fidence of the people, become obnoxious to the crown, and fallen under the censure of the Church courts. It has no elements of inherent strength, for its primary principles have been often abandoned by its most zealous teachers, and when carried to their legitimate results have landed their disciples in Romanism and Infidelity. A system which has proved so disastrous in its results, is not likely to undergo a resurrection, though it may remain for many years as a pestilential carcass, in the Church.

Our article has expanded to such undue length, that we must forego certain criticisms which suggest themselves naturally and forcibly to a believer in church independency, and the right of private judgment.

We have space only for a single remark, the Tractarian movement contained none of the lofty elements of Scriptural piety. It renounced the great doctrine of justification by faith, and ascribed salvation to the efficacy of sacraments; and enforced the appalling doctrine, that for sin after baptism there can be no assurance of pardon. We find no evidence, in the lives of its disciples, of stern spiritual conflicts; no experiences like the heart-wrestlings of Paul, and Luther, and Augustine, and Whitefield. The younger Newman testifies of his brother, that he always cherished an aversion to the society of spiritually-minded men. The journal of Froude, their canonized saint, makes no allusions to the Savior as the object of his devotions, and the editors defend the omission, as they had previously urged in the tract on "Reserve" a delay in communicating to inquirers a knowledge of the atonement. This journal, in recording the spiritual progress of the writer, has little to say of the weightier matters of the law, but expresses the keenest remorse for a trivial omission in mint, and anise, and cummin. When we turn from Paul's heroic struggles, so graphically portrayed in the seventh chapter of Romans, or Luther's agony in his convent cell almost unto death, to the miserable whining which Froude thought the essence of true piety; his bitter sentence on himself, because "he looked with greediness to see if there was goose on the table for dinner," and "broke his fast again, by eating buttered toast

for tea," and his self-gratulation over a great moral victory obtained, by "tasting nothing till tea-time, and then only dry bread and one cup of tea;" we instinctively shudder, as if we passed from the cheering light of the gospel, into the thick darkness of Buddhist asceticism, and wonder that such caricatures of Christianity can gain a single convert.

Tractarianism was also guilty of a wide departure from Scriptural piety, by its justification of deception and fraud for the accomplishment of important ends. Its disciples subscribed to a belief in the Articles of the English Church; and the royal edict which enjoins subscription, specifies that the Articles are "framed for the avoidance of diversities of opinion, and for the establishment of consent touching the true religion," and that they "are to be submitted to in the plain and full meaning thereof, and to be taken in the literal and grammatical sense." It would seem that no man of common honesty could evade such definite safeguards. But all the Tractarian leaders defended the sentiments of Tract No. 90, and asserted that one could hold the Romish creed, and continue an honest member of the Church of England. Some of them retained rank and emoluments in the English Church for the express purpose of training their students and inferior clergy for apostacy to Rome.* Mr. Newman confessed, after his public submission to the Pope, that he had long avowed opinions which he did not hold, but excused himself by the plea, that such an avowal was necessary to relieve the perplexities of his position as a member of the English Church. Rome may call such double dealing "pious frauds," but we do not trespass on christian charity to call it mean hypocrisy, and falsehood of the lowest type.

The same role which Tractarianism has played in England,

*In this connection we may refer to a severe bon mot of Archbishop Whately, which though possibly unjust to the individual, is true of many of the party. When some of his clergy once spoke of the Oxford Professor as sound in the faith, and referred to his continuance in the Church, the Archbishop replied, "Nonsense; I know Pusey. He is the Charon of Perversion, and will not quit the boat as long as there is one left in the Church that he can ferry over to Popery. He plies the oar between England and Rome."

may be repeated in this country on a smaller scale. Its leaven has been long working in the Episcopal Church, as it began to work in the English establishment. Its subtle miasma has passed over into the German Reformed Church, and the Mercersburg Review is re-enacting the part performed by the British Critic, and the Tracts for the Times, while an acute observer may detect many points of resemblance between Mr. Newman and Dr. Nevin, both in personal character and published writings. The next generation may gather the full harvest of these mischievous tares.

ART. V.-PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICES OF BAPTIST CHURCHES.

Notes on the Principles and Practices of Baptist Churches. By FRANCIS WAYLAND. New-York: Sheldon, Blakeman & Co., 115 Nassau Street.

THE principles and practices of Baptist churches have varied widely in different periods and in different places. The perfect independence of these churches, their limited intercourse with each other, and the influence exerted over them by Baptist immigrants from several European nations, have contributed to multiply and confirm the diversities in this country. It is obvious, however, that Dr. Wayland takes his standard of Baptist principles and practices from the New-England churches. It was quite natural that he should do so. Having always lived among them, he has enjoyed the best opportunities of becoming acquainted with their principles and practices, and of observing in what degree, and with what results, these have been abandoned. For our part, we have no reverence for principles or practices merely because they have been adopted by Baptists. The early Baptists of this country were mostly pious, earnest, faithful men, whose toils, sacrifices and sufferings in the cause of Christ give them a strong claim to our grateful remembrance; but they were far from being infallible relig

ious guides. Baptists have ever held, that no religious principle or practice, unsanctioned by Scripture, is of any obligation. Their principles and practices, then, should be tested by this unerring standard. If they are Scriptural, they will endure if they are not Scriptural, they will perish, nor can they perish too soon. True wisdom guards with equal care against stereotyped and venerated errors, and against plausible and deceptive novelties.

Christians, in all their diversified circumstances, have their peculiar temptations and dangers. A life of piety is a warfare; and in this war there is no discharge. Baptists of former times were not without their evil tendencies and perils. Being mostly poor, illiterate, and imperfectly instructed on religious subjects, they naturally drifted to the extreme of enthusiasm. Having more feeling than knowledge, and more zeal than discretion, they sometimes mistook their dreams and fancies for divine revelations, and gave loose in their religious assemblies to undue excitement and unseemly extravagances. They built on the right foundation; but with "gold, silver and precious stones," they mixed "wood, hay and stubble." They were good, laborious and disinterested, but in estimating their usefulness, considerable deductions must be made for their faults and failures.

They were destined, however, in another stage of their progress, to be affected by other and more alarming tendencies. Their worldly condition is greatly changed. Though a majority of them are still poor, or merely independent, many have become rich; and the usual effects of wealth have flowed in upon them. With prosperity have come learning, refinement, luxury, fashion, and a struggle for social eminence and influence. From the social circle the spirit of worldliness is gradually diffusing itself among the churches. From the extreme of enthusiasm, Baptists are fast running into the opposite and more pernicious one of heartless formality. The simple and earnest devotions of the fathers have been, in a manner, succeeded by a fondness for religious display, showing itself in the erection of costly and splendid houses of worship,-fastidiousness in the se

lection of pastors, giving a marked preference to learning and eloquence over piety-the cultivation of a style of music better suited to gratify the taste of amateurs, than to inspire the devotions of Christians-and, in fine, a greater readiness to pay the pew rents, than to attend the devotional meetings of the church. This evil, greater in the city than in the country churches, has not reached its full development in any of them. We do not believe that, among the thousands of Baptist churches in this land, there is one, a portion of whose members does not possess the spirit and adorn the doctrine of Christ. We speak of the obvious and increasing tendency to worldliness, which, if it be not speedily counteracted, must extend its blighting influence throughout the churches of our land. Formalism is the curse of Christendom. Enthusiasm, the excess of an earnest, excited, and ill-governed spirit, is an occasional and transient evil, frequently associated with noble purposes and eminent usefulness; but formalism is cold, earthly, skeptical, diffusing itself through the churches, in all times, and in all places, marring their beauty, paralyzing their energies, and preventing their usefulness. Like bigotry, it is confined to no communion. It has withered and blighted the Protestant churches of Europe. Its icy blasts are congealing into barrenness many churches in America, once verdant, blooming, and fruitful as the garden of Eden. It is more a matter of lamentation than of surprise, that Baptist churches should be infected by a spirit so congenial to depraved nature, so fostered by worldly prosperity, and so prevalent in other Christian denominations.

The voice of warning is imperatively demanded, to check the ruinous tendency to formalism so apparent in many Baptist churches. Such a voice is sounded in the book we are reviewing. Dr. Wayland's learning, experience, and high character entitle him to say what few could say with equal propriety and effect. The same warning, sounded by others, might be regarded as a proof of disappointed ambition, or of reprehensible aspiration after notoriety; and, at best, would lack the authority conferred by his ripe scholarship, mature judgment, and great reputation. Voluntarily re