Should this letter meet the eye of any priest who might be induced to offer himself for the Mission, or should it awaken the sympathies of any charitably disposed persons towards contributing to the new building, I should feel very thankful, on behalf of many persons here in whose welfare, both from local ties and associations and from higher motives, I take a deep interest. "The harvest truly is great, but the labourers are few." JOHN HORNE,

Vicar of Earley, Berks, and Domestic Chaplain to the
Earl of Caithness.

DR. PUSEY AND THE SWEDISH CHURCH.

[WE regret that we have not reprinted earlier (from the American Churchman) the subjoined Letter on Scandinavian Intercommunion by the Rev. Dr. Reynolds, a Presbyter who has quitted the degenerate "American Lutheran Church "1 for our own Communion in the United States. Though penned before the meeting of the Lambeth Conference, it will be seen to have lost nothing in interest. We do not endorse, however, the strong personal reflections on Dr. Pusey, into which the aggrieved feelings of the writer have led him.-ED. C.C.C.]

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SIR,-In the Guardian for July 31, [1867], Dr. Pusey has published a very remarkable note. In this he undertakes to instruct, in advance, the Bishops to be assembled' at Lambeth in September,' as to the course that they should pursue in regard to one of the most important subjects that can then and there be brought before them-that, namely, of Christian union and the unity of the Church Catholic. The reasons alleged for this (to say the least) unseemly interference, are, the request of several, both clergy and laity, with whom' he declares himself to be ' of one mind,' and their fears of the influence of an energetic party' which has been for some time anxious that the Church of England should recognise the Scandinavian bodies, and enter into communion with them.' He deprecates everything of the kind, on the ground that any such recognition would be fatal to any hope of reunion with the Orthodox Eastern Church,' which has condemned Lutheranism as heretical.' He also believes that any such implied recognition of the errors of Lutheranism (even in ignorance) would be very injurious to our claim to Catholicity, and would now, as it did before in the alliance with the King of Prussia about the Jerusalem Bishopric, unsettle the minds of many in their allegiance to our own Church.' He further declares that' any such recognition of the Swedish Church would offer violence to his conscience and that of his friends, so long as those Scandinavian bodies adhere to the Lutheran symbolical books, which we believe contain merely heresy.' And finally, he disbelieves even the Swedish Succession.'

"I propose, with your permission, to examine the most important of the points thus made by Dr. Pusey, with the view of determining whether

1 This body has, under the lead of Dr. Schmucker, explained away the sacramental teaching of the Augustan Confession, and sunk to the level of the "Evangelical Alliance" platform.

they are so well grounded as to make it proper that they should be respected by our Bishops in their approaching Council.

"We are not sure as to the energetic party' of whom Dr. P. here speaks. He may possibly mean the representatives of the American Church, who have lately been in England; and who are very distinctly committed to the work of union with the Swedish Church, as is also our whole American Church through her Committee of Correspondence with the Church of Sweden.' But we are happy to be assured, that there is such a party in England also, and in our Mother Church herself. In fact, the highest authorities in the Church of England, from the time of Archbishop Laud to the present, have acknowledged the validity of Orders in the Swedish Church, and a true Apostolical Succession in her ministry. Archbishop Laud himself asserts it (Works, vol. III. p. 383), as do also Archbishop Bramhall, and Bishops Collier, Robinson, Jolly, Luscombe, and Blomfield. Other authorities for the same view may be seen in the Colonial Church Chronicle for 1861, pp. 100—411.

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But it is not necessary for us to exhibit anew the evidence, which proves that the Church of Sweden is possessed of a true Apostolical Succession in its Episcopacy. This has been long admitted by the Church of England, and is now practically acted upon by the Church of America; so that it is too late for either Dr. Pusey or any one else to undertake to shake this conclusion. If the Bishops assembled at Lambeth can give fuller expression to these views of the Church, and carry them to their legitimate conclusion of complete intercommunion between these two great branches of the Reformed Church, they will, undoubtedly, do a good work, deserving the thanks of all faithful members of the Church.

"Dr. Pusey, however, objects to such an intercommunion of the Church of England with that of Sweden, upon two grounds: First, That it would be fatal to any hope of reunion with the Orthodox Eastern Church; and, Secondly, That the Swedish Church adheres to the Lutheran symbolical books,' which he declares to contain merely heresy.'

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"The ground of the first of these objections is, that the Eastern Church ' has condemned Lutheranism as heretical.' This is indeed unfortunate, and deeply to be regretted. But it has done the same thing not only in regard to what is popularly known as Protestantism generally, but much more has it condemned Romanism. Dr. Wiggers, in his admirable work, 'Kirchlich Statistik' (vol. i. p. 206), tell us that, the Patriarch of Constantinople annually renews, with awful solemnities, the excommunication of all heretics, among whom he includes both Romanists and Protestants; but above all, the Pope, who receives a special anathema.' Would Dr. Pusey have the approaching Council renounce its Protestantism on that account? Would he even have it declare its want of sympathy with Romanism, denounce it as heresy, and anathematise the Pope? If he would, he has made commendable progress since the publication of his 'Eirenicon,' which we understand to be directed towards the reconciliation of the Church of England with Rome, and the explanation of Protestantism out of the Thirty-nine Articles, to which he distinctly tells us (page 37) he would have applied the hermeneutic principles of Tract No. 90.51

1 See Bishop Coxe's sharp critique in his “Criterion" passim.

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"As to the second objection, That the Lutheran symbolical books contain merely heresy,' it is certainly a very ill-considered and reckless assertion. This is shown by two facts: First, That the Lutheran symbols, or confessions, are based upon, and incorporated with them, the three Ecumenical Symbols, the Apostles', the Nicene, and the Athanasian Creeds; and, Second, That they are not only the immediate source from which our Thirty-nine Articles are derived, but that they have given them their form and colour, and, often, their very words. As to the first point, any good edition of the Lutheran symbolical books will present you with those three Creeds as their first articles, immediately preceding the Augsburgh Confession, for which see J. T. Muller's, or any other standard edition of the 'Libri Symbolici,' or 'Concordienbuch.'

"How Dr. Pusey, with such facts before him, can declare that the Lutheran symbolical books contain merely heresy,' cannot but excite the surprise of every intelligent theologian.

"The peculiar relations of the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England to the Augsburgh Confession might also be supposed sufficient to preclude such language from being used by any one sincerely attached to those Articles. No one, since the publication of Dr. Laurence's Bampton Lectures (Eight Sermons preached before the University of Oxford, in the year 1804,') can have had any doubts as to the source and doctrinal affinities of the Thirty-nine Articles. Every candid mind that has duly examined the subject, cannot fail to perceive that they come from the Augustan and Wirtemburg Confessions, just as directly as any stream can come from its perennial springs in the adjacent mountains. They may have other water and other materials mingled with them, and much of the original water may evaporate before it reaches the ocean; but the first current and impulse is still derived from that fountain head. Lay the Latin of our Articles and that of these Lutheran Confessions side by side, and he that runs may read' how the same ideas are expressed in wellnigh identical words. Those who have not access to the Lutheran Confessions and our Articles, in Latin, can see the most important" of the Articles thus related in the notes to Dr. Laurence's second sermon, from p. 236 to 243. In his remarks preceding the Latin text of the Articles which he cites, Dr. Laurence has such statements as these: The first of our Articles was taken almost verbatim from the first of the Augsburgh Confession.' . . . The same may be said of the second, and except the words "Ab æterno a Patre genitus," &c., which were added in 1562,' (when they were taken from the Wirtemburg Confession), of the ninth, sixteenth, and thirty-first.' He says, that they all evidently kept the same Confession, although more remotely, in view.' And he afterwards adds, "The Articles, either wholly or partly, copied from the Wirtemburg Confession, are the second, fifth, sixth, tenth, eleventh, twelfth, and twentieth; which indeed contain the principal additions and elucidations upon doctrinal points (that of the Eucharist alone excepted) adopted at that period.' The Wirtemburg Confession, composed by John Brentz in 1551, was confessedly an epitome of the Augsburgh Confession, and was prepared for presentation to the Council which met at Trent in the following year.

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"Of the general relations of our doctrinal system to Lutheranism, Dr. Laurence (after having shown that Cranmer was a Lutheran in almost everything) makes this statement: On the whole, therefore, the principles on which our Reformation was conducted ought not to remain in doubt; they were manifestly Lutheran. With these, the mind of him to whom we are chiefly indebted for the salutary measure was deeply impressed, and in conformity with them was our Liturgy drawn up, and the first book of our Homilies, all that were at the time composed' (P. 25). He also commences his second lecture with these words: On a former occasion I endeavoured to prove that the established doctrines of our Church, from the commencement of the Reformation to the period when our Articles first appeared, were chiefly Lutheran. To point out that the original plan was ultimately adhered to, and that, in the composition of our national Creed, a general conformity with the same principles was scrupulously preserved, will be the object of the present lecture.'

"It is, indeed, the fashion of Dr. Pusey and his school to denounce Lutheranism, and deny all sympathy with it. We doubt not that in this they are perfectly sincere much more so than when they do the same thing in reference to the Church of Rome. But we should respect them more, and more readily admit their consistency, if they went somewhat further, and at the same time disavowed all sympathy with the Church of England and her Articles. For the two systems expressed in the Augsburgh Confession and the Thirty-nine Articles are too closely connected to be separated even by that dialectical subtlety which can eviscerate the Thirty-nine Articles of their Protestantism, and make them conform to all the novelties of Romanism.

"It is, however, a rather curious circumstance, that in that point in which popular Protestantism departs furthest from Lutheranism, Dr. Pusey and his friends rather incline to Lutheranism. I refer, of course, to the doctrine of the Eucharist. Take, for instance, the statement of this doctrine found on page 31 of the Eirenicon,' which Dr. Pusey there declares to be framed word by word on our formularies, in a work (" Palmer on the Church," i. 526) which received the sanction of two of our then Archbishops, to whom it was, with permission, inscribed, and which used to be recommended to candidates for holy orders;' and no Lutheran who receives the Augsburgh Confession will demur to any part of it, except the words by the faithful,' which some would regard as too restrictive. But they certainly believe that the Body or Flesh, and the Blood of Jesus Christ the Creator and Redeemer of the world, both God and Man, united indivisibly in one Person, are verily and indeed given, taken, eaten, and received by the faithful in the Lord's Supper, under the outward form or sign of bread and wine; which is, on this account, the "partaking of the Communion of the Body and Blood of Christ," &c. To be sure, Dr. Pusey labours very hard in that section of his 'Eirenicon' to explain away that part of Article 38 which rejects Transubstantiation (or the change of the substance of bread and wine) in the Supper of the Lord.' But I conceive of no way in which he can be saved from Romanism, and a direct contradiction of that Article which he has subscribed, but by a modified and moderate Lutheranism.

"It is almost a repetition of what we have just said, to declare that it is far from our intention to identify our doctrinal system with Lutheranism. We depart from it at various points, especially in the exclusiveness and rigidity with which the symbolical books, drawn up after the time of Melanchthon, developed their system. So also in regard to the doctrine of the Church and its ministry, which Lutheranism has almost ignored, although the Swedish Church has so happily preserved it in practice. We have spoken only of the origin and general relations of our Church to Lutheranism. But is it not evident, from what we have said, that if the Lutheran symbols contain merely heresy,' the Church of England has clearly identified herself with that heresy, by incorporating not only the substance, but in many cases the very words, of the Augsburgh Confession with the Thirty-nine Articles, which are her special Confession of Faith? Neither is there anything in the Augsburgh Confession so offensive to the Eastern Church as the fifth of our Articles, wherein we declare that 'The Holy Ghost, proceeding from the Father and the Son, is of one substance,' &c. We would gladly do all that we can do conciliate our brethren of the Eastern Church, and re-establish unity with them; but we trust that our Bishops will do nothing that would compromise, much less sacrifice, the Protestant character, the historical life, and the self-respect of the Church of England, and of all the Churches that have sprung from her, now preparing to meet in one grand assembly, in the cradle of their race, as well as of their Church.

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Finally, we most sincerely deprecate everything like' offering violence to the consciences' of Dr. Pusey and his friends, or unsettling their minds in their allegiance to our own Church,' of which he speaks. But may we not say, that if Dr. Pusey had more carefully respected the consciences of the truly Protestant members of the Church of England, and been less intent, for thirty years past, on unsettling the minds of many in their allegiance' to the same, he would now have a much better claim to be heard and respected in the premises.

"All of which is most respectfully submitted to the approaching Council of our Most Reverend Fathers in God, with the prayer that God would direct them in these and in all other matters that may be the subjects of their most weighty deliberations. "W. M. R.

"September 2, 1867."

Reviews and Notices.

Five Years' Church Work in the Kingdom of Hawaii. By the BISHOP of HONOLULU. (Pp. 126.) Rivingtons.

THIS attractive-looking and instructive volume by Bishop Staley will not require from us any extended notice after our own frequent recurrence to its deeply interesting subject. One of not its least merits is the unfeigned modesty with which the Right Reverend author tries all through to keep his own name out of sight. The book is furnished