own private judgments, from the writings of the fathers of the third and fourth centuries, and often from much later and more corrupted sources; and these doctrines, they take it for granted, are the doctrines of the English Church, because our Reformers often did make allusion to these very fathers as authorities on certain points. But they forget that our Reformers had first laid down the principle that the Bible is the only standard of infallible truth, and that no human authority is to be received except in so far as it is in accordance with Scripture; and our Reformers also remembered that there is a strong oriental cast over the writings of Chrysostom and Basil and many of the fathers, and much poetic exaggeration, for which due allowance must be made in accepting their works as exponents of Christian doctrine. That which is now erroneously called "Catholic" doctrine, truly was the doctrine of Laud and his party, and was one of the main causes of that lamentable reaction which proved fatal both to Laud and his Sovereign; but it had no earlier origin in England. The first English Reformers, to whom we owe the foundation of a Church purified from the corruptions of Rome, knew not or acknowledged not such pseudo-Catholic doctrines, the true name for which is Patristic, and which they would have rejected as anti-scriptural. That the facts are truly so is proved beyond contradiction by the most unexceptional evidence-that of the Bishop of Exeter's own chaplain, Mr. Maskell a man every way competent to make the enquiry, and who had everything at stake in making it. He, like the rest, had assumed that the Church of England was Catholic in this false and patristic sense; but when he examined the writings of the Reformers, expecting to have full confirmation of what he had assumed without examination, he found it so much the contrary that, with scarcely a single exception, they repudiated many doctrines which he had been accustomed to regard as unquestionably Catholic; yet so strong a hold had these doctrines taken upon his spirit that he forsook the Church in which he had learned all that he knew to plunge blindfold into that mass of corruption where room is found, not only for every patristic, but every heathen, idolatry.

Of Laud, we may say that, up to the time of his imprisonment, he had given no indication that the truths of religion had ever reached his heart. He had not made it a personal concern: it was regarded as a theory to be discussed or a system to be constructed. His three years' imprisonment seems to have wrought humility and a total change of spirit

becoming one who was dying for what he believed to be Christian principle, and trusting in Christ alone for salvation; praying that his sins might be nailed to the cross-that he might be bathed in the blood of Christ-that he might be hid in Christ's wounds-that so the punishment due to sin might pass over him. We find no indication of such a spirit in the days of his prosperity. On the contrary, one of the first acts of his primacy was the re-issuing the "Book of Sports,' commanding it to be published in all the churches, and suspending or depriving those clergymen whose consciences would not allow them to be thus made instrumental in desecrating the Lord's-day. Some of the magistrates were treated with severity for suppressing Sunday wakes; and Chief Justice Richardson, who had supported these magistrates in their endeavours to suppress these Sunday revels, was summoned before the council and browbeaten by Laud, or "choked with a pair of lawn sleeves," as he expressed it. A decisive proof of the want of Christian charity is found in the joy which Laud expressed at the barbarous sentences pronounced against Leighton, Prynne, Bastwick, and Burton; on the first of which occasions Laud is reported to have pulled off his cap, devoutly thanking God who had given him the victory over his enemies. Nay, Bishop Williams, whom Laud accounted his enemy, having in his possession a letter reflecting in scurrilous terms upon the Primate, was on this account fined 8,000l. And Osbaldiston, head-master of Westminster School, who had written the letter, was sentenced to pay a fine of 5,000l., and to have his ears nailed to the door-posts in the presence of his scholars. He, however, saved himself by flight. That Laud gave no indications of personal religion during all this time is allowed by all. "Politically he swayed the royal councils-was made acquainted with everything that was going on in England and abroad by spies and informersperformed the part of an active bustling courtier, associating with men of most uncongenial tempers, principles, and habits; and all for the sake of realising the grand illusion of his life— the restoration of his Church and Order to mediæval splendour and importance." And that even his friends knew not what his religion was, and had great doubts where it would end, appears from the letter of Bishop Hall, in which he writes, To-day you are in the tents of the Romanists-to-morrow in ours.'

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The same "grand illusion" is attempting to be realised in our own day under the name of "Catholic Principles," and the "Sacra mental System." And as if to render the parallel more

obvious, and complete the identity, proposals are actually made for reviving the "Book of Sports," and pamphlets have been published which may be called leaves taken out of Laud's book. But as it is on record that this act of Laud was, speak ing only politically, the act which gave the greatest offence and caused the most universal disgust, because of the unnatural association which it suggested between the primacy of the Church and irreligion-so we believe that it really does indicate both in Laud and in his modern imitators a want of that personal religion which has its seat in the heart, and which forms a part of the very being of a Christian, and will therefore find expression in every act of his life, doing all things to the glory of God (1 Cor. x. 31; Col. iii. 17).

That religion has a very slight hold upon those who have rendered themselves most conspicuous as "Catholics" appears from the fact that when they are impeded by obstacles, or disappointed in their expectations, they do not feel their baptismal or ordination vows to be any bonds at all; but change their religion with as much ease as we change our gloves. And many of those clergymen who have thus broken their ordination vows, and renounced their Christian baptism, had on former occasions written and spoken in the most condemnatory terms of the Roman communion which they have since joined denouncing it as new, because it has added twelve new and contradictory articles to the Catholic creed; as schismatical, because it re-baptizes those whom it receives from the English Church contrary to Catholic doctrine; and as idolatrous and anti-Christian in its manifold corruptions.

The Coryphæus of the party has since given a little light upon his own state of mind before the change was formally made, and it indicates a religious condition which it would have been uncharitable in us to impute to him or any other man on mere surmise. But being now avowed by him, and he having been the leader of the party, it is not uncharitable to suppose that all those who were led by him, were more or less actuated by the same principles which Mr. Newman has avowed, and which have lodged both him and them in the mystic Babylon," the cage of unclean and hateful birds." Mr. Newman tells us, in the preface to his "Essay on Development," that in writing against Rome he "was but following almost a consensus of the divines of the English Church;" he "wished to throw himself into their system;" and that "while he said what they say he was safe." Moreover, speaking of his party, he says "it was necessary for our posi

tion." And he did it in "a hope of approving himself to persons he respected, and a wish to repel the charge of Romanism." As a specimen of what Mr. Newman wrote against Rome at that time we give the following:-"Their communion is infected with heresy: we are bound to flee it as a pestilence. They have established a lie in the place of God's truth; and, by their claim of immutability in doctrine, cannot undo the sin they have committed."

The disclosure of such a state of mind would, at the first blush, seem to indicate great moral turpitude in the individual; but this is not the true aspect of the case, nor would such a view of it furnish the lessons of instruction which we wish to deduce. Were it merely an instance of duplicity and falsehood, our duty would be nothing more than holding it up to the scorn or execration of simple honest-minded men. The calm way in which Mr. Newman avows it shows that he is not conscious of any moral delinquency; and, if he were conscious, he could not all at once stifle the compunctious visitations which God has left as his own witness for truth in

the bosom of every man. Nemo repente fuit turpissimus. It requires the long training of a Jesuit to quench altogether the sacred light of conscience in the human breast.

Mr. Newman regards his present position as the necessary "development" of the "Church" prínciples, aud "Catholic doctrines, which he held while still belonging to the Church of England; and "as no one has power over the issues of his principles" (p. 9), and those principles have led him to Rome, there is nothing for the conscience to be troubled at in the matter; and we believe that this will help us to the true explanation, not only of Mr. Newman's case, but of numerous other cases.

The "Church" principles and "Catholic" doctrines of the Tractarian party go hand in hand, and are made available alternately to establish or corroborate each other. From the orthodox doctrine that there is but one Church they deduce the "principle" of a visible and formal unity, the sole guardian of truth; and the depository of all the grace, the monopolizer of all the promises, of God. But to determine which of the various communions is that one Church founded upon a rock, and against which the gates of hell shall not prevail -with which Christ hath promised always to continue and which hath the Holy Spirit to lead it into all truth-they have recourse to the said "Catholic" doctrines. By this they mean doctrines which they have gathered from the fathers, whose works have come down to us through Roman hands,

garbled and corrupted we know in numerous instances, and we know not in how many more. No wonder, therefore, that these doctrines savour strongly of Romanism; and as all the Roman errors and corruptions have been received, one by one and drop by drop, through these same fathers, and are justified continually by an appeal to their genuine or supposititious writings, the necessary" development" of such doctrines and the natural "issues" of such principles, are found in abandoning the Church of England and joining the Church of Rome, the mystery of which consists in its mingled truth and falsehood.

The next step of mental degradation is one which stifles all enquiry and bars any endeavour to separate between truth and falsehood; and it generally takes place before actually joining the Church of Rome, or of necessity instantly follows-viz., the receiving everything held by such a Church as equally divine whether you comprehend it or not, and notwithstanding it may seem to be contrary to reason and morality. For they say we have found the one Church where Christ abides and the Holy Spirit dwells: this Church cannot err, and all that it teaches must be received as one whole. We may not understand what we are taught, but we must steadfastly believe it. Thus, they first use "Catholic" doctrine to discover which is the Church, and then receive from that Church everything which it is pleased to call "Catholic" doctrine !

Before Mr. Newman joined the Church of Rome he thus speaks of Jerome:-"I do not scruple to say that, were he not a saint, there are things in his writings and views from which I should shrink; but, as the case stands, I shrink rather from putting myself in opposition to something like a judgment of the Catholic world in favour of his saintly perfection. I cannot, indeed, force myself to approve or like against my judgment; but I can receive things in faith both against one and the other." And in his "Development" (p. 155), we find this principle pushed still further:-"You must accept the whole, or reject the whole: reduction does but enfeeble and amputation mutilate. It is trifling to receive all, but something which is as integral as any other portion; and, on the other hand, it is a solemn thing to receive any part; for, before you know where you are, you may be carried on by a stern logical necessity to accept the whole. Moreover, since the doctrines altogether make up one integral religion, it follows that the several evidences which respectively support those doctrines belong