PEEP INTO "NUMBER NINETY." BY CHARLOTTE ELIZABETH. PRICE ONE SHILLING. YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY From die COLLECTION OF OXFORD BOOKS made by FALCONER MADAN Bodley's Librarian A PEEP INTO NUMBER NINETY. PRINTED BY 1. AND G. SBELEY, THAMES DITTON, SURREY. ^ rt V" v^ A PEEP INTO NUMBER NINETY. BY CHARLOTTE ELIZABETH. " From the tyranny of the Bishop of Rome, and all his detestable enor mities, good Lord deliver us ! " — Prayer Booh of King Edward I'l. PXIBLISHED BY R. B. &EELEY AND W. BURNSIDE ; AND SOLD BYX. .4.ND G. SEELEY, FLEET STREET, LONDON. MDCCCXLI. A PEEP INTO NUMBER NINETY. When God first planted his Church in the gar den of Eden, the two individuals who composed it were not only of one substance, as regarded the body, but of one heart, one soul, one faith ; walking in all the commandments and ordinances blameless — the son and daughter of the Lord God Almighty, perfect in obedience, holy, and without reproach. Unless they had been so, the Lord would not have pronounced his work to be " very good." But this state of things did not continue : the Church had an enemy, because God had an enemy ; and he, envying the blessedness which he had himself forfeited, and could never regain, set about disturbing the peace of this Church, alienating it from God, and bringing it into sub jection to himself. He made choice of the woman ; assailed her with subtle temptation, and prevailed. A PEEP INTO The Church was now disunited : Eve had sinned, but Adam maintained his integrity. The house, the beautiful house that God had builded for the habitation of His Spirit, was divided against itself, and could not stand. How long this division continued Scripture does not inform us : but we know that Adam, though not de ceived as Eve had been, followed her in the transgression. Eve gave to her husband of the forbidden fruit, and he did eat. One moment's yielding to the evil one, and the world was wrecked. Great but transient was the triumph of the Devil : God dealt wondrously with the first transgressor, subjecting her in lowly subordina tion to the partner whom she had enticed into sin, inflicting sore pains and penalties upon her through all generations, yet investing her with the high and glorious privilege of exclusive pa rentage to the human nature in which the Deity should come to overthrow the Satanic device, destroy the works of the Devil, lead captivity captive, and doubly glorify the place of his de secrated sanctuary. From this period woman has occupied a place in the Church — ^^which is the company of all faithful people — singularly accordant with the NUMBER NINETY. 3 position of Eve under the sentence of mingled judgment and mercy. Generally the most easy to lead, she has been selected as the first victim in all unholy devices ; and when once perverted, her weakness usually proves an overmatch for the superior strength of man. When false teachers fail to darken his reason, or to mislead his judgment, woman will so ensnare him by means of the affections, as to draw him into the net openly spread in his sight : and woman, under the divine influence, will lead the way through trouble, peril, persecution, and death, where man's bold heart would flinch but for her. How beautifully was this manifested during those three years, the like of which the world never saw, or can see — the three years when earth's glorious Creator publickly traversed her guilty soil, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; houseless, suffering hunger and thirst, despised and rejected of man, but fol lowed, and soothed, and ministered unto by women. Surely had there been a woman in the garden of Gethsemane, the Lord had not been forsaken of all ; but she was spared the partici pation of that night's crimes and woes — we only know that God even deigned to warn the B 2 4 A PEEP INTO wretched Pilate by a woman's hand ; that while the sons of Jerusalem were fiercely hostile, or pusiUanimously acquiescent, in the deed of blood, the daughters of Jerusalem feared not to enter the public protest of their deep cries and bitter wailings around the holy, majestic Victim, who paused upon his path to a triumphant universal kingdom, to address them in language at once so gracious and so awful. Woman, strong in love, bore to look upon the agonies from which the sun shrouded his face : women pressed around the mangled body with sweet spices for its embalming : and woman, awake with hope, prevented the dawning day, while men yet slept or sullenly despaired : she was the first to look upon the risen Lord ; the first to bear to man the glad tidings that the terrible debt under which she had laid him was cancelled — the fet ter that she cast around him was broken ; the Seed of the woman had bruised the Serpent's head ; death was vanquished, and the kingdom of heaven opened to all believers. All this we know, for our own, our precious Bible declares it ; and through that blessed gift, the oracles of God, we know it so long, so well, and so familiarly, that it is hard to recal the time when we knew it not. Our position in NUMBER NINETY. 5 the Church is a very peculiar one ; and the more closely we look into ecclesiastical history, the more striking does it appear. Satan has borne ample testimony to this ; showing how he both hates and fears his first victim. In heathen lands, where he reigns supreme, the prince and god of this world, he rivets the penal curse upon her with ferocious malice, filling man's heart with tyrannous cruelty against her. And when he laid the first woof of the great master-piece of iniquity that should envelope the professing Church of Christ in darkness, his earliest care was to collect and immure as many as he could of the dreaded opponents. Monas- ticism was the selvedge by means of which he evened, and tightened, and prevented the whole web from unravelling : clerical celibacy is to this day the mainstay by which he holds on the most important appendages to his cunning ma chinery. He wants men to do his bidding in all the breadth and length of his dire hostility against Christ j therefore he puts asunder what God hath joined, he tears the domestic tie, and forces his victims to what God has distinctly said is not good for them ; and so, by easy con sequences, into what must utterly harden their b A PEEP INTO consciences, pollute their minds, and destroy their souls. Let not woman, therefore, be beguiled of her due station in the Church of Christ, let her not, with voluntary humility, take shelter under an assumed insignificance, and deem that her im pressions, her private opinions, can weigh little in the doubtful scale of national or ecclesiastical orthodoxy. As mother and as wife pre-eminently, and in all other relationships whereby God has bound her to man respectively, her power is very great ; and at this moment, in this realm of England, Satan is building on that quiet and un obtrusive, but most effectual, power, his best hopes of plunging the country in irretrievable ruin. He calculates on acting over again that horror of horrors that once glutted his diabolical malice, when the torch was forced into the shrinking fingers of the tender daughter, and her feebleness coerced into applying it to the pile of faggots surrounding the stake to which her pa rents were chained ; and if the Lord interpose not, he will succeed. Without further preface, then, since the sub ject so nearly and deeply concerns them and me, I invite, I beseech the most serious, prayer ful attention of my Christian Sisters in England, NUMBER NINETY. 7 to the developement of that foul conspiracy against our Church, our Bible, and our souls, which has, by God's overruling providence, been unblushingly laid open in the recent publication entitled, " Remarks on certain passages IN THE Thirty-nine Articles : " being "No. 90." of the series called, ' Tracts for THE Times.' This audacious avowal of Popish principles has wrung forth a suitable disclaimer, on the part of the University of Oxford, of doctrines too long promulgated under the shelter of its venerable walls. With the question, as debated by that learned body of divines, I do not pre sume to meddle, farther than by earnestly pray ing that the Lord may give them grace and cou rage, similar to that of the Ephesian Church ; that unto them also the like word of com mendation may come, " I know thy works, and thy labour, and thy patience, and how thou canst not bear them which are evil : and thou hast tried them which say they are apostles, and are not, and hast found them liars : and hast borne, and hast patience, and for my name's sake hast laboured, and hast not fainted." Mav it please Him to whom all the " depths of Sa tan" are disclosed, so to reveal them to his ser- b A PEEP INTO vants in that high place of learning and eccle siastical influence, that the woman Jezebel, though robed in a Doctor's gown, and fenced with all the privileges of an usurped order, may be detected, stripped, and expelled far beyond the limits of its hallowed boundary ! But to us a different sphere is assigned, and to spread the shield of faith over our own bosoms, our own homes. Is what God requires of us. We attend the public services of our Church, many pulpits of which are occupied by teachers of these doctrines ; and care has been taken to invest them with as much as might be of those attractions which rendered the fruit so tempting to Eve. " She saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise : " and so, through " the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life," she fell into the snare. In like manner he who for six thousand years has been reaping the harvest of his triumph over Eve, is now practising upon the already perverted nature of her daughters, and it behoves us, at the peril of our souls, to be found not ignorant of his devices. The question which we have to settle, is sim ply this : What is the real character of those NUMBER NINETY. 9 doctrines put forth by the party called Tracta- rians, or Puseyites ; and w^hat their obvious tendency ? To this I answer, their character is distinctly Popery : and their tendency, their direct, obvious design, is to lead us again into subjection to the Romish see : in other words, to turn us back from light to darkness, and from the kingdom of God, to the power of Satan. To this assertion, only two objections can be made : either, I. That Popery is the veritable religion of Christ, or, II. That these doctrines do not lead to that point. In the first case, the thing is proved : the device has succeeded, and the objector has, through the teaching of these Tractarians, apostatized. In the second case, proof is called for, and proof shall be given, that the allegation is true. It does indeed appear doubtful whether Mr. Newman, the avowed author of this tract, and the acknowledged principal^ in all the literature of the school, has not intentionally made a full confession of his faith in the concluding seven lines of the pamphlet, which are as follows : ' The Protestant confession was drawn up with the purpose of including Catholics ; and Catho lics will not now be excluded. What was an 10 A PEEP INTO economy in the Reformers, is a protection to ms. What would have been a perplexity to us then, is a perplexity to Protestarits now. We could not then have found fault with their words ; they cannot now repudiate our meaning.' (Sign ed,) 'J. H. N.' No language can be clearer : no contradis tinction more pointed. Mr. Newman first enrols himself with the ' Catholics,' and this would be right if he were a Protestant, for all true Catho licity is with us : but he goes on to place him self and his party in the most unequivocal, direct opposition to every thing called Protes tant. Let the passage as given above, verbatim et literatim, be read, and once again re-read with fixed attention : the italics I have sup plied, merely to exhibit the fulness and studied force of the antitheses which he has accumulated. ' Catholic' stands opposed to ' Protestant ; ' ' us' to ' the Reformers ; ' 'us' again, to ' Pro testants ; ' ' we' to ' they : ' and great Indeed, roust be the obtuseness of those who cannot discern, marvellous the pertinacity of such as would now repudiate Mr. Newman's broad and undisguised ' meaning ! ' But this may be deemed, upon consideration, too open an avowal ; and if so, the protean NUMBER NINETY. 11 skill that distinguishes the brotherhood of Ig natius Loyola will be put In requisition to explain It away. Let us therefore lay it aside, and take up the tract under a different aspect. We shall find Mr. Newman labouring throughout, to es tablish a fact, the discovery of which he may safely claim as his own peculiar trophy ; namely, that Romanism, or the Romish, or Roman Catho lic system. Is one thing, and the Tridentlne decrees another ! Now, It Is well known that the great difiiculty encountered by Christians In battling against the Romish heresy, consisted In the intangibility of the latter. Each Christian Church had Its con fession ; that of the Waldenses being singular alike for its scriptural purity and high antiquity, so that in arraigning the doctrines, and enquiring Into the practices of a Church, there were au thentic data on which to go : articles to which the accuser could point, and the accused plead : but the cunning of Rome evaded this : Pope against Pope, Council against Council, now commanding, then anathematizing ; now decree ing, then annulling, formed such a jumble of un settled, disputed, clashing heresies, that when one was laid hold on and held up to view, it was easy enough to single out another, equally 12 A PEEP INTO authentic, to give it the lie. At last, through God's mercy, the heads of the Popish body were tempted to call a general Council, the decrees of which were to form a complete code of their ecclesiastical laws, to establish distinctly the rules of their faith, to mark out and define all that had hitherto proved to them, at least, so beneficially undefinable ; and to remain a final appeal, on all disputed matters, until by autho rity equal to that of Trent, some subsequent Council should see fit to alter the semper eadem, and to rectify the blunders of infallibility. This was a great boon to the Christian Church : It offered something tangible in the slippery body of Antichrist ; a horn by which he has oftentimes been seized, for the purposes of due castigatlon. These Tridentlne decrees contain the very marrow of Popery, setting forth with wonderful minuteness all her blasphemous fables and dangerous deceits. They stand out In the most daring contradiction of Scripture ; establish the monstrosities of transubstantiation, masses, indulgences, sale of pardons, worship of dead men and wooden dolls ; denounce death to ' heretics,' absolve subjects from their allegi ance, shew perjury to be commendable, and In short, so map out the whole mystery of Iniquity, NUMBER NINETY. 13 that we can traverse It in every part, and fix the brand Indelibly throughout. Yet to this Trlden- tine concoction does Mr. Newman continually appeal, as the most orthodox standard extant : and, with what, If it did not become us to treat a learned gentleman with respect, we might call the most consummate impudence ever heard of, he asserts that the Articles of our Church were NOT framed to impugn any decrees of the Coun cil of Trent, because the Council of Trent had not then been summoned : and though these decrees only gathered together, arranged, set forth, and officially stamped all the deadly errors against which our Articles were framed, he attempts on this most ludicrous subterfuge to ground a distinction, by which he may entan gle us in the shattered yoke of antichristian bondage ! So much for explanatory assertion : now to the proof. In this tract. Second Edition, we have first an Introduction, containing some curious hints about a ' return ' of our Church, to some point whence she has fallen ; and a ' bondage ' from which she is to be delivered ; and then Mr. Newman informs us, that though our Articles are ' the offspring of an uncatholic age,' they are not uncatholic, and may be sub- 14 A PEEP INTO scribed to by those who are catholic In heart and doctrine. In proof whereof he proceeds to unprotestantize one of the finest codes of Pro testant doctrine that the world contains. Section I. treats of our sixth and our twentieth articles, concerning Holy Scripture and the authority of the Church : the reader of these pages, who Is not disposed to trifle with a mat ter of deepest moment, will take a prayer-book and refer to the Articles as named. Mr. New man, after some general remarks, the great drift of which is to establish the authority of the Apocrypha, proceeds to what he calls the main point, the adjustment which this Article effects between the respective offices of the Scripture and Church, which he considers to be left most conveniently un-adjusted. He says, it does not settle ' whether the Church judges, first, at her sole discretion,* next, on her sole responsihilit-y ; i. e., first, what the media are by which the Church interprets Scripture, whether by a direct, divine gift, or Catholic tradition, or critical ex egesis of the text, or in any other way : and next, who is to decide whether It Interprets Scripture rightly or not ; — what Is her method, if any ; and who Is her judge, If any. In other words, not a * The Italics are in the original. NUMBER NINETY. 15 word is said on the one hand in favour of Scrip ture having no rule or method to fix interpreta tion by, or, as it Is commonly expressed, heing the sole rule of faith ; nor on the other, of the private judgment of the individual being the ulti mate standard of Interpretation.' He then com bats alike the expression and the principle of Scripture being the ' rule of faith,' and winds up the section, after a long string of quotations, in these words : ' In the sense in which it is commonly understood at this day. Scripture, it is plain, is not, on Anglican principles, the rule of faith.' Thus, at the commencement, Mr. Newman takes two Articles, the clear sense of which goes to establish beyond controversy the sole, all-suffi cient authority of Holy Scripture, and with them knocks, or says that he has knocked, the solid foundation from under our feet, leaving only the Pope's slipper for us to catch at while we fall. He has done wisely, after the fashion of other children of this world, for so long as we take Holy Scripture for our guide, we cannot stray into any of the nets so cunningly laid to catch us. In all discussions with Popish champions this point of the ' Rule of Faith' stands pre-emi nent : the whole controversy hangs upon it ; and 16 A PEEP INTO once giving up that fundamental doctrine we may go wherever Satan drives — to the mass-house or the mosque — anywhere but into the temple of God. It will be seen that section the first leaves a Papist at liberty, even without a plenary absolu tion, to subscribe to two of our Articles. Section II. undertakes that passage in our Eleventh Article, which declares, 'That we are justified by Faith only, is a most wholesome doc trine.' But this, unhappily. Is a doctrine wholly subversive of Popery — they cannot stand toge ther, and the way in which Mr. Newman ar ranges It would be laughable. If any one might dare to laugh at sin. He maintains that many things justify, and each justifies alone : and seeks to silence any objector by classing him with the Arians, who In their warfare against the Son of God, said, ' Christ Is not God, because the Fa ther Is called the onl'y God.' After frightening us with this scarecrow, he boldly asserts, that a num ber of means go to effect our justification. ' We are justified by Christ alone, in that he has purchased the gift ; by faith alone. In that faith asks for it ; by baptism alone, for baptism con veys it ; and by newness of heart alone, for newness of heart is the life of it.' And If we NUMBER NINETY. 1? stumble at this list of unintelligible plural uni ties, out upon us ! we are Arians, capable of de nying the Trinity. Section third, under the heading of ' Works before and after justification,' treats ofthe twelfth and thirteenth Articles ; and is rich In bold as sertion : essaying first to prove that man is some times in a state neither justified nor unjustified, but at a sort of turning point, where his works do deserve grace of congruity ; and then, beg ging the question which he has started, he con cludes, ' If works before justification, when done by the influence of divine aid, gain grace, much more do works after justification.' Of course, IF — but the ' if,' Is not proven ; and all the pains bestowed on this section only show how Intent Mr. Newman is on squeezing the Protestant life out of our rather unsqueezable Articles. In Section fourth we approach the grand point ; the direct anti -popery of our confession. This Is on the nineteenth Article of ' the visible Church,' and says very little about It, merely as serting that the purport of the Article is not to tell what a Church should be, but to point to the Catholic church diffused throughout the world : and then he comes to section fifth, and the assertion of our twenty-first Article that c lis A PEEP INTO General Councils are not infallible. The follow ing short passage furnishes a tolerable specimen of Mr. Newman's general method of making loop holes. ' General Councils then may err, [as such ; — may err,J unless in any case it Is pro mised, as a matter of express supernatural privi lege, that they shall not err ; a case which lies beyond the scope of this Article, or at any rate beside Its determination.' This is not strong enough ; so he goes on : ' Such a promise, how ever, does exist, in cases when general councils are not only gathered together according to " the commandment and will of princes," but in the name of Christ, according to our Lord's pro mise.' And, to conclude with a sufficient ap proximation to Rome, he says, ' What those con ditions are which fulfil the notion of a gathering together " In the name of Christ," in the case of a particular council, it is not necessary here to determine. Some have Included among these conditions the subsequent reception of its decrees by the universal Church ; others a ratification by the Pope.' Certainly the framers of our Articles never anticipated that of their ownselves, from among the body of nominally Protestant clergymen in NUMBER NINETY. 19 the Church of England, men should arise speak ing such perverse things as these ! But, Section sixth presents us with the stout protestation of our twenty-second Article against purgatory, pardons. Images, relics, and Invoca tion of saints : and here begins a tissue of the most disgraceful casuistry, subterfuge, and misre presentation that can be imagined. Our Article states the Romish doctrine concerning purgatory, &c., ' is a fond thing, vainly Invented, and ground ed upon no warrantry of Scripture, but rather repugnant to the word of God.' How can this be explained away to suit the convictions of a Papist? We shall see. First, Mr. Newman remarks that, the doctrine objected to is the ' Romish doctrine' only, and not any Primitive doctrine that may be advanced on these points. Then comes a quotation from the Homily against peril of Idolatry, to show that it sanc tions a certain veneration of relics. I turned immediately to a ' primitive' black-letter edition of the mahgned homilies, (not that I make them my rule of faith, or follow them further than they follow Scripture,) and I found two quotations from other writings, adduced in the Homily, the purport of which is thus disingenuously fastened on its author. ' In these passages the writer does C 2 20 A PEEP INTO not positively commit himself as to the miracles at Epiphanius' tomb, or the discovery of the true cross, but he evidently wishes the hearer to think he believes In both. This he would not do, if he thought all honour paid to relics wrong. If, then, (that comfortable if\) in the judgment of the Homilies, not all doctrine concerning the veneration of relics Is condemned In the Article before us, but a certain toleration of them Is compatible with Its wording ; neither is all doc trine concerning purgatory, pardons. Images, and saints condemned by the Article, but only ' the Romish.' And farther, by the ' Romish doctrine' is not meant the Tridentlne statement, because this Article was drawn up before the decree of the Council of Trent.' This is most bare-faced, most contemptible. A word is laid hold of in the Article, expressive of the whole Popish system of lies ; this word Is narrowed in its meaning, the Homilies are made In the face of the plainest fact, to preach Popery ; just because they happened to quote a Popish work ; and then, to crown all, an Inference is drawn from this very falsification to overthrow the meaning of the Article ; and the grand compen dium of Popish doctrine not having yet appeared in Trent, as it did some years after, the bold as- NUMBER NINETY. 21 sertlon Is hazarded that the Article does not con demn the Tridentlne statement ! Mr. Newman then quotes this same Tridentlne manifesto, as also a certain so-called primitive fantasy about purgatory, and a notion of the Greek Church, neither of which, he boasts. Is a Romish doc trine, and thus crowns the labour of his brain : ' None of these doctrines does the Article con demn ; any of them may be held by the Anglo- Catholic as a matter of private belief; not that they are here advocated, one or other, but they are adduced as an illustration of what the Article does not mean, and to vindicate our Christian liberty in a matter where the Church has not confined It.' So that, according to Mr. New man, we have ' Christian liberty' to believe in purgatory, to buy pardons from Rome, to bow down to images, to do homage to relics, and to pray to all the dead saints In the calendar ! Then a great deal of the most ridiculous trash, from the lowest legends of Popish absurdity, Is quoted, to show what we are not to believe : and having enumerated sundry vile practices, only resorted to among the most Ignorant of the vul gar, he again says, ' This Is what the Article means by the 'Romish doctrine,' which, in agree ment to one of the above extracts. Is ' a fond 22 A PEEP INTO thing,' res futilis: ' for who,' says Mr. Newman, ' who can ever hope, except the grossest and most blinded minds, TO BE GAINING THE FA VOUR OF THE BLESSED SAINTS, while they come with unchaste thoughts and eyes that cannot cease from sin.' Thanks be to God ! the Church of England is not yet so fallen as that her children should be seeking to gain the favour of dead men and women, as a way of access to the throne of grace ! Mr. Newman has overshot the mark ; he has suffered us to see the Harlot's face too soon ; and the Lord will snatch many of his wavering children from the brink of a pit thus dug by Jesuit hands, through the revelation pre maturely made of what lurks within its depths. In the same section is an infamous misrepre sentation that the writer ought to blush for. The Homilies, which will yet prove a glorious breastwork against this flood of Popish Iniquity, speak of those who had left off going to the Churches, because the ' gay gazing sights were taken away ; ' and quaintly represent a Popish woman saying to her neighbour, ' Alas, gossip, what shall we now do at Church, since all the saints are taken away,' &c., then proceeds: ' But, dearly beloved, we ought greatly to re- NUMBER NINETY. 23 joice, and give God thanks, that our Churches are delivered of all those things which displeased God so sore, and filthily defiled his house and his place of prayer, for the which he hath justly destroyed many nations.' Now, how does Mr. Newman characterize thl^ passage in the Ho mily ? He calls it, ' a lament over the falling off of attendance on religious worship, conse quent upon the Reformation ! ! ! ' The whole of this section is conceived and executed In the very spirit of Jesuitism ; and most fearfully does it tamper with the truth of God. Section seventh shews us the Sacraments, as defined In our twenty-fifth Article. Let any one read what Is there said of the extra five, ' com monly called Sacraments,' and then admire the bronze that dictated this commentary on it : ' This Article does not deny the five rites In question to be Sacraments, but to be Sacraments In the sense In which Baptism and the Lord's Supper are Sacraments : " Sacraments of the Gospel," Sacraments with an outward sign or dained of God. They are not Sacraments in any sense, unless the Church has the power of dispensing grace through rites of its own ap pointing, or Is endued with the gift of blessing and hallowing the " rites or ceremonies," which. 24 A PEEP INTO according to the twentieth Article, It " hath power to decree." But we may well believe that the Church hath this gift.' Certainly Mr. Newman's " Church," is an omnipotent thing ! Section eighth has the protest of the twenty- eighth Article against transubstantiation, and here the Author proceeds more cautiously, ra ther insinuating than asserting : dealing in me taphysics, and raising a dust to obscure the sub ject as much as possible. Mystification prevails throughout the section : and he rather expos tulates, ' why should it seem an incredible thing with you ? ' than boldly proclaims it. Indeed, it might rouse even the dormant spirit that nods from the episcopal bench, dozlngly rather than approvingly It is to be hoped, upon the havoc thus made in the Church of God, if he were to speak out. Peeping and muttering, are all we can expect on this topic as yet. Section ninth Is on Masses, which the thirty- first Article of our Church unceremoniously stigmatizes as ' blasphemous fables and danger ous deceits.' And thus writeth Mr. Newman upon it. ' Nothing can shew more clearly than this passage, that the Articles are not written against the creed of the Roman Church, but NUMBER NINETY. 25 against actual existing errors in It, whether ta ken Into Its system or not. Here the sacrifice of the Mass is not spoken of, in which the special question of doctrine would be introduced ; but "the Sacrifice of Masses," certain observances, for the most part private and solitary, which the writers of the Articles knew to have been In force In time past, and saw before their eyes.' And then, after stringing quotations from vari ous sources, our teacher sums up thus : ' On the whole, then, it Is conceived, that the Article before us, neither speaks against the Mass In itself, nor against its being an offering, though com memorative, for the quick and the dead for the remission of sin ; especially since the decree of Trent says, that " the fruits of the Bloody Obla tion are, through this, more abundantly obtained, so far Is the latter from detracting in any way from the former ; " but against Its being viewed on the one hand, as Independent of, or distinct from the Sacrifice on the cross, which is blas phemy, and, on the other, its being directed to the emolument of those to whom It pertains to celebrate it, which is Imposture In addition.' Now does this unhappy man really believe that he shall meet at the judgment-seat of Christ the holy men whose words he thus wickedly 26 A PEEP INTO Wrests, and whose meaning he knowingly and purposely falsifies ? It were more charitable to regard him as an infidel, than to think so. The Mass Is an abomination against which they testi fied in language stronger than they have used In any other instance : It Is an atrocious lie against the truth and the Majesty of God's eternal Son : it is an Infernal device to mock His Sacrifice ; a piece of impious buffoonery, a farcical travestie of the awful scene enacted on Mount Calvary. It is a pretence on the part of the priest to trans form a wafer Into the body, blood, bones, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ, and then to offer up the victim that he has made, a propitiation for the sins of the living, a salvo for the souls of the dead, or an oblation on behalf of a sick cow. This is every day done In Popish countries, and it is actually the master-abomination of the sys tem. Against this, Mr. Newman declares that our Church does not protest : if she did not, she would lie under the unquenchable wrath of the Lamb : and let Mr. Newman take heed, for the eye of God Is upon him too ; and he may learn — while causing offence among the little ones who believe in Christ, he may learn there are some for whom It would be better that a mill- NUMBER NINETY. 27 stone were hanged about their necks and they cast Into the Sea. Section tenth handles the thirty-second Arti cle, which denounces the compulsory celibacy of the Clergy. Very little is said on the subject : probably some of the Tractarians have wives living, who might signify their own private opi nions upon that point In a manner not calculated to promote the serenity desirable for theological students. Section eleventh undertakes the Homilies ; and whereas our thirty-fifth article, declares them to contain godly and wholesome doctrine, we have seven pages of garbled and unfair scraps and ends, culled from them to give a feigned support to various Popish, and other heresies. This cuts two ways : if we admit the Homilies to be authority In matters of doctrine, behold how much heterodoxy they will enable our Tractarians to pass current ! If such specimens are taken as correct, and prevail to lower them In our estimation. Popery gets rid of a most uncompromizing and unmanageable antagonist. Most part of this section consists of reprints from former numbers of the pestilent Tracts : we have a vast deal of quotation from them ; and It Is as well to see how consistently the 28 A PEEP INTO whole fabric supports itself, that all may fall together whenever the Church has courage to rise and assert her Lord's cause. Section twelfth. 'The Bishop of Rome.' Our thirty-seventh Article says, The Bishop of Rome hath no jurisdiction in this realm of Eng land, and thereto Mr. Newman assents, but in so crafty a way does he put the case, that a man holding every dogma of Popery might agree with him, and with the Article too. There is a real or pretended hesitation, on the part of the Tractarians, in acknowledging the unqualified supremacy of the Pope ; and this is its ground : — When Mr. Froude was In Italy, he made ap plication to some worthies of the propaganda, for leave to re-unite himself and party to the ' Mother Church ' of Rome : but they were re pulsed on the plea of Insufficient ordination, the great ' schism ' at the Reformation having un churched us. This made Mr. Froude very angry : at least, so he said ; and It would appear that his clerical brethren have not yet made up their minds to acknowledge themselves laymen, and to receive the ' sacrament ' of orders from the Pope's Church. Whether It be really so, we have no means of knowing: the Searcher of hearts alone can penetrate Into the secrets that lie beneath NUMBER NINETY. 29 the surface of these specious works : but what ever be the real position of the leaders with reference to Rome, it is certain they have many disciples among the English Clergy, who would not brook the Idea of such utter apostasy, as a recognition ofthe Romish Priest's right of juris diction here would Involve. Accordingly this section Is framed with amazing slyness, leaving the way open, either for advance or retreat. Mr. Newman says, ' God ordained by miracle, he reversed by miracle, the Jewish Election.' If by this, he means that God has reversed the pro mise made to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and their seed, respecting the continuance of their nation, their future full possession of the holy land, and the glorious distinction that should be put upon them before the whole Gentile world, he speaks untruly. " Have they stumbled that they should fall ? God forbid ! " However, we must recol lect that Popery always was, and always will be the bitterest foe to Israel ; the fall of Babylon will synchronize with the restoration of the Jews; and we cannot expect or desire, in a system so essentially Popish as this, the absence of that conspicuous feature, hostility to the Jew. In this section, Mr. Newman says of the Eng lish Church, ' It was essentially complete with- 30 A PEEP INTO out Rome, and naturally Independent of it ; it had In the course of years, whether by usurpa tion or not, come under the supremacy of Rome ; and now, whether by rebellion or not. It Is free from It : and as It did not enter Into the Church invisible by joining Rome, so It was not cast out from it by breaking from Rome. These were accidents in Its history involving, in deed, SIN IN individuals, but not affecting the Church as a Church.' The winding up is also worth transcribing : ' It, (I. e. the pope's supremacy here,) is altoge ther an ecclesiastical arrangement ; not a point de fide, but of expedience, custom, or piety, which cannot be claimed as if the Pope ought to have it, any more than, on the other hand, the king could of divine right claim the supremacy ; the claim of both one and the other resting, not on duty or revelation, but on specific en gagement. We find ourselves, as a Church, under the king now, and we obey him ; we were under the Pope formerly, and we obeyed him. * Ought,' does not, in any degree, come into the question.' This is clever and convenient, but not quite original : in an old poem a similar arrangement is set forth by one well practised in expediency : NUMBER NINETY. 31 Til' illustrous line of Hanover And Protestant succession, To these I do allegiance swear, While they can keep possession : And in my faith and loyalty I never more will falter ; And George my rightful king shall be, Until the times do alter. For this is law, I will maintain Unto my dying day, sir, That whatsoever power shall reign I'll be the Vicar of Bray, sir. The ' conclusion' of Mr. Newman's pamphlet is worthy of what it concludes. He supposes a very natural objection. ' It may be objected that the tenor of the above explanation Is anti- Protestant, whereas It Is notorious that the Arti cles were drawn up by Protestants, and intended for the establishment of Protestantism ; accord ingly that it Is an evasion of their meaning to give them any other than a Protestant drift, pos sible as it may be to do so grammatically, or In each separate part. But the answer is simple: — In the first place, It Is a duty which we owe both to the Catholic Church and to our own, to take our reformed confessions In the most Catholic sense they will admit : we have no duties to wards their framers.' This last assertion involves a serious question : 32 A PEEP INTO does Mr. Newman think that the departure of a man's soul to be with Christ strips his character of the fence so graciously placed round it, dur ing his mortal life. In the Ninth Command ment ? Is he at liberty to bear false witness against his neighbour, because that neighbour Is no longer present in flesh ? He dared not have written a section of this insidious pamph let if but one of the framers of our Articles had been alive to have confronted him ; he may tram ple securely over the charred ashes of Latimer and Ridley, where they mingled with the dust of the earth, to rest until the resurrection day, while the souls of the martyrs under the heavenly altar plead for vengeance against the Great Har lot, into whose murderous embrace he Is thus striving to allure his inexperienced brethren : but, whether he admits it or not, God will yet teach him that he has a duty to fulfil towards the departed, whose memories, if they deserved what he has said of them, would be held In exe cration of all honest men. We are indebted to Mr. Newman, however, for the distinct admission made in the foregoing passage, that by the ' Catholic Church' he does actually mean that against which we protest as NUMBER NINETY. 33 an abominable system of falsehood, Idolatry, and anti-Christianity. To our Articles an admirable ' declaration' is prefixed, to which the reader will refer ; one pa ragraph runs thus : ' No man hereafter shall either print, or preach, or draw the Article aside any way, but shall submit to It In the plain and full meaning thereof : and shall not put his own sense or comment to be the meaning of the Ar ticle, but shall take it in the literal and gram matical sense.' Upon this Mr. Newman has the singular audacity to remark, ' Whatever be the authority of the Declaration prefixed to the Ar ticles, so far as it has any weight at all, it sanc tions the mode of interpreting them above given. For Its enjoining the ' literal and grammatical sense' relieves us from the necessity of making the known opinions of their framers a comment upon their text ; and Its forbidding any person to ' affix any new sense to any Article,' was pro mulgated at a time when the leading men of our Church were especially noted for those Catholic views which have here been advocated.' The ' Catholic view' most In vogue at that period was the blowing-up of King James, with all his Archbishops, Bishops, and the rest of the Parliament, with gunpowder. God, however, who delivered them from so great a death, has 34 A PEEP INTO to this day delivered their posterity, and In Him we trust that he will yet deliver us from the ' Catholic views' of those who would again bring us into subjection to Popery — drunken as she has often been, and as she hopes ere long again to be, with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. Much has been said of the talent, the learning, the piety of those who have been engaged for some years in putting forth these tracts. Talent and learning they undoubtedly possess ; but while they put them to such a use as this, we must needs question the reality of their piety, in the sense that their eulogists attach to the word. Surely Elymas possessed learning, for he was a sorcerer ; and talent, for he relied on his powers to turn aside the Deputy from the faith : but what said the Holy Ghost to him, speaking by the mouth of Paul, " O full of all subtlety and all mischief, thou child of the Devil, thou en emy of all righteousness, wilt thou not cease to pervert the right ways of the Lord ?" Yet Ely mas was an open opponent ; a direct Impugner of the truth as It is in Jesus ; one who faced the men while he resisted their doctrine ; one who himself, publicly and deeply, drank of the poisonous fountains at which he sought to retain Serglus Paulus. But his presumption was made NUMBER NINETY. 35 the occasion of delivering a noble victim from his grasp, and with him, no doubt, many others. The Scripture admonishes us to " honour all men," and such honour as is due to every child of Adam we ought not to withhold from the writer of the dishonest, mischievous and cow ardly production, that has drawn down the cen sure of the Board, and which. It is to be hoped, will awaken yet stronger censures from the Prelates of the Church : but these have been so long withheld, that' the foul leaven has had time and space to work most powerfully among the young ministers of the establishment, and It behoves their flocks to be most carefully guarded, and to " take heed how they hear." We belong to a Church, of which the confessions and doc trines are most scriptural : we hold In common with the framers of our Articles, Homilies, and Liturgy that all men " have sinned, and come short of the glory of God :" that, born under the curse of a broken law, ' man Is very far gone from original righteousness, and is of his own nature Inclined to evil, so that the flesh lusteth always contrary to the Spirit ; and therefore in every person born Into this world it deserveth God's wrath and damnation.' Article IX. — That ' we have no power to do good works pleasant and acceptable to God, without the grace of God D 2 36 A PEEP INTO In Christ preventing us, that we may have a good will, and working with us when we have that good will.' Article X. — That 'we are accounted righteous before God only for the merit of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, by faith, and not for our own works or deservings ; wherefore, that we are justified by faith only is a most wholesome doctrine, and very full of comfort.' Article XI. — That ' good works, which are the fruits of faith, and follow after justification, can not put away our sins, and endure the severity of God's judgment ; yet are they pleasing and ac ceptable to God in Christ, and do spring of ne cessity of a true and lively faith.' Article XII. — That ' works done before the grace of Christ, and the inspiration of his Spirit, are not plea sant to God, forasmuch as they spring not of faith In Jesus Christ ; neither do they make men meet to deserve grace.' Article XIII. — We also know that without being spiritually born again to God, receiving a new heart, and grace to walk In newness of life, none can enter the kingdom of heaven. We know that God hath given his own Son to die for us, that whosoever believeth on Him may have everlasting life ; and that they who are His receive the spirit of adoption, en abling them to approach the Most High, not as a terrible and angry Judge, but as a loving Fa- NUMBER NINETY. 37 ther, who accepts them in the Beloved, even in Christ Jesus. We know that " God hath given to us eternal life, and this life Is In his Son ; he that hath the Son hath life ; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life." 1 John v. 11, 12. So simple In its grandeur Is the doc trine often hid from the wise and prudent, and revealed unto babes ! Shall we then allow our selves to be beguiled of these blessed truths, and led Into the mazes of error that have conducted so many to everlasting death ? Shall we listen to teachers who, having suffered themselves to be blinded, desire to place a bandage on our eyes that we may follow them ? God has told us that the things which be revealed belong to us, and to our children ; and one of those revealed things is, that a time should come when his peo ple, not being able to endure sound doctrine, would heap to themselves teachers, having Itch ing ears. What sound doctrine is, we know, for we have the Bible ; and we are in danger of be ing seduced from the way of truth when men persuade us to adopt some other rule of faith, some other standard of orthodoxy ; and to for sake that fountain of living waters, for the broken cistern of man's invention, which can hold no water. Such honour, then, I repeat, as ' all men' 38 A PEEP INTO have a right to require, let us yield to our mis taken brethren, praying that God would lead them back Into the good old paths which they have unhappily forsaken ; but to yield them de ference on the score of talent or learning so misapplied as in the Instance before us, to make any account of personal amiability, or sincere earnestness in going wrong. Is to encourage their delusion, and to endanger ourselves. It is neither needful nor becoming for us to dabble in divinity, to examine abstruse questions, and to trim the balance between rival theologians : but It Is becoming, and it is an absolute duty on our part, to see that no man take our crown — even that crown of righteousness prepared for us by and in the Lord Jesus Christ, and to be given In the great day to all them that love his appear ing. Our fathers, and our mothers too, yielded up their lives for the testimony of the Lord Jesus, in those dreadful days, when the papal Anti- Christ lorded It over God's heritage, and haled to prison and to a fiery death those who be lieved on Him, according to the record which God has given us of him in the gospel : and the same enemy who then spake as a Dragon, while devoting the saints to slaughter, now approaches in the guise of a lamb, in order to take advan tage of our credulity. NUMBER NINETY. 39 Mr. Newman has distinctly, and unequivocally declared in this pamphlet, that his object is to do away with all hindrances that now prevent the Romanist from intruding into the ministerial office in our Protesting Church. In fact, some have stolen in covertly, and are now preparing, by means of such sophistry, the way for either a voluntary avowal, or an anticipated discovery of what they are. Grievous wolves have already entered the fold, and the shepherds who should watch over us, and detect and expel them, seem unaccountably heedless of the danger; but we have in our own hands the touchstone of truth, by which we may " prove all things," in order to "hold fast that which Is good." For our selves, our children, our serva;its, if for no others, we stand accountable to God, that nothing sub versive of this Truth be knowingly received among us : and with such a work before us as this of Mr. Newman's, we cannot pretend Igno rance of the point to which the doctrines of his school tend, or question for one moment that their tendency Is to lead us back to Popery. And what is Popery ? Is it a peculiar form of Christianity, an ancient and venerable branch ofthe Catholic or universal Church, encumbered with some errors, but still possessing the fea tures of an Apostolic community ? No, It is a 40 A PEEP INTO system clearly, copiously, unequivocally pre dicted, and pourtrayed in the word of God, and denounced by the Holy Ghost, as the great est of abominations, the darkest of apostacies. Those who embrace It are described as departing from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils : its official head is de signated the Man of Sin, the son of perdition — a title belonging to Judas Iscariot, who, from being numbered with the Apostles, "by trans gression fell" from his high office, and became the vilest of traitors and murderers. The Church, thus apostate and criminal. Is described as the Mother of harlots and abominations of the earth; and the cup that she holds forth, Instead of being replenished with the water of life. Is full of all filthiness and abomination ; while she herself Is drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. Her final ruin is prefaced by an urgent cry to God's people, to " Come out of her," lest being partakers in her sins, they should receive of her plagues : and when at last the judgment falls upon her, this call Is heard, " Rejoice over her, thou heavens, and ye holy Apostles and Pro phets, for God hath avenged you of her." And this is what Mr. Newman calls the ' Ca tholic Church,' — this is the communion from NUMBER NINETY. 41 which we Protestants have sinfully withdrawn and to which he longs to re-unite us ! We have many sins to bewail ; we have been unfaithful to God, as Individuals, as a Church, and as a nation, and we may well dread some heavy chastisement at his hand. None could be more fearful than a permitted lapse Into papal idolatry, now that the day of Great Babylon's final reckoning cannot be very far distant. Against the impending dangers, let us pray and watch, giving thanks to God for the disclosure now made of dangers that were before masked over : and let us search and try our ways, with full purpose of heart to cleave more closely to Him, who has graciously said, " I will Inform thee, and teach thee the way in which thou shalt go." Let us lean, not to our own understandings, nor upon any arm of flesh, but upon that " anchor of the soul, sure and stedfast," the hope of the gospel of Jesus Christ, turning from those who would beguile us of Its simplicity, even as we are commanded to do. " Cease ye from man, whose breath Is in his nostrils ; for wherein is he to be accounted of? " And now, a few words In conclusion : I have felt it the more needful to lay bare this wound thus Inflicted on the Church, because Mr. New man's recent submission to his Diocesan is cal- 42 A PEEP INTO culated to stifle inquiry and to leave it festering. In thus submitting, nothing has really been sa crificed — much gained. Number Ninety goes so far towards openly separating from the Pro testant communion, that it Is difficult to Imagine a step beyond it, that should not overpass the utmost boundary ; and this is not the present purpose of Its Author. Besides, a new form of publication will give zest to the controversy ; a little more mystery will whet the edge of curio sity ; a little seeming persecution for consci ence' sake will awaken sympathy : and such amiable lowliness of spirit, such exemplary sub mission to episcopal authority, will stand out in fine contrast to the alleged Insubordination of the Evangelical Clergy. Christian charity, or at least, a something that assumes the aspect, and appropriates the name of Christian charity, will plead for one who has expressed sorrow for his offence, and declared himself silenced. All. this will tell so advantageously for the wider spread of the delusion, that It could not have fallen out more opportunely. The ' Tracts for the Times,' close their series with a Coup-de-theatre peculiarly exciting, and calculated to ensure a call for the repetition of the performance, with such verbal alterations as the manager may find it expedient to make. Indeed, had not the cur- NUMBER NINETY. 43 tain fallen just when and where It has done, a di lemma must have ensued, from which the per sons engaged could not easily have extricated themselves. One feature in the portrait of Popery, as delineated by the hand of God Himself, is " All deceivableness of unrighteousness," and if any are lulled Into security, or pacified Into silence by this apparent withdrawal from the scene of action, they will regret it when too late to repair their folly. Mr. Newman very well knows that according to the concluding paragraph of the Declaration prefixed to our Articles he has endangered his gown : It runs thus — ' That If any public Reader In either of our ' Universities, or any Head or Master of a Col- ' lege, or any other person respectively in either ' of them, shall affix any new sense to any ' Article, or shall publickly read, determine, or ' hold any public disputation, or suffer any such ' to be held either way, in either of the Univer- ' sities respectively ; or if any Divine in the ' Universities shall preach or print any thing ' either way, other than is already established ' In convocation with our Royal Assent ; he, or ' they, the Offenders, shall be Hable to our dls- ' pleasure and the Church's censure in our Com- ' mission ecclesiastical, as well as any other : and 44 A PEEP INTO NUMBER NINETY. ' we shall see there shall be due execution upon ' them.' James the First was a shrewd Protestant, and ' due execution' he would unquestionably have seen done upon any ecclesiastical Guy Fawkes whom he might have detected prowling about the foundations of the Church with matches and dark lantern. We, however, live In liberal times, and must not expect such jealous vigilance. Yet since the security of our Church is a personal concern with each individual member, since, as the Bishop of London most emphatically re marked, we, the laity, united with the clergy and hierarchy, form the Church, we must claim and exercise the privilege of keeping watch and ward for our own proper safety, and drag into open daylight. If we can do no more, any Incendiary whom we may sieze, armed with the implements of a destructive explosion. THE END. YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 3 9002 03720 4907