of faith denies the trustworthiness of the in- 
 tellectual powers ; or involves us in inextricable confusion, as 
 to the occasions when we may reason and when we may not. 
 As to the methods of reasoning, indeed, which have given 
 rise to the latter allegation who considers it any disparage- 
 ment to the intellect, when we believe, without proof, that a 
 certain tree is green? The philosophy in question asserts, 
 first, that we have a faculty, supplying materials for the 
 intellect to work upon, which are altogether distinct from 
 the mere facts of consciousness or sensation ; and, secondly, 
 (which is surely a priori far most probable,) that this faculty 
 has an organ of acquisition, wholly different from that by 
 which the intellect performs its functions ; that the intellect 
 obtains truth by examination of evidence, but the conscience 
 obtains truth by obedience and belief. 
 
 The analogy between the senses and the spiritual nature, 
 in their relation to the understanding, has been used by 
 Mr. Newman with admirable success. k Let us apply it in 
 another particular. Suppose a person, wholly destitute of 
 musical ear, were obstinately to refuse belief in the existence 
 of such an endowment ; it is plain that when we enlarged to 
 him in the most glowing language, on the surpassing beauty, 
 majesty, suggestiveness, of a symphony of Beethoven's, he 
 would consider us the victims of some wild and delusive 
 imagination. Suppose, again, he fell in with a work on the 
 science of music, in which e. g. it were stated, as a matter of 
 theory, how exquisitely in accordance with the most joyous 
 feelings is some given composition ; and how, by its mere 
 change into a minor key, it jars irreconcilably with the 
 whole current of our associations ; the expression of this 
 in technical terms, would appear to him the mere refinement, 
 flowing from an over-subtle character of mind. Over-imagi- 
 nativeness, and over-subtlety ! by how many a ' sensible and 
 hard-headed' man has this charge been brought against 
 Catholics, when they enlarge on the surpassing delight of 
 meditation on some (so called) abstract doctrin e; or when 
 they express, in scientific language, the differences between 
 
 k University Sermons, pp. 46, 7.
 
 530 
 
 Catholicism and Ncstorianism or Sabellianism, and proceed 
 to characterise those differences as so irreconcilable and so 
 constantly and practically energetic, that the talk of a Chris- 
 tian union between their professors is the wildest and most 
 senseless of theories. 
 
 XV. But this bigotted man could hardly fail to observe, 
 that these technical words are used in treatises on music 
 with remarkable skill and precision; and that any contra- 
 diction in terms is avoided, as it would seem to him, with an 
 unfailing art, which he would not know whether to admire 
 for its ingenuity, or to sigh over for its perverseness J Here 
 then is a most legitimate office for the intellect ; to express 
 these and other truths, derived from the spiritual nature, in a 
 consistent and scientific shape. To require intellectual proof 
 whether for the Personality or the Trinity of God, is 
 absurd ; m but an intellectual statement of these doctrines, is 
 among the noblest occupations in which a thinker's faculties 
 can be engaged. And another most fitting employment for 
 them, is to contemplate truths, derived from other quarters, 
 which seem prim a facie to conflict with these truths ; ' to fix 
 his mind carefully, intently, and habitually, as it were, on 
 both sides of the picture, until they make on it respectively 
 their appropriate impression. If he profess to be a philo- 
 sopher, the inquirer then proceeds to aim at developing, to 
 his own consciousness by accurate thought, and afterwards 
 to the world by accurate language, that wide and expansive 
 field of truth, which shall embrace both these seeming con- 
 tradictions.' The first of these functions belongs to the 
 science of dogmatic theology, the last to the ' architechtonic 
 philosophy.'" 
 
 1 A similar observation of Mr. Blanco White's, on the Catholic Theology, has 
 been often enough quoted. 
 
 m There is the fullest proof indeed to the believing mind, that this doctrine is the 
 doctrine of Scripture : (see, for the nature of this proof, the 23d Sermon of Mr. New- 
 man's 6th volume :) but intellectual proof implies that we shall prove the foundation ; 
 e. g. the Inspiration of Scripture, or, to take a still earlier stage, the Existence of a 
 God from whom a Revelation could proceed. 
 
 " ' The architectonic philosophy, that which assigns to all sciences and to all known 
 things their relative position and value.' (' On Mill's Logic,' p. 359.)
 
 531 
 
 XVI. Hence that truth follows, to which I have before 
 alluded ; viz. that when sceptical thoughts assail us at the 
 period of prayer, or devotional meditation, or rather at any 
 time, (for our life at every moment ought to be a practical 
 prayer,) our only reasonable course is, to put them from us, 
 as suggestions of Satan, by an effort of the will. For on the 
 one hand, it is this very life of prayer, meditation, and re- 
 ligious action, which gives us assurance of spiritual realities ; 
 and to capitulate with a sceptical thought, is to intermit that 
 life : so that (resuming our old illustration) thus to act, 
 would be just as if you were to shut your eyes, that you 
 might do full justice to the arguments which are intended to 
 convince you, that a certain tree, within ten yards of you, does 
 not really there exist. If you keep your eyes shut for a 
 sufficiently long time, you might really begin to think that 
 there is great force in the arguments. And as to the sceptical 
 objections themselves, either they profess to shew that you 
 have no intellectual proof for what you believe, or that your 
 opinion is intellectually inconsistent with acknowledged truths. 
 The former objections, as I have sufficiently shewn, are simply 
 absurd and unreasonable ; but the latter have the fairest 
 claim on your attention: or rather indeed they demand it, 
 if it be your profession, and if you have sufficient intellectual 
 power, to enter on such inquiries. Now this allegation of 
 intellectual inconsistency may possibly be true, and may arise 
 from the circumstance that your opinion is not the adequate 
 exponent of your belief; in that case, obviously the reasonable 
 course is, not to admit doubt into your mind, but, on the 
 contrary, to hold your belief all the more stedfastly ; while 
 the intellectual difficulty in question may stimulate you, so that 
 you shall perceive the error of your explicit opinion earlier than 
 you would otherwise perceive it. Or, secondly, such an allega- 
 tion may be only plausible ; a case which will happen over and 
 over again, in these days wherein we live : here, if we give up 
 firm belief, it is plain that we lose our hold of truth; but if we 
 cleave to it, and cleave also to the truth which appears at first 
 sight contradictory, we have that very opportunity, to which 
 I lately adverted, of enlarging the sphere of the * architectonic
 
 532 
 
 philosophy.' Lastly, the case is hypothetically conceivable, 
 though it never happened, and in all probability never will, 
 that the intellectual inconsistency is real. The only philo- 
 sophical inference from that would be, that our intellectual 
 powers are mendacious ; for we have infinitely less evidence 
 for their trustworthiness, than we have for those truths which 
 we spiritually discern. In no conceivable case then can it be 
 otherwise than most unreasonable, and most injurious to the 
 progress of truth, that we should give up, from intellectual 
 difficulties, any constituent part of our spiritual belief. 
 
 XVII. From all that has been said, it at once follows, that 
 religious persons will invariably present to the world the 
 appearance of acting and of believing on absurdly insufficient 
 grounds. To present this appearance is ever a characteristic 
 note of the Church. 
 
 XVIII. In all that has been said about spiritual know- 
 ledge and conviction, it must not be forgotten, that the 
 Christian Gift has imparted to this knowledge and conviction 
 a new and supernatural quality. 
 
 The first impression of some readers from all this, 
 I cannot deny it, will be that I have advocated a sort 
 of universal Pyrrhonism, a cheerless and desolating scep- 
 ticism on all moral truth ; so many are the opinions, 
 bearing on moral and religious subjects, on which I seem to 
 represent that they are unable to form a judgment; nay, so 
 many are the opinions, erroneous in themselves, which never- 
 theless, if these views be true, ought in the first instance 
 firmly to be believed. I answer as follows. First, the object 
 of moral and religious truth is religious action, and not 
 
 ' So certain is this, that we hold it perfectly conceivable (we do not say 
 probable) that, as part of the last fierce contest on earth between the powers of 
 good and evil, when "great signs and wonders" shall be shewn, "insomuch that 
 if it were possible they shall deceive the very elect," Satan may be permitted to 
 bring a cloud over man's intellectual faculties, and represent, as certainly 
 deduced by the reasoning powers, doctrines inconsistent with revealed truth. 
 On such an hypothesis, it will be the evidence and the reward of men practised 
 in piety, that their perception of holiness shall attach them even the more indis- 
 solubly to the doctrines and ordinances of the Church, from the unprecedented con- 
 federacy of strength which would be ranged in opposition.' (' On Mill's Logic,' 
 pp. 410,11.)
 
 curious speculation; no temper of mind will have God's 
 blessing with it in its search after such truth, or has any 
 chance of prospering in the search, except that which dis- 
 plays itself in the prayer : ' Lord, I am sinful, blind, 
 ignorant; what is that outward messenger of Thy Truth 
 before which Thou wouldest have me bow ? ' This is the 
 sentiment, which it has been my very principal object all 
 through to enforce : and such maxims as have been here 
 given, are most amply sufficient to guide the temper of mind 
 I am supposing ; most amply sufficient to determine, what 
 those truths are, which itis our duty at any moment to 
 receive and realise. But, secondly, it would be very far from 
 giving me pain, if a consideration of the true principles on 
 which religious belief is based, should impress deeply on the 
 minds of Englishmen, how miserable a guide is our boasted 
 private judgment ; and how fearful a blow was inflicted on 
 the progress of religious knowledge amongst us, by our 
 infatuated rejection of that great Gospel boon, a Living 
 Witness and Home of Christian Truth. The Reformation 
 has brought us, I willingly acknowledge, into a state, in 
 many respects analogous to that of heathen ; in which we 
 may know enough for our immediate guidance, but have no 
 vantage-ground, as it were, no lofty eminence, from whence 
 to pass judgment on that great expanse of fluctuating 
 opinions, which is beyond the reach of our own spiritual ken. 
 5. The first application which I shall make of the principle 
 I have been engaged in advocating, shall be to uphold the 
 reverence which it is the duty of all English Christians to 
 pay to the Sacred Volume. This is indeed no task necessarily 
 incumbent on myself; for the view I hold on the authority 
 of the Church enables me, for my own comfort and satis- 
 faction, to assume a far higher position. Still so deeply am 
 I convinced of the opinion lately implied, viz. that any class 
 of religionists amongst us, if they will only begin to act bon& 
 fide on the positive opinions they hold, are at once in the 
 path which most surely leads them to full Catholicity ; p and 
 
 P Lutheranism constitutes no exception to this ; let any person, not absolutely 
 depraved, act on it honestly, consistently, unflinchingly, he will speedily abandon it
 
 534 
 
 again, so deeply do I fear that an attack on the full inspira- 
 tion and authority of the Bible itself, is more nearly impend- 
 ing than most of us fancy, p that I am anxious to give a 
 few hints, on the arguments by which that attack may be 
 most successfully parried. Moreover, the discussion will 
 give me the opportunity of expressing one or two particulars, 
 which are personally important, more clearly than I have yet 
 had an opportunity of doing. It is most truly unfortunate, 
 indeed, however natural, that the Protestant world has 
 agreed in taking as their first principle a book rather than 
 a doctrine ; but still we must deal with facts as we find them. 
 The deepest and surest conviction of which our nature is 
 capable, is that which is entertained by those who have 
 obediently followed a pure Church's training, of that Church's 
 Divine authority." 1 Still the belief in definite Christian doc- 
 trines, such as the Trinity, or the Incarnation, which is 
 accessible to all serious Christians, is not inferior to this in 
 kind, however much so in degree : it has to fight indeed single- 
 handed against the assaults of sight, imagination, reason ; 
 while a pure Church employs sight, imagination, reason, in 
 her own defence, thus using worldly weapons against the 
 world: yet the belief itself is not the less superhuman and 
 infallible. But this cannot be said of belief in the whole 
 Bible as it stands ; and those therefore who have made this 
 their locus standi, have chosen a less impregnable position 
 than might have been desired. True it is indeed that their 
 fathers have been probably more in fault than themselves ; 
 and at all events, taking the facts as they are, such Christians 
 may defend their ground with no contemptible advantage, 
 against the poisonous arrows of scepticism and unbelief. 
 
 with horror and anathema. It derives its whole influence from those who will not 
 act on it consistently, and yet do receive it in a great measure. 
 
 P ' Have you seen' S. T. Coleridge's ' Letters on Inspiration ? They are well 
 fitted to break ground in the approaches to that momentous question, which involves 
 in it so great a shock to existing notions ; the greatest probably that has ever been 
 given, since the discovery of the falsehood of the doctrine of the Pope's infallibility.' 
 Arnold's Life and Correspondence, vol. i. p. 358. 
 
 i See pp. 2802.
 
 535 
 
 To shew more clearly my meaning as to the vantage- 
 ground which Protestants have given up, let us suppose, as 
 an imaginary case, that a priest is beginning to instruct 
 a baptized Christian in the leading facts and doctrines of 
 Christianity. This will represent to us, as in a figure, the 
 respective positions held towards each other, in one respect, 
 by the intellect and the conscience. For it is plain, on the 
 one hand, that the most mortified and conscientious man living 
 could never invent for himself these tidings ; they must be 
 taught, through the agency of the intellect, from without. 
 But the doctrines are apprehended and understood by the 
 disciple, in proportion to his moral proficiency ; and often 
 very far better than by the teacher. That our Saviour is 
 God, that He died for our sins, that the Holy Ghost is God, 
 and purges us from sin, all these statements are by him best 
 understood, who, by means of moral action, is best acquainted 
 with the real idea of God, and best appreciates the real nature 
 of sin. Let us further suppose, that the priest recounts to 
 the disciple, one after the other, the narratives contained in 
 the four Gospels, and impresses them on his memory, imagin- 
 ation, and understanding : these also will be far more fitly 
 apprehended in proportion to moral, than to intellectual, 
 attainments ; though the latter will have their place also. 
 
 Now if we suppose a sufficient time to have elapsed, and a 
 continual process to have gone on of spiritually appropriating 
 and realising this teaching, certain of these statements will have 
 been so embraced by the learner, as that he has an infallible 
 spiritual knowledge of their truth : they will have gradually 
 awakened into life and energy a responsive chord within him, 
 the deep and full echo of which to doctrines proposed, is the 
 ultimate , fact which constitutes proof ; and the analysis of 
 this fact would complete the analysis of the process of proof. 
 This faith is natural under natural religion, and supernatural 
 under the Gospel through the Baptismal Gift : so that Gos- 
 pel faith is indefinitely elevated above natural faith: but 
 in either case this conviction is, beyond any possible com- 
 parison, more reasonable and undoubted, than any derivable 
 from intellectual * discursus ;' because the trustworthiness
 
 536 
 
 itself of our intellectual powers is only proved indirectly by 
 that very test, which proves these truths directly and imme- 
 diately, (see pp. 507, 8. q ) 
 
 Now further which of these statements is it that are 
 really so proved ? I conceive such as the following : that 
 the subject of these various Narratives is one Person, whose 
 attributes are on the whole most faithfully and harmoniously 
 embodied in these narratives; that that Person is God ; is 
 the Son of God ; died as an Atonement for our sins ; is 
 brought into ineffable proximity to us by the agency of the 
 Holy Ghost; that the Holy Ghost is God; and so on 
 with others that might be named/ But the Scripture nar- 
 
 i "The Almighty, to impart to us the gift of faith penetrates the soul and 
 speaks to her ; not by reasoning, but by inspiration. He proposes to the under- 
 standing the objects of her belief in so gentle and persuasive a manner, that the 
 will is powerfully inclined to exert her freedom and authority over the under- 
 standing, and thereby reduce it to acquiesce unhesitatingly and fully in the truths 
 revealed. Notwithstanding the veils and shadows which obscure the divine 
 light, it no sooner beams in the soul than it exacts obedience ; it so completely 
 subdues the mind, that there is no opposition made to the certainty of the object 
 which it proposes to our belief ; which certainty is in fact superior to every other 
 species of conviction." St. Francis de Sales, ' Love of God, 1 English translation, 
 pp. 93, 4. 
 
 T The following passages, from the British Critic, will illustrate the process which 
 will enable those who are intellectually gifted, and have not been nurtured in the 
 bosom of a pure Church, to discern what those doctrines are which they believe with 
 a divine faith. 
 
 ' Let the supposition be fairly brought home to any religious person, of a denial, 
 e. g. of God's existence from everlasting ; will he not at once most deeply feel, that 
 the idea of such denial is unspeakably painful and shocking to the imagination ? and 
 that, not as being an insult to some formula which he has learned to revere, but 
 rather as threatening to take from him the possession of a real, living, vital truth, 
 which he had rather die than part with. There is then such an idea the ejcperi- 
 mentum crucis proves it deeply implanted in the religious man's moral nature, and 
 precious to him beyond words, as God's eternal pre-existence ; and yet, as has been 
 often enough remarked, if we attempt the intellectual apprehension of this truth 
 if we attempt to conceive, as an external fact, of God having lived ages without 
 end, and then beginning to create our mind recoils, baffled in its futile attempt. 
 And a similar moral test may be applied to one after another of God's attributes, 
 notwithstanding the absolute impossibility of any attempt to reconcile with each 
 other, in our own minds, the expressions which are universally adopted to signify 
 them.' 
 
 ' Are we asked for proof that there is a real assembly of truths, answering to 
 the ecclesiastical expressions of Christian doctrine ? We offer the very same
 
 537 
 
 ratives themselves, one by one, most certainly are not so 
 proved : no ordinary Christian can say, (to make a purely 
 imaginary hypothesis,) that if it became on other grounds 
 probable that some one or more of these were spurious, he 
 could have any spiritual knowledge of his own, which he could 
 oppose confidently to such a supposition ; nor yet again, that 
 of those which are genuine there may not be some few, which, 
 at first hearing, do not altogether commend themselves, and 
 which he receives on the authority of the rest or of the pro- 
 
 which establishes the reality of our idea of God. The more conscientiously and 
 strictly the orthodox believer walks, the more chastened and mortified his life, 
 the more entirely by means of voluntary or involuntary suffering he is thrown on 
 the thought of God for comfort, the more deep and stable has ever become his 
 apprehension of the Christian doctrines, the more intimate and undoubting his 
 conviction of their truth, the more warm and absorbing his love of them, the 
 higher his sense of their inestimable value. Heretics, as they grow more 
 spiritual, grow more dissatisfied and restless, and change from one heresy to an- 
 other, till they find the truth ; the orthodox feel with ever-increasing confidence 
 that they have found it. And the proof of the reality of Christian ideas might be 
 considered indefinitely stronger than that of merely JTieislical, (did certainly 
 admit of degrees, and did not the former include the latter,) by how much Chris- 
 tians attain more than others to the conscientious, mortified, and contemplative 
 life. And, again, that each one of the more prominent dogmatic definitions in 
 use corresponds with a deep reality in the believer's mind ; this also we prove by 
 precisely the same test which we adopted in speaking of natural religion. Let 
 the assertion in any way be brought home to the apprehension of the religious 
 Catholic, that our Blessed Lord was before all creatures, but still a creature, 
 and not co-eternal with the Father ; or that He is not Very God as truly as the 
 Father ; or that there is no distinction in any sense between Him and the Father ; 
 or that His divine nature is not derived from the Father ; or that there are more 
 Gods than one ; or, again, that He had not all the feelings and infirmities of 
 human nature, sin only excepted ; or that He had sin ; or that the principle of 
 any of His actions in the Flesh was less than divine (in other words, that He 
 had a human personality) ; and so on with the rest: let this be done, and he will 
 at once feel most acutely that a vital, an 'absolutely essential, part of the one 
 support of his religious life is attacked ; that if he is to enjoy happiness, if he is to 
 advance in holiness, he must be sheltered and protected from the endurance of 
 such blasphemies.' ' On St. Athanasius,' pp. 414, 418, 19. 
 
 Again a most powerful support to the faith of all in Christian doctrine is 
 supplied by the deep and supernatural harmony between Scripture and Catholic 
 doctrine, which spiritual believers are ever more fully discerning. Of this a few 
 words presently. 
 
 All this is of course equally, or probably much more, true of a religious person 
 who has been nurtured within the bosom of a pure Church ; but he will have also 
 divine faith in that Church : so that this analysis will not to him be so important.
 
 538 
 
 ponent. The case might possibly be different with very 
 heavenly-minded and saintly men ; nay, supposing a Christian 
 had been preserved by God's grace free from venial as well as 
 mortal sin, in such a case it is even highly probable that there 
 would be that sympathy with our Blessed Lord, which might 
 serve as an infallible touchstone, to distinguish the true recital 
 from the false : but none except the wildest fanatic will at- 
 tribute any such power to ordinary believers. And what is 
 true of this most sacred part of Scripture, is still more true 
 of the rest. That the volume, as a whole, presents the most 
 undeniable proofs of its awful character, mysterious struc- 
 ture, Divine origin, cannot be questioned ; but no one can 
 say, that there are not individual portions of it in which he 
 fails to recognise those marks ; or again, that passages might 
 not easily be brought, e. g. from Thomas a Kempis, which 
 he could not by his own discernment distinguish from Scrip- 
 ture. 
 
 We may see then the disadvantageous position into which 
 English Protestants have brought themselves, by taking their 
 stand on a book instead of on a doctrine ; and they feel it 
 themselves. For when they hear of the course taken by 
 foreign criticism; when they hear of acute and powerful- 
 minded men, who question the Scripture account of the 
 Creation, or the Fall, or the Flood; who deny Divine au- 
 thority to integral parts of the New Testament; who threaten, 
 as inquiry proceeds, to leave nothing untouched, nothing 
 sacred ; they seem able to utter in their defence little more, 
 than a vague and unreasoning clamour. I am far from de- 
 nying, that even this clamour is far more reasonable than that 
 sort of dispassionate criticism to which I have been alluding : 
 it arises in part doubtless from the shock received, in the 
 hearing of such sentiment, by their religious and reverential 
 instinct; even though it may arise in part also from indolent 
 and acquiescent conservatism. Still I think that if any of 
 their number should be attracted by that appearance of 
 depth, honesty, and unprejudiced desire of truth, which is 
 presented by the theory of free inquiry ; should he be tempted, 
 not to add to his existing creed, but to take from it ; not to
 
 539 
 
 accept an authorized interpreter of his rule of faith, but to 
 question the rule itself; it is possible to put before him, 
 with perfect calmness and argumentativeness, grounds, which 
 will be sufficiently cogent, to deter even moderately religious 
 and conscientious men from such a course. 
 
 I would beg to ask him, in the first place, whether he aims 
 honestly at carrying out into lively and energetic practice 
 those religious truths which he does hold ; whether he be en- 
 deavouring, day by day, that the fear and love of God shall 
 be more undividedly the principle of his thoughts, words, and 
 actions ? If otherwise, what can he expect to meet with ex- 
 cept error and delusion ; what will be his fitting reward except 
 intellectual perverseness and judicial blindness ; if, with no 
 practical realisation of the truths of natural religion, he pre- 
 sume to criticise the documents which contain a Revelation ? 
 Nay, on the score of that very quality for which he takes 
 credit, sincere and unprejudiced desire of truth, there is 
 as little to be said in his defence, as on the score of piety and 
 reverence. For surely critical science will suffer no very 
 serious evil by a delay e. g. of two years : if Christianity has 
 gone on very well without his labours for 1844 years, it may 
 do so for 1846 : while we say, that those two years, spent in 
 retirement, and prayer, and meditation, would give him views 
 of truth radically different. He professes to believe in our 
 accountableness to God, and in judgment to come ; it is the 
 dictate of plain reason to act on that belief ; there are people 
 who say, that by so acting he would further altogether aban- 
 don those speculative views to which he is now attracted ; 
 surely, if under all these circumstances he still resolve to pro- 
 ceed in his free inquiries, he must give up all claim to be con- 
 sidered a real seeker for truth : he must be classed with those 
 most contemptible pretenders, who profess to think of truth, 
 but think rather of their own powers of mind ; and whose 
 ardent desire, is not to increase human knowledge, but to 
 gratify their own selfish taste for intellectual speculation ; 
 supposing, that is, that their real wish be not still baser, the 
 wish to gain notoriety by the propagation of a so-called phi- 
 losophical system.
 
 540 
 
 But let a person submit himself to a course of such dis- 
 cipline, as I sketched from life in the sixth and seventh chap- 
 ters ; let him acquire the habit of daily self-examination ; 
 frequent prayer; meditation on those truths which he ac- 
 knowledges, the sinfulness of sin, the peril of sin, death, judg- 
 ment ; let him add to this, if possible, (for such a man will 
 probably have had hitherto little experience of life except on 
 its sunny side,) let him add active personal communication 
 with the poor ; and, if his principles do not forbid it, such 
 measure of bodily mortification as may be suitable to his 
 case ; little fear need be entertained, lest he should come 
 forth from the influence of such a course of treatment, with 
 any heart left to criticise impartially and superciliously the 
 evidence for an alleged revelation, or the documents which 
 contain it. In proportion as he shall have realised his own 
 exceeding sinfulness, blindness, helplessness, and the appal- 
 ling mass of temporal and spiritual misery which overspreads 
 the world, he may think of devoting his intellectual faculties 
 to a consideration of the means of alleviating this frightful 
 evil ; or to preparing the materials by which others may do 
 so ; or to drawing out, in their full and harmonious pro- 
 portion, those great truths, which have become his own rest 
 and refuge, and the knowledge of which he eagerly desires to 
 spread : but when books are placed before him which pro- 
 fess to contain a message from God, I conceive that his lan- 
 guage will be very much as follows : 
 
 ' I possess a knowledge, infinitely more certain than any 
 intellectual inference, that there is an All-Just, All-Holy 
 God ; and that I am a miserable and helpless creature. The 
 consciousness of sin present, the memory of worse sin past, 
 fill my mind with anxious misgivings, in regard to the in- 
 visible world ; let a book be placed before me which purports 
 to bring me news from thence, my only reasonable course is, 
 eagerly to seize it, in hope that I may therein find an allevia- 
 tion of these misgivings. The Bible is such a book. In almost 
 every page I discern marks of Divine Authority ; I read my 
 own nature, as in a mirror, reflected to myself in its pages ; 
 I gather from them most precious and consoling truths ; and,
 
 541 
 
 by acting on those truths, I obtain a most certain and in- 
 fallible conviction of their reality. The evidence to me of 
 the Bible's authority is my need and its supply. It could 
 be no matter of wonder, if God gave no external evidence for 
 it whatever: for He has given us the means of knowing the 
 truths of natural religion ; and he who acts on those truths, 
 will experience the same need, and, if he searches Scripture, 
 the same supply. Nor is it in any way inconsistent with His 
 attributes, but rather accordant with them, that those who 
 do not prize the truths of nature, shall have the fullest scope 
 allowed them, for criticising or rejecting the volume of Reve- 
 lation. True it is, that I find much in it mysterious and 
 perplexing; but in looking for expositors to help me in a 
 fuller understanding of its contents, I will seek for those who 
 recognise those truths, which I most undoubtingly know; 
 who sympathize with those feelings in regard to the Sacred 
 Volume, which my conscience tells me are the only just and 
 right ones; who look upon the Scriptures in that light, which 
 I plainly see to be the only reasonable light. The German 
 critics, whatever their intellectual merits, (which I have not 
 even a temptation to deny,) are not such expositors. They 
 shall be no guides to me.' 
 
 This surely is the language of common reason and common 
 sense. It is a fact acknowledged on all hands, that, from the 
 moment when Christians were first able to meet together and 
 compare notes down to the present day, the sacred books 
 have been the very same which we now retain ; r and that they 
 have been regarded in that point of view, which I have been 
 just now endeavouring to recommend as the only reasonable 
 point of view. 3 The New Testament again bears the same 
 testimony to the Old Testament in its integrity, that the 
 
 r A discussion on the 'Apocrypha' would be here out of place. 
 
 Thus : to meet an objection that has been sometimes made to this statement, 
 to say that the first chapter in Genesis is a myth, that each verse of it is not adapted 
 to convey to us truth, or does not deserve the most careful study for the purpose of 
 discovering its meaning, all this is inconsistent with this point of view. But to say 
 that passages in Scripture have been purposely so worded as to convey truth, with- 
 out anticipating scientific discoveries, this is no departure whatever from patristic 
 principles of interpretation.
 
 542 
 
 Church has borne to both ; it speaks of Adam as simply and 
 naturally, as of Christ; it speaks of the Fall or the Flood, 
 with no more suspicion of their literal truth, than of that of 
 the Resurrection or the Ascension. Holy men have perused 
 the text of Scripture with a humble and reverent curiosity ; 
 and have professed to derive from every text lessons of 
 superhuman wisdom. I do not press any individual in- 
 quirer to give more weight to the authority of the Church 
 and of holy men, than his existing principles allow; but 
 I earnestly entreat him to give as much weight as these 
 principles require. On the other hand, as to those who 
 have originated the existing school of free criticism, it is 
 saying no more than will be acknowledged by their admirers, 
 if we affirm that they have not resorted to Scripture, as men 
 who watch with breathless interest to catch the first accents 
 that may be really from God, but in the very contrary 
 spirit: in that spirit, which, if there be force in the pre- 
 ceding arguments, is utterly unreasonable and unphiloso- 
 phical, and so likely to lead into every error ; is irreverent 
 and impious, and so likely to entail a special blindness of 
 sight, as God's appointed punishment. I am most anxious to 
 avoid any railing accusation against individuals, while I attack 
 principles: and I readily admit how much is to be said in 
 personal defence or praise of this or that rationalistic in- 
 quirer. As to those who constitute the foreign school, they 
 but inherit the teaching of their fathers ; and if we can 
 think, with thoughts altogether short of unmixed abhorrence, 
 even of Luther, we can have little temptation to form un- 
 charitable judgments on Paulus or on Strauss. Moreover, 
 both as to critics abroad and those at home w r ho may 
 be tempted to follow in their train, I gladly concede this : 
 that there is most undoubtedly a real and genuine science of 
 criticism, which has been brought into active life in these 
 later centuries ; and that those who, like myself, are ignorant of 
 its very simplest rudiments, are no fair judges of the tempt- 
 ations, which beset the path of those who are proficients in 
 its study. Still let it be remembered, that the votary of this 
 science has an almost boundless field before him, in applying
 
 543 
 
 it to the carrying out of those very principles of interpre- 
 tation, which have been recognised from the first ; that a 
 commentary on St. Paul, or on the Gospels, or on the Psalms, 
 or on the Prophetical Books, is in principle precisely such as 
 might have been written by St. Athanasius or St. Augustine 
 or St. Thomas, but adapted to the existing far superior state 
 of exegetical science ; that this is an undertaking, which 
 would be of extreme benefit to the Church. And when such 
 a course as this is open, with the best wishes and gratulations 
 of all, that an individual should, on his own responsibility, 
 overstep this boundary-line, and should desert principles of 
 interpretation, which all, without one exception, have main- 
 tained, who have consulted Scripture in the fit temper of 
 mind ; this surely is a course, which the boldest could not 
 contemplate without alarm and dismay. 
 
 For my own part, when over against the views I hold on 
 the authority of holy men and of the Church, I place such 
 facts as these ; viz. the most unreasonably exaggerated im- 
 portance which undisciplined minds attach to a plausible 
 objection newly brought against some received opinion, and 
 again, the hasty induction, the absurd readiness to theorize, 
 which all seem to acknowledge as the present characteristic 
 of German thought, so that theory succeeds theory as wave 
 succeeds wave (strange and most edifying contrast to the sure 
 and steady march, and unceasing progressiveness of the 
 Church's dogmatic theology !); when I consider this, I have no 
 doubt at all, that when this exegetical process has been honestly 
 and bona fide carried out for some sufficient time, the issue 
 will be, not the overthrow, but the firmer reestablishment, of 
 all those old principles of which we have been speaking. But 
 if I cannot make others partakers of this conviction, they 
 must in fairness acknowledge so much as this : 1 . that the 
 temper of mind with which the rationalists have studied 
 Scripture, is both unphilosophical and most deeply sinful ; 
 
 2. that whether or no their researches have brought old 
 principles of interpretation into discredit, they must be from 
 the cause I just mentioned wholly worthless in devising new ; 
 
 3. that in order to judge rightly of the whole subject, full
 
 544 
 
 justice must be done to such questions as these what is the 
 worth of that probability arising from the argument I just now 
 used, on the view of things acquired by really acting on the 
 truths of natural religion ? how much weight is due to the 
 experience of holy men, who have acquired so much of hea- 
 venly truths from every part of Scripture ? how great is the 
 improbability, that God would have suffered all Christendom 
 to be so long misled in a matter so closely concerning the spi- 
 ritual life ? and others of a similar kind ; 4. that on such 
 questions as these, holy men not intellectual men, are alone 
 qualified to form even a distantly probable judgment, and that 
 consequently, especially in so vitally serious a matter as mo- 
 difying the principles with which good men of all ages have 
 studied the sacred volume, no authority, except one which 
 should be able to collect the testimony of holy men, and which 
 should be supernaturally assisted in its decision, could claim 
 any deference at our hands ; 5. that God has placed us in a 
 traditionary system, where this book is put before us as very 
 simply sacred ; that in proportion as we live a strict and godly 
 life, and reverently study it, the marks of Divine authority 
 are more plainly traced in it ; that we have derived from it 
 doctrines which we now know to be most certainly and infal- 
 libly true ; that if we desert those principles of interpretation 
 which have been recognised by such august authority, no 
 positive principles we can adopt in their place have even the 
 slightest authority that a serious man can feel trustworthy. 
 If in the face of such considerations as these, an individual 
 should presume to leave the beaten track trodden by holy 
 men, and embark on the sea of speculation, with no safer 
 guide than his power of criticism, or the authority of others 
 who have no claim to authority except the same power to 
 speak plainly, he must expect to place his own salvation in 
 the most imminent peril. 
 
 It is generally acknowledged, that in originally fixing the 
 Canon, the Church took very prominently into consideration 
 the doctrine contained in the various books presented to her 
 notice. This leads to a remark of the utmost importance. 
 A great deal has been said in these latter days by Protestants,
 
 545 
 
 and conceded by advocates of Catholicism, on the very great 
 dissimilarity on the surface, in the way of tone and general 
 bearing, which exists between the text of Scripture and the 
 dogmatic formularies of the Church. When by a deep and 
 habitual study of both, religious men come to perceive the 
 deep and wonderful harmony which really exists between 
 them, an evidence arises for the Divine authority of the two, 
 than which no external evidence can be conceived more 
 cogent. The proof is the same in kind with that of the 
 ' Horae Paulinae ;' but far more persuasive and constraining 
 even than that exquisitely ingenious work. Neither of these 
 Divine oracles can be supposed to have been in matter of fact 
 founded on the other ; else they would not so differ on the 
 surface : both must come in a peculiar sense from God ; else 
 they would not so mysteriously agree, in the accents which 
 they utter to the disciplined and holy soul. 
 
 6. The next application I shall make of the Canons which 
 I fancy myself to have established, is one which all will have 
 anticipated throughout the discussion : I mean, the illustration 
 and defence of those maxims, on which the Church Catholic 
 has ever acted in dealing with her children. This is indeed 
 so obvious, that a few hints will suffice. The Church has 
 ever taught her children with authority : not imagining the 
 possibility of their questioning her judgment ; much less, 
 educating them, as in a duty, in the habit of studying impar- 
 tially the evidence of her claims ; but relying, for proof of 
 her divine mission, on the very lessons which she teaches her 
 children and the grace she dispenses to them. Those who 
 rebel against her authority, after having been educated in 
 her bosom, so far from considering in the light of inquirers 
 who have come to an erroneous conclusion on a question 
 which depends on argument, she has treated, as some in- 
 dulgent yet holy father might treat his children, who during 
 their childhood have refused to submit themselves to his 
 instructions. Catholics again, during the great controversies 
 which have agitated the Church, have habitually and un- 
 consciously regarded heretics not merely as rebels against 
 lawful authority, but as desiring to rob them of definite 
 
 2 N
 
 546 
 
 doctrines which are part of their spiritual nature itself, 
 and which they would rather die than part with. On the 
 other hand, not only has the Church not exhorted or en- 
 couraged her children to investigate her claims, she has in 
 most cases forbidden it under the strongest penalties. The 
 very thought of unbelief has been treated as a sin ; like a 
 thought of anger, or pride, or impurity. Her children have 
 been forbidden so much as to read what has been advanced 
 on the other side, unless they establish, to the satisfaction of 
 her authorities, that they are so well grounded spiritually 
 in the faith, and so well furnished with intellectual power, 
 that they may benefit the Church without injuring them- 
 selves, by making so hazardous an experiment. All this 
 and much else of the same kind, is no doubt utterly unrea- 
 sonable and fanatical, if examination of evidence be our guide 
 to religious truth ;* but it all flows as a direct corollary from 
 the principles I have been labouring to illustrate. 
 
 * It is very much to be wished (to repeat what I have before said), that those 
 who, in some shape or other, base religious belief on private judgment, for 
 instance, on an opinion that certain doctrines are consistent with those of the 
 early Church and certain others inconsistent, would remember, how utterly 
 unmeaning, delusive, and wildly extravagant, are their words, unless they 
 inculcate the duty of doing the most careful justice to both sides of the 
 question. ' Was there ever heard a more preposterous notion, than that free 
 and impartial inquiry are to be our means of interpreting Scripture, [or the 
 Fathers,] and yet that our examination of arguments is to be all on one side ? 
 What would be said of a judge, who, having with much point and emphasis 
 and swelling satisfaction proclaimed his absolute impartiality, should proceed 
 however to intimate his intention of listening only to advocates on one side of the 
 question; but that they day after day, week after week, month after month, 
 should have ready access to his ear ? Mr. Goode advocates the establishment 
 of a body of clergy to enforce on the people arguments for his interpretation of 
 Scripture (voL ii. p. 246) ; is he prepared in consistency to provide advocates of 
 the opposite sentiments, that the noblest privilege of the Protestant, free and 
 unbiassed inquiry, may have at least some chance of legitimate scope ? Will 
 he insist upon the controversial works of Channing, Belsham, and Priestley, as 
 no less necessary parts of Christian education than those of Bull or Horsley ? 
 Nay, to go further back, will he enforce the necessary Protestant duty of en- 
 deavouring to give their full weight to the arguments of Tindal, Chubb, and 
 Collins, or Rousseau and Voltaire ? No ! most happily for themselves and 
 others, men's conscience is on the whole more than a match for their Pro- 
 testantism : they content themselves with recomme'nding free Scriptural inquiry 
 to all who differ from themselves ; they allow their Protestantism a gentle un-
 
 547 
 
 This will be the fit place to say what little remains to be 
 said, on a subject which Mr. Palmer has noticed with con- 
 siderable emphasis ; the development of Christian doctrine. 
 All that I can say indeed on the matter has been pretty well 
 implied in what has gone before ; and nothing remains to be 
 done here except to notice Mr. Palmer's observations. 
 
 ' There are " developments " which are inferences from Revela- 
 tion, and there are also "developments" which are mere expressions 
 of Revelation. There is a wide and essential difference between these 
 things. The former . . . may not have been deduced in the primitive 
 ages. . . . The latter have been at all times held substantially by the 
 Church ; they are comprised in Scripture, if not literally, yet in 
 its spirit and meaning ; they are mere expressions of quod semper^ 
 ubique, et ab omnibus creditum est ; they can only be novel in form ; 
 they are in spirit and life identical with " the Faith once delivered to 
 the Saints." ' 
 
 I have omitted from my quotation some expressions of 
 Mr. Palmer's, in which he seems to represent that later 
 inferences cannot be matters of faith ; because I do not 
 concur in that opinion : but the general distinction he makes 
 is undoubtedly just and of very considerable importance. It 
 had indeed already been made, quite as clearly in the British 
 Critic. 
 
 ' When we speak of the Apostles having taught some principle 
 to the early Church, we mean what we say ; not that they gave to 
 their successors an embodiment of that principle carried to its 
 farthest limits. Every principle, which (as Mr. Carlyle would say) 
 is a reality not a sham, has indefinite results contained within it, 
 of which those who first receive it have not even the faintest 
 suspicion. They may hold it for some length of time in company 
 with other modes of thought, which are virtually inconsistent with 
 it ; they may so hold it through a life, through many lives ; until 
 
 disturbed slumber, in their own case and that of those who agree with them. 
 Was ever a more contemptible spectacle presented to the eyes of the merely 
 argumentative scoffer, than the claims of English Protestants to the especial 
 praise, as distinguished from foreign Catholics, of grounding their belief on 
 examination, taken in connection with the laws of religious libel, and the virtual 
 proscription in all religious society of books which take the opposite side ? ' 
 ' On Goode,' p. 58. 
 
 2 N2
 
 548 
 
 gradually and unconsciously it is matured within and springs forth 
 into full development. Now the reverse of this is commonly as- 
 sumed by controversialists : they find the Fathers of some later 
 century far more explicit and unanimous than in earlier times, on 
 some great truth ; and immediately conclude, that it is the matured 
 fruit of some false principle which has crept into the Church. Most 
 illogically indeed I unless it be false principles only, which are 
 carried forward but slowly and by degrees to their full bearing. 
 Whether in this or that case it be false, is matter of evidence in 
 the particular instance ; but to say that d priori it probably is so, 
 is really to rule that the Apostles taught no principle whatever. 
 Real or living principles differ from mere formulae, as the works of 
 nature from the works of art ; a table or a chair is made once for 
 all, and remains stationary in size and proportions as it came from 
 the maker's hand ; but a small seed, small and almost impercepti- 
 ble, grows and expands without human cognizance, and ends not 
 begins by banishing all rival claimants from the space it is destined 
 to occupy. It may well be then, as Mr. Goode has pointed out 
 (vol. ii. pp. 02 214), that the fifth century was far more decided 
 and interested than the second in the defence of St. Mary's per- 
 petual Virginity, and yet may have been altogether right in such 
 increased love of the doctrine. Such love may well have been the 
 natural and legitimate development of principles taught by the 
 Apostles (e.g. the blessedness of celibacy, the sacramental efficacy of 
 proximity to our Lord, the unspeakable dignity to which human na- 
 ture is raised by the Incarnation, &c., &c.)- and St. Augustine may 
 have been most pious and wisely zealous in denouncing those as here- 
 tics, (vol. ii. pp.211, 213,) who did not receive a statement which 
 the orthodox, by that time, had discovered to have been ever morally 
 involved in the principles they held/rom the first' 
 
 ' Again : the Apostles may not only have taught principles 
 without their development, but doctrines without their analysis. 
 A very little thought will suffice to shew,' &c. (See quotation in 
 pp. 519, 520.) 
 
 Where it will be observed, that the two paragraphs exactly 
 answer respectively to the two different ideas of ' develop- 
 ment' mentioned by Mr. Palmer. I am able also fully to 
 follow the latter in his observation, that Mr. Newman's 
 Sermon on the subject is on the whole confined to ' develop-
 
 549 
 
 ments,' in that sense in which Mr. Palmer seems to admit 
 them ; though it is a sense in which, so we are told by 
 learned persons, Bp. Bull did not admit them. But the 
 British Critic has gone altogether beyond any thing that 
 Mr. Newman has stated in that sermon ; and appears to 
 consider it quite possible that doctrines may be ruled by 
 the Church as part of the necessary faith, which were not 
 held even implicitly by the early Fathers ; though they did 
 hold premises, which, by necessary consequence moral or 
 intellectual, lead to these doctrines. For myself, I think not 
 only this may be so, but that it is so. Here shall follow a 
 passage, in which I have stated this distinctly. 
 
 ' Viewing then the Church collective starting after the Apostles' 
 death on her aggressive course, we find her, as might have been 
 expected, fully possessed of, and energizing in, those doctrines; 
 which are the cardinal points of faith ; e. g. the Trinity, the In- 
 carnation, the Eucharistic Presence. Her intimate assurance of 
 the truth of these, results from spiritual action ; and also, we may 
 add, from her perception of their wonderful accordance with the 
 dicta of the Sacred Volume, as viewed by holy eyes in all its depth, 
 fulness, and expanse. And her idea of them, the impression they 
 form on her mind, is infinitely indeed below the original truths 
 themselves, yet is it " the nearest approach to them which our 
 present state allows ;" as being received by the moral faculty : that 
 faculty, which is more truly heavenly in its origin, and in its 
 nature more akin to heaven, than any other part of man's constitu- 
 tion. On these subjects, then, the task which remains for her is, 
 to bring before her own notice one particular after another of her 
 complex and mysterious consciousness, to regard it steadily and 
 distinctly, to project it, as it were, from the moral on the intel- 
 lectual faculty, to express in accurate language the result of such 
 projection, and to follow out the result so obtained into those in- 
 tellectual consequences which necessarily flow from it. Or, to use 
 the words we adopted in the earlier part of our article, the science 
 of these doctrines (and it is a science which has been in fact 
 growing, we may say, almost to the present day, nay, which is still 
 pregnant with an indefinite number of unexplored inferences) will 
 consist entirely of analytical and deducible propositions. Not that 
 these truths are of a nature different from all other religious and
 
 550 
 
 moral truths, so as not to grow upon the spiritual eye by contem- 
 plation, nor to germinate in the spiritual mind by approbation ; 
 but because, in point of fact, they were impressed, in their whole 
 fulness, on the mind of the infant Church, and, like Minerva, were 
 born full grown and complete in all their parts. In the mind of 
 individual Christians, indeed, they do so expand and germinate ; 
 and we may as well add, for clearness, that propositions which are 
 but analytical of the collective Church's experience, are synthetical 
 to believers one by one ; and that these dogmatic statements are, in 
 many cases, inestimably advantageous, in directing the disciple's 
 mind to a right apprehension of the revealed Objects. In the mean 
 time to speak at length of the gifts, moral and intellectual, called 
 forth by these investigations, or of their inherent dignity, greatness, 
 fruitfulness, would be hardly even becoming while the words remain 
 on record of one, who cannot at least be accused, as others might be, 
 of theorizing on the mere creature of his imagination, or of praising 
 works which he has not studied. b 
 
 ' Still, though the foundations of the faith were fully realised from 
 the first, other principles there were no doubt, and very far from 
 unimportant ones, which were deposited, as it were, in germ within 
 the bosom of the Church; that her internal action might gradually 
 nurture them, or external circumstances hasten their appearance 
 on the surface. And on these subjects the Church herself does 
 form synthetical judgments, by dint of moral action and meditation. 
 In other doctrines, again, the spiritual experience, which she 
 accumulates from age to age, forms a most important part of the 
 premises to be taken into account; 6 here then also part of the 
 
 b See the ] 4th of Mr. Newman's University Sermons. 
 
 c The following admirable observations of Mr. Mill will illustrate the indis- 
 pensable importance of ever keeping alive within the Church the vivid memory of 
 her earlier and mediaeval period, through the din of present action and controversy ; 
 while they also point out the great advantage of her maintaining formulae and 
 expressions which have come down to her, though the present generation of 
 believers may be far from entering into their real force. (Vol. ii. p. 257.) 
 " There is a perpetual oscillation in spiritual truths, and of spiritual doctrines of 
 any significance, even when not truths. Their meaning is almost always in a 
 process either of being lost or of being recovered : a remark upon which all 
 history is a comment. Whoever has attended to the history of the more serious 
 convictions of mankind, of the opinions by which the general conduct of their 
 lives is, or as they conceive ought to be, regulated, is aware that while recognis- 
 ing verbally the very same doctrines, they attach to them at different periods 
 a greater or less quantity, and even a different kind of meaning. The words in
 
 551 
 
 premises are synthetical. And it should be pointed out distinctly, 
 that when this theory of " development " is maintained, it is not 
 necessary, in order to account for it, to allege, as the cause of such 
 maintenance, the necessities of some immediate object, or undue 
 sympathy with some external system. If developments had not 
 existed in Christianity, it ivould have been necessary to suppose that 
 God worked a continued miracle, to separate off Christian from all 
 other religious and moral truth. It is of the very nature of moral 
 belief, that the same principles shall appear in each successive age, 
 in a new aspect, or a more advanced growth, or more harmonious 
 proportions.' 
 
 Here then, as in other cases, Mr. Palmer has rather under- 
 stated than over-stated the opinions which I, for one, enter- 
 tain : but I must be allowed at the same time to add, that 
 here, as in other cases, he does not seem to me so successful 
 in answering them as in stating them ; indeed it should be 
 said in justice to him, that he only professes to throw out 
 hints in the way of answer, as he ' cannot now discuss this 
 very extensive subject.' (p. 61.) Mr. Palmer seems to have 
 been hardly prepared for a plea of ' justification ; ' and has 
 directed, therefore, his main strength against a plea which 
 I by no means put forward, that of ' not guilty.' 
 
 My difficulty in defending this doctrine of * development,' 
 arises from my inability to conceive, how any one can have, 
 for a single day, pursued a course of moral and religious 
 action, and yet deny it. Confining our view to natural 
 religion, ' it is by moral action under this visible system, 
 and thus only, that we learn, in varying but continually in- 
 creasing degrees, the very meaning of those qualities which, 
 in their perfection, we attribute to God. From a father per- 
 haps we derive our first notion of justice ; from a mother, of 
 loving tenderness ; and thus in our gradual progress, every 
 perception of good in others, every growth of it in ourselves ; 
 
 their original acceptation connoted, and the propositions expressed, a complica- 
 tion of outward facts and inward feelings, to different portions of which the gene- 
 ral mind is more particularly alive in different generations of mankind. To 
 common minds, only that portion of the meaning is in each generation suggested, 
 of which that generation possesses the counterpart in its own habitual experience. 
 But the words and propositions lie ready, to suggest to any mind, duly prepared, the 
 remainder of the meaning."
 
 552 
 
 every strengthened and confirmed habit of love, of unselfish- 
 ness, of diligence, of self-denial, of humility, of obedience, to 
 which this external and social system is, by God's appoint- 
 ment so well calculated to minister; all unite in this one 
 result, of gifting us with a deeper insight into the perfections 
 of the Divine Nature.' d Nor is it merely that we learn more 
 fully the meaning or the application of those truths we 
 know (though the distinction Mr. Palmer here draws is not 
 to me obvious) ; in the strictest sense of the word we acquire 
 new truths. To take one or two out of a thousand instances, 
 we learn that God is just : if we are careless and worldly, 
 the dogma remains barren and unfruitful ; but if we habi- 
 tually realise and contemplate it, we learn to carry on this 
 truth into a further development; that our conduct here 
 will have a decisive influence on our lot hereafter. Or we 
 learn that God is merciful as well as just ; we gradually 
 learn that such a belief involves the doctrine of a particular 
 Providence, and is inconsistent with the idea that the course 
 of phenomena is governed by fatal and unbending laws, 
 irrespective of that great end, our moral probation. Now no 
 one would say that it involved any denial of this principle, if 
 an inspired prophet having communicated a Revelation of 
 God's attributes, were to say here is * the whole truth ' or 
 here is ' the whole counsel of God,' or the like. Such 
 declarations could never be naturally taken to imply more, 
 than ' this is all which I tell you in the way of Revela- 
 tion : take it, appropriate it, develop it, for yourselves : but 
 I have no more to tell you than I have told you.' Nor, I 
 think, in the parallel case would any one naturally under- 
 stand those solemn texts cited by Mr. Palmer, (p. 58,) in 
 any different sense. To say indeed that this process of de- 
 velopment ceases, as if by some standing miracle, under the 
 Gospel, would be quite natural, if the history of the Church 
 appeared to require such a statement : but when the facts of 
 Church History precisely tally with what our knowledge of 
 human nature and of moral habits would lead us to expect, 
 some better reason surely must be given for our receiving 
 
 d ' On the Synagogue and the Church,' pp. 7, 8.
 
 553 
 
 such a statement, than merely that its denial is absolutely 
 fatal to the pretensions of ' high-church ' Anglican theology. 
 
 Mr. Palmer indeed compares this doctrine to rationalism ; 
 nevertheless it has been the principal object of this chapter 
 to place these two philosophies in marked and pointed con- 
 trast. And in truth the question, whether we should begin 
 by believing and at once act ; or whether we should begin 
 by inquiring and abstain from moral action ; does seem 
 sufficiently vital and fundamental. In one point they agree, 
 and only in one ; in clashing with the principles of conser- 
 vatism. But then, how these principles can be placed on any 
 philosophical basis at all, or how they can be so much as 
 stated plainly and consistently, without disclosing features 
 which would repel the most cowardly and the most indolent, 
 I have never been able to learn. d 
 
 Lastly, Mr. Palmer and others say, that at last the prin- 
 ciple of development is only a negative argument in favour 
 of Roman doctrine. I have never claimed it as being more. 
 The positive arguments arise from the authority of the 
 Roman Catholic Church and of holy men ; whatever be the 
 value of those arguments, which this is not the place to 
 consider. But when it appears that there is no one tenet of 
 the Roman Church, which could not quite conceivably have 
 arisen from the development and combination of doctrines 
 declared by the Apostles, then this principle of development 
 does establish, that, to speak positively against these tenets 
 as false and corrupt, is as weak and shallow intellectually, as 
 I have already argued it to be arrogant and irreverent 
 morally. e 
 
 d See ' On Mill's Logic,' p. 352 and p. 362. 
 
 ' I am much concerned at being obliged to crowd into a note the observations 
 I had promised on St. Alphonsus : but space forbids the enlargement on the sub- 
 ject which I could wish. No one affects me so much as a devotional writer ; 
 and I speak therefore with some claim to be heard, when I give an opinion on 
 matters of fact connected with his writings. Though a copious, he is very for 
 from a various writer : on the contrary, in all his devotional works there is a con- 
 tinual recurrence of four leading ideas, which seem his habitually prominent 
 subjects of thought. I. The miraculous love of our Blessed Lord in His Passion ; 
 II. in giving Himself to us as our sacramental food ; III. that union with Him 
 is perfect happiness, and separation from Him the only real misery ; IV. that the
 
 554 
 
 7. The very same principles, which have actuated the 
 Church in her dealings with her children, have also governed 
 
 Blessed Virgin's intercession is all-powerful with Him. Of course, when one 
 reads the ' Glories of Mary,' one must expect that the chief subject shall be what 
 the title professes ; but it is impossible to read his ordinary works with any fair- 
 ness, and doubt for a moment, (even apart from the feeling which would lead any 
 ordinarily humble mind to take on faith that so great a Saint did not err in such 
 a particular, see pp. 427, 8,) that his feeling of ' latria' is exclusively given to God. 
 One illustration I may especially mention : the idea of union with our Blessed 
 Lord, to which I lately alluded, is peculiarly the ascription to Him of a Divine 
 attribute : now I will take upon myself to maintain a negative, and deny that any 
 expression will be found throughout his writings in regard to the Blessed Virgin, 
 of a similar nature. 
 
 Now take a few extracts from his writings selected almost at random. 
 
 ' All the holiness, all tlie perfection, of a sold consists in loving Jesus Christ our 
 God, our Sovereign Lord and our Saviour. 'There are some men,' says St. 
 Francis de Sales, ' who place perfection in austerity of life, others find it in 
 prayer, others in frequenting the Sacraments, others in alms-giving ; but all are 
 mistaken. Perfection consists in loving God with our whole Jteart.' 1 (p. 1.) 
 (Pratique de 1'Amour de Jesus Christ.) 
 
 ' Oh if men would but stop, when they behold a crucifix, to consider the love 
 which Christ bore for each one of them. " With what love," says St. Francis 
 de Sales, " should we not be enkindled at the sight of the flames of love which burn 
 in the bosom of the Redeemer ! Oh ! what blessedness to burn with the same 
 flame wherewith our God burns ! What joy to be united to God by the bonds of 
 love !" St. Bona venture called the wounds of Jesus Christ wounds which wound 
 the most insensible hearts, set on fire the most icy souls.' (pp. 7, 8.) 
 
 ' The venerable John Avila : " In what manner, Thou who didst love me, shall 
 I repay Thy love ? Blood should be paid by blood. May I be covered by Thy 
 blood ; may I be nailed on that cross. Receive me, crown me with thorns, set 
 Thyself free, that I may expose my head to the thorns. O sacred nails, leave the 
 innocent hands of my Saviour, and pierce this heart of mine with pity and love. 
 My Jesus, St. Paul says that Thou didst die to make Thyself Lord of the quick and 
 the dead ; not by chastisement, but by love." (p. 9.) 
 
 ' But to arrive at perfect love of Jesus Christ, we must employ the necessary 
 means. There are four mentioned by St. Thomas Aquinas : 1 . to have a con- 
 tinual memory of the benefits of God, as well general as particular ; 2. to con- 
 sider the infinite goodness of God, who is always ready to do us good, and asks 
 in return only our love ; 3. to avoid with care the least thing that can possibly 
 displease Him ; 4. to renounce all the sensible goods of this earth, riches, 
 honours, pleasures of the senses. Father Tauler adds, that another great 
 means of obtaining perfect love of Jesus Christ is to meditate on His holy 
 Passion. 
 
 ' Who can deny that devotion to tlte passion of Jesus Christ is [of all] the most 
 useful, the most tender; the most pleasing to God, that which consoles sinners most 
 efficaciously, that which enkindles most loving souls ? And whence do we derive 
 certainty of pardon, strength against temptations, hope of paradise ? whence do wo
 
 555 
 
 her proceedings in drawing towards herself the nations of the 
 world. At the first starting of the Gospel, circumstances were 
 
 receive so many rays of truth, so many inspirations of love, so many impulses which 
 lead us to change our life, so many desires of giving up ourselves to God, except 
 from the passion of Jesus Christ ? 
 
 ' St. Bonaventure says, that there is no devotion more fit to sanctify the 
 soul than meditation on the passion of Jesus Christ. He therefore advises us to 
 meditate every day on this mystery, if we desire to advance in Divine love. . . . 
 St. Augustine says that one tear shed from the memory of His passion has more 
 merit than to fast every week on bread and water. Therefore it is that the Saints 
 have always employed themselves in considering the sufferings of Jesus Christ. 
 St. Francis of Apicium by this means became a seraph. One day he was found 
 weeping and exclaiming loudly. They asked him the cause of his tears. ' I weep,' 
 he answered, ' the sufferings and ignominies of my Saviour ; and that which makes 
 me weep the most bitterly is, that men, for whom He has suffered so much, 
 live without thinking of Him.' .... Another time, being ill, some one advised 
 him to have some book of devotion read to him : " My book," he answered, " is Jesus 
 crucified." For this reason he did nothing else but exhort his brethren always to 
 think of the passion of Jesus Christ. 
 
 ' I see the wrong I have done Thee, my Jesus ; have pity on me. I offer 
 Thee this ungrateful heart : ungrateful, yet repentant. Yes, I repent, and I re- 
 gard it as the greatest evil that I ever spurned Thee. ..... Yes, my Saviour, 
 
 my God, I love Thee, I love Thee. Ah ! call ever to my mind how much Thou 
 didst suffer for me, that I may never forget to love Thee. cords which bound 
 Jesus, bind me to Jesus. thorns which crowned Jesus, wound me with love 
 for Jesus. nails which pierced Jesus, fix me to the cross of Jesus, that I may 
 live and die united to Jesus. O blood of Jesus, intoxicate me with holy love. 
 death of Jesus, make me die to all earthly affections. pierced feet of my Saviour, 
 I bind myself to you ; save me from the hell which I deserve. my Jesus, in hell 
 / should never be able to love Thee, but I wish to love Thee for ever. my well- 
 beloved Jesus save me, press me to Thy bosom, and suffer me not ever to lose Thee. 
 Mary, refuge of sinners, mother of my Saviour, assist a sinner wJu> desires to 
 love God, and who commends himself to thee. Help me in the name of that love 
 which thou bearest to Jesus Christ.'' 
 
 I have retained the last sentence, to shew the habitual connection in his mind of 
 the two feelings, love to our Lord and love to His Mother : the very idea of the pos- 
 sibility of their clashing never occurs to his mind. The following, from 'the Glories 
 of Mary' may be added. 
 
 ' There is no doubt that figures, like hyperboles, cannot be taxed with falsehood 5 
 when by ilte context oftJie discourse the exaggeration is evident; as, for example, when 
 St. Peter Damianus says, that Mary comes to her Son commanding, not beseeching. . . 
 So then figures are permitted whenever there cannot be any mistake in conse- 
 quence.' Vol. vi. (French Edition,) p. 324. 
 
 Let it be observed also, that the Saints have their wills wholly and absolutely 
 subject to the will of God : theirs then is no arbitrary or capricious interference, 
 but they pray for those objects and in that degree, which is most fitting for 
 carrying out God's gracious purposes. This throws light on a form of expression
 
 556 
 
 especially so ordered, that the best and highest minds should 
 be retained by no impediment in leaping forward, as it were, 
 to join her at her first summons. For the various forms of 
 heathenism were so essentially mixed up with moral depravity, 
 that all who had so much of moral light as to revolt from 
 the fearful exhibition, were eagerly looking out for some un- 
 known messenger of good; while the Jewish system had 
 from the first been so ordered, that * he derived most faith- 
 fully the lesson intended by it,' and gave proof that he had 
 most faithfully and heartily observed it, 'who was most 
 wearied and dissatisfied with' its bondage, and looked for- 
 ward most ardently to the future coming in of grace and 
 truth. f Under these circumstances, of what nature was the 
 Apostles' preaching? Let Mr. Newman answer this ques- 
 tion. 
 
 " The Apostles then proceeded thus : they did not rest their 
 cause on argument ; they did not appeal to eloquence, wisdom, or 
 reputation ; nay, nor did they make miracles necessary to the en- 
 forcement of their claims. They did not resolve faith into sight or 
 reason ; they contrasted it with both, and bade their hearers be- 
 lieve, sometimes in spite, sometimes in default, sometimes in aid 
 of sight and reason. They exhorted them to make trial of the 
 Gospel, since they would find their account in so doing. And of 
 their hearers ' some believed the things which were spoken, some 
 believed not.' Those believed whose hearts were ' opened,' who were 
 ' ordained to eternal life;' those did not whose hearts were hardened. 
 This was the awful exhibition of which the Apostles and their 
 
 which I acknowledge to be at first hearing very painful. Some most admirable 
 Christians have at times used expressions, as though God the Father desired to 
 punish, but God the Son prevailed on Him to spare : yet what more frightful 
 heresy, than to suppose any real contrariety of will between Two Persons in the 
 Ever-blessed Trinity? Such expressions then, whether well or ill-advised, are 
 never understood by those who use them, as true ; but as economical repre- 
 sentations of Christ's intercessory office. And in precisely a similar manner, 
 where the like expressions are found concerning our Blessed Lord and St. Alary, 
 it is absolutely unfounded to suppose, that any opinion is implied so blasphemous, as 
 that the Blessed Virgin's love for us is otherwise than even infinitely less than His 
 who is perfect God. 
 
 f See this stated at greater length, ' On the Synagogue and the Church,' 
 pp. 28 30.
 
 557 
 
 fellow- workers were witnesses; for faith, as a principle of know- 
 ledge, cannot be analysed or made intelligible to man, but is the 
 secret, inexplicable, spontaneous movement of the mind, (however 
 arising,) towards the external word, a movement not to the ex- 
 clusion of sight and reason, for the miracles appeal to both, nor of 
 experience, for all who venture for Christ receive daily returns of 
 good in confirmation of their choice, but independent of sight or 
 reason before, or of experience after. The Apostles appealed to 
 their hearts, and, according to their hearts, so they answered them. 
 They appealed to their secret belief in a superintending Providence? 
 in their hopes and fears thence resulting ; and they professed to 
 reveal to them the nature, personality, attributes, will, and works 
 of Him ' whom they ignorantly worshipped.' They came as com- 
 missioned from Him, and declared that mankind was a sinful and 
 outcast race, that sin was a misery, that the world was a snare, 
 that life was a shadow, that God was everlasting, that His 
 Law was holy and true, and its sanctions certain and terrible ; 
 that He also was all-merciful, that He had appointed a Mediator 
 between Him and them, who had removed all obstacles, and was 
 desirous to restore them, and that He had sent them to explain 
 how. They said that Mediator had come and gone ; but had left 
 behind Him what was to be His representative till the end of all 
 things, His mystical Body, the Church, in joining which lay the 
 salvation of the world. Thus they preached, and thus they pre- 
 vailed, using persuasives of every kind as they were given them, 
 but resting at bottom on a principle higher than the senses or the 
 reason. They used many arguments, but as outward forms of 
 something beyond argument. They appealed to the miracles they 
 wrought, as sufficient signs of their power, and assuredly divine, in 
 spite of those which other systems could shew or pretended. They 
 expostulated with the better sort on the ground of their instinctive 
 longings and dim visions of something greater than the world. 
 They awed and overcame the wayward, by the secret influence of 
 what remained of heaven in them, and the involuntary homage paid 
 by such to any more complete realising of it in others. They 
 asked the more generous- minded whether it was not worth while to 
 risk something on the chance of augmenting and perfecting those 
 precious elements of good which their hearts still held ; and they 
 could not hide what they cared not to ' glory in,' their own dis- 
 interested sufferings, their high deeds, and their sanctity of life.
 
 558 
 
 They won over the affectionate and gentle by the beauty of holiness, 
 and the embodied mercies of Christ as seen in their ministrations and 
 ordinances. Thus they spread their nets for disciples, and caught 
 thousands at a cast; thus they roused and inflamed their hearers into 
 enthusiasm, till ' the Kingdom of Heaven suffered violence, and the 
 violent took it by force.' B 
 
 And such as have been the holy maxims which first founded 
 the Catholic Kingdom of Christ, such on the whole have been 
 those which in subsequent ages have enlarged its borders. 
 Kings have submitted to the Gospel, and their people have 
 at once followed their natural guides ; not led surely by in- 
 quiry and examination of evidence, (who so insane as to 
 suppose it ?) or by pondering on the notes of the Church, or 
 by a priori presumptions that an infallible authority is re- 
 quired for weak and ignorant man : no ; they have but fol- 
 lowed those whom they had learned to revere ; and the Church 
 has received them, that she may take on herself the sacred 
 and responsible office of imparting to them a purer moral 
 discipline, and indoctrinating them with a higher and truer 
 range of religious ideas, and moulding them under Divine 
 grace on a more heavenly model ; and that she may afford 
 them the proof of her authority in so governing them. 
 
 Or does the Church send missionaries into some distant 
 country, sunk in ignorance and superstition ? The guise in 
 which she takes especial pains to present herself, has ever 
 been such as is described in the following picture. 
 
 ' Let us imagine Catholic missionaries, carrying with them as far 
 as might be the pure image of a Church. Let us picture to our 
 minds the men themselves, bearing in their very countenances 
 the marks of holy and mortified lives, exposing themselves with 
 eagerness to toil and danger, authoritatively teaching, reproving, 
 exhorting, appealing to men's consciences for warrant of the sub- 
 stantial truth of their doctrines, displaying that full and intimate 
 acquaintance with human nature which the close relation with a 
 flock is so well qualified to give, and bearing with them a majestic 
 ceremonial which shall set forth plainly before men their doctrines, 
 not written on paper, but exemplified, and, as it were, practically 
 
 ? Lectures on Justification.
 
 559 
 
 energizing. To which of these [Protestants who argue or Catholics 
 who teach~] will Dr. Whately himself promise success ? yet this is 
 the faiV issue : has Christ founded a religion or a Church 1 are we to 
 appeal to men's reasoning powers in behalf of our faith, and so shew 
 them what are its grounds, or to their moral faculties, and so shew 
 them what it is ?' 
 
 It would be absolutely insufferable indeed to dream 
 of confining God's grace within the limits of our narrow 
 theories, or of doubting that there have been numbers, in 
 whose case the Church's presence has at once broken the 
 fetters of sin, which had not hitherto even galled and fretted 
 them ; and has awakened high feelings and aspirations, of 
 which they had never before dreamed ; and has elicited 
 towards herself sympathies, which no inferior object had 
 drawn forth. But nevertheless in the long run the result of 
 her ministrations in a strange land has been such as follows. 
 If a person has heartily acted on the creed he has originally 
 learned, ' supposing Christian missionaries to appear and put 
 before him a more divine and true revelation, will he not see 
 here the solution of difficulties, the satisfaction of longings, 
 the fulfilment of desires, which have so long oppressed him ? 
 Will not that character which the finger of God has been 
 tracing within him, cling and respond to that which is ex- 
 hibited externally ; and will he not by almost a spontaneous 
 movement, feel himself drawn into the vortex of this new 
 attraction ? It may be so : how far it is so, will depend on 
 three things ; 1 . the degree of real and intrinsic superiority 
 in the system which they offer ; 2. the clearness with which 
 this is exhibited and brought to his apprehension ; 3. the 
 extent of the strictness and conscientiousness of his past 
 life." 1 
 
 That in addition, and in subordination, to such grounds of 
 conviction as those of which I have spoken, other appeals of 
 every kind would be repeatedly urged, according to oppor- 
 tunity and prospect of success, is of course undoubted. 
 Spiritual addresses alone will have little effect on the mul- 
 titude of men in our fallen world ; ' amidst its incessant din 
 11 ' On Whately's Essays.'
 
 560 
 
 nothing will attract attention but what cries aloud and spares 
 not ;' the whole inert mass of sluggishness and carnal -minded- 
 ness cannot be moved, except by a mechanism which shall act 
 at once on every part of their compound nature. Thus a gift 
 of miracles has been commonly granted by Christ, as an at- 
 tendant on His Church's missions ; and, especially in dealing 
 with an uncivilized people, will be a most efficacious instru- 
 ment of success. The external notes of the Church are often 
 another, most powerful and constraining, topic ; whichever of 
 them may happen at the time to shine with greater lustre ; 
 whether it be the visible union and brotherly love of Chris- 
 tians throughout the world, or the calm and majestic progres- 
 siveness of her history from Apostolic times, or the heavenly 
 front and bearing which she displays to the world. Others 
 are attracted, by those addresses to the eye and ear, which 
 have so mysterious an influence over the minds of men. 
 Others will be aroused by the threat of eternal condemnation, 
 solemnly pressed home to their consciences as certainly im- 
 pending, if when a message comes before them professing 
 to be from God, and bearing with it so many signs of His 
 presence, they, from sluggishness or carnal -mindedness, fail 
 to give it their full and thoughtful attention. Or if there 
 be among the unbelievers intellectual and philosophical gifts, 
 argument will bear a prominent place in the great work : 
 the missionary will labour to shew, that the truths, already 
 attained by these inquirers, are not really inconsistent with 
 the doctrine he is commissioned to teach ; or that so far 
 as they are inconsistent, they are no true images of any 
 deep moral conviction ; or again, that those tenets them- 
 selves, known and realised as they are on the most certain 
 grounds of proof, were originally attained on a principle, which 
 should in consistency lead forward those who hold them, into 
 the acceptance of the higher doctrines now proposed. So 
 various are the instruments, which a true and deep spiritual wis- 
 dom will apply to the great task of a people's conversion : h but 
 in all cases the idea of conversion is one and the same. And 
 
 h I apply the word here to a process which will often continue long after their Bap- 
 tism ; nor am I forgetting for a moment the working of the Holy Spirit in all this ; 
 though the subject leads me to speak only of the secondary instruments.
 
 561 
 
 that idea has been, the attracting to the Church that feeling 
 of loyalty and reverence, purified and made more intense, 
 which had previously at best no higher object on which to 
 repose, than a human and most imperfect system; and the 
 carrying the disciples forward, into a region of new and 
 heavenly doctrine, which shall contain within its sphere, and 
 most fully recognise, those floating fragments of truth which 
 may have been already acquired, disentangling them from 
 the vast congeries of error with which they had been inter- 
 mixed, and elevating and transmuting them into those fully 
 harmonious and absorbing Divine realities, of which they were 
 but the dim and distorted reflection. 
 
 Nothing however is more probable, than that in many cases 
 the urgency of secondary motives may have been unduly 
 applied, in order to attract proselytes to the Church ; though 
 I have no particular facts in my mind, when I make the 
 observation. For, on the one hand, most certainly it cannot 
 be maintained that all means are lawful, short of gross and 
 overt sin, which promise to effect this object. And in giving 
 one illustration of this, which may serve as a specimen of 
 many others, I beg to say once for all, that nothing is further 
 from my wish than the advocacy of any theoretical and pe- 
 dantic refinement : if a child, of an age to know right from 
 wrong, were to apply for Baptism, I am not supposing any 
 course so unreal, as that he should be examined on the 
 question, whether he have sufficiently performed his filial 
 duties ; the fact of his coming is a strong prima facie pre- 
 sumption, that he is moved by the Holy Ghost ; that either 
 his feelings of reverence are now first called forth, or that the 
 reverence, first drawn forth by his parents, has been elevated 
 through them to this higher object. But what if a Christian 
 priest were secretly to entice a child from under his father's 
 roof; and were to keep him, by continued artifice, separate 
 from his father, and gradually teach him the Christian faith ? 
 There is no one living surely, who would defend such a pro- 
 ceeding, when fairly stated in its full circumstances ; or in 
 other words, there is a point, beyond which the application of 
 secondary motives to the effecting a good end is indefensible. 
 
 2 o
 
 562 
 
 And yet it would be almost certain (though as I said I really 
 am not thinking of any particular facts) that zealous mission- 
 aries, impressed with a deep sense of the dreadful evils caused 
 by superstition and idolatry, and of the power possessed by 
 Satan beyond the limits of the Christian Church, that mis- 
 sionaries, I say, impressed with a deep sense of this, and 
 eager to pluck souls from among them as brands out of the 
 fire, should frequently transgress the limits, which conscience, 
 if fairly consulted, would prescribe. Nor is there any sub- 
 ject, on which we could less calculate that the holy instincts 
 of the most saintly men would lead them to act on different 
 maxims ; for the very premisses to be considered, (viz. the 
 moral condition and responsibilities, in regard to each other, 
 of those whom he has been habituated to regard merely in the 
 mass as aliens from the faith) are such as w r ould not be pre- 
 sented to his conscience, unless by a special and laborious act 
 of the imagination and the understanding. 
 
 However, individual errors, if such there have been (as is 
 most probable), in no way interfere with the general principle 
 sanctioned by the Church : and the general principle has been 
 plainly and undeniably such as I have described. Whether 
 learned men, or eloquent men, or acutely disputing men, have 
 accompanied a mission, has ever been mainly an accident ; 
 whether miracles have been worked, has been in God's hand 
 alone ; but these two matters on the contrary, have always 
 been most carefully aimed at, viz. that there shall be holy 
 and mortified men, and that there shall be presented, to those 
 whom they desire to convert, the fullest practicable exhibition 
 of a Christian Church, in its orderly round of teaching, dis- 
 cipline, and worship. In other words, whether any, or what, 
 secondary means shall be applied, has not been a matter of 
 much thought; but that a higher idea of sanctity, and a 
 higher range of doctrine, shall be brought fairly before the 
 consciences of those whom they address, this has been 
 universally and most carefully provided. 
 
 8. It appears, then, from what has been said in the present 
 chapter, that our security against real religious error, is not 
 a free and independent enquiry into the doctrines we have
 
 563 
 
 learnt, but the very contrary a faithful and unsuspicious 
 appropriation of them ; and that the temper of mind, which 
 really leads us towards the truth, is that which desires most 
 unreservedly to submit itself with all teachableness and hu- 
 mility to God's guidance, which anxiously and watchfully 
 aims at the maintenance of all God's doctrines and command- 
 ments according to the light vouchsafed, and which ever 
 presses eagerly forward towards a fuller vision of Him, to- 
 wards every new glimpse of religious truth which may visit 
 it from any quarter. I illustrated and enforced this principle, 
 first of all, on the surest of all grounds, that of natural religion 
 and morality ; and next I endeavoured to shew, how fully it 
 has been ever recognised by the Catholic Church. On the 
 one hand the one habitual and highest motive which she 
 proposes, in inviting unbelievers or misbelievers to forsake 
 their hereditary society, is that by so doing they will add 
 to, in no way really subtract from, their hereditary creed; she 
 addresses herself, I say, prominently and primarily to that 
 very temper of mind, firm in retaining old belief, eager in 
 adding to it new which I just now characterized. And on 
 the other hand, in dealing with her own children, so far has 
 she been from encouraging any conscious examination on 
 their part of her high and peremptory claims, that even to 
 doubt them has ever been considered a sin. It is not that 
 she has called on her children to receive her doctrines, because 
 they are satisfied of her authority : she has never allowed 
 them to examine her authority any more than her doctrines. 
 ' Put away from you doubt,' has been her language, ' put away 
 from you doubt, as being sinful ; believe what you learn and 
 act on it ; you will sufficiently prove to yourselves, both 
 the truth of what I say, and my authority for saying it, by 
 means of believing and acting.' Such has been her confident 
 language ; and fully has it been in all cases justified by the 
 event. But the principle, implied in that language, cannot 
 by possibility be other, than that principle which I have so 
 frequently laboured to enforce ; viz. that whatever our here- 
 ditary principles, we must begin at once by believing and acting. 
 For her children at the outset have no more proof of her divine 
 
 2 o 2
 
 564 
 
 authority, than her own word for it ; a proof (if so it can be 
 called) which all have in different shapes, at least as regards 
 their parents, under whatever circumstances their birth may 
 have placed them. 
 
 The very same principle has been at work throughout, in 
 that remarkable movement within our own Church, of which 
 so much has been said : as indeed it must be, in any moral or 
 religious movement, which is to contain an element of life and 
 growth. When the eyes of certain English Churchmen were 
 opened by God's grace some twelve years ago, to discern the 
 fearful precipice towards which religious opinion was hasten- 
 ing among us, they altogether eschewed the idle and ridiculous 
 child's play of examining between rival doctrines by means of 
 patristic and scholastic studies. 1 Had such been their course, 
 our Church might have been finally ruined, while they were 
 sitting at home and making up their mind. No ! they saw 
 at once that authority was the element which was wanting, 
 and they stepped forward as advocates for authority. There 
 was a recognised and standard principle of authority in the 
 English Church; to that they appealed, on that as on a 
 firm basis they took their stand, on that they planted the 
 lever which, so they hoped, might disturb, overthrow, revo- 
 lutionise, the system then dominant in the Church. To 
 this, the Anglican, view of doctrine, they at once summoned 
 others ; this view they accepted themselves ' with undoubt- 
 ing confidence ; well knowing, that the mere carrying it into 
 practical effect would sufficiently ensure its being borne 
 onwards into its full proportions, should it really want 
 consistency ; or crumbling from its own rottenness, should 
 
 1 Mr. Palmer however says, " When we associated ten years since in defence of 
 the Church of England, in vindication of her orthodox and primitive principles, we 
 had already satisfied ourselves that this Church is justified in holding her course 
 apart from Romish corruptions." Can Mr. Palmer really mean, that all who then 
 combined, or indeed any of them, had fairly weighed the arguments on both sides, 
 that they had taken every pains to disembarrass their minds from the influence of 
 early prepossession, and hold the balance impartially between Anglican and Roman 
 reasonings ? If he mean this, surely as regards others than himself he must be mis- 
 taken as to the fact : if he do not mean this, what can be the meaning of the sentence 
 I have quoted ?
 
 565 
 
 it be really untenable.' 11 True it is that the language of 
 many among them was rather of free inquirers into the 
 Fathers, than of upholders of the principle of faith ; but 
 this is only one out of innumerable instances in every age, 
 where serious and holy men act rightly and defend their acts 
 wrongly. And whoever will at the present day carefully 
 peruse Mr. Newman's work on the ' Prophetical Office' (the 
 first attempt, I suppose, to state Anglican principles in a 
 definite and consistent shape) will see that he based his adhe- 
 rence to Anglicanism on those principles of faith, which he 
 has so prominently witnessed. 
 
 And what has been the result of this most pious and 
 religious procedure ? The course of rationalism has been 
 driven backward with triumph and irresistible might ; for 
 though it may have disclosed its real features far more 
 unreservedly and undisguisedly than hitherto it had done, 
 this was the very result of its conflict with those high 
 principles, which now crossed its path : again, the emptiness, 
 hollowness, folly, laxity, unreality of English Protestantism 
 has been held up to light, as it never had been before ; 
 a frank and uncompromising defiance has been hurled 
 against it; a whole range of ideas, which had appeared to 
 be finally banished from our theology, have returned among 
 us, with a constraining power and persuasiveness, with an 
 intensity and wide reach of influence, which we have never 
 witnessed since the Reformation ; event has succeeded event 
 with such breathless rapidity, that the very principal actors 
 have been startled and bewildered at the fruit of their 
 own labours. While on the other hand, the principles, 
 which have been throughout the centre, rallying-point, 
 and spring of the exertions that have been made, these 
 have so fruitfully expanded and germinated in the mind of 
 many who had embraced them, that we find, oh most joyful, 
 most wonderful, most unexpected sight ! we find the whole 
 cycle of Roman doctrine gradually possessing numbers of 
 English Churchmen ; numbers even of those, who are as yet 
 
 k ' On Goode,' p. 83. See all that I have said in the text more fully stated in the 
 few preceding pages of that article
 
 566 
 
 unconscious how much of truth they hold, and may remain 
 so, unless some sudden crisis call on them to make an election 
 and to take a side. And this work has been done with no 
 help whatever from without : for the intellectual difficulties 
 that may have from time to time encountered us, we have 
 been left to find the intellectual solution ; in the moral per- 
 plexities which our position may have occasioned, we have 
 been left to devise for ourselves guidance and remedy : the 
 work going on among us was responded to at first with open 
 hostility, at no time with frank and hearty cordiality, from 
 the great body of Catholic Christendom : it has been done, 
 under God, by the inherent vitality and powers of our own 
 Church. 
 
 Whether at the present time ' high-church ' doctrines are 
 increasing or diminishing in numerical strength, I am unable 
 even to guess ; but that Roman sympathies and doctrines are 
 making the most rapid strides among * high-churchmen,' this 
 no one, who has such experience as is accessible to myself, 
 can for a moment doubt. The ' Christian Remembrancer ' is 
 no admirer of this tendency ; and yet let us hear the candid 
 avowal concerning its extent, made in an article, the admira- 
 ble spirit and temper of which I have already had occasion 
 most respectfully to commemorate. 
 
 Tendencies to Rome ' exist, and deeply do we deplore them. It 
 is no longer possible to conceal them : it is treacherous to attempt 
 to explain them away. We admit that they are increasing : we 
 by no means share in the apologetic tone adopted towards their 
 occurrence in the Foreign and Colonial Review. They are very 
 important and very alarming; they are deeply seated and widely 
 spreading' 
 
 ' If we would retain some of our most devout and earnest mem- 
 bers, who are by hundreds " straggling towards Rome" some of our 
 most affectionate and warm-hearted, we do not say strongest-Jieaded, 
 children it will only be, it can only be, by becoming at once, in fact, 
 what we have ever been on paper.' 
 
 ' Could we anticipate one state of things than another more 
 favourable to the most frightful growth of the present hankering 
 after Rome, it would be at the present moment by adopting a policy
 
 567 
 
 dangerously conciliatory towards those who openly defy and deny 
 Church authority, and laugh at the very notion of Church principles.' J 
 
 That these tendencies may have been slightly and in- 
 directly increased by such circumstances as those to which 
 the Reviewer alludes, or .again, as the condemnation of Dr. 
 Pusey, or again, as the peculiar position assumed by those 
 who are regarded as principal witnesses of ' the distinctive 
 doctrines of our Church ' is probable enough : but there 
 have been far deeper causes at work : giving even to these 
 an efficacy, which they never otherwise could have obtained. 
 And while, in such persons e. g. as myself, to my own 
 extreme surprise, barrier after barrier fell, which I had been 
 told was impassable ; or distinctions on which I had heard 
 stress laid, proved themselves nugatory ; or principles were 
 shewn to be necessary in order to defend the 4th century, 
 against which those very persons who urged them had 
 protested when applied to the 18th or the 19th; a^s this 
 process went on, our formularies also assumed a new aspect, 
 and it was at last discovered how utterly lax and inoperative 
 our Articles really are. No secret has been made of this 
 conviction. It is now three years since I, a clergyman of 
 the English Church, writing in my own name, published an 
 opinion, ' that the Articles were not directed against those 
 who retained the old doctrines, so that they were willing to 
 join in a protest against the shameful corruptions in existence, 
 and also to give up the Pope,' (Few More Words, pp. 34 5,) 
 that ' the Articles do not exclude ' the opinions which * had 
 existed ' (at the time of the Reformation) ' in the Church for 
 an indefinite period.' (Appendix to do. p. 8.) No argument 
 has appeared of any force against these positions; and, what 
 is more to the purpose, no condemnation of them by any 
 authoritative tribunal. Three years have passed, since I said 
 plainly, that in subscribing the Articles I renounce no one 
 Roman doctrine : yet I retain my Fellowship which I hold 
 on the tenure of subscription, and have received no Eccle- 
 siastical censure in any shape. It may be said, indeed, that 
 individual Bishops have spoken against those opinions : but 
 J November, 1843.
 
 568 
 
 where does the Institution of our Church give individual 
 Bishops any power of authoritatively declaring Church-of- 
 England doctrine ? The answer is not. doubtful : and while 
 so ' extreme' are the opinions which receive the fullest tole- 
 ration in our Church, the numbers are daily increasing who 
 consciously embrace them : while still more abundant is the 
 stream of those, who, consciously or unconsciously, are ever 
 pressing in the same direction ; and pressing, not by means 
 of independent examination and argumentative inquiry, 
 (which would lead them to error as probably as to truth,) 
 but by means of the surest guides towards sympathy with 
 saintly men and with Rome habitual watchfulness of con- 
 science, frequent prayer, ever increasing humility, a trust, 
 more and more undivided, in the mercy of God and in the 
 merits of His Son. 
 
 But a still more wonderful and constraining proof of the 
 signal favour with which our Blessed Lord has visited our 
 Church, than any that has gone before, remains to be men- 
 tioned. The extreme tumult and disorder, which at the 
 present time pervades our Church, to myself, I confess, is 
 simply a sign of good; and should be a matter of surprise 
 to those only, who have underrated the depth and wide ex- 
 tent of corruption, contained in that system which has so 
 long oppressed us. As long as peace and tranquillity seemed 
 to prevail, and compliments were being exchanged on both 
 sides between maintainers of the old conservative principle 
 and members of the new anti-Protestant school, (as though 
 there were no very substantial difference between them,) so 
 long doubtless there was much in the external aspect of our 
 Church, to awaken serious misgivings, whether the rising 
 principle might not be stifled, the spreading flame quenched. 
 But now, when opinion is pursuing its free course, and shews 
 plainly that it will not be stinted, when both sides are be- 
 ginning to discover the real points at issue, and the Reform- 
 ation itself is openly and undisguisedly attacked, the commo- 
 tion which agitates the surface might be confidently expected 
 from the mighty influences which are stirring the depths. 
 Principles and habits, which have grown through three
 
 569 
 
 hundred years cannot be uprooted by one gentle and peaceful 
 effort ; and Protestantism is a demon, which will ' cruelly 
 rend' the body from which it is preparing to depart. k I say 
 then, that those various heart-burnings, misunderstandings, 
 perplexities, which surround us on all sides, deeply deplor- 
 able as they must appear to all possessed of any thoughtful- 
 ness, have never impressed me with any misgiving or distrust 
 in our Church, but the very reverse. Others, however, as is 
 well known, have been deeply shocked, surprised, perplexed, 
 by them ; and have felt the most serious questionings and 
 doubts, whether a Society, thus fearfully distracted, could 
 really be a home of Christ. Yet, on the other hand, they 
 had learned to regard our Church's ordinances, and most the 
 highest of all, the Holy Eucharist, as the very fountains 
 through which they derived their spiritual life : yes ; through 
 all the painful and anxious conflicts of which our Church 
 has been the scene, the Presence of our Lord in the Eucharist 
 had been the central figure, as it were, in the picture ; the 
 point, from which all peace and comfort had flowed to their 
 soul. Are they to regard these external disorders in our 
 Church as a notice conveyed to them, that they must break 
 from their very highest and holiest associations, and seek 
 His Presence elsewhere ? Such is the difficulty in which they 
 were placed ; and not a few members of our Church, finding 
 themselves brought into so critical a position, have taken that 
 very course, which would follow from those principles which 
 I have humbly attempted to advocate ; a course surely, which 
 must commend itself to all dutiful and serious minds, who 
 are not absolutely bewildered by the technicalities of contro- 
 versy. They have resolved to load the ordinances of our 
 Church, as it were, with a heavier weight : they have re- 
 garded the lowering aspect of things around, as a call from 
 God to aim at still higher and stricter obedience, to open 
 new paths of labour and self-denial ; that they may put the 
 matter to a practical issue, whether Christ will still give them 
 strength in our Church for this more saintly life, or will sum- 
 
 k I speak of course of Protestantism in the abstract : Archbishop Whately applies 
 the same image, that I have used in the text, to ' Romanism.'
 
 570 
 
 inon them into a new position, that they may enjoy the 
 fulness of His grace. And the response of all (I believe), 
 without exception, who have made this trial, has been most 
 wonderfully harmonious : the more they have laboured to 
 chasten and deny themselves, the more they have experienced, 
 not a restless and uneasy desire for fuller privileges, but the 
 very reverse ; their treasure has been increased of heavenly 
 peace and joy in believing. The result then has been, that 
 such Christians as those I have been describing, have obtained 
 a deeper and more certain assurance than ever had been 
 before in their power ; while we ordinary men have obtained, 
 by means of the more visible and acknowledged austerity of 
 life which has been here and there brought before our view, 
 an external note, of a far higher and more heavenly nature, 
 than any which some among us may consider that we have 
 lost. Nor can it be necessary to point out, how that in pro- 
 portion as any member of our Church may have a deeper 
 conviction of her prostrate, miserable, and corrupt condition, 
 in that very proportion will such remarkable facts as those I 
 have mentioned, appeal to him as peculiar and most con- 
 straining indications of God's will. 
 
 Such being the singularly gracious manifestations of His 
 Presence with us which our Blessed Lord has vouchsafed, a 
 right-minded and humble Christian will desire some very 
 direct and unmistakeable personal call from God, before the 
 question will even occur to him of ungratefully, if I may so 
 say, turning his back on it. And so the question might 
 fairly be left : but since individual members of our Church, 
 as most persons know, have felt difficulties as to their po- 
 sition, and since Roman Catholics in general are very urgent 
 in taking a different view of it from that here laid down, a 
 few words more may be desirable, though a few will be fully 
 sufficient. If an individual then say, ' I have had this direct 
 and unmistakeable call ; for whereas I had humbly laboured 
 to carry into action the principles I had learnt, an external 
 exhibition of Christianity has been brought before me from 
 without, placing before my view a higher conception of 
 Christian sanctity than any of which I had dreamed, and
 
 571 
 
 also witnessing a new and heavenly scheme of doctrine to- 
 wards which all my aspirations at once leaped forward ;' or, 
 again, ' I was plunged in a life of carelessness and worldly 
 turmoil, when my spiritual affections were elicited, and my 
 conscience reproved, by an external Society, which claims 
 Divine authority and summons me at once to join it;' if 
 either of these things be honestly and sincerely said, the case 
 does seem parallel to the ordinary cases of conversion to the 
 Church ; and we cannot, I think, fairly plead for so much as 
 delay. 
 
 Another perhaps will say : ' I see force in your argu- 
 ments, and recognize the truth of many of your assertions ; 
 I meet nowhere else with an idea of the Christian character 
 higher in kind than I find in my present position : I feel 
 in no way inclined to criticise others for staying, if they will 
 not criticise me for going; but in real fact I cannot myself 
 find that peace of mind, that consciousness of freedom from 
 mortal sin, whereof they speak ; the service of our Church 
 is a burden to me, not a privilege ; the Sacrament a dead 
 ordinance ; the preaching an unbearable torture ;' in such a 
 case as this, we have a right to call earnestly on such a person, 
 to take good heed that he give our system a fair trial. When 
 the external notes which he confesses are so singularly con- 
 straining to the humble and religious mind, he must make 
 himself very sure of the personal call ; and this is not easy. 
 To distinguish the voice of conscience from that of intellec- 
 tual inference, or feeling, or imagination, is very easy to 
 those who live in habitual and unceasing watchfulness of 
 conscience, but very difficult to all others. The fair and 
 reasonable course then will be, that, if such be not already 
 his practice, he should devote himself, for some sufficient 
 time, to the careful and habitual performance of such exer- 
 cises as were mentioned in the sixth and seventh chapters ; 
 examen of conscience, general and particular; mental prayer; 
 regular confession of sin. Should a member of our Church 
 do all this, and still remain convinced that God would not 
 have him remain among us, I doubt not at all that he may 
 leave us with a safe conscience.
 
 572 
 
 As to those, again, who have at present no difficulty in 
 remaining with us, in what terms they would speak of that 
 duty, it is not easy to determine ; nor even, if it were, are 
 we generally fit judges of the strength of our conviction, 
 until the occasion arises which calls for action. In speaking 
 then of myself, I speak only of myself : but so confining my 
 words, I do plainly say, (not here to recite again those other 
 notes of life in our Church, to which I lately adverted,) that 
 when I consider the wonderful and most heavenly graces, 
 which distinguish certain members of our Church whom I 
 have the privilege to know ; when I find from those who are 
 incomparably my own superiors in all good living, and who 
 have more intimate knowledge of those to whom I allude, 
 that a closer and more habitual observation of their character 
 raises it in their eyes in a degree they could not have before 
 imagined ; when the freest use of Roman books of practical 
 religion does not give me any higher conception in kind of 
 holiness, than I observe to be recognized and exemplified 
 among ourselves ; and when, on the other hand, 1 remember 
 that it is within the reach of these men that God Himself has 
 placed me ; that any notion of attributing my own defects to 
 deficiency in our Church's ordinances, rather than my own 
 past and present habits of sinful neglect, would be contradic- 
 tory to most certain and definite experience ; and that those 
 of my own acquaintance, who have most tried those ordi- 
 nances, most value them ; when I consider all this, I plainly 
 say, that supposing, under the influence of some apparent 
 force of argument or some active impression on the imagina- 
 tion, I were to dissever myself from these objects of vene- 
 ration, I doubt if I should know one moment's peace of 
 mind during the remainder of my life. 
 
 When Roman Catholics press me with arguments from 
 Church History, I answer that the whole surface of Church 
 History reads me a very different lesson from that which 
 they inculcate ; and puts in the second place those external 
 notes, which they desire to put in the first. As far as her 
 children are concerned, the Church, in forbidding them to 
 doubt her authority, has even forbidden them from fairly
 
 573 
 
 examining these notes at all. And in addressing those with- 
 out, while the exhibition of Christian doctrine and sanctity 
 has been her chief care in every age, the external arguments 
 she has used have varied in every age. In early times, 
 Christians 'lay most stress on the prophecies of the Old 
 Testament, the miracles of Jesus and the Apostles, the rapid 
 spread of its doctrines, and the constancy of its followers.' 1 
 In Arian times, preservation of the doctrine delivered them 
 is the orthodox watchword. When heathen persecution and 
 Arian dissension are happily concluded, and now for the first 
 time the wonderful spectacle of a consentient Church in all 
 lands is displayed, how can \fe wonder that St. Augustine's 
 eyes were dazzled with the glorious sight, and ' securus 
 judicat orbis terrarum' became his fixed idea ? While, later 
 still, the necessity of a living infallible guide, and the endless 
 confusion which must otherwise result, became the leading 
 topics of argument. Now the Church is authoritative in all 
 ages, not in one only: those then are likely to be eternal 
 principles which wejind in all ages, those are quite certainly 
 accidents and peculiarities of a period, which change from 
 age to age. And whereas there is no one external argument 
 which has been used in every age, this circumstance itself 
 points to the fact, which all our knowledge of human nature 
 makes sufficiently certain viz. that the success of such 
 arguments does not arise from their own value, but from 
 their being the means, whereby the internal notes, of which 
 so much has here been said, are definitely and impressively 
 brought before their mind. Nothing is more common, as we 
 all must know, than to fancy ourselves convinced by argu- 
 ment, when on looking back afterwards we see readily that a 
 far more persuasive agency was at work. How many of us 
 were first brought to an acceptance of Catholic doctrine by 
 this argument, that early ages are better judges than we, 
 as to what the Apostles taught ! Have we ever been tempted 
 then to think the Athanasian doctrine of the Trinity less 
 probably Apostolic, when we have gradually learned how 
 much less distinctly it was witnessed by Ante-nicene Fathers ? 
 
 1 Gieseler's Ecclesiastical History, Eng. Trans, p. 95.
 
 574 
 
 If not, we shew plainly that our real reason has not been 
 what we thought it was, but something altogether distinct. 
 And so the 'orbis terrarum' would have been but a poor 
 note of truth, for ' Athanasius contra mundum.' Do we 
 suppose that St. Augustine, had he then lived, would have 
 joined the Arian party ? or have doubted and hesitated as 
 the majority seemed to incline ? or looked upon St. Meletius 
 of Antioch as little better than an Arian ? or rather do we 
 not know, that though he and the Saints of the time should 
 have had to fight the battle single-handed, rather would he 
 have died, than renounced that truth which he knew and 
 experienced, and of which he Would perceive that the Arians 
 desired to rob him ? In like manner then, because he used 
 an argument of the most true and impressive bearing, against 
 a rebellious, self-willed, and fanatical sect, whose very bond 
 of union was active enmity to the Church, what can be more 
 unreasonable than to press his authority, for a condition of 
 circumstances far more unlike those of his own time, than 
 were the circumstances of the Arian conflict ? Let us sup- 
 pose that the Donatists had remained for three hundred 
 years practically separated from, not actively opposing, the 
 great body of the Church ; let us suppose that few Catholics 
 comparatively came across their path, and those desirous on 
 the whole rather to conceal than display their characteristic 
 marks, nay, occasionally making common cause with God- 
 denying heretics to oppose the dominant Society; 1 " let us 
 suppose that, by help of the positive doctrines they retained, 
 a sudden spring of Catholic life gushed forth from the 
 bosom of this Society in itself; that either the whole Society, 
 or a certain concrete mass of it as yet unascertainable in 
 extent, were plainly and avowedly gravitating back in the 
 direction of their Ancient Mother; have we any right to 
 infer, that under such circumstances as these, St. Augustine, 
 had he lived in such a time, would have summoned individual 
 
 m Some Roman Catholics, ' as a Roman Catholic newspaper mentioned a few 
 weeks since, gave an entertainment to a Socinian teacher, in requital of his services 
 in defending them from the imputations cast upon them by the emissaries of Exeter 
 Hall.' ' On Whately's Essays,' p. 293.
 
 575 
 
 Donatists, one by one, to exercise their private judgment, 
 and come forth from a body now exhibiting such signs of fresh- 
 ness and of life ? The plainest common-sense answers no. 
 
 I have mentioned more particularly the case of St. Augus- 
 tine, because no other perhaps is so frequently urged or with 
 such apparent plausibility : nor should it be forgotten, how 
 much stronger the whole argument becomes, when we advert 
 to what has been so often mentioned, the inferior subjec- 
 tivity of those times ; and by consequence the increased un- 
 likelihood, that they would carefully analyse the real grounds 
 of their belief. 
 
 The case of the Donatists leads to a further remark. Here- 
 tics and schismatics, in various times, have been conspicuous 
 for habits of austerity and laborious activity, as is well 
 known : but there is one Christian virtue, in which it re- 
 quires but little discernment to observe their deficiency the 
 virtue of humility. Now not to dwell here upon considera- 
 tions which none but ourselves can appreciate, the singular 
 prominence of this grace in those members of our Church 
 whom we most deeply revere observe the position which 
 they more and more assume ; observe the whole language of 
 humility in reference to our own Church, and deep reverence 
 for the great Christian body, which is now becoming so com- 
 mon. Can there be a more signal contrast with the ground 
 taken up by schismatics in various ages of the Church ? 
 
 The authority of the existing Church may perhaps also be 
 quoted, against the ground that I have taken ; and it may be 
 said, that no slight degree of arrogance and self-will is shewn, 
 in not giving at least more weight to so widely spread an 
 opinion, than my language and tone have implied. One 
 answer, ready at hand, is the same which has been already 
 given ; for those permanent habits of action, which the Roman 
 Catholic Church has inherited from former ages, are beyond 
 any possible comparison more fully authoritative, than the 
 maxims which may happen to be current in the present day ; 
 and the former distinctly witness those very principles, which 
 defend us in our present position. Another answer will be, 
 that the opinion of good men is authoritative in proportion
 
 576 
 
 as they have fully acquainted themselves with the circum- 
 stances of the case. Now the great majority of Roman 
 Catholics very plainly, as is indeed most natural, have no 
 knowledge at all of the real principles which are stirring 
 in our Church, and the real phenomena which (rightly or 
 wrongly) influence our conduct ; nor have I been able to 
 observe, among those, whose knowledge of facts is more 
 accurate, any pains-taking and laborious effort, to impress our 
 circumstances on their imagination, and give us such ad- 
 vice, as shall shew us how deeply they have pondered those 
 circumstances. Rather it is their habit to produce, as final 
 determinations, of the matter, the ordinary maxims prevalent 
 among them, and not give any consideration to the very 
 question which we should desire them to consider: viz. whether 
 God has not placed us in circumstances, where maxims, 
 generally true, cease to be available ; and where the question 
 must be decided, by going further back, as it were, from 
 maxims which are merely general and admit of exception, 
 to the first principles on which those maxims were founded. 
 
 It would not be necessary to mention any other reasons 
 than these ; and there are one or two which weigh with 
 myself even more deeply, which I shall not mention. But 
 there is one circumstance, to which I deem it most im- 
 portant to direct attention ; and which affords a stronger 
 reason than either of those which I have named, for declining 
 to assign any importance to the view, just now general among 
 Roman Catholics, as to our duties. And this circumstance 
 is, a principle popular with them at the present day, whether 
 in an open or implicit form, which, little as it interferes with 
 the healthy relations between Church and flock, often leads 
 to the most deplorable mistakes, both in opinion and action, 
 in their dealings with those external to their own Com- 
 munion. 
 
 I cannot explain this principle more clearly, than by 
 taking a parallel case. Every religious philosopher, who 
 knows what he is saying, lays the utmost stress on the truth, 
 that the principles of right and wrong are eternal, immutable, 
 and wholly independent of God's will ; which indeed, as
 
 577 
 
 Bp. Butler tells us, ' is as certainly determined by these 
 principles,' as ' His judgment' is ' necessarily determined' by 
 ' speculative truth.'" To say otherwise indeed, would be to 
 uphold the fearful tenet, that morality is a matter of positive, 
 not of necessary, obligation. Now this very sentiment, so 
 necessary, so certain, is at first sight almost shocking to the 
 ear of a religious man ; for he has long most piously and 
 rightly habituated himself to worship God as the Almighty 
 Author of all that exists, and this assertion seems to impose 
 some limit to His power, seems to imply some derogation 
 from the full circle of His attributes. Such is the natural 
 judgment of a religious man, before he sees what principle is 
 really at issue : nor is it at all necessary or desirable to perplex 
 him on the subject ; the real impression on his moral nature 
 is simply true and right, and few only are those who are 
 called on to analyze and systematise that impression. 
 
 But now let us suppose a Society of Theists to be brought 
 into the near neighbourhood of some savage tribe, who should 
 have preserved rough ideas of right and wrong, but had 
 never heard of God. This very difference of statement which 
 in their dealings with each other was so trifling and inoperative, 
 in dealing with these people becomes at once the symbol and 
 spring of a difference of conduct, the most vital, the most un- 
 speakably serious. According to the true principle, they would 
 say to this people, ' cultivate your moral sense diligently ; 
 the more you do so, the more readily you will receive, the 
 more intimately you will appropriate, the more satisfactorily 
 you will prove, the doctrine we bring you.' According to 
 the false principle, their language would be, ' How strangely 
 contradictory are your proceedings ! you talk of duty : how 
 can there be duty without God who originates it, or without 
 the promise of a future state which sanctions it ? you cannot 
 defend yourselves if you try. We are consistent, for we 
 believe in God also ; and wish you to do the same : but if 
 you refuse, pray do not delude yourselves by fancying you 
 are any the better for your self-contradictory witness to a 
 
 " Analogy, part ii. chap. 8.
 
 578 
 
 supposed reality of moral obligation.' If such language as 
 this were indiscriminately held, without reference to the 
 moral preparation of heart in those addressed, whether so 
 much as one would go on to the idea of God is doubtful ; 
 but it is very certain that multitudes would be readily per- 
 suaded to give up an idea, so painful to their natural 
 inclinations as that of moral obligation, and would plunge 
 into the polluting streams of licentiousness and vice. 
 
 Now a principle, frequently implied by Roman Catholics 
 among ourselves, is precisely parallel to this latter : they 
 speak ' as though they considered there were no intrinsic 
 difference between true and false doctrine, no more con- 
 sistency, no more stability, no more real satisfaction to the 
 spiritual mind, in one than in the other : as though it were a 
 mere matter of external evidence, and (if I may so express 
 myself) ecclesiastical etiquette.' One can almost fancy that 
 if St. Meletius of Antioch were among us combating against 
 the Arians, instead of honour and posthumous canonization, 
 the only compliment he would receive from Roman Catholics 
 of the present day would be, to be told that he had no 
 sufficient reason to deny Arianism, except for the Pope's 
 word : and that out of communion with the Pope, one opinion 
 is much about as good as another. It is really difficult to say, 
 how far this awful language is an exaggeration of sentiments 
 which occasionally come from Roman Catholics ; and expres- 
 sions tending in the same direction are constantly heard. In 
 the parallel case, I have fully admitted, that a member of 
 their Church would derive no practically erroneous impression 
 whatever from such words; he has received all his doctrine 
 at her hands, and looks up to her as its dispenser. But 
 when they damp the courage of those whom they think 
 inconsistent, but who are travelling happily and unsuspi- 
 ciously in the right direction, by using to them language 
 which should be heard only from the lowest and basest 
 utilitarians, when they endeavour to make a ' tabula rasa' of 
 their mind, if by some possible chance the image of Rome 
 may be afterwards there inscribed ; then it is that they pursue 
 
 ' On the Synagogue and the Church, 11 p. 32.
 
 579 
 
 a course which I have ventured already to call indefensible 
 (see p. 289) but would rather characterise as deeply sinful, 
 and in designating this language of theirs as morally sinful, 
 I intend no prejudice to another very strong opinion which 
 I hold, viz. that, in a merely intellectual point of view, 
 it is baseless and unphilosophical in no ordinary degree. 
 The whole course of the work will have shewn, how very 
 unwilling I am to say one word unkind or disrespectful to 
 Roman Catholics ; and I speak thus plainly, only in the hope 
 of rousing the attention of some among them to the real 
 nature of a principle, which I doubt not they have received 
 traditionally and unconsciously, but which is fraught with 
 incalculable mischief to the advance of truth. 
 
 How different was the course pursued by the Church 
 towards the heathen ! How easy a task would it not have 
 been to shew, the absence of all evidence or argumentative 
 consistency in the various forms which religion had assumed, 
 whether in more refined or more ordinary minds ! on the 
 other hand, how well-grounded, simple, and consistent, the 
 Christian scheme ! Yet, so far from adopting such a course, 
 Catholics of those days drew the heathen towards the 
 Church, not by ' unclothing' them, but ' clothing upon' 
 them ; not by first overthrowing their existing creed, but by 
 seeking parts in it whereon the superstructure might be 
 raised. And even when these recognised the Presence of the 
 Lord, and bowed before the Church, so careful was the 
 latter not unduly to hurry them forward, or incur peril of 
 making a ruin of their moral nature, that only by slow 
 degrees and in proportion as their holy and obedient life 
 made it appear probable that they were able to bear it, did 
 she divulge to them her highest mysteries and most startling 
 truths. She did not rudely call on them to receive her 
 doctrine at once on her authority, but carefully and tenderly 
 disciplined their mind for its reception. P This is that 
 feature, in Ancient Christianity, to which I can see no 
 parallel in the course now habitually adopted towards mis- 
 believers by the Roman Church. Her officers seem to imagine 
 
 P See Newman's Arians, pp. 72 94. 
 
 2 r 2
 
 580 
 
 that, on the authority of an external body, deep thinkers can 
 change at once the whole fabric and fashion of their opinions, 
 as they might change the fashion of their dress : that, e. g., a 
 Frenchman, who has learned * philosophy ' from his earliest 
 years, and has been reared in the lessons of a school which 
 regards Divine Mysteries with ineffable contempt as the 
 fantastical creations of an effete and imbecile superstition, 
 that such a man as this may be expected in one moment, 
 when the claims of the Church are fairly put before him, 
 to accept on her word the doctrine of Transubstantiation. 
 Doubtless the exhibition of a pure Church, in this as in 
 every age, performs wonders for those who, if I may so 
 express myself, have no speculative, opinions ; who have lived 
 a life of mere passion, or unconscious, mi-subjective action. 
 But few indeed of the educated classes in the present day 
 answer such a description : and it is in addressing either 
 those whose religious sympathies have been awakened under 
 an imperfect system, or those whose wickedness has de- 
 veloped itself into consciously unbelieving, or quasi-unbe- 
 lieving opinions, it is in addressing these, that such maxims 
 will so deplorably fail. That there may be individual cases 
 in which God's grace has a marvellous, a miraculous course, 
 I should indeed shrink from denying: but until Catholic- 
 priests, in such a country as France, learn that this is far 
 from the ordinary rule ; until they learn that the first be- 
 ginning of a really conscientious obedience to the voice of 
 duty, is a step which will infallibly carry men in their direc- 
 tion ; and that the obligation of so acting may be enforced, 
 with some considerable hope of success, on multitudes who 
 could not, without an absolute ruin of the inward harmony of 
 their nature, at once accept the teaching of a Church which 
 holds Transubstantiation ; until they learn this I fear the 
 present state of things will there continue : a state of things 
 in which from every other class a large and increasing num- 
 ber of converts seem pouring into the Church, but no impi'es- 
 sion at all (to speak generally) is made on men of high intel- 
 lectual and philosophical powers. 
 
 This current maxim, which appears so generally prevalent,
 
 581 
 
 has, as might have been anticipated, its foundation in the 
 scientific instruction which Roman Catholic priests receive. 
 The account of ' faith,' given by scholastic writers, is most 
 harmonious and edifying, but it did not carry the analysis to 
 its extreme point. That faith is a virtue supernaturally 
 infused, that it is influenced by the will, that it rests for 
 assurance, in no degree whatever on the word of man, but 
 wholly on the authority of God, and so is infallible, these 
 are parts of its definition in which all were agreed ; and 
 these parts lead us at once to anticipate something radically 
 different in kind from intellectual conviction : wholly differ- 
 ent in kind, as depending on the will ; approaching with an 
 infinitely greater proximity to the very springs of spiritual 
 truth, as resting on nothing short of the authority of God 
 Himself. Now the ultimate step in the analysis, which was 
 yet wanting, has been supplied by multitudes of modern 
 writers in the strangest way that could have been conceived. 
 Their language has represented the supernatural assurance 
 of faith as consisting in the external evidences of the Church's 
 authority. ' The divine revelation,' says St. Alphonsus, ' is 
 not made manifest to us, except by means of the Church 
 which proposes the .revelations : since it is evident from other 
 reasons (such as prophecies, miracles, the constancy of 
 Martyrs, and the like), that the Church can neither be de- 
 ceived nor deceive.' How miserably erroneous an analysis, 
 of the grounds on which the Blessed Saint himself believed 
 the Church's heavenly doctrine ! q as though all the prophecies, 
 
 i Theologia Moralis, vol. i. p. 285. Even Bellarmine is not free from language of 
 the kind. In Suarez I have never observed any approach to it ; though he does not 
 cany the analysis of the scholastic doctrine farther than he received it. 
 
 I have already quoted a passage from St. Francis de Sales, strongly corroborating 
 the general view of faith that has been here taken (see p. 536). In a neighbour- 
 ing passage, he says ; " Were not the Jews witnesses of our Divine Redeemer's 
 miracles ? Why then did they not believe ? because their will was too vitiated 
 to relish the suavity of faith. It ia in this submission or acquiescence that the 
 act of faith consists ; when the mind, having been illuminated with the light of 
 revelation, adheres sweetly and powerfully to the known truth ; not from tfie evidence 
 of the reasons which incline it to believe, but from the perfect conviction and perfect 
 certainty it receives from the authority of Revelation." And in like manner Mr. 
 Newman (Prophetical Office, p. 147,) represents it as the common opinion of Roman
 
 582 
 
 and miracles which Satan could devise, or the constancy 
 of numberless fanatics even unto death, would have made 
 him falter for one moment in his allegiance to the Church ! 
 To argue at length against this statement, would be merely 
 to repeat the whole second section of this chapter ; which 
 the reader will perhaps kindly read over again, in this new 
 connection. Here I will only content myself with asking any 
 Roman Catholic, who may give attention to what I am say- 
 ing, on what principle does he consider the very comparison 
 of the Church with some other body, as to its prophecies, 
 miracles, martyrs, &c. with the view of forming a decision, in 
 the highest degree sinful in a member of his Church ? why 
 does he even forbid, in all ordinary cases, the reading of 
 books on the heretical side, which should occupy themselves 
 in nothing else than instituting this comparison ? how can 
 he consider the heretics at any time guilty of any greater sin, 
 than want of candour ? a virtue this last, far more intellectual 
 than moral, and by no means either universally or distinc- 
 tively characteristic of the saintly mind. 
 
 Now I will not shrink from avowing my belief, that this 
 ultimate step in the analysis has been supplied, in our own 
 time, by Mr. Newman : and the highest credit I claim for 
 any thing which has preceded in this chapter, is, that, I 
 have made an attempt to systematise and carry out those 
 truths on the subject, which I have learned solely and ex- 
 clusively from him/ 
 
 Catholics, that Baptism infuses an inward infallible conviction of religious truth. 
 On the other hand, the Dublin Review censures Mr. Newman for " making a 
 certain inward sense (the seat of private judgment and of every religious delusion) 
 a surer test of truth than the great evidences and notes of the Church :" implying, 
 as I understand the writer, that the mode of saving our moral 'sense' from being 
 ' the seat of a delusion,' is not the endeavour habitually to cultivate and obey it, 
 but an unbiassed examination of the various, 'evidences and notes' presented by 
 existing Societies. 
 
 r Mr. Newman's first clear statement on the matter, will, I think, be found in his 
 fourth Lecture on Justification : p. 306 of the first edition, p. 304 second edition. 
 He has spoken explicitly and at length in his later ' University Sermons :' all of 
 which, except the last, I had heard from the pulpit before I wrote in the British 
 Critic, and have, on various occasions, endeavoured, in the Critic, to apply the prin- 
 ciples I had derived from them.
 
 583 
 
 Now this circumstance, of so many later theologians having 
 failed distinctly to perceive that the difference between 
 Protestants and Catholics is one of principle, not of fact, 
 of kind of argument, not of greater or less force in the same 
 kind, has affected the whole mode in which they treat the 
 subject of ' invincible ignorance' on matters of faith. In 
 reading the remarks made by their writers on the subject, 
 one is struck, as always in their books, by the extreme consi- 
 derateness and thoughtfulness of tone, and the great desire 
 to make it plain that no one is formally heretical except by 
 his own fault : still the remedy they, I think invariably pro- 
 pose, is merely a free and unbiassed examination of the 
 miracles, prophecies, visible union, &c., which are the visible 
 notes of the Church : a kind of argument, which has the 
 appearance of extreme cogency and argumentativeness to 
 those who already believe or who are already predisposed to 
 believe, but which to those of a contrary character appears 
 literally deserving of no weight whatever. Here then we see 
 the distinction I lately made, between maxims and princi- 
 ples : the latter are eternal and irreversible ; the former are 
 the application of these eternal principles to existing circum- 
 stances, and may alter therefore from age to age. Now what 
 I have been saying is, that these jnaxims, which were sub- 
 stantially true exponents of Catholic principles in converting 
 barbarians or confronting the mediaeval heretics, are rather, 
 in their effect, antagonist to those principles, when directed 
 towards religious Protestants or philosophical unbelievers. 
 And the question which I would submit with the deepest 
 deference to the authorities of the Roman Catholic Church, 
 is, whether an exposition of invincible ignorance substantially 
 resembling that quoted in pp. 57-60, be not a far truer appli- 
 cation of the principles on which the Church has ever acted, 
 than is the exposition ordinarily current among themselves. 
 In many respects, the task now before them resembles rather 
 the Church's relation to philosophical heathen, than any 
 later event in her history ; and whereas the ' disciplina arcani ' 
 is now impracticable, my belief is, that a true definition of
 
 584- 
 
 ' invincible ignorance ' is the very thing requisite to supply 
 its place. 
 
 And so, in dealing with ourselves, surely (if it be not pre- 
 sumptuous in one of ourselves to offer a suggestion) if the 
 Reformation in fact violently dissevered from each other the 
 two constituent and conflicting elements of European cha- 
 racter, (pp. 90-1,) and if the re-union of England with the 
 Holy See would be the direct reversal of this evil, it is not to 
 be supposed, it is not what the history of the Church would 
 ever lead one to expect, that so wonderful an event would be 
 brought about by those maxims, which yet may have done 
 good service in less extensive and less difficult enterprises. 
 Surely the true \visdom of the Roman Catholic Church 
 would rather be, to fall back upon first principles ; and to 
 see how great a modification of her maxims those principles 
 may require, and her actual system may allow. In humble 
 cooperation with which work I would beg to suggest as fol- 
 lows : I. It has been already ruled, in the case of the con- 
 stitutional clergy of France, that schismatic priests consecrate 
 the Eucharist validly ; II. It is acknowledged that the Body 
 of our Lord, if really present, is received by communicants 
 who are not in mortal sin ; III. It has never been ruled 
 what is the definition of that vincible ignorance which is a 
 mortal sin. On the other hand, St. Alphonsus says, (I believe 
 after St. Thomas,) 
 
 ' Mortal sin is such a horrible monster, that you could not pos- 
 sibly be guilty of it, and not be aware of it . , . when a person that 
 fears God is in doubt whether or no he has lost divine grace, it is 
 certain that he has not lost iY.' p 
 
 Taking these respective considerations into account, and 
 observing what evidence of strict and holy fear of God is 
 presented by various Christians who remain in our Church, 
 surely Roman Catholics are fully at liberty, if they will, 
 without violating any necessary part of their system, to hold 
 
 P Spirit of Liguori, pp. 145, 6.
 
 585 
 
 that those are ' in invincible ignorance' (to use the technical 
 term) and enjoy sacramental grace, who on the one hand are 
 diligent in self-examination and prayer, and on the other 
 hand are allowed by God to retain that peace of mind which 
 St. Alphonsus considers so sure a mark of His favour. Or 
 again supposing that some Apostle had been carried by the 
 Spirit to America, and there founded a Church : would not 
 that be a truly Christian Church, though it had never heard 
 the name of Rome ? or at the first discovery of America, 
 supposing that it was not ripe for an immediate and corporate 
 union, would Roman Catholics have summoned its members 
 summarily and singly to quit its Communion ? or would they 
 not rather have allowed every possible time and opportunity, 
 that misunderstandings might be removed, and Christian 
 love perform its full work ? The same principles which would 
 allow them, in such a case, to delay rather than precipitate a 
 crisis and formal rupture, might enable them to extend in 
 our case a similar forbearance. Arid surely the Roman 
 Catholic Church, would far more suitably fulfil the character 
 she claims, by shewing herself full of love and sympathy for 
 holiness of life and orthodoxy of creed wherever found, and 
 exhorting those, in whom she finds those essential character- 
 istics, to persevere in their noble course, than by appearing 
 deficient in all regard for them, until they have developed 
 into their very last stage, into a craving for union with her- 
 self, and into what have frequently been considered her dis- 
 tinctive doctrines. 
 
 Nor should there be any misgiving, lest such principles as 
 those I have attempted to advocate should tend to justify a 
 permanent state of schism. It should be taken as a first 
 principle by all Catholic-minded men, that the true Catholic 
 character exists, is irresistibly attracted towards the image of 
 itself. If then holy living and orthodox faith actively flourish 
 in the Roman Church, (which I have no disposition at all to 
 deny,) it is plain that to implant it in our Church is to take 
 the merest possible means of effecting a real and lasting 
 union ; and if a Catholic minded individual is not attracted 
 at once towards Rome, it is because he is retained by an
 
 586 
 
 attraction nearer home ; or, in other words, a leaven is work- 
 ing, not in himself only, but in a certain mass of which he is 
 part ; a leaven which will assuredly cause it to gravitate 
 speedily, as a whole, in that very direction. And so far 
 from the separated Greek Church being a difficulty in the 
 way of this obvious view, all the facts I am able to gather 
 concerning the existing condition of that Church, seem to me 
 forcibly to confirm the view. 
 
 In all that I have urged on this subject, nothing has been 
 further from my intention, (as I need hardly say,) than word 
 of censure on members of the Roman Catholic Church. Well 
 can I understand the feelings of reverence which lead them 
 to such a view of things as I have described : a view, which 
 becomes then only practically mischievous when those are 
 dealt with who had 110 life-long experience of the fostering 
 care of a pure Church. 
 
 One final word will here be in place, to those of our mem- 
 bers who may be tempted to infer, that because it seems 
 almost confessed that higher privileges are attainable in the 
 Roman Church than in ours, it must be the safest course to 
 join that Church. But surely the principle is universally 
 acknowledged, that gifts, which are in themselves blessings, 
 cease to be such when we pursue them in opposition to the 
 indications of God's will. And not to mention various ways 
 in which we can even conceive this coming to pass, (over 
 and above the innumerable methods by which God might 
 eifect it without our cognizance,) such, e. g., as that a Chris- 
 tian, trained in the habits and associations of our Church and 
 country, might possibly find much wiser and more intelligent 
 spiritual direction among ourselves than elsewhere, nay might 
 elsewhere be very dangerously misunderstood, let us con- 
 sider one very fearful visitation, which he might with the 
 utmost probability expect ; that of religious doubt. We make 
 it a point of duty violently to reject from our mind the in- 
 trusion of doubt, on such principles as were detailed in the 
 early part of this chapter ; that we are weak, blind, ignorant, 
 creatures that God alone can enlighten us that we can 
 only expect Him to do so, in proportion as we endeavour to
 
 587 
 
 follow faithfully His guiding hand, and submit our under- 
 standings and wills to the external message which, as we have 
 reason to believe, comes to us from Him. It is by means of 
 this habitual submission to external authority, and by the 
 thousand associations of their past life which are connected 
 with reverence to that authority, that members of a pure 
 Church derive that deep and infallible conviction of Divine 
 Truth, of which I have so often spoken. But let a person 
 break loose, as it were, from God's direction, do violence to 
 his early habits of teachableness and reverence, dissever him- 
 self from those holy associations of which I speak ; let him 
 introduce intellectual argument, as arbiter instead of minister, 
 in discussing a point of duty, and reject the claims of faith 
 and conscience to be God's only vice-gerents ; then, on the 
 first disappointment with which he may meet, the first shock 
 to his high and glowing anticipations of rest and peace, the 
 first real trial of his stability, we may expect that intellect, 
 once enfranchised, will endeavour to break again from its 
 chains ; tliat the convert will think of criticising freely the 
 notes of the Roman Church, as he learned to do those of the 
 English ; and, even without anticipating the worst, that 
 frequent recurrences of gloom, perplexity, and mental dis- 
 order, will wage a cruel war against all enjoyment of peace, 
 and all progress in holy living. 
 
 9. And this discussion, brings naturally to a close the 
 present anxious and laborious inquiry. I have endeavoured 
 throughout to speak respectfully and charitably of individuals, 
 but plainly and distinctly of principles. Of two principles 
 especially, which may be considered the distinguishing cha- 
 racteristics of the Reformation whether here or abroad 
 I mean the Lutheran doctrine of Justification, and the prin- 
 ciple of private judgment I have argued (pp. 305, 502 4) 
 that, in their abstract nature and necessary tendency, they sink 
 below atheism itself. At the same time I have also endea- 
 voured to make it clear, that my intense abhorrence of the 
 Reformation, (whether it be considered just or exaggerated,) 
 at least has its origin in no fanatical antiquarianism, in no 
 perverse blindness to those benefits which are called, in one
 
 588 
 
 Comprehensive word, civilization. Every age has its own 
 good and its own evil ; nor have I ever seen grounds to be- 
 lieve, that a refined age is in itself more sinful than a rude 
 age. That religious minds have so often held this opinion, 
 arises in part from that universal tendency of the holiest men, 
 (see p. 134,) whereby the present evil which confronts them 
 appears of a more malignant character than any other of 
 which they know merely at a distance. But, even after 
 taking this into account, I cannot think that the great dis- 
 gust felt by the best men at modern habits and ways of 
 thinking, will receive any sufficient explanation, until we turn 
 our thoughts to the distracted state of Christendom ; until 
 we call to mind that most unhappy fact, which all serious men 
 should daily deplore as the most fearful of God's judgments, 
 viz. that good men and faithful followers of their Saviour 
 dissipate their energies in contention with each other, instead 
 of uniting them against the social, moral, and religious evils, 
 which flourish in such rank luxuriance. Here must be sought 
 the full reason for that sort of instinct, whereby holy men 
 look at these latter days as especially degraded ; and the 
 remedy of this evil is the object, to which all who love 
 holiness and peace should direct their combined efforts. 
 
 That a sustained and vigorous attack on the principles of 
 the Reformation, is the only course by which this object can 
 be attained, is my deep and certain conviction. But by this 
 I mean, not an eloquent or argumentative denunciation of the 
 evils of that movement, but a far more hopeful procedure, 
 and one in which many may heartily join, who altogether differ 
 in their view of the Reformation as a fact : I mean a humble 
 and religious carrying out of those great principles which the 
 Reformation denied, obedience and faith. Never, within these 
 three centuries, has there been so lively a counter-movement, 
 at least in England, as there is now. This movement has 
 nothing to dread from the opposition of those who fear or dis- 
 like it : many of these doubtless are holy and humble men 
 of heart, whom we may hope to find one day fighting in our 
 own ranks ; but however that may be, the opposition raised 
 by adversaries of the truth is, in every age of the Church,
 
 589 
 
 most wonderfully overruled to the advance of that truth which 
 they oppose. But God has imposed on upholders of the truth 
 a fearful responsibility ; he has allowed them the mysterious 
 power of thwarting, by their sin or perverseness, His own 
 gracious work. This it is alone which the cause of truth 
 among us has at this moment to fear : if any, from the 
 number of those who feel called to act in its defence, should 
 allow themselves to be led away, by plausibility of argument, 
 or by excitement of imagination, from following the plain and 
 certain dictates of their conscience.
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 REFERRED TO IN PAGE 82. 
 
 Prom accidental circumstances there are not as many communications here as 
 I expected : but the following may be taken as a sample of what I have from 
 many. 
 
 LETTER I. 
 
 MY DEAR WARD, 
 
 MY foreign travel has been confined to Italy, Switzerland, Bel- 
 gium, and Rhenish Prussia ; I visited Italy and Switzerland for 
 the first time eleven years ago, revisited them six years ago, and 
 spent two months in Belgium and Rhenish Prussia two years ago. 
 On first going abroad in 1833, I went with the impressions re- 
 specting the Roman Catholics and their system with which I had 
 been brought up, and which were current among those with whom 
 I associated ; I expected to find all classes irreligious or indifferent, 
 the poorer classes ignorant, and the priests purposely keeping them 
 so, and I went prepared to look at their religion and their religious 
 services with distaste. At first, I confess, every thing that I saw 
 seemed to confirm the impressions with which I started ; if I saw 
 people diverting themselves on Sundays, I concluded that it was a 
 wilful and deliberate desecration of the day ; if I saw priests walking 
 amongst them, I concluded they were winking at it ; if I saw a poor 
 person by the road-side on his knees before a cross, I concluded he 
 had placed himself there for us to see, and I thought all meanly clad 
 monks were lazy beggars ; the very constancy of the people at 
 Church I attributed to formalism, and I thoroughly believed they 
 worshipped images ; for I saw them kneeling before them, and 
 I thought that proved it. 
 
 The notion that I should find the foreign Catholics indifferent 
 was very soon dispelled ; the very manner in which I saw a French 
 steersman at the helm of his vessel take off his cap on passing the 
 large Crucifix on the pier at Dieppe surprised me, and the earnest- 
 ness and devotion I saw in the churches was something quite new 
 to me ; but then I fell back upon the idea that it was all superstition 
 and idolatry ; fraud in the priests and ignorance in the people. 
 
 Of the higher classes of laity in the countries in which I have
 
 592 
 
 travelled I have seen nothing, but I have seen a good deal of the 
 priests, of the poor, and of the schools for the children of the poor ; 
 and the more I saw, the more and more I became convinced how 
 utterly groundless my impressions were. Of the priests (I speak 
 now of Belgium and Prussia where I saw them most) I have a very 
 pleasing recollection ; here and there I met with a mere argu- 
 mentative theologian, but as a body, I was struck by their kindness 
 of manner and simplicity of life, although in the conversations I had 
 with them I might not agree with them, yet the very idea that they 
 were not honest and sincere quite shocks and distresses me ; I felt 
 and still feel convinced that they were religious men. 
 
 That the poor are ignorant is, I believe, an entire misappre- 
 hension; I never talked to any who were so: I should say they 
 are far, very far better instructed in religious knowledge than our 
 own people of the same class, and their attention to their religious 
 duties is, to my mind, quite affecting. I have seen in large manu- 
 facturing towns hundreds upon hundreds of work-people, in their 
 working-dress, at mass at 5 o'clock in the morning before going into 
 the factories, with their books, and joining heartily in the service, 
 and I need scarcely say what a contrast this forms to the habits 
 of the same class of persons in this country. 
 
 I have visited also many Catholic schools abroad, chiefly those 
 under the superintendence of the Christian Brothers, and my opinion 
 is, that we have nothing to compare with them either as to the regu- 
 larity and order of the schools, the extent of the secular education, 
 the carefulness with which religious instruction is conveyed, or the 
 number and character of the teachers. 
 
 Upon the whole, my last impression, on returning from a foreign 
 country (Belgium) to our own, was, that I was coming out of 
 a religious country into one of indifference ; the open Churches of 
 the former, the frequent services, the constant worshippers, the 
 solemn ceremonial, the collected air of the clergy in their ministra- 
 tions, the indubitable devotion and reverence of the people, their 
 unhesitating confidence in their Church, has nothing approaching 
 to a counterpart with us ; I know nothing more disheartening 
 (I speak of the effect produced upon myself) than a return to 
 England after some time spent in Catholic countries ; every thing 
 seems so careless, so irreverent, so dead ; with all my heart I wish, 
 and especially for my children's sake, that I could see in this 
 country some approximation to the solemnity, reverence, devotion, 
 and earnestness which I have witnessed abroad. 
 
 All this may seem harsh towards my own country, and my own 
 Church, but they are nevertheless the impressions which I have 
 derived from what I have seen ; I ana of course liable to be swayed 
 by prejudice as well as others, but so far as I know myself, my 
 prejudices, both those of education and of family connection, were 
 all the other way, and I feel they have been overcome by facts 
 which were irresistible.
 
 593 
 
 I have now given you what you asked for, my impression of the 
 Church on the Continent, and you are quite at liberty to make 
 what use you please of it. 
 
 Believe me, Dear Ward, 
 
 Yours faithfully, 
 
 LETTER II. 
 MY DEAR WARD, 
 
 One of the first things that struck me in France, indeed it is obvious 
 to any one was the behaviour of the people in the Churches. There 
 was something which one saw at once to be quite of another kind 
 from that correct demeanour which a sense of propriety dictates. 
 A general sense of the purpose for which we go to Church, and due 
 consideration for others, will lead to a regulated and attentive con- 
 duct when there. But an attitude of active devotion cannot be 
 mistaken for this ; and to see, as you never fail to do on entering 
 any Church, large or small, in France, many of the lowest class 
 wrapt in that visible absorption of mind which shews at once that 
 a real communication is going on between the soul and God, is 
 indeed a cheering sight, a spirit of prayer and supplication is 
 seen to belong as much now as ever to the body of the Christian 
 people. Often the posture of the worshipper is careless, and would 
 little meet the taste of those who dwell with rapture on the forms 
 of middle-age art, or whose ideas of prayer are formed on such 
 representations as in the offensive archaeological jargon are called 
 " a S*. Francis nimbed" the regulations of the Churches may be 
 thought irreverential, the system of chairs introduces a continual 
 traffic, and the never-ending circuits of a noisy beadle rattling the 
 money he is collecting sadly breaks up the ideal some are apt to 
 form of the still and solemn ceremonial, with all this, there is 
 that in the appearance of the people which shews at once that 
 they come there not from curiosity, from habit, or from fashion, but 
 for a definite act to join heart and soul at the great sacrifice 
 in communion with the faithful living and dead. Fashion may 
 carry the French to sermons, but not to mass or to private prayer 
 in the Church. The theory of Catholicism may be fashionable, but 
 submission to its rules in practice is very far from being. It is 
 not many years since a priest could not appear in his habit in the 
 streets of Paris without risk of insult and the king himself, though 
 suspected of going privately, durst not go publicly to mass, for 
 fear of losing his character for good sense. The increase of
 
 594 
 
 popularity of the clergy, the crowds of intellectual young men, 
 lawyers, and students of the University, who flocked to Notre 
 Dame in Advent last to hear Lacordaire signs of a change of 
 feeling in the public which the French Catholic press is never tired 
 of proclaiming, these are the mere ebb and flow on the surface 
 far more valuable is that genuine old Christian leaven deep in the 
 heart of the country population, which even the Revolution could 
 not root out, quite distinguishable from that fickle patronage which 
 the present generation is disposed to hold out to a visionary middle- 
 age theory. I felt much less satisfaction in seeing a crowded 
 audience in Paris listening to a favourite preacher, than in entering 
 early in the morning a village Church in a distant province, and 
 seeing the country people drop in before going to work for a few 
 minutes of private devotion. This was the genuine product of the 
 religion the harvest where S. Martin had sown. 
 
 The same practical air was visible where I least expected it. 
 I had fancied a procession as merely ornamental ; a poetical 
 portion of the ceremonial intended to aid and captivate the ima- 
 gination. I was struck therefore with the business-like air it wore. 
 Those engaged in it seemed performing a real act of devotion, to 
 which they were given up, the assembly accompanying them with 
 their prayers the one party not thinking of admiring, the other 
 not aiming at effect. 
 
 Every one notices the subdued, regulated manner almost universal 
 in foreign priests. This arises from their habitual consideration of 
 the Divine Presence. It must be a very superficial observer who 
 can think it accounted for by the constraint of the peculiar habit. 
 But it is not any matter of surprise that they should be able to pre- 
 serve this, when one sees the education they go through for the 
 Priesthood. The Seminary of S. Sulpice is the principal establish- 
 ment for this purpose. Many persons are offended at continually 
 recurring comparisons between our own institutions, and the corre- 
 sponding Catholic ones, and attribute such to a fretful, captious 
 spirit. But they should remember that it is only the natural 
 process of the mind to judge of the unknown by the known, of the 
 new by the familiar. Open any book of travels, and whether he is 
 describing the shape of a wheel, or a mode of harnessing a horse, 
 the writer's first impulse is to compare it with the fashion of his 
 own country. It was impossible for me to see S. Sulpice without 
 comparing it with the education we give our clergy. There the 
 world was shut out, not because it was unknown, but because it 
 was understood that the process of hardening by exposure to it 
 is one incompatible with the innocence which is the required 
 foundation for a religious character. Here I understood for the 
 first time what it was to make religion the one business of 
 life not merely a handmaid, a means towards living well and 
 happily. There was no cant of language, no affectation of dis- 
 carding the customs of common society, but religion reigned
 
 595 
 
 without effort in the whole system. A young man bringing up for 
 the priesthood where the Church is scantily paid by the State, 
 knows that he resigns the common objects of ambition. Hard 
 work and contempt is what he must expect. There is, as might be 
 expected, a strong esprit de corps, which gives great offence to the 
 world, which they vent in the epithet ' narrow-minded.' But even 
 were it so, habits of devotion, and a bracing religious discipline, 
 would be cheaply purchased at a greater sacrifice than this. An 
 occasional religious service introduced into a day the whole of which 
 is given to secular studies, secular conversation, and secular amuse- 
 ments, is an irksome formality. But where the whole day's business 
 is made one religious service, interposed, as it were, between the 
 hours of prayer, the mind must either openly revolt, or be raised to 
 partake of the pervading tone. I was edified to see many of the 
 students taking the brief space allowed to recreation after dinner, 
 for retirement to some shrine or image (with which the grounds 
 were filled) for prayer or recollection. It was not considered neces- 
 sary to avoid intruding on them they were taught to form the habit 
 of abstraction from what was going on about them. 
 
 The professors (though without any Gallican bias) did not at all 
 share in that eagerness for the visible triumph of the Church which 
 the L'Univers is so anxious for. There was among them no active 
 sympathy with any political party and that in a country where, 
 much more than with us, every one is a politician. 
 
 The Priests are, in general, shy of strangers, of the English in 
 particular. Hence the accounts of travellers of a Protestant bias 
 must be read backwards. If such a person falls in with a Priest 
 more lax than others, who is willing to converse on the topics of the 
 day with him, he entertains a better opinion of him as ' superior to 
 the prejudices of his order,' but exactly in proportion as he 
 observes earnestness of devotion and exclusiveness, the traveller's 
 anger is roused at the bigotry, intolerance, hypocrisy, &c., of the 
 ' poor creatures.' 
 
 Yours very truly, 
 
 LETTER III. 
 MY DEAR WARD, 
 
 I will put down indiscriminately, as they occur to me, some 
 points in connection with the Church abroad which made an 
 impression upon me whilst in Normandy in 1842. I saw near 
 Rouen a College intended for young men of all professions, and 
 conducted by priests, and was much struck with the religious 
 character which seemed impressed upon every thing about it. The
 
 596 
 
 chapel was very pleasing and reverent in its arrangements, and 
 bore marks of the interest which the students took in it. On the 
 altar were flowers placed there by them ; and over it a beautiful 
 picture, which was given by them. The person who took us into 
 it, and who was much like the porter of a College at Oxford, was 
 verv reverent in his behaviour, and spoke with much interest and 
 intelligence of the mode of life in general, and particularly of the 
 religious habits of the students. The grounds in which they 
 generally take their recreation were very nicely laid out in avenues 
 and walks, in which, we were told, they often practised the hymns 
 and other music which they used in Church. There were also little 
 chapels here and there about the grounds, into which they might 
 retire for private devotion. Each has a small private sleeping 
 room. Whilst they are at dinner, one of them reads some book 
 aloud ; one which was mentioned to us was Alban Butler's Lives of 
 the Saints ; others, however, which were mentioned, were of a purely 
 historical character. 
 
 I was also much struck with the hospitals, in which the poor 
 were served with the greatest care by Sisters of some religious Order, 
 many of whom, we were told, had been persons of great wealth 
 and high rank. The wards were named after different Saints, and 
 in each of them there was, I think, an altar, and also religious 
 pictures, and other objects of the same kind, which gave alto- 
 gether a religious air to the place, whilst the vases of fresh flowers 
 which were placed by them, and the airiness and cleanliness of 
 the rooms, and pleasant view from the windows, gave at the same 
 time in another way an idea of joy and cheerfulness. 
 
 At Rouen we were much struck with a person, who shewed us 
 over one of the Churches, and whom we had an opportunity of 
 seeing frequently. He was in a very low rank of life. He gave 
 one the idea of being a very religious person ; and we obtained from 
 him a great deal of information about the practices of the Church, 
 with which he seemed well acquainted, and he spoke of them with the 
 greatest interest. When we were going away, he asked us to 
 remember him in our prayers ; and said he would always remember 
 us, and would tell his children to do the same ; and the prayers of 
 little children, he said, are very pleasing to Almighty God. What 
 struck one particularly about him was an appearance of reverence 
 and devotion and self-forgetfulness, which jone so rarely meets with 
 among persons of the same condition in England. 
 
 The appearance and devotion in the people whom we saw in the 
 Churches was in many instances particularly striking ; and in 
 general the heartiness and joy with which they joined in the 
 religious services of the Festivals gave one an idea of their re- 
 garding religion as something in which they felt their happiness 
 to be really interested.
 
 597 
 
 LETTER IV. 
 
 MY DEAR 
 
 I ought to say in the way of deduction from the value of my 
 testimony to the practical operation of the Church abroad, that I 
 have been in two of the foreign Catholic countries only, and in each 
 for a very short time. It is true that I have visited both of these 
 countries more than once ; but it is of my latter visits that I wish 
 to speak principally, since it was in these only that I was of age and 
 experience to form any fair idea of the state of things, or that I had 
 sufficient interest in ecclesiastical matters to turn my attention to points 
 of that sort. 
 
 The only countries of which I know any thing are France and 
 Belgium ; and of France, no part but Normandy, which is generally 
 said to be a favourable specimen. When I first visited Belgium (in 
 182S) it was under the disadvantages of which I have just spoken; 
 but even then, (though, so far as I had any religious feelings and 
 interests at all, they were decidedly anti-Roman,') I remember to 
 have been impressed, almost as it were against my wishes, with the 
 exceedingly religious appearance of the Flemish towns. Of course I 
 thought it all superstition, and so on ; but even then, I drew compari- 
 sons between the aspect of things abroad and at home, to the great 
 advantage of the former. Churches open and frequented at five or 
 six in the morning (when I happened to be up and about, because I 
 was travelling,) and a decided air of reverence in the people, especially 
 the females ; favoured perhaps in a degree by their dress for every 
 third female one met was habited like a nun. Also, (in another wav) 
 the state of the towns late in the evening was strikingly different from 
 those of any of our own, greater or smaller. No ill-conditioned 
 people about, (as a general rule,) and yet one could not but feel, 
 (especially after the appearance of the Churches in the morning,) 
 that all this was the fruit of something better than mere police 
 regulations. 
 
 To come now to my last visits. I will speak of Normandy first, 
 because I was there first. Now, you remember, my eyes are open, 
 and my sympathies Catholic, so you must allow accordingly. Yet I 
 do not think any one could be in Normandy a week without having 
 it forced upon him, that religion has a place in the hearts and affec- 
 tions, more or less, of the people, especially the poor. In England a 
 foreigner might certainly travel on six days in every week and consider 
 himself in a heathen country ; but you need not be abroad more than 
 one day, and that any day, in order to find that you are among Chris- 
 tians. And this, after all the miserable effects of the first French Revo-
 
 598 
 
 lution,in banishing the external signs of religion such as processions 
 from that country. But still there are the crucifixes, to which mcmypay 
 reverence (though fewer, alas ! than formerly) ; still all churches are 
 open from (at least) six till twelve, and again in the evening, with a 
 succession of edifying Services, and an attendance of devout people. 
 
 I spent a Sunday at Bayeux, where I was fortunate enough to 
 come in for the Festival of the first Bishop and Patron of the place, 
 St. Exuperius. It is difficult to conceive a more interesting circum- 
 stance than that of a whole town engaged in the religious celebration 
 of a holyday. It did one's heart good to hear the glee with which the 
 people joined in the Hymns descriptive of their Saints' Christian 
 achievements. The noble Cathedral was filled both at the First and 
 Second Vespers on the Saturday and Sunday, and on the Mass on 
 the Sunday morning. The Service was magnificent, and most edifying, 
 even to those who could not well follow it, which was our case ; the 
 chanting of the Psalms was alternate (as is common in France) 
 between the choir and the congregation ; there must have been many 
 hundreds in the nave, who took the alternate verses, and it quite 
 reminded one of the " roar" of voices, which one of the Fathers, I 
 think, speaks of in describing the psalmody of ancient times. I do 
 not mean that there were not points in the Service which some might 
 lament ; i. e. a lighter strain of music than was always suitable, and 
 what seemed to us like an occasional interception of the verses and 
 substituting for them a shewy organ accompaniment. I speak but 
 of the general effect upon a stranger, which was doubtless most highly 
 impressive ; indeed the delight of being permitted, though but for 
 one hour, to join in this psalmody, with the feeling that one was so 
 far in active communion with the Holy Church throughout all the 
 world, was in the act, and is in the retrospect, of the most inspiring 
 kind a momentary but absolutely transporting foretaste of that 
 union of hearts and voices for which we all pray, and the hopes of 
 which seem to grow brighter and brighter. 
 
 My recollections of Normandy are simply favourable. The French 
 Church suffers a grievous loss in lacking the full Roman Offices ; and 
 their Service labours under the farther disadvantage of diocesan 
 varieties. Still, the general features of Catholic worship are preserved; 
 and to a stranger the celebrations are not visibly affected by these 
 peculiarities. 
 
 I must not forget a scene at Caen. We witnessed the funeral of a 
 person who was evidently one of the poorest in the town, perhaps a 
 tradesman on the smallest scale, or less. It was most pleasing to see 
 the exceeding care with which the whole ceremony was conducted ; 
 both procession and service. The latter occupied nearly two hours, 
 and seemed to consist in the full office for the dead, chanted with the 
 utmost solemnity. The procession was every where received with 
 great marks of reverence ; all persons on foot baring their heads 
 as it passed ; all vehicles stopping or slackening their pace. It 
 might, no doubt, have been some person who was peculiarly re-
 
 599 
 
 spected ; but it struck us as presenting a remarkable contrast to the 
 funerals of the poor in this country, especially in towns. I should 
 add that it was at a time when some public gaieties were going on in 
 the town. 
 
 As to the Clergy, we understood that they were very strict in 
 conduct, and generally respected. They never appear at public places 
 of amusement, and rarely if ever dine out, except with their Bishop. 
 This we heard at Rouen. Of course, in judging of the Service 
 abroad, an Englishman is frequently called upon to make large 
 allowance for the peculiarity of foreign tastes and habits. I am not 
 speaking of the dressed figures, of which however I will say, that 
 in the present state of the popular taste, I think the authorities would 
 be very wrong in discontinuing them ; but of practices, which come 
 quite naturally to Frenchmen, but which are exceedingly, and very 
 properly disgusting to us. Yet it ought to be considered, that since 
 Frenchmen of the rank out of which the Priesthood is very commonly 
 supplied, give in to these practices even in furnished rooms and 
 before all companies, they cannot intend any disrespect by them. 
 One ought not to complain if they are as decorous in Church as in 
 other places, though one would wish them to be more decent every 
 where. In St. Paul's Cathedral I have seen people wearing their 
 hats. This, the same people would not have done in the pre- 
 sence of their betters in ordinary society. We are apt, with 
 our English notions, to expect gentleman-like habits in the foreign 
 Catholic Priest, I mean in external points ; forgetting how much 
 the " efficiency" of their ministrations often depends upon their 
 belonging to a rank short of the highest. Not, however, that 
 I would seem to undervalue the temper of mind which the word 
 " gentleman-like" expresses better than any other ; or to deny 
 that this temper, when combined with more obviously Christian 
 qualities, is of very essential use to a Clergyman in mixing 
 with the poor. 
 
 Now for Belgium. I thought the appearance of the people on 
 the whole less satisfactory in 1842 than in 1828. The towns are 
 evidently more flourishing in a worldly point of view since the 
 Revolution ; at least there is a great advance in civilization. As 
 they have become more commercial, they have of course so far 
 become less religious, and I believe this is fully acknowledged by 
 Catholics. An infidel spirit has sprung up, which the Church sets 
 herself vigorously to counteract, and I understand with increasing 
 effect. The king, too, professes impartiality in religious matters, 
 which is another trial to the Church. Still it is undoubtingly 
 making immense way. Comparing Belgium and France, the Church 
 gives greater signs of power in the former country than in the latter. 
 It had a great hold on the people before the political changes, and this 
 it still retains, with whatever drawbacks from circumstances which it 
 cannot control. The Services are more fully carried out and more 
 splendidly conducted ; the Government does not seem, as in France,
 
 600 
 
 to attempt restrictions as to the number of Festivals, &c. ; more 
 priests appear in the streets ; and processions are not (as in France) 
 commonly interdicted. 
 
 The Clergy of Belgium impress one with the idea of being a most 
 devoted body. The amount of labour which they go through is pro- 
 digious. They rise generally at five (the Belgians are universally early 
 risers), and seem to have their days fully occupied with devotional and 
 charitable works. I remained some little time at Mechlin, where I 
 was most kindly treated, and had an opportunity of going over all 
 the principal institutions of the place, in company with a priest. 
 The schools for the poor seem to be admirable ; the teachers are, 
 I believe, for the most part members of the society of freres Chre- 
 tiens, and the Clergy of the place superintend and occasionally take 
 part in the teaching. One establishment was especially striking ; 
 a sort of Sunday school for young maid-servants. The demeanour 
 of these poor girls towards their priest was most pleasing ; when he 
 entered, they begged his blessing, which he gave them in the usual 
 form. I must not forget to add, that at one of the boys' schools 
 which I visited, I had an opportunity of examining some of the boys, 
 whom I took quite at random, upon the distinction between reverence 
 and worship. I may say that they (almost indignantly) repudiated 
 the idea of paying Divine honours to the blessed Saints. 
 
 The Churches in Belgium are open generally at six, and many persons 
 both assist and communicate at the earliest Mass. There cannot be a 
 greater mistake than to suppose that the Mass is used exclusively 
 or generally as a service for contemplation only. Nothing apparently 
 can exceed the devotion of those who so use it ; but there is a series 
 of Low Masses from six to ten every day, at which I think there are 
 always some communicants, and often many. This is a point in 
 which we thought Belgium superior to France. 
 
 At Antwerp, we fell in with one of the boys who officiated at Mass 
 in the Cathedral. Considering that he was a mere chance specimen 
 of his class, I cannot but augur very favourably of the attention 
 paid to young persons in the Belgian Church. I had a great deal 
 of conversation with him on two separate occasions, and was struck 
 and pleased beyond measure by his general tone and demeanour. 
 We learned that he was in the habit of confessing every fortni ut. 
 He was between twelve and thirteen. He spoke with delight of his 
 duties in the Church, and of his hope of one day attaining to the 
 dignity of the Priesthood. It was impossible to see that boy even 
 for a few hours and doubt, from his conversation and general deport- 
 ment, that he had been most carefully and religiously brought up. 
 
 I had the good fortune to come in for a Confirmation at Brussels. 
 It was a most beautiful sight, carrying one back in thought to the 
 days of St. Ambrose. The present Primate of Belgium bears the 
 highest character, and sustains his dignity with most especial majesty 
 and sweetness. Every child and young person knelt during the 
 Service, and had his, or her, sponsor standing behind, and the
 
 601 
 
 behaviour of the whole assemblage was reverent and devout. The 
 children were arranged in the nave ; the choir was reserved for the 
 service. On entering, the Archbishop proceeded to the centre of the 
 Altar, and the Veni Creator was entonedto a simple Gregorian Chant. 
 There was no noise nor confusion of any sort ; the children did not 
 move from their places ; but the Archbishop and attendant Priests 
 came round, and administered the rite to each. The Archbishop 
 delivered a most affectionate and paternal address. 
 
 The Bishops of Belgium meet every year at Mechlin to confer 
 on the affairs of the Church, and remain there one week. They 
 are received and entertained by the Primate ; the days are taken up 
 with alternate devotions and business, and the evenings passed in 
 receiving the Clergy at dinner. The Archbishop exercises constant 
 hospitality among his Clergy ; he receives them at dinner, but his 
 occupations are so numerous and constant that he is generally 
 obliged to quit his table as soon as dinner is over, or even earlier, 
 leaving his Chaplain to do the honours to his guests. 
 
 I cannot think of anything else to tell you, but as you ask for 
 my impressions, I gladly give them, with the grounds of them, 
 
 I remain, &c. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 LONDON : 
 Priutcd by S. & J. BENTLEY, WILSON, & FLEY, Bangor House, Shoe Lane.
 
 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
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