the importance of the present controversy are vastly exaggerated, and that therefore no such laborious courses of argument as those I am now indicating, can be necessary; and on the contrary it is affirmed that, left to itself, this new portent, like many equally alarming, will quickly disappear from our skies. It is indignantly asked-if we are to be disquieted in this degree, and to be moved from our places, at the bidding of a band of recluses, who, accomplished as they may be in worthless lore, and respectable and estimable perhaps, as christians, or as clergymen, have yet shown themselves so feeble in understanding as to bow to the frivolous superstitions of the darkest times. Are we, it is asked, to be led by those who suffer themselves to be led by the grim spectres of the twilight age of the church's history, and the midnight age of the world's history?

It must be confessed that on this ground, a reasonable doubt may be entertained concerning the triumph of the particular Oxford Tract confederacy, and the magnitude of the issue in which the present movement is to terminate. A silent acquiescence in trivial superstitions, or even a forward zeal in maintaining frivolous formalities, affords no criterion of mental strength, in an age universally superstitious, and grossly ignorant; but it is hard not to consider such compliances, or such solemn trifling, as the indications of an infirm temperament, when they meet us in times of diffused intelligence, and of vigorous mental activity. It is not to be doubted that many a spirit of power, in times gone by, has bowed, and cringed, and moulded itself to the pattern of a Cassian's Institute; but is it possible that any spirit of power should now act the same part? Shall we now find strong and sound minds forcing themselves to lisp mummeries, to prate, and whisper, and juggle, and drivel, and play the church puppet, after the fashion of the monkery of the tenth century? Few will believe this to be possible:-it is indeed hard for any to believe it. In an age, not of idle but of solid learning, an age of genuine, not of vain philosophy; in an age (be it of too much license and of irreligious latitude, yet) of real force and manliness, and of rational and steady zeal; in an age when there are, on every side, and in the private walks of life, the possessors of high qualities of mind and sentiment; if in such an age, men who

have wanted no advantages of culture, are seen, in their imitations of antiquity, not merely to be bringing before us what might justly be venerated on the score of pristine purity, but also what, unless it could boast the hoary recommendations of time, must be ridiculed as simply absurd, in such a case, more than a surmise suggests itself, as to the intellectual stature of the zealous antiquaries who may be playing the part here supposed.

But whatever estimate may be formed of individuals (and it is unnecessary in this instance, as well as invidious to form any) the opinions in question are to be considered in their intrinsic weight; and also in their bearing, which is peculiar, upon the relative position of the established church, and of romanism. In this view no controversy that has been started in modern times, ought to be thought more important; and if, at the present moment it have fallen into feeble hands (a fact I do not affirm) more sturdy arms, we need not doubt, will ere long snatch the weapons now unsheathed, and command the respect of their opponents.

The opinions advanced in the Tracts for the Times, may die away, for a while; but they must revive at some time not very remote. Motives of discretion, and the fear of change, natural to men in office, may lead to a silent retreat from the ground that was taken when the probable consequences of maintaining so advanced a position had not been maturely considered. The CENTRE PRINCIPLE of the Tracts for the Times-the unalienable right of the church to an uncontrolled internal government, and its inherent spiritual supremacy in relation to the civil power, generally, and to the temporary administration of that power in particular, this weighty doctrine tends directly, as all must see, to a disruption of the existing connexion between the church and the state, or to a rending of the texture from the top to the bottom; the state being now under the guardianship of parties utterly adverse to any such elevated notions, and not at all likely to surrender so considerable a means of sustaining, from session to session, its tottering existence, as is afforded by the possession. of an undue influence over the church. Obvious motives of discretion may therefore, for a while, restrain the combatants on the one side of this controversy, as well as on the other; and if

even the promoters of it have braced their minds to meet all the consequences of opinions which, with them, are serious matters of conscience, it may not be so with the clergy at large, without whose willing ear and concurrence it would not be possible, even for the most accomplished writers, long to bear up against that tide of public opinion which they have to stem. With the clergy at large it must rest to decide whether, by favouring an agitation that touches the principle of the protestant establishment, they shall bring every thing dear to them into peril-the establishment itself first-then the due influence of the aristocracy, and then the denuded throne; or whether, by promptly withdrawing all support from these agitators, and by turning away their ear, they shall stave off, awhile, the most dire commotion, religious and political, that has ever convulsed the country.

The prediction has often been uttered, and by men of different parties and opposite feelings, that, if England is again to undergo revolutionary struggles, the heaving will commence within the church. If then any such course of events be at all probable, the earliest symptoms of its approach should be observed, and the opportunity seized (if it be offered) of so opening the ground, as to give timely vent to the volcanic fire that murmurs beneath our feet.

It is on this account especially that, while yet we may do so in tranquillity, a thorough attention should be paid to such at least of the Oxford Tract opinions, as may be the most readily disposed of; and so, one by one, to extract the perilous ingredients from the mass. And whatever circumstance, of an extrinsic kind, recommends these opinions as they are now advanced, furnishes a corroboratory reason for dealing with them so as that if dispelled, it shall be for ever.

These extrinsic recommendations are in fact nearly as great as can be imagined; and as extraordinary, as unlooked for. The solemn and plaintive tones of the ancient church, once heard amid the pangs of martyrdom, or resounding as soft echoes, wakening the solitudes of the deserts of Syria, Arabia, and upper Egypt, the very same tones, and the same testimony, at once for great truths, and for great errors-for eternal verities, and for futile superstitions, are now, and after so long a silence, breaking from the cloisters of Oxford.

This revival of the religion, and of the forms, of the principle, and of the costume of the martyr church, has not sprung up in Germany, where the love of mysticism and paradox, recommended by rich erudition, is every day evolving systems destined to enjoy their turn of celebrity, and to be forgotten; but in England, where a characteristic national good sense, and a vigorous practical feeling, and the free interaction of all elements, moral and intellectual, combine to give condensation, and so much the more force, to whatever courts the suffrages of the educated classes. And in England this revival of ancient christianity has not burst from among the sects where, having less confinement, it would sooner waste its infant strength; but from the very heart of the established church, where salutary corrective influences are as strong and steady as they can be. Furthermore, it has not, as in certain instances which might be mentioned, been fomented among juniors, more zealous than discreet, and with whom the want of judgment, and the unconfessed impulses of hot ambition, might have combined to cherish extravagance of conduct, and opinion-not with such have we now to do, but with men of mature understanding, and of authenticated professional quality, and whose official sentiments, tending more toward repose than agitation, must be supposed to outweigh any irregular desires of notoriety. The writers of the Tracts for the Times have far more, in every sense, to risk, than they are likely to gain, by the course they are pursuing. And finally, it is a circumstance worthy of notice, and corroboratory of the general idea of our approaching an extraordinary and peculiar crisis of the church, that, if one of the english universities rather than the other could give sanction to doctrines and practices drawn from christian antiquity, those maintained in the Tracts for the Times are emanating, not from Cambridgebut from Oxford.

15

SUBSTANCE OF THE ARGUMENT.

CONCISELY expressed, the argument of the reformation turned upon the alleged difference between the religion of the middle ages, and that of the New Testament. The romanist generally admitted this diversity, and yet maintained that, whatever constituted the difference, was nevertheless binding upon the church: the reformers therefore had more to do with the principle of the authority which imposed this difference, than with the difference in its details, and which was confessed on all sides.

Using, for the moment, a similar brevity of description, it may be affirmed that the argument mooted by the writers of the Oxford Tracts, turns upon the difference (if there be any) between the religion of the New Testament, and that of the pristine and martyr church, which difference, even if it were ascertained, they would represent to be not merely innocent or imitable, but of authoritative value.

After exhibiting this discrepancy, there would remain to be discussed a question concerning the deference that is due, by the modern church, to the ancient church, on the ground of its having possessed, what we have lost, namely, the unwritten mind, and the practices of the apostolic age; as well as those decisions, on various points of discipline and worship, to which, in their epistles, the apostles frequently refer, as generally known, although not then and there specified. Whatever may be the ultimate consequences, or tendency of their modes of thinking, the Oxford Tract writers are not, like Tertullian, labouring to establish the equal authority of a perpetually ema