To the Rev. the Missionaries of the Evangelical Lutheran Church at Tranquebar.

My Dear Brethren.--I have just seen a pamphlet containing a statement signed by seven of your number, purporting to be a defence of your position, proceedings, and doctrine, and I think it best to write to you at once, plainly pointing out wherein it seems to me that your publication fails to justify the course you have taken.

I do so with the sincerest respect for yourselves, though I have not the pleasure of being acquainted with more than one of your number, and that but very slightly indeed. I feel that it is a sad thing that Christian Missionaries should be obliged to engage in controversy with one another, instead of aiding each other in their great work. I pray God that this discussion, in which you alone have provoked, may not however be, as you term it, an "useless controversy," but may issue in the restoration of peace among those who should labour as, brethren. You seem to feel aggrieved by the summary of the whole case, as between you and the Missionaries of the English Church in this province, given in the ninth number of the Madras Quarterly Missionary Journal. I will say then in the commencement that I am prepared to adopt that article as my own, and I believe I am able to justify every statement in it. You are at [3/4] liberty to consider me and not the Editor responsible for it, if you please. But in fact I think your "Defence" impugns scarcely anything which is therein stated.

You demur (p. 3) to being represented as the aggressors in this unfortunate and ill-omened strife: but, my dear brethren, you certainly are so.

We have ever studiously avoided all interference with your congregations--while your defence avows and justifies the most deliberate schemes of proselytism from our communion. We have been the complainants certainly, but you have first attacked.

If Mr. Johnson of Nangúr, has ever aggrieved you in any matter, you know well where to seek for redress. Measures of retaliation can never be justifiable. But I am bound to say that, as far as I can learn from others, or gather from your own statements, Mr. Johnson has uniformly treated you with both forbearance and Christian courtesy. Meanwhile, I have in my possession an official letter of one of your number, (written, I dare say, hastily) in which he is spoken of with most contemptuous rudeness. And of the difference in tone between his published letters and yours, let others judge.

I must not forget to mention that for the present letter I alone am individually responsible, and I shall not be unwilling (D. V.) to discuss with you, in, any way you please, the allegations it contains.

I will now proceed to make a few plain and simple statements in reply to your "Defence," and I ask you to meet them in the same way. Let the whole matter be thoroughly sifted. Do not consider your "Defence" as "final." Let us not retire from the contest till peace is established.--E bello pax.

1. In page 5 of your Defence you say that the Missionaries of the S. P. G-. have "steadily refused" to make "every practicable inquiry before receiving persons from your communion."

To this I reply most firmly, but in perfect courtesy, that I am sure that in no one case whatever has any Missionary of the [4/5] S. P. G. so refused. Will you kindly bring forward one such refusal or one such reception, by any one of the Missionaries of the English Church?

2. In page 5 you speak of a Missionary of whom you made an inquiry regarding a man who had been excommunicated by the English Church. You say that the English Missionary first said he "knew nothing about it," and afterwards that he "would say nothing about it." I am the Missionary to whom you refer, and the case stands thus--A few days after I had taken charge of the Tanjore Mission, and when I was overwhelmed with business, and weakened by indisposition, Mr. Cordes wrote to me to say that a man named Pákkiyanáthan, who had been formally and publicly excluded by my predecessor (until he should make amends), had applied to the Lutheran Missionaries for reception into their communion, and asking for an explanation of the reasons of his excommunication. Several letters passed on the subject. The sum of my replies was:

1. "As I have but just arrived here, I have not even heard the man's name, and I do not know any thing of the reasons of his excommunication."

2. "Such a man cannot be a fit person to be treated with or received by the Lutheran community. It cannot be from conviction that he joins you."

3. "If he conceives himself (as you say) unjustly excommunicated, let him apply to me. I will immediately and thoroughly examine the whole case, and put him in the way of obtaining redress. To me and not to you should he apply."

4. "You assume to yourself the office of the bishop of the English Missionaries when you examine the case of men excommunicated by them, and constitute yourself the judge between them and their people. This is subversive of all discipline, and cannot be productive of any real benefit to you or to the cause of Christianity."

Now you almost immediately afterwards received that man, and made him a teacher of others. I have since become well acquainted with the man's character, and with all the [5/6] circumstances of his excommunication, arid I will do no more- than express a hope that you may not bitterly repent having placed him in so responsible a position. In such a case do you not perceive that I could not possibly allow myself to enter upon a discussion with you, which would have rendered it necessary to canvass the acts of a brother Presbyter with the Missionaries of another communion. I did immediately after the receipt of Mr. Cordes' letter examine it. You place yourselves in a wrong position when you interfere between us and suspended members of our communion. But of course I should be very glad to give you any information regarding any well-disposed person who, after stating to me his doubts, and not feeling satisfied with my explanation, should wish, from conscientious motives, to withdraw from my pastoral superintendence. I trust there are none of us who would not respect the scruples of a tender and distressed conscience, however we might consider the person in error. And I now say--and the proof lies with you--that in no case, I believe, has such an explanation been refused.

3. In page 5, paragraph 2, you proceed to open the grave and all-important question of caste. I am indeed astonished, my dear brethren, at the statements contained in pp. 6 and 7 of your "Defence," they would lead to the inference that you live in profound ignorance of the character of the people of whom you speak. But let me consider your statements one by one.

1. Has the English Church violently and abruptly abrogated the regulations introduced by Swartz and others? "Will you state in what way she has done so? We denounce caste as sinful. Did not he thus view it? He proposed slowly to eradicate it. Is it not time to try to effect what he purposed to do? Is this something new among us? [From the following extract of a letter from Bishop Heber you will see that some of your own brethren were the first to discern the evils of the old system. Extract of a letter from Bishop Heber to the Right Hon'ble Charles W. Williams Wynn, March 21st, 1826, (Camp near Chillembrum, Carnatic) "These people, however, Christians as they are, have preserved very many of their ancient usages; particularly with regard to Caste, which both here and in Ceylon is preserved with a fierceness of prejudice which I have rarely witnessed in Bengal, and which divides almost as perfectly a Sudra from a Pariah Christian, as it, did the same individuals while worshippers of Kishmi and Siva, the old school of Missionaries tolerated all this as a merely civil question of pedigree and worldly distinction, and in the hope that, as their converts became more enlightened, such distinctions would die away. This effect has not followed; but, on the other hand, some of the younger Missionaries, both German and English, have not only warmly preached against Caste, but in the management of their schools, and the arrangement of their congregations, have thwarted it as much as possible.] Your quotation of [6/7] Romans xiv. 5, 14, 20, is surely a very hasty and inappropriate one. There the Apostle speaks of the pious scruples of men who feared to break the law of God given by Moses, and who were not sure that the Gospel had set them free from its yoke. They hesitated to avail; themselves of their new-found liberty. They erred not in wishing to retain that which was the handy-Work f of Satan, as caste is, but in doubting whether they were at liberty to neglect what they knew God had strictly commanded to their fathers. We may bear with a too scrupulous brother, but should we bear with one who does not hesitate to bring the pollutions of heathenism into the temple of God? See Tholuck (for whom I am afraid we have after all more respect than you), on Romans xiv.

In opposing caste we do not wage war with an abstraction. There are certain definite manifestations of an evil principle, call it what you will, which we cannot but oppose. For example, a member of the Church refuses to drink water drawn from a well because another Christian, equally respectable and cleanly in his habits, drinks water from the same well.

A man throws away his food in disgust because the vessel of another Christian man has touched his own.

Ought we not to denounce and refuse in any way to tolerate such things? If caste be only equivalent to what we call rank, let it be maintained in the same way. If it be any thing real and worth having, it cannot be injured or broken by eating food cooked by another, or by occasionally associating with another. Nothing but heathen caste could be affected by such accidents. We do not strive to degrade our people, but to elevate them by inspiring a consciousness in them of the true dignity to which Christianity has raised them. But in fact I have found that this incomprehensible and impalpable phantom against which we contend id admitted by all to be sin.

[8] This sin they cannot, they say, overcome. Their worldly relationships require that they should retain it, sin though it be. It is admitted that the renunciation of caste would not injure a man in the sight of the heathen in general, who cannot see any difference between a Christian and a Pariah; It is admitted that if all Christians claimed to be of the "Christian caste," they would suffer nothing by renouncing every other caste.

But when we urge our native brethren conscientiously and honestly to strive with us to put an end to the system in the way most feasible and least painful to their prejudices, we find that many of them would rather forego anything than aid us in the least in preparing the way for their own emancipation. [I must say, however, that there are sensible and earnest minded men among our native brethren who feel the difficulty and are thankful to us for the steps we have taken.]

You speak of the "mild and forbearing" methods of the fathers of these missions in regard to this and other points of discipline. It may be allowed me, with profound respect for the memory of the blessed dead, to say that the propriety of their methods must be estimated in great measure by their results. Did their line of conduct tend to eradicate caste? Of course, when it was not opposed, no strife or dissension would appear. Two distinct villages on one piece of ground, two or three distinct parties in the congregations, two distant companies of communicants were permitted to exist, and all went on peacefully. Bishop Wilson's letter on the subject did not cause, but only make manifest, the fact that "caste" was stronger and more clearly defined, and more vigorously maintained by the Tanjore Christians than even by the heathen around them.

When any real opposition to "caste" was made, the effects of the previous system were seen.

And will you tell us, (in connection with your note at p. 17), how much weaker caste is in Tranquebar, where it has been never, or feebly opposed, than in these Missions, where, at least, we have striven however imperfectly to resist the evil?

You call the method of those whom you style your fathers, the "evangelical" method. In the holy gospels, I cannot [8/9] discern any thing like it. Will you consider such passages as St. Matthew v. 19, 29, 30. vi. 24, vii. 13, 14. x. 38, 39. xii. 25. xv. 11, 13. I will not multiply references, but the teaching which is in accordance with these verses is also "evangelical," and is needed especially in Missions such as these.

The fact is that the system of the founders of these Missions was eminently secular. Every man who joined them was provided for, and his descendants enriched. Themselves men of pre-eminent holiness, the earlier Missionaries exercised a strong personal influence which in their own time prevented the appearance of gross evils in the large and entirely dependant family that they had collected around them.

But, I apprehend, few will disagree with me when I say that if they had foreseen the results of their plans, and if they had more accurately estimated the character of the people for whom they laboured, they would have adopted a somewhat different course. As we "follow their faith," and are edified by their devotion, we may learn too from their mistakes.

But that you may be able to judge whether any of our people are right in leaving the communion of the English Church on this ground, permit me to tell you exactly what we really do in regard to caste. Some of the Missionaries of the Church of England may do a little less--none, I think, do more--than what I state as our practice. Whether more should not be done is a question which I am not called upon to discuss with you.

(I.) We do riot allow any person to exercise the office of a teacher in any way in our Missions who will not eat a meal with the Missionary under whom he wishes to labour! To this regulation you owe nearly, if not indeed all, your accessions. The seceders see that to strengthen your cause is to prepare the way for them and their children's maintenance.

(2.) In the administration of the Holy Communion we do riot allow any distinction whatever. We take care that no one shall come to the holy table, who would there manifest, by any gesture or act, by sitting apart, or by seeking to communicate [9/10] before or after his brethren, any feeling of disgust towards Mg fellow Christians. Of course there is a difficulty here. It is painful to insist upon little matters which, under other circumstances, could be overlooked. But this is a thing which must be tested. We must be on the watch to repress any indications of a temper of mind that would convert the gifts of God into a means of condemnation to our people. In charity to them we are bound to pursue this line of conduct. I have heard the Cup of the Lord--the Communion of His sacred blood--denounced as (filthy leavings), by a Communicant because one of lower caste had drunk of it before! Many (so called) caste Christians would not hesitate thus to speak. Such persons we should certainly exclude. We cannot permit men to come to the altar of the Lord who have aught in their minds against, or in disparagement of their brother. Many such people attend our services and seek our ministrations, but on this account alone seek to receive the Communion from you. And you encourage them; and thereby render it necessary to remind you of the danger of becoming "partakers of other men's sins." [You speak (p. 18) of individuals being left without the means of grace because of our proceedings in regard to caste. This is ambiguous and requires explanation. 1. People are only excluded from the communion, by themselves, when they refuse to kneel together with their Christian brethren at the celebration. 2. None are excluded from Church by us on this ground. If a man will leave the Church because a brother of lower caste comes into it, what can we do? If you afford the "means of grace" to people in this state of mind, I am afraid that though there may be the "means" there will be little of the "grace:" for "God giveth grace unto the humble."]

(3.) I do not allow any caste distinction to be observed in the boarding schools in my mission. All children fed and clothed by me must be treated alike: must mingle in every respect on equal terms. Why, I have known a little child, not seven years old, burst into a passion of weeping because her eating vessel simply touched that of another child who was of what is called a lower caste. I have known children run away from the school in droves because a girl of "lower caste" went into the kitchen to take away some ashes. This of course we cannot encourage. We cannot clothe these prejudices in mission garments, or feed them with mission rice.

(4.) I do not in general use caste titles. I am somewhat [10/11] singular in this respect. The M. D. C. S. P. G. in their recent report use them. I am willing to give any titles of honour to my native brethren, some of whom I respect very highly, but none that shall be peculiar to a caste.

In a note (why not put it into the text), you deny your knowledge of the certain fact that the caste question is the sole cause of the accessions you have received. Now I will tell you the process as it has gone on under my own eyes--as it is going on now.

A man comes to the English Missionaries, and begs to be put into the Catechist's office for a morsel of rice. His caste and often his character too, stand in the way of his employment. He then goes to a congregation where he has relatives and friends and says to them, "Those English Missionaries wish to make us Pariahs: come with me and join the Lutherans--the old mother church that gives no trouble about caste or any thing else. I shall then obtain an appointment as your Catechist, and a living for myself and family; and in return I will take care of your interests in every way." He thus gathers a congregation which is presented to you (under false pretences, no doubt,) and by you received, with (it may be) stipulations and provisoes which the people well know how to render nugatory with the assistance of the aforesaid Catechist. You may demand the signatures of the people to your requirements--some know nothing about the matter, and all are prepared to sign any thing pro forma: but DO you enforce these requirements?

Do your people receive the Lord's Supper without any distinction? Are all castes permitted to assemble in all your churches? Have you tested it where it seems to be doubtful whether your, people will allow it or not?

Take the Chittragudi case. I shut up their church because they declared they would not come again to service unless I promised that no "pariah" should be admitted into the building. They said to Mr. Franklin that they would rather go back to heathenism than allow it. You have received them one and all. Have you obtained from them the concession of this point? [11/12] They say now they would rather become heathen than allow it. You employ there a man dismissed by us--of whose character I will not trust myself to speak (horresco referens). Do these people--will they--yield this point? If not, are your stipulations (supposing them to have been made) of any value? If they do yield it I am glad; but why then should they leave our communion? Fourteen years' experience has taught me the value of all such compacts. The working is everything. And the working must be in the hands of your Catechists while you are 60 miles off.

In page 7, you say "when it is required that we shall reject any applicant not on our own finding, but simply on the conviction and the protest of their former pastors, our answer can be no other than this, that we are neither so short-sighted as not to perceive the drift of this demand nor so, unprincipled as to submit to it." I do not understand you here. We have never required anything. We have besought you, as brethren, not to encourage schism--not to administer the Holy Communion to those whom we have rejected for immorality--not to unsettle our people by schemes of proselytism when your own congregation, as well as ours, require all the time and. attention of their pastors for their instruction, guidance, and reformation. You seem to see further than I do in the matter. That which we seek is simply peace--brotherly kindness--the edification of our people--the spread of the holy gospel--the accomplishment of our mission in. this weary land. In fact you receive native testimony in preference to ours. And, as to your treatment of communications from ourselves, I will, in another place, give one instance from among many of your habitual discourtesy towards those who may address you.

You say (p. 6) that all whom you have received have "been required to retract any special causes of offence"--to confess the faith, &c. of the Lutheran Church, and to contribute to your funds. I will tell you what is the impression everywhere.

(1.) That the special causes of offence are in most cases never known to you at all, and if made known ignored by you. In [12/13] the cases that have occurred here no amendment has taken place--no reparation has been made for notorious evils committed. Such things could only be arranged by your sitting with us for days together examining and sifting matter of this kind. But this is plainly impossible.

(2.) That the people know nothing about the differences of doctrine at all. I have spoken with many of your people, none of whom knew any difference whatever, and all united in telling me that other feelings influenced them. A man who is inclined to your community and is a reproach to ours, told me that he did not like the priest's administering the Holy Communion to himself in our Church!

(3.) That while you are profusely generous to our neophytes, they do not at all contribute to your funds, or only for some immediate object in opposition to us. Will you give some light on these subjects? For a party purpose many would contribute liberally, but have you been able to advance further than ourselves towards the attainment of that most desirable object of rendering your congregations self-supporting?

4. In the eighth and following pages of the "Defence": you explain your views of your duties and position to the Christian-congregations of the province. I will notice the chief points. I must say, then, that Mr. Wolff's note does seem to me really to express what you state at length, though you are grieved at its reproduction. For

(1.) You say that you are the "spiritual successors of the old Lutheran missionaries" (p. 9).

(2.) You declare also that you "have peculiar obligations towards them who, being originally children of your Church, wish to return to their mother Church."

(3.) You affirm that from your Communion these people have been, detached by "mere ignorance and force of circumstances." This amounts to the same thing as Mr. Wolff's candid statement. But I can hardly allow that you are in a strict sense the "spiritual successors" of the founders of the Tanjore Missions. Do you teach the same doctrines? Certainly not; for [13/14] they, by habitually using our services and translating them, showed that they agreed with us in doctrine, or felt the difference to be inappreciable. On no other supposition can we understand their habitually using the English Communion Service.

You on the other hand feel the difference in doctrine to be very important--in fact you belong to another phase of Lutheranism. You subscribe to the same general confession as Dr. Coemmerer and Dr. John, I presume, but you take a somewhat different stand from them in doctrine, as I infer from Mr. Graul's letter, unjust though I suppose it to be towards some of the later Lutheran Missionaries. [I cannot refrain from adding a word concerning Mr. Graul's pamphlet which yon seem (p. 10) to adopt as expressing your sentiments. It would have received an answer at the time (besides the review) if it had seemed to contain anything that called for a reply. That Mr. Graul (a gentleman laying no claims to a ministerial character, I believe) should write as he did about Polygamy and slavery was surprising enough, but that you should in any way participate in his sentiments would be still more distressing. And yet the far-famed dispensation to Philip Landgrave of Hesse, comes to one's recollection. And one of your own brethren seems to have acted in much the same way; at Badalur. Is this laxity--this obtuseness in regard to the claims of Christian morality really to be considered as a characteristic of Lutheranism, as it certainly always has been of Romanism? The way too in which Mr. G., your director, speaks of some of the later German Missionaries, who deserve as much as yourselves to be considered (t faithful" men, is., very painful. The world will not consent to sacrifice the reputation of Dr. Rottler and others at the shrine of that new and exclusive Lutheranism which you seek to set up. The "broad Catholic basis of the Augsburg Confession" (to use your own words), unexplained by authoritative and unvarying liturgies, will find standing for a vast variety of "views.") There is not, and never has been, such unity in the interpretation of doctrine in your community as you seem to claim. You say that among the English your fathers were but volunteers and auxiliaries. Did they then teach different doctrines to the Natives and to the Europeans? We know how they taught and ministered to the English, and, we know that in Tanjore, Trichinopoly, and Vepery and other places they so explained your formularies as to induce the belief everywhere, that they in all things agreed with the English Church. There is no reason to accuse Swartz and others of being unfaithful to their vows, but there are differences of interpretation, and you know how "broad," as you will say, all Swartz's and Kohlhoff's library is in Theology. You would harmonize with the library as little in some points as you do [14/15] With the immense majority of your living brethren! I have looked over the books that Swartz and others left behind their favourite commentaries and common-place books. I have read a few of their sermons and their published works, and I really think we of the English Church come very much nearer to their doctrine on the whole than you do. In the voluminous letters of Swartz, in his sermons, in the whole of his intercourse with the English Church, do you detect any one expression that indicates any even the slightest disagreement in doctrine? Your director (p. 31) read our service in the Saxon Capital. Did he also venture to administer the Holy Communion according to our office? Swartz and others did this for years. With your views you know you could not do this. You regard Our Liturgy as heretical. Nothing would induce you to use it for a single occasion. You denounce it. You preach against it. This is not a matter of "full ecclesiastical forms." You may put your candlesticks, &c, chant your services, and if these things are in unison with your people's feelings and do not excite annoyance, I should not object for one:--but here is a real dogmatic opposition. There is an "alternation of spirit" in those who now claim to be, par excellence, the "faithful Lutheran Missionaries." If Swartz was faithful, you are in error. Swartz, Kohlhoff and others devoutly used, and Dr. Rottler translated those very words in which you discern a denial of the presence of the Lord according to His promise. [In fact the English liturgy was translated and used in Falamcottah, and probably elsewhere, as early as 1788 by Swartz's directions. In his life too he quotes the very words of our Communion Office more than once.]

The use of the 5 is nothing peculiar to your Church. The Creed, the Lord's Prayer, the Ten Commandments, the words of the institution of the Holy Eucharist, and the words of our Lord's command to His disciples to baptize all nations, are surely common to all. And as to Swartz's , and Bishop Wilson's (of Sodor and Man) Instruction for a Catechumen, which he translated and adopted, is there any thing decidedly Lutheran in them according to your reading of Lutheran doctrine? In Swartz's Life, I. 199, he quotes the 2d Commandment just as we have it, and not according to your usage. [15/16] In fact your statement (p. 34, para. 5), as to the change that took place in 1813 implies that all the Lutheran ministers who remained after that date were in your opinion unfaithful.

You admit, and urge the fact, that from 1813 to 1853, that is, for forty years past, the public doctrine has been changed, and so all Lutheran pastors, and consistent Lutherans excluded from these Missions. How many then of your recent proselytes are 40 years old? What right have you to claim them as your people?

A change took place, you say, forty years ago in the management of these missions, which rendered it impossible for any faithful Lutherans to remain.

And did not the Ministers of your communion then in the Missions (Mr. Kohlhoff, senior, for instance), by whose instrumentality many of these congregations were raised, acquiesce in that change? Did they not contentedly, nay eagerly, co-operate with those who then took the management of affairs? Did the Lutheran Church (or any one member of any one of that aggregate of various and discordant communities that make up the Lutheran Church) protest against such a change? Then indeed, if your authorities had sympathised with the feelings which you avow, they might have expostulated with the English Bishops.

You manifest here the very disposition for which you unjustly blame us--a disposition to undervalue the opinions of the Venerable Fathers of these Missions.

What they gave you have no right to reclaim.

You say that you receive none but those who make "a perfectly lawful application for Church-membership." But, what would be lawful in one case is not in another. Consider the circumstances, weigh the probable motives of the persons applying, test their knowledge, set the supposed benefits of receiving, them against the evident evils of countenancing schism and rebellion against legitimate authority: and you will find that there are few "lawful" applicants in these parts. You say, and [16/17] Mr. Graul said for you, that you never condescend to take the first steps in soliciting people to join you. BUT YOUR AGENTS DO. To gather a congregation is to secure a livelihood for themselves. Every man who conceives himself fit to be a Catechist or schoolmaster, sets out to hunt up a congregation. There are several such men now prowling about. The advantages of your system are made plain by these self-appointed agents of yours to every capacity. I will tell you what these advantages are supposed to be by the people generally.

(1.) No restrictions in regard to caste. Nothing is required but what can be evaded easily.

(2.) Marriages within degrees prohibited by the English Church, and at any hour, and no questions asked about the ceremonies and tamash in their houses.

(3.) Infrequent visits by Missionaries, so that the utmost laxity of discipline is, tolerated. As a man said, "they come to preach to us the gospel, and bestow benefits upon us, and not to inquire into our lives." That worthy had his own especial reasons for rejoicing that hands were rather "suddenly" laid on his head, without too strict a scrutiny into his private life and the number of his crimes.

In such a conflict you will gain the day, though victory be dearly bought. We of the Anglican communion cannot relax our system--and we would not if we could. We have seen the utter worthlessness of a system built upon such foundations. The native Church will never take root in the land unless the soil be carefully cleared of all the noxious weeds.

5. You justify Mr. Wolff's conduct at Tanjore, and in so doing you again introduce (p. 13) Mr. Johnson's case, but decline any controversy with him. Yet, as far as I know,--as far as the public can see--he has proved his case as against you. If you feel angry with him, you should, it seems to me, yet either argue the matter out with him, or bring the whole matter officially before our Local Committee, or the Bishop of the diocese. I "resented" the ministrations of Mr. Wolff for many reasons.

[18] (1.) He, without apprising me of the objects of his visit, came to my house as a friend, and from thence proceeded on his mischievous errand.

(2.) He held his service on our own Mission ground, on our property, close to my Church, without the courtesy of asking permission to do so.

(3.) The two people at whose call he ministered I knew! I will say no more. If you must have such a congregation, build your church at some distance--let your members leave our Mission village with the inhabitants of which they can no longer join in services, and let them settle around your place of worship. As it is--in the midst of my people, on my own ground, I have families who do not acknowledge my authority, and do not obey yours, who gather around them all who are discontented and disreputable, and who practice with impunity all that I seek to wean my own people from. Their children come to my schools, their poor I must support, or see them starve around me, and to the church they and theirs ofttimes persist in coming without conforming to the regulations of our service. You can exercise no effectual control or influence over them. Their nominal connexion with you quiets their conscience, I suppose, but imposes on them no salutary restraint.

For nearly three years thus have I found it to be. All this can hardly be pleasant to me, or profitable to any body. A man who left our employment because (while receiving eight rupees per mensem), ho found his worldly prospects, as he said, injured by the connection, is made your Catechist on nine rupees a month; and a dismissed servant of mine is made your church-keeper. But I will subjoin a list of your congregation in Tanjore.

List of Native Christians professing to be members of the Lutheran Community in Tanjore.

1. Gnanéndran, Catechist, with his wife and children. This man was formerly a munshi in the employment of the S. P. G. His father-in-law and family left the English Church because Messrs. Newbigging, Dawson and Addis, [18/19] school-masters in1 the mission, were appointed to sit with the boys of the school and1 consequently on the same side of the Church as himself, though at a considerable distance. This man at that time resigned his situation on the plea that his worldly prospects were not improved by his connection with it. His salary was eight Rs. In a very short time he re-appeared as the Lutheran Catechist with a salary of nine Rupees.

2. Christian, the Lutheran Schoolmaster, with his mother; His salary is three Rs. eight As. A man of unsettled intellect who has been long seeking a situation. The first intimation I, his minister, had of his Lutheran convictions was the intelligence that he had received the appointment he now holds.

3. Abraham and his wife. A secular servant of the Lutheran mission. This man was a peon in the employ of the S. P. G. A note for Rs. ten was missed from a room where he was at the time. It could only have been taken by him, or by his connivance. He was, in consequence, dismissed, and from thence he dates his Lutheran convictions.

4. Tiruselvan--wife and family. A son .of one of the Catechists of the S. P. G. His father and mother are supported by us. He obtained employment among the Lutherans at Tranquebar, and thence joined their community.

5. Kirubey, a widow and her family who were excommanicated by Mr. Guest. I offered to examine the case if the woman would bring her brother who was included in the excommunication, and whose evidence was necessary, but he had already been appointed a Catechist by the Lutherans.

6. Selvam, a widow and her daughters. They left the English Church because her two daughters in the boarding-school were not allowed to have their food before other children of (so-called) lower caste;

7. Nalla Tambi and wife. Left the English Church because (1.) he was pensioned on seven Rs. (half-pay) a month, being quite useless in my opinion, and because (2.) I would [19/20] not admit him to the communion while on bad terms with his sister, with whom he would not take measures to be reconciled.

8. Devasagayam, wife and family, [Father and son.]

9. Gunanathi and wife, The father married the son himself to a Romanist girl. I re-married and received them, but declined to employ them, and they soon applied for reception and an employment from the Lutheran missionaries. They have not yet obtained the latter.

10. Ponnammal, widow. Rejected by me from communion on account of general bad reputation. She was immediately received by the Lutherans.

11. Manikkam, concubine and children. This man was put out of our congregation by Mr. Guest for marrying his daughter to a heathen, and now he has taken to himself a concubine who is a Romanist. I am not sure whether Mr. Schwarz has married the parties.

12. Dayanathi and family,

13. Puvai and family,

14. Gurubatham and family,

15. Sinnappan and mother,

16. Thuray Rasu and family, [All relatives of the Catechist, and taken by him.]

17. Rasendran and family. Left the English Church some years ago on account of a disagreement with a Missionary who had enforced discipline in the case of a grave offence committed by one of his relations.

It is no feeling of unkindness to these persons that leads me thus to specify them by name, and I am sorry to do so, but I cannot fully enter into the subject without it.

The next point to which you refer is that of

6. Marriages between uncle and niece (p. 13, 14). You adduce three cases in which you say such, marriages were allowed by Missionaries of the S. P. G.

There is a mistake in your statements on this subject--

[21] (1.) Adishda Nathan was married not to his sister's but to his step-sister's daughter, by Rev. Mr. Brotherton. This is not absolutely prohibited by the English law, I believe, though I should not perform such a marriage;

(2.) The other two marriages were performed by the late Mr. Kohlhoff, a Missionary of the S. P. C. K. (not of the Gospel Society, as you say). In your statements in regard to former Missionaries you confound the Tranquebar Missionaries with those under the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, and these again with those under the Venerable Society for Propagating the Gospel. I cannot ascertain the exact facts. I regret this, for I have good authority for saying that Mr. Kohlhoff took most energetic steps to prevent one such marriage, and the parties actually eloped to Tranquebar and were married there.

These marriages were never allowed in the Tanjore Mission.

You ask, "who among us has ever said that such marriages were allowed by the very founders of these missions?" The Rev. J. M. N. Schwarz will excuse me for quoting, from a letter of his, dated "Tanjore, 18th September, 1852," the following passage: "The young woman being his niece, is according to the Ecclesiastical laws having been in force formerly in all the congregations under the charge of our forefathers, the Lutheran Missionaries, as you well know, and being yet in force in our congregations, no hindrance (absolute) for their marriage." And another of your Missionaries, in a private note, used the very words the Editor referred to.

The young man in question (p. 14) whom you married to his own niece, having for that purpose received him from our Communion, was not "re-admitted into your Church," but then for the first time admitted. He was baptized here in Tanjore, according, to our forms, and he always considered himself a member of our congregation. He was absent for some years being engaged, in various employments; but, when he returned, he came to me and introduced himself as a member of my congregation.

In this case I am the Missionary concerned.

[22] But I do not, I assure you, as you assert, "consider every Christian that sojourns in my district as one of my congregation from henceforth and for ever." Only I would not, unless I were very sure about the whole matter, encourage any native brother to join another communion than that in which he finds himself placed by Providence. And I did not protest through a Catechist but wrote a civil (I intended it to be so), note to Mr. Schwarz, telling him that a young man, a member of my congregation intended to apply to be married to his own niece and protesting against such marriage; and, secondly, telling him that some people, excluded by me for gross immorality, were, "I understood, to be admitted by him to communion, and cautioning him on the subject.

He replied that if the man were of the English church, he would not receive him with a view to such marriage, and the marriage should not be solemnized, and saying that in regard to the administration of the Holy Communion to improper persons, he came to minister not to the righteous but to sinners, and that in the great day of judgment it would be seen who was right. The man was immediately received and the marriage did, the very next day but one, take place, and the people were admitted to the Communion. To pass on:

In regard to the whole controversy between yourselves and Mr. Johnson, it seems to me that it may be summed up in a few particulars.

1. Mr. Johnson has explained away, and therefore retracted, an indiscreet expression.

2. You defend all your violent language used in regard to him: among others a charge of direct falsehood.

3. In p. 16 you acknowledge that in introducing crucifixes (crosses with images of our Lord in His passion upon them), you have deviated from the practice of those whom you call your "Lutheran fathers in India." You attempt to justify it only by a reference to "the formulary of concord, which says that we should not condemn one another for discrepancies in ceremonies. Well--Mr. J. seems right so far.

[23] 4. You do not even say that the use of the crucifix is sanctioned by your own communion, but rather the contrary (p. 12).

5. And is a crucifix a thing to be introduced for "decorum and order's sake?" Can you wonder at Mr. Johnson's regarding it as popish in its character? By whomsoever it may be sanctioned or adopted it cannot but be considered as pre-eminently dangerous in this country. It could only be safe (if, indeed, lawful at all), where the people were thoroughly weaned from all idolatry--Pagan and Roman.

Your remarks upon Mr. Kohlhoff's complaints do not materially, if at all, militate against the Editor's conclusions. [Mr. H. is in Europe so that I cannot appeal to him in regard to the statements he has made. No one who has the benefit of his acquaintance will doubt his ability to substantiate every word in his letter.] For Mr. Wolff did assure Mr. Kohlhoff that you would not receive "Soodra Christians who would not suffer Pariah brethren to come into the church." And yet you have received those (and others in Chitragudy) whose only ground of dissatisfaction with the English Church arose from this circumstance. I believe you meant no harm (Ex. xxxii. 24.).

In pp. 18, 19, you avow your principles of action in very curious and instructive language.

(1.) You take it for granted that the minds of the Tamil protestant Christians have always been favourably inclined towards their mother, i. e. the Lutheran Church.

(2.) You let us know, too, that although the dissatisfaction of the people in any case may arise from "external circumstances of an ambiguous character," (i. e. of a sinful character, Prov. xiv. 23,) yet if it lead them, or if they pretend that it has led them, to a religious investigation which shall issue in their professed reception of the doctrine of the ubiquity of our blessed Lord's humanity, and by consequence of your peculiar views of the Holy Communion, you will not scruple to receive them. Now translate all this into plain Tamil:

"Tamil brethren! if you are discontented with the English Church on account of caste, or for any other reason, only come forward with a profession of your conviction of the superiority of our Lutheran religious system, and we will receive you."

[24] Now you ask, "what right the Editor has to hold you up to the public as men who profess one thing and do another." I reply, you do profess one thing, and the circumstances and character of the people convert it into another, and it cannot but be so while our native brethren are as weak as they are.

You commend Mr. Kohlhoff's conciliatory language, and contrast it with our practice in regard to caste. Is it then, in your opinion, wrong for us to require that those whom we choose from the native Church to be our assistants in teaching Christianity should be free from the taint of heathen caste? Is it wrong for us to require that there should be no distinction among Christians in the house of God, and before His holy altar? Is it wrong for us, in some cases, to refuse to hoard and clothe children whose parents regard them as defiled by tasting food which we ourselves eat? In p. 7, you really profess to demand nearly all this of your people. How far you are from enforcing it, you yourselves best know. In the present state of our people, who are supposed to be able to judge between ubiquitarianism and catholicity, are such requirements to be considered repulsive?

In p. 21, you admit that the people whom you received at Triviyar were only influenced by caste considerations. Mr. Bower was willing to superintend them, but they would not join with their Paller brethren in divine service, and: so you have gathered them into "the one ecclesiastical body of those who profess the Lutheran creed." Again p, 22, the Catechist whom you employ at Triviyar was dismissed for treachery--for Belling the Christian cause to the heathen. He was employed at Puducottah no doubt, you have now employed him in the very neighbourhood of his former offence. Have you inquired of Mr. Bower regarding the man? Is such a man likely to do God's work? Is Missionary money, hardly enough raised in Europe, properly thus expended? To show, however, how little any of those friendly explanations which you profess to value are really esteemed by you, I will give in full Mr. Bower's letter to you, to which no answer was returned.

[25] Vediarpuram, 28th May, 1851.

My Dear Mr. Cordes;--I am very much obliged to you for your kind letter--a little explanation and understanding on the matters of the kind to which you refer are always calculated to avoid much mischief and evil.

To enable you to form a correct judgment of the motives and reasons which have led the Triviyar Christians to apply to be received into your Church, it is necessary that I should be somewhat particular in my statements.

"When I took charge of Triviyar, about six years ago, there were five or six Christian families, and a school-room chiefly attended by heathen children, and taught by a drunken schoolmaster. On my taking charge, the ground on which the school-room was built not belonging to the Mission, and the time specified in the lease being out, the owner refused to renew the lease, and insisted on our removing the building, which I was obliged to do; and with the school the worthless schoolmaster was also dismissed. I appointed the Catechist of a neighbouring village to attend to the spiritual wants of the people, and directed them to attend the Sunday services at Vediarpuram, which is only three miles from Triviyar. Some of them came, but feeling their caste prejudices hurt by worshipping God, and taking the Holy Communion, together with lower caste Christians, in one and the same place, they neglected, and even refused coming to Vediarpuram, even on festival occasions. As they would be Christians and serve God on their own conditions, they requested me to build a Church at Triviyar, to give them a Catechist after their own heart, and to administer the ordinances of the Church to them in their own place of worship. Now, my dear Mr. Cordes, these are things I cannot conscientiously allow: and the result is they wish to leave me and join you.

This is not the first time, however, they have threatened to leave me. About a year ago, Sandapen, one of the party, told me that two of your Missionaries visited Triviyar and encouraged them to join the Lutheran Church j but, he again told me, that the Missionaries on a second visit brought crucifixes, which so offended them that they could not think of joining that church. I knew the object the man had in telling me this tale, and did not give heed to it. Subsequently, I was informed that a Romish Priest was among them, and intimations were given to me, that as they were left as sheep in the wilderness, it would be better to leave me and join any other Communion.

They have stated a falsehood in saying that they have been for a length of time disconnected from the English Church;--as only three months ago when the Bishop was here, they applied to him, as faithful members of the Church, to have a, Church built for them, and a Catechist appointed. Their Petition is herewith forwarded for your perusal.

I have been much misrepresented and abused by this people. Still I am not willing to cast them off; and my reasons for not building a Church at Triviyar will be obvious to you from the above statements. Surely no [25/26] Mission in India will ever get on, if it employs a Catechist and builds a Church for every two or three families in every village, when means of grace are otherwise easily available? Besides which the Triviyar Christians are not permanent inhabitants of the place, but belong to Tanjore, where they have their houses and families; and will leave Triviyar the very moment the precarious situations they hold are lost. Would it be advisable to build a Church under such circumstances, without counting the cost?

I am, faithfully yours,

H. BOWER.

You treated this letter with silent contempt and received the people. If you will examine the remarks in the Madras Missionary Journal you will find that you are not (p. 22) accused of "throwing out another bait for fishing the people, viz., money." The facts are plain, I have already stated them at length. Your present Catechist was employed in our mission as a munshi on the receipt of eight Rs. a month. He resigned his situation because he said he found his worldly circumstances not improved by it. He never came to church from that day, and was almost immediately afterwards appointed your Catechist on a salary of nine Rs. a month.

But in pp. 22, 23, you assert what is in terms incorrect, viz., that I have refused every communication concerning applications from among my people. In one case only, where a man had been excommunicated by my predecessor, I told you that persons who had been put out of our congregation, until they should openly declare themselves to have truly repented and amended their former life, that the congregation that before were offended may thereby be satisfied--could not be proper persons for you to receive, that they ought most obviously to be referred at once to their former pastors.

I am heartily willing to give you all information regarding persons not actually thus put out of the congregation, and under ecclesiastical censures: between them and myself I can allow hone but my bishop to interfere. Again, of the persons received in Vellum, one was not as you say a Tranquebarian. There were two beside him. There was also a Tranquebarian who was admitted to the Holy Communion by you, though living publicly [26/27] with a concubine who resided on the one side of his house while his wife lodged on the other. This he does publicly, and I do not imagine that he would resent my public allusion to the fact. I mention this to show that while you are anxious to receive people on the right hand and on the left, you must neglect discipline without which all else is vain.

If you are aggrieved by being told that you are making your community a "cave of Adullam--a refuge for the discontented and disreputable"--I am sorry for it: but it is very much the case as the list of your Tanjore congregation would show. It contains many whom you should not have encouraged. I grieve for them, and think your reception of them renders their repentance less probable. I have already given you the list, and you can ascertain for yourselves the truth of the facts I have alleged. [You will see that we do not complain on account of the loss which we may be supposed to sustain in the defection of these people, for not one has gone in Tanjore of whom I do not deliberately say that he or she should have been excluded by the Church; we complain on account of the antagonism, the evil tempers which are thus stirred up among our people. (S. James I. 20.)]

You correct the "Editor" who gave you credit for not receiving excommunicated persons. Mr. Cordes' words to me are: "we would gladly leave all such cases alone."

You complain too that the "writer of the article did not confer with you, but it needed not any such conference to convince him that your proceedings were subversive of all order and decorum." What he has seen' he has stated. You "dismiss his allegations:" why not disprove them?

You profess to think moreover that your conduct is justified by that of the English Church in receiving laymen and ministers from the Wesleyan and dissenting communities in this diocese; but the cases are not parallel, for Wesleyans and Dissenters are separatists from the English Church, and their position is only tenable so long as they feel that they cannot conscientiously be one with her. To remain apart would be schism for any one who should become convinced that there were no obstacles to reunion with her. The separation of a Wesleyan can only be a matter of circumstances, and not of principle. [27/28] When men come out from such bodies, and express themselves satisfied that there is no plea for separation, the Church cannot but receive them. But can you say that the English Church has not a valid ministry, real sacraments, and every necessary help for a man's salvation?

The passage you quote in your note to p. 24, (" in regard to Wesleyans and Dissenters, I do not believe that all helps to attaining salvation are found. Still I would not, under present circumstances, do any thing to provoke hostility,") is mine, and Mr. Cordes' kind comment on it was: ex ungue Leonem. I am afraid he gives me credit for more deepness and sagacity than I possess. I certainly would not provoke the hostility of any good man who was engaged in the same work. There are heathen to be converted, and our own congregations to be reformed. "We have to take heed too lest by our rivalries God's holy name should be blasphemed among the heathen. But I do not profess that species of Catholicity which is mere comprehensiveness. I believe that the English Church has advantages and blessings of which you, in common with them, are deprived.

Yet I think, that in this heathen land, and under our present circumstances all should strive most especially to "keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace." We can fight our private battles when we have done with the heathen. And that is all I meant.

There are one or two minor matters that I will notice. For instance (in pp. 24, 25), you accuse Mr. Johnson of prohibiting "after the best Roman fashion" intermarriages between our people and yours, and in proof of this strange assertion you adduce a Tamil letter of Mr. J.'s to one of his Catechists, sanctioning such a marriage, but requesting him to prevent, by persuasion, as much as he could, young men of the English Communion from seeking wives in your church! (.) Neither you nor we can wish such intermarriages, but we cannot forbid them. Nor has Mr. J. tried to do anything of the kind, as far as you have shown.

[29] 3. You have recently received a number of people in Budalúr. In regard to that congregation let me call your attention to a few particulars. The head man is Pákkiya Nádan Villavarán, who had two wives living, when Mr. Schwarz visited him, stopped in his house, administered the Communion there, and received him by imposition of hands. He deceived Mr. Wilshere into marrying him to the second, and was excommunicated for the affair. We required that he should put away the second wife. His first wife is recently dead. Another of the leading converts is Abraham Mádurán, and a third Gnánamutthu Sinnamutthu--these were all concerned in a disgraceful proceeding for which they were excluded. Another is Pákkiyan Cúlákki, who has just recently married his daughter to a heathen. Now all these people whom you have received openly worship . They avow it. They pay 7 Rs. per annum towards the festival. It was on this account chiefly that my predecessors shut up their church. We are not unwilling or unable to continue to instruct them, but not as Christians, but when they thus outraged Christianity, we razed their church. They are apostates and some of the vilest I have ever heard of. The man who is now their Catechist came to me some time ago asking for employment, and I baptized his child but could not employ him. He then began to visit Budalur until he induced them to join the Lutheran community. To treat these men as Christians, and to administer the sacraments among them is surely a serious mistake. No reference was ever made to their pastor, Mr. Franklin, on the subject.

You refer (in p. 23, and the note thereon) to the discipline of the Church of England and say that you "doubt whether the discipline of the Anglican Church affords her ministers occasion to be as much acquainted with those who join the Lord's table, as the Lutheran discipline does," and you refer to Ziegenbalg's Theology II. 12, concerning the keys of the kingdom of heaven. That chapter states the necessity of confession and penance, and the effect of ministerial binding and loosing. But what does it amount to, in your practice? Your native communicants are, I suppose, examined as to their fitness. Then, on the day [29/30] before the celebration they assemble in the place of meeting, and repeat a form of confession, and an absolution is pronounced. Special confession is the exception and not the rule. In what then have you the advantage over the Anglican clergy, if they choose to be faithful? (1.) We specially prepare our candidates for confirmation, without which none are regularly, and as a general rule, admitted to communion. (2.) The minister can require notice to be given the day before by any person wishing to communicate. This is generally done where our people communicate for the first time. (3.) In the service itself there are forms of confession and absolution. (4.) In the notice of Communion all who wish the benefit of advice and special absolution are invited to "open their griefs" to him who is set over them in the Lord. What is there more that we could wish for?

One word more on this part of the subject: you speak much of preparation and instruction before the reception of individuals from our communion. I cannot understand this. For I have talked with many such persons, and they one and all told me that they knew nothing of such differences, but had joined you from other motives.

Into the doctrinal controversy I would rather not follow you. OUR CASE DOES NOT DEPEND AT ALL UPON IT, and I do not like to mingle it up with such petty matters, comparatively speaking, as I have dwelt upon in the preceding pages. [Unity of doctrine with us, in all these points, would not lead to "union," perhaps not to any very close co-operation, but it would release you from the obligation of seeking to bring over .our people to your fold.] But I must not refuse to follow you, though no one can approach such a subject without feeling what our own great Hooker has so well expressed--"I wish that men would more give themselves to meditate with silence what we have by the Sacrament, and less to dispute of the manner how." "This heavenly food is given for the satisfying of our empty souls, and not for the exercising of our curious and subtle wits."

1. You begin by speaking of Mr. Swartz's ordination, and I answer that the fact of the episcopal ordination of Swartz, and other of the former Missionaries, shows that, as far as the [30/31] mere circumstance goes, we of the English Church are more like them than you are. Valeat quantum; I do not think it worth while to say more on a subject so plain.

2. But in p. 40, you approach a far more important topic when you say that the English Church by a special declaration and explanation at the end of the Communion Service denies the very possibility of the presence of Christ's Body and Blood. You misapprehend that declaration, and so inadvertently do great injustice to the English Church.

That declaration says--

1st. "The sacramental bread and wine remain still in their very natural substances, and may not be adored"--and

2d. "The natural body and blood of our Saviour Christ are in heaven, and not here; it being against the truth of Christ's natural body to be at one time in more places than one." (See Can. Con. Trid. CI. where our Lord is said ever to sit at the right hand of the Father--"juxta modum existendi naturalem," but to be present in many places in his substance sacramentally.)

Even Romanist divines, the schoolmen, and the Council of Trent admit this and say, that, "from the nature of the thing the sacramental presence of Christ does not require any natural presence of His Humanity."

And indeed "if His material presence could be in heaven and also upon earth, then as Hooker expresses it, 'hath the Majesty of His estate extinguished the verity of His nature.' And to this our Church refers, when she asserts that to be 'in two places at once' is against the 'truth of Christ's natural body.' She does not enter into the metaphysical properties of substance; but since our Lord is declared to have a natural body consubstantial with ours, to fix the place of that body in heaven is the same thing as to declare that its material presence is removed from earth." [Wilberforce on the Incarnation.] Compare also St. Augustine, "Donec seculum finiatur, sursum est Dominus: sed tamen et hic nobis--cum est veritas Domini, corpus enim in quo resurrexit, in uno [31/32] loco oportet esse; veritas autem ejus ubique diffusa est" (tract 30 in Joan. a prin.) See also Thomas Aquinas, (Qu. lxxvi. Art. v.) who says, "quod corpus Christi non est eo modo in hoc Sacramento, sicut corpus in loco, quod sine dimensionibus loco commensuratur: sed quodam speciali modo quis est proprius huic Sacramento."--So again St. Augustine, "Si intellixisti spiritualiter verba Christi de carne sua, spiritus et vita tibi sunt: si intellixisti carnaliter, etiam spiritus et vita sunt, sed tibi non sunt."

And you seem to deny (p. 46, 47) that the English Church does believe in the "presence of Her Lord in the Holy Eucharist, according to the words of His most Holy Institution."

And your reasons are--

1. That the English Church did not accept the Augsburg Confession, as the "Churches of Sweden and Denmark did;"

2. That the English Catechism, Articles, Homilies, and Bishop Burnet's History of the Reformation deny that doctrine; and

3. That the English Church teaches that the wicked do not receive the body and blood of Christ in the Eucharist.

Permit me to offer a few remarks on each of these points.

And 1st. You say that if the English Church really held the doctrine of the presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist, she would have received the Augsburg Confession!

My dear brethren, English Churchmen regard Luther and Melancthon with the profoundest respect. But why should the Anglican Church adopt their Confession of faith? Have you never looked into the History of the English Church or do you trust altogether to such obscure writers as R. Robbins (p. 45) for your facts? (I must confess that I have never heard of R. Robbins before).

The difference in the English and Lutheran Reformations is incidentally illustrated by an expression you use in p. 47. You say that the English Church "made a separate Creed in 1551 and 1562," and this implies that the Augsburg Confession is your "Creed." Now the 39 Articles are not the "Creed" of the [32/33] English Church, The English Church retains the three Creeds of the ancient Church and her Articles are merely articles of agreement intended to exclude Romanists and Puritans from officiating in her Churches. [The act of supremacy refers to "antiquity and the first four general Councils." A canon of 1571 commands that nothing shall be taught hut that "which is agreeable to the doctrine of the Old and New Testaments, and collected out of that very flame doctrine by the Catholic Fathers and ancient Bishops."] They are her "terms of conformity" as Mosheim says.

There were many reasons why the English Church should not wish, should never entertain an idea of the possibility of coalescing with the Continental Reformers. At the time when there was a simultaneous movement towards a reformation in almost every country in Europe, she was able happily to conduct her reformation, in the good providence of God with the consent and cooperation of her rulers in Church and State. [Henry the VIII. was in fact asked to take the lead among the princes of the reformation and to accept and modify the Confession of Augsburg. Political reasons induced him to hold back, and, moreover, the English Church then held the doctrine of the Church of Rome on the sacraments.] It was not a reconstruction but a reformation.

She held that "it is evident unto all men diligently reading the Holy Scriptures and ancient authors, that from the Apostles' time there have been these orders of Ministers in Christ's Church: Bishops, Priests and Deacons."

And she could not therefore but feel that however heroic and admirable the conduct of your fathers and founders might be, she could not accept their authority or sit at their feet. There is nevertheless abundant evidence that the Lutheran writings most materially influenced those who composed various formularies put forth by the English Church at that period. With Holy Scripture, the three Creeds, and the teaching of the Church before the separation of the East and West to guide them, surely you may understand that the convocation of the ancient Anglican Church needed not to identify herself with your less favoured communities. She received what "was believed and taught of the old holy fathers, and most ancient learned [33/34] doctors, and received in the old primitive Church, which was most uncorrupt and pure."--(2d part of Homily against the Peril of Idolatry.)

The English Church could not and cannot consent to be called after Luther or Melancthon, or even after her own Cranmer or Ridley, names of equal honor. Better indeed would it have been for you, if you had imitated the cautious, wise and catholic moderation of the English Church.

But 2dly, you say (appealing to Bishop Burnet for a Confirmation of your assertion), that the Catechism, Articles and Homilies of the Church of England show that she does not teach a presence of the Lord according to the words of His most Holy Institution.

Hooker too appears at first sight to favor your idea when he says, "the real presence of Christ's most blessed body and blood is not therefore to be sought for in the sacrament, but in the worthy receiver of the sacrament." But the following words make his meaning plain: "as for the sacraments they really exhibit (this is literally your own 'vere exhibeantur') but, for aught we can gather out of that which is written of them they are not really, nor do really contain in themselves that GRACE which with them or by them, it pleaseth God to bestow." Book v., chap, lxxvii. 6.

I. The Catechism.

Q. What is the inward part or thing signified? (res sacra-menti.)

A. The body and blood of Christ which are verily and indeed taken and received by the faithful in the Lord's Supper. (Your objection to the words "by the faithful," I will consider hereafter.)

Q. What arc the benefits whereof we are partakers thereby?

A. The strengthening and refreshing of our souls by the body and blood of Christ, as our bodies are by the bread and wine.

[35] II. The Articles.

XXVIII. "The Supper of the Lord is not only a sign.... but a sacrament of our Redemption.... [Co. xxv. Sacraments are sure witnesses and effectual signs of grace... by the which he doth work invisibly in us.."] "The body of Christ is given, taken and eaten in the Supper only after a heavenly and spiritual manner." [Your remarks on Substantiation, p. 42, show that to this statement you will not object. Christ's body is given, taken and eaten not in any carnal or physical manner, but spiritually sacramentally, truly and ineffably.] And the mean whereby the body of Christ is received and eaten in the Supper is faith. [For assuredly faith only perceives, faith only receives His presence or Himself, as St. Augustine says, "Believe and thou hast eaten."--Hom. 25, St. John § 12.]

III. The Homilies.

These are said, Art. XXXV., to contain a godly and wholes some doctrine suitable for the year 1562, but unless otherwise confirmed, I suppose the Church of England is not absolutely committed to all the statements they contain. At the end of the 1st Book of Homilies it is said: "Hereafter shall follow sermons of the due reception of His blessed body and blood under the form of bread and wine."

See then in the 2d Book of Homilies, "An Homily on the worthily receiving of the body and blood of Christ."--(p. 398-400. Oxford Edition.) "Neither need we to think that such exact knowledge is required of every man, that he be able to discuss all high points in the doctrine thereof: but thus much we must be sure to hold, that in the Supper of the Lord there is no vain ceremony, no bare sign, no untrue figure of a thing absent: But as the scripture saith, the table of the Lord, the bread and cup of the Lord, the memory of Christ, the annunciation of his death, yea, the communion of the body and blood of the Lord, in a marvellous incorporation, which by the operation of the Holy Ghost (the very bond of our conjunction with Christ), is through faith wrought in the souls of the faithful, [35/36] whereby not only their souls live to eternal life, but they surely trust to win their bodies a resurrection to immortality."

"It is well known that the meat we seek for in this supper is spiritual food, the nourishment of our souls, a heavenly refection, and not earthly; an invisible meat, and not bodily; a ghostly substance, and not carnal; so that to think that without faith we may enjoy the eating and drinking thereof, or that that is the fruition of it, is but to dream a gross carnal feeding, basely objecting and binding ourselves to the elements and creatures. Whereas, by the advice of the Council of Nicaea, we ought to lift up our minds by faith, and, leaving these inferior and earthly things, there seek it, where the Sun of righteousness ever shineth. Take then this lesson, O thou that art desirous of this table, of Emissenus, a godly father, that when thou goest up to the reverend communion, to be satisfied with spiritual meats, thou look up with faith upon the holy body and blood of thy God, thou marvel with reverence, thou touch it with the mind, thou receive it with the hand of thy heart, and thou take it fully with thy inward man."......

"......at this his table we receive not only the outward sacrament, but the spiritual thing also; not the figure, but the truth; not the shadow only, but the body; not to death, but to life; not to destruction, but to salvation; which God grant us to do through the merits of our Lord and Saviour: to whom be all honour and glory for ever."

In fact the term "real presence" is ambiguous and is used by you ad invidiam. The phrase is, in many ways, an inconvenient one, and has been so appropriated by Romanists that to most minds it is equivalent to a presence of Christ by trans-substantion of the elements. But if you use it in the proper meaning of the words, you know that we as fully hold the doctrine of the "real presence," as yourselves. The English Church does not contend for a real absence of Her Lord from the means of His appointment. You persist in regarding that which we assert to be supernatural, spiritual, heavenly and [36/37] effectual as UNREAL. You hold, it would seem, that nothing can be real which is not natural, corporeal or material.

You will not find it as easy to convince men that yours is not a mere scholastic interpretation, as it is for us to show that ours is certainly not a figurative one.

With all due deference to your unknown friend and historian, R. Robbins (p. 45), the English Church is not included under either of the two classes, Reformed or Lutheran.

In many important respects she differs from each--she protests against Roman error and is Protestant--she has reformed herself by her convocations with the aid of the secular power, and is therefore reformed, just in the same way that the Lutheran Church is also a reformed Church. But she is the Anglican Church, and if you will look at her formularies, you will find that she acknowledges no other name than that of the Church of England, a branch of the Church Catholic. Our Reformers were "materially influenced" by truth, coming from whence it might.

And now you say that we follow Zwingle and Calvin, and seem much astonished that the Editor should say that they were "diametrically opposed to one another." [The English Church is not specially concerned in the vindication of Calvin. I should be very sorry to be supposed to agree with many of his dogmas, though I acknowledge his incomparable ability. For a fair exposition of the general opinion of English churchmen regarding him, see Hooker's Ecc. Pol. preface II. 1.8. Keble's ed.]

Let me set down then a passage from each. First; Zwingle says, "Caena Dominica non aliud quam commemorationis nomen meretur." The Lord's Supper is a mere commemoration.

Secondly; Calvin says in language which I must epitomize that "Christ is really present in spiritual power but only to the elect--to those who are predestined to eternal life."--(Wilberforce on, Eucharist, p. 244.)

The question is not whether logically Calvin's system and that of Zwingle cannot be shown to harmonize in many points, [37/38] nor whether the one is not likely to degenerate into the other. But the question is, are they not in terms diametrically opposed?

Calvin's doctrine was limited by the ideas of necessity and of absolute and irreversible Divine decrees which he held. But, taken by itself, how clear and how far from Zwinglianism is the following from his expositio added to the consensus Tigurinus: "Hoc modo ratione contenti simus, ultra quam nemo nisi valde litigiosus insurget, vivificam esse nobis Christi Carnem, quia ex eâ spiritualem in animas nostras vitam Christus instillat." "Christ's flesh is life-giving to us, since from it Christ instills life into our souls." Here a real office is assigned to our blessed Lord's Humanity.

And he says, "quum... .legerem apud Lutheram, nihil in sacramentis ab Aecolampadio et Zuinglio reliquum fieri praeter nudaset inanas figuras; ita me ab ipsorum libris alienatum fuisse fateor, ut diu a lectione abstinuerim."

The one makes the Holy Eucharist a sign--the other a reality. Surely you must see that these are diametrically opposed, unless indeed with many of the "unfaithful" of your Church you hold, alas, that "spiritual" is equivalent to unreal and non-existing. "For," says a divine of the English Church, "our adversaries are willing to suppose that when mention is made of the spiritual Body of Christ, the spiritual sacrifice and the like; nothing is thereby meant but something that is not real, but merely figurative, imaginary, or any thing else that is nearer to nothing. They suppose that the word ' spiritual' has a sort of annihilating power, and can turn any words that it comes near into mere airy empty sounds; or that when it has any real signification, it imports something divested of all matter, and that has no substance but in our thoughts. The ancients did not so."--Johnson's Unbloody Sacrifice, vol. i., p. 267.

You show by this reasoning how little you esteem what is spiritual. If a spiritual presence be no presence, then is spirit nothing, and so extremes meet and ultra Lutheranism generates Neologianisin.

[39] You pay us the compliment of saying (p. 33), that no other Christian Church is so near to your own as the English Church, but if so, can her doctrine be that compound of Zwinglianism and Calvinism which you would represent it to be?

I do not see how the systems of Zwingle and Calvin can be engrafted on one another without destroying the peculiarities of either. Zwinglians and Calvinists may combine, but they cannot be one, unless they mutually abandon some of their peculiar dogmas--or agree to differ and hide their difference as in fact they did in the Consensus Tigurinus by ambiguous expressions. And on the other hand was not the slightly altered confession of Augsburg received by Calvinist communions, and did not Melancthon verge toward their view very materially after Luther's death? [At Augsburg did not Saxons and Zwinglians shake hands, saying: "we are one in the doctrine of the communion of the Body and Blood of Christ." D'Aubigne, iv. 256, and Hospinian tells us that the subscribers to the Confessio Tetrapolitana (drawn up by Bucer) afterwards subscribed to that of Augsburg, saying that the difference was more in words, than in reality. Mosheim too says that Melancthon thought that "the doctrine ought to be expressed in ambiguous terms and phrases on which each party could put his own construction.]

With how. little propriety you can lay upon the English Church, as- you do, the sin of using solemn words in any other than their natural sense, I have shown. But if there be still a possibility of this, let me ask whether your own community has not been most deeply implicated in this charge. Our service interprets our articles. But your ritual is most brief and unsatisfactory. There is nothing in it which has not been explained away by men holding Zwinglian or Calvinistic views, who may happen to be in your communion. For what is meant by if the words "really and indeed," which we use, mean nothing at all? And your using only the words of Christ's Holy Institution in your apology for a consecration of the elements leaves the person officiating at liberty to affix to them either the Zwinglian or Calvinistic interpretation. And it seems to me strange that you seek to expound the designedly altered and amended articles of your communion by the words of the rough draft. You subscribe to the [39/40] original, but in what sense you are bound to receive it, the alterations and additions made by its author himself at a subsequent time, may teach you.

Another objection that you allege to our doctrine is founded altogether upon a misapprehension.

You say the English Church by a special article teaches that the wicked and such as be void of a lively faith eat not the body of Christ in the use of the Lord's Supper, but only the sign or Sacrament of so great a thing. How different, how entirely opposed this is to the whole system of the Church of England is apparent to all who understand her spirit and use her services. The article runs thus, "Of the wicked which eat not the body of Christ in the use of the Lord's Supper."

"The wicked, and such as be Void of a lively faith, although they do carnally and visibly press with their teeth (as Saint Augustine saith) the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ, yet in no wise are they partakers of Christ: but rather to their condemnation, do eat and drink the sign or Sacrament of so great a thing."

Observe,

1. Here it is expressly said that they do partake of the Sacrament, of all that the Sacrament is. [You mistake the use of the word "Sacrament" in our formularies. I must refer you to the Church Catechism. This is a mistake hardly pardonable in those who may be supposed to be trained to the accurate and discriminating use of theological terms. When we speak of a Sacrament we do not mean half a Sacrament.]

2. But that they do not eat Christ's Body, in the sense of St. John vi. 54-56. To say that they do, would contradict all Scripture and overthrow all religion.

3. And they are consequently not partakers of Christ.

You refer to the end of the 1st Homily on the Sacrament. Now this Homily in both its parts implies throughout that he who eats unworthily, "eateth and drinketh damnation." He is not fed or nourished by it to eternal life. And this truth is [40/41] learnt from the whole system of the Church of England. We teach that the elements are consecrated and then become what we believe them to be, The "Minister" then delivers to each one and says, "The body of our Lord Jesus Christ which was given for thee......" That which is given is the same to all in itself,--its effects may be different. This is implied in the previous prayer, "We do not presume," &c--"so to eat," &c. The same is necessarily implied in both the 1st notice before Communion and the exhortation at the time of the celebration.

Let me quote for your benefit the solemn words of the exhortation: "so is the danger great- if we receive the same unworthily. For then we are guilty of the body and blood of Christ our Saviour; we eat and drink our own damnation, not considering the Lord's body; we kindle God's wrath against us; we provoke him to plague us with divers diseases, and sundry kinds of death." I would not dogmatize on such a subject, but may not a part of this condemnation be the withdrawal from the unworthy of His life-giving presence. So He "sends leanness into their souls."

Let me illustrate this by three quotations--

Origen--"Christ is the true food; whosoever eats Him shall live for ever; of whom no wicked person can eat; for if it were, possible that any who continues wicked should eat the Word that was made flesh, it had never been written, 'Whoso eats this bread shall live for ever.'"

Jerome--"They that are not holy in body and spirit, do neither eat the flesh of Jesus, nor drink His blood; of which He said, 'He that eats my flesh and drinks my blood, hath eternal life.'"

Augustine--"He that does not abide in Christ, and in whom Christ does not abide, certainly does not spiritually eat His flesh, nor drink His blood, though he may visibly and carnally press with his teeth the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ; but he rather eats and drinks the Sacrament of so great a matter to his condemnation."--(See Bickersteth on 39 Articles.)

When you use the words "spiritually realized or enjoyed," you [41/42] know of course that they mean just what the English Church means by "eat" or "feed upon," Luther condemns just those whom the Church of England opposes and none others, when he says, "Damnat igitur illos qui docent quod sacramenta exopere operate justificent."

Tour following remarks are simply nugatory. For the English Church says to every one who draws near, "the body of Christ which was given for thee. The blood of Christ which was shed for thee." Whatever the words of Christ's most Holy Institution mean, his ministers, one and all, mean when they administer.

Your assertion that the explanatory note to the Communion service says "the same as Calvin (adversus Westphal, p. 896), 'efficaciter non naturaliter'--'secundum virtutem, non secundum substantiam," is simply a mistake. It says nothing at all of the kind. Look again.

In p. 51, you simply state our doctrine and quote St. Augustine to prove what I have before said. [The whole scope of S. Augustine's reasoning in that admirable treatise De Baptismo contra Donatistas (op. Ben. Ed., Tom. ix. pp. 198-331,) is embodied in the following words of his which the English Church fully receives: "nec interest cum de sacramenti integritate et sanctitate tractatur, quid credat et quali fide imbutus sit ille qui accipit sacramentum." Comp. Art. xxv. "In such only as worthily receive the came they have a wholesome effect or operation."]

Your remarks about the words of administration in the English Church are without any foundation. They contain 1st, an assertion--the minister presents the elements with the announcement, "The body of our Lord Jesus Christ which was given for thee;" and 2dly, a ministerial prayer "preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life" which words are inserted in Gregory's Sacramentary, and 3dly, a direction how to receive, "Take, &c."

Pushed further it becomes a mere verbal controversy.

Nor do you confine yourselves to the words of the Institution, nor do you repeat them all but say,

"This is the true sacred body of Jesus Christ" (there is an inaccuracy in your translation of the words, This of Christ the true sacred body is---------.)

[43] How can you venture on your own principles to add to the words of our Lord's Institution. [But in regard to this subject I prefer to say with Hooker: "Our imitation of Him consisteth not in tying scrupulously ourselves unto his syllables, but rather in speaking by the heavenly direction of that inspired divine wisdom which teacheth divers ways to one end." Book v. chap, lxviii. 2.] You refer, p. 44, note, to Ziegenbalg's Theology and to Fabricius' Hymn Book for illustrations of your views of the Holy Eucharist. And you would argue from them to prove the conformity of your views with those of the great men who composed them.

Be it so--yet allow me to ask you.

1. Will you point out any one passage in either of those admirable works which confirms your statement that the wicked partake of the body and blood of Christ in the Communion? Do they not use precisely the language of the English Church? e. g., p. 436, speaking of the impenitent and unbelieving he says,

These are just the words of our service.

And in hymn 140, v. 3.

This is neither more nor less than necessary.

2. How do you explain the following from Ziegenbalg, 436,

"This Eucharist which causes the benefits of Christ's body and the benefits of his blood to avail to us as spiritual food and spiritual drink...."

If you explain the other passage by the light of this, it will probably give you the doctrine of Ziegenbalg and of Melancthon too.

[44] The words

Within the bread, is the body of Christ. Within the wine, is the blood of Christ--if taken literally would be consubstantiation certainly. They need not mean more than the Church of England holds and Schwartz agreed with her in holding. [I do not see how your reference to varieties of doctrine among us can affect the matter. But what is the constitution and state of the Evangelische Kirche of Prussia? are there not the same struggling elements as in other communities? I do not hesitate to say that my earnest sympathies are accorded to the late efforts of the Kirchentag. Why should they who have the same struggle against Neology to maintain weaken one another's hands.]

You quote certain lines from a hymn of Fabricias, 134, 5, 6, and ask whether the sentiments are not irreconcilable with the creed of our Church. As some of your readers may not understand Tamil, you should have translated them. I will supply your deficiency!

5. I with joy am filled,
And trembling too has seized me;
Both these now are in me.
This heavenly feast,
Above all miracles,
Is most exalted,
Thy love's a deep abyss.

6. To myriads given
This food is unexhausted.
With the wine Christ's blood
Itself, a gift, is given
This the natural eye sees not,
To human reason it appears not,
By the Divine Spirit 'tis made clear,
That by the eye is seen.

(The meaning and connection of the last line I do not quite see.)

But now let me quote our own Communion Hymn, not inferior in poetry to even the German original of the above, and not surely indistinct in its Theology.

"My God, and is thy table spread
And doth thy cup with love o'erflow
Thither be all Thy children led
And let them all Thy sweetness know.
Hail, sacred feast which Jesus makes,
Rich banquet of His flesh and blood,
Thrice happy he who here partakes
That sacred stream--that heavenly food."

[45] Or, again, let me give you a hymn by Bishop Heber, which is in all the hymn books.

"1. Bread of the world, in mercy broken!
Wine of the soul, in mercy shed!
By whom the words of life were spoken,
And in whose death our sins are dead;

2. Look on the heart by sorrow broken,
Look on the tears by sinners shed;
And be Thy feast to us the token,
That by Thy grace our souls are fed!"

Do you discern here the coldness, rationalism, and unreality which you would fain suppose to characterize the English Church?

So youf quotation of the exhortation in the rituale (p. 49), is adduced as though it were something quite distinctive and peculiar. It says simply, after quoting the words of the Holy Institution, "Concerning these words as true and steadfast, believe ye steadfastly that, as in them;is said, Jesus Christ is present in this sacrament with His sacred Body and His sacred Blood." The mode of presence is undefined, and nothing can be imagined more Catholic and less distinctively Lutheran.

Our blessed Lord's life-giving presence in the Holy Eucharist cannot be other than supernatural. The presence of His humanity, in whatever Way we conceive Christ present, is surely not at all in accordance with the ordinary conditions that belong to man's nature. There is a danger not in supposing the change to be real--but in supposing it to be como--according to the natural order of things.

The natural presence of our blessed Lord's humanity is in heaven, subject to the conditions of place and form which are the characteristic of other human bodies. Thus "the heavens must receive Him till the restitution of all things." He is not here* Yet to assert this does not render it improper to say that there has been bestowed on His humanity a certain ineffable capacity of presence, in the economy of grace, beyond that which other bodies possess.

But in your doctrine of the communicated omnipresence (or ubiquity) of the manhood of Christ We discern something

[45/46] very near to the error of Eutyches, the idea of the confusion of the two natures in Christ.

And when you urge this notion upon us we say of you as St. Chrysostom did of Martha, the sister of Lazarus, who had said, "Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died."

"O woman thou art weak! the woman knew not that Christ absent in body was present in the power of His Divinity; but she measured the power of the Master by the presence of His body."--Hom. 41.

Your quotation from the creed of St. Athanasius cannot be made to bear the meaning you would put upon it. "The manhood was taken into God." Christ took humanity into the unity of His Person. I feel the necessity of reverent caution in writing on this subject. But in what Way can humanity be said to subsist in the unity of His Divine Person, otherwise than in the sense of existing with all that is essential to its truth and permanency in close, inseparable, but distinct union with the Divine Nature, also retaining all those qualities that belong to Divinity? Can either of these lend to the other attributes inconsistent with its very essence. It may be said (as you say in a note to p. 41), that we know not what is natural to bodies --that we are unable to affirm that this or that is incompatible with the idea of matter. Surely, however, we can pronounce that ubiquity and every thing that implies infinity, belong not to matter.

And as to Athanasius himself his sentiments are plain from the following passage: "Therefore we say that he died and was buried and was raised from the dead, according to the flesh; but, according to the spirit, he was in heaven and on earth and every where." [Apud. Theod. dial 2.]

[47] The same reasoning runs throughout his treatises against the Arians.

So Tertullian also says: "Salva est utriusque proprietas substantiae." "The peculiar characteristics of each substance are preserved." Leo the Great in his Epistle to Flavian, (Acts of Council of Chalcedon:) "Tenet sine defectu proprietatem suam utraque natura." "Each nature retains its peculiar attributes without diminution." And so in many other passages.

And Vigilius against Eutyches: "Quia verbum ubique est, caro autem ejus ubique non est." "For the word is every where, but his flesh is not every where." A passage that indicates the real source of the error in question.

I will quote a passage from one of the greatest divines of any age, Dr. Jackson, President of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and dean of Peterborough, which will show you how the divines of the English Church view the subject.

"This present efficacy of Christ's body and blood upon our souls, or real communication of both, I find as a truth unquestionable amongst the ancient fathers, and as a Catholic confession. The modern Lutheran and the modern Romanist have fallen into their several errors concerning Christ's presence in the Sacrament, from a common ignorance; neither of them conceive, nor are they willing to conceive, how Christ's body and blood should have any real operation upon our souls, unless they were so locally present as they might agree per contractum, that is, either so purge our souls by oral manducation, as physical medicines do our bodies (which is the pretended use of transubstantiation), or so quicken our souls, as sweet odours do the animal spirits, which were the most probable use of the Lutheran consubstantiation. Both the Lutheran and Papists avouch the authority of the ancient Church for their opinions, but most injuriously. For more than we have said, or more than Calvin doth stiffly maintain against Zuinglius and other sacramentaries, cannot be inferred from any speeches of the truly orthodoxal or ancient fathers; they all agree, that we are immediately cleansed and purified from our sins by the blood of Christ; that His human nature by the inhabitation of the Deity is made to us [47/48] the inexhaustible fountain of life. But about the particular manner how life is derived to us from his human nature, as whether it sends its sweet influence upon our souls only from the heavenly sanctuary wherein it dwells as in its sphere, or whether His blood which was shed for us may have more immediate local presence with us, they no way disagree, because they in this kind abhorred curiosity of dispute. As for ubiquity and transubstantiation, they are the two monsters of modern times, brought forth by ignorance, and maintained only by faction."--Vol. ix., p. 598.

As to a change in His humanity when He ascended up on high we doubt not, but confess, as you do, that in His exaltation He put off both mortality and infirmity. His human nature then put on immortality, and was invested with the robes of endless Glory and Majesty. But we limit that change so as not to destroy the truth, "that as He is God, so is He man, for ever. Potential infinity may be attributed to His humanity, because of the inhabiting divinity, but not absolute infinity. In Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead BODILY (swmatikoV), And, indeed, with regard to your argument, if you could prove our Lord's body to be thus every where present, it must be con-substantially present, as in the Sacrament so also in every place. What especial presence of His humanity would you then suppose to be vouchsafed to us in the Communion?

And do you hold His humanity to be present every where with a distribution of parts: if not, wherein do you differ from those who suppose that there is through His divinity a virtual presence of His humanity in every place? In fact, as Dr. Jackson says, "Your idea would extend Christ but not exalt Him." '

Did Luther himself mean more than he has expressed in a saying attributed to him on the subject: "His humanity is present with us in such a manner as the sound is present with us which is really made or caused a great way off from us?" Here, by the way, let me remark that the passages which you quote from Ziegenbalg's Body of Divinity to show that he maintained the doctrine of the ubiquity of our Lord's humanity do [48/49] not prove it. He, I dare say, held it as a speculative doctrine, but certainly in his Body of Theology it is not expressed in language which any member of the Church of England would hesitate for a moment to use. The passages translated run thus: "(1.) The Lord Jesus, according to His divine nature, and according to His human nature, unites Himself to us. (And he quotes 1 Cor. vi. 17, Eph. i. 22, 23. iii. 17, iv. 15, v. 30, 32.) (2.) Christ being at the right hand of God, according to that glory is every where present." Can this be doubted? But do not confound person with nature. For, as Hooker says, "By force of union the properties of both natures are imputed to the person only in whom they are, and not what belongeth to the one nature really conveyed or translated to the other." There is a most interesting epistle of St. Augustine, No. 187, written to one who inquired how Christ could be every where and yet in heaven especially--Tom. II. 1017-1038. Augustine is an authority whom your master, Luther--the Augustine monk of Wittemburg--could not really despise, though he did once speak slightingly of him. There at great length he refutes the idea which his young and inexperienced questioner seemed to entertain--that Christ's humanity must be supposed to be every where. He says, "Noli itaque dubitare ibi nunc esse hominem Christum Jesum, unde venturus est; memoriterque recole, et fideleter tene Christianam confessionem, quoniam resurrexit a mortuis, ascendit in coelum, sedet ad dexteram Patris, nec aliunde quam inde venturus est ad vivos mortuosque judicandos. Et sic venturus est, ilia angelica voce testante, quemadmodum ut visus est in coelum, id est in eadem carnis forma atque substantia; cui profecto immortalitatem dedit, naturam non abstulit. Secundum hanc formam non est putandus ubique diffusus. Cavendum est enim ne ita divinitatem astruamus hominis, ut veritatem corporis auferamus. Non est autem consequens ut quod in Deo est, ita sit ubique, ut Deus." And again, "Una enim persona Deus et homo est, et utrumque est unus Christus Jesus; ubique per id quod Deus est, in coelo autem per id quod homo." We must hold fast the truth that "the only limit which can be assigned to the perfect union of the two natures is, that the properties of each are not so transferred as to [49/50] destroy the reality of either." (Wilberforce on the Incarnation, p. 203.)

And indeed the removal of this carnal presence seems to be represented as the cause of His life-giving presence and spiritual power in the means of His appointment. "What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where He was before. It is the Spirit that quickeneth, the flesh profiteth nothing." (Comp. Eph. i. 20-23, Col. iii. 1.)

Your statement, in fine, is that "the humanity of the Son of God, though in itself ever a finite and creational substance, is by means of its personal union with His Godhead of truly Divine and infinite powers." And this contradictory statement, opposed to all Scripture and Catholic antiquity, condemned by oecumenical councils, and rejected by the large majority of your own community, you support by the "fallacy of reference," indicating a number of passages of Holy Scripture, your quotation of which only shows that you have confounded the human nature of Christ with His person. [See this proved in Petavius de incarnatione--Lib. x. Cap. viii. ix. x.]

The question whether the term consubstantiation can be rightly applied to your doctrine is, to my mind, comparatively unimportant. Your doctrine is thus stated--"De coena Domini docent, quod corpus et sanguis Christi vere adsint, et distribuantur vescentibus in coena Domini, et improbant secus docentes." "About the supper of the Lord they teach that the body and blood of Christ are truly present, and are distributed to them who eat in the Supper of the Lord, and they condemn those who teach otherwise." Confess, Aug. Art. x. Melancthon (privato usu): "De coena Domini docent quod cum pane et vino vere exhibeantur corpus et sanguis Christi vescentibus in coena Domini." "About the supper of the Lord they teach that with the bread and wine there are truly set forth the body and blood of Christ to those who eat in the Lord's Supper."

Buddaeus (in Stapfer, vol. v., p. 152) "Praeter materiam hanc terrenam, quam vocant, adest etiam materia celestis: hoc est verum corpus, verusque sanguis Christi, &c." "Besides the [50/51] matter which they call earthly, there is also a heavenly matter: this is the true body, and the true blood of Christ." And in Luther's Instructions to Melancthon, when about to meet Bucer, "This, in short, is our opinion; that the body of Christ is truly eaten in and with the bread, so that every thing which the bread does and suffers, the body of Christ does and suffers; it is divided, eaten and chewed with the teeth." Luther's Letters. De Wette, vol. iv. 572.

Such is your doctrine. But on the other hand

Bretschneider (Dogmatik der Lutherisehen Kirche, vol. ii., p. 687) observes, in reference to Luther's system, "inasmuch as the force and benefit of reception depends solely on faith in Jesus as Atoner (fides salvifica), and this faith by no means includes a belief in the real presence of the body and blood in the Lord's Supper, it follows from the system itself that a man enjoys all the benefits of the Lord's Supper by faith in Jesus, as Atoner, although he doubts about the real presence. Even according to the system of the symbolical books, the subtile theory about the real presence has no connection with the purpose of the Lord's Supper." And Lucke says, "Since the middle of the eighteenth century the generality, whether of dogmatic or exegetical writers among the Lutherans, have at first silently, and then avowedly, adopted the Calvinistic or Zuinglian theory of the Lord's Supper." Comment on St. John, vol. ii., p. 732. Have not Zecharia, Reinhard, Storr, Henke, Eckermann, De Wette, Wegsneider and others stated and defended a wholly different doctrine? It is notoriously true that many Lutheran communities reject or modify these views. The doctrine of consubstantiation has been universally attributed to you, and by you undoubtedly rejected, as "generally understood" as you qualify it, (p. 42.)

Thus Turrettinus, Tom. iii., Quaest xxviii, "Lutherus novum praesentite modum proposuit, inclusionem nimirum corporis Christi in pane, et sanguinis in vino, et co-existentiam panis et corporis, vini et sanguinis Christi, qui consubstantio, seu sunousia dictus est." Nor can you wonder at it when your writers say, "Praesentiam utriusque realem et substantialem [51/52] esse, ut et corpus et sanguis una cum pane et calice distribuatur, locutiones Institutionis exhibitivae docent." (Breithaupt) "There is a real and substantial presence of both so that the body and blood of Christ with (= con) the bread and the cup are distributed, &c."

In p. 42, you define substantiation to mean "the act of making any thing to exist." But in general use it refers rather to the state of existence. Consubstantiation means the union or coincidence of two substances. This union you hold--for the word "substance" is used by you. And between your doctrine and transubstantiation there is just the difference of "trans" and "cum." The kind of presence is expressed by precisely the same word and no other. But you believe the substance of bread and wine also to remain, and subsist with the other.

You make use of two arguments of which the force is not apparent. (1.) "Substantiation creates a new substance." No. If you substantiate a fact you do not make it or create it. Neither you nor the Romanists of course could dream of the possibility of creating by any act of consecration a hew substance! (2.) "A presence made by a substantiation must naturally be permanent." I do not see why. I may as well say, "a presence which is substantial must be permanent," and how will you reply? I know well that you do not believe in a permanent presence. But reconcile this with what you so contend for, in words, a real, substantial presence. I should rather say, arguing on your own principles, the permanence or non-permanence of the presence has nothing to do with the con-substantiation, which may exsist so long as, and at such time as He pleases who vouchsafes to draw near.

We might, indeed, object to you the virtual denial of the reality of consecration. For though it is true that the formula concordiae in 1580 orders the repetition of our Lord's words, you make the consecration to have a declaratory and no operative meaning.

I agree in what you say as to the benefits of a consistent [52/53] view of the reality of Christ's gift of Himself in the Holy Eucharist, but I do not see how they flow from any Lutheran peculiarity of doctrine. It has always been objected to your theory that you, while you profess to exalt the sacredness of the mystery, forget its benefits. So Calvin, regarding the Lutherans, remarks, "quorsum instituta sit caena, et quem fructum afferat fidelibus, altum apud eos silentium est." Luther continually speaks of the "pignus" and "signum" and neglects the "res sacramenti."

In fact the original Lutheran doctrine of Justification (as distinct from the English doctrine), expressed in the original Augsburg Confession which teaches that justifying faith is the faith of the man who believes himself to be justified, seems incompatible with any real belief in the validity of the sacraments. "If, as has been well said, a man can place himself in a state of safety and acceptance, by the mere conviction of his own mind, what need has he of external ordinances?"

So then on the whole the Editor could not mean to ignore the doctrinal differences between the English Church and the Lutherans. What he says is, that they are not such as to render it desirable to trouble our Native Church with them. And can you really say that you believe yourselves to be doing God service, and edifying His Church when you take pains to show our native brethren the precise dogmatic differences between the Augsburg Confession and the 39 Articles. I think I have a keener perception of the evils and imperfections of your system than you can have of those which you impute to the English Church; and, though bound by my ordination vows "to be ready with all faithful diligence to banish and drive away all erroneous and strange doctrines contrary to God's word," yet I could walk on in peace with you, and assuredly should not receive a proselyte from you except under such circumstances as you would approve. I have refused to attend to an offer purporting to be from a large number of families belonging to a missionary not in connection with the Church of England on this ground. [53/54] The evils resulting from this opposition are so far greater than any benefits that could possibly arise, that I can not bring myself to pursue a course similar to that from which I urge you to refrain.

I pray you before the whole Christian community in Southern India, for the sake of that Christianity which is disgraced by these disputes, to refrain from this interference with our people--to be no longer allotrioi episkopoi. There is much that we may learn from one another. There are many things in which we may help one another. Time is short. Our years of missionary labour cannot be many: let us not waste them in unseemly contentions and profitless disputes. Whatever you may think or feel, there is no desire among us but that of labouring with you as brethren, and co-operating with you when we can, in the work in which we are engaged.

I am, my dear Brethren,

Yours faithfully,

G. U. POPE.

TANJORE,
Oct. 14th, 1853.

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