CANON OF CHRIST CHURCH,
IN EXPLANATION OF THE NINETIETH TRACT
IN THE SERIES CALLED
THE TRACTS FOR THE TIMES
1841.
A LETTER, &C.
My Dear Dr. Jelf,
I have known you so many years that I trust I may fitly address the present pages to you, on the subject of my recent Tract, without seeming to imply that one like yourself, who from circumstances has taken no share whatever in any of the recent controversies in our Church, is implicated in any approval or sanction of it. It is merely as a friend that I write to you, through whom I may convey to others some explanations which seem necessary at this moment.
Four Gentlemen, Tutors of their respective Colleges, have published a protest against the Tract in question. I have no cause at all to complain of their so doing, though as I shall directly say, I consider that they have misunderstood me. They do not, I trust, suppose that I feel any offence or soreness at their proceeding; of course I naturally think that I am right and they are wrong; but this persuasion is quite consistent both with my honouring their zeal for Christian truth and their anxiety for the welfare of our younger members, and with my very great consciousness that, even though I be right in my principle, I may have advocated truth in a wrong way. Such acts as theirs when done honestly, as they have done them, must benefit all parties, and draw them nearer to each other in good will, if not in opinion. But to proceed to the subject of this letter.
I propose to offer some explanation of the Tract in two respects,—as to the hypothesis on which it is written and as to its object.
2.
I. These Four Gentlemen, whom I have mentioned, have misunderstood me in so material a point, that it certainly is necessary to enter into the subject at some length. They consider that the Tract asserts that the Thirty-nine Articles
“do not contain any condemnation of the doctrines of Purgatory, of Pardons, of the Worship and Adoration of Images and Relics, of Invocation of Saints, of the Mass, as they are taught authoritatively by the Church of Rome, but only of certain absurd practices and opinions, which intelligent Romanists repudiate as much as we do.”
On the contrary I consider that the Articles do contain a condemnation of the authoritative teaching of the Church of Rome on these points; I only say that, whereas they were written before the decrees of Trent, they were not directed against those decrees. The Church of Rome taught authoritatively before those decrees as well as since. Those decrees expressed her authoritative teaching, and they will continue to express it, while she so teaches. The simple question is, whether, taken by themselves in their mere letter, they express it; whether in fact other senses, short of the sense conveyed in the present authoritative teaching of the Roman Church will not fulfil their letter, and may not even now in point of fact be held in that Church.
As to the present authoritative teaching of the Church of Rome, to judge by what we see of it in public, I think it goes very far indeed to substitute another Gospel for the true one. Instead of setting before the soul the Holy Trinity, and heaven and hell; it does seem to me, as a popular system, to preach the Blessed Virgin and the Saints, and Purgatory 1. If there ever was a system which required reformation, it is that of Rome at this day, or in other words (as I should call it) Romanism or Popery. Or, to use words in which I have only a year ago expressed myself, when contrasting Romanism with the teaching of the ancient Church,—
“In Antiquity, the main aspect in the economy of redemption contains Christ, the Son of God, the Author and Dispenser of all grace and pardon, the Church His living representative, the Sacraments her instruments, Bishops her rulers, their collective decisions her voice, and Scripture her standard of truth. In the Roman Schools we find St. Mary and the Saints the prominent objects of regard and dispensers of mercy, Purgatory or Indulgences the means of obtaining it, the Pope the ruler and teacher of the Church, and miracles the warrant of doctrine 2. As to the doctrines of Christ’s merits and eternal life and death, these are points not denied (God forbid), but taken for granted and passed by, in order to make way for others of more present, pressing, and lively interest. That a certain change then in objective and external religion has come over the Latin, nay, and in a measure over the Greek Church, we consider to be a plain historical fact; a change … sufficiently startling to recall to our minds, with very unpleasant sensations, the awful words, ‘Though we, or an Angel from Heaven, preach any other gospel unto you, than that ye have received, let him be accursed.’”