and which form the basis, or platform of doctrine, upon which his own national communion of Christians is joined together.

Now neither of these obligations is at all acceptable, or even tolerable, to one who, like Dr. Pusey, regards Rome as "our mother, through whom we were born to Christ." In fact, before a return to the embraces of this "mother" can be effected, the fences set around our Zion,-of Scripture as the one sole and sufficient Rule of Faith; and the Articles, "in their literal and grammatical sense," must be broken down. Hence it becomes a question altogether vital and fundamental,-whether Dr. Pusey may be allowed to modify Scripture by the aid of Tradition, and the known and authorized teaching of our Church, in her Articles, Liturgy, and Homilies, by "the teaching of her (so-called) great Divines." We might, and should, object to any such evasion, upon principle. But the exhibition we have just made of Dr. Pusey's Appendix, shows how justly we might also object to it, on practical grounds;—as being, in fact, nothing else than a permission to make the Articles speak a language which they do not speak, by dint of extracting from five hundred volumes of theology, published since the Articles, certain "explanations," used by the extractor in a sense in which they were never written! Turn a practised Catena-compiler into the British Museum, or the Bodleian Library, and grant him liberty to cull four lines from Bishop A's Sermons, and seven lines from Dr. B's Treatise, and half a sentence from Archdeacon C's Exposition, and what heresy is there that he will not be able to maintain? And then let him come forward, using Dr. Pusey's words, "With the Fathers, then, and our own great Divines, explaining, as I believe, the true meaning of our church, I could "not but speak, &c." and where is our church, as to any definite system of doctrine, but embarked on a shoreless sea of human opinions, without a compass, and without a helm !

"

1 Tracts for the Times, No. 77, p. 33.

A CHARGE delivered to the Clergy of the United Dioceses of Ossory, Ferns, and Leighlin, at his Primary Visitation in September 1842: By JAMES THOMAS O'BRIEN, D. D. Bishop of Ossory, Ferns, and Leighlin. London: Seeleys. 1843.

THOSE persons who object to any open and direct denunciations by our prelates of the sentiments and practices of the Tractarians, may be divided into two classes :-The first are the Tractarians themselves; who, with more prudence than modesty, complain greatly that their superiors will not wait quietly, until " the present establishment" is "blown up;"-the second, more reasonable men, who have not as yet been taught to form a correct estimate of the magnitude of the threatened danger. Both classes, however, are accustomed to put forward the same plea. If these sentiments and practices, it is said, are opposed to the authoritative decisions of the Church, in its acknowledged rules and formularies, why are not the guilty persons proceeded against in a legal manner? If they be not, the bishop, in denouncing them officially, is only delivering his private opinion, while lending the weight of his dignity to assist his own particular faction in the Church, and to discredit and crush their adversaries. Such reasoning is often heard; oftenest, indeed, from the mouths of those whose consciousness of their own designs and their manner of prosecuting them, ought to make them ashamed of so grossly imposing upon the minds of the simple; but frequently too from well-meaning people, who are in no ways infected with the errors denounced, and who despise the sophistry by which they are supported, too heartily to be afraid of its effects. We are ready to admit that, in ordinary cases, we should be disposed to consider this reasoning unexceptionable. In ordinary cases we feel little doubt that a prompt and vigorous execution of the existing laws, in the regular and legal manner, is the best means of repressing any real breach of those laws in respect either of doctrine or discipline; and we would fain see the machinery of ecclesiastical justice in such order that the laws could always be administered with promptitude and vigour. We should be sorry, in any case, to see a prelate lending his official authority to the support of what could be truly designated as a party or faction in the Church; nor do we think that it is desirable that a bishop should choose those occasions upon which he speaks from his episcopal chair, for the delivery of his mere private opinions, or the ventilating of questionable speculations. But we, in this day, need not to be told that there may be such a

thing as a combined system of operations, keeping within the strict letter of the law, or overpassing it so cautiously as to make it very hard to bring the transgression under legal cognizance, and yet so clearly tending towards the subversion of all established order, as to leave its true character doubtful to no considerate man of ordinary capacity. When a movement is going on confessedly at variance with the principles of the Reformation, having for its declared object a great and fundamental change in the present constitution of the Church-a movement which the directors themselves announce to be attended with the most momentous consequences; and which, if successful, must effect a change which they themselves acknowledge would amount to nothing less than a REVOLUTION :--when such a movement is advancing, with a speed and steadiness which prove it to be the result of an active and extensive conspiracy, possessed of unusual skill and surprising resources-is it a time when the chief pastors of the Church can be silent; or speak only to praise the zeal, and excuse the errors, of the heads and managers of the conspiracy? It is not that one or two divines at Oxford have published books of a more than ordinary high-church character-or that an individual, here or there, has made himself notorious by his antipathy to Protestantism-or that Mr. A. in the north, and Mr. B. in the south, have erected candles on their altars, and crosses in their rood-lofts. In almost every generation peculiar minds have exhibited such peculiar eccentricities, and that without scandal or injury to the community at large. But it is that a strong and increasing party are combined in a compact and powerful alliance to force a certain set of principles and practices upon the united Church of England and Ireland, to change the whole tenor of its teaching,—the whole structure of its framework,—its relation to the state, its relation to its lay members, its relation to the Churches of the Roman dependency, its relation to the Protestant communities abroad-in short, to alter, more or less, every important relation in which a Church like ours can be conceived to stand. In such a juncture, the bishops could not avoid interposing without betraying the cause of Protestantism; and we rejoice to see that no timid or temporising counsels have prevented them from very generally giving their clergy and the public at large the benefit of their direction and advice, under circumstances of such trying difficulty as the present.

Nor is it only the peculiar constitution of the Church of England which is threatened by the present danger. The whole confraternity of Protestantism is menaced by a more alarming movement than any which has taken place since the great counter

reformation was begun under the auspices of Loyola and the Caraffas. We do not charge the Tractarian leaders with having concerted a formal coalition with Rome, or with acting under the orders of the Propaganda; but we cannot but feel that the very spirit and principles of that active school, which has revived Romanism upon the continent of Europe, have been transfused into them; and that they are as completely serving the ends, and developing the views, of the Moehlers and the De Maistres, as if those ingenious champions of Popery actually held their pens, and guided all their operations. The conflict in these kingdoms is only partthough perhaps the greatest and most important part of the grand struggle of religious opinion which is now agitating the whole of Christendom. For some time it seemed as if licentiousness and infidelity were the only enemies to be dreaded. The peril of popery was talked of with ridicule, as the dream of other generations. The Church of Rome was looked upon with contempt, or even pity, as an old and languid superstition, already in its dotage, and fast tending towards dissolution. Whether that apparent inactivity was the result of real weakness, or "the grim repose" of conscious strength, which only awaited its proper time-whatever were its cause it has now undeniably passed away. When Protestantism had been weakened by internal dissensions and divisions-when, through all the churches of the continent, wild havoc had been made of discipline, of morality, of the very faith itself; when it was observed that the impregnable position of the German and French Reformers was now hardly, if at all, occupied by their successors; when the attention of the British divines, who had stood firmest upon their original vantage-ground, was wholly turned towards the attack which seemed to threaten them from a different and an opposite quarter; then it was that the presiding spirits of the papal system put forth all their energies with sudden and astonishing effect. The flood rose abroad before it was sensibly felt by ourselves. But its coming could not long be delayed. The British churches, from the first, had been the stay and centre of the Reformation. If that land-mark be once lost, what remains to check the spreading of the deluge? The "Tracts for the Times" were the first advancing wave; and it has swept-though, doubtless, with more surface than depth-over a great part of England, and flung some of its froth and spray, and not a little of its mud and sea-wrack, upon the shores of America. Encouraged by such success, the proud waters are now rising high and strong, and promise soon to cover all their old channels with a fresh spring tide of fanatical intolerance. There are, doubtless, some who still persist in assuring us, that there is no real danger. But, while we

can admire the philosophic indifference which can look unmoved upon this mighty conflict, and smile with easy satisfaction at the busy spectacle, we confess we do not envy it. The principles of the Reformation are things to us really valuable; and we should not quite desire to see their defenders disputing for them in the same quiet and disengaged tone and manner, as might suit a discussion about the individuality of Numa Pompilius, or the exact nature of the Agrarian law. A transcendental mind may, indeed, find reason to felicitate mankind upon the benefits which it foresees will ultimately result from everything which strongly agitates the feelings of the community ;-may remind us that good will always come out of evil, and that the final triumph of truth is inevitable. We know all this. We know, upon something better than philosophic evidence, that the light of Christ's Gospel will never be wholly quenched in the world. But who has promised that it shall never be quenched in these kingdoms? Who has engaged for us that the candlestick of the Church of England shall never be removed from its place by the hand of that great high priest, whose eyes are as a flame of fire, and who searcheth the very heart and reins? We are not afraid of free discussion. We have no wishwe have as little inclination as we have power-to gag our adver saries. But we know that free discussion is then only safe when the zeal and ability of the champions of truth bear some proportion to that of the advocates of error. Let us not, therefore, be called alarmists, if we press earnestly and unceasingly, upon those who are able to defend the truth, the magnitude and imminency of the present crisis. We, Protestants, are certainly not the aggressors in the existing conflict. We are struggling for liberty; for liberty, in its fairest form, as guaranteed by law and consecrated by long possession. We are not "ecclesiastical agitators," striving to wrest that liberty from our governors; we have it already, in the present constitution of our Church, in the faith and discipline purchased for us by the blood of martyrs. We are only anxious to retain it against the bold attempts of those whose principles of intolerance are open and avowed-who are unscrupulously making use of the privileges and immunities which our establishment confers upon them, to destroy the foundation upon which it standswho want the power much more than the will, to drive us, not from the altars and the pulpits only, but from the very communion of the church of our forefathers;-men who call it persecution to be compelled to make a show of tolerating us, and esteem it a hardship that they are deprived of the instruments of oppression.

It was with unmingled pleasure, therefore, that we found the Bishop of Ossory taking such a decided tone in the Charge deli