"time in dividing the Clergy of the Church of Eng"land on the merits, or demerits of the useful or "useless innovations you propose to them. You may "remain in the Church and repent; or you may "leave the Church and go down to the religious vanity-fair of the old city of the Anti-Christian "Babylon. But the Reformers, Ultra-Protestant as

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they were, by God's blessing upon their labours, "have so built the walls of our Jerusalem, that the 'daughter of Zion despises the new schismatical

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enemy, and laughs it to scorn. Go down, then, "to posterity as the revivers of a schism, and as the "Ultra-Anti-Protestant schismatics of the hour:"but this shall be the sentence of that posterity upon

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you-That, whereas, all other schisms, and all "other schismatics, are known by some term derived "from the opinions they avow, or from the leader they "follow; you who profess no new opinions, but "those that are obsolete, useless, or exploded; and "to follow no leader, whose name can dignify your

folly-your schism shall be known, and your title "shall be derived, from their resemblance to the opi"nions and to the character, which one of the most "decided Ultra-Anti-Protestants of the day has ima"gined and depictured. Your schism shall be Fad

"ladeenery, and yourselves shall be the sect of the "Fadladeens."-Here the letter ended. From this fate, I trust your Lordship will preserve us. I only know that, if anything will drive us downward more rapidly to Rome, than we are now going, it will be such unjust contempt as this. We do not desire, at present at least, to go so far as to Rome: but I warn those, who thus treat us, that they will be the cause of our joining the Church of Rome, if we should be induced to be reconciled to that "soothing," though sometimes severe, mother. We have not yet taken that step. If we do, I am sure that many would imitate our example; for our writings have been very influential, and they have prepared the way for a great change. If the dominion of His Holiness be ever restored in England, such contempt as this will recoil on its Ultra-Protestant authors. If it should ever so be, that the Papal supremacy be revived among us, I am sure that the people will never forget that its best introducer, supporter, and friend, was your Lordship's obliged and faithful friend and servant,

"A TRACTARIAN BRITISH CRITIC."

October 23rd,

Feast of St. Ignatius Loyola.

INTRODUCTION.

MANY of the misguided Ultra-Protestants, who have so long deceived both themselves and the people, by eulogizing the Reformation and the Revolution, have been accustomed to pronounce the character and conduct of Edmund Bonner, to be totally incapable of defence. These persons will profess to be surprized at the object of the following work. I shall not, however, be prevented either by their surprize, or their censure, from attempting to vindicate this distinguished Prelate, from the calumnies and misrepresentations of his numerous and unsparing enemies. To rescue, indeed, the name of a Bishop from unjust odium-to prove the absolute necessity of the supposed severities, by which he endeavoured to prevent the extension of the opinions of the foreign Reformers, among the deluded people of England-to justify the Catholic opinions

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he entertained, respecting both the giving the Scriptures to the people, and the folly of imagining that the ignorant mechanic and peasant, because he reads his Bible, or hears it read in the Churches, is able to form conclusions respecting God and the soul, which shall be right and acceptable to God—to vindicate the wise and holy decisions of Bishop Bonner, who endeavoured to restore to the country, that service of the Mass, which we, the Tractarian British Critics, deem, in spite of modern popular prejudice, to be worthy of such restoration*-to defend, in short, the general conduct of a Bishop, whose opinions were nearly the same as our own, and whose principles we generally approve; might perhaps be expected from us, by those who have read our Oxford Tracts, and our Articles in the British Critic, or Quarterly Theological Review. Some of our number, it is true, will shrink from encountering the abundant prejudice which envelopes the name of Bishop Bonner. I am not one of them. I perceive that there is a very extraordinary agreement between the conclusions and opinions of Bishop Bonner, and ourselves. Others

*Froude's Remains, vol. I., p. 387.