They can oppose Puseyism. The Scottish requisitionists, in their address "To the Evangelical Churches of England, Wales, and Ireland," inviting them to form an Evangelical Alliance, proposed "to associate and concentrate the strength of an enlightened Protest antism against the encroachments of Popery and Puseyism." They had not dreamed of their requisition being attended to by the Church of England; which no persons more sternly denounce as Erastian, not Evangelical, than the mass of Scottish sectaries. But when, to the surprise of the requisitionists, Sir Culling Smith, who, though a Congregationalist, happened to be associated with some members of the Church of England in the Anti-Maynooth Committee, wished, in that liberal, amiable, and Christian spirit, which characterises his proceedings, to associate them with the object, the word "Puseyism" was dropped; for, said Sir Culling, "It would not be becoming" that members of the Church of England "should make a specific and systematic assault on evils in their communion, in conjunction with other Christians." But now it is found convenient to forget this official declaration; and speaker after speaker affirms, that one of the objects of the Alliance is to oppose Puseyism. Sir Culling Smith sat side by side with Mr. Bickersteth after writing the above-quoted let ter, and allowed repeated declarations to be made, that "a specific and systematic assault" upon Puseyism was one of the " objects" of the Society. We quoted, for example, last month, Mr. Begg, of the Free Church, proposing at Liverpool "A course of lectures at Oxford against Puseyism." How can we deal with persons who thus play fast and loose? Is opposition to Puseyism, or is it not, one of the "common measures?" Sir Culling, writing as Chairman of the Anti-Maynooth Committee, says it is not; others say it is. But if it be, we affirm that the Evangelical Alliance cannot oppose Puseyism; for its members cannot agree among themselves as to what Puseyism is, or by what weapons it must be assailed. We have large experience in this matter; it has been our lot to read, in the course of the last twelve years, not so few, we should suppose, as half-a-thousand books, pamphlets, speeches, letters, and paragraphs, against Puseyism; but we could never, as members of the Church of England, make use of those arguments which appear to be regarded as most effective among our Dissenting brethren ; for they were two-edged, and struck as often upon our Anglican Prayerbook, which the Congregational Union, through their monthly organ, call "an empoisoned Popish manual," as upon the writings of the sect of the Ninety Tracts. Mr. Bickersteth, as a clergyman of the Church of England, could not draw up a treatise against Puseyism, which any one body of the sectaries with which he is associated in the Alliance, would accept as its manifesto. We question whether there is one individual of the fiftyfive sectaries who signed the Scottish requisition, who would not tell Mr. Bickersteth to his face, that as respects the English Prayerbook, the Puseyites are right and he is wrong. We do not believe that there is one Dissenting minister with whom he is associated, who will not affirm the same. Where, then, are the common measures? There can none. be Let us next turn to Popery. Can the Evangelical Alliance oppose this by means of any "common measures?" We again answer, No. The parties are not agreed as to what Popery is. The larger portion of them consider Mr. Bickersteth's Church Romanistic, if not Roman. Neither do they concur as to any scriptural plan for counteracting it. The decision of the great majority of those who devised the Evangelical Alliance would be, that to put down the Pope, it is a right and important step to put down the English and Irish Bishops; and that to abolish the Missal, we should burn that empoisoned popish manual, the Anglican Liturgy. Mr. M'Neile has touched with great force upon this point: grounds. The majority of their petitions were "denominational;" that is, sectarian: they objected to the endowment of Maynooth only as they object to paying tithes to Mr. Bickersteth. And this was no new freak. It was a long-cherished deliberate purpose. We will recur to our old argument from chronology; for so long ago as the year 1837, (p. 445) we lamented to state that the Evangelical Dissenters were not to be depended upon in opposing grants to Maynooth. It is often our misfortune to write of things too soon; to predict instead of waiting for events. But the Maynooth endowment of last year has verified our forebodings in 1837, when we said: "Some of them have announced, as the end in view, a combined opposition to Popery, and many warm-hearted but short-sighted Protestants have been at once taken with this announcement. But, observe in the case of the proposed Alliance, opposition to Popery is not a common end, because the members of the Alliance, while they use the same words, do not mean the same thing. The words are equivocal. The honest Churchman in opposing Popery is opposing false doctrine; but the honest Dissenter, the conscientious Voluntary, in opposing Popery, is opposing Church Establishments, and endowments also. There can, therefore, be no real bona fide co-operation. For how, I ask, and I invite you to consider, how, by what practical procedure is Popery to be opposed? Is it by writing, and publishing ?-or is it by preaching? Or is it by Scripture-reading?-or by all these? Well, the COMMON CHRISTIANITY on which the Alliance may agree in a room, can do none of these things. Men must be employed, if anything is And here Dr. Marsh and Lord to be done, and then arises the question, Roden may obtain a gleam of light what men? Are they to be Churchmen, who, while opposing false doc- in regard to the unwillingness of trine, will not oppose, but defend State many of the Liverpool brethren Churches?-or are they to be Dissen- to allow the word "Protestant" to ters, who will oppose both? If a Churchman be employed, will the conappear upon their documents. scientious Dissenter give the weight of Protestantism, it was argued, was his co-operation to what he deems erro- but a halt movement; Popery was opposed at the Reformation, but Erastianism was allowed to tri "It is notoriously the conduct of the Dissenters which has popularized the principle of paying Roman Catholic Bishops and Priests from the public purse. Their argument is: If ministers of religion are to be appointed and maintained by the nation, we cannot interfere with differences of theological opinion. Popery has as good a right to be endowed as Protestantism;'-and of course Socinianism as either. Would holy men of old have reasoned thus ?" neous ? And if a Dissenter be employed, will the conscientious Church man give the weight of his co-operation to what he deems erroneous?" We shewed, in our Number for December, by large citations from Mr. Hall and Mr. Blackburn, that even in so plain, simple, and practical a matter as thwarting the Maynooth endowment, the great mass of the Dissenters refused to co-operate with the members of the Church of England in opposing Popery upon Protestant They would not; but how can Mr. Bickersteth act with men who do thus reason? umph; and those countries which dified Popery. A stronger word retained Episcopacy, retained mois asked for than Protestantism. The Rev. R. Buchanan said, at the Liverpool meeting: "Protestant Alliance had at first commended itself to many as a suitable designation. But, after all, there were solid objections against it. It was rather a negative than a positive term.” This is the old Puseyite sneer at Protestantism. Several other which must, and will, arise among the various classes of religionists who compose the Alliance. What will the Wesleyans, for example, say to the following statement of Mr. Gibson? of Union, and, consequently, the Union "We had intended to try the Basis itself, as now constituted, by the practical objects proposed, as these are indicated in the resolutions of the Confe rence. A few observations on this head must suffice. Let us glance at two objects which have been plainly indicated, viz., to resist Popery, and to seek the promotion of sound views on the sanctity of the Lord's Day, as well as need hardly say, the objects are in the its better practical observance.' We very highest class of importance. Are the principles of the Conference fitted to accomplish them? In regard to the first, we venture to affirm, that on the principles of the Basis of Union,' they can give no effective resistance to Popery-nay, that such an alliance, from its very nature, cannot effectively oppose Popery.- Taking it in the light of an maintain it cannot meet Popery either anti-Popery religious association, we doctrinally or constitutionally. There are many ways by which this may be demonstrated. Take the ruling principle of Popery, viz. the exaltation of leaving out the doctrines of Divine soman to the place of God. Can you, by vereignty, electing love, and efficacious grace, in the true Calvinistic sense, ever successfully encounter its doctrine of trate the presumptuous sinner before the free-will and human ability, and prosmajesty of God, that no flesh may glory in his presence? Take its doctrine of human merit, and its whole system of penances, pilgrimages, superstitious puerilities, and debasing mummeries, and can you meet them on any other ground than the true doctrine of Christ's imputed righteousness? Take its docCan you meet it on trine of the mass. any other ground than the perfection of Christ's substitutionary sacrifice, and true and proper satisfaction for sin? Or its doctrine of purgatory. Can you meet it on any other ground than the subjective regeneration of the soul by the Holy Spirit, and its perfect sanctification by his application of the blood of Jesus Christ? The objects of the Alliance are to be sought by the diffusion of publications. We We will offer but one illustration more of the impossibility of the Alliance agreeing heartily upon any measures for counteracting Popery. We have prefixed to our review a pamphlet by the Rev. J. Gibson, of the Free Church in Scotland, touching a protest to the General Assembly of that Church, from the Free Synod of Glasgow, against the Liverpool Mr. Gibson, and a large number of the ministers and members of the Free Church, as well as of other Scottish sects, consider that the Liverpool Alliance sacrificed the purity and fulness of the Gospel, in order to patch up a defective and misleading code of articles of peace. Alliance. shall recur to this charge hereafter. Our only object at present is to shew the kind of difficulties CHRIST. OBSERV. No. 98. We know there are men in the Alliance who would write soundly on each of these topics. But will the Alliance publish them? Or, if they do, will they put their seal to their Q truth? Will they be any thing else than a book establishment, who must issue both sound and unsound? They are and must be utterly powerless to assail doctrinal Popery. But, suppose they are to resist Popish holidays and contempt of the Sabbath, how are they to do that, if they could not assent simpliciter to the doctrine of the moral obligation of the Sabbath? Or are they to maintain verbal discussion with a Popish priest on these topics, he will say at once, Gentlemen, on these points, as announced by you, I have no quarrel at all. "But look at the system of Popery in its religious constitution, or rather its religio-political constitution. How are you to meet it either by leaving out altogether the doctrine of Christ's Headship, or adopting the Erastian or the voluntary principle in regard to it ?" So much touching the argument that the Alliance can oppose Puseyism and Popery. It can oppose neither. But cannot the members at least pray together? This is a painful question. A few picked men of forbearing spirit, while taking the lead, may prevent discords in so holy a work; but his tory and daily experience prove, that taking the aggregate of a multitude of sects, even prayer will be made, alas! a question of strife. How could Mr. Gibson, with the opinions above expressed, concur with the Wesleyan Methodists? How did those members of the Congregational Union, and those Scottish sectionists who consider written prayers unscriptural, and the Anglican book an empoisoned popish manual, approve of Dr. Bunting's opening the meeting at Exeter Hall, not with a free effusion, but with collects and prayers from that pestiferous volume? Prayers differ as much as preaching; and with men of strong feelings and small charity will often be made to correspond with it, at whatever annoyance to their fellow-worshippers. We have ourselves heard a clergyman, of Hawkerite views, pray for three quarters of an hour, in contradiction to all that a brother clergy man had remarked in an exposibrother had said of love, zeal, and tion of Scripture. All that his growth in grace, he outprayed, in the form of imploring God that we might not be thinking of duties, and so on; but only of the finished work of Christ. Should the Liverpool scheme be carried to the extent proposed, every minister, of every sect, everywhere, praying in his turn, these painful collisions will be inevitable. Upon the minds of some men there would be a conscientious impression, that their prayers behoved to be a protest against the wrong opinions of their neighbours; and that they ought not to lose such an opportunity of speaking for God. And this is Evangelical union. Hymns are fixed; and therefore a selection satisfactory to all -if that were possible-might be pre-arranged. But this would defeat the spirit of the Alliance, which is, that every one who reads, speaks, or offers prayer, shall be wholly unconstrained. A special direction, therefore, is given by the London Committee in the rules quoted at page 31 of our last Number, that "The hymns would of course be taken impartially from the various denominational collections." There is rank sectarianism in the recommendation. What! in an Evangelical Alliance must "denominational" predilections be carried into singing the praises of God by the assembled worshippers? "Impartially!" What is meant by this? Is it that whatever a member of one denomination shall intrude, all the other denominations shall accept, whether it meet their conscientious opinions or not? The very necessity for such a requisition is fatal to the whole scheme. In the very first meeting we turn to, that at Mr. Blackburn's chapel at Pentonville, we are told that the Hymns were selected from the compositions of Watts, Wesley, Newton, and Beddome. The denominations present were Independents, Methodists, Baptists, and Presbyterians. No Churchman is mentioned as being present. At the "Christian Union meetings" at Rochester and Chatham, we find, besides most of the above, Wesleyan Association Methodists" and "Bryanites." No Churchman was there; and how could dear Mr. Bickersteth expect the neighbouring clergy to attend?"Every one hath a psalm.” Is this union? 66 Some readers may not be aware of all that lurks under that quiet word "impartially" in " "denominational collections." We will illustrate it. Suppose that the excellent Rector of Watton were to carry out his plan in his own neighbourhood; and that instead of all the ministers present being of his meek and conciliating temper, there were three or four such zealous controversialists as Mr. Gibson above quoted, or the clergyman who out-prayed his brother's exposition. Let the first "denominational collection" be Mr. Bickersteth's own-a very excellent collection; and we are not speaking in disparagement of any. Our whole argument, as we said, is irrespective of what is better or worse; we will suppose that all the sects at Liverpool were equally good and we say nothing of schism we confine ourselves to practicability; that is, on a large scale, and amidst popular effer vescence. The Churchman, we will suppose, turning to the head of "Hymns for Social Meetings," as most appropriate for the occasion, opens upon the following: "God's own promise standeth sure; Saints shall to the end endure; Chosen, called from above, Objects of eternal love." Or this : "If ever it should come to pass, Or he might select some of the hymns on instantaneous conversion; full assurance; and the power of attaining spotless perfecupon earth. tion I shall have no power to sin; "When I feel it fixed within, Or there might be introduced the following intended censure upon the Calvinists: "The men of careless lives who deem Christ's righteousness accounted theirs." To set right the erring anti-pædobaptist minister, the following might be selected from the Supplement to Mr. Wesley, as used in the Methodist chapels. "God of eternal truth and love, Vouchsafe the promised aid we claim; The child baptised into thy name, And give him all thine image back." Or this "Sealed with the baptismal seal, Make their heart the house of God." If the Wesleyan thought that his How happy! gracious Lord! are we, |