inspire a cause. It is not wonderful that the church principle attracted them irresistibly, and drew them to its service. For devout minds, born within a hierarchial church, it has an immense natural attractiveness. It seems to give a body and substance to the promised influences of Christianity. It seems to give to each person within the privileged pale a position of favour and acceptance. It seems to give to the whole administration of Christianity in the world, an historical form in the highest degree palpable and imposing; one positive teaching and quickening institute, through which divine light and life are certainly and directly transmitted; in which you may rest and rejoice, believing that these are here, are supernaturally here, are here alone. Moreover, there was an immense recommendation to the authors of the Tractarian movement, in the fact that this principle at once singled out the Established Church as the church which had the apostolical succession, separated her case from that of every other, and supplied the most convenient ground for a defence of her, and of all that was hers, against "liberalism." Then it is to be remembered that the opposite or evangelical principle, as represented in the Church of England, was unfortunately associated with a neglect of all doctrines and principles applicable to the right constitution of the church visible; and also with a theoretic Erastianism, which laid the church defenceless at the feet of government, at a time too when indifferentism seemed likely to take complete possession of parliament and the country. How strongly this consideration acted on the early stage of the movement may be seen, not only from the work before us, but from an article reprinted in Froude's Remains "On State Interference in Matters Spiritual." It was written in 1833, and is a very forcible discussion of the position of the Church of England in consequence of the political changes then recently carried through. All these things made the principles of "Antiquity," and of the primary place and indispensable functions of the church visible, as outwardly perpetuated and identified, very attractive. And, as we have remarked already, it was at all events logically consistent to say, "Let us go through with these principles; let us develope what they mean and require." Dr Newman's Apologia, however, will revive the question, Who have gone through with them;-Dr Newman and those who have accompanied him to Rome, or those who remain in the Church of England, and still advocate Tractarian principles there?

The latter party, besides what they may have to say on the logic of the case, will no doubt make the most of the peculiarities of Dr Newman's mind, as here disclosed, and will comfort themselves with the belief that his movement to Rome

Anglican "Catholicity."

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was the result of those peculiarities, and not of a logical process of principles. We fear this comfort is precarious. It would not be difficult to shew that Dr Newman's peculiarities favoured his remaining in the church in which he was bred, in spite of difficulties; for he has a singular power of presenting things to his own mind, so as to make difficulties vanish, or else glorify them into an ornament and commendation of the cause he espouses. No doubt, once he found his position quite untenable, the same mental tendencies helped him to adapt himself to the theoretical and practical exigencies of Romanism. But the true explanation of his secession is, that he was in earnest with his church principles, and really surrendered himself to their guidance. We are perfectly aware of all that is said by the representatives of Tractarianism, still within the English Church, against the Church of Rome. It is quite true that you can adduce against her, not from Scripture only, but from antiquity, a great number of difficulties and objections, doctrinal and practical. It is also true that, even on high church principles, you can plausibly arraign her for proceedings constructively schismatical, and for many offences more. But all this is vainly pleaded by those who started with Newman, and whom Newman has left behind. These pleas are valid only as a reductio ad absurdum of the whole "Catholic" principle. You may prove by such pleas, that there is no church now on the earth that adequately meets the requirements of that principle, and so that the principle itself must be false. But the question now before us, between Dr Newman and his quondam associates, is whether the Roman Church alone exhibits the Catholic ideal in actual concrete reality, or whether the Anglican does so, also, and still more truly than the Roman and the hypothesis of both is, that such a concrete reality does exist, and may be found. On this state of the question Rome is invincible. The kind of church which the "Catholic" principle requires, the kind of church to which antiquity came to point as its ideal, is not a church related to Christianity and to church history, as the Church of England is. If it be unconditionally obligatory on every man who would be saved, to be in fellowship with Christ's church, circumscribed, perpetuated, and identified as the "Catholic" principle requires, then it is clear from Scripture and antiquity both, that Christ's catholic church is one. It can no more be two or three, than Christ himself can. primarily to be sought and identified as she must be visible and organically one. some occult unity, in virtue of which the Church of England is one church catholic with the Church of Rome, which steadily excommunicates her for heresy, and renounces her as accursed.

And if the church is visible and organised, It is vain to talk of

It is trifling with one's own principles to do so. When a man swallows such a superstition as the "Catholic" principle, surely he should and must expect to get something for his pains. Is the only result to be, that be shall find himself exercising a protestant private judgment, to the effect of explaining away the Note of UNITY? There are difficulties about the claims of Rome; but they are difficulties that can be got over by a man who has adopted the "Catholic" principle. The Church of England cannot be the church which the theory requires, and which antiquity required. The Church of Rome may be; but if she may, she must, for there is practically no competitor. Without impeaching the personal honesty of those Tractarians who remain in the Church of England, it must be said that their public position is so unreasonable, as irresistibly to suggest that they are not thoroughly in earnest with their own principles; not so in earnest as to seek resolutely an understanding with themselves. There is a great deal too much of mere John Bull assertion, that their church is as well born, and as well bred, as competent to minister grace, as well furnished with every ecclesiastical prerogative as any church in the world can be. There is too much of laying hold of "Catholic" principles, in order to make these subservient to the strength and comfort of their position as the Established Church, and too much contentment with mere dialectical evasions, when the principles threaten to be inconvenient for men in their position. There is too little evidence of principle obtaining a real, single-eyed supremacy over the mere suggestions, and the mere pressure, of circumstances.

So far, therefore, we think Dr Newman has a right to feel that the Roman communion is his proper resting-place. We do not wonder that, when he looks back at the Church of England, so provincial, so secluded from the rest of Christendom, so heterogeneous, so enslaved to secular interests and authority, with so many dubious passages in her descent, entangled with so much that is uncatholic, unprimitive, in a word, protestant in her articles, in her spirit, in her history,—he should marvel how the attributes of the church catholic and apostolic can be claimed for her.

"When I looked back upon the poor Anglican Church, for which I had laboured so hard, and upon all that appertained to it, and thought of our various attempts to dress it up doctrinally and æsthetically, it seemed to me to be the veriest of nonentities. Vanity of vanities, all is vanity! How can I make a record of what passed within me without seeming to be satirical? . . . . I recognise, in the Anglican Church, a time-honoured institution, of noble historical memories. . But that it is something sacred, that it is an oracle of revealed doctrine, that it can claim a share in St Ignatius

or St Cyprian, that it can take the rank, contest the teaching, and stop the path of the church of St Peter, that it can call itself the 'Bride of the Lamb,' this is the view of it, which simply disappeared from my mind on my conversion, and which it would be almost a miracle to reproduce. I went by, and, lo! it was gone: I sought it, but its place could nowhere be found,' and nothing can bring it back to me. And as to its possession of an episcopal succession from the time of the apostles, well, it may have it, and if the holy see ever so decided, I will believe it, as being the decision of a higher judgment than my own; but I must have St Philip's gift, who saw the sacerdotal character on the forehead of a gaily attired youngster, before I can, by my own wit, acquiesce in it." App. p. 25.

Dr Newman has a perfect right to laugh at all this, as hardly deserving to be reasoned about. But his triumph, after all, is only a logical or hypothetical one. On the assumption that Christianity is committed to the "Catholic" principle, there is indeed no salvation but by a salto mortale into the bosom of the Church of Rome. And he has seen this, and has taken the leap, which his former comrades, upon very futile pretexts, decline to take. But it remains that both equally, he in one communion, they in another (the latter certainly with less right), have subjected themselves to the influence of a theory which travesties and petrifies some of the grandest truths of Christianity, and completely inverts some of the most important relations which it unfolds. In consequence, both are supplying to our countrymen, in different degrees, a teaching that is pernicious and debasing. And perhaps it is a yet worse evil, that both are occasioning, in many minds, a recoil attended with other dangers. Unfortunately, the evangelical party in the Church of England, numbering many admirable and laborious men, do not seem as yet to succeed in laying a strong hand on English thought. Whatever the cause may be, the fact seems too clear. More than thirty years ago, Newman tells us, when he was forming his impressions of parties and principles, he thoroughly despised the evangelicals," p. 114. However unscrupulous and unjustifiable the feeling might be, that it was possible to entertain it is significant. They are still, we fear, in an uninfluential position with reference to the rising mind and scholarship of the Church of England. In consequence, there are many to whom the only practical alternatives, the only alternatives that demand patient consideration, seem to be, on the one hand, a religion entangled with superstitions that shock their view of history and their common sense, and which make the New Testament a riddle, or, on the other hand, a simply negative attitude towards all decidedly Christian convictions. The high church men make many ritualists; but, if not more, they are of far more weight and power, whom they make rationalists.

This very serious aspect of the business deserves some closing remarks. It comes up very prominently in the Apologia, though contemplated, of course, in a very different way from

It was claimed for the Oxford school from the beginning, that their system was the only one on which Christianity could be now-a-days effectually defended. On the ground of the Bible alone, it was said, every doctrine can be made doubtful, and Christianity dissipated piecemeal. The early church alone supplies the clear rule, and the fulness of authority, which the case requires. Froude put the matter substantially on this ground long ago, in his review of Blanco White. And as Newman held the view then, he holds it still, in an advanced and intensified form, corresponding to his advanced position, and declares that atheism and Romanism are the alternatives for thinking men. In the form in which this view is put by those who remain in the Anglican communion, and who do not hold the doctrine of an infallible church, still uttering its oracles, it does not deserve much attention. As Dr Newman now puts it, it is just the old Roman allegation; and in so far as it is intended to operate as a proof in behalf of the Romish communion, and the infallibility of the church visible, it admits of a short and easy answer. You must of course believe in Christianity first, before the argument can have any bearing at all And when you do, the argument still remains inept, unless you burden your Christianity with the " catholic" principles about antiquity and the church visible. If you do, you are certainly in danger of being reduced to Dr Newman's alternative. But if you don't, Dr Newman must first prove that Christianity, in its proper protestant form, is untenable. He indicates the line along which he would do that, by pointing to the onsets of modern criticism upon the Bible, and the doubts which beset it in consequence, considered as a rule of faith. As far as he is concerned, it is enough to reply, that if those attacks are successful, if they cannot be repelled by the appropriate weapons, then the infallibility of the church may be a refuge indeed, but it is a mere irrational refuge; I believe the church, because I will believe it, because I will think that God has provided such a guide, whether I can shew that he has or not. But if it comes to that, why shall I not have leave to believe, with equal blindness, in the Bible, instead of the church? If the evidence is ruined in both cases, why shall I not believe without evidence in the one as well as in the other? Surely Dr Newman does not think that criticism has less to say against the infallible church than against the Bible.

The impression which Dr Newman's reasoning, enforced by his personal surrender to its cogency, will make, will in too many cases be all the other way. It will further the cause of