schismatics; and, in that case, they would simply be schismatic priests, instead of schismatic laymen. The guilt and danger of their position would be intensified. They talk of apostolic succession, as if that would make them an integral part of the Catholic Church. What avails it that the dead branch was once part of the living and fruitful tree, or that the amputated limb was once part of a living man? (pp. 48, 49.)

They claim some sort of an occult connection with the Catholic and Roman Church, and it is necessary to their position; but if their orders are really valid, then that Church has been for three hundred years practising a systematic course of sacrilege- for both Confirmation and Orders are Sacraments which can be conferred but once, and to reiterate them is a sacrilege. Either, then, the Catholic and Roman Church is not sacrilegious— and in that case "Anglican orders" are invalid, and Anglican ministers are laymen; or they are really priests, in which case she is sacrilegious; and the sacrilege is not confined to the subjects of the Archbishop of Westminster, but extends to the whole body diffused throughout the world. And yet our friends form societies to promote their corporate reunion with a Church, which their assertion of the validity of their orders necessarily affirms to be sacrilegious. (p. 52.)

It is to me, my dear friend, the greatest consolation that [Anglican ordinations] are absolutely invalid; and for this reason-were they valid, England would be probably at this moment under a curse. It would be red with the

Blood of our Divine Lord. The guilt of sacrilege would rest upon her, and upon her children. Were they valid, the ministers of the Church of England would be schismatic indeed, but still true priests. In that case, if they said the words of consecration with due intention, they would have the Blessed Sacrament; they would have the Body and Blood of the Divine Victim at their mercy. Now, reflect what-before the recent High-Church movement -was, not the isolated and occasional, but the usual and ordinary practice, in disposing of what remained of the bread and wine in the Lord's Supper of the Anglican Church. A record of details I spare you; and it is needlessyou know them as well as I do.

We, who are certain of the fact that your ministers are laymen, and therefore their "consecrated elements" but bread and wine, hear of their destination with a smile; did we agree with the High Churchmen, we should think of it with a shudder. But, thanks be to God! England has been saved the guilt and the punishment of such a sin; and the Church of England has never banished the Incarnate Word from her temples, for He has never, since she possessed them, been within their walls. (pp. 56, 57.)

The remaining Tracts purport to show, by an appeal to history, that the power now claimed by the Holy See was not given her by God. And firstly, a word must be said on this appeal itself to history. Anglican high-churchmen have got hold of the notion, that a Catholic, in arguing against them, is more or less embarrassed by history; that he tries to avoid facing the historical argument, and to divert the controversy into other channels. Never was there a profounder mistake.

High-churchmen, we consider, are thoroughly beaten on whichever side they assail the Church: but if there be one battle-field more than another on which their defeat is utterly ignominious, it is this ground of history. Never was there a calumny more absurd as well as shameless, than that which ascribes to Catholics in general, or to the Archbishop of Westminster in particular, an opinion, that the Definition of Papal infallibility was a "triumph over history." F. Humphrey treats this outrageous falsehood excellently and with richly deserved indignation, in his Preface (pp. xvi., xvii.)

What can be-we will not say its foundation, for it has no foundation-but what can be its origin? We can think of no other, except that the Archbishop has more than once protested against the view, that history is the divinely appointed source, from which individual Christians are to learn revealed dogma. God has instituted an infallible Church, as the one authoritative teacher of dogma; and the Church's authority is made known to the mass of men, not by their personal study of history, but by notes manifest and apparent to all. "Were the Church," says F. Humphrey,

to be discoverable and known only in this way, by means of long, learned, and laborious investigation, salvation would be for the few, and not for all. All men have not brains, or learning, or leisure for such an inquiry; nay, more than half the human race cannot even read. Faith, then, is not to be got from books. "Faith cometh by hearing." Yes, it must be by signs and notes which are apparent to all; to the poor as to the rich; to the illiterate and the rude, as well as to the clever and the learned; to the apple-woman at the street-corner, guileless of culture and learning, as well as to the king in his palace, and to the philosopher in his study. She has a soul to be saved as well as they; for her, the Incarnate Word laid down His Life, and shed His Blood, as much as for them; and she has, equally with them, a right to know where is the Divine Teacher who will guide her into all truth. (p. 23.)

But if ever there were in the world a theory grotesquely unhistorical,—a theory which treats the records of past time as a mere almanack-a theory utterly revolting to every historically cultured mind-it is that of Anglican highchurchmen. This is what has been repeatedly pressed by Catholic controversialists; and it is as coolly ignored in these Tracts, as though (which however is impossible) their writers had never heard the allegation. Once more then we must endeavour to urge on their attention, what has been so persistently put forth against them in Catholic controversy for so many centuries; small as may be our hope, that they will fulfil the most rudimentary of controversial obligations, by giving some little heed at least to what is said by their opponents.

The historical controversy between Catholics and highchurchmen turns fundamentally on the Church's divinely given constitution. And the foundation of the Catholic historical argument is this; that whatever doctrine on this subject was unanimously held by the Fathers as divinely revealed, beyond doubt was really so revealed.* To hear high-churchmen talk, you would think that they hold this with fullest acceptance: nay, with astounding infatuation, they sometimes persuade themselves, that Catholics hold it less rootedly than they do. Now it is manifest on the very surface of history, that a certain very definite doctrine concerning the Church's constitution was held unanimously by the Fathers; and one would suppose accordingly that the controversy is at an end. The Church was universally regarded as being, by divine irrevocable appointment, one corporate body, governed by the united Episcopate. It was further universally held, that this united Episcopate has received from God the gift, of securely preserving Catholic dogma against all heretical corruption; insomuch that the Church's unity of faith is ever as visible and unmistakeable a fact, as her unity of organization. All the Fathers held, moreover, that a certain precedency was conferred by Christ on S. Peter's See before all others, whatever the exact nature of that precedency. Lastly the doctrine was no less universal, that the Church thus constituted has received from Christ an irrevocable promise, of being preserved safely in all her essential attributes until His second coming. These verities no doubt lead necessarily to one or two further inquiries: as e. g. particularly, what is the true nature of the precedency accorded to S. Peter's See? and further, what is the principle of episcopal unity; what is that divinely appointed ordinance, which indefectibly secures the unity of episcopal action? It is not equally manifest on the surface of history, how these two questions would have been answered by the Fathers, or whether indeed all would have given the same answer. Let these points therefore for the moment be reserved; and let us look at those remaining features of the picture, on which no one can doubt that the Fathers were unanimous.

The controversy then, as we have said, would seem really to be at an end. The high-churchman starts with professing, that whatever doctrine on this subject was unanimously held by the Fathers as divinely revealed, was really so revealed. Catholics, really holding what high-churchmen only profess,

*We by no means say, of course, that every revealed doctrine has been unanimously held as such by the Fathers; we only express the convers proposition.

accept the preceding picture in all its minutest details. On the other hand high-churchmen utterly reject it in every particular. They deny that the Church is, by divine irrevocable appointment, one corporate body; and they deny that the Catholic Episcopate has received from God the irrevocable gift of securely preserving Catholic dogma. They have themselves chosen their battle-field; and on that battle-field they are utterly routed and put to flight.

We have mentioned two fundamental high-church theses, as manifestly and flagrantly contradictory to the unanimous teaching of the Fathers. The first of these theses is, that the Church is not, by divine irrevocable appointment, one corporate body and that high-churchmen maintain this thesis, is a matter of eye-sight and admits no denial. The second fundamental high-church thesis is, that the Catholic Episcopate has not received from God the irrevocable privilege, of securely preserving Catholic dogma. This thesis they certainly disclaim: but the utter hopelessness of their disclaimer does but put in clearer light the ignominiousness of their historical defeat.

The high-churchman then does not deny-so he assures the world that the Catholic Episcopate has received from God the irrevocable privilege, of securely preserving Catholic dogma. On the contrary, he declares that those three societies, which he regards as jointly constituting the Catholic Church, agree in prominently testifying the fundamental truths of Revelation. This or that branch, he admits, may have admitted subordinate errors; but he adds, that neither the Roman, nor Greek, nor Anglican Communion has ever been sullied by heresy. An amazing statement indeed! For consider. According to him, it is no matter of opinion but a revealed truth, that the Pope possesses no supremacy over the Episcopal body; it is no matter of opinion but a revealed truth, that the Pope is fallible when teaching ex cathedrâ. According to him, then, the whole Roman Church-by far the largest "branch" of the threeimposes on her children, as of grave obligation, the denial of revealed truth; or in other words, the belief and profession of heresy and this moreover, on no subordinate matter, but on the very Rule of Faith.*

Such, then, is that theory of the Catholic Church, which a high-churchman has the nerve to propose as patristic: a theory which affirms, that the large majority of Catholic bishops, co

It may be worth mentioning that, with the vast majority of highchurchmen, the dogma of the Immaculate Conception must be a heresy : because they consider it a revealed truth, that every person, born of human parents, has contracted original sin.

operating with S. Peter's See, can be permitted by Christ to enforce heresy, as of Catholic Faith and as a condition of communion.

Doubtless, since the Anglican high-churchman thinks that a true portion of the Catholic Church can be so degraded and apostate, there is a certain unhappy consistency, in his accounting his own communion also a portion of the Catholic Church. Still, with all his extraordinary power of making himself believe what he wishes, he cannot possibly acquiesce in such a conclusion, without resolutely blinding himself to those facts which most closely and unintermittingly surround him. Accordingly, Dr. Pusey, in the "Eirenicon (p. 10), with characteristic undauntedness, asserted that, within the Church of England, "the great body of the Faith is infallibly fixed"; that she is "a continual unchanging teacher of the Truth which Christ revealed." We argued against this statement in January, 1866 (p. 220-229), so far as argument against it is possible; though there was of course real difficulty, in finding premises more undeniably self-evident, than is the very conclusion itself towards which those premises were directed. On the present occasion, we have no need to speak on this particular head; as several of the pamphlets named at the head of our article say, with fully sufficient vigour, all which has to be said. Foremost, in this respect, stands Mr. Maskell; whose main point, in fact, is the complete absence of dogmatic teaching among Anglicans. quotations the italics will be our own.

In all these

men at this time To the statesman

Nothing can exceed the interest with which thoughtful must look upon the fortunes of the established Church. who regards her as a kind of religious police and as a means, simply, of keeping people in order and obedient to the laws of the realm, the progress of disruption must be a cause of anxiety. So long as the system can be made to hold together, no other which the wit of man has ever invented can be conceived so suitable to the present day. It is more than Proteus-like. The protestant Church presents not merely any change of countenance which may happen to be wanted at the moment, so as so satisfy or deceive the discontented; but puts on and flares before the world a dozen faces all at once. There is scarcely any known form of nominal Christianity which may not suppose, and fairly suppose, that the Establishment reflects its own shape and features. Taking Christianity to mean nothing beyond the mere fact that Jesus Christ taught the world a true religion, the formularies of the English Church invite the teaching of almost every known heresy. If this statement be thought too extreme, it must be granted that they permit both the assertion and the denial of almost every great Christian doctrine.

There is no other religious body upon earth which can lay claim to so re