holiness and joining in Christ, there be but two, namely, Baptism, and the Supper of the Lord. But in a general acceptation, the name of a sacrament may be attributed to anything whereby a holy thing is signified." A pretty broad gate that for Catholic Revivalists to drive their heady steeds through at a vigorous pace, with little fear of grazing the side-posts; and it is pretty certain, to all conversant with their pretensions, that they mean to apply it to orders, confirmation, absolution, and matrimony. They can then claim all the sacraments, and gain in this same an identity with Rome.

But I think that the nature of the sacraments ought, with honest men, to constitute an impassable barrier to Rome, though it is not certain that it would. For on the transubstantiation question men become such casuists, that they seem to lose all clear convictions of what the doctrine of the English Church truly is! Most certainly the Anglican Church admits an undefined presence of Christ in the sacrament; but it is equally true that in the clearest and sternest terms she utters a positive denunciation of the doctrine of transubstantiation, and the sacrifice of the altar. Dr. Pusey, in his "Truth and Office of the English Church," tries to get out of the difficulty in this way: "My own conviction is that our articles deny transubstantiation in one sense, and that the Roman Church, according to the explanation of the catechism of the Council of Trent, affirms it in another." This seems a casuistical mode of controversy, which straightforward minds cannot tolerate, and which may prove black white at any time. The point is simply this-let it be admitted that a real presence, call it consubstantia

"no

tion or what not, is taught in the Anglican Prayer-book, and is sanctioned by the catechism and articles, yet the fact still remains that the Romish doctrine is a distinct affirmation of transubstantiation, and the Romish practice is a distinct and prominent worship, both of which the articles, in very vigorous language, protest against! It is said in the Prayer-book, that by kneeling adoration is intended, or ought to be done, either unto the sacramental bread and wine there bodily received, or unto any corporal presence of Christ's natural flesh and blood. For the sacramental bread and wine remain still in their very natural substance, and therefore may not be adored, for that were idolatry, to be abhorred by all faithful Christians; and the natural body and blood of our Saviour Christ are in heaven, and not here, it being against the truth of Christ's natural body to be at one time in more places than one."

It is utterly futile for Catholic Revivalists to talk about the articles confessing the reality of Christ's presence, and that they agree with Catholic antiquity, in that there is a recognised change. They are left minus the doctrine of transubstantiation, and minus the act of adoration. It is not for us to say what the Anglican Church means by her doctrine, but it is for us to apprehend what she does not mean, and whilst the Prayerbook remains as it is, this denunciation of transubstantiation must prove an impassable barrier to Rome. It is of no avail to answer, priests who are in the Anglican Church do now believe and teach the Romish doctrine. Doubtless they do; but the ground of our consideration is this-how far the

Catholic Revival can consistently, in its connection with the English Church, claim to coalesce in an honest way with Rome? To the question, whether Rome would take England back, with the doctrine concerning the Eucharist as it now stands in the Prayerbook, the answer is no! a thousand times no! The homilies may speak of the " 'mystical bread," and the "high mysteries of the sacrament," but the 28th article says:- "The body of Christ is given, taken, and eaten in the supper only after a spiritual manner;" and the 31st article censures the sacrifice of masses, as blasphemous fables and dangerous deceits! It seems to be the very acme of an unfair casuistry to suppose that the language censuring the sacrifice of masses is interpretable as referring to private masses, purchasable when men are in extremis" and afraid to die, and that it gives a tacit assent to the sacrament of the mass itself. None but those who have turned conscience into a court of apologetics could venture on so daring and shameless a subterfuge as this.

One other matter remains to be noticed. The readers of the Church News and Church Times must have been struck often enough with the fact, that in processions, where the officiant is vested in a chasuble, and the wardens and other assistants wear tunicles, the thurifer swinging the censer "till the air grows denser," acolytes and cross-bearers assisting, the hymn is sung, "Brightly gleams our banner," one of these banners being the banner of the B. V., Blessed Virgin moreover, the hymns which gain most popularity are those which sail as near to the wind" in the honour of the Virgin as possible. Now

or

it is to be noted that in Dr. Pusey's "Eirenicon" there has been a noble expression of opinion concerning the cultus of the Virgin in the Church of Rome! Virgin worship is one of the "gulfs" which separate the AngloCatholic from the Roman Church! There may perhaps be some ground on which an Anglican Church can coalesce with Rome in praying for the dead. I do not think the Ora pro nobis is a separating element, because, as Bishop Ellicott shows in his "Destiny of the Creature," Sermon vi., on the Communion of Saints, where he is endeavouring to counteract what he calls "the melancholy realism of the present day," there is a kind of commemoration of the dead which the English Church allows; although he goes on to show that this does not involve either supplicatory or intercessory prayer either on the part of the living for the departed or the departed for the living saints. Yet he speaks of the dead in Christ not being forgotten, and seems to sympathise with the ancient liturgy of Constantinople, where the early Christians specially offered unto God their reasonable service for those who rested in faith.” But the reader will say this is only the sympathetic sentiment of one English bishop, who, in the main, disbelieves in actual prayers for the dead-but what of the Church of England herself? The forms of devotion in the first book of Edward VI. for the Communion and Burial Services are to be found in "Keeling's Liturgies," pp. 210, 335, 341—and this was the devotion for what is called the bidding prayer. "Thirdly, ye shall pray for all them that be departed out of this world in the faith of Christ, that they with us and we

with them, at the day of judgment, may rest both body and soul with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven," which words. were omitted in subsequent prayerbooks. Bishop Ellicott says, "it is certain that some of the most loyal members of the Church of England have not scrupled to follow the practice; and, of course, the Catholic Revivalists claim to have foundation enough in the early Edwardine liturgy for the restoration of prayers for the dead."

But prayer for saints is a different thing from prayer to the Virgin; and Dr. Pusey candidly confesses that in the very voluminous evidence collected by Pope Pius IX. before he decreed the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, there is evidence enough that the Virgin is worshipped as God, and as even in some sort superior to God, he quotes such authorities as these:"You have over God the authority of a Mother, and, hence, can obtain pardon for the most obdurate of sinners." "Liguori's Glories of Mary."-Pusey, p. 103.

"I shall no longer fear your Son justly irritated, since one word from you will appease him." ibid.-Pusey, p. 105.

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Co-redemptress of the human race."-Archbishop of Syracuse.

"Authoress of Everlasting Salvation." De Salazar.-Pusey, p. 153.

"The Virgin Mother of God, helping our infirmities, will entreat her Son for us with groanings which cannot be uttered." Archbishop of Cuba.-Pusey, p. 143.

The celebrated Roman Catholic, Dr. Faber ("Growth in Holiness," p. 16,) confesses that the Romish Church has worked devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary "inextricably

into her whole system." This then is clear, there is what may fairly be called the GODDESS Worship of the Church of Rome, which for ever separates the Anglican communion from her. More than ever developed in the Romish Church since the Reformation-there is no trace of it in the early Edwardine Prayer-book, or in the primitive customs. Never did Dr. Pusey deal a more successful thrust at Rome, than when, stating in his own nervous language the Anglican side of the case, he shows that if Virgin invocations were needful for salvation "there would be grave reasons for doubting of the salvation of St. Chrysostom, or St. Athanasius, or of the primitive martyrs; nay, I should like to know whether St. Augustine, in his voluminous writings, invokes her once." This is a manly, noble, and honourable utterance! Dr. Pusey-think as we may of his remaining in an Anglican Church-has reasoned out his position satisfactorily to his own conscience, and he has done splendid service in showing how this Virgin worship is a separatory element in the two Churches !

It is not the design of this paper to exhaust all the subjects of agreement or difference between the Churches of Rome and England; but, in selecting some few salient subjects, one purpose has been kept steadily in view that purpose is this-to consider, with unprejudiced judgment, what is the exact relation at this moment of the Catholic Revival to that Church of Rome with which in spirit it has such affinity! Clear as these differences may be to students of ecclesiastical history and to theologians generally, it must yet be very evident that the majority of

minds are so constituted that they will not stay to study these differentia, but will ultimately be prepared to merge, Manning-like, into the fullyblossomed Papal Church!

The worst feature in the case is this-the leaders of the movement, to use their own language (Church News, November 13th, 1867), are determined to set law and order at defiance; "the promoters of the great revival of faith and piety will continue to complete their work of re-catholicising England through her National Church." Yes, this is the deadly danger, and it is to be feared in the worst sense that, to use the well-known Disraeli's phrase, these men are educating their party," so that in a few brief years they may be surrounded by Catholic congregations prepared to follow Archbishop Manning and Father Newman into the bosom of Rome. But of one thing we may be sure, that whilst no favour will be shown by law to Lord Ebury and the evangelical revisionists, so also no alteration of the law will be made by the Legislature in favour of the Romanistic party. The Catholic Revivalists will do all they dare to imitate "the great Laud as the saviour of our Church in Puritan times;" but while the Church of England is national, though she may become highly Catholic, she cannot possibly become one with Rome. Dr. Manning, Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster, wrote to an Anglican

friend:-"My old friends and I are parted because we hold principles which are irreconcilable;" and, with a boldness which is honest, though it may not to Catholic Revivalists be comforting, he repudiates the idea that the Church of England has even a claim to be called Catholic; for, as shown in the commencement of this paper, he distinctly denies it to be any part of the Church Catholic, or in any divine or true sense a Church at all.

Repudiated then in every sense by Rome, both by her clergy and her literature, hampered by the Protestantism of the anti-Catholic Articles, and the Erastian enactments of the State, the Catholic Revivalists may work and wait-swell with importance and struggle onward by craft-but there is no possible way short of Parliamentary enactment of taking the National Church of England through the gates of the citadel into Rome! Her clergy may find their way individually indeed into the Papal fold-and, after penance and confession, be absolved, re-priested, and ultimately honoured with place and power; her people may be so trained and taught as to make a personal "Eirenicon" with Rome, but in no sense whatever can the Church of England as by law constituted coalesce with the Papacy. It may be that she can strangle Protestantism-but she cannot call back to life the departed ghost of Rome.