systems, as well amongst Dissenters as in the Church, had been unsuspectingly and greedily absorbed by the public mind. The theory of Church and State had been handled by adherents of a rationalizing school which had grown up at Oxford, on various principles, indeed, but in such modes as to generate dissatisfaction with existing institutions. Elements thus prepared were stimulated into unnatural activity by political convulsions. We were overwhelmed with pamphlets on Church Reform. . . . Each sciolist presented his puny design for reconstructing this august temple built by no human hands. Such was the disorganization of the public mind, that Dr. Arnold of Rugby ventured to propose that all sects should be united by act of Parliament with the Church of England, on the principle of retaining all their distinctive errors and absurdities. . . . Pamphlets were in circulation recommending the abolition of the creeds (at least in public worship), and especially urging the expulsion of the Athanasian Creed." 1

To meet the crisis, the writer of the above extracts conferred in 1833 with several zealous friends of the Church, such as Newman, Froude, Keble, Rose, and Percival. Organized effort was decided upon. The plan of an association was drawn up, and documents were circulated among clergy and laity soliciting their signature to declarations of attachment to the Church of England. Meanwhile the "Tracts for the Times," which gave name to the movement, began to be issued. Mr. Palmer says that for a short time, approving the general

1 A Narrative of Events connected with the Publication of the Tracts for the Times, New York, 1843.

intent of these tracts, he assisted in their circulation; but he soon became convinced that they were prepared with too little care, and were likely to have an unfavorable effect, so that he could no longer encourage their publication. They continued, however, to be issued till 1841, when the series came to an end, owing to the episcopal disapprobation — and perhaps also to the general outcry called forth by the tract No. 90.

This tract, which was regarded as vaporing away the natural sense of the Thirty-Nine Articles, was written by J. H. Newman. For some years, though receiving at the start an impetus from Keble and R. H. Froude, he was the real leader of the Oxford movement. E. B. Pusey, who became so identified with Tractarianism as to have his name wrought into a substitute term for the system, first gave his hearty co-operation in 1835.

The year 1841 may be regarded as the terminus of the first stage of Tractarianism. What characteristics had it exhibited up to that date? The answer to this question may be summarized as follows: (1) An impatient attitude toward State control. (2) Immense emphasis upon apostolical succession and upon the sacraments, the validity of which was regarded as dependent upon that succession. (3) Hostility to certain doctrines characteristic of Protestantism, and approximation to certain tenets and maxims of Romanism.

As respects the first of these points, the Tractarians owed something to their familiarity with the writings of the Nonjurors. From the same quarter also they received a stimulus to a disparaging estimate of the English Reformation. "To this source," writes Palmer, "it was easy to trace much of that jealousy of State inter

ference, much of that assertion of the unlimited independence of the Church, and, above all, much of that unfavorable judgment of the English and Foreign Reformation, which so largely characterized the Tracts and other connected works. The Nonjurors, from whom their views were, perhaps unconsciously, borrowed, had been pressed by their opponents with precedents of civil interference in church matters at the period of the Reformation; and their remedy too frequently was to assail and to vilify the Reformation itself. Their separation from the Established Church also led gradually to their discovery of various supposed defects in our Liturgy and institutions. Certain ceremonies which had been prescribed in the first Book of Common Prayer of Edward VI., and which had been subsequently omitted, were represented by several Nonjuring writers as essentials." It is only necessary to add to this statement that it became characteristic of Tractarianism to stigmatize the surrender of these ceremonies as an ill-advised concession to ultra Protestantism.

The importance of apostolical succession and of the sacraments is the favorite theme of the Tracts. In the advertisement to the first volume of these writings, the main object of the publication is declared to be the revival of Catholic teaching upon these subjects. Neglect in this direction, it is claimed, has taken many an awakened sinner from the Church and given him to the Dissenting preacher. "Had he been taught as a child, that the sacraments, not preaching, are the sources of divine grace; that the apostolical ministry had a virtue in it. which went out over the whole Church, when sought by the prayer of faith; that fellowship with it was a gift

and a privilege as well as a duty, we could not have so many wanderers from our fold." The first Tract has this sentence: "I fear we have neglected the real ground on which our authority is built, OUR APOSTOLICAL DESCENT." Says Tract 4, " Why should we talk so much of an Establishment, and so little of our apostolical succession?" In Tract 35 we have the following: "A person not commissioned from the bishop may use the words of baptism, and sprinkle and bathe with water, on earth, but there is no promise from Christ that such a man shall admit souls to the kingdom of Heaven. A person not commissioned may break bread and pour out wine, and pretend to give the Lord's Supper, but it can afford no comfort to any to receive it at his hands, because there is no warrant from Christ to lead communicants to suppose that while he does so here on earth, they will be partakers in the Savior's heavenly body and blood. As for the person himself who takes upon himself without warrant to minister in holy things, he is all the while treading in the footsteps of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, whose awful punishment you can read of in the Book of Numbers." The advertisement to the second volume of Tracts contains one of the most sweeping declarations of the sacramentalists' theory" We have almost embraced the doctrine, that God conveys grace only through the instrumentality of the mental energies, that is, through faith, prayer, active spiritual contemplations, or (what is called) communion with God, in contradiction to the primitive view, according to which the Church and her sacraments are the ordained and direct visible means of conveying to the soul what is supernatural and unseen. For example,

would not most men maintain, on the first view of the subject, that to administer the Lord's Supper to infants, or to the dying and insensible, however consistently pious and believing in their past lives, was a superstition? And yet both practices have the sanction of primitive usage. And does not this account for the prevailing indisposition to admit that baptism conveys regeneration? Indeed, this may be set down as the essence of sectarian doctrine, (however its mischief may be restrained or compensated in the case of individuals,) to consider faith, and not the sacraments, as the instrument of justification and other gospel gifts," whereas faith is only one among the conditions of receiving. The emphasis accorded to baptism as an external rite in the above extract is repeated in unmeasured terms in Tract 61. "Baptismal regeneration," it is there stated, "as connected with the incarnation of our blessed Lord, gives a depth to our Christian existence, an actualness to our union with Christ, a reality to our sonship to God, an interest in our Lord's glorified body at God's right hand, a joyousness amid the subduing of the flesh, an overwhelmingness to the dignity conferred on human nature, a solemnity to the communion of saints, who are the fulness of Him who filleth all in all, a substantiality to the indwelling of Christ, that to those who retain this truth the school that abandoned it must needs to appear to have sold their birthright." A like estimate appears in Pusey's Letter to the Bishop of Oxford, where he says: "There are but two periods of absolute cleansing, baptism and the day of judgment." This means, if it means anything, that no degree of consecration and faith, no height of inward experience,