restrain the worship of the Church, nor corrupt its faith, nor command
or encourage anything injurious to men's souls in practice. Luther was
indignant at the sale of indulgences; and his horror at the selling
Church pardons for money was, by God's blessing, the occasion of the
Reformation. The occasion of the new counter-reformation was the
abolition of a certain number of bishoprics, that their revenues might
be applied solely to church purposes; and that the Church might so be
saved from a scandal and a danger. The difference of the exciting cause
of the two movements gives the measure of the difference between the
Reformation of 1517, and the views and objects of Mr. Newman and
his friends.

There are states of nervous excitement, when the noise of a light
footstep is distracting. In such a condition were the authors of the
Tracts in 1833, and all their subsequent proceedings have shown that the
disorder was still upon them. Beset by their horror of the nineteenth
century, they sought for something most opposite to it, and therefore
they turned to what they called Christian antiquity. Had they judged of
their own times fairly, had they appreciated the good of the nineteenth
century as well as its evil, they would have looked for their remedy not
to the second or third or fourth centuries, but the first; they would
have tried to restore, not the Church of Cyprian, or Athanasius, or
Augustine, but the Church of St. Paul and of St. John. Now, this it is
most certain that they have not done. Their appeal has been not to
Scripture, but to the opinions and practices of the dominant party in
the ancient Church. They have endeavoured to set those opinions and
practices, under the name of apostolical tradition, on a level with the
authority of the Scriptures. But their unfortunate excitement has made
them fail of doing even what they intended to do. It may be true that
all their doctrines may be found in the writings of those whom they call