there is contrariety between the Tracts and Bishop Hall. We recommend our readers to do this at their leisure. We challenge the Tractators to affirm that they can appeal to Bishop Hall's treatise as an adequate exposition of their views; though they lead the unwary reader to suppose that Hall is on their side. When they say, "In stating her (Rome's) errors, I will closely follow the order observed by Bishop Hall in his treatise on The Old Religion, whose Protestantism is unquestionable;" the reader, not doubting that he has truth-loving opponents to deal with, naturally supposes that they mean that this unquestionable Protestant is on their side. But stop; they did not say that they should "closely follow" Bishop Hall's "unquestionable Protestantism," but only "the order observed" by him in noticing the points at issue! We appeal to any admirer of the Oxford Tracts, whether the impression meant to be conveyed, by selecting as their text-book an author whose Protestantism is unquestionable, is not to lull the suspicions of the Protestant reader, and to lead him to suppose that Hall speaks their sentiments; which is not the fact. The introduction of the phrase "unquestionable Protestantism" would imply that the Tract-writers approve of Hall's unquestionable Protestantism;" whereas they constantly assert that Anglicanism is not Protestantism; and they widely differ from Hall's opinions on this, as on numerous other subjects. The mincing phrase "Rome as she is" is not Hall's but Archbishop Laud's; we do not recollect that the bare words occur in Hall's works; and sure we are, that even if they do, as they might in our own pages or any where else, they do not in any such sense as

the Tract-writer intends. No; it was Laud, not Hall, who vaguely said, when offered a cardinal's hat, that "something dwelt within him which would not suffer that, till Rome was otherwise than it was at the present time." Hall used no such milk-and-water language. He had long before censured Laud for doing so; boldly upbraiding him with his predilections for Popery. "I would," he says to him, as we say to the Oxford Tractators, "I knew where to find you; then I could tell how to take direct aims, whereas now I must pore and conjecture. To-day you are in the tents of the Romanists, tomorrow in ours; the next day between both; against both. . . . Cast off your wings or your teeth; and, loathing this bat-like nature, be either a bird or a beast." The reader ought to peruse Hall's volumes in detail, to see how widely he differs from the Tract writers, as a few citations would not do justice to the subject. Listen to his indignant disclaimer of all affection for Popery, when he was censured by the Puritans because he admitted that we may lawfully say "the Church of Rome." Did he defend himself by calling Rome our "Mother" or "sister," or anything of the kind; as the Oxford Tract divines do? Very far from it. He says in "The Reconciler," which follows "The Old Religion" in his collected works, "The Church of Rome, under a Christian face, hath an anti-Christian heart; overturning that foundation by necessary inference, which by open profession it avoweth. That face, that profession, those avowed principles, are enough to give it claim to a true outward visibility of a Christian church; while those damnable inferences are enough to feoff it in the true style of heresy

and anti-Christianism." He had said, in the preceding page: "If I have not sufficiently branded that strumpet I justly suffer. Luther's broad word is by me already both safely construed, and sufficiently vindicated." Again, he says, in his very next piece, "Catholic Propositions," that the Church of Rome holds "damnable errors." His writings are full of such statements; and yet

the Oxford Tracts affect to claim Bishop Hall as on their side. Listen again how he speaks of

the sister Protestant churches, which the Oxford Tracts declare not to be churches. We quote from his "Peace-maker;" but all his writings are to the same effect:

"Nothing can be more evident, than that we all agree in fundamental truths; and that those things wherein we differ, are mere points of scholastic disquisition : such as may, perhaps, be fit for divines to argue in their academical disputations;

but not worthy to trouble the public peace, or to perplex the heads, much less the hearts, of Christian people."

"Blessed be God there is no difference in any essential matter, betwixt the Church of England and her sisters of the Reformation. We accord in every point

of Christian doctrine, without the least variation their public confessions and ours are sufficient convictions to the world of our full and absolute agreement. The only difference is, in the form of

outward administration: wherein also we

are so far agreed, as that we all profess this form not to be essential to the being of a church, though much importing the well or better being of it, according to our several apprehensions thereof; and that we do all retain a reverent and loving opinion of each other, in our own several ways; not seeing any reason why so poor a diversity should work any alienation of affection within us, one towards another."

"That which Bucer and his associates averred above a hundred years ago, we still say and maintain: that which was truth then hath been so ever since, and shall be to all eternity. Well, therefore, may we ask, with Tiberius' soldiers, Tμaxoμta; what do we fight for ?"

"The Protestant, or Evangelical, churches of our European world, do justly cry out of the high injustice of Rome, in excluding them from the com

munion of the truly Catholic church of Christ. What a presumptuous violence is this! What a proud uncharitableness ! How often, and how sadly, have we appealed to the God of heaven to judge between us ! "

It seems to us impossible to frame words more opposed to those of the Oxford Tract writers, in relation to the Church of Rome, the Protestant churches, and the sacraments, than these of Hall. Indeed when he explains what he means by saying "the Church of Rome," he expressly asserts that

he does not believe her to be a church in the sense affixed to the term in the Thirty-nine Articles. Thus, in the very treatise which the Tract writers profess to follow, as if approving of its "unquestionable Protestantism," he says: "The difference is in the acceptation of true and church, both which have much latitude and variety of sense." If by true, he adds, be meant "right believing," and by Church "a company of faithful, which have the word of God rightly understood and sincerely preached, and the sacraments duly administered, it is no marvel if they say that the Church of Rome is neither true nor church; and who would, who can, say otherwise?" The only sense, he says, in which the Church of Rome can be called a church, is on account of its members "professing to agree in the main principles of religion;" so that, "in this sense," they are "a church truly visible." Of course the Oxford Tract divine, who professes to follow Hall's "order," takes care to keep out of sight such statements as these.

But let us turn to the propositions which the vindicatory extracts The first proprofess to follow. position is, that it is unscriptural to say, with the Church of Rome, "that we are justified by inherent righteousness." This is excellent; but it is ambiguous: for the Pro

testant reader supposes that it means, what Hall states, that "our perfect justification is by the imputed righteousness of our Saviour, brought home to us by faith;" whereas the doctrine of the Oxford Tract divines is, that we are justified in our infancy in baptism before we had faith; and that we have what Rome calls a second justification, not by faith, but by sanctification. They may say that neither of these is properly "inherent," and that therefore they can safely use Hall's words, and reject those of Trent; but Protestants mean by "inherent righteousness," a righteousness dwelling within us; and the whole question turns upon what is called "forensic" justification, as distinguished from "justification by being made just :"-which Protestants call "inherent; and as the latter, not the former, is the Oxford Tract doctrine, the contrariety with Rome and the agreement with Hall are verbal, not doctrinal.

The next proposition is, that

"It is unscriptural that 'the good works of a man justified do truly [sic] merit eternal life.'"

This, though marked in inverted commas, is not Hall's statement. Hall quotes the declaration of the Council of Trent, that "the good works of a man justified do truly merit eternal life" but he denounces the proposition altogether. He says that "Christ's righteous ness, made ours by faith, is that whereby we are justified in the sight of God;" and this scriptural and Anglican doctrine, he remarks, "is blasted with a Tridentine curse." He teaches, without any reserve, that the doctrine of merit is unscriptural. But the Oxford Tract, instead of a direct unequivocal disclaimer of the Tridentine declaration as it stands, abridges

its meaning, by putting the word "truly" in Italics; in that fashion denying it. But Rome did not italicise, or make any quibble on the word " truly." The cursory reader takes the sentence for a broad disclaimer of justification by works; but the Italics give the force, not of denying without qualification that good works merit eternal life, but only that they do not "truly " merit it. How unambiguous is the language of the Homily on Good Works, which says that "to put any confidence in our works, as by the merit and deserving of them to purchase to ourselves and others remission of sin, and so consequently everlasting life," is " blasphemy against God's mercy, and great derogation to the blood-shedding of our Saviour Jesus Christ." Mr. Newman speaking of man's righteousness, remarks, "That there is something good in it, Bucer cannot deny, unless he will contend that there is no whiteness in a wall that is partially white." But the little word "truly" eases all difficulty; and Mr. Newman may with its aid sign an Anglican Article which says the wall is not white, and a Tridentine one which says that it meaning it is not "truly" white

is:

-it is grey. He expresses this where he says: "In this then I condoctrine on the subject of justificaceive to lie the unity of Catholic imputed righteousness, and by tion, that we are saved by Christ's once." And again: "Justification our own inchoate righteousness at is the setting up of the cross within us." This " cross within

sacrifice of Calvary-Mr. Newus "-not the cross of Christ, the man declares to be

"Our safeguard from all evil; dropping grace, and diffusing heavenly virtue all around, and hallowing the spot where

before there was but strife and death. gers ghostly and bodily; it is our refuge It is our charm against numberless dan

against our accusing and seducing foe, our protection from the terror by night and the arrow by day, and our passport into the Church invisible. But how does this Cross become ours? I repeat, by being given; and what is this giving, in other words, but our being marked with it."

We will now take a few more of the propositions, it not being necessary to quote those on which there is no controversy.

"That the honour paid to images is very full of peril, in the case of the uneducated, that is, of the great part of

Christians."

• We might have added the epithet "Roman:" for though, in the heading of Hall's Lecture, the word "Romish," occurs, it is not in the sense of distinguishing between tradition as professed by the Church of Rome, and tradition as contended for by the Oxford Tract writers; but in the general sense of making the doctrine of authoritative tradition a Romish doctrine. Hall contends, clearly and decisively, against tradition, whether as a rule without Scripture, or a "joint-rule" with it. "It is not to be imagined," he says, "that the same word of God, which speaks for all other truths, should not speak for itself. How fully doth it display its own sufficiency and perfection." He goes on to refute the notion that it is "profitable for doctrine, &c." but not "sufficient" without tradition. It is sufficient, he says, for the teacher; "and that which can perfect the teacher is sufficient for the learner." The Oxford Tract writers say that we misrepresent them, by making them advocate Romish traditions, whereas they only advocate apostolical or catholic traditions. But this is not a correct statement. What we do say, is, that any reference to tradition as authority, i

to conciliate the Protestant reader, who had been alarmed by the statements of the writers in the Christian Observer, and other evil-minded persons, respecting the tendency of the Tracts. The strongest detached passages are therefore extracted in reply; yet even these strongest passages are neutralized by saving clauses; and not one of them removes the impression conveyed by the context. What the extract from the Tract softly calls "the honour paid to images," Bishop Hall calls by its true name “ the worshipping of images;" and instead of confining the "peril" of it to "the uneducated," however numerous, he says, "The book of God is full of his indignation against the practice;" it is " idolatry abominable," nor will he allow in its palliation that "they worship not the image, but, by it, the Person represented." But to set at rest the question, how far Bishop Hall and the Oxford Tracts agree in this matter, we will quote a passage from each. The Tract No.

71 says:

"The Tridentine Decree declares that it is good and useful suppliantly to invoke the saints, and that the images of

Romish, even though the matter to be proved be apostolical. We do not, nor did Bishop Hall, make the Oxford Tract distinction about Romish and Apostolical. He expressly argues that our Saviour forbad reliance upon tradition as authority, whatever might be its character or subject-matter. "Our Saviour's challenge," he says, "is general; to traditions thus advanced, not to these or those traditions." We repeat therefore that if the Oxford extract, in using the word Roman, means thereby to keep an opening for what it calls catholic tradition, it opposes Hall, who says: "Our Saviour never meant to compare one tradition with another, as approving some, rejecting others; but with indignation complains, that traditions were obtruded on God's people, in a corrivalty with the written word: which is the very point now questioned."