their sense should not be misunderstood. Who, among the Bishop of Exeter's party, will state as unequivocally as is done in the Homilies the great and distinguishing doctrine of justification by faith? The members of that party well know-no one knows better than they-that this doctrine, and that of church and sacramental salvation as proclaimed by the Tractarians and their abettors, are utterly inconsistent with each other; that they are the respective symbols of systems irreconcilably opposed; and that they cannot dwell together in the same mind: contending, therefore, as they do, for what they choose to call the "Catholic teaching" of the Church, they either reject the other doctrine altogether, or so explain it as to give it a meaning which the Anglican Reformers would have indignantly trampled under foot. Whatever they did mean by the expressions they employed in the form provided by them for the baptism of infants, they could not mean to assert the doctrine of baptismal regeneration in the sense which polemics like the Bishop of Exeter now seek to give to the term; for that sense completely contradicts their language respecting justification by faith, and by this language they evidently designed to stand or fall. Mistaken they might be. Incautious and unhappy in the choice of their language on this subject they undoubtedly were. But they were honest; and many of them sealed with their blood their testimony to what they believed to be the saving truth of God. The few doubtful phrases which they employed cannot be taken, with anything like Christian charity or controversial fairness, as decisive of the whole question; for in doing this, they are represented as building up again the things which they had destroyed, and in their successful opposition to which they gloried. In this respect, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council have done them justice. The Judges were not called to go farther, else this might have been done to a far greater extent. Much more might be said against the Bishop of Exeter's system of Church theology, than could justly be said against that of Mr. Gorham. In searching for extracts to elucidate and support their views of a discretionary latitude of interpretation within clearly-assigned limits, they might have found even in the writings of Dr. Hammond, whose Church orthodoxy was never called in question, the term-" unregenerate," -used in reference to the wicked,-used in sermons, too, in which baptized men and women were addressed, and who could, therefore, with no propriety, according to the principles of this boasted "Catholic teaching," be called unregenerate, however ungodly they might be. With the Bishop of Exeter's opinions, however, they had nothing to do. The inquiry to which they confined themselves, and which was all that justice demanded from them in the case which they had to decide, was simply,-Is Mr. Gorham's teaching so directly and plainly repugnant to the established doctrine of the Church, as to justify the Bishop in refusing to allow him to exercise his ministry? Having determined that it was not, they were not required to ask the same question respecting the Bishop of Exeter. Him they have let alone. The only defeat he has legally sustained is, that his decision against Mr. Gorham is reversed. And yet it is to be said that, indirectly, but evidently to him and his party most mortifyingly, he is defeated on another point. At first we were told by his supporters, that the only question in dispute was that which referred to the unsoundness of Mr. Gorham's opinions; that the Bishop's particular views were not concerned, and would not be affected, however the case was decided. It is now represented in a manner altogether different. Mr. Gorham was heterodox, according to the Bishop's standard of orthodoxy ;

and most assuredly, tried by this rule, heterodox he was to all intents and purposes. The judgment of the Lords of the Council has decided that the Bishop's standard is not the standard of the Church; that such is the standard of Church-teaching, that it is not contravened by the answers of Mr. Gorham to the Bishop's interrogatories; that is, that what is termed by the party "Catholic teaching," and to which Mr. Gorham's doctrines are certainly opposed, is not the teaching of the Church. To this teaching Mr. Gorham's opinions are decidedly repugnant; but, according to the judgment of the Lords of the Council, they are not repugnant to the teaching of the Church: therefore Catholic teaching and Church teaching are not identical. Hence the mighty uproar that has ensued. Had the decision been different, and Mr. Gorham's appeal been rejected, Catholic teaching would have been declared, by the highest authority, to be the standard of orthodoxy for all the Ministers of the Establishment. The whole body of the evangelical Clergy must either have assented to this, or have followed the example of the Free Church of Scotland. The judgment as it is has spared them this trial. It recognises Mr. Gorham's opinions as standing within the allowable limits of discretionary interpretation. It does not say that the Bishop's are not so. It only declares that they do not constitute the exclusive standard of Church-orthodoxy. Mr. Gorham and his friends, therefore, receive it with thankfulness and submission. The Catholic standard is not officially established, and they are content with their own safety without seeking the positive condemnation of their opponents. Not so the supporters of the Catholic (in plain English, the real, though masked, Papistical) element. They had evidently hoped that their favourite dogma was to be declared officially to be exclusive and dominant. It was not truly a contest for the defeat of Mr. Gorham, but for the victorious triumph of the Bishop of Exeter. The party are disappointed, and the disappointment stings them to the quick, and rankles in the very core of their heart. A louder outery was not made when James the Second endeavoured to force on the non-resisting men of Oxford a Jesuit as the President of Magdalen College. Against the decision violent protests have been written, in which clergymen and laymen, Bishops, Rectors, Vicars, and Curates, have vehemently joined. The Church, whatever it is, has been declared, by its supreme temporal head, speaking through her highest court, not to be the Church as described by the Tractarians. The Bishop of Exeter, high Tory as he has always been,-resisting all political concessions to the Romanist subjects of the realm till Lord Wellington and Mr. Peel had resolved to grant them, and then maintaining a solemn silence on the subject, soon followed by the actual possession of the see of Exeter, and the hope of the rich living of Stanhope in commendam, (alas for the vanity of human hopes!) the Bishop seems almost disposed to Whig resistance. At all events, "he will die hard." Since we began to write we find that an attempt is made to set aside the solemn judgment of the Committee of Privy Council. The Queen's Bench has been moved for a rule to show cause why the Arches Court should not be prohibited from giving effect to the judgment of the Committee of Privy Council, on the ground that that was not the court to which the appeal in such a case should have been made, but that it should have been brought before the Convocation! Lord Chief Justice Campbell has taken time to consider whether the rule should be granted, in which case the whole matter will have to be argued again. Perhaps we shall be able to state his Lordship's decision before we go to press.

The nature of the objections of the party will appear from a

66 Declara

tion" recently put forth by the Bishop of Bath and Wells. His Lordship says:

Whereas the construction put upon the articles and formularies of the Church of England by the said decision implies that the remission of original sin to all infants in, and by the grace of, the sacrament of baptism, is not necessarily the doctrine of the Church of England, although such remission of sins has always been held to be affirmed in and by an article of the Nicene Creed, (to wit,) "I acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins:"-And whereas doubt has been cast by the said decision upon the teaching of the Catechism of the Church of England, that all infants are "made members of Christ, children

of God, and inheritors of the kingdom of heaven," in and by their baptism :-We do hereby solemnly declare that it is the doctrine of the Church of England, as of the whole church of Christ in all ages, that original sin is remitted to all infants by the application of the merits of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ in the sacrament of baptism; and that it is the plain teaching of the Church of England that all infants are "made members of Christ, children of God, and inheritors of the kingdom of heaven," in and by that holy sacrament. R. BATH AND WELLS. London, April 15th, 1850.

Here is a full exposition of the cause of complaint. The Church of England is not declared to be the "Catholic teacher" which these, its unworthy and unfaithful Ministers, desire it to be. High Churchism is not officially pronounced to be exclusive Churchism. Of the dangerous character of the fundamental tenets of Romanism, considered as Romanism, making unauthorised and most unscriptural additions to what is really Catholic teaching, none have a deeper conviction than ourselves. No legitimate occasion do we ever pass by without protesting against them, and endeavouring to expose them. But the true Romanist is honest. He avows himself to be what he is. If in the ministry, it is from the funds of his own Church and people that he derives his support. The honours paid to the supreme Bishop, to him who occupies the Roman See, are honours given him by his own Church. He wears in Rome the Roman mitre. We oppose the errors of these men, we pity their delusions; but we willingly acknowledge their honesty. What shall we say of those who share the emoluments of a Church whose original and fundamental documents are clearly and decidedly Protestant, but who contend for what they call, attaching their own sense to the term, Catholicity? We grant that there are a few unhappy and incautious expressions which seem to favour their error; but these are only a few; they exist in formularies of devotion, and in all fairness ought to be modified by the unequivocal and decisive language of the dogmatic formularies. The Prayer-Book is to be explained by the Articles and Homilies: the plain meaning of the Articles and Homilies is not to be frittered away by the few unhappy and incautious expressions of the Prayer-Book. What honest Romanist would admit the article on justification by faith, as more fully explained in the Homilies? That one doctrine, if established, upsets the whole Papal system. And this article, thus explained, the Bishop of Exeter, and all who side with him, have subscribed. Do they believe that the Church of England teaches different and contradictory systems of doctrine? Let them seek by all lawful means to procure the change which in such a case all must admit to be necessary; and, in the meantime, let them, if they cannot conscientiously teach just as the Church teaches, and all that the Church teaches,-let them, till the alteration is effected, lay aside their ministry, and renounce all participation in the honours and emoluments of a Church whose essential and unequivocally pronounced doctrines they not only refuse to teach, but positively deny.

But we must not deprive our readers of either the amusement or the instruction which will be afforded them by a correspondence which has recently appeared in the "leading journal" of the day. They will recollect that, some time ago, much was said about some Protestant "Sisters of Mercy" who were associated together at Plymouth for certain charitable purposes, having at their head, as "Mother Superintendent," a Miss Sellon. Many Protestant members of the Church at Plymouth were grieved by the decided "Puseyism " of the religious practices of these ladies; and the Bishop of Exeter examined into the whole case. In one or two minor points he thought they had gone somewhat too far, and recommended alteration; but, on the entire case, he gave them his decided approval. It seems they have a Committee of influential persons to encourage and support their charitable proceedings, amongst them being Lord Campbell. No sooner is the "judgment" pronounced, however, than "the Mother Superintendent " writes to inform Lord Campbell that his name must be withdrawn from the Committee-list, as having concurred in a judgment, which, according to Miss Sellon, makes the Church of England the patron of heretical teaching. The ill-concealed petulance of this lady will show the reader what is the true spirit of Popery, even where existing in professed connexion with a Protestant Establishment. Her language, too, will show, not only the disappointment of the party, but the real character of the opinions and hopes of its members. The letters of his Lordship will likewise show how the Judges to whom the appeal was made by Mr. Gorham understood their position, and what is the character which the judgment they pronounced was intended to sustain. In fact, the question is just this,-Is the Protestantism of the Church of England to be pronounced officially to be a heresy; and are the essential, the germinating principles of Romanism to be henceforth officially established as the exclusive and triumphant doctrines of the Church of Cranmer, Ridley, Hooper, Latimer, subsequently supported and adorned by men like Ussher, Leighton, and Pearson, and whose highest ecclesiastical dignitary at the present day is John Bird Sumner? We give the correspondence at full length.

The Orphans' Home, Plymouth,
March 19th.

MY LORD, It is with a pain the intensity of which, amidst such apparent ingratitude, your Lordship will not readily imagine possible, that in writing to express my deep sense of your kindness in consenting to aid the work at Devonport, I have now to request the withdrawal of a name which, noble and honoured as it is, is connected most painfully with a decision which for the present brands the Church of England with uncatholic teaching.

As a most unworthy, yet faithful, daughter of that Church, I have, as your Lordship will perceive, no choice left me in working for her but to withdraw from one who has assisted in a judgment which I am bound to be lieve is so contrary to her fundamental principles as to be fatal to her unless absolutely rejected.

It is useless to multiply words of sor

row. Your Lordship will know and feel that such a letter as the present ought not and could not be written without much grief and embarrassment. Entreating your forgiveness, and praying that all blessing may attend you and yours,

I am, your Lordship's humble and
grateful servant,

PRISCILLA LYDIA SELLON,
Ye mother supr.

Midland Circuit, Warwick, March 31st, 1850. MADAM,-Having a most sincere respect for your piety and benevolence, I would beg you to reconsider your request that my name may be withdrawn from the list of those who are desirous of assisting you in the truly Christian objects to which your life is devoted. I really believe that you misunderstand the judgment to which you refer when you consider that it is so dangerous to