3

by the late archbishop Laurence, who had so ably illustrated the articles of our church, in regard to the question of their Calvinistic acceptation. In a little tract, which may be considered as the dying bequest of the learned prelate, he has shewn that your exposition, for which you have looked in vain to the article, is no other than a revival, or at least a very close resemblance, of an exploded opinion of Osiander, a contemporary of Luther. Justification, as he has quoted from Mr. Newman, whom you have also quoted, consists "in the habitation in us of God the Father, and the Word incarnate, through the Holy Ghost. This is to be justified, to receive the divine presence within us, and to be made a temple of the Holy Ghost.” You yourself, too, have cited from Mr. Newman these words, "the very presence of Christ ;" and again, you say, "that which I have advocated as scriptural and catholic, buries itself in the absorbing vision of a present, an indwelling God." In corresponding terms, Osiander thus expressed his opinion: :-"Justitiam essentialem Dei, quæ est Deus, Pater, Filius, et Spiritus Sanctus, nostram justitiam esse, cum per Verbum Dei in nos credentes influit, et in nobis habitat."

4

The modern doctrine is indeed the more definite of the two, if the term may be applied to a

3 The Visitation of the Saxon Reformed Church in 1527 and Dublin, 1839.

1528.

* Page 78.

vain attempt to bring such a principle within the grasp of our understandings. Neither," says Mr. Newman, as again quoted by the archbishop, "the imputed righteousness of Christ, nor imputed or inherent righteousness, is the constituting or formal cause of justification, or that in which a justified state consists; but a gift which includes both of these, and is greater than either, viz. the actual presence, in a mysterious way, or indwelling in the soul, through the Spirit, of the Word incarnate, in whom is the Father."

How different is this incomprehensible mysteriousness of phrase from the simple language of our eleventh article! "We are," says the article, "accounted righteous before God, only for the merit of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, by faith, and not for our own works or deservings. Wherefore, that we are justified by faith only is a most wholesome doctrine, and very full of comfort, as more largely is expressed in the homily of justification." Who can recognise in this simple statement the mysterious indwelling in us of the sacred Trinity, including the incarnate Word? How, then, can it be said by those who advocate the latter, that they feel that they are bound to adhere implicitly to the church of England, in which they had been baptized? You, indeed, have not attempted to shew this; but have contented yourself with stating, that this you "conceive to have been the teaching of the majority of our church." To

5

justify this statement, you have cited passages from Waterland, Heylin, and Bull. These, however, prove only that justification is, according to these authorities, imparted in baptism; and yet you tell us, that "the whole subject of baptism was altogether foreign to that, which is handled in this whole series of articles on the relation of faith to works, before and after justification” (9–17). With expressions of the sacred scripture implying, in some sense or other, the indwelling in us of the Divine Spirit, every reader is familiarly acquainted. It appears, however, from the passages, which you have cited with approbation from Mr. Newman, that these should be received in some literal application. The disposition, indeed, to understand too literally the figurative language of the sacred scripture, seems to have been the principle of this strange interpretation of the doctrine of our church, the same which led the church of Rome to the monstrous tenet of transubstantiation.

6

You tell us, that the Anglican doctrine, as you interpret it, differs both from the Roman and from the Lutheran : "from the Roman, in that it excludes sanctification from having any place in our justification; from the Lutheran, in that it conceives justification to be not through imputation merely, but the act of God imparting his divine presence to the soul through baptism, and so 6 Page 70.

5 Page 63.

in

making us temples of the Holy Ghost, the habitation in us of God the Father and the Word incarnate, through the Holy Ghost." To the Lutheran doctrine you object that, by referring justification to faith alone, it has given occasion to the error of the Wesleyans, by leading them to seek their justification in their own assurance that they actually possess that faith. To that of the Romanists you object, that it has confounded justification with sanctification, and so has led them to seek their justification in works as meritorious. You represent, that you avoid both extremes by holding, that justification is to be referred to the actual indwelling in us of the Holy Trinity. Now, any sense in which your doctrine is intelligible to me, I conceive that it is precisely equivalent to the doctrine of sanctification; so that you yourself fall into the error, which you impute to the Romanists, of confounding sanctification with justification. It seems to me also, that the notion of the actual indwelling in us of the Holy Trinity leads as directly to a dependence on our own internal perceptions, by which we may seek to be assured of that indwelling, as the reference of justification solely to faith; so that here again you appear to be involved in a tendency to the error of the Wesleyans. It is strange, and yet I do not see how the double inference may be avoided, that you should thus, in professing to take a middle course between two extreme doctrines, have actually contrived to

combine in your own the errors of both. It has frequently been said, that extremes often meet; in this case, the extremes appear to have been brought together in that, which is proposed as the middle.

That your doctrine is not, as you have stated, that of the majority of Anglican divines, has been most satisfactorily shewn in the letter addressed to the bishop of Oxford by a clergyman of the diocese and a resident member of the university. For this purpose he has selected a series of writers, who had been cited in the Tracts for the Times, as authority for other views, and as a link for a Catena Patrum. All these writers, he has shewn, make a decided distinction between justification and sanctification, and, consequently, are alien from the doctrine which you have proposed. Their names will carry authority with every member of our church: Hooker, bishop Andrews, Jackson, archbishop Bramhall, archbishop Usher, bishop Hall, Hammond, bishop Bull, bishop Pearson, bishop Beveridge, Waterland, and bishop Van Mildert. Of the authorities cited by yourself-a homily, Waterland, Heylin, and bishop Bull-I have already remarked, that the passages quoted prove only, that they held justification to be imparted in baptism, which is not disputed.

Here, then, I may leave the consideration of this most important subject, and proceed to that