that we are truly made just, as Mr. Newman admits, why not, also, truly accounted to be thus made? And if we are not only truly accounted and named, but actually made just by the righteousness of Jesus Christ, what reasonable occasion have we, then, to seek for two formal causes of our justification, when the only sufficient and proper one is to be found in the unity of his atoning justice, according to the apostolic sense and catholic doctrine of the Church of Rome?

But as the Oxford writers divide and sever Christ in the unity of his sanctifying justice, (after the example of the judicious Hooker, who affirms it, as he says, on the authority of St. Paul,) and of one, make two "Christian righteousnesses," so, in like manner, do they of his one body make two bodies. For they teach us that he has a natural (!) as well as a spiritual body; and that while the former only is limited to the heavens, the latter occasionally descends on the earth, in order to be in juxtaposition with the natural and earthly substances of bread and wine! And thus while St. Paul tells us that the natural body is one, and the spiritual body another, in order that these may not be confounded, nevertheless, they hold that both belong to the person of our Lord, so that while the one is present only in heaven, the other may be, at times, present on the earth.

But how, it may be asked, is this done? Why, by confounding the very person of our Lord with the very substance of his body, in like manner as they confound the essential justice of his divinity with the sanctifying justice of his creature members.

Thus, while, with all the rest of Protestantism, they maintain the monstrous doctrine of a "double or twofold Christian righteousness," do they also hold another no less monstrous than that of teaching a double or twofold body of our Lord. The former, however, still maintain their faith on the old and beaten track of their reform; but the Oxford school proclaim theirs by a teaching peculiar to itself, and under a soi-disant appellation or perverted name of "Catholic unity!"

Let us inquire, now, how they maintain their doctrine of two bodies, the one natural, and the other spiritual. In the first place, then, they deny that we actually partake of the substance of our Lord's body in the holy

Eucharist, and maintain that we merely eat and drink, with the sacramental forms, the natural substances only of bread and wine. Thus the bread, according to them, still remains, after its consecration, the same in nature as it was before, a mere natural, inanimate element of brute and lifeless matter. But should they still maintain that we, nevertheless, eat the body in the sacrament; then, we ask how, and in what manner, do we eat the same according to the premises they assume? Now, it is easy to perceive that the question can be readily evaded by answering-after a heavenly and not after a carnal manner; but, at the same time, it is no less easy to perceive, according to their own explanation of the manner, that this evasion will never exonerate them from the charge, not only of denying our Lord's incarnate substance under its sacramental forms, and thereby of not discerning his body, but of holding, also, the no less monstrous doctrine of eating the substance of his person! and that, too, in a revolting conjunction with the mere earthly substances of bread and wine!

We need no miraculous change of substance in the elements, says Mr. Newman, "to convince us of the presence of the Lord incarnate." Where, we ask? In the sacramental forms of bread and wine? This they deny; for they maintain a presence there of only the natural substances themselves. If, therefore, it be not in the sacrament, or in the Eucharistic signs, it remains for the Oxford writers to say where they actually hold it to be, according to their own doctrine on the same. But as they are unable to answer so perplexing an inquiry, may we not justly affirm, that while they have in their teaching evidently taken away the Lord, they utterly know not where they have placed him?

Whatever, therefore, be their profession of a real presence in the sacrament, it is, in its very terms, an evident contradiction of their own self-assumed premises, to say nothing of the manifest blasphemy in teaching that the body of our Lord was there present in a heterogeneous union with the natural substances of mere brute matter.

With as much justice and propriety, also, might we affirm that Christ was, or is a natural man, as to teach that he had, or has a natural body. If the Oxford wri

ters, however, only mean to hold that his body was once under the law, during the days of his flesh, and subject to the laws of natural being-but now no more— -there certainly would be no manner of question on that point. But is this, we ask, a rational ground for believing that, therefore, it was, or could be a "natural (!) body," and that he has now a natural body in heaven, but a spiritual one on the earth.

But although his person cannot be separated from his humanity, or incarnate substance, the one is essentially distinct from the other. The two, therefore, although invariably connected, are never to be confounded.

And as our communion with the former is only through the latter, it is evident, that while we may eat the substance of his flesh, it were impious to hold that in this we also eat the substance of his person. He is, therefore, personally present no less in the blessed sacrament of his Church on earth, than he is in the heaven of heavens. Here he is personally present with his body in the consecrated but temporal forms of bread and wine; but there in his own proper and eternal form. For wherever his body is, there is his person also. Visible here only in the transient signs of earthly things,—there, in his own glorious and eternal image, being the brightness of his Father's majesty, "and the figure of his substance."χαρακτης της υποστάσεως αυτού.

While, therefore, in the Eucharist we have communion with his person, we, nevertheless, eat his body only; and that not after a carnal, but only after a spiritual and a heavenly manner. And while we sensibly partake of the substance of his humanity, in the eating of his mysterious flesh in the sacrament, it is evident that we cannot partake of the substance of his divinity, although, at the same time, we most certainly have fellowship with his person, and that of the Father, if we receive the body in a worthy or acceptable manner.

Nevertheless, the Oxford Divines confound the body of Christ with his person, and the substance of his humanity with the substance of his divinity; while, at the same time, they teach the no less monstrous doctrine of

* Heb. i. 3.

dividing his body in such a manner as to maintain that, while he has a natural (!) one in heaven, he has also a spiritual one on earth.*

* And yet Dr. Pusey declares "that Rome has grievously erred by explaining in a carnal (!) way the mode of this presence."Pusey's Letter to the Bishop of Oxford, p. 89. That while their school, according to the article of their Church, maintains that the faith of the believer is the mean (or instrument) whereby the body is eaten (!) in the Supper, still they do not go so far as to say, with another school of their Church, that this faith is also "the true consecrating principle."-Ibid, p. 89.

....

After specifying a number of what he terms "the modern corruptions of Rome, which his Church in her articles condemns," he tells us that these all spring from the one invention of the doctrine of transubstantiation.-Ibid, p. 91. Nevertheless, he says, "deeply as Rome has erred. we fear that others have erred more deeply" viz., by such expositions of the real presence as have, in his view, virtually explained it away altogether.-Ib. p. 88. In Tract No. 38, we find it asserted that "the doctrine of transubstantiation, as not being revealed, but a theory of man's devising, is profane and impious."--P. 11. And in Tract No. 81, it is very truly said, that "the doctrine of the Sacrifice (as we have already shown) cannot be the same where transubstantiation is held, and where it is not."-P. 47.

Dr. Pusey further says, in his work on Baptism, that "the error of transubstantiation has so modified other true doctrine, as to cast into the shade the one oblation once offered upon the Cross."Pusey on Baptism, p. 6. And which offering he denies, with all the Protestant sects, to be now made on the Christian altar, in another manner from that in which it was once done on Calvary, and is, therefore, in other words, the same as to assert that it has now no being whatever; that its miraculous virtue has altogether ceased, and that it can now act no more. All this would be the inevitable consequence, if it could not be made now in a different form from that in which it was once and forever accomplished, in the days of our Lord's passion, under the law of death; but which, however, all must acknowledge, has no longer any dominion over him, or his perfect and most magnificent work.

In Tract No. 27, p. 2, they say, "As to the manner of the presence of the body and blood of our Lord in the blessed sacrament, we that are Protestant and Reformed, according to the ancient Catholic Church, do not search into the manner of it with perplexing inquiries," &c.

Notwithstanding, however, we would refer our readers to the celebrated Tract No. 90, as containing a full and detailed exposition of the manner of this presence, according to the views of this new school, in opposition to the ancient doctrine of our Church on the same.

In this explanation, however, of the Oxford view, we shall vainly seek for any consistency of sober and intelligible reasoning, to say nothing of its utter want of that essential unity and beauty which

But the Catholic Church has invariably held that Christ is one-ever one-in his person, as in the temporal forms of his body here, and in its eternal and glorious form hereafter.

We return, now, from this digression on the doctrine of a two-fold or double body, to the subject of the two righteousnesses, and which is but another distinctive badge of every school which professes to be separated from the Holy See, whatever be the self-assumed appellation by which it is "nominated in their bond," or their so-called Christian covenant. For in none does it show itself more prominently than in that of Oxford, notwithstanding its formal repudiation of the name of Protestantism.

While the essential righteousness, therefore, of our Lord's divinity, is, by the Oxford doctrine, formally accounted to us for our "absolute acceptableness," the imperfect righteousness of our own, which they connect with it in the process of our justification, is actually denominated by Mr. Newman, "the propitiation for our sins," in God's sight! Surely, our own righteousness can never be the propitiation for our sins; and it is no less certain there can be no other righteousness given under heaven whereby we may be saved or accepted, but that only which is imparted to us in the propitiatory merits of his indwelling and sanctifying justice. There is not, moreover, a single heretical opinion which may not be traced to this very doctrine,—that our own righteousness is, as Mr. Newman insists, an "acceptable obedience." It is, indeed, a necessary and inevitable consequence of that distinction of the two so-called Christian

belong to the Catholic doctrine, and to the seamless vesture of our Lord's mysterious humanity.

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Reflecting often on these things," says Vincent of Lerins, in alluding to changes of doctrine, "I am astonished at the ... error in some men, who, not content with the Rule of Faith once delivered and received, are ever seeking for something new, and are ever anxious to add to religion, to change, or to take away; as if what was once revealed, was not a celestial dogma, but a human institution, which, to be brought to perfection, required constant emendation, or rather correction. If novelty must be shunned, antiquity must be held fast; if novelty be profane, antiquity is sacred."-Common. n. xxi. p. 348.

* Lecture, p. 39.