— Johnson, Eceles. Canons; Labbe, Cone, xi, 2089; Wil- kins, Cone, iii, 311.
Oxford Tracts, a term applied to certain writ- ings of a clerical party in the Church of England which began to form itself at the University of O.x- ford ill 1833, and which has grown into what is now known as Anglo - Catholicism, Sacramentarianism, or Ivitualism.
JIUtory. — A conference of certain Anglican theo- logians, held in July, 1833, laid the foundation of this movement. But this conference was occasioned by preceding events. The state of the English Church in the 18th century was dejilorable — a proud, lifeless skel- eton. The Wesleyan revival, meeting little sympathy within, had to grow up outside of the Church. Only towards the close of that centurj' did the evangelical
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spirit find place, and form to itself a party, inside of the Chiireb. This party was intent on practical Christian life rather than on guarding the strict formula} of or- thodoxy. Hence it tended to liberalism, both in Church and in state. The political liberalism culminated in reform, particularly in the abolition of the Test Act, in 1828. Parliament was thus opened both to Dissenters and to Catholics. Church reform was now undertaken. The popular voice called for an "adaptation" of the Church to the spirit of the age. Violence occurred at some points. At Bristol the populace burned down the episcopal palace. In 1833 one half of the bishoprics of Ireland were abolished. The very existence of the Church of England seemed to be in danger. It was at this point that the Tractarian party organized it- self in order to oppose both the assaults of politics and the inroads of evangelicalism. It was members of the University of Oxford who inaugurated this movement. Oxford, as opposed to Cambridge, the seat of the evan- gelical party, had remained, to some extent, true to its High-Church reactionary traditions. It was here that the clerical spirit of the past had had its intensest seat. Here the Romanizing tendency of Laud had never en- tirely died out. Oriel College became the nursery of the new tendency, notwithstanding that a few years previously it had been the seat of a very liberal scien- tific spirit. To this college now belonged several very gifted young men ; among them, John Keble, after 1831 professor of poetry, and author of the much-ad- mired Chrisdaii Year; Edward Bouverie Pusey, since 1828 canon of Christ Church and professor of Hebrew; John Henry Newman, fellow and tutor in Oriel ; and R. H. Fronde. With these co-operated A. P. Perceval, rector at East Horslej-. Fronde and Perceval first gave form to the movement. Perceval appeared in 1828 in a book — A Christum Peace Offering — aiming to allay the prejudices of the Anglicans against the Romanists. He argues that the differences between Anglicans and Romanists are not essential, and that the Roman is a true branch of the one Catholic Church. The debate as to the sacrament is mostly a battle of words. The two churches hold equally to the real presence; but the Roman errs in undertaking to explain the mode of this presence. The mode should be left to private judgment; but the laity should have the communion in both kinds. As to the mass, the English articles only deny that at each celebration of tlie Eucharist Christ suffers afresh the tortures of the cross; but that is not the real sense of the Romish doctrine. It speaks only of an unbloody offering, and holds that, in some sense, the Eucharist is a sacrifice. Petitions to angels and to saints, and prayer for the dead, as also the ven- eration of relics, are j^er se harmless, but easily lead to misuse; hence their restriction or prohibition is justi- fiable. Purgator}% though not based on Scripture nor taught bj' the early fathers, is not to be condemned. Auricular confession and indidgences are ancient cus- toms, whose loss the Anglican Church regrets. Though not a complete substitute for the strict discipline of the primitive Church, they are much preferable to the lack of discipline which disgraces the English Church. As to justification, the Romish Church teaches not that man is justified by works alone, but only that none is justified by works that are done without grace through Christ. Both the Romish and the Protestant churches teach that the sins of him who lepents are forgiven through Christ; hence on this point they do not es- sentiall}^ differ. But works of supererogation (they are not mentioned by the Council of Trent) are to be rejected. The Church is infallible thus far, that whatever objective error she may temporarily formu- late, yet the people who faithfidly follow her decisions infallibl}' attain to salvation. The significance of this doctrine is as a safeguard against promiscuous rational- ism. A limitation of private judgment is to be pre- ferred to such danger. Every branch of the true Church is superior to rulers in spiritual things; but
the temporal claims of the pope are illegitimate. As thus viewed by Perceval, the Romish errors are mere excrescences which can readily be thrown off" without seriously affecting the Church. The English Church is simply a branch of this Church in temporary schism. He looks for a reunion. But he is all the more severe against Dissenters. What error of Romanism is half so serious as the breaking up of the unity of the Church by the Independents, the rejection of infant baptism by Baptists? And what are all possible papal errors in comparison with the horrible, godless doctrine of a De- cretum absolutum! But Froude, an earnest, logical, ascetically pious. and very gifted young man, went even farther than Perceval. At first inclined to rationalism, he came finally to the view that while reason is able to judge and compare given ideas, it is dependent on the (.Jhurch for the ideas themselves. But where is the Church? An examination of the formation of the English Church convinced him that it was far from be- ing the sole true Church. Its founders had been gov- erned too much by arbitrary caprice in their so-called reform of the old Church. The true criterion of the Church is the ancient rule: "Quod semper, quod ubi- que, quod ab omnibus." Tlie Church of the first centu- ries alone is true to this rule. From it there is no dis- sent. To it must all modern churches go back, for doc- trine, for rites, and for constitution. At first Froude hoped for reconciliation with the Romish Church ; but a visit to Rome convinced him that it had fallen far from the primitive pattern. So was it largely also with the actual Anglican Church. The reformers of this Church had given up the divine right of the Church, had substituted preaching in the place of the sacraments as a means of grace, had eliminated the es- sential sacrificial element from the Eucharist ; in a word, had retained only the merest crumbs of the apos- tolic preaching. But he found comfort in the assump- tion that the formulte of the Anglican Church are ca- pable of being construed into the sense of the true primitive Church. Accordingly he insisted on celib- acy, fasting, retirement from the world, and venera- tion for sacred things and places. He also looked on the revival of monkish orders as the best means of Christianizing the masses. In one respect he differed from most Ritualists. He insisted on the entire separa- tion of the Church from state control. The friends of Fronde at first -went not so far as he in their disavowal of the Reformation. The Anglican Church had in- deed been badly maimed by the Reformers; but, after all, it was the truest of all the severed branches, and, by proper culture, might yet be made to bear the good fruit of the original stock. But they saw in Fronde's ideal primitive Church the sole goal of all their efforts, and in submission to Church discipline the sole remedy for rationalism.