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fore liable to mistakes and errors like other theologians." We will quote one testimony further: "The authority which we claim for the primitive Church, is wholly different from that claimed for the apostles, in this most important respect; that whereas the apostles and evangelists SINGLY were inspired by the Holy Ghost, and their separate authority, therefore, divine, we claim for the Church, even in its earliest and purest ages, no divine authority, except in its full and unexceptionable CONSENT." "We receive the holy Scriptures upon the plain historical ground of contemporary evidence; and in those Scriptures we find the promise which guarantees the infallibility of the Church when she really speaks in her complete and universal character." But where, we must ask, is this uniform and unexceptionable consent? Where is the promise which guarantees the infallibility of the Church? And how would this infallibility differ from that of the Romish pontiff?*

4. System of Fasting. Great stress is laid in the Oxford Tracts upon those practices which involve self-denial and mortification of the flesh. The following is from Tract 21 by Mr. Newman. "Consider, moreover, the general austere character of Christian obedience, as enjoined by our Lord; a circumstance much to be insisted on in an age like this, when what is really self-indulgence is thought to be a mere moderate and innocent use of this world's goods."t "Our reformers (Tract No. 18,) kept and enjoined one hundred and eight days in each year, either entirely or in

*The system, according to Prof. Powell, the able opponent of the doctrine of tradition, implies the addition of an authorized comment to the apostles' writings. Accordingly, the church and the fathers were as much the depositaries of one portion of Christian doctrine as the apostles and evangelists were of another. Consequently the evidence requisite to establish that authority must be precisely the same for both. Now the kind of evidence generally looked to is that derived from miracles. Has tradition the support of miracles?

There is reason for injunctions of this kind, if a correspondent of the Christian Observer, Dec. 1839, testifies truly: "You have probably seen," he says to the editor, "the painful accounts of clerical attendance in bath-rooms. And it is a fact, that many clergymen do yet frequent such scenes; and this often during the season of Lent."

part, to be in this manner sanctified; two sevenths of each year they wished to be in some way separated by acts of selfdenial and humiliation." In Tract No. 66, a series of rules is suggested in relation to fasting. One of these rules is, that in some cases the fast may be accompanied with little outward acts of self-denial, such as those which Jeremy Taylor instances, viz., hard lodging, uneasy garments, laborious postures of prayer, journeys on foot, sufferance of cold, paring away the use of ordinary solaces, rejecting the most pleasant morsels, etc.

5. Celibacy. Dr. Pusey, in his letter to the bishop of Oxford, says, that nowhere in the Tracts have there been put forth any recommendations of celibacy in general, or that of the clergy in particular; and that what has been elsewhere said by any who have written in the Tracts has been dropped incidentally. When it has been mentioned, it has been with reference to specific cases; as for example, Fronde remarks, that "great towns will never be evangelized merely by the parochial system; they are beyond the sphere of the parish priest, burdened as he is with the endearments and anxieties of a family." He says also, "that it has lately come into his head that the present state of things in England makes an opening for reviving the monastic system." Dr. Pusey remarks, that the "preference of celibacy, as the higher state, is scriptural, and as being such, is primitive." He also thinks that the English Church might have her sisters of charity, whose spotless and religious purity might be their passport amid the scenes of misery and loathsomeness.

6. Rites and Forms. Among the lesser ceremonies which have been adopted by some of the Oxford school is, the turning of the minister from the people in public prayer; the use of the low desk instead of the second pulpit; bowing at the name of Jesus; the introduction of show-bread tables beside the sacrificial altar; the adoption of additional clerical habiliments; the use of the cross, of paintings, etc., in the churches.

7. Prayers for the Dead. This subject, also, Dr. Pusey

* Or rather, as Dr. Hook (Call to Union, p. 27) contends, revived, they having been, according to him, the usages of the English Reformers.

says, is mentioned incidentally by the writers of the Tracts, and that, in whatever degree it has been brought into notice, it has been through the diligence of their adversaries. He proceeds to remark, that "our Church regards all who depart hence in the Lord as in a state of yet imperfect happiness, and coincides with the prayers of the ancient Church, which speak of those departed as at rest, yet pray that God would show them mercy, and hasten the resurrection, and give a blessed sentence in the great day." "Those who condemn all prayers for Christ's departed servants, as popish, are doing Rome an honor which she little deserves, and making her out to be in this respect primitive, instead of the corrupter of primitive practice."

8. General Tendency towards Romanism. There seem to be some inconsistencies in different writers of the Oxford school on this subject. Thus the British Critic, vol. 26, p. 64: "The Roman Catholic Communion, whatever else it was or did, must be allowed this praise, that it was ever distinguished as the pillar of the truth. Its awful unity seems to have preserved it from the infidel temper of recent ages, as much as from the vast apostacies of the Eastern Church." Many other passages of a similar tenor might be cited. Dr. Pusey, in his letter to the bishop of Oxford, which is a mild and softened statement of the tenets and usages of the school, instances a number of points where the Anglican divines differ from Rome. Thus the English Church appeal to the authority of the Universal Church as long as it was one; Rome, to the Church ancient or modern, in communion with herself; the English, to the consent of the early church, however it be ascertained; Rome, to the decision of councils, confirmed by the bishop of Rome; in a word, the English divine seeks for a genuine apostolic tradition, to be established by the consent of all times, all churches, and the great doctors of all those churches; Rome, like ultra Protestants, follows modern traditions, assumes them to be apostolic, simply because she holds them, and she is infallible.

9. The Union of the English Church to the State. We should infer from the general current of the writings of the Oxford divines, that the continuance of this union is, on the whole, undesirable. Its dissolution is not, indeed, directly advocated. But no little effort is made to show that the English Church would still remain, in its substantial integri

ty and glory, were the connection with the State sundered. The evils flowing from the interference of a secular power are mournfully and earnestly depicted. The following are some of the charges of the British Critic against the "Defender of the Faith." He is now bound to defend the kirk in Scotland, popery in the Canadas, and idolatry in India. None of the privileges and offices of the State are necessarily confined to churchmen. The whole of the Church property in Ireland, and great part in England, has been vested in a commission so constituted as to be entirely under the control of the crown. The property of the Church is no longer taxed by convocation. Church rates are abolished in Ireland, and are threatened in England. The right of the bishops to sit in the House of Lords, though not yet taken away, is reduced to half a quarter of what it was, the bishops not being now more numerous than in the reign of Henry VIII., while the temporal peers have been multiplied near eight times. Convocation is suspended and virtually suppressed, while the State is violently legislating for the Church. The management of the poor, and the public collection for them, is entirely taken out of the hands of the Church. The Episcopal right of licensing school-masters is now a dead letter. A universal system of education, without a religious creed, is forced on Ireland, and England is menaced with the The State maintains a popish college in that island, and contributes to dissenting schools in England on the same terms as to Church schools.

same.

We have thus exhibited, as fully as our brief limits will allow, some of the more prominent features of the doctrines and practices advocated by the Oxford Theologians. In another paper we shall advert to other matters pertaining to the established Church, to the principal dissenting denominations, and conclude with some reflections growing out of the discussion.

ARTICLE IX.

THE PRESENT STATE OF THE JEWISH RELIGION.

By E. S. Calman, Missionary to the Jews in Palestine.

[Concluded from Vol. III. page 426.]

NEXT in order is the Feast of Tabernacles, commanded in Lev. 23: 39: "Also in the 15th day of the 7th month, when ye have gathered in the fruits of the land, ye shall keep a feast unto the Lord seven days." From several other passages it is evident that this feast should be kept at the close of the year, as Ex. 23: 16: "And the feast of harvest, the first fruits of thy labors which thou hast sown in thy field, and the feast of ingathering which is in the end of the year, when thou hast gathered in thy labors out of thy fields." And Ex. 34: 22: "And thou shalt observe the feast of weeks, etc., and the feast of ingathering at the year's end." From all these passages it is evident that the Talmudists have acted presumptuously in making the feast of Trumpets the new year, x, consequently the poor Jews give it only this name, and thus the feast of Tabernacles comes at the beginning instead of the end of the year, as the Lord has commanded. The first two days are kept with decency and order, and next come the four days which are called , the profane days of the festival, during which the

the commemoration of the ,שמחת בית השואבה merriment of

joy of drawing water in the Temple is performed. The Jews everywhere celebrate this feast in the most sensual and corrupt manner. It originates of course from the Talmud, and may be found in Gamarah Sookouth, 48th page, where may also be found the chimerical and fanciful reason for it, and the manner of celebrating it. The following is a quotation from it:

ניסוך המים כצד צלוחית של זהב מחזקת שלושת לוגין היה ממלא אותם ממי השילוח הגיעו לשער המיים תקעו והריעו ותקעו עלה בכבש ופנה לשמאלו ושני ספלין היו שם ומנוקבין כמין שני חוטמין דקין אחד מעובה ואחד דק כדי שיהיו שניהם כלין כאחד מערבית של מים ומזרחית של יין תני רבי יהודא בן בתירא אומר נאמר בשני ונסכיהם בשישי ונסכיה בשביעי כמשפטס מ"ס יו"ד מ'ם הרי כאן מיים מכאן רמז לניסוך המיים המיים מן התורה

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