The central Presbyterian. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1856-1908, 1867-01-30
Newmans Remarkable Analysis of Par
ties in the Church of England.

foreigners may be presumed not to I'M
derstand. Among these notes is one ex-
pository of the present state of parties in
the Church of England, which we find
translated in the Liverpool Daily Post OF
Dec. 9th. As specimen of lucid state
ment and mastery analysis we know of
nothing that DR.. Newman has written
superior to it. 1t must be borne inmind
that the writer is pervert from the
Church of England to Rome; yet, for
all that, his representations are manifest
ly candid. The article supplies mass
of information, which our readers will
find very timely, in view of the recent
agitations of the American Episcopal
Church free Christian Commonwealth.
'THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
g In none Of their institutions have
Englishmen soremarkably illustrated their
love of compromise in political and social
matters as in their established Church.
Luther, Calvin, and Zwingle, all antago-
nists of Rome, were also antagonists of
each other. Other Protestant sects, the
Erastians, Puritans, and the Arminians,
are equally specific in their faith, and
equally animated by mutual hostility
Yet it is no exaggeration to say, that
the Anglican ecclesiastical Establish
ment is syncretism of all these varie-
ties of Professionalism, with a strong infu-
sion of Catholicism into the bargain. 1t
is the result of the successive action up
on religion of Henry VIII, the ministers
of Edward VI, Mary, Elizabeth, the
Cavaliers, the Puritans, the Latitudina-
rian of 1858, and the Methodists of the
eighteenth century. 1t has medieval
hierarchy, richly endowed, high in civil
station, and formidable in political infu-
ence 1t has preserved the rites, pray
ers, and creeds of the Ancient Church.
1t derives its articles of religion from
Lutheran and Zwinglian sources. Its
translation of the Bible favors of Cal
vinism. 1t can boast series of divines,
principally of the seventeenth century,
of great learning, and proud of their ap-
Proclamation to the doctrine and practice
OF the Primitive Church. Contemplate
ing these divines, the great Bossuet even
said it was impossible that the English
people should not one day return to the
faith of their fathers; De Maistre hailed
the Anglican communion as destined to
play great part in the reconciliation and
reunion OF Girriste#def4,
"This remarkable church has ever
been in the closest subsection to the civil
power, and has ever gloried in being so.
1t has ever viewed the papal power with
fear, resentment, and dislike. 1t has
never gained the hearts of the lower
classes. So far it has been one and the
same all along; in other respects it either
never has had opinions at all, or it has
been always changing them. In the 10th
century it was Calyinistic; in the first
half of the 18th it was Arminian and
quasi Catholic; toward the end of that
century and in the beginning of the next,
it was Latitudinarian. In the middle of
the eighteenth century it is described by
Lord Chatham as having Popish ritual
and Office book, Calvinistic articles of
faith, and an Arminian cergy.
"In our own day it contains three
strong parties, revivals respectively of
the three principles of religion, which
from the first, in one shape or other,
have exhibited themselves in its history ;
the Catholic, the Protestant, and the
Sceptical; each of them, it is hardly ne
cessary to say, fercely opposed to the
other two. First, the Apostolical or
Tractarian party, which at present goes
further in the direction of Catholicism
than at any former time, or under any
former manifestation; SO much so, that
in the instance of its more advanced adj
herents, it may be said to differ in moth
ing from Catholics, except in the doc
trine of the Pope's supremacy. This
school arose in the 18th century, in the
court Of James l., and Charles l.; it was
almost extinguished by the principles of
Locke, and by the accession of William
Ill, and of the House of Hanover. Its
principles were silently taught and handed
down through the 18th century by the
non-iurors, a set of learned and Jealous
men who split off from the Church of
England, with an Episcopal succession,
when they were called on to take the
oath of allegiance to William Ill; and it
has received in our day in large and
spreading party in the Church of Eng
land, by means of that movement, COM
menced in the Tracts for the Times
thence called Tractarian) of which so
much is said in the present volume.
"Secondly, the Evangelical party,
which is the life of the Bible societies
through the world, and of most of the
Protestant missionary societies. This par
ty may have been said to have begun in
the Puritans, who first showed themselves
in the last year of the reign of Queen
Elizabeth; it was well nigh cast out of
the Church of England on the Restora-
ton of Charles H., in 1860. It took
refuge among the dissenters from that
church, and was gradually expiring when
its doctrines revived with great success
by means of the celebrated preachers,
Whitfield and Wesley, both Anglican cler-
gymen, who founded the influential sect
of the Methodists. At the same time
that they formed sect external to the
Established Church, they exerted an i'm
portant influence in that church itself,
and developed gradually in the Eyangel-
ical party, who are at present far the
most powerful of the three schools whom