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test of religious truth, "Quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus:" a rule which, construed practically and by common sense, means, and can only mean, the doctrine which has the sanction of us Tractarians; to the supercession of private judgment, individual conscience, and personal responsibility. Can the rapid and wide-spread reception and popularity of doctrines so startling, so dangerous, so unwarranted, be accounted for on any principle but that of an assistant spirit of infatuation? The hypothesis of some such supernatural agency helping it seems positively requisite.

As to the nature of the supernatural agency assisting, I speak of it as not a good but an evil spirit, or spirit of a dæmon, so as in the prefiguration of the text: this being an inference following necessarily from the fact, if it has been proved, of the unscriptural nature of the doctrine; its inconformity (to use Coleridge's expression) with the will and mind of God. Nor is the cor-it must leave them at this very time simple laymen; and consequently, in any future vaunting of their priestly life-giving powers, (still on their principles, not those of our Church, or of Scripture) impostors.-See my Vol. ii. p. 175, and p. 172, Note. The reader may see more on the subject of the Chorepiscopi, all confirmatory of what I have there written, in the Councils, Hard. i. 471, 597, 768. iii. 339, iv. 1314, vi. 412.-Mr. Perceval has indeed, if I remember right, somewhere written, as if one bishop's hands only were necessary. But, if so, it must have been by oversight. For this is to deny the authority of the Apostolical Canons and early (Ecumenic Councils; and therewith do nothing less than renounce the whole Tractarian system itself.

"Quod semper, quod ubique," &c. Was there ever any important Christian truth on which heresies and heretics did not exist even in the first six centuries? So all heretics must first be put aside.—Then, as regards the members of the orthodox Church, where is he who knows all they ever wrote on theological subjects? and whence then the knowledge of what was believed ab omnibus? For this the Ecumenic Councils are referred to. But did these, though so called, really represent all Christendom? Not so; but only Roman Christendom. So we narrow the voice again. Then, as regards these Councils, who is to decide in the many controverted cases, which are Ecumenic, which not? Hence another important difficulty. And what if the Councils have sometimes contradicted each other?-So questions arise which where is the clergyman, not to say layman, that can solve? He must ultimately, if he take this rule of faith, leave it to some human authority to decide what the Rule enjoins; i. e. to Oxford, if not to Rome. But will Mr. Newman take on him the responsibility of the salvation of the souls that receive his dictum, as Gregory I. did? or will men trust them with him?

Cited p. 30 suprà.-On the present subject Dr. Arnold has quoted Coleshould be done afterwards. In the Concil. Metens. of A.D. 888, it was said about their Chorepiscopi ; "Juxta decreta Damasæ Papæ, Innocentii, et Leonis, vacuum est atque inane quidquid in summi sacerdotii xwрежIσкожоι egerunt

ministerio."

roborative evidence of evil fruit wanting. For example, if the evangelic revival in England, and evangelic missions abroad, begun half a century ago, were agreeable with that mind and will of God, then the palpable effect of the Oxford system to impede and injure them,' must be viewed as one notable proof of the same.-Similar is the inference from the testimony alike of approving friends and of opposers. While the priesthood of the Papacy (the Apocalyptic False Prophet) have been hailing and sympathizing with the Oxford movement, as of a spirit and character essentially cognate with their own, and tending full surely to the re-union of the Anglican Church with Rome,' the judgments not of other high

ridge's judgment from his Literary Remains, Vol. iii. p. 386. The doctrine of the Church meaning the clergy (a doctrine practically, though not professedly, involved in the Oxford Tractarian view of apostolic succession) constituted, it seems, according to his conviction, the first and fundamental apostacy.

In the Record, No. 1565, there is a communication from India which gives some painful details on this point. After stating that the Indian head-quarters of Oxford Tractarianism are in Bishop's College, it adds that the evil had begun to extend to natives; and that one Tract had been already published and circulated in Bengali, advocating the regenerating and justifying efficacy of the sacraments, as ministered by men that have the apostolic succession, and denouncing all others as intruders. It states further that a new Periodical had been projected by some of the S. P. G. missionaries, called the Church Herald: the first number of which says that the Prayer Book itself is the guide to the truth in religion; all the prayers in it being as ancient as the Christian religion, and having been selected from books of prayer composed by the Apostles: also that though some branches of the Church Universal have fallen into some errors, as the Roman Catholics, yet it is consoling to reflect that they are regenerated and justified by holy baptism, &c.

In the London Missionary Society's last Report it is stated from India that a new opposition to the missionaries in Calcutta had arisen from Episcopalian missionaries laying claim to exclusive apostolical succession; and, together with Popery, seducing the infant native Christians from the simplicity of the Gospel, and confidence in their fathers in Christ.-Further, it has been said (but I believe without reason) that the Rev. Krishna Mohana Banergia, formerly a Brahmin, and one of the most respected converts to Christianity, had been converted to "Puseyism," by Professor Street.

[But on this important point I may now refer to Bishop Wilson's Address to the Gospel Propagation Society, since his return to England; a testimony the most authoritative, and above all suspicion.-Sept. 1845.-2nd Ed.]

"

2 The Catholic Magazine of March 1832, p. 133, says; Thanks to the theologians of Oxford, .... our liturgy and its venerable usages, invocation of saints, purgatory, the councils, confession, absolution, veneration of the blessed Virgin Mary, the mysteries of the Eucharist, the authority of the Church, the abandonment of the Protestant principle, and of the doctrine unheard of till the sixteenth century of justification by faith alone,-all these are now granted," &c: adding that the Romanists have now only to press the Tractarians with their own weapons, and show that they are in delusion while lingering out of the pale of the Romish Church.

Mr. Bickersteth in his Protestant Association Sermon, p. 13, illustrates the

authorities only,' but of many of our most learned and respected prelates, have been pronounced in no equivocal terms against it. Especially I must beg to particularize one of more than common authority and discernment, I mean the Bishop of Chester: who, irrespective altogether of prophecy, and evidently without a thought of it, has ascribed the movement to precisely such an agency as the symbol in the text signified. He has avowed his belief of its being the work of a spirit of evil; 2 acting to stop and mar the good that was before in progress.

So the parallel between the spirit of the modern Oxford Tractarianism, (I pray the reader to consider me here speaking just as in the case of the two other symbolic spirits, of the doctrinal system, not of individuals more or less holding it,) and the spirit prefigured to St. John as going forth like a frog, towards the close of the 6th Vial, from the mouth of the False Prophet, has been made out, as I think, clearly and completely.

The question under the present extraordinary circumstances of the Christian world and Church, especially in England, cannot but recur solemnly to many a mind; What is to be the end of these things? And while the hopes are high, as of the infidel-democrats,3 so too of the Papists, and of the Tractarians,—and the latter es

same fact from a passage in the Paris Protestant newspaper, which will be given in a note on the next page. The same complacency at the progress of Oxford doctrine is expressed in the Romish journals in Ireland.

1 I cannot but particularly refer again to Dr. Arnold's admirable essay on the subject. He denounces the doctrine as antichristian, and of wholly immoral character, as well as wholly wanting in external evidence. "Scripture disclaims it: Christ himself condemns it. This is my deliberate judgment." p. lxvi. It comes with all the weight of a voice from the deathbed of that lamented man. 2 Charge for 1841, p. 20; referring to the parable of the tares and the wheat, -the tares sown by the devil. Dr. Pusey alludes to this in his Letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury. 3 See p. 32, suprà.

4 See the extracts Note 2, p. 61. In another place the Protestant Journal L'Espérance thus writes. "The Journals of the Romish Church are elated with joy at the progress of Puseyism in England. They proclaim with delight the conversions to Catholicism for which Puseyism had prepared the way. They already see England again attached to the See of Rome." And so L'Ami de la Religion, referred to generally by the Bishop of London, p. 69. Let me give one extract from the Number for Oct. 8, 1841. In detailing a conference of a Romish priest with one of the Tractarians, who expressed the intention of the Anglican Catholics to effect a re-union with Rome, it says; But what if your bishops refuse to allow it?' was the priest's question. "Nous les contraindrons," was

pecially boast of their progress, and anticipate triumph,' there are not a few of a very different spirit, (I may specify Mr. Bickersteth in particular,2) who fear that these anticipations will prove too true, and England again become a kingdom of the Papacy. I must confess, were I to judge from present appearances and outward probabilities alone, I might almost be inclined to adopt the same anticipations. Yet, on considering the word of prophecy, I am led to a more hopeful view. For I do not see in what follows of the Apocalypse any notice of the reunion of that tenth part of the great city which was separated at the Reformation: the only further prophecy concerning the Papal Babylon being its tripartition, under some great earthquake or revolution,3 previous to its final destruction by fire. Thus, on the whole, my trust is that England and its beloved Church may be saved from the deadly plot laid against them; a greater discernment and decision of action on the side of truth and religion be given to our rulers in Church and State; and the extraordinary delusion pass away that has led aside many much-respected and eminent individuals to sanction Oxford in appearance, who have in heart all the while been of a spirit quite alien from that of Oxford. In which case not England, but rather France, may be expected to prove the chief secular power employed by the three spirits, to head their project of gathering the kings of the earth to the battle of

the reply," par une force exterieure."-I see it elsewhere stated that the authorities at Rome have had it in contemplation to allow of the English clergy retaining their wives, on their expected conforming to the Romish Church: but I know not with what truth.

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1 Mr. Newman says, "They aspire, and by God's blessing intend to have a successful fight; Dr. Pusey, "that if human frailty or impatience precipitates not the issue, all will be well; and the Catholic (as the full) truth of God, unless violently cast out, in time leaven and absorb into itself whatever is partial and defective."—And so the British Critic; "Our movement must be surely onward." -Goode, p. 54. Protestant Sermon, p. 34.

3 Apoc. xvi. 19. The notice of Babylon as a commercial mart of nations, Apoc. xviii, may be explained, I think, without involving England.

4 Since the publication of my 1st Edition, the hope here expressed as regards the Oxford Tractarianism, has been in considerable measure realized. The Bishops have so generally pronounced against Tract No. 90, and the grosser dogmas of Tractarianism, that Mr. Ward has felt compelled, he tells us, to abandon the English Church for Romanism; and as all know, Mr. Newman and others have followed.

the great day of God Almighty. Signs are not wanting even now, as I have in part before observed, which show the active tendencies of France towards such a position in its foreign policy and proceedings. Nor indeed are signs wanting in its ecclesiastical policy at home.2There is further a curious heraldic fact, confirmatory of this view, which (considering how frequently such national emblems have been had in view in the Apocalyptic figurations) I cannot permit myself to pass over in silence; viz. that three frogs are the old arms of France.3

1 The Evening Mail of Jan. 30, 1843 says, with reference to this point; "M. Guizot is stepping into the position which they (the Legitimists) are leaving. He (or the King through him) is resuming for France her old position as Patroness or Defender of Roman Catholicism throughout christian and heathen countries. The change is great," &c :-that is from ten years ago.*

The attempts of the French Courts of Law at nullifying the full toleration and recognition given to French Protestants by the Code of Napoleon and Charter, as in the late case of the Pasteur Roussel, constitute a striking sign of the times. M. Gaussen of Geneva, in his Letter to Dr. Burgess, says; It is not Italy,

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nor Spain, nor Austria, but France, that is the grand supporter of Popery." 3 The engravings given in my Plate exhibit the consenting testimonies of France itself, England, and Germany to this curious fact.

1. The banner with the three frogs is from ancient tapestry in the Cathedral of Rheims, representing battle-scenes of Clovis; who is said to have been baptized there after his conversion to Christianity.

2. The second engraving is from Pynson's Edition of Fabyan's Chronicle. At the beginning of his account of Pharamond, the first king of the Franks, who reigned at Treves about A.D. 420. p. 57, Ellis' Edit.

3. The other engraving is from the Franciscan Church of Innspruck; where is a row of tall bronze figures, twenty-three in number, representing principally the most distinguished personages of the House of Austria; the armour and costumes being those chiefly of the 16th century, and the workmanship excellent. Among them is Clovis, King of France, and on his shield three fleurs de lis and three frogs; with the words underneath : Clodovæus der i Christenlich Künig von Frankreich. A few illustrative notices from different writers may be interesting. And, passing over Montfaucon's statement of a frog medal having been found in Childeric's tomb, A.D. 1623, at St. Brice near Tournay, (a Frank King this Childeric preceding Clovis,) inasmuch as Montfaucon considers it to have been an Egyptian medal,-I may give the following.

1. Uptonus, De Militari Officio, p. 155, like Fabian, simply states three frogs to have been the old arms of the kings of France; without specifying what race of kings.

2. Professor Schott supposes the three frogs to have been distinctively the original arms of the Bourbons: bourbe signifying mud.

3. Typotius, p. 75, gives as the device on a coin of Louis VI, the last French king before Hugh Capet, (the head of the Bourbons) a frog with the inscription Mihi terra lacusque. It is the only instance of that device in his work.

I am assured, on excellent authority, that M. Thiers, though professedly, I believe, a sceptic in regard of revealed religion, has openly in conversation declared this support of Popery to be the policy France must follow, in contradistinction to the favouring of Protestantism. So that on this point the former professedly infidel French Minister of State unites with the present professedly Protestant Minister, M. Guizot.

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