gious malady known by the name of Pelagianism. Not that the mighty founders of the Alexandrian school fell into the fatal error of annihilating or degrading the means of grace. It is unnecessary now to refute a charge which has been long ago triumphantly repelled: but, in the usual downward course of corruption, this error was soon regarded as an article of ordinary belief. It was attended with others equally pernicious-with a dreamy and fanatical mysticism, and (more fatal still) a different religious standard for the denizen of the cloister, and the man of business and the world. In this distinction was opened a copious source to supply the spiritual pride of the first class, and the wilful corruption of the second. 32. Here, also, lay the germ of much future mischief, in the arrogation of undue spiritual powers by the so-deemed favourites of God, and a surrender and self-abandonment (on the part of consciencestricken men) to the pretensions which held out a hope of safety and comfort: for, more than any means which could be devised, was the monastic institute calculated to overshadow the distinctive doctrine of Christianity, the absence of an earthly mediator, while it fostered the corrupt tendency of human nature, to devolve the service of God from ourselves upon others. Such were the ultimate fruits of a system which professed, at its outset, to be the leaven of the world, and on which have been lavished some of the most attractive and eloquent passages of those writers to whom we are indebted for the clearest and most valuable expositions of our Christian faith, and for bright and shining examples of all that can make a Christian teacher venerable. 33. During the period extending from Tertullian to Gregory the Great may be seen instances of that confusion of the Jewish and Christian dispensations-of legal and evangelical views of the priesthood and the Levitical body-which, when cemented by papal exposi tions and the dicta of the canon law, have formed the basis of the system designated Romanism. Yet, let it never be forgotten, when we trace the germs of this system antecedently to its high and palmy days, or when we watch the struggles of great Christian minds for the liberty of which they were thus deprived, that, humanly speaking, but for the means provided by the Romish system, all traces of Christian teaching would have vanished from the earth. Here, then, on the confines of the Middle Ages, we take leave of the Fathers those pillars of our faith, of our doctrine, and our practice ; for this high title they justly bear, so long as they speak the language of their Master, Christ. When they pass beyond this, their talents and piety are insufficient to save them from error. For their labours in behalf of orthodox views respecting the foundations of our faith, and for lessons of holy life, we cannot withhold our admiration from Basil or Chrysostom: but the eulogies of the first on asceticism, and the humbling expressions attributed to the other respecting a death-bed repentance, are inconsistent with the high and holy teaching of Scripture. Or, to return to the school of North Africa, from which we have so widely digressed: Tertullian and Augustine have each their great and transcendent merits-the first as a witness in favour of Catholic tradition, the second as laying deeply the foundations of Christian life. But the first of these writers has left on record some strange legalising expressions with regard to fasting and mortification, while the second (to whom the cause of vital Christianity has been so deeply indebted) wandered wide from the track of Scripture in what he has written respecting the intercession of saints and the Visible Church. ROMANS VII. LORD! 'tis Thine, 'tis Thine to bow This rebellious will of mine: Oh! incline, incline it now, Make my heart entirely Thine! Lord! in vain, in vain I long Perfect holiness to show; Lord! I read, I read, and deem But, indeed, indeed I seem All defilement still within. But, 'twas thus, even thus that Paul Felt the fierce assaults of hell; Yet he trusted, trusted all Its designs by faith to quell. Lord! with grief like his I groan, Give to me the victory. So, like him, above constrained, H. M. THE EUCHARIST. No. III. SINCE our previous notices of Dr. Pusey's Eucharistic sermon, we have fallen in with two publications on the subject; the one by Professor Garbett, and the other by Professor Lee. Of each of these we cannot speak in terms too high. They manifest that stern and honest boldness which characterised Anglican theology before it was confused with Romanist dogmas. We shall have occasion to quote these writers again and again in our reviews; but no quotation can do justice to either. We earnestly recommend our readers to judge for themselves, by a careful perusal of them. The point, however, to which we would first allude, is the declaration of Mr. Garbett, in which he notices the gradual change in the opinions of moderate men, who once "looked with a lenient eye and an indulgent interpretation on even broad deriations, in the Tractarian school, from received and traditional expressions. They reasonably and wisely hesitated in charging the leaders and great writers of the party, with systematic disingenuousness and with misrepresentations upon principle.' He confesses that this leniency was in spite of " Mr. Newman's early adoption and elaborate defence of the Patristical Φενακισμος κατ' οικονομιαν :” but Mr. Garbett's opinion is now changed; and he no longer hesitates about the fact in its broadest sense, and asserts that no reasonable man can deny that "this Jesuitical and dangerous maxim was really and truly thus consciously acted upon, and that it formed the real guide to the external measures and general policy of the party." He also alludes to the private letter which was attributed to Mr. Newman, (and which he never has repudiated,) in which he defended himself against a charge of severity to Rome upon this very principle, and in which, by a few words, he retracted all those very expressions which had been previously alleged by himself and Dr. Pusey, as a proof of his opposition to Rome. How this can be reconciled with Catholic truth, we know not; but we are quite sure that it is utterly opposed to the whole tenor of Anglican theology, and contradicts our national character. It may have been a doctrine held by some in primitive times; but we can heartily thank God that he has never allowed it to be professed by any true Anglican. But the writer also connects Dr. Pusey with "The British Critic," and this is very important after Mr. Palmer's pamphlet. The argument is this: A late number of that work, (and this, be it remarked, in one of the most decided Romanist essays in that publication,) promised that *Review, p. v. the forthcoming explanations of Catholic verity should counteract the feeling that sternness was its characteristic. "The British Critic," in itself, has done nothing of that kind, and we are at a loss to discover to what future publication it referred, unless to Dr. Pusey's sermon. Now, let us compare Dr. Pusey's own words: "I had commenced a course of sermons on the comforts provided by the Gospel for the penitent amidst the consciousness of sin, with a view to meet the charge of sternness in the exhibition of Catholic truth."* At the very least it indicates a strange sympathy with those English Romanists who contributed to "The British Critic;" but we believe it to prove still more, and that the later dogmas of the leaders by a synchronism, otherwise extraordinary, demonstrate the harmony† of plan and operation in these aspirants for a theological revolution. We cannot rehearse all the arguments by which this issue is made certain; but we are well aware that this onset will meet the same fate at the hand of the Tractarians as every other well-written and thoughtful refutation of their system.‡ They will not attempt to answer it it will pass sub silentio. The Romanist policy indicates itself in every move of the party, and hitherto it has been successful with persons whose reading is confined, and whose confidence in bare assertions is proportionate. : The Tractarian method of insinuating their sentiments and adding a Catena Patrum as a set-off, has in no instance been more successfully exhibited than in the sermon before us. This will be abundantly discovered in the discussion of the doctrine of the sermon. We must sympathise with Mr. Garbett in his denunciation of the appendix. Dr. Pusey is not in any sense ignorant that his views are at variance with those of our Church, as shown in her best writers; and therefore he has felt it necessary to anticipate any objection, by asserting that "it is not meant that some of these writers are always consistent with themselves."§ We know not by what principle Dr. Pusey can claim for himself the power of squaring, to his own rule, the opinions of men whom he quotes as his authorities; but one thing every one can easily discern, which is, that the writer was afraid of his own authorities, and with very good reason, as we will show. In accordance with our original design, we will quote from the sermon and preface, with a view to show that Dr. Pusey's views are of a sensuous character, and that he must, if there be any meaning in words, hold a material theory of the sacrament. Mr. Garbett has shown that Möhler's views in spirit cohere with this sermon, and that modern Romanists, who follow that eminent writer, hold, that as by material flesh sin entered into the world, so by material flesh (not as dying for us, but by "impenetration") sin is banished, and immortality communicated. There will be a difficult question for certain theorists to answer, if they mean in reality that immortality is given only by this means. From *Preface to Sermon. + Garbett, p. xvii. &c. The Bishop of Chester has alluded to this policy in his Charge. § Preface, p. 6. whence, we ask, can immortality come to heathens or persons universally who have not communicated? Surely, all are equally immortal, and all must give an account of their deeds done in sinful flesh! Dr. Pusey may, perhaps, defend himself upon the ground of popular expression. How far our readers may admit this apology, we know not; but of all subjects none can require more accuracy; and of all writers no one was more imperatively called upon to be accurate than Dr. Pusey. He certainly has not in this point copied the Evangelical Doctor; for that mighty intellect, by a wonderful and subtilising acumen, demonstrated how far it was possible to transubstantiate Gospel truth into verbal hairsplitting, and has the merit of that monstrous invention—the very idol of Romish worship-the admiration of a scholastic philosophybut the abomination of all plain practical followers of Scriptural Christianity-"substanceless accidents." We can hardly characterise that result of scholastic refinement: it was the child of intellect, swaddled by the Church, and nurtured and redressed by some well-read minds; yet never allowing any sympathy with the heart of any man, much less of one taught by the Spirit. This was necessary, in the opinion of Aquinas, as an answer to a charge of carnalising the elements. This dogma of explanation-not taught by a Pope, nor enunciated by as much as one Father-was delayed until scholastic times. That was its fitting time, when intellects, mighty and profound, had rendered its appearance less monstrous, and had prepared the way for its reception; and when storms from without made some defence more necessary, and when discussions from within stood in need of some tortuous chain to entwine it, and some safe lock to include it within the bounds of the Church's keep. It may-nay, it must raise our wonder, and unless we had read in the decrees of a Father, the greatest of all Fathers, the words "oppositions of science falsely so called," we might have admired it; but, knowing the hard wounds which false philosophy has given the Church, and the subtle poison which it has insinuated under the name and pretence of wholesome medicine, we can only repudiate it and mourn over it, and rely confidently upon the time when men will be ashamed to rest Scripture doctrines upon fickle and unreal systems, which destroy all that is plain, and evirtuate all that is written and engraved by the finger of the Almighty, if only it seems at variance with their dicta. We need hardly say, that this scholastic dogma is no more consistent with a literal interpretation, than any Protestant view. The words "This is My body," cannot literally mean-this in substance (or, as Dr. O'Connell would have it, this in materia prima) is My body; but in species or accidents is bread. Surely, this Última Thule of abstraction is no literal acceptation of our blessed Lord's words, when He, holding a shape in His hands, said of it, "This is My body." "This is My body." By what law of literal interpretation can we refer the word "This" rather to an unseen and ideal substance, than to that which was seen, and which was, even on Romanist ground, bread in species? Or, again: is it possible to believe that such men as the Apostles, "unlearned and ignorant men," could as it were in a moment embrace or in any way receive a change, the very explanation of which some ten centuries left unknown, and |