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THE

CHURCHMAN'S MONTHLY REVIEW

AND CHRONICLE.

SEPTEMBER, 1844.

THE IDEAL OF A CHRISTIAN CHURCH, considered in connexion with Existing Practice; containing a Defence of certain Articles in the "British Critic," in reply to Remarks on them in Mr. Palmer's Narrative. By the Rev. W. J. WARD, Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford. London: Toovey. 1844.

THE Church of Christ, in our own days, has witnessed many strange events, but few things more wonderful or strange than the present work. Its very appearance is a startling sign of the times Here is a clergyman of the English Church, who has subscribed her Articles, ex animo, in their literal and grammatical sense, and who yet professes without reserve his detestation of their doctrines, his abhorrence of the Reformers by whom they were compiled, with his ardent admiration of popery, and deep longing for our renewed submission to the Roman see. The doctrine of justification, which he has himself subscribed ex animo, and which is part of the tenure of his fellowship, he denounces as one degree worse than atheism. The mitigated charge against the Roman church, of a near approach to idolatry, he declares to be almost blasphemy against the Holy Ghost. Like Saul of Tarsus, he is intensely conscientious according to his light; but his conscience developes itself in a manner quite astounding to simple minds. He reviles our Reformers as heretics in doctrine, and guilty of foul treachery against the Catholic faith. Therefore, as he tells us, he flings back their fraud on their own heads, by subscribing the articles in

a sense they never designed them to bear; and thus, with a righteous retribution, avenges the fearful heresy of their creed by the dishonesty of his own practice. Surely such a spectacle must pierce every devout Christian with pain and sorrow, and make him long for the time when the great Adversary shall be scaled in the pit, and deceive the Church and the world no longer with his subtle and accursed delusions.

Our task in reviewing such a work would be easy, if our sole aim were to produce a momentary impression. We should only have to cull out the passages where the writer vents his bitter hatred against the doctrines of the Reformation, and his defence of Roman heresies and idolatries, and then confront them with his own deliberate subscription. No building, however intellectual or spiritual in outward show, can be of much worth, which rests on downright dishonesty for its foundation. But the delusion, we fear, is too deep, to be repelled by such a comparison only. It bears a charmed life, and mightier weapons are needed for its full overthrow. No error has ever attained a wide and fatal power, without including some weighty and precious truths; and to disentangle and separate these, is the only effectual means to destroy the spell, and set free the victims of the delusion. The author does not know himself to be dishonest. No, he thinks himself a noble witness for Catholic truth, an intellectual Hercules who can look down, with the calmness of superior wisdom, not only on the despised Evangelicals, but on halting High-churchmen, and lukewarm and timorous Tractarians. He is the Moses who stands in the gap against the Protestant apostasy, or the Elijah who is to restore our spiritual desolations. He has subtle and learned reasons in store, to justify him in his course; and thinks he should even be guilty of mortal sin, if he were at present to leave our Church, though he despises the Articles as mere cobwebs, and hates and abhors the doctrine of the Reformers. Full of virtuous indignation at the corruptions around him, he holds up before his brethren the stan dard of ideal excellence. The opening of the work, like the countenance of the apocalyptic locusts, is dignified with manly thought, and adorned by the seeming beauty of virgin holiness; and it is only by degrees that we discover its venomous and deadly sting. We shall endeavour, then, first of all to separate the elements of truth in the ideal which is here proposed, and then to expose briefly the fatal heresy and delusion, as well as the gross practical dishonesty, which is involved in all the other portions of this singular production.

The occasion of the work is this. The author had contributed several reviews to the British Critic, on Arnold's and Heurtley's

Sermons, Whateley's Essays, and Goode's Divine Rule, on Mills' Logic, and the Works of St. Athanasius; on Church Authority and the Synagogue and the Church. The tone of these was so bitter against the Reformation-they were so loud in the praise of popery, as to disgust many even of the Tractarians themselves. The Review was discontinued, amidst a storm of open censure, or gentler whispers of grave and dangerous imprudence. There was a division in the camp of the movement, and Mr. Palmer felt it right to publish a narrative, and to deprecate the Romish tendencies which were now so clearly displayed. Mr. Ward, however, was not to be daunted by the weakness or scruples of his friends. He might be, he allows, less saintly than the leaders of the movement, but he is well assured that he is a sounder logician. The volume before us vindicates the obnoxious reviews, as the only true and consistent development of the Tractarian or Catholic movement. The task is performed with no mean ability, and with abundant zeal and bitterness. The pamphlet swells into a volume of six hundred pages, richly adorned with extracts from the British Critic and the Dublin Review, from Mr. Newman's Sermons, and the Exercises of Ignatius Loyola. The various rays of thought, however, all converge in two grand discoveries-the worse than atheistic guilt of the English Reformation, and the near approach to ideal perfection in the Romish church. Such a work requires in its author no slight confidence in his own moral discernment and intellectual power, and with such confidence Mr. Ward is amply endowed. As the production of a clergyman who has subscribed that very doctrine, ex animo, which he brands with infamy, it needs also a subtle casuistry, and a noble contempt for public opinion; and these qualities, also, are largely developed. And, indeed, our main feeling, after perusing the work, is neither blame nor pity, but pure wonder. Effrontery or delusion, when it reaches a certain. height, acquires a moral sublimity. We can neither denounce it as impudence, nor pity it as madness, but are compelled simply to hold up our hands in silent amazement.

The work contains nine chapters. After a short introduction in the first, the second exhibits the supposed ideal of a true Church. The next proposes the innocent inquiry, Whether it is undutiful to the actual Church to aim at this ideal? The contrast is then amplified between the actual system among ourselves, and the model of the early centuries. The fifth chapter is a vehement and bitter assault on the Lutheran doctrine of justification, and the Bishop of Ossory's Exposition. We have then remarks on our actual corruptions; suggestions in the way of remedy, a few words on the Church formularies; and, finally, a chapter on the supremacy of

conscience. The conclusions in which this lands us are of a singular kind,—that the writer may safely subscribe the Articles, although, in their natural sense, they contain a heresy worse than atheism; and that he cannot leave the English Church without mortal sin, though the Reformation was a hateful schism, and the English branch of it perhaps the most immoral event in the whole history of the world. We cannot pretend to track this comet through its whole course. It must content us to dwell on three or four main topics-the ideal here proposed, the alleged approach to that ideal in the Roman church, and the practical honesty of those who minister in the Reformed Church, only to libel the Reformers, and to betray the gospel of Christ into the hand of the enemy.

The Ideal of a Christian Church-what subject can be more delightful! To interpose a little ease in our irksome task, let us dwell for a moment on the train of thought it suggests. What are the elements that compose this goodly landscape, as revealed in God's word? Hearts converted from the ways of sin, and melted into penitence at the foot of the cross; souls renewed daily in the image of Christ, and drinking fresh supplies from the Fountain of all goodness, of life, and peace, and holiness; the law in its unspotted purity, the gospel in its blessed freedom, written in the conscience, and imbuing the immortal spirit every day more deeply with their divine beauty; families that dwell together in holy union, like the dews of Hermon, all lit up with the same sunshine on the hills of Sion; pastors after God's own heart, with seraphic zeal and heavenly wisdom, and people who are training in the ways of Christ for the glory of the resurrection; love and gentle wisdom in every heart, joy and holy gladness on every countenance. Such are the features of this divine ideal, which might well dazzle our eyes with its unearthly beauty. Our thoughts, while we gaze on it, are carried beyond this valley of death, and can rest on nothing short of that solemn and blessed day, when the redeemed of the Lord shall come with singing to Zion, and death shall be swallowed up in victory, in the future manifestation of the sons of God.

Such is the true ideal which the word of God sets before us; the ideal proposed here is of a different kind. It belongs, not to the dynasty of reason and faith, but of the understanding, or "the science of means for medial ends." It is a compacted system of moral machinery, not the communion of holy love among regenerate believers, who are rejoicing in their Lord, and wait for his appearing. In the plan of the temple which is here offered, both foundation and topstone are equally wanting. No place is left for true conversion of heart and the new creation in Christ Jesus; and