but did not tell which were the consecrating words, nor appoint them to use those words; but to do the thing, and so to remember and represent His death." The chief arguments against a literal interpretation may be found in his commentary upon the words, "Hoc est corpus meum.” † The book of Bertram, written at the request of Charles the Bald, (of which it would be very high praise to mention Ridley's commendation of it, and yet not its highest praise,) perhaps more fully than any other writing dwells upon the spiritual presence: "Since no one can deny," says he, "that this is so, it is plain that that bread and wine are in a figure the body and blood of Christ." Again: "Wherefore that which the Church celebrateth, is both the body and blood of Christ, but yet as a pledge, as an image. The truth we shall then possess, when pledge and image shall be no more, but the thing itself, in verity, shall appear."§"That therefore which outwardly appeareth, is not the thing itself, but its image, but that which is perceived and understood by the soul, is the very thing itself."|| From this, Archbishop Usher does not differ. Bishop Hall bears his testimony to the figurative interpretation.** Anglican divines have no cause of disagreement : they repudiate a literal sense. But, yet Dr. Pusey does not stand alone; he has Mr. Newman with him. Nay, more: so far the Romanists read and imbibe this spirit from Mr. Newman; or, perhaps with more accuracy we might say, so similar, so parallel, so consistent is the spirit of Rome with that of the Tractarians, that even their very words run in parallels. Yet it is passing strange that Dr. O'Connell, a professed Romanist, should but echo the words of Mr. Newman upon so important a point; and yet such is the case, as our readers will perceive. Their sympathies are strong, and they have the same opponents, and therefore write the same things against them. "If it be asked, why attempt to remove it? I answer, that I have no wish to do so, if persons will not urge it against the Catholic Doctrine. Men maintain it is an impossibility, a contradiction in terms, and force a believer in it to say why it should not be so accounted. And then, when he gives a reason, they turn round and accuse him of subtleties, and refinements, and scholastic trifling. Let them but believe and act on the truth, that the "If it be asked wherefore do we attempt to remove those difficulties? we reply, that we do so reluctantly, and would not even advert to them, if there were not persons to urge them against the Catholic Doctrine. We hear of impossibility, absurdity, and open contradictions with reason spoken of, when there is question of Transubstantitation; and when we descend unto the arena, and scatter the sophisms of the blasphemers, * Vol. ix., p. 459. Real Presence, iv., 4. † Real Presence, vi. Chap. ix. § Chap lxxxvii. Chap. Lxvii. So, also, chap. xvi., xxxiv., xxxv., xl., lvii., lviii. ¶ Body of Divinity. On Eucharist, p. 424, ed. 1649. **No Peace with Rome, section xvi. consecrated bread is Christ's body, as he says, and no officious comment on His words will be attempted by any welljudging mind. But when they say, this cannot be literally true, because it is impossible; then they force those who think it is literary true, to explain how, according to their notions, it is not impossible. And those who ask hard questions must put up with hard answers." No. 90, p. 48. Also in his letter to Dr. Faussett, pp. 58, 9. we are accused of uncalled-for refinements, and subtleness, and scholastic triflings. Let men behave simply and with docility, and we shall dispense with all officious comments on the words of our Divine Redeemer; but such as will not do so, but rather desire to put hard questions, they must be satisfied, and put up with hard answers." P. 37 of his letter to Dr. Pusey on his Sermon. Well, however, would it be, if this result were all, though sad it is to every English churchman. But the truth is, that sympathy is too powerless a word to express that real union which exists between these two sections. And yet it is natural; for the Tractarians have lost English sympathy: they have dislocated themselves, and now are only suspended members, not discharging their due functions; existing, not living; depriving themselves of all that rich and fertilising sap and marrow, which are daily pouring themselves into every true member. Quarreling with their parent stock, discontented with her gifts to them, they desire to be grafted into the crabbed sourness of an anathematising Church. Doubtless, this new theory of a literal view will smooth all difficulties as far as Rome, but it raises a huge difficulty in regard to our own Church. It places an insuperable mountain between Dr. Pusey and our Church, and this built up of every writer of eminence which we boast. Deeply as the consequence is to be mourned as regards individual Tractarians, yet our Church may congratulate herself that they have at once laid down the principles upon which they act, and that they have stepped by this literal interpretation across the boundary. The words, therefore, of the sermon must appear only the natural and necessary sequence of the principle, and must be interpreted by the same literal rule. It is not, therefore, harsh to judge the sermon thus; it is only fair to its author. The sermon is only consistent by this law; and perhaps Dr. Lee and Mr. Garbett have thought it hard and difficult to be comprehended, because they have neglected this self-appointed rule, this key to its meaning. It is, perhaps, harsh to them, because they were afraid of believing that Dr. Pusey meant what he really says. We will, therefore, discharge Dr. Pusey in part from this charge; but this is, indeed, trivial, when compared with the necesssary consequence of a literal view. It is a miserable result of a miserable theology-a vain attempt to resuscitate an efféte system. But it lost its vitality when it left the Bible-it resigned its hope when it sought refuge in itself, and buried itself in the sepulchre of tradition. We have been preserved from this: we have been nursed amidst strife, and tried in political enmities. The wildboar out of the woods hath whetted its tusks upon our Church; but infidelity hath not harmed it-nay, more: when untrue to itself, still the ark was not lost. And shall we, then, despair? Rome may boast her "ritual pantomime," may entice the thoughtless, and present a splendid pageant; but still she is a whited sepulchre, full of dead men's bones. We dare not despair, for our trust is in the Omnipotent; and He who has hitherto delivered us, will ever protect us; and we shall be more than conquerors through Him that hath loved us. We are built upon the rock, which is Christ, and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against us. THE WORKS OF THE PARKER SOCIETY.* The THE Parker Society is now in the fourth year of its existence. number and character of its members are a criterion of the high estimation in which it is held by the public. The importance, however, of this institution is not to be determined so much by the amount of support it has received, as by the intrinsic value of the publications it has issued. Its object is to trace, in its various ramifications, the rich hidden vein of divinity that ran through the ore of the sixteenth century. It resuscitates the champions of orthodoxy, that adorned the Elizabethan era, the doughty assailants of Rome, that they may put to the blush the modern apologists for Rome, who are sitting in the seat of authority they once occupied. It takes down from the dusty shelves of the public libraries, and makes accessible to the reader, in a neat type and modern dress, the black-lettered writings of the worthies of the Reformation, who either themselves compiled, or were contemporary and coincided in sentiment with those who compiled, the accredited formularies of our Church; which writings, being full, explicit, and authentic, are a legitimate standard of appeal to determine, in this age of controversy, the right interpretation to be put on the Articles. The Parker Society may be viewed as owing its existence to the efforts of a new school of divines, to give a Romish tone to Church of England doctrine. The "Tracts for the Times" are a movement towards Rome: the works of the Parker Society are a counter-movement towards the principles of the Reformation. It originated, if we have been rightly informed, in a little band of Essex clergymen, who enlisted their friends, issued their circulars, drew up their rules, carved out work for the several editors, selected the office-bearers, appropriately named the society after the first Protestant Primitive of Elizabeth's reign-the Mæcenas of sacred literature and a great collector of ancient and modern writings, and finally nominated, as the president of their council, a nobleman who shines with bright lustre in * Zurich Letters, Archbishop Grindal, Bishop Ridley, Fulke's Remains. the domestic circle, the Senate, and the Church, who has since confirmed the propriety of his appointment to this high office by heading the Lay Address of remonstrance against Puseyism, to the functionaries of the University of Oxford. The effort to revive authors long dead was duly appreciated by an enlightened Protestant public. One after another enrolled himself a member, till the muster-roll now exceeds 7000; and of these not a few are influential from rank, learning, or station. Amongst them we may particularise three illustrious members of the Royal Family; the King of Prussia and his distinguished Ambassador; thirty-four Peers of the realm; thirty-nine ornaments of the English, Irish, and Colonial bench of Bishops; four Judges; the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the Vice-President of the Board of Trade; twenty-three Deans; five Chancellors; twenty-eight Archdeacons; eighteen Heads of Houses in the two English Universities, with the Provost of Trinity College, Dublin; and the libraries of several Colleges and Public Institutions, with a long list of the parochial Clergy and private Laymen. Can the Library of the Fathers, or the AngloCatholic Library, produce so long and weighty a catalogue? With whom are the sympathies of the larger sections of divines of this age? With the Greek and Latin Fathers, or the Fathers of the Reformation? With the current divinity of the sixteenth century, decisive in its tone, evangelical in its doctrine, and Protestant in its spirit; or with the much-lauded divinity of the seventeenth, more towering in intellect, more rich in imagination, more elegant in expression, but comparatively feeble and obscure in the enunciation of Gospel Truth? With whom are the public sympathies? With the men who penned and maintained the Articles, or the men who mutilated and enfeebled them? With the school of Hooker, or the school of the Non-jurors? The object of the Parker Society is principally "to reprint, without abridgement, alteration, or omission, the best works of the Fathers and early Writers of the Reformed English Church, published in the period between the accession of King Edward VI. and the death of Queen Elizabeth;" and hitherto it has faithfully carried out this object. The work, however, of reissuing its publications proceeds at a tardy pace. Though the society entered its fourth year in January, all the promised works for the third year had not made their appearance. We would not urge such a despatch as might lead to inaccuracies or omissions; but we see no reason, from the character of the volumes already issued, and from the nature of the difficulties in searching public libraries and collating different editions, why the editors should proceed so much at their leisure. The work of editing requires no talents of the highest order: diligence of research, soundness of judgement, and an acquaintance with the annals of the Reformation, seem the chief requisites. In the writings of the sixteenth century, especially on that prominent theme-the eucharistic controversy-there is a fre quent reference to the opinions of the Fathers: we are pleased to observe that the editors are careful to verify these references, by appending in a note, the original passages. Amongst the several publications that have been ushered anew into life under the auspices of the council of the Parker Society, we would notice, as the most interesting and important, the Zurich Letters, Archbishop Grindal's and Bishop Ridley's Remains, and Fulke's Defence. We will give a short critique on each of these, in the order in which they stand. The "Zurich Letters" owe their origin to the unhappy Marian persecution, when even more than a thousand English divines sought an asylum in the strongholds of Protestanism on the Continent, especially at Frankfort, Strasburg, and Zurich. These worthies, on returning to their mother-land, kept up a close correspondence on the events of those stirring times, with the men who had hospitably entertained them in the hour of need and danger. Their "Letters' are replete with historical and ecclesiastical notices of moment. They are of great importance in their aspect on modern controversy, as they furnish standing evidence, that the great minds which completed the work of the Reformation, and endued it with the principles of order, vitality, and perpetuity, did not decline correspondence or fellowship with the Continental non-episcopal Reformers; but viewed agreement in essential doctrine as a more cementing bond of union, than agreement in outward discipline. It is remarkable what deference is paid throughout to the judgement of Bullinger, the chief Pastor of Zurich, and to the learning of Peter Martyr, who once adorned the Professor's chair at Oxford. What would be the feelings of Pusey, Newman, Keble, or the anathematising Palmer, in reading the private letters of Grindal, Sandys, Parkhurst, Horn, and Jewel, whom even the lawn sleeves did not raise to an eminence from which they could look down with indifference to the opinions of Bullinger, Gualter, Gesner, and other non-episcopal divines? Rome was the common foe against which was the combination of all their forces, and the concentration of all their energies. We have the "Letters" in their original Latin, not lacking the ornaments of elegance and simplicity, as also in a correct English dress. They have been authenticated by a comparison with the original documents preserved in the Archives of Zurich. The several writers will appear to every candid reader anxious for unity in the Reformed Church at home and abroad: against Schism and Popery they ever placed themselves in an attitude of hostility. Be it observed, not one prelate of the Elizabethan age, though tinctured with Genevan predilection, sided with the disaffected Puritans: those high in station, who lent the sanction of their official influence, but never adopted with them the extreme step of a schismatical separation, were Sampson, Dean of Christ Church, Humphrey, President of Magdalen College, Oxford, and Lever, Master of St. John's College, Cambridge. Bishops Grindal and Horn (Let. 75) thus concisely state the differences of opinion on the affair of the habits, a controversy that unhappily divided the ranks of the English Protestants, and drove away many from the communion of our Church, even in the dawning light of the |