66

nation-service by a Bishop, but in a Priest (although no innovation) it is so; again, it was not so accounted in Hooker's time, in the Church, but that has become Popish in the 19th, which was not in the 17th; it is not Popish, if any one, taking one alternative offered him by his Church', “all Priests and Deacons are to say daily the morning and evening Prayer, either "privately, or openly, not being let by sickness or some "other urgent cause," shall say them by himself in his own house; but if any one, taking the alternative enjoined to the Parochial Minister unless "reasonably "hindered, say the same in the Parish Church or Chapel, where he ministereth," and from any cause none come to "pray with him," then to pray by himself in the Church is Popish, and partakes of the nature of "private masses."

66

Again, it implies a Papistical leaning to dislike the term "Protestant 2." And yet this title, the rejection of which is to argue a leaning to Romanism, does not belong historically to our Church, but to the Lutherans, and was still used exclusively of them, in the memory of some of the younger among us; it has no where been adopted by our Church in any formulary or document of her's; nay, it was in 1689 altogether repudiated by the representatives of the inferior Clergy at least, the Lower house of Convocation 3, who would not even

1 Directions" Concerning the Service of the Church,” in Preface to Common Prayer-book.

3 Birch's Life of Tillotson. See at length, Tracts, No. 71, p. 33

allow of the phrase, "The Protestant religion in

66

general, and the Church of England in particular," lest they should thereby seem in any way to identify themselves with the foreign Churches. Thus then, again, that is to be Papistical in the beginning of the 19th century, which was not at the close of the 17th; or the main body of our Clergy had then a Papistical leaning. The adoption of a Lutheran title might surely better prove those who use it, to identify themselves with the Lutherans, than its rejection to imply any lurking feeling for the Church of Rome. The title, as simply negative, is ill-fitted to characterize the faith of any portion of the Christian Church; it speaks only of what we do not hoid, not of what we do hold, and is accordingly in some countries, as Italy, adopted by those who intend thereby to deny, not the errors only held by Rome, but the Faith which she has retained: "which imagine the canker to have eaten so far into the very bones and marrow of the Church of Rome, as if it had not so "much as a sound belief, no, not concerning GOD

66

16

66

Himself, but that the very belief of the Trinity were "a part of Anti-Christian corruption '." For the most part, Protestant is there the title assumed by the infidel. And this abuse of the title lies in its very nature; it is always more real to describe ourselves by what we are, than to state merely what we are not, lest in time our faith should shrink into the mere denial of error, instead of being a confession of the truth.

1 Hooker E. P. IV. viii. 2. ed. Keble.

1

It is Popery again, and disaffection to our Church, to doubt whether the Pope is the Antichrist, even while asserting that there is much anti-Christian 1 in the system of Rome; that as in St. John's time there were "many Antichrists," and the mystery of iniquity had begun already to work in St. Paul's, and his descriptions were in great degree realized by the Gnostic heresies, so there is also antiChristianism in the system of Rome, though Antichrist himself be not yet revealed, nor may we yet know when or among whom he will appear.

Again, to approve of any thing in the Roman Breviary, which was not extracted thence by the reformers of our Liturgy, betrays a longing, they say, towards Rome, an argument somewhat singular in their mouths, who speak against the "idolatry of the Prayer-book,"—as if our compilers had been not only wisely governed, but infallibly directed, and so could not have overlooked any thing, which though not essential, had yet been an additional beauty or perfection, had it been retained. Why, when we have an Easter hymn, should it be Papistical to think Advent hymns, with which the Breviary abounds, had been an accession to our service, realizing as they do the coming and immediate presence of our LORD? or to term the Breviary and Missal, from which most of our own Prayer-book is taken, "precious relics of antiquity?"

My Lord, I would not be misunderstood; we do

See Appendix, Nos. 38. 40, 41. 48. 72. and close of "Earnest Remonstrances," prefixed to Tracts, vol. 3.

not wish, we have never expressed a wish, to have any alteration in the Liturgy of our Church; as we mistrust others in their way, so we mistrust ourselves in our own; they think that our Church erred in retaining too much, we think that she might have retained more of what was ancient in the Breviary and the Missal, without approximating in any way to the corruptions of modern Rome: but there is this difference in our principles, that they, not accustomed to any high views of Church discipline, for the most part as soon as they have an end in view, which they think good, think also that it is good to realize it any how; form societies, enter into combinations, prepare schemes for accomplishing it, take the initiative in it, hoping that those "set over us in the LORD" the Bishops of our Church, will in time fall into it. They are, what they have upbraided one of our friends for terming himself, "Eccle- . siastical agitators;" only our friend meant by the name to rouse the Church from within to a sense of her own privileges and gifts," they act upon it, as referring to outward changes, whether in her Liturgy or discipline, produced by the "agitation" of a portion of her members. We have been taught to know our own place in the LORD's vineyard; that we are under authority;" that our office is not to reform our Church, to add or to take away from her, but to obey her; to study her character, to see how we may more and more bring out and realize her teaching and her principles. We have, further than this, said

66

66

1 Froude's Remains, T. i. p. 258.

again and again (and I refer to this, because they who blame us should at least know our principles), that whatever is done for the Church must not be done by a majority in her, that (to use the words of one of us), "Whatever is done for the Church as a whole, "must be done by the Church as a whole 1." More than this, the writer among us, who from his peculiar mode of expressing himself, could least be judged of by partial extracts, and so has been, perhaps, the most extensively misunderstood, sums up in this reverential way his arguments for not further shortening the Church services. It is manifest that his own heart (one may speak of him, because he is at rest) was with those ages, when "they complied with Scripture to the letter, praised God seven times a day, besides their morning and evening prayer." Yet he thus sums up his account of the gradual contraction of them. "This, it will be said, is an argu

1 Pref. to St. Augustine's Confessions, p. ix. add. App. No. 54.

2 Froude's Remains, t. ii. p. 382. Of the same kind is the passage in which, while referring to the changes in our Communion Service, through the foreign reformers, as "a judgment on the Church," he thankfully acquiesces in our present service as "crumbs from the Apostles' table." Better (if one might so expand his metaphor) in itself, to have the whole than the fragments; but better again to have the fragments than the whole, when mingled with foreign ingredients, so that there is "death in the pot," if not to individuals, yet to the Church generally; nay better again, perhaps, for us, because more suited to us (such as we now are) to be contented with " the crumbs," having again become babes who have "need of milk not of strong meat:" and