This calumny [of Popery] hath been thrown upon the greatest lights of our Church;-and will be the fate of many more, who shall zealously

contend for the primitive doctrines and discipline of Christianity.

But yet, in the day of any trial, the men of this character will be found the best defenders of the Church of England, and the boldest champions against the corruptions of the Church of Rome.-Nelson's Life of Bishop Bull, Burton's edition, p. 311.

Our Reformation was called Popish by Geneva; our Church, Popish by Calvin and Beza, and the Puritans in our own country. Popery, was the charge against all the Bishops in the reign of Elizabeth, of Charles I., and of James II. It has ever been the cry of both parties against the greatest and best of our divines, as often as they have stood forward to maintain against Romanism on one hand, and Puritanism on the other, the rights, ceremonies, or doctrines of the Catholic Church of England. It was the cry against Jewell, Whitgift, Hooker, Bramhall, Andrews, Hall, Laud, Montague, Cosin, Wren, Taylor, Sherlock, Sancroft, Kettlewell, Hickes, Brett, Dodwell, Leslie, Ken, and Butlér. Even Chillingworth did not escape the insinuation. And last, though not the least surprising, Baxter himself, "as the reward of all his labours from the separating Independent," was charged "with having done more to strengthen Popery than ever was done by any Papist."-London Quarterly Review, 126.

BRIEF EXAMINATION.

THE CHARGE.

These facts are sufficiently startling, but there is another feature in the present religious state of Great Britain, equally ominous, namely, The Oxford Tract Movement. Romanism could make little headway in that country, if the ministry of the established Church were all such men as Bickersteth, and Melville, and Henry Blunt, and the Noels. But unhappily, a LARGE AND LEARNED BODY OF THE CLERGY, (embracing the leading ecclesiastical teachers at the ancient University of Oxford,) HAVE RETURNED TO SOME OF THE worst errors oF POPERY; and are employing both the pulpit and the press, with prodigious efficiency, to give them currency among the people.

This state of things in England must operate powerfully upon this country. The increase of Romanism there, can hardly fail of giving a fresh impulse to it here. The Oxford Tract leaven is already beginning to work in our cities; and ROMAN PRIESTS ARE

PUBLICLY FELICITATING THEIR PEOPLE ON THE PROGRESS THEIR

DOCTRINES ARE MAKING IN THE BOSOM OF A PROTESTANT CHURCH. -The Rev. Mr. Boardman's Lecture, pp. 20, 21.

THE CALL FOR PROOF.

I call upon you distinctly, and by name, for your proofs, that "a large and learned body of the Clergy" of the Church of Eng

land, (" embracing the leading ecclesiastical teachers at the ancient University of Oxford,) have returned to some of the worst errors of Popery, and are employing both the pulpit and the press with prodigious efficiency, to give them currency among the people.”

Your reference to the state of things in this country is more guarded. By "the Oxford Tract leaven," however, I must suppose you to mean, from the connection in which you use it, the adoption of "some of the worst errors of Popery:" more especially as you state that the "Roman Priests are publicly felicitating their people on the progress their doctrines are making in the bosom of a Protestant Church;" by which you mean, doubtless, the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America. Adopting this interpretation of your language, I call on you distinctly, and by name, for your proofs of the adoption of" some of the worst errors of Popery" into "the bosom" of that Church; and of the progress in it of any "doctrines," which, in your judgment, would justly authorise the "Roman Priests," as such, in really, as well as "publicly, felicitating their people." I say, really; for I am sure you are not ignorant of the devices of Popery; how she adapts herself to times and circumstances, taking cameleon-like the hue of every hour, yet all the while in purpose and intent unchanging and unchangeable; how skilful and how prompt she is in that old trick of tyrants, to divide and conquer; nay, how she has put on the very face and garb of Puritanism,1 that she might undermine what she

'See a note to a very able article, "Romanism in Ireland," written, without a doubt, at Oxford, in the London Quarterly Review, No. cxxxiii. The statement there made, that Romish priests did go to England in 1566, and thereabouts, disguised as Presbyterians, Independents, and Anabaptists, by order from Rome; and did teach the people, in these assumed characters, as Faithful Commin-one of the most active of them-confessed, to hate the liturgy, to pray extempore, to despise ceremonies, to profess tender consciences, and to call a set form of words, "the mass translated," is familiar to all well informed Church

most dreads and hates, the Church of England, and the truth as held by her.

In thus addressing you, I undertake no championship of what you are pleased to call "the Oxford Tract movement," as such; claiming, however, for myself the privilege to use, and to approve, without permission, and without reproach, (responsible for that alone which I adopt,) the vast amount that is most timely, and most excel. lent, in those calumniated writings. As little do I identify myself with any school or set of men, on either side of the Atlantic: although the names of those whom you have charged as striving to pervert their age to Popery, while they profess to stand upon the ground which Cranmer held at his life's cost-the ground of primitive antiquity-are such, for talents, learning, piety, integrity, holiness, heavenly-mindedness, charity, as would adorn the purest age the Church has ever known; and are-the Papists know it, though you do not-the boldest and the ablest living champions of the truth, against the force and fraud of fallen, frenzied Rome. I do no more than claim the application of that golden rule of mutual duty, which the Saviour has taught us, in demanding, as I would that others should for me, revisal of the sentence, which, without a proper hear. ing, has been passed upon the innocent and absent. Nay, less; far less than this. I do but act on the indignant prompting of a heathen's sense of justice:

66

absentem qui rodit amicum;

Qui non defendit, alio culpante ;

hic niger est, hunc tu, Romane, caveto."

Letter to the Rev. Mr. Boardman, Banner of the Cross, for 20th Feb. 1841,

men. A sufficient reference, for the present, is to Strype's Life of Archbishop Parker, vol. i. pp. 141, 459, 484; Clarendon Press edition, 1821. [It appears that the conjecture above, as to the source of this article, is probably correct. The Rev. Professor Sewell, of Oxford, is visited, as its author, with the most violent abuse, in the Popish Journals, on both sides of the Atlantic.]

THE PROOF EXAMINED.

Before stated, will be found the distinct CHARGE, that they "have returned to some of the worst errors of Popery," publicly brought, in his own pulpit, and deliberately repeated, under his own name, through the press, by the "Pastor" of a "Presbyterian Church," against "a large and learned body of the Clergy" of the Church of England; and the same charge more than insinuated as involving-how far, it is not said, but "the bosom" is the central seat from which corruption spreads with fiercest and most fatal violence-we are left to suppose, therefore, deeply involving, the Protestant Episcopal Church in these United States. There will be found, also, the CALL FOR PROOF, publicly made, quite as distinct,' and under a responsible name, that this grave charge is just, this more than insinuation authorized by facts. In due time, a pamphlet issued from the press of Hooker and Agnew, purporting to be "Correspondence [?] between the Right Rev. Bishop Doane, of New Jersey, and the Rev. H. A. Boardman, of Philadelphia, on the alleged Popish character of the 'Oxford Divinity.'' It is to that portion of the "Correspondence" which is headed "Reply," that attention is now invited, while it undergoes a BRIEF EXAMINATION. Let it be distinctly understood, as stated in the Call for Proof, the present writer is moved by no desire for controversy, no chivalry of

1 Personal and peremptory are the epithets applied to it, by the Rev. Mr. Boardman, in his "Card;" and very justly. It was a personal call for evidence, in a case of deepest import to the truth, and meant to be most peremptory.