who used the language of Transubstantiation as strongly as Rome; and, (5th.) the character of the "Priesthood," as mediators between the people and God, and the intercessors or officers to the latter of the prayers of the former. Mr. Moody produced quotations from the numerous books lying before him, in proof of every one of the above points, in both the above-mentioned classes, and stated that where he gave but two or three proofs in order to save time, he had on his notes other proofs to a large extent on each head, which for that reason only he omitted. He called on the assembly to notice the remarkable circumstance, that the five points in which he had shown the closest identity with Rome, were those which tended most materially to exalt the "Priesthood" in popular estimation and power. It was the Priest who controlled the Scriptures; regulated the penances; gave or withheld absolution; uttered the words which were supposed to bring Christ down on the "Altar" for the adoration of the people; and admitted or rejected the applicants for that supposed mysterious viaticum; and offered up the unbloody sacrifice; and the "Priest " who might keep back or send up to God the people's prayer, of which he was the presenter.

Mr. Moody said there was yet a blacker side to the picture. He had long suspected, from the strong traces of Roman Catholic minds in some of the books which had come under his notice, that gross plagiarisms from Romish books had been practised by Tractarians in their popular works. He had found this to be painfully true. He adduced a book called "Questions on the Church Catechism," in which two-thirds of the answers were taken, with rare exceptions, word for word from two Roman Catholic Catechisms; a "Litany for the Blessed Sacrament," from Oxenham's Manual of Devotion for the Blessed Sacrament, taken with one or two verbal alterations from a Litany of Alphonsus Liguori, a noted Saint of Rome, translated into English, and to be found in that form in two Roman Catholic publications which he produced:-A Rosary in "Rosaries for English Churchmen," taken almost word for word from the the common Roman Catholic Rosary of the Virgin, to be met with everywhere; a "Chaplet" of Eucharistic prayers from the same book, word for word, in the Roman Catholic "Golden Manual of Devotion," printed under the sanction of Dr. Wiseman; and the book before alluded to, called "Hymns for School Children," compiled by a Clergyman, which contained, he stated, 27 hymns, 13 of which were to be found, with scarcely a variation, in the hymn books and prayer books in use at the Roman

Catholic Oratory of St. Philip Neri, London. He mentioned that besides those, he had traced prayers, parts of services, hymns, acts of devotion or confession, pieces of Roman Catholic popular instruction, etc., copied into Tractarian books, without the slightest warning of their being drawn from the treasury of the abominations of Rome. He stigmatised those plagiarisms as acts of inexcusable treachery. A man might be sincere in attempting to teach Romanism as the truth, but it was a crime of deeper dye for alleged members of the Church of England to palm off upon the people of England the writings of Rome as if they were in accordance with teaching of that Church of England, without a distinct avowal that their weapons were taken from the armoury of the deadliest adversary of the Church. What better proof could the audience have of deeply laid conspiracy to bring the doctrines of Popery into the National Church, and inoculate the people with them?

He concluded by saying he was persuaded there would be but one feeling in that assembly of utter condemnation of such a system of fraud. It was not for nothing, for mere words and party strife, that England had cut off all connection with that great counterfeit of the truth of God, the Papacy, and that all the struggle had been endured, and the blood shed in this land; but for matters affecting the destinies of man for time and eternity. And sure he was that the verdict and protest of that meeting would be that of the prophet of old, "We would have healed Babylon, but she is not healed-forsake her." Mr. M. was compelled, by time, to omit not merely quotations as proofs, but some branches of the main subject.

NOTE F.-Page 92.

PROCEEDINGS AGAINST THE EX-ARCHDEACON WILBERFORCE.

WHEN the foregoing Lecture was delivered at Southampton, February 28th, 1854, I strongly urged the importance of immediate and vigorous steps being taken on the subject of the late Archdeacon Wilberforce's Doctrine of the Holy Eucharist, and expressed myself as follows::

"I might almost venture to predict, that if public opinion be brought to bear judiciously but decidedly upon this particular point, and if the Archbishop of York, who is Mr. Wilberforce's Ordinary, is respectfully pressed upon it, a twelvemonth will scarcely elapse, before the Archdeacon takes up his Popish book

and departs with it to Rome. He holds on to the English Church by a very slender thread. It is only a question, or rather a quibble about the meaning of the word "substance" in the 28th Article that separates him from Rome at this moment."

This prediction was verified about six months afterwards, when Mr. Wilberforce retired first from the ministry and then from the communion of the English Church.

A considerable stir was made. Appeals were addressed to the Archbishop of York upon the subject from various quarters. On the 14th of June, 1854, at his own Visitation at Beverley, the Hull Clergy presented a manly Protest to the Archdeacon himself against his Book on "The Doctrine of the Holy Eucharist." Steps had already been taken by others, with the view of obtaining a judicial decision on the subject; and in consequence, on the 7th of July following, a formal complaint was laid before his Grace the Archbishop of York, by the Rev. John Jarratt, Vicar of North Cave in the East Riding. On the 24th of August, His Grace announced to the solicitor in the case that, after taking legal advice upon the subject, he had determined to make the doctrine complained of the subject of a legal investigation, and to send the case by letters of request to the Court of Appeal of the province of York. Four days afterwards Mr. Wilberforce resigned all his trusts and preferments in the Diocese of York, and begged to be permitted to place himself "so far as was possible in the condition of a mere lay member of the Church." This resignation was as promptly accepted as it was conveniently and seasonably tendered. Instantly on the receipt of it, the Archbishop of York "gave orders to discontinue all further inquiry on the subject of the complaint which had been laid before him." And thus the object of the Tractarians was gained. The step which was taken by the Archdeacon was no doubt deemed by his party to be "necessary for their position:" for on the views which are set forth by Mr. Wilberforce in his Book on "The Doctrine of the Holy Eucharist," their whole system of sacerdotal imposture has been erected. It was therefore necessary that an adverse judgment on a book so important to the development of their views should, at all hazards, be evaded. Hence the retirement of the Archdeacon.

The man was sacrificed, that his Romish doctrine might escape a judicial condemnation.

Are we to conclude from the conduct of our ecclesiastical rulers that they desire it to be left an open question amongst us, whether or not a clergyman holding the Tridentine doctrine on the Eucharist ought to remain in the English Church, and enjoy her emoluments for preaching and teaching Romish errors against which her Martyrs protested even unto death? The readiness with which all proceedings were immediately dropped in the case of the ex-Archdeacon Wilberforce, when he had divested himself of his ministerial functions and abandoned office, would lead us to suppose it to be so. But surely it is a bad precedent to establish, that a minister of the Church may deprave her doctrine and sap her very foundations with impunity, provided he resigns his official position in her communion the moment proceedings are commenced against him for his offences. If this practice were to hold good in any other profession, and if the consequences of a violation of duty might be avoided on the part of a military or naval officer in the same easy way as a Church dignitary is permitted to escape after having offended against the laws ecclesiastical, there would be an end of all morality and order. Apply the same rule to civil matters. The purposes of justice might be perpetually defeated, the law evaded, and the guilty suffered to escape, if the principle came to be recognized, that an accused party may at any moment avoid the trial of his offences by a sudden and dexterous transition from professional to private life.

I regret to be compelled to add, that it is not only by ecclesiastical dignitaries, but by clergymen who profess to be Evangelical and Protestant, that the maintenance of a hollow and treacherous peace in the Church seems to be preferred to the vindication of the truth. There are, unhappily, too many brethren who will cast out that man's name as evil, and treat him, according to the Bishop of Oxford's rule of charity, as if he were disturbing the peace of the Church and breaking up her unity, simply because he is resolved, in deed and in truth as well as by profession, "to contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints."

Great efforts have been made, even by professedly evangelical clergymen in this Diocese, to induce Mr. Ditcher to stay in his present righteous course against the Taunton Heresiarch; and I have learned with extreme sorrow, that some, "who seemed to be pillars," and from whom, therefore, better things might have been expected, have not scrupled to plead the cause of compromise and of the Church's dishonour with that true son of the Reformation, who, amid much evil report, and at much personal sacrifice, has boldly stood in the gap to defend the truth against those who have assailed it. Happily these efforts have been unsuccessful: but it must be harassing to a good man, like Mr. Ditcher, when he is engaged in a holy cause, to be impeded and importuned by the timid and unfaithful counsels of mistaken friends. But it is ever so in perilous times and in critical contests for the truth. There are always "Peters" who are "to be blamed." They who "seem to be somewhat," at a time of the Church's difficulties and dangers, add nothing to the great cause of truth, but are rather hinderers of its progress; and expose the Church to rebuke by an excessive judiciousness, which, rather than venture anything for her purification, keeps them either in what they deem to be the safe path of inaction, or in the wellbeaten track of ecclesiastical abuses. So true is it, as a good English writer has observed, that "if we are to wait for improvement till the cool, the calm, the discreet part of mankind begin, till Church Governors solicit, or Ministers of State propose it, we may venture to pronounce that, without His interposition, with whom nothing is impossible, we may remain as we are till the renovation of all things." That sharp rebuke from our Lord and Master to those who, with the best intentions, do nevertheless obstruct the accomplishment of his purposes, is unhappily too often applicable in these days of spiritual cowardice and of worldly-minded caution:-"Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men.”

LONDON: ROBERT KINGSTON BURT, PRINTER, HOLBORN HILL.