to prevent false inferences; also "the Article about sacraments has a sound at variance with the well-known and constant phrase. ology of the old Church writers;" and "that about councils requires explanation to be reconciled with what has always been, and every where, held, concerning those four, at least, which the Church of England acknowledges;"-an assertion wholly unauthorised; for nowhere does the Church of England acknowledge anything with regard to the first four, or any other, councils, which is at variance with her twenty-first Article. Where does she say that the four first councils could not err? Again says Mr. Keble, No. 90 was necessary, because "the cry of insincerity had been raised," and therefore it was desirable to meet it. We apprehend that Mr. Keble has not found that the way in which it was met in that Tract has silenced "the cry of insincerity." Mr. Keble apologizes in the following extraordinary manner for the shameful disparagement of our Church, its clergy, and all its members, in No. 90, where Mr. Newman speaks with a sort of contemptuous pity of "stammering lips," "working in chains,' and the like. "The drift of which is to shew that the deviations made in our prayer-book from the more pure and primitive forms, may be accounted for on the supposition of a special providence overruling them to suit our decayed march, tone, and condition; a view which, besides its intrinsic verisimilitude and importance, I know had tended much to remove scruples, and to satisfy tender minds." Here note three things. First, how coolly and insidiously the Tractarians, calling themselves Anglicans, and eating the bread of the Anglican church, expose her to contempt, by affecting to take for granted, just as if no man denied it, or could deny it, that our English prayer-book is a most miserable deviation from some alleged "more pure and primitive forms "—that is, it is not the Mass-book or the Breviary; and it does not recognize exorcism in baptism, or praying for the dead, any more than St. Ken's day, and other Tractarian mummeries. Secondly, mark the reverence to God in making him the author of the juggle, or, as Mr. Knox called it, "the stealthiness" of giving us, by a "special overruling providence," a decayed prayer-book to suit our decayed condition in having left Popery for Protestantism. Thirdly, consider what must be the character of those "scruples" which could be removed by such " a view." As to such a view "satisfying tender minds," Mr. Sibthorp's case proves otherwise. Tract 90 requires a very powerful digestion, instead of its being an aid to the digesting of the Articles. Tenderness of mind is one of the last phrases applicable to the versute argumentation of that tract. Mr. Keble adds that he saw nothing in 90 which had not been taught in 86, and "at large long ago, without a shadow of scandal, as far as appears.' We agree with him that No. 90 only stated what we were called calumniators for saying was couched in the early Tracts, and in Mr. Newman's letters to ourselves; but as to there not having been "a shadow of scandal," this is not correct, though we are sorry to say, that in some influential quarters the Tracts were at first so equivocally coquetted with, or so faintly blamed, that the writers might well infer secret approbation. Mr. Keble goes on, in the passages which we have quoted more at large, to shew the difficulty to which himself, and others who hold Tractarian opinions, would be exposed, as academics or clergymen, if in the University, or by the rulers of the Church, the censure of the Hebdomadal Board, which he denies to be authoritative, should be followed up. He distinctly says that "he cannot evade" the Article on justification by faith, and still less that on purgatory, except by the interpretation of No. 90. But it was never meant that Articles should be signed in order to be "evaded;" they are signed to prevent evasion. Further, Mr. Keble says, that if we reject making "the old Catholic Fathers and ancient Doctors" the authoritative tribunal for "Church practice and the interpretation of Scripture," "towhat her (the Church's) appeal must be made is not so clear." Why, to Scripture itself, in the use of every aid which God has given us for its exposition. He suggests also that we shall "impugn the theological honesty of such as Andrewes, and Laud, and of Hammond, and Bull." No such thing. We do not impugn their honesty ; but they were not infallible; they were members of a sect within the pale of the Church of England; and however respect able their names, we have scores and hundreds as venerable as theirs on the other side. But it is not a question of man's authority, but of God's word. And, by the way, how is it that our Tractarians, calling themselves members of the Church of England, repudiate our revered Reformers, and pick up a few names of a succeeding century; as if the Anglican Articles had been written in the days of Laud, and not of Cranmer. Mr. Keble mentions, as another stringent argument for the publication of Tract 90, that without some such antidote to our unhappy Articles, many persons, "whose Catholic feelings are stronger than their principles are clear and consistent," will go over to Rome. Whether Mr. Keble inferred this from the reason of the thing, or knew it from private information, the intimation is a tacit admission that what Tractarians call "Catholic feelings" bend towards Popery. There may be some Tractarian" principles which, though they suggest separation from the Anglican Church, yet present difficulties in going over without scruple to " Rome," (according to Archbishop Laud's wily reservation, "as Rome now is;") but as to their being " clear and consistent," we honestly think that Mr. Sibthorp has embraced the more "clear and consistent " alternative. Returning from this analysis of Mr. Keble's letter, we go back to our pamphlets. The Dean of Achonry's letters are well worth perusal on the questions at issue. He justly remarks "In the system of the Tract writers we find a strange mixture of cold formality and enthusiastic sentimentality. We find in it that Pharisaic regard to outward ceremonies which engenders formality and superstition, united to the mysticism of the quietists, tending to fanaticism and reserve. The tendency of the whole system is to lead the mind to dwell upon external rites, antiquarian researches, rubrical rules, the observance of days, and months, and times, and years,' the round of services, the posture and the vestments of the officiating minister; in a word, on all that is connected with the outward fabric of religion and the Church, ་ while to all this is added, the sanctimonious air, the monkish austerity, the ascetic reserve, in which the genuine evidences, if not the actual essence, of internal religion and the divine life, are represented in a great degree to exist: while all desire to attain inward joy in believing,' a holy assurance of faith, and peace of conscience, are discouraged as enthusiastical and presumptuous; and all zeal and outward activity in the cause of religion are condemned. (To be Concluded in the Appendix.) APPENDIX TO THE CHRISTIAN OBSERVER FOR BEING THE FOURTH VOLUME OF THE NEW SERIES. RELIGIOUS AND MISCELLANEOUS COMMUNICATIONS. THE SOURCE AND SUBJECTS OF DIVINE KNOWLEDGE. For the Christian Observer. IN reading the seventh chapter of St. John's gospel to the fourteenth verse, we accompany our Blessed Lord in His journey to the feast of tabernacles at Jerusalem. We notice the self-denying humility, and uncompromising strictness, with which He "who knew no sin complies with the sacrifices, and atonements, and various ordinances of the Jewish law; and His ardent zeal thus "to fulfil all righteousness." We trace the cautious and prudent path which He treads amid the dangers which surrounded Him, though aware of His perfect security in the pledged protection of an omnipotent Providence. We thus collect from His conduct those general principles for the government of our own understandings, hearts, and lives, which His example on this occasion furnishes. And all His duties fulfilled, and all His obstacles and difficulties surmounted, we, at the fourteenth verse, attend Him to the temple,-may it be in a simple, teachable, and obedient spirit, to listen to the instructions which He there delivered. "About the midst of the feast, Jesus went up into the temple and taught." Of the power and impressiveness with which He spake, we may form some idea from the surprise which it produced in His audience, as related incidentally by the evangelist, "The Jews marvelled, saying, How knoweth this man letters, having never learned?" By letters, as applied by a Jew to the discourses of our Blessed Lord, we are not, doubtless, to understand either the lighter ornaments of trained eloquence, or the more solid and profound researches of human literature. No specimens of our Lord's discourses which the sacred history furnishes, permit us to suppose that these, however allowable they may be, when used in simplicity for the promotion of God's glory, were resources upon which He ever drew for aid in the promulgation of Divine truth. But by letters, as applied to the discourses of our Lord, and by a member of the Jewish nation, we must CHRIST. OBSERV. APP. 5 F understand those principles and doctrines of Divine truth, whether speculative or practical, which form the exclusive subject of all His recorded discourses, and evidently the exclusive matter which occupied and interested His devout mind. These principles of Divine truth were illustrated and enforced by a profound knowledge and judicious application of the Jewish scriptures, which, however they might have been darkened by the glosses and comments of their doctors and rabbies, formed in the eyes of a Jew the only literature worthy of his study and attention. The wonder therefore of the Jews, ignorant as they were of the true fountain of light and truth, was this, That our Lord, who had not been regularly trained in the schools of the prophets, and brought up at the feet of some Gamaliel, should exhibit this intimate acquaintance with, and this profound knowledge of, the sacred writings; and, perhaps some of the better disposed and more spiritually enlightened might have added, this clear insight into their moral nature and tendency,-this close and searching application of them to the habits and prejudices, the consciences and hearts, of those whom He addresses. "As in water face answereth to face, so the heart of man to man." Human nature is unchanged and unchangeable. In our unconverted state it is the same, as to all its leading features, in every age and clime, and under every dispensation. Precisely the same ignorance as to the true source of Divine knowledge which the Jews betray in the dawning twilight of their earlier dispensation, is betrayed in the meridian day of the gospel dispensation, by the carnal mind, equally unenlightened as they were by the day spring from on high, which has since visited the world. The surprise which the Jews here express at our Lord's intimate acquaintance with Divine things, or the presumptive argument which, in the pride of learning, they advance against the certainty of His knowledge and the truth of His doctrines, we hear daily embodied by the poor among us into a hollow and delusive plea in defence of their own wilful ignorance, whether in the theory or practice of religion. Among the poor, religion seems to be considered as imposing its obligations, and conferring its privileges, on the rich, the great, and the learned alone. And the following question, in its spirit, we hear daily repeated by them, How can we, who are debarred by ignorance from access to the various sources of knowledge, become acquainted with religion? Or if you urge upon them that the Bible, the great fountain of knowledge, lies open to all, How can we, whose time is claimed by our temporal and bodily necessities, study and practise its requirements? To the rich indeed, and learned, who have free access to every source of knowledge, leisure to approach, and time, for here centres the grand delusion,-time to practise all that the gospel requires, these things are practicable. But to us, who are compelled by the imperious demands of our animal nature, and the providential circumstances in which we are placed, daily to repeat the unspiritualizing question, "What shall we eat, or what shall we drink? or wherewithal shall we be clothed?" these things are utterly impracticable. It is true, indeed, that to be freed from the necessity of devoting time and thought to provide for the indispensable wants of our lower nature is a blessed privilege, as it removes a serious obtacle, though, when placed in our path by Providence, not an insurmountable one, to the soul's ascending into the purer regions of its higher and spiritual nature. But perhaps it is the increased responsi bility which results from this very privilege, not less than the temptations to neglect or abuse it which wealth ministers, that renders it easier for a camel to go through a needle's eye, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven. But however this may be, the poor should at least remember, that this very declaration of our Lord himself implies, and in direct contradiction to their complaint, that poverty furnishes a much less difficult entrance to the narrow way which leadeth unto life than riches and that in the privations which it inflicts, and the toils which it imposes, in the constant exercise which it thus enforces of the self-denying virtues; in reducing the seeming value of their portion in the things that are seen, and in enhancing the real value of the promises, and hopes, and consolations, of the things which are not seen; in withholding from them various temptations to vanity or vice, and thus ministering fewer inducements to link themselves to earth by the heavy chain of the baser affections; and by furnishing, in the spiritual consolations, the temporal comforts, and the worldly respectability, which religion alone can confer upon the poor, additional motives to piety, it lays them under an increased accountability, peculiar to themselves: so that if the rich will have to answer, in the great day of final account, for the rejection of higher privileges, and the neglect of fuller opportunities, the poor also will have to answer for yielding to less powerful temptations, and resisting more powerful motives. The great mistake of the world with respect to religion, and which the question of the Jews suggests, is twofold; and has respect to its real nature, and to the fountain from which it is drawn. As to its origin, worldly men in general, of whatever rank, conceive that the statutes of heaven are to be learned, like the statutes of the land, by close application, and intense study of expositors, commentators, and controversialists. If, therefore, providence has placed a man in a situation of life, under circumstances which preclude the possibility of such labour and attention, they think that a lesser degree of religion is attainable by him than by his minister, his wife, or his children; and that providence itself may be pleaded in bar of the penalties which religion neglected would enforce. They are utterly ignorant of this fundamental truth, that although every mean which God has promised to bless should be diligently used, and will be so used, by every sincere inquirer after Divine truth; yet that religion is not necessarily dependent on these means, except as regards the wilful neglect of them; is not derivable from human authors, human teachers, or human exertions, nay, even from the Bible itself; but that in its saving, sanctifying, enlightening essence, the Divine Spirit is its alone teacher; God its fountain; prayer the channel for conveyance of its unfailing stream. The other great mistake of the world, and intimately connected with the former, is, that it views religion in its intrinsic nature, and its practice, not as the all pervading spirit with which a man discharges his various duties, civil as well as religious; endures the afflictions, or enjoys the innocent pleasures of life,-not as a submissive and docile, a sincere, and meek, and loving spirit, which teaches him to "please all men for their good unto edification;" and "whether he eats, or drinks, or whatever he does, to do all to the glory of God;" but as a dry system of speculative truths, and ethical precepts; an inanimate body of orthodox theology, ceremonial obser |