their being agreeable to Scripture, and consequently in such sense only wherein they are agreeable to Scripture ;"* and as it seemed evident to them that the Athanasian doctrine was quite repugnant to Scripture, they "necessarily concluded à priori" that it was not, to them, the just meaning of our Formularies.

And it is, perhaps, even still more curious to observe, that substantially the same plea is urged, upon other occasions, by the very persons who are most opposed to the writer whom we have quoted, and to the party to whose mast† he has nailed his colours. The Articles of the Established Church, say the Tractites, though perhaps "ambitious of a Protestant sense," are "patient of a Catholic one." And as our Church certainly claims to be "in accordance with Catholic antiquity," we are bound to understand her declarations in no other sense than such as seems to us in harmony with the decisions of the Antient Fathers.

But in all such reasonings, men confound the rule for receiving human forms, with the rule for interpreting them. Church Formularies, we should interpret, as we would any other documents, by the natural force of the words, and the known scope and design of the compilers or imposers. And when we have thus found their meaning, we must try that meaning by whatever we regard as the ultimate test of Doctrinal Truth; to receive or reject them, according as they agree or disagree with that.

It is worth observing, with reference to this curious resemblance between the Tractites and their opponents, that it is an instance of one effect of Reactions which is commonly overlooked. It shows that men are sometimes driven round by Reaction into that very error (only in a slightly different shape) from which they fancy themselves to be flying.

Thus, the loose way in which some of the so called "Evangelical" party were accustomed to deal with the Formularies of our Church-making the plain meaning of those documents bend to what the subscribers might consider the true sense of Scripture-gave general scandal and alarm to many who felt the importance of a settled order, and saw the manifest danger of its subversion. Hence arose a cry, in the way of reaction,

* Clarke's Introduction to "The Scripture-doctrine of the Trinity."

Such, as we have seen, is this writer's own expression. But he probably means that he has nailed the colours of the Evangelical party to His Mast.

for a strict adherence not only to the spirit, but even in all cases to the very letter, of the Liturgy and Articles-and especially of the Liturgy, because that had been most hardly treated by those whose conduct called forth the cry. But too soon the attempt to restore constitutional order took the shape of a crusade against liberty. The Liturgy and Articles, however strictly interpreted or rigidly enforced, left many points of doctrine undefined, and many matters of practice to be determined by individual discretion. There was still, therefore, much room left in the Church for diversity of opinion and variety of practice. Great blanks in the Church-system had been, as it were, left by our Reformers-often advisedly, sometimes through oversight, and not unfrequently from finding it impossible to agree upon the way of doing that which all were anxious to have done. Of these blanks, however, the more ardent maintainers of Regularity soon became impatient; and looking about them for some more stringent rule than was ready at hand, bethought themselves, naturally enough, of the decisions of the CATHOLIC CHURCH. But no sooner was that venerable Form evoked out of the mists of Antiquity, than it was found, like an over-powerful ally, too strong for the very cause in the name of which it was summoned. The "Catholic Church" had so much more to say and show, than the Church of England, that the latter soon shrank into comparative insignificance, and came to be considered as a mere appendage to the other, having no proper will, or at least authority of its own. And soon the maintainers of Church-principles began to deal with the Liturgy and Articles in a manner which far exceeded the greatest insults that had ever been offered to those Formularies by the party against whom they had excited such a clamour.

We may, perhaps, see an instance of the same sort of reaction in the way in which many minds have been led to tolerate the Tractite-practice of Reserve in preaching the Doctrine of the Atonement. They were first disgusted by a style of preaching which, in fact, reserved the whole Body of christian morals, and put forward nothing but the Doctrine of Justification by Faith only,*

* Here it may be worth remarking, by the way, that in our translation of the Scriptures, and also in the eleventh article, it would have been more correct, and more conformable to the original expressions of the Sacred Writers, instead of the words by faith," to say " through faith." Strictly speaking, a man is not justified, nor can obtain Salvation, either by faith, or by works. Faith is required of him, and so are

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as the sum and substance of the Gospel. They were indignant at such a mutilation of christian truth; they were alarmed at the mischievous effects which in some instances they had observed it to produce. They were eager, and rightly eager, for a more practical style of preaching; and thus they were led on gradually to confound the evil consequences of preaching the Atonement exclusively and injudiciously, with the idea of preaching it openly at all; till, in the end, they substituted one system of reserve for another.

Indeed, the more one considers how shocking in itself was the scheme propounded in the famous Tracts upon Reserve, the more he will be convinced that there must have been something in the circumstances of the times at that particular period, to prepare men's minds for it, and to throw upon it from without a specious colour of plausibility which it certainly had not from within. And though nothing can be more absurd than the pompous claims which some Tractite writers make to the honour of having rediscovered the necessity of cultivating good works— nothing more outrageous than the extravagant bitterness with which they denounce what they style "the Lutheran doctrine of Justification," as the prolific source of every heresy, and every abomination, yet none, who were not mere maniacs, would have ventured upon such claims, or such denunciations, if there had not been something to give them an air of plausibility. Now, that something appears to have been the circumstance that, in too many cases, the duty of sedulously cultivating active righteousness had been a topic not insisted upon often enough, or prominently enough, or largely enough, by preachers of that school which was then most popular in these countries.

Of some, indeed, it would be too gentle a form of expression to say, that they did not press strongly enough the duty of active righteousness, and the motives to its' cultivation; because their theological system left, in fact, no intelligible grounds for establishing any such duty at all, and no motives to be urged good works; but if either or both of these could be the efficient cause of justification before God, and of final Salvation, he would be justified and saved by himself, since the faith and the obedience that are required of any one, must be his own faith and obedience. But it is by God's free mercy in Christ, and by that only, that we can be saved. Faith is only (as some have rightly expressed it) the hand with which we lay hold of God's offers; and obedience is the necessary fruit of real christian faith. "By Grace," says Paul (Eph. ii. 3)," are ye saved, through faith; and that, not of yourselves-it is the gift of God." See "The Homily on the Salvation of Mankind," expressly referred to in the Articles, on this subject.

for the discharge of it. Faith, they described as an individual's personal assurance of the divine acceptance of him; and this acceptance they represented as so full and final, that all the believer's trangressions past, present, and future, were at once and for ever hidden from God's sight, and absolutely ceased to be sins at all in his view.* So that it was (according to them) a mere temptation of the Enemy which could lead us, from any feeling of remorse after a crime, to suspect that God took notice of it, or was displeased with us on that account; and not satisfied with thus securing to the believer an immunity from guilt, they further taught that, from the moment of his justification, he was invested with all the merit of Christ's sinless obedience, and might, consequently, claim eternal life, in virtue of that transferred righteousness, as due to him from God the Father, in the way of debt.

Such was the system urged (just two years before the Tracts for the Times were first issued) from the Pulpit of St. Mary's, upon the University of Oxford, in a Sermon, (afterwards published,) which then and subsequently produced no slight commotion in men's minds.†

Now, it is plain that such a system as this leaves no intelligible motive to holiness-not regard to God's favour: for that (it seems) we possess, in virtue of our union with Christ, quite irrespective of our personal behaviour. God cannot (on this

* We have ourselves heard a preacher tell his hearers, that the Elect should grieve indeed for the sins of the world, but not for their own; since God suffers his People to fall into very grievous sins, expressly to keep them humble!

+ "God sees no sin in believers, because there is none in believers before him; and though feeling, sense and reason, tell him that it is not so, yet the word of God tells him that it is so; and, indeed, reason itself must confess this, that if there were any sin in believers before the face of God, God must behold it; but if God does not behold it, then there is none. Now the word of God (Numb. xxiii. 21) plainly says, God hath not beheld iniquity in his (justified) Jacob, neither hath he seen perverseness in his (believing) Israel." "The believer, by God's imputation, is truly a fulfiller of the Law. And it is fulfilled, not actively by our legal workings, for no man hath ever so done, and so it is not said by us; but it is fulfilled evangelically and passively, but no less truly, and therefore it is said in us; wherefore also it is said by Paul, He that loveth, which love is that by which faith worketh, hath fulfilled the law." "And whereas the believer by faith hath made this righteousness his own, it is utterly impossible that he should want any other. . . . . Therefore as many of us as trust in Christ, being thus clothed, are not only counted, but made, perfectly righteous and holy, without any spot or blemish of sin in the sight of God. And this is food for our faith to feed upon; for whereas by reason of sin remaining in us (for if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves'), the Devil tempts us to believe through the medium of our feeling, that God takes notice, and is angry with us, on account of sin: on the other hand, God comes in plainly and forcibly with his word of truth, and says not only I have not beheld iniquity in Jacob, but by one offer my Son hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified."

scheme) be displeased by our transgressions, since (according to it) He does not see them at all; nor can He be pleased with our services, since they, weak and imperfect as they are, would only mar the perfection of that imputed holiness, in which we are already invested in his sight, if they were unskilfully blended with it. Nor have we any interest (upon this scheme) in practising righteousness for ourselves, since heaven and all its joys are represented as infallibly ours already, purchased at so costly a price, that God could not justly deny us a place in those blissful mansions, whatever were our conduct.

With a happy inconsistency, however, even such Divines as we have been speaking of, contended that the Faith which they inculcated, would, in some unaccountable way or other, produce good works and so it might seem as if there was one appropriate place left, even upon this scheme, for holiness-namely, as a test and evidence of the sincerity of our faith, and the reality of our acceptance. But even from this place it was carefully deposed, out of a shrinking apprehension of "selfrighteousness ;" and believers were warned against nothing more carefully than against trusting to any evidence but that of faith itself.

But so formal and deliberate an exclusion of personal holiness from any intelligible place in the christian scheme was comparatively rare. A more common fault was, that this topic was either lost sight of, or touched upon but slightly; and men were left practically under the impression that, when once they had believed in Christ's atonement, there remained no more necessity for active exertion or careful vigilance, on their own part, but all the rest would follow of itself, and as a matter of course. Christians, in short, were led to feel as if what lay before them was not " a race" to be run by themselves, in the strength which God had given them-not a "striving for the mastery," where a "good fight" was to be maintained by constant vigilance and courage—but rather as a voyage, in which all we had to do was to select a good ship and a skilful pilot, and having once for all embarked by faith, suffer ourselves to be carried to the haven where we would be.

Now the former of these views is unquestionably that in which a christian life is constantly represented in Scripture; and no teacher who does not faithfully and frequently bring