to-day. What did the magnificence of the Parthenon, the sculpture of Phidias, and the artistic glories of the classic world, effect for Greek or Italian morality? What populations more impure, more morally degraded, than these, with all the advantages of the grand genius of a Pericles, to plan and to carry out the noblest works of art in the city of taste, backed by the lavish expenditure of a nation of free men? Behold Italy-the land of poetry, of painting, of music: say, what is the moral purity of that central soul of taste-Rome? Ask the harlot who tends that lepers' ward, what taste has done for them? She will answer, "I have hung these walls with the glories of art, but my lovers are lepers still." The highest authority teaches us that "the world by wisdom knew not God"-Christianity is a thing of the soul, not of the intellect. Communion with the Great Spirit is not the sensuous manipulation of Caste. Could we believe such an absurdity, there is no reason why the mimic convent-bell of the theatre and the imitative vesper service of the opera, with its exquisite chants and choral harmonies, its piteous misereres and triumphant jubilates, should not save many a "soul from death, and hide a multitude of sins." IMMORTALITY requires not the puritan of taste, but the puritan of heart. Many of our churches have become the show-rooms of spiritual nursemaids and their "infant prodigies;" the most prominent individuals, with true feminine taste, laying out their ghostly counters with lace and jewels, and variegated linens and cloths, and doves and lambs; though, with the under-bred assumption of the spoiled shopwoman, they too often turn their backs upon the fine ladies and gentlemen who frequent their show. Well may the Church be personified as 66 SHE," when we have such a confluence of robes and robing-maids, and lace and jewellery, within her boudoir, once her vestry. The singular silence of these church-women in our pulpits is scripturally correct, according to the apostolical precept, "I suffer not a woman to teach in the Church !"1 The following is an English churchwarden's description of the sort of Gospel preached in his church :-" While the clergy-bell is ringing, the choristers, boys and men, about twenty in number, issue from the clerks' vestry in procession, followed by one of the curates, cap in hand. When they have taken their places, Mr. Liddell and two curates, with occasionally volunteer clergymen, walk in procession from the vestry, each bearing one or more of the vessels 1 On the Christian Ministry. See "What is Wanted." By the Rev. J. Ryle. to be used at the communion. As they approach the altar, on which stands a large cross, Mr. Liddell bows to it reverently, and places on the Credence-table by its side the vessel he has brought. Mr. Nugee, also bowing reverently, now approaches, and, giving up what he has brought to be placed there, takes his place on the -south side of it, followed by the others, who, having followed his example, with the exception of bowing, take their places behind him. While this is going on, the choristers and congregation have all risen." 1 Is this Christianity? Well may it be said that Divine service will be performed by such and such a one. Here, in the full blaze of knowledge, in the nineteenth century, we see a body of men, with their eyes closed, and their ears hermetically sealed, going over to a politico-ecclesiastical corporation, as being the only guild of godliness,-a corporation which they know right well tortured, burned, and imprisoned myriads of their fellowcreatures; all whose blood-stained laws, and treacherous morality, form the rule of that political Church to this very day. Englishmen! look around you. Mark those men, who, after having been trained at a so-called Protestant university, for a national Protestant ministry, have leagued themselves, not with a pure Christianity, but with a tyrannical policy and a tyrannical organization, whose prince is an Italian priest. Is it for this that your universities are maintained? The Christianity of Wickliffe, of Ridley and Latimer, of Hooper and Jewell, never designed these ancient edifices for the normal training-schools of Italian Jesuitism. A crooked policy that tampers with the Christianity of a nation may anticipate a righteous national doom. It is thus that men treacherously degrade the offices of a church which they betray, and which they desecrate by heathen ceremonies and Italian paganism! Is it for this that Ridley perished? Is it for this flagrant superstition, these processions of spiritual nursemaids with the toys and rattles, the coral and bells of the heathen children whom they bear in their arms, that England has endowed a noble institution? Look, Monk of Oxford ! -see you yon high ambassador of Heaven, the Christian JEWELL? Oh! bend your knee to Christ, and breathe an earnest prayer that He would dignify your grovelling aims, to make you such as he was the terror of false priesthoods, and the messenger of good to man. Once more, behold that Great-heart, Wickliffe :-strip off yon jewelled lace, and fight for TRUTH as he did. See you that MAN, of Bunyan's stalwart mould ?—that is a Gospel labourer; be you like him: work for 'Mr. Westerton's Letter to the Bishop of London. your MASTER, Christ; your wages shall be ample; but for priests He has no pay. If you are not prepared for this, you have mistaken your part in the world's great drama; for of the world you should be. Be you that for which your habits of a fine gentleman have fitted you your hands are too dainty to dig in the vineyard. A masterof-the-ceremonies' place will suit you well. Do this, and the honest people of England will commend your growth in honesty and wisdom. That no idea of harshness may attach to the designation "Monk of Oxford," just applied to this hybrid species of Christianity that has built its nest within the walls of the Church of England, like some foul bird that shuns the day, we here present the reader with the acknowledged doctrines of this recreant band, who are luring on the country to its destruction, and who openly scout the principles for which Latimer and Ridley perished, and avowedly proclaim their adherence to that paganized religion which Rome practised in England before the murder of these holy men by the merciless hands of those who held those very doctrines in which they now glory. "3 All the authorities are taken from the recognized and leading writers of this heathenized Caste. The sum of their doctrine is, to "say anathema to the principle of Protestantism;" "1 to "depart more and more from the principles of the English Reformation ; "2 to "sigh to think we should be separate from Rome; to regard "Rome as our mother, through whom we were born to CHRIST." 4 It is to denounce the Church of England as being "in bondage, as working in chains, and as teaching with the stammering lips of ambiguous formularies; "5 it is to eulogize the Church of Rome, as giving "free scope to the feelings of awe, mystery, tenderness, reverence, and devotedness; "6 and as having "high gifts, and strong claims on our admiration, love, and gratitude." 7 It is to declare that our Articles are "the offspring of an uncatholic age," 8 and that the Communion Service is "a judgment upon the Church ;"9 it is to teach that "the Romish ritual was a precious possession; "10 and that the Mass-book is " a sacred and most precious monument of the Apostles." 11 It is to assert that "Scripture is not the rule of faith;" 12 that "the oral tradition of the Church is a fuller exposition of God's revealed truth; "13 that the Bible, " placed without note or comment in the hands of uninstructed persons, is not calculated, in ordinary cases, to make them wise unto salvation ;" and that only persons "disclaiming the right of private judgment in things pertaining to God" are members of the Church of Christ.2 It is to teach that baptism, and not faith, is the "primary instrument of justification; "3 that we are not to "neglect the doctrine of justification by works; "4 and that "the prevailing notion of bringing forward the doctrine of the Atonement, explicitly and prominently, on all occasions, is evidently quite opposed to the teaching of Scripture." "95 It is to assert that in the Lord's Supper, Christ is "present under the form of bread and wine;' "6 that "He is then personally and bodily with us; "7 and that the clergy are "intrusted with the awful and mysterious gift of making the bread and wine Christ's body and blood." 8 It is to "maintain the lawfulness of prayers for the dead;"9 and to make a "distinction between venial and mortal sins;" 10 and to assert that “ person may believe there is a Purgatory; that relics may be venerated; that saints may be invoked; that there are sacraments; that the Mass is an offering for the quick and dead, for the remission of sins; and that he may yet, with a good conscience, subscribe to the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England."11 It is to put the visible Church in the place of Christ, by teaching that "she alone is that true hiding-place into which the servants of God may flee for refuge, and be safe ;"12 it is to put the sacraments in the place of God, by declaring that they are the 'SOURCES of Divine grace. "13 seven Here, then, is a set of men, officiating in the so-called Reformed Church of England, with nearly the whole of the leading despotic principles of the hierarchical government of the Church of Rome as their veritable guide. If we look around in the vicinity of the metropolis, we shall find these antichristian principles completely carried out. The church of St. Peter at Pimlico, once Charlotte Chapel, enjoys an unenviable notoriety, and receives polite attention from the Popish organ: "The hymn-book used at the Puseyite chapel in Charlotte Street, Buckingham Place (the minister of which lately became a Catholic, and was followed soon by other clergymen in his locality), is almost entirely derived from Father Caswell's 2 Ibid. 8 Ibid. 'Linwood's Sermons. 3 Newman on Justification. 'Linwood's Sermons. 5 Tracts for the Times. 6 Linwood's Sermons. "Tracts for the Times. See W. Elfe Taylor's "Spirit of Popery," whence these authorities are " Ibid. extracted. 12 Linwood's Sermons. 9 Ibid. beautiful translation of the Breviary and Missal hymns, though it has a few from the Oratory hymn-book and other sources. Here, also, we have the antiphons and introits. In the hymn for All Saints (taken, we believe, from the St. Saviour's selection), the following verse occurs :— "Mary leads the sacred story, Mary with her heavenly child; Maid and mother undefiled.'" "On All Saints' Day," writes the Tablet, "they sing the same introit as is used by the Pope and all his bishops and clergy in the mass of this day, 'Let us rejoice and keep a festival in honour of all the saints, on whose solemnity the angels rejoice,' &c.; and the greater antiphons of this season (which are also used) cannot be said to be derived from any other source than the Roman. But not only are our hymns, and antiphons, and introits appropriated by these good people, who aspire to be Catholic without the Pope; Catholic prayers and offices are equally used by them. Thus, at Margaret Chapel, the Præparatio ad Missam and the Gratiarum, from the Roman Missal, have been 'privately printed' (as the titlepage states), and circulated among the congregation, with prayers from St. Bonaventure, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Ignatius of Loyola, and other Catholic saints, containing, of course, the doctrines of Transubstantiation and the Mass, Purgatory, &c." "At the time when Cardinal Wiseman was in the midst of that odium and unpopularity excited by the recent Papal aggression, and the Papacy-loving propensities of the Margaret Chapel flock were the subjects of much and indignant comment, some unhallowed wight, forgetful that the church, however desecrated, was still the house of God, obtained a number of sparrows, and attiring them in scarlet gowns and cardinals' hats, leaving at the same time their wings unconfined, set them loose, in the midst of the evening service, among the worshippers. Their extraordinary and impish appearance, their beating against the lamps, and the confusion which they occasioned, gave rise to a scene such as it is to be hoped will never again be beheld in any church professing to belong to the English communion.”1 The following is the Rev. Mr. Palmer's idea of the position and office of the Virgin Mary. Mr. Palmer was a leader among the Anglo-Catholics : "Assuming that in and under Christ, the head, the Blessed Virgin is, after her assumption, as it were the neck of the Church, ' Church of England Quarterly Review, April, 1854. |