whole Church and Hooker were by ultra-Protestants always so accounted.

Hooker then says (Eccl. Poi. i. 14.) :

"We do not reject them (the Romish traditions) only because they are not in the Scripture, but because they are neither in Scripture, nor can otherwise sufficiently, by any reason, be proved to be of God. That which is of God, and may be evidently proved to be so, we deny not but it hath in his kind, although unwritten, the self-same force and authority with the written laws of God. It is by ours1 acknowledged that the apostles did in every Church institute and ordain some rites and customs serving for the seemliness of Church regimen; which rites and customs they have not committed unto writing.' Those rites and customs being known to be apostolical, and having the nature of things changeable, were no less to be accounted of in the Church than other things of the like degree, that is to say, capable in like sort of alteration, although set down in the apostles' writings. For both being known to be apostolical, it is not the manner of delivering them unto the Church, but the Author from whom they proceed, which doth give them their force and credit."

Again, one of these writers, among the dangers of altering the Liturgy, notices the tendency of change itself to produce the love of changing, the appetite growing with what it feeds on. With this view, he instances objections, which men of opposite characters might take to the commencement of the service; as, one might think, "the introductory sentences not evangelical enough ;" another, "the form of absolution not strong enough." Now the very object of the Tract, and the character of the illustrations, showed the writer to be (as he indeed is), content with things as they stand. The jest, however, required that you should represent the contrary as the opinion of the writers of the Tracts, and the Pope feeling for them when they lament concerning the absolution (p. 12), "that it is a mere declaration, not an announcement of pardon to those who have confessed."

Yet granting that a writer had thought this "absolution " not strong enough, this would not make out the writer a Papist, since the absolution in the Communion-service is, (as

1 Whitaker adv. Bellarm. qu. 6. cap. 6.

is right,) stronger than this; and that in the Visitation for the Sick stronger still; so that a person might even wish for a much "stronger" form of absolution, and yet remain within the bounds of our Church. And so little strong did our form appear to the American Episcopalians, that in the Rubric before the absolution, they substituted the words, "A declaration concerning the Forgiveness of Sins," &c. Yet herein we fare better than usual; for you have equally treated (ibid.) as Papistical, words wherein another writer (Tracts, No. xvii. p. 4.) embodies our Church's language in the Visitation for the Sick. If a minister, you must, when called upon, use that same language; whether then it be Papistical or no, we may leave you to decide.

Again, another writer, now asleep in the Lord, gave an historical statement of the gradual compression of the Church services, and especially that which went on in the Romish Church, "long before the abolition of the Latin service." (Tract ix. p. 2.) This the Reformers carried on; it is not Papistical, surely, to say, "unadvisedly;" a person may regret that the Communion and Morning Service are conjoined, and think that, but for this, the Communion would probably have been administered more frequently, and yet not be a Papist. For this compression of services had begun in Papistical times, and the error of the Reformers (if it was one) was compliance with the "spirit of [a Papistical] age." This, however, would have afforded no room for pleasantry; and so the whole is represented as being, in our eyes, a departure from Rome, and an error of "our misguided Reformers."

One expression of this writer demanded a candid judgment: he said,

"The idea of united worship, with a view to which identity of time and language had been maintained in different nations, was forgotten."

It is plain that what the writer herein lamented was the loss, not of the Latin language as a medium of prayer, but the loss of that feeling of unity, "with a view to which identity of

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time, as well as language, had been maintained in different nations." He could not, and did not, object to the disuse of a "language not understanded by the people." (Art. xxiv.) Accordingly he added, "the identity of time had been abandoned, and the identity of language could not be preserved." This last sentence would have embarrassed the fiction, and so you have omitted it.

you

These instances may illustrate the almost certain risk of sacrifice of truth, entailed by such a fiction as that upon which have ventured. I need not adduce more; for I have no thought of refuting your statements: this we will do, if ever you take upon yourself seriously to maintain them; at present I would only show you the danger of such trifling in holy things. Before, however, you venture upon serious controversy, as the champion of ultra-Protestantism, I would recommend you to review your armour;-weapons which you have not proved, however they may make a show in this counterfeit and mockery, will not hold in real earnest. You belong, Sir, to a school which would substitute individual speculation for solid learning and the knowledge of antiquity, and which, consequently, has the reputation of at times reproducing as new, and so giving undue and injurious prominence to, what all divines were before well acquainted with; and at times, also, has fallen into strange unhistorical errors. Now, whether a certain doctrine be Papistical or no, is matter of history, not of speculation; and one not versed in history will be liable, perpetually, to confound the earlier truth, or unobjectionable custom, with the later corruption; especially if he has no very clear idea of Christian theology. Thus you attack—as implying transubstantiation-expressions which convey only the doctrine of the Eucharist, as held in the early Church and our own.

The same want of acquaintance with antiquity, probably, led you to confound the early practice of commemorating God's departed servants at the holy communion, and praying for their increased bliss and fuller admission to the beatific vision, with

the modern abuse of masses for the dead, and the doctrine of purgatory. You found it stated in the account of the ancient liturgies (Tract lxiii.), that "prayers for the dead" occurred in the several ancient liturgies, founded upon those of St. Peter, St. James, St. Mark, and St. John.

Our departed friend, namely, put together an interesting paper, showing "the antiquity of the existing Liturgies." From the tract itself, it would appear that his main object was to direct persons' attention to the view taken in those Liturgies of the consecration and oblation of the Eucharist (p. 16), since the consecration of the Eucharist is now so often regarded as a mere preliminary, instead of being in itself an essential part of the service; and this falls in with a part of the self-exalting rationalism of the day. In giving an account, however, of the points wherein "all the ancient Liturgies now existing, or which can be proved ever to have existed, resemble one another" (p. 7.), he was necessitated to mention "prayers for the dead" (p. 8, 9.), or, as he explains it, "for the rest and peace of all those who have departed this life in God's faith and fear;" and having mentioned that they "all contain (4.) a prayer, answering in substance to ours for the whole state of Christ's Church militant," he added (5.), "and likewise another prayer (which has been excluded from the English Ritual) for the rest and peace," &c.

He carefully guarded, then, against perplexing men's minds; he did not put the question prominently forward; he did not blame the Reformers under Edward VI. for having yielded to the judgment of foreign ultra-reformers, against their own previous judgment; he stated the simple fact, that this prayer had been excluded, i.e. whereas it had been retained on the first putting together of our Liturgy in " Edward VI.'s 1st book," it was excluded from the 2nd, at the instigation of Bucer and Calvin; and Bucer's alteration was adopted. The original unbiassed judgment, then, of our Reformers was to retain the prayer; and it argues no tendency to Popery, if any one wish that our Reformers had, in this and other points,

for which they had the authority of the early Church, adhered to their first judgment. These same Reformers had at that time a clause in the Litany, which has since been excluded, praying against "the tyrannye of the Bishop of Rome, and all his detestable enormities;" so that you could hardly accuse them of Papistry'.

The following is the part of the prayer omitted:--

"We commend unto Thy mercy, O Lord, all other Thy servants, which are departed hence from us with the sign of faith, and now do rest in the sleep of peace: grant unto them, we beseech Thee, Thy mercy and everlasting peace; and that, at the day of the general resurrection, we, and all they which be of the mystical body of Thy Son, may altogether be set at His right hand, and hear that His most joyful voice, Come unto me, O ye that be blessed of My Father, and possess the kingdom which is prepared for you from the beginning of the world.' Grant this, O Father, for Jesus Christ's sake, our only Mediator and Advocate."

Now to this prayer neither Calvin nor Bucer objected that it was Papistical. On the contrary, Calvin says, in his letter to the Protector (Epp. p. 39. fol.),

"I hear that in the celebration of the Supper there is repeated a prayer for the departed, and I well know that this cannot be construed into an approbation of the Papistical Purgatory. Nor am I ignorant that there can be brought forward an ancient rite of making mention of the departed, that so the communion of all the faithful, being united into one body, might be set forth: but there is this irrefragable argument against it, viz. that the Lord's Supper is a thing so holy, that it must not be defiled with any human addition."

Calvin argues further against the practice, 1st, as "not being founded on Scripture;" 2nd, as "not answering the true and lawful use of prayer."

Bucer, again, says, (Censura in Ordinat. Eccl. Opp. Angl. p. 467.)

"I know that this custom of praying for departed saints is very old, although there is no mention of it in the description of the Lord's Supper in Justin Martyr."

1 Cranmer had seen and written against the error of Purgatory even under Henry the VIIIth. "The necessary doctrine and erudition of a Christian man," A.D. 1543, is, in this respect, a decided advance beyond "The institution of a Christian man,” A.D. 1537. (Comp. Formularies of Faith in the reign of Henry VIII., p. 210 and 375-7.)