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TEACTS FOR THE TIMES.

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To tlie Editor of the Globe.
Sir, As allusions have been made in the House of Commons
to the Tracts for the Times, reported to be written by members of the
University of Oxford, it may be as well to call the attention of the
nation to some of the statements made in a tract lately published by
Rivington, entitled, " Remarks on certain Passages in the XXXIX
Articles," being No. 90 ofthe series.
With regard to Holy Scripture, the language of the tract is as
follows : — " We may dispense vrith the phrase ' Rule of Faith,' as
applied to Scripture, on the ground of its being ambiguous," — p. 8 ;
and afterwards, " Perhaps its use had better be avoided altogether.
In the sense in which it is commonly understood at this day. Scrip
ture, it is plain, is not, on Anglican principles, the Rule of Faith." —
P. 11.
With regard to Purgatory, — None of these doctrines (the Pri
mitive, the Catholic, the Tridentine, and the one maintained by the
Greeks at Florence, having just been enumerated) .does the Article
condemn; any of them may be held by the Anglo-Catholic as a
matter of private belief — P. 25.
With regard to the Veneration of Relics, — A certain toleration of
them is compatible with the meaning of the Article. — P. 24.
With regard to the Invocation of Saints, — Judging from two
examples set us in the Homilies themselves, invocations are not cen
surable, and certainly not "¦ fond," if we mean nothing definite by
them, addressing them to beings which we know cannot hear, and
using them as interjections. — P. 36.
With regard to Transubstantiation, — Let them believe and act on
the truth that the consecrated bread is Christ's body, as he says, and
no officious comment will be attempted by any well-judging mind.
But when they say, " this cannot be true, because it is impossible,"

then they force those who think it literally true, to explain how,
according to their notions, it is not impossible. And those who ask
hard questions must put up with hard answers. — P. 58.
With regard to Masses, — Nothing can shew more clearly than
this passage (a part of Article XXXI) that the Articles are not
written against the creed of the Church of Rome, but against actual
existing errors in it, whether taken into its system or not. Here the
sacrifice of the mass is not spoken of, in which the special doctrine
would be introduced, but the sacrifice of masses, — p. 59 ; and again,
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 for
the quick and the dead for the remission of sin, — p. 63. The words
of the Article alluded to are —
" The Sacrifice oi Masses, in the which it was commonly said that
the priest did offer Christ for the quick and the dead, to have remis
sion of pain or guilt." It may be as well to observe, that in the
tract, the word priests is substituted for the word priest (sacerdotem),
an important alteration, which is pregnant with meaning.
With regard to the Marriage of the Clergy, — That she (the
Church) has power, did she so choose, to take from them this dis
cretion, and oblige them either to marriage or celibacy, would seem
to be involved in the doctrine ofthe Homilies. — P. 64.
With regard to the Bishop qf Rome, — 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. — P. 79. This seems scarcely recon-
cileable with the words of the oath of supremacy — " No foreign
prince, person, prelate, state, or potentate hath, or ought to have, any
jurisdiction, power, superiority, pre-eminence, or authority, eccle
siastical or spiritual, within this realm."
It cannot be denied that extracts taken apart from the context
may not fully explain the writer's views, who seems to leave more to
be inferred than he chooses to state ; but these passages are selected
as elucidations of the theological statements of the Traetariaus,
vvhich statements appear at length to have assumed a more definite
form in this tract (No. 90.) There is an introduction, and a con-

elusion to it, both contributing to develop the writer's views. In
the former he observes, " Religious changes, to be beneficial, should
be the act of the whole body ; they are worth little if they are the
mere act of the majority ;" to which passage a note is appended —
" It is not meant to hinder acts of Catholic consent, such as occurred
anciently, when the Catholic body aids one portion of a particular
church against another portion." The import of this note is, that
the minority of a particular church, when aided by the Catholic
body from without, is justified in bringing about a change, which
would be unjustifiable in the majority, unassisted by foreigners.
In the conclusion we find it stated, " In the first place, it is a
duty we owe 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 their framers." And again, " Whatever be the
authority ofthe ratification prefixed to the Articles (by Charles I. in
1628,) so far as it has any weight at all, it sanctions 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 nem sense to any Article,' was
promulgated at a time when the leading men of our Church were
especially noted for those Catholic views which have been here ad
vocated." The sophistry of this remark is transparent, for the term
" any new sense," in the declaration, is clearly opposed to the " literal
and grammatical sense," or what is styled in a preceding clause "the
true, usual, and literal meaning of the said Articles ;" which " literal
and grammatical sense" must have been the same in the reign of
Charles I. as in the reign of Elizabeth, and must have represented
the honest opinions of the framers, unless they are supposed to have
been bad or foolish men, which, I think, has not yet been asserted
of them.
The few last sentences of the conclusion are as follows : — " The
Protestant confession was drawn up with the purpose of including
Catholics ; and Catholics now will not be excluded. What was an
economy in the reformers, is a protection to us. What would have
been a perplexity to us then, is a perplexity to Protestants now. We

could not then have found fault with their words ; tliey cannot now
repudiate our meaning."
It is beyond the province of a letter to discuss the above observa
tions. The argument throughout the tract is pretended to be based
on logical considerations, — p. 64; but there is not much attempt at
reasoning. A dexterous play of words, and some subtlety of inter
pretation, seem to be what the writer mostly trusts to ; and as his
readers are chiefly young men, such weapons may possess the desired
efficacy. How far this method of interpretation will be allowed,
rests mainly with our bishops and our universities, who, in proposing
subscription to the XXXIX Articles as a test of the soundness of
religious views, attach of course a definite meaning to the subscrip
tion; and to quote the words of Isidorus, "Quacunque arte verborum
quisque juret, Deus tamen, qui conscientise, testis est, ita hoc accipit,
sicut ille, cui juratur, intelligit."
Let me add, that no intelligent person reading these tracts, and
other productions of the same school, can doubt that a most for
midable party has at last openly declared its intention of destroying
our venerable Church as by law established, and of reviving in its
stead undisguised Popery. Whatever may be the particular view of
the individuals who contribute to these tracts, whatever be their piety,
whatever be their learning, the object of them as a party cannot be
mistaken, and it is now at length plainly avowed.
A Member or the Church of England.

printed and published by j. VINCENT, OXFORD.

YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

3 9002 08561 6903

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