be raised is exactly what the Tract calls it "a kill or cure remedy." If taken at all it must make Tractarians Romanists or it must make Rationalistic Sceptics. We do not wonder that the Tract writer should have said, "I predict as a coming event that minds are to be unsettled as to what is Scripture and what is not." The prediction is now abundantly fulfilled. But it was the calculator of causes and effects, not the eye of a prophet that made it. That such a seed bed should have produced such growths, is certainly not surprising. If, while some ripened into a concealed or avowed Romanism, others went to seed before they got that far, and in another generation have come forth an indigenous crop of well marked Rationalism, where is the wonder?

But let us take another view. The doctrine of Development belongs to the Tractarian system, as well as to the Romish. To justify belief in a certain doctrine as of divine authority, as contained in Scripture and properly an article of Faith to us, it is not necessary (we read,) that it be capable of proof from the Scriptures, nor that to any eye there should be even the appearance of it in the Scriptures. It is not necessary that it should have had any place in the creed of the early Church. Nay, it may have been expressly condemned in the early Church as unscriptural. The invisible germ of it may be in the Scriptures, and yet concealed under apparently opposite forms. The Church, as possessing the inspiration of the Spirit of Truth and Life has power to develope that germ into form and assign it a place in Christian faith. It may be a process of many centuries. The very condemnation of the doctrine in the early Church may have been part of the process. Thus the creed may grow; thus Christianity is progressive. What it is to-day, may be very unlike what it was at first. To be a believer in the nineteenth century, may be a very different matter from what it was to be a believer in the second. Such is the theory on which the Church of Rome defends her infallibility in paying to the Virgin Mary a worship which Councils, whose authority she owns, condemned. Thus the Pope's new article of Faith, that of the Immaculate conception of Mary, makes necessary to salvation a belief which it is not pretended that any eye can detect in the Scriptures

or in the teaching of the early centuries of the Church. Out of the Christianity of the Apostolic age, was developed that of the Nicene; out of the Nicene, the Mediæval; out of the last, the creed and decrees of the Council of Trent; out of the Romanism of Trent, the Ultra Montanism of the Italian Church in the days of Pius the ninth.

Such is the doctrine of Development, advocated in substance by Tractarians. If only Mr. Newman brought it out in fulness and by name, the whole doctrine of Reserve, so notoriously belonging to the Tract School, involves it in principle, and Tract No. 85, insinuates it continually. What is the teaching of the following extract? “The early Church always did consider Scripture to be what I have been arguing from the structure of it, viz., a book with very recondite meanings-not merely with reference to its teaching the particular class of doctrines in question," (including the Atonement, the Trinity, &c.,) "but as regards its entire teaching. They considered that it was full of mysteries, that the Church doctrines are not on its surface. It is also certain that the early Church did herself conceal these same doctrines. Viewing that early period as a whole, there is on the whole a great secrecy observed in it concerning such doctrines as the Trinity and the Eucharist, that is, the early Church did the very thing which I have been supposing Scripture does, conceal high truths. If the early Church had reasons for concealment, perchance Scripture has the same; especially if we suppose, what at the very least is no very improbable idea, that the system of the early Church is a continuation of the system of those inspired men who wrote the New Testament."

Mark well the last sentence of this half concealing and cautiously developing exhibition of the Tractarian doctrine of Reserve. What is meant by "continuation?" If merely that the system of the early Church was a preservation of, or an adherence to that of the inspired writers, why say that it is "no very improbable idea?" Then in what other sense was it a continuation? Why, of course, as development is a continuation; as the tree is a continuation of the sapling; as something so recondite as not to be recognised is continued when you see a complex system of doctrine imposed upon the

belief of men and are told it is that once recondite invisible something. Mr. Newman's full expansion of the doctrine of Development, in his book on that subject, was just such a continuation of the more hidden and recondite attempt to insinuate the same doctrine in the Tract from which the above is taken.

Now what is this whole doctrine but just the fundamental idea of the Rationalism of the seven Essays and Reviews, changing only the Church, as the incubator, for human reason? What else is the idea of one of the Essayists that "the human race is a colossal man?" The creeds of the Church, they say were "evolved" by the Church, which occupied six centuries "in the creation of a theology," a number of the decisions of which are now "practically obsolete." It is indicated "that there was a Bible before our Bible, and that some of our present books are expanded (developed) from simpler elements." An implied antagonism in Christianity to the intellectual convictions of mankind, one of the writers hopes may be removed, when it is considered whether the intellectual forms under which Christianity is described may not also be in a state of transition and revolution.

Now with this development doctrine thus in common to the Tract, the Romish and the Rationalistic systems, what is to hinder the last from taking the ground that the religion of the Scriptures is a development from some previous religion or combination of previous religions and philosophies, as unlike it, as Buddhism is unlike Christianity? Why not if the Christianity of the New Testament has been legitimately developed into the present Pio Nono Romanism? Or what is to hinder the Rationalist of Oxford from legitimately holding that his whole system is a veritable development of the religion of the New Testament, going on to a further development of, he knows not what extent of positive in- ́ fidelity, if Pio Nono, on the throne of universal supremacy, the center of unity, infallible oracle of truth, Vicar of Christ, "sitting as God in the Temple of God," creating, at will, Articles of Faith, and conditions of salvation, is only a development of the office of Peter, the Apostle, as exhibited in the Scriptures? Or, in fine, what hinders the conclusion that the present school of Rationalism

is a legitimate development of its predecessor, the Tractarian, if the latter be a true development of the doctrine of the Apostles? Whither this Rationalistic growth is to attain we know not. One thing we know that the Gospel truth has fought and conquered in battles as hard as these septem contra Christum can make. The Greeks, seeking after wisdom, and therefore treating the Gospel as foolishness, were in their day an adversary at least as strong as their followers in our day. When the powers of death could not hold the crucified Jesus-but HE ROSE; assurance was given to all ages that no enmity can finally prevail over Him or His Gospel. Through Him, and like Him, it is "the Power of God."

PREFACE.

WHOEVER may honor this work with their attention will soon perceive that the author is deeply impressed with the grave importance of the errors, and the probable evil consequences to the Church, of that system of doctrine which in Tracts and other writings has recently appeared under the names of certain learned divines of the University of Oxford. In his view, the vital principle of that Divinity, so far as the system is peculiar, is precisely the same as that to which are to be traced all the various and gross departures from truth and godliness in the Church of Rome. It was well advised by "the principal Theologues" of the Council of Trent, that the Fathers and Divines of that body should be "assiduous and exact in their studies" concerning the doctrine of Justification, "because all the errors of Martin (of the Reformation) were resolved into that point. For (said they) having undertaken from the beginning to oppugn the Indulgences, he saw he could not obtain his purpose, except he destroyed the works of repentance, (expiatory penances) in defect whereof, Indulgences do succeed. And Justification by faith only, seemed to him a good means to effect this from whence he hath denied efficacy in the Sacraments, authority of Priests, Purgatory, Sacrifice of the Mass, and all other remedies for remission of sins."

Such was the just view entertained in the Council of Trent, of that on which the whole work of the Reformation was built, and by which the whole structure of Romanism was cast down. The doctrine of Justification by Faith was the master-principle of the Reformation. "Therefore by a contrary way (said the chief Theologians of the Council) he that will establish the body of the Catholic doctrine (in other words, he that would re-instate Indulgences, Penances, Purgatory, the opus operatum of the Sacraments, the authority of the Priest's absolutions, the Sacrifice of the Mass, &c.) must overthrow the heresy of Justification by faith only."* In all this, there was the soundest view of the relation of cause and effect. And therefore have we no question, that now, while Oxford Divinity is fast developing its real character, in divers ramifications of overt

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*Paul's Hist. Council of Trent, p. 190.