to this discussion through any desire of controversy, or any personal or denominational animosity. Our object is not the exclusive aggrandizement of any one church, but the assertion of the equal rights of all who hold the truth in sincerity. We speak in the language of christianity, and not of a sect or party. We defend protestantism against popery-apostolical against ancient christianity-spiritual freedom against the assaults of hierarchical despotism. That the principles we condemn are attributable, not to the episcopal church, but to a party in that church, we have affirmed, and until we are otherwise convinced, it is against the principles of that party we are at war.

Neither do we desire to be led into controversy. We have given our views candidly, and our authorities explictly. Let the reader examine for himself, and weigh the evidence advanced, seriously and impartially. Meantime should any one feel inclined to notice this argument, we would remind him, in the language of the London Christian Observer, in a late review of the work of Bishop McIlvaine,1 "that no question is satisfied, unless it is presented in particular detail, and in its broad principles and general relations. No writer is fully answered, unless you not only disprove his stated arguments, but his very thoughts."

Should any of the author's facts or references be found incorrect, he would say that such incorrectness has arisen not from any intention to mislead. And if any such mistakes are pointed out, it will give him pleasure, should he have the opportunity, to correct them. In the meantime, he is willing they should be withdrawn, and the argument adjudged by the strength of the remaining evidence.

Charleston, S. C., July, 1841.

1) March, 1841, p. 167.

ADDITIONAL NOTE TO INTRODUCTION.

NOTE A.

ORIGIN OF THE OXFORD TRACTS AND THE OXFORD DIVINITY.

THE best account of the origin of the present Oxford party, who, with such learning and diligence, have re-published and propagated these sentiments, is given by Mr. Beverly, in his recent work on the "Heresy of Human Priesthood," (Lond. 1839, ed. 2d, pp. 72, 73, 74 :)

"To Dr. Pusey, the regius professor of Hebrew in the University of Oxford, is generally attributed the origination of that sect or party, which is now called after his name; but if honor were given to whom honor_is due, the more appropriate name of the sect would be Hamites,* from Dr. Hook, the teacher to whom even Dr. Pusey has attributed his knowledge of those precious truths, which characterize the Oxford Tracts.

"Dr. Pusey returned from the continent, in the year 1828, and then published an apologetic inquiry into the charge brought against the theologians of Germany, by Mr. Rose, the christian advocate, of Cambridge. Mr. Rose, the late principal of King's College, London, was certainly deeply imbued with those opinions, which are now known by the name of Puseyism, as early as the year 1824: for, at that time, I conversed with him on these questions, at Cambridge; and such were the sentiments which I used to hear him express, that they led me to suppose he was aiming at the revival of the Laudean school, which seemed, in those days, to exist only in history. Puseyism had not yet been mentioned; and the Laudean views, now in a fair way to influence the whole body of the clergy, were not openly entertained by any writer in the church, as far as I am acquainted with clerical proceedings.

"Dr. Pusey's opinions are supposed to have been not unfavorable to rationalism, when he took up the pen in defence of the German theology; and on that ground, most probably, the Edinburgh Review defended Pusey, most warmly, versus Rose. An entire change, however, must subsequently have taken place in the sentiments of this gentleman, who, together with his coadjutor, Mr. Newman,† and all the leading tractators of Oxford, came to "In the year 1830, the Rev. J. H. Newman, and the Rev. R. H. Froude, fellows of Oriel College, Oxford, disagreed with the provost of their college and some of the tutors, on the subject of their exercising another prerogative, besides the usual offices of tuition and literary superintendence; and upon the provost's refusing to allow their claims, resigned the offices they held as college tutors. What Mr. Newman's opinions may have been, at that time, I know not; but in the year 1828, Mr. Froude, the now all-butcanonized saint of the party, thus wrote of Mr. Newman, in a letter to a friend: 'Sept. 7, 1828; I heard from N. the other day, with the testimonials.. . He is a fellow that I like more and more, the more I think of him only I would give a few odd pence if he were not a heretic;' a heretic, in Mr. Froude's phraseology, means a protestant, and N. is an abbreviation for Newman; at that time, therefore, the Vicar of Saint Mary the Virgin' was not indoctrinated in the theology of the Oxford Tracts; indeed his opinions were bordering on low-church views.

:

"About midsummer of 1833, the party began publishing THE OXFORD TRACTS, having first organized themselves in a regular association, as is

*From_hamus, a hook.

Mr. Newman has lately published a volume of Sermons, with the following dedication: "To the Rev. Hugh James Rose, Principal of King's College, London, and domestic chaplain to the Archbishop of Canterbury, who, when hearts were failing, bade us stir up the gift that was in us, and betake ourselves to our true mother, this volume is inscribed by its obliged and faithful friend, the author."

apparent by the sentence in Mr. Froude's 'Remains:' 'Sept. 16, 1833.. has sent me your resolution for our association, which I think excellent ;' and it is to the operations of this association, that we must now for a few moments turn our attention.

"The system of the party seems to be this: to take advantage of the obviously incomplete and unfinished state of the Church of England; and knowing well that it is a mixed system, which, in the act of emerging from popery, was suddenly arrested by the death of Edward VI., to collect carefully all that it has of its ancient popish form, and to reject, as far as may be, without absolute infraction of ecclesiastical law, every thing that savors of its protestant regeneration. The Church of England is indeed an image of iron and clay, a fabric of ill-assorted and incongruous materials; but such as it is, Elizabeth, who came to the throne as a heroine of the protestant cause, after the Marian persecution, would not allow any change to take place in this her brother's unfinished plan; and indeed it seems certain that she wished rather to recede to some more papal form of religion, till she was stimulated by the unceasing intrigues and treasons of the papists, to appear, to the world at least, a protectress of the protestant religion. The discrepancies and contradictions of sentiment in the authorized standards of the Anglican faith, have been frequently exposed, the prayer-book, the homilies, the articles and the canons, are a quarry from which a Laudean, a Puritan, a Calvinist, and an Arminian, may each hew out his own religion, and plausibly argue that his is the orthodox selection; but besides this, the very omissions of the established church, the many questions which it has left open and undecided, allow a Laudean to argue, that if the established church, which was once avowedly popish, has not, in emerging from popery, denounced or rejected such or such 'usages,' it is fair to sup that she does not oppose their retention; and, therefore, it is right and proper to revive any 'ancient usage' not absolutely prohibited. Amongst these omissions, for sake of example, I mention prayers for the dead,' which, it is now decided in the courts of law, the Church of England does not forbid; and if she does not forbid, then the next step is to revive the custom; and so of divers other 'usages.'

"In the reign of Charles I., Archbishop Laud, with rapid strides, took the Church of England into Puseyism, or popery faintly concealed; the executioner's axe stopped his project, which revived again, however, in the reign of Queen Anne, but was foiled with a great overthrow by the revolution of 1688. It was the evident policy of the Brunswick dynasty, to discourage the high-church party, and to promote clergymen, with opposite views, to the bench; hence, the two first Georges steadily repressed the old Laudean school. Puseyism was consequently to be found chiefly, if not altogether, amongst the non-juring clergy, the jacobites, and all the other pious malcontents of that æra. Bishop Ken, and Hicks, and Collier, and others of that grade, kept up the consecrated flame of Puseyism and 'privy conspiracy,' till the flame seemed to die out altogether with the death of the non-jurors. During the reign of George III., and his successor, the clergy seemed perfectly contented with their secular emoluments, and were little disposed to trouble themselves with any questions of an exciting nature: Religious feeling, for sixty years at least, was not in action; and therefore, they were neither Puritans nor Papists, neither evangelical nor Puseyistic, but simply consumers of tithes, or, if need be, persecutors of methodism, when methodism arose to disturb their golden slumbers. At last, however, the old Laudean fever has revived, and has spread its contagion through all ranks of the clergy; a swarm of unknown and inferior priests may now justify the adoption of Puseyistic opinions, by reference to the prelates of Oxford and Lincoln, and, it is believed, to the Archbishop of Canterbury also.

*Ken, Kettlewell, Hicks, Collier, are now favorite saints of the Oxford school. It is rumored, that, by some solemn process, they have canonized Bishop Ken, more Romano, so that now he is Saint Ken.

The extent to which the non-juring attachments of the Oxford party are carried, is strikingly displayed by Dr. Pusey's sermon on the 5th of November. The reverend gentleman seems anxious to revive, if possible, the Jacobinite agitation; so great is his love for the Stewarts and the non-jurors, consider Mr. Rose a sort of patriarch in their cause.

LECTURE I.

UNIV. OF CALIFORNIA

THE NECESSITY FOR AN EXAMINATION INTO THE PRELATICAL
DOCTRINE OF APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION.

WHEN the prophet Jeremiah was commissioned by Jehovah to stand in the gate of the Lord's house, and there call upon all who entered in to worship the Lord to amend their ways and their doings, he was especially enjoined to admonish them not to trust in lying words.1 And what were those "lying words," in which they were not to trust? The people had been led by their false teachers to believe that because the temple, with all its services, its ritual, its forms and ceremonies, and its gorgeous rites, were theirs, and because these had been originally ordained by the express appointment of God, they were, therefore, so unalterably the favorites of heaven as to be assured of God's presence and favor, however perverse and disobedient they might be. Thus were they deluded with the cry, "The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, are these;" not remembering that He, who ordained the temple was a holy God-that the temple itself was a holy place that the end for which it and all its services were instituted was to promote the holiness of its worshippers; and that, therefore, the further removed they were from holiness of heart and life, the greater was that condemnation in which they were involved by these distinguishing privileges.

And yet, as the same principles of human nature still remain, these ancient Israelites have found imitators in every age and country. So that there are, and ever have been, those who cling the more tenaciously to the form of godliness, by how

1) Jer. vii. 1—4.

much the more they are strangers to its power; and who are therefore "haughty, because of the holy mountains," just because they have no other holiness in which to trust. Forms and ceremonies man loveth, and can, by his natural powers, appreciate and enjoy. These, too, nourish and sustain the righteousness of the self-approving heart; while "the righteousness of God, which is by faith in Christ Jesus," as it excludes all boasting, has ever been a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence.

Hence do we find multitudes, even now, not only within the pale of the Romish church, but also within the limits of the prelacy, and even elsewhere, who look round upon their fellow christians as aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise-as lying beyond the precincts of the holy city in the open field of uncovenanted mercy, in all the shame of their natural pollution, unwashed and unsanctified-and as thus debarred from all rightful participation in the blessings of God's sanctuary. Confident in their own claim to the peculiar favor and promises of heaven, they are found boasting that they can call Abraham their father, and that theirs are the oracles of God, with the urim and thummim of sacred ordinances. On these do they build their assured reliance, and while they say to us, who by their decision are "afar off,”-stand by, for we are holier than ye,—in all the sanctimoniousness of these ancient pharisees, do they exclaim, with endless repetition, "the temple of the Lord-the temple of the Lord-the temple of the Lord are we.'

Do we allege these things without foundation, or on insufficient grounds? "We trow not.

There is a time to speak, and a time to be silent. There is a time, when to be silent is treachery; and to speak, fidelity. Such a time to speak is come when charity is violated, and the law of brotherly kindness set at naught; when character is blackened and rightful claims are denied; when truth itself is enslaved to the exclusive interests of a party; and when not only we, but all who may look to us for guidance and direction, are blotted from the book of life, expunged from the roll of christian churches, and positively declared to be "as the heathen."

The doctrine now inculcated, and to which we object, is summarily this: That there is an order of ministers in the christian church distinct from, and superior to presbyters; and who are exclusively entitled to be called bishops. That these, are

1) Zeph. iii. 11.

2) See Note A.

3) See a very valuable illustration of this tendency to trust in

names and privileges in Archbishop Whateley's Origin of Romish Errors, ch. 6. § 3.