Eucharistic Supper was derived, was-only a commemorative act of gratitude for a signal mercy received, in no one single respect bearing the character of a sacrificial rite." (p. 111.) So speaks private judgment; but what says tradition? Let us hear Irenæus. 1 "Our Lord instructing his disciples to offer to God the first-fruits of his creatures, not as though he needed any thing, but that they might be neither barren nor ungrateful, took that which is of the creature of bread, and gave thanks, saying, 'This is my body,' and in like manner confessed the cup, which is of the creature, which we have to be his blood, and taught the new oblation of the New Testament, which oblation the Church receiving from the apostles, throughout all the world offers to God." To this give all the fathers witness, and all the liturgies of all people, nations, and languages, that have been admitted to the Catholic Church. Oh! but says Dr. Shuttleworth, it was a mere "idea" of Irenæus, a mere “notion" of his; and though he says our Saviour taught it, you are not to believe him; and though he appeals to the universal practice of the Church in his days, I assure you there was no such thing; for "it is in the writings of Irenæus that we find the first germ of the subsequently prevailing idea of considering the Eucharistic rite-as a sacrifice." This is the character which, at pp. 117-119 he gives of one whom, at pp. 1–6, he had cited as bolding "the written word to be complete in itself, and the Gospels incapable of further addition." Here then we have the Catholic Church on one side, and Dr. Shuttleworth on the other. How shall we decide between them? If I appeal to a general council, he will indignantly ask, Will you give me a rule of lead" when I want 66 one of steel?" (p. 29.) If I appeal to the code of the AnteNicene Church he will complacently tell me, Oh! you know they were only bitten by Irenæus' notion and idea, who had art enough (clever fellow!) to persuade them that they had received a doctrine which they never heard of till he told it them (!) and were constantly practising a thing they never dreamed of till he mentioned it (!) But though Dr. Shuttleworth "will not hear the Church," neither before nor after the Nicene Council, there is still one other appeal, even to the LORD of the Church, to whose voice, when speaking in the inspired Scriptures, Dr. S. has professed himself willing to pay the utmost deference. Let him turn, then, to the Scriptures, and in respect of the Feast of the Passover, which he has described as in no one single instance bearing the characteristics of a sacrificial rite," let him hear HIM who instituted it, saying, "When your children shall say unto you in time to come, What mean you by this service? that ye shall say, IT IS THE SACRIFICE of the Lord's passover. "Neither shall THE SACRIFICE OF THE FEAST OF THE PASSOVER be left unto the morning." 2 66 66 If Dr. Shuttleworth be the honest man that from my heart I believe him to be, let him advise and see what course it behoves him to take, in respect of a book in which he is found so fearfully and openly contradicting the affirmation of the Most High! and let him lay to heart this consideration, that if we allow ourselves to begin by 1 Adv. Hæres. IV. c. 32. 2 Exod. xii. 26, 27. 3 Exod. xxxiv. 25. contradicting the Church, we shall end (as he has done) in contradicting the Head of the Church, and shall be constrained to make our final appeal, not to the word of God, but (as he has done) to human reason. These are his tremendous words : II. "Let Scripture speak for itself. We all have the book in our possession; WE ALL KNOW the amount of our spiritual wants, and the degree of information, of counsel, and of moral strength which that book is calculated to afford. Let us ask our own hearts and experience has it left its work half done? Is any thing by which we can really promote God's honour and service left unnoticed and unrecommended by it ?" (p. 20.) Here (unless the whole sentence is nonsense) human reason is supposed, of itself, to know the spiritual destitution and wants of man, and the adequate remedies, and the fitting service of God; and therefore to be competent to sit in judgment upon the revelations of God, and to pronounce whether they do or do not furnish sufficient information on these points. May I ask, if human reason can of itself determine this, what need was there of a revelation at all? Unless Dr. Shuttleworth is prepared to defend pure rationalism, which I am far from believing to be his intention, let him expunge this also from his book, and the similar appeal which occurs at p. 29. III. Again, if he means to maintain, as I am sure it is his intention to maintain, that in the sacrament of baptism a grace or spiritual GIFT IS CONFERRED, let him alter and amend the account which, at p. 97, he gives of a sinner's regeneration, as "his abjuration of his natural character, and his assumption of that of a servant of Christ;" for to speak of it only thus is to make it the work of the man, not the gift or creation of God; but in every birth, whether natural or spiritual, whether by generation or regeneration, man is passive, not active, the subject, not the agent; and so the Scriptures, in their plain and grammatical sense, uniformly teach, we have received the spirit of adoption;" we have "been born again of incorruptible seed." 66 IV. Again, if he means to maintain, as I doubt not it is his intention to maintain, that divine grace or spiritual gift from God is conveyed to men in the holy Eucharist when duly received, let him, in his exposition of the benefits of that holy sacrament, state something more than mere rational edification, to which he has confined himself. By taking our part in this necessary act of obedience, we do, in some sort, approximate to our Saviour, and identify ourselves with him, so far as our nature will permit, both in body and soul." (p. 112.) "We are, by eating and drinking the visible representations of that holy body and blood which were sacrificed for us to awaken our feelings of humble gratitude, and to learn and strive, so far as human nature will permit, to assimilate ourselves to Him." (p. 124.) More than this he has not stated. But in all this it is clear that man is the agent, not the recipient; only rational edification promoted by man, not any spiritual gift bestowed by God. Men, according to Dr. Shuttleworth, only feed on the "representations" of the body and blood of Christ our Lord; not on the body and blood itself, as he has expressly affirmed, and which St. Paul urges as the wondrous privilege of that sacrament, and as our Church uniformly teaches "the body and blood of Christ which are verily and indeed 66 "He taken and received in the sacrament of the Lord's Supper." hath given his Son Jesus Christ to be our spiritual food and sustenance in that holy sacrament." "We spiritually [not imaginatively] eat the flesh of Christ, and drink his blood." Dr. Shuttleworth has expressed himself willing to abide by Scripture," in its plainest and most grammatical sense." (p. 21.) Let him not flinch from the test to which he has himself appealed, but let him apply to himself that rule which he has laid down (p. 25), in respect to the doctrine of the Trinity in Unity, which I rejoice to find him firmly maintaining. "Human reason may be startled at these positions, but there they are; Scripture declares them to be true, and we must either reject Scripture as inspired, or accept them as we find them." But at the same time I desire to protest as strongly as he has done against many of the positions which he has set himself to attack, but which I verily believe to be mere giants of his own creation. If any writer of the day is seeking "to place merely oral communications [that we now have] on the same level with the written word of God;" if any writer of this day says of any traditionary doctrines conveyed in no definite form of words, but passing from mouth to mouth, under every possible modification of expression-that they are revelation, and that they are equally binding upon the belief and conscience with the Holy Scriptures." (p. 36.) If any writer of the present day has declared "the Eucharistic rite" to be " a formal offering for sin," "an expiatory sacrifice;" (p. 110;) or "a sacrifice for reconciliation with God and for the expiation of sin;" (p. 112;) or shall say, "that the one great sacrifice for sin of Christ's body requires a constant renewal," I will not say that he is profane until I have heard with what explanations he uses such terms; but I do earnestly and openly deprecate the use of such terms and such assertions, which in their plain acceptation I do believe to be very contrary to the truth of Christian doctrine, whether that doctrine be gathered from Scripture alone or from Scripture with the aid of unbroken and Catholic tradition. At present I can only say, I know of none who have made such affirmations. But to make use of written tradition, written I mean in the records of the Church, conveyed in definite unmodified terms, in support of the plain and grammatical sense of Scripture, against those who, through disregard of tradition, would arbitrarily represent that sense as figurative, e. g. "We have an altar;"1 "The bread which we break is the communion of the body of Christ;" "We have received the Spirit of adoption," and the like, or to determine the sense when it admits of reasonable doubt, is not, I hope, justly described in the bugbear against which Dr. Shuttleworth has taken pen in hand. The sincere respect I entertain for Dr. Shuttleworth's talents and piety induces me to put my name to this paper, that not only he may be assured that neither affront nor unkindness is intended, but may be induced to pay more attention to these observations than could be reasonably expected, did they appear without a name. My 1 See Dr. Faussett's Preface to the Second Edition of his Sermon, "The Revival of Popery,” p. v. object is, with God's blessing, to induce him to reconsider his asser- Your very obedient and faithful servant, East Horsley, Dec. 8th, 1838. MR. PRATT AND HIS REVIEWER.-THE EPITHETS 66 REFORMED" AND "PROTESTANT.” SIR, TO THE EDITOR. I AM never unwilling to receive reproof as readily as applause, because I believe that I am as likely to derive real advantage from the one as from the other; and I frankly admit, that in the case between my reviewer and myself I have been led by his remarks to think more correctly of the importance of guarded language in speaking of Catholic verities or sacred institutions. Hitherto the discussion may have been of some use to your readers in general, in as far as it has shown how hazardous a thing it is, to concede even a name where the thing generally signified by that name is wanting, and how necessary it is in these dangerous days not to depart a single step from the narrow path of primitive truth. To carry on the discussion further could tend to no good end, and indeed there is little room for it, for I see nothing to hinder me from a full agreement in all that the reviewer wishes to establish. I therefore take leave of the subject concerning the concession of the name of Church to modern sects and denominations; and in doing so I have no hesitation in admitting that in this respect my reviewer may be a more consistent though not a more ardent friend and defender of the Church than myself; for I contended as strongly as he can do for the Scriptural truth, that in terms of the dispensation of the Gospel there can be only one Church of Christ. 66 It appears to me, however, that it may be of some advantage, both to ourselves and others, to shift our ground a little, and endeavour to come to an understanding in regard to the terms “ Reformed” and “Protestant," as applied to the Church. My reviewer abruptly tells me that the term "Protestant Catholic Church" is "nonsense.” Now I would respectfully suggest to him not to write in so dogmatical a style as this; it does not strengthen his argument, but is rather calculated to make one give one's self no further concern about him or his assertions either. An argument plainly and temperately stated will always command the respect of every candidminded man, whereas the mere ipse dixit of an opponent will have no influence whatsoever in convincing any one who has even the shadow of a reason for his opinions. It is for truth and not for victory that I contend, and the man who supposes that a few bold swelling words will induce me to throw down my arms in despair and cry for mercy, will doubtless find that he has mistaken my character. Let us then treat each other with the respect due to our character and office, and remember that we are sincere in our endeavours to affix their true meaning to terms involving the very character of Christ's holy Church. My reviewer and I are now to change sides. I am now to contend against the use of popular phraseology, he in its favour. The reviewer refers me to Dr. Perkins as authority for the use of the term “Reformed Catholicke." I am well acquainted with old Perkins; he has long been a particular favourite of mine, in as far as he gives me information concerning the supralapsarian system of Calvinism, which I know not elsewhere to find. I have studied "the Reformed Catholicke” in all the points of difference, but I am far from giving my old acquaintance credit for the use of the term. The Calvinistic party on the Continent were the first to adopt it, and probably Perkins was among the first that employed it in England. I am well aware that its use is sanctioned by the authority of names for whom I must entertain the very highest respect, and among these I gladly class my Reviewer. But this circumstance, instead of removing the danger which may lurk under an improper expression, appears to me to increase it, and I cannot help thinking that the old fathers, who were laudably sensitive to innovations of any kind, would have opposed the use of the term in question with nearly as much vigour as they displayed in the iota controversy. To make my reasons for such belief intelligible, it is necessary to state that in the sense in which I understand the name " Catholic Church,” it means that one Church instituted by our Lord, on the ground which had long before been clearly marked out; which was established by his apostles according to his directions, and which, like its great Founder and Master, must be unchangeable in its doctrines, ordinances, and constitution. Whosoever would reform it in either of these must make it worse. He may speak of reforming a portion of the Church which has lapsed into error, and in this sense I admit the propriety of speaking of the reformed Church of England, &c.; but to speak of "the reformed Catholic Church" conveys to my mind an idea fraught with danger to the truth. "Reformed" is not an epithet which can properly be applied to the Catholic Church of |