tion, but rather its great glory, that Ken found in it so much apostolical order, and that he only left it at last with hesitation and reluctance, from a political, not an ecclesiastical scruple; that Wesley so far acknowledged its evangelical truth, that he never deserted its communion, though he struggled against its discipline; that on the revival of its life and energy in these latter days, it has still asserted its old character, still winning to a living faith in Christ men of diverse habits, and tastes, and feelings, and reckoning among those who have lived and died in its service, Heber, Simeon, Henry Martyn, Arnold, and Hare." ART. V.-The Nature of Christ's Presence in the Eucharist: or, the True Doctrine of the Real Presence vindicated in opposition to the Fictitious Real Presence asserted by Archdeacon Denison, Mr. Wilberforce, and Dr. Pusey, &c., &c. By the Rev. WILLIAM GOODE, M.A., F.S.A., Rector of St. Margaret, Lothbury, London. 2 vols. London: Hatchard. IT has fallen to the lot of the Rev. Mr. Goode to be the chief literary antagonist of the Tractarian section of the Church. The cry of that party, from the commencement of their movements to unprotestantise the Church, was-that there was no learning amongst any class of theologians but themselves; that they alone had antiquity on their side; and that their decision in things spiritual was consequently authorative. Unfortunately for themselves, such overweening self-sufficiency speedily brought about its own refutation. They doubtless imagined that what they asserted was true. They relied upon the supposition, which, singular to say, was in this instance, at least, honest that there was such an absence of theological lore and critical acumen amongst the Evangelical clergy, that they could carry the citadel of Protestantism, and win it back for Rome by a coup de main. Unhappily for themselves they reckoned without their host. Mr. Goode, in a very short time, proved to them, that whatever might be the ignorance of some portion of the Evangelical-or rather Protestantclergy of the Established Church, there was one, at least, against whose learning and research they could not make head; one, at least, who was not to be deceived by specious. reasoning or flimsy declamation. His first assault upon the promoters of the Oxford movement, in his invaluable work, "The Divine Rule of Faith and Practice," completely annihilated the presumption of dictatorial assertion, and demo GORHAM CONTROVERSY. 115 lished the flaming pretences, that antiquity would speak for no other religious system being teanable than that of sacerdotalism. The searching test which that gentleman applied to every assertion upon which the Tractarians relied, and the perseverance with which he followed up the length of the presumed Catena Patrum, link by link,-which was ostentatiously paraded, showing that it was, after all, but a mere rope of sand,―checked, as was but natural, the boldness of assumption, though it did not destroy the determination of the purpose to make the Church more Romanist than Catholic, more Pagan than Protestant. From the time when Mr. Goode's remarkable book appeared, greater caution was displayed, and a different line of policy was assumed; but no reply, worthy of the name, has ever been attempted, nor any answer given to the challenge thrown down to them. In fact, Mr. Goode's book was felt to be unanswerable, and after a volley of abuse, which goes for nothing but to show its impotence and absurdity, has been permitted to rest in peace, except by those who, when pressed by Tractarian purpose, resort to it for weapons which never fail to accomplish an easy triumph; for it remains a wall ahead against the Tractarian and Romanist, over which they must leap, but through which they will never hew out a way. The cleverness of its construction, and the force of its reasoning, is admitted on all hands, even by those most injured by its power; and so it remains as the most important reply that has yet been given to the advanced siege, which the semi-Romanist party have laid against the citadel of the Christian faith-the Church of England. The purpose so industriously, patiently, and triumphantly began, Mr. Goode has not permitted to stand still. Compelled to expose the dishonesty of intention and design, which is still, as it ever has been, at the bottom of Tractarian policy, and persuaded, that if let alone, that dishonesty will only show itself with greater resolution to deceive and mislead the unwary, he has never omitted an opportunity of carrying on the war so ably began in the work to which we have alluded. During the Gorham controversy, he again entered the lists in behalf of the Protestant doctrine on the Sacrament of Baptism; and now he is once more in the fore-front of the contest to explain and enforce what are the tenets of the Church of England, when the effort has once more been made to make the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, little else than a modification of the dogma of Transubstantion. In this controversy, Archdeacon Denison, who raised it, and is about to be the victim of his own perversion of the Articles of the Church of England, assumed the same authority of antiquity, which Dr. Pusey, and others of the Tractarian party, have always paraded, depending also upon a Catena Patrum, culled with singular care, in the matter of false quotation, to make it tell for the object in debate. Mr. Goode has therefore again come forth to meet the Archdeacon on his own ground; and, moreover, to deal with his much more learned associates, Dr. Pusey and the late Archdeacon Wilberforce, whose doctrine is closely akin to that promulgated in the sermons preached in Wells Cathedral; and whose exposition of such doctrine is much more specious, and calculated to deceive the unwary than anything orally uttered by their much mistaken friend. It is one of the characteristics of Mr. Goode to exhaust a subject, to turn and twist it about in all shapes, and in divers manners, and to hit logically and definitely, the very points of an adversary which, of all others, are most likely to take with an indifferent student, from the plausibility with which they are put. We find him thus in these volumes taking up, from their published treatises, the expositions of the three individuals, who have made themselves most notorious in the adoption of doctrine closely akin to that of Transubstantiation and the Sacrifice of the Mass, examining those expositions, sentence by sentence, and paragraph by paragraph, with all the acuteness and perseverance of an anatomist. He takes up, for example, a sentence written either by Archdeacon Denison, Dr. Pusey, or Mr. Wilberforce, which, at a first glance, does not appear to contain much that is objectionable. In Mr. Goode's hands, however, such a passage is soon made to appear merely as the corollary of something very definite and perverse that had preceded it, and is so handled as to prove there was a purpose in making the specious take the semblance of the fair and consistent argument. Mr. Goode's faculty of memory, also, is shown to be immense. Not a single statement ever escapes him. Again and again does he refer to an exposition, which would pass from the memory of most persons, and bring it out to show how it bears upon a system which, cunningly contrived as it is, will not bear, in the slightest degree, the test of logical examination. This peculiarity has a tendency to make Mr. Goode's writings tedious to many readers; but its value will be perceived by all who admit the necessity of constant caution, and the most unceasing activity in dealing with persons who feel it necessary to adopt special pleading; and, we lament to say, dishonest quotations to support their cause. The latter propensity has always been laid to the charge of Tractarian writers. It is no uncommon thing for these writers to assert, that the opinions of such and such a writer make for their theory; and this has its weight with numbers, who have neither time nor inclination to examine the authors themselves who have been quoted, to see whether they have been honestly dealt with or not. When, however, this test is applied, after Mr. Goode's manner, it is almost invariably the case, that the passage selected, as making for the cause dealt with, is either taken from the argument of an opponent, set out in order to be replied to by his antagonist, or else it has been so changed by the omission of words and of whole sentences sometimes, as to make the authorities, on whom dependence is pretended, to be placed, say just the opposite of what they really have said. Mr. Goode has often exposed this fearfully dishonest practice, but never more conclusively than in the present volumes, which, did they possess no other value, would be invaluable in this respect. It will, however, be perhaps just as well that we should let Mr. Goode speak for himself on this head, for he brings forward his accusation, and proves it with so much conclusiveness, that we feel we should be doing him an injustice were we not to let him be, as far as possible, his own exponent. In the following passage it is made apparent that Dr. Pusey, Mr. Wilberforce, and also Archdeacon Denison have stooped to the unworthy practice of the frequent use of phraseology bearing two senses, and the misapplication of passages from our great divines containing such passages, for the purpose of proving doctrine opposed to the manifest views of their authors. 66 "From the peculiar character of the subject," Mr. Goode says, a wide door is open for sophisms and fallacies of various kinds, especially in connexion with the phraseology employed. The difference of meaning in which the same phrases may be used, tends greatly to mislead and confuse the reader; and a skilful disputant may if he pleases, entangle an inexperienced reader in endless perplexities by a dexterous use of terms, and appear to be only maintaining the same doctrine which divines have asserted, who nevertheless did in reality write in defence of entirely different doctrine. In fact, on this subject passages might be quoted from Bellarmine, Luther, Calvin, Zuinglius, that is, from authors of all the different schools that ever existed in this matter, as to the presence of Christ in the Eucharist, and the eating and drinking of his body and blood; and if they were all put together without the names of their authors, or anything to indicate who uttered the words, no one could be sure who wrote them. Hence the facility with which a 'Catena' may be drawn up in favor of any view, from the writings of authors totally opposed to that view. And hence clearly the confusion that has so largely prevailed recently in the public mind upon the question whether the doctrine of the authors under review is consistent with the doctrine maintained by our Reformers and great divines. And I believe that one great object to be kept in view by any writer who would wish to guide the public mind to the truth on this subject is, to clear away this source of misconcep tion. "Do the authors under review maintain a change in the elements after consecration? It is easy to find passages in our great divines asserting such a change. "Do they maintain a real presence of Christ in the Eucharist? Numberless passages may be brought from our old divines which do the same. "Do they maintain a real eating and drinking of the body and blood of Christ? So did Cranmer, Jewel, and all their worthy successors in our Church. "Do they guard their doctrine by the limitation that it is only a spiritual presence,' a 'sacramental presence,' or sacramental union,' for which they contend? What more, some will be disposed to say, can you require of them? "But any one acquainted with the different way in which these phrases are used on the subject, will know that it is utterly impossible to judge from the use of these words what the doctrine of an author is. "Let us examine the different meanings of which they are susceptible. "Thus, as to the question, whether the elements are or are not changed after consecration. In one sense they are, in another they are not. In character and use they are, in nature and essence and condition they are not. The phrase, therefore, may be used so as entirely to mystify the reader, and passages quoted from authors who have used the phrase in one sense to support doctrine connected with a very different sense of the words. 66 Again, as to the phrase 'real presence in the Eucharist.' Our authors use this phrase as if it had no other meaning but a real bodily presence of Christ in the eucharistic elements. But our old divines who used these words, used them in a totally different sense. They never supposed the body of Christ to be given to the elements. "So as to the real eating and drinking of the body and blood of Christ. The notion connected by our authors with these words is, an oral eating and drinking of Christ's real body and blood; and as they dare not maintain them to be materially present, they have been driven to the fiction of a real presence of that body and blood in spiritual or immaterial form. But these words are also used by our old divines, and the doctrine contained in them urged as most important. Are we to conclude that their doctrine was the same as that of our authors? Hasty and superficial readers |