the more susceptible sex-the class, among which we rather think his conquests have been most extensive. Dr. B. goes on to shew, that he is no believer in the infallibility of the Pope-a point on which also the Archdeacon of Bath had touched in his charge; adding, that among other abominations, it was studiously kept out of sight. He is very angry at this doctrine being again imputed to his Communion, notwithstanding his personal disclaimer of it in his former pamphlets; and says, moreover, that it is absurd to talk of his Church concealing her doctrines, when they are "known in every country of the world, and public as the sun at mid-day." Now, this is precisely the case-but why, then, do we ask, does Dr. B. take such pains to conceal them-why does he adopt his reservations and extenuations, when the corrupt doctrines and practices of his Church are known in every country of the world, and public as the sun at mid-day? And why is not Cardinal Bellarmine as good authority as Bishop Baines, respecting the infallibility of the Pope? We now come to the defence set up by Dr. B. of the doctrine of Transubstantiation. As usual with him, he is here occupied in approximating the corporal presence asserted by the Roman Catholic Church, to the real presence, as maintained by the Church of England. A hardy undertaking indeed, and which nothing but the most compromising casuistry could have dictated or enabled any man to go through. For only let us recollect for a moment that ocean of blood which, at the time of the Reformation, flowed between the dissentients on this single article of Theology. Would Cranmer, Latimer, and Ridley, have died maintaining a doctrine* which differed in no material point from The title of Capernaites, by which Cranmer, in some passages of his writings, designates the Papists of his day, sufficiently shews in what sense the Papists held the notion of the corporal presence. that held by their murderous opponents? Oh what a pacificator then would Dr. Baines have been in such times! Had he been the Cardinal Pole of those days, how much needless bloodshed might have been saved, and how much guilt from the advocates of Popery! What a panacea would his metaphysics have proved! But let us examine his doctrine. He knows that our Church, while it rejects the gross and impossible notion of a natural or carnal presence in the Sacrament, yet teaches a spiritual presence. It is by the medium, then, of the term spiritually present, that Dr. Baines endeavours to establish an agreement between our doctrines and his. The ambiguity of the expression is the vehicle of all the cumbrous sophistry which he employs on the subject. Now, not to dwell upon the falsehood of the assertion, that the Church of Rome holds only a spiritual presence *, it is quite sufficient to advert to the essential difference of our doctrine, which is, that Christ is really present in the heart of the faithful receiver, and not in the bread and wine in any sense whatever. These we hold to be only tokens or signs upon which he has ordained his blessing to descend, when they are used in commemoration of him, so that they present him to us in a real and effectual manner, though not by any intrinsic virtue communicated to themselves. According to our view, they shew the Lord's death, they do not convey it substantially. This distinction is very concisely expressed by Cranmer, who, it will be remembered, had once been a firm supporter of Transubstantiation, and did not renounce the doctrine, we may be sure, without seeing a wide difference between the Papal and Reformed doctrine. His words, as It was the chief point of dispute at the Convocation in Oxford, at which the three illustrious martyrs were summoned to answer for themselves before their condemnation. preserved in a note-book written by his own hand, De re Sacramentaria, are: "Christum Papistæ statuunt in pane, nos in homine comedente"." Dr. Baines's commentary, accordingly, on our 28th Article, and that part of the Catechism which treats of the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, is most absurd and fallacious. The words "verily and inverily and indeed," assert nothing more than that Christ is most truly present in the Lord's Supper-that is, in the whole Sacrament, and not in any one part of it, as for instance, in the outward sign alone of the bread and wine, but in the two parts conjointly which constitute the Sacrament, the outward and visible sign of the bread and wine, and the inward spiritual grace of the body and blood of Christ. No one, therefore, who takes the Catechism of our Church as his guide to the right understanding of the Real Presence, can ever deviate into the absurdity of Transubstantiation; for this doctrine of Transubstantiation places the virtue of the Sacrament in one part of it only; namely, in the bread and wine alone; which our Catechism will not permit us to do. All his reasoning therefore about substance, and external and internal properties, may be useful to explain away a palpable error of his own Church, but has nothing to do with us. We do not regard the Sacrament as a material object, and therefore no subtlety of reasoning derived from the nature of natural objects applies to our case. When directed to us, it is a complete petitio principii-it assumes the point to be proved-namely, that we consider the virtue of the Sacrament to reside in the bread and wine. But those who believe a change of substance, must resort to some explanation, which shall save them from a contradiction, in saying that a material object is what it is, and yet is not. Hence it is, that we hear the language of metaphysics intro. Strype's Memorials of Cranmer, . Vol, i. duced; and hence it is that the word substance has been artfully substituted for "the natural body of Christ." By the use of this term Dr. B. is enabled to make his transition to a " spiritualized body,”— which rids him of a good deal of difficulty-but still he has to reconcile the unconformable appearance of the sacramental species with the real change, which he asserts has taken place, after consecration, into this spiritualized nature of the Redeemer. Aud how does he effect this? He argues from our ignorance of the nature of substance independently of its apparent qualities, that a body may exist, (for aught we know) without its usual properties, and vice versa, the usual properties without their proper substance; and thus, that the sacramental species may preserve their sensible properties while the substance of them, which is the subject of these properties, is absent; and on the other hand, that the sensible properties belonging to the body of Christ may be absent while the body itself, which is the subject of them, is present. But our ignorance of the nature of substance independently of the qualities belonging to it, ought to have led him to an opposite conclusion-for if we know nothing of substance but from its qualities, we can only argue about it from those qualities, inferring the existence of the same substance where the same qualities are observable, and its absence in like manner where the usual qualities are absent. But if we even give him all the benefit of the inference which he has drawn, it will not serve his purpose; for it will not authorize him to transfer the properties which are always conjoined with one subject to another of a different nature; which he must do in order to verify the doctrine of Transubstantiation. And after all, this Popish Bishop has the effrontery to call this chicanery "a plain simple statement of the doctrine of his Church, as understood and believed by the whole Catholic world." It is not to be wondered then, that he justifies afterwards the Latreia which the Council of Trent enjoins to be paid to the Sacrament, and which the Archdeacon had very justly urged, as a proof of idolatry, against Roman Catholics. The very case supposed by Dr. B., is a confirmation of the charge. For if it is possible, through the forgetfulness of the priest in not consecrating, that the congregation may be bowing down before mere bread and wine, what is this but practical idolatry, chargeable on the Church itself* which prescribes to its members so to adore the sacramental species; though the individuals themselves, in their ignorance, may be free from blame. The blind man in the Scripture, to whom Dr. B. alludes, would certainly not have been guilty himself of idolatry in worshipping St. Peter by mistake, instead of Christ: but the guilty individuals would have been, any persons who might have misled him to return thanks to St. Peter instead of his real Saviour. Far be it from us, indeed, to apply to the Roman Catholics individually, the grievous charges which belong to them as a Church. In their communion, as well as in every other, there are doubtless many individuals of a distinguished piety and virtue, and who would do honour to a more enlightened system of faith and worship. The remainder of "the Remonstrance" is chiefly devoted to the expression of the author's contempt of the Church of England, and ex A quotation is adduced here by Dr. B. from Jeremy Taylor, from which an unlearned reader would be apt to fancy that Jeremy Taylor favoured the doctrine of Transubstantiation-the following words being carefully excluded from the passage. "If their confidence and fanciful opinion have engaged them upon so great a mistake, (as without doubt they have) yet the will," &c. Vol. 8. p. 224. REMEMBRANCER, No. 71. ultations at the present prosperity of the Roman Catholic body. The following passage, in which this Bishop of a foreign Religion endeavours to inflame the zeal of the Dissenters against that Established Church to which they, as well as the members of our own Communion, are deeply indebted on every account, cannot be too severely reprobated. "I need not, I am sure, tell the Dissenters to look at the toleration of Catholic France, or to find in the world a Catholic country where a small minority, as in England, exclude from civil privileges, on the score of religious opinion, the great majority of the nation. I need not remind the Dissenters that if they or we do not still smart under all the rigour of the most barbarous penal code that ever disgraced a Christian country, it is because the Church of England has not been able to prevent its partial repeal. I need not remind them that to our degradation alone does she owe her greatness, and that she has no hopes of a continuance of her pros perity but in the continuance of our mis fortunes. When did the Church of England grant to the Catholics or the Dissenters one willing boon! When did the Government grant such boon, and the Church of England not cry out that her existence was endangered." Is this the person then to complain of insult and aggression on his Church ?-But we thank him for thus twisting the hay round his horn, and making known to the world what he is, by some conspicuous mark. Any person, indeed, who will only take the trouble to unfold the envelopes in which his metaphysical Theology is wrapped from head to foot, will see deformity enough to disgust him:-but all will not take this trouble,--and therefore we are glad that he has afforded the generality some more palpable criterion of himself. He stands confessed a worthy son of his mother, the Church of Rome. Crudelis mater magis, an puer improbus ille Improbus ille puer, crudelis tu quoque mater. 4 S MISCELLANEOUS. ACCOUNT OF A SUNDAY SCHOOL AT To the Editor of the Christian SIR, ONE of those delightful occasions for travelling, in which business and pleasure are united in the fairest a short proportions, brought me time since to Bolton Le Moor, a town situate in the great manufacturing district of Lancashire, and containing, with its neighbourhood, at least 30,000 souls. To some persons the sight of millions of men employed in laboriously increasing the commercial wealth of our favoured land, is productive of infinite gratification. The mechanical ingenuity, every where displayed, gives them high ideas of the power of the human mind; the industry and activity that prevail, seem, in their view, to have no other end than that of providing for the comfort of society as if no nation could be unhappy, whilst arts, manufactures, and commerce, pour wealth into the coffers of the merchant. The commercial prosperity of England is a glorious theme for the statesman's oratory, and so long as we take wide superficial views of things, we may join with him in exultation. The detail, however, of the means by which this prosperity is main. tained, is of far different character, and I am persuaded that no one who believes that religion and virtue are the only sure and solid foundation on which national as well as individual happiness rests, can contemplate the population of a manufacturing district without sorrow. Mr. Malthus, years since, threatened us with the prospect of famine, and alarmed us by the fearful comparison, of the arithmetical progression of means of subsistence, with the geometrical progression of population. The Rev. Gentleman could not now do better service to his country than by turning his attention to calculate the extent of the spi ritual famine which the want of Churches proportionate to the population is daily producing. A widely-peopled manufacturing district is a sort of moral desert, where the souls of men pine away for want of religious instruction, whilst their bodies are pampered by prosperity to riot and excess. With these feelings, Mr. Editor, I approached Bolton Le Moor. You will imagine the real joy I felt at finding a Sunday School which is in a flourishing state of religion amongst that portion of the population: it was something that cheered my spirits, and gave me reason to believe more fully, that the of evil always tends powerfully to the promotion of good. presence It was my good fortune to pass a Sunday at Bolton when the present Bishop of Chester was there, and to hear his Lordship preach a very edifying discourse to one of the fullest congregations I ever beheld, The singing in the parish Church is more devotional than any I have heard, the whole congregation joining with one heart and voice in singing praises to God. Much of this good order is to be attributed to the effect of a Sunday School, which has been established some years, and contains no less a number than 1300 scholars. To this school, the Vicar and his amiable lady pay no common attention. The scholars assemble on Sunday morning at nine, and continue to be instructed till the Church service begins; they *The Rev. Mr. Slade, Prebendary of Chester, Author of the Annotations on the Epistles. ED. meet again before the afternoon service, and afterwards they return to the school to sing their evening psalm and say their evening prayer before they are dismissed. The business of the school opens and ends with the singing of an hymn and appropriate prayers. The schoolhouse is a large building, containing au upper and a lower room, each 90 feet long by 30; the upper room is used by the girls, the lower by the boys. I could not but admire an ingenious contrivance whereby the two schools are enabled to join in the same psalmody and prayer, the floor of the upper room being made to open in the centre for so considerable a space as to admit of the organ in the upper room being heard by the boys below, and the voice of the Vicar reading the prayer at this opening is heard with the greatest ease, at the further extremity of the lower as well as of the upper room. The school-house was erected by subscription six or seven years since; the whole expence of instructing these 1300 persons is defrayed by a collection at the Church door once a year; for here all the teachers are gratuitous; several ladies have each a class, many of the mechanics contribute their leisure hours on a Sunday to take charge of the boys; the young women who compose the elder class, which is under the Vicar's especial instruction, have also classes under them. If my information was correct, there are 24 classes in each school. The children love the school, and the strongest attachment exists between them and their teachers. As a proof of the desire which prevails to belong to it, I saw at least twenty children, who were permitted to come to the school and wait by themselves, as candidates for admission when vacancies should occur. Every young person in the school pays one penny a week to a sick fund, out of which those who are sick receive each four shillings a week. So admirably does this plan succeed, that the school fund has now considerably more than 3007. in hand. Schools of this description cannot indeed be formed in a day, but why should not zeal tempered by judgment, be able to effect the establishment of them in every place where the population is numerous ? What has been done by the worthy Vicar of Bolton, might be, and ought to be done universally, and instead of our National Schools training up, as experience now proves, children for Dissenters to enlist under their banners, we should have places where the youth might continue to be religiously instructed during the most eventful period of his age, and the young female be preserved from those dangers which, in the lower orders of society, accompany a sabbath mis-spent. The Sabbath school is the great engine now employed by the Dissenters to attach the poor to themselves-let the Church look well to this-the poor are willing to send their children whilst very young to the National School, but the early period at which they remove them has always been a cause of deep regret to the promoters of those pious institutions. The only remedy for this evil, and therefore the only means whereby the Church may reap the harvest which she herself has sown, will be found in the universal establishment of Sunday schools, both for the young children and also for the youth. Great designs cannot be accomplished in a few days or years; but I trust that, ere many more years pass, we shall see some great attempt made by the Nation not only to supply the want of Churches, but also to complete, by Catechetical Sunday Schools, what is manifestly deficient in our National System of Religious Education. I remain, with much respect, October, 1824. C. D. |