LEADING TENETS OF THE TRACTARIANS. 69 also declare, that the Church has authority in matters of faith and practice, as opposed to the generally received protestant principle of the inalienable right of private judgment; that there is an authority in the traditions of the Church, written and unwriten, collateral with the Holy Scriptures, and to be used to decide controversy equally with the Bible, in connection with the orders of the rubric, and the writings of the "Fathers." They recommend, also, Auricular Confession for sin to the clergy, and approve of seclusion from the world and monastic privacy.* They allow, also, respect They alone are duly commissioned to preach the word of God, and to minister his holy sacraments." The writer also of Tract No. 51 has this intolerant, impudent, and anti-scriptural assertion.- "Christ has appointed [where?] THE CHURCH as the only way unto eternal life." Did the man who wrote this, first blot out of his Bible the words of Jesus Christ? John xiv. 14. "I am the WAY, the Truth and the Life, no man can come unto the Father, but by ME." Again, the Saviour says, "I am the door, by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved." John x. 9. Now, who is to be believed, the Saviour or these bigots? Is Christ, or "the Church," the only way? *A circular, explaining the project, and soliciting from protestant churchmen subscriptions to carry it into effect, has recently been published, thus headed :-" Revival of Monastic and Conventual Institutions, on a plan adapted 70 TENETS OF THE TRACTARIANS. to relics, obeisance to the cross, and saints' effigies. They believe, also, that there is a real sacrifice of the mass, and saving efficacy in the sacraments-but only when duly administered by supposed apostolically ordained clergymen; celibacy a holier state than matrimony, and therefore called by Dr. Pusey "the more excellent way;" intercession to saints, and especially to the "Queen of mercy, Mary, always a virgin, the Mediatrix, and Refuge of the afflicted."* They to the Exigencies of the Reformed Catholic Church of England." [!!] The Oxford Chronicle says, "the plan is already in operation at Littlemore, three miles from Oxford, Mr. Newman being the founder and president." *Though these frequent notes interrupt the reader, he must kindly pardon their insertion. We wish, by extracts from the Oxford Papists, to fully support all we say. Attention is therefore requested on the subject of Intercession to Saints, and to Mary. Hear the following forms of prayer:-" I beseech thee, blessed Mary, ever virgin, the blessed Michael the archangel, the blessed John Baptist, the holy apostles Peter and Paul, all saints, and thee my Father, to pray the Lord our God for me." Again; ponder this prayer:-" Holy Mary, and all the saints, intercede for us to the Lord, that we may be worthy of his help and salvation, who liveth and reigneth world without end." And where, reader, do you think, these prayers were taken from? You instantly without hesitation, are ready to reply-" Surely out of some Roman Catholic breviary." No such thing. It is almost incre TENETS OF THE TRACTARIANS. 71 acknowledge the utility of prayers for the dead; the merit of good works; necessity of fasting, and bodily mortification, and of penance for post-baptismal sins. They also recommend "reserve" in teaching and expounding the Scriptures to the laity, especially advising that the doctrine of the atonement should be kept dible yet not more strange than dreadfully true—that such is the awful departure from the faith, that these prayers, amongst many others of a like kind, form a part of a certain ritual of devotion, recommended for use by Oxford theologians-by clergymen holding the emoluments and sharing the honours of what is yet called the Protestant [and apostolic] church!! But still worse than this. The following is part of a hymn writen in honour and praise of "The Virgin," by Professor Keble : "Ave Maria! Mother blest, To whom caressing and caress'd Favoured beyond archangels' dream, "Ave Maria! Thou whose name Yet may we reach thy shrine: With love and joy like thine." We indignantly ask-Ought such Catholics to be retained in any Protestant community? We trow not. 72 TENETS OF THE TRACTARIANS. in the back ground, and other fundamental truths of protestantism, &c.* Of course, all the Oxford catholics, and we must add, the members of the Camden Society at Cambridge and their proselytes who hold similar heretical views, do not entertain in every particular these various sentiments; but the great body of their followers are more or less tinctured with these awful tenets, and have gone with their original teachers into most of their papistical opinions. Amongst the weak, the visionary, the superstitious, and the ignorant, both of the clergy and laity, this desolating heresy is awfully increasing. And however some may differ in minor details, the clergy and their flocks of this school all agree in a hatred of the doctrine of the atonement, and justification by faith alone, because the preaching of *See Tracts Nos. 80 and 87, in which, by a series of most sophistical arguments, an attempt is made to show that there are certain doctrines in the word of God which are NOT proper to be taught but to a very select few, called "practised christians," by these tractarian writers. "We (the writers of the Tracts) have always considered the doctrine, that God conveys grace only through the instrumentality of the mental energies that is, through faith, prayer, active (what is commonly called) communion with God, in contradiction to the primitive view-according to which [we spiritual contemplation, or TRACTARIAN HOSTILITY TO EVANGELISM. 73 "Christ crucified" scripturally, and fully, is to them more than foolishness; for they nauseate all the peculiar doctrines of the gospel system, oppose, haughtily contemn, and ridicule all all ministers not belonging to their (boastingly called " apostolic") church, or not embracing their high views, and consequently frown on all the various labours of unepiscopal christian enterprize, which mark the onward movements of the zealous disciples of the Saviour, to evangelize the moral wastes of Britain, and the world. Thus we see, then, that the discrepancy between genuine protestantism, and modern Tractarianism, is broadly marked, and therefore the antagonism existing, and exerted by the two, must be very great. Let us see, then, if there be not some points wherein Popery and Puseyism coincide, and viewing the latter as the antagonistic system, which is avowedly alien to the principles of the Reformation, we shall place it in juxta-position with Romanism, and ...... believe] the Church and her sacraments are the ordained and direct visible means of conveying to the soul what is in itself supernatural and unseen. Indeed this may even be set down as the essence of sectarian doctrine, to consider faith, and not the sacraments, as the proper instrument of justification and other gospel gifts."-See the Preface to Vol. II. of "Tracts, &c." C |