REVIEW.

1. The Voice of the Anglican Church; being the declared Opinions of her Bishops, on the Doctrines of the Oxford Tract Writers. Collected. With an Introductory Essay, by the Rev. Henry Hughes, M.A., of Trinity College, Oxford; Perpetual Curate of All Saints', Gordon Square, and Lecturer of St. Luke's, Old Street. 2. A Charge delivered to the Clergy of the three dioceses of Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay, at the Primary Metropolitical Visitation in the autumn of the year 1842, and the spring of 1843. By Daniel, Bishop of Calcutta, and Metropolitan of India.

3. A Charge to the Clergy of Dublin and Glandelagh, delivered in St. Patrick's Cathedral, June, 1843. By Richard Whately, D.D., Archbishop of Dublin. To which is appended, A Petition to the House of Lords, praying for a Church Government; together with the Report of the Debate on its presentation, and some additional Remarks.

4. The Expediency of restoring at this time to the Church, her synodical powers, in Remarks upon the Appendix to the late Charge of his Grace the Archbishop of Dublin. By James Thomas O'Brien, D.D., Bishop of Ossory, Leighlin, and Ferns. July, 1843.

5. Some Remarks on the Sermon of the Rev. Dr. Pusey, lately preached and published at Oxford. In a letter addressed to that gentleman. By Samuel Lee, D.D., Regius Professor of Hebrew in the University of Cambridge, Canon of Bristol, and Rector of Barley, Herts. 6. 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.

IS THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND PROTESTANT, OR NOT? This is a question which has been asked, and to which we think a clear and decisive reply is not yet placed upon record. In other words, Are the well-known principles of the Protestant Reformation, those which the clergy of the endowed Church are prepared to uphold, and with which they are willing to stand or fall? Or is the system sustained by the state, that of concealed and latent popery, as some allege, tempered with more or

less outward respect for truths of an evangelical cast, as the taste of the times may dictate? Are we to have the word of God, in its fulness and entirety, as the sole rule of faith, and arbiter of controversy ? or are the opinions of men, whether Fathers or councils, to be deemed, if not equal to, at least co-ordinate with, the words of Christ and his apostles? Is the right of private judgment, in the full sense of that term, to be acknowledged as the inalienable inheritance of man? or are clergymen and endowed teachers, modern or ancient, misnamed priests, to stand between men and their Maker, and to dictate the terms of communion, and to legislate for us in matters of faith and conscience? Or, in shorter terms still, using the words in their popular and ordinary signification, Is the Church of England Protestant or Popish ?-We do not present the inquiry either unadvisedly or invidiously, but with the utmost urgency and seriousness, being quite persuaded that much depends upon it, and that it is one which the people of England will, one day or other, insist, as they ought to do, upon having distinctly answered. To show the importance of this inquiry, and to collect some lights which may assist in its solution, is one design of the present critique.

In the various articles which have been presented to the public in the pages of this work, upon the points at issue respecting the Church, particularly those which appeared in April and May, 1840, it has always been our wish to give a faithful portraiture of the actual state of things, and a fair exposition of the principles, which, in our judgment, ought to determine the questions in dispute. As we anticipated at the outset, the controversy excited by the Oxford Tracts, has gone on with deepening and widening force, and it seems farther than ever from being likely to reach a termination. In their zeal to find a barrier against the onward progress of religious freedom, and what we deem evangelical doctrines, the Tractarians laid down principles which could not but identify them with the great Romish apostasy, in the fathomless depths of which, we were sure they would be swallowed up and lost. This has already been, in a great degree, verified. Some have gone over openly to the Romish camp; others have affronted the common sense of a Protestant community, by the recklessness with which they have maintained the worst errors of Romanism; and the Church has been split into schisms and parties, to an extent perhaps to which no corporate body, making a boast of unity, was ever subjected before.

The Tractarian heresy, as our readers well know, is nothing more than a revival, in a modified form, of the doctrines and ecclesiastical pretensions of the Church of Rome, by certain clergymen of the Established Church. The extent to which they carry their views we have no right to object to; we even commend them for going so far as the principles they adopt will lead ; but we say that these principles negative all that was done at the time of the Reformation, and would go far to

require the recognition and re-establishment of the Papacy in these realms. If one-half of all that Dr. Pusey and Mr. Newman believe, be true, it will appear to many that the Archbishop of Canterbury, and all the English clergy, should forthwith quit their benefices; to which a body of priests, duly ordained and recognised by the Pope, ought immediately to succeed. This is, we suspect, the view taken by the general body of the Roman Catholics, in England, in Ireland, and in Italy, as indeed appears from the speeches and writings of their influential men; and this we know to be the opinion of many reflecting Protestants. A member of Parliament, who is a competent judge in such matters, though holding religious views different from our own, recently assured us of his strong conviction, that, in a single generation from this time, the whole of the Church of England would be Popish.

This tendency of Tractarianism, to derange or subvert the existing status of the Church Establishment, begins to be felt as a practical difficulty. The Tractarians, as their organ, "The British Critic," has abundantly shown, have been constantly advancing towards Rome, and scruple not to speak of Protestantism, and of everything Protestant, with undisguised contempt. But this has naturally produced alarm on the other side. These people, it is said, have gone too far. The dignitaries of the Church, who might have quietly tolerated so much of Puseyism as would have sufficed to oppose Dissent, did not wish to have much more. Bishop O'Brien himself candidly tells us, that "not a few, who abhorred Popery, underrated its strength, and regarded Protestant Dissenters as the Church's most formidable enemies. And having, at the first appearance of the Tracts, hailed their authors as powerful maintainers of the Church against Dissent, from whom the most important services were to be expected, they were very slow in relinquishing these happy anticipations, and renouncing the aid of such able auxiliaries." To go as far in Puseyism as would make out the Dissenters to be schismatics, was going just far enough; but to go so far as virtually to oust the present clergy, and restore the Pope's functionaries, would be really going a great deal too far. Apprehension prevailed in high quarters. Even conscience began to be troubled : for when interest and duty happen to coincide, it is curious to observe the wakefulness of the moral faculty. It was apparent that something should be done; and the bishops, it was said, ought to speak out. Well, something has been done; and the bishops have spoken, each in his own way. The question is, whether enough has been said and done, to vindicate the Protestant character of the Anglican Church, and to repel the combined attack of the Puseyite and Roman confedeWe think not; and our reasons will appear in the sequel. The first book upon our table, is a neat little volume, entitled, "The Voice of the Anglican Church," by the Rev. H. Hughes, A.M.; in which he professes to collect the several testimonies, from the

rates.

writings of no less than eighteen bishops and archbishops, all more or less condemnatory of the opinions of the Oxford Tract writers. The author is concerned at the spread of opinions which he deems unsound and perilous to the Church, and appears anxious to make the most of every protest made against them by the Episcopal authorities.

The next is a Charge to his Clergy, by Dr. Daniel Wilson, the Bishop of Calcutta, strongly denouncing the Tractarian system, as an approximation to all the corruptions and superstitions of papal Rome. This is a vigorous and effective protest, and precisely what we should have expected from his known character, and early education among the more intelligent portion of Protestant Dissenters. He was baptized, we believe, by the Rev. Samuel Brewer, pastor of the Independent church at Stepney. As a youth, he frequently went with his family to the Tabernacle, Moorfields, and he for some time regularly attended Divine worship at New Court, Carey Street, during the pastorate of the late Rev. William Thorpe, afterwards of Bristol, who was the immediate predecessor of the late Rev. Dr. Winter, at New Court. Mr. D. Wilson consulted Mr. Thorpe upon the subject of entering the Old College, Homerton, with a view to the dissenting ministry, as we were informed by Mr. T. himself, who added, that he did not then deem it fit to encourage the application. We rejoice to find that, although the Bishop of Calcutta has long since changed his views upon the subject of church government, this charge to his clergy contains ample proofs that he has not forgotten, in his present exalted position, as metropolitan of India, that sound Protestant theology which he professed in the days of his youth. He deeply deplores the spread of Tractarianism in the East, and adds, "In India, my firm persuasion is, that if this system should go on, we are lost as a Protestant church —that is, we are lost altogether."—Dedication to Charge, p. 17.

The third publication is a Charge by the Archbishop of Dublin, Dr. Whately, delivered in St. Patrick's Cathedral, June, 1843. It is brief, but emphatic; and contains, like all his other works, many valuable and important suggestions, to which we may have occasion subsequently to refer. The Archbishop is anxious that the convocation should meet.

Bishop O'Brien's Answer to Archbishop Whately's Charge, next demands our notice. This pamphlet opposes the idea of a convocation, as not suited to the present time; and assigns reasons against it, wise and good in themselves, but not likely, as the writer anticipates, to find favour in the eyes of churchmen. Dr. O'Brien occupies himself too much at length upon Dr. Whately's illustrations, who had compared the meeting of convocation to the functions of parliament, as though the one could, by any possibility, precisely resemble the other. We should have been glad to have had some other reasons brought forward against the measure; but the admissions con

tained in the reply, which are the more stringent from the manliness and candour with which they are stated, will be felt, by the clergy, as a strong censure upon the absence of practical wisdom, in the conduct of ecclesiastical affairs, that might be expected to characterise their movements in a house of their own.

Our fifth work is a pamphlet, by Professor Lee, called forth by Professor Pusey's celebrated sermon upon the Eucharist, delivered at Oxford. Dr. Lee is Regius Professor of Hebrew in Cambridge, and Dr. Pusey holds a kindred office in the sister university of Oxford; but though they occupy similar stations in the same church, and similar offices in her two universities, they are far from holding the same sentiments in ecclesiastical and theological matters. Dr. Lee, with his accustomed ability and force, charges upon Dr. Pusey, and his school, “certain radical inclinations to Romanism, too palpable to be misunderstood;" and subjoins, "I am disposed, therefore, to look upon this endeavour of Dr. Pusey, and his party, as one of the most insidious, sweeping, and ruinous, that could have been devised. Its manifest tendency is to unsettle everything, under a plea the most authoritative, plausible, and alluring; a plea admirably calculated to ensnare the junior branches of the clergy, and with them all who have not either leisure or learning to examine this question for themselves."

The sixth production on our list, is an able and elaborate Charge, delivered to his Clergy by Dr. O'Brien, the Bishop of Ossory, extending, with its valuable Appendix, to 292 pages. He also charges the Oxford system with its tendency to Romanism; which is additionally important, as coming from an Irish bishop, who must know, from practical observation, what Popery really is.

We have carefully perused these publications, in order to see what is doing in the Church itself, to repel and repudiate doctrines which appear, on the face of them, to be essentially Romanist, and incompatible with the very existence of a consistent Protestant church. The conclusion to which we have come is, that they utterly fail to make out a good case for the Establishment; and we think so for reasons which we shall now proceed to state.

I. It appears to us that the protests are, in the great majority of cases, feeble, insufficient, and unsatisfactory, on the essential points at issue. We are thankful for the condemnatory sentences uttered by different dignitaries, upon incidental topics in the system of the Tractarians, but we look in vain for that universal and unanimous condemnation which the case seems to require. The sentiments of eighteen bishops and archbishops of the English and Irish Church are cited in Mr. Hughes's volume, and he is pleased to denominate them "the voice of the Church;" but where are the testimonies of the remainder to be found? And who, we ask, empowered these eighteen to speak in the name of the whole body of the clergy? The progress of these dogmas among