Writers

52

THE WRITERS

TRACTS FOR THE TIMES.

The following remarks have been extracted chiefly from the
celebrated artiele of The Times on the subject.

With respect to that school of theology in the
English Church, of which so much has been said,
we take its actual position to be this. It originated
.in a feeling of alarm at certain legislative measures
which were passed, or known to be in contemplation,
during the three first years of Lord Grey's ministry ;
and more especially at the persecutions and privations
of the parochial Clergy in Ireland, consequent on the
refusal to pay tithes ; the increasing power and pre
tensions of Popery in Ireland, and Protestant dissent
in England, and the disposition manifested by many
of the clergy and laity to call for important alterations

2
in the Prayer Book. Of this, a letter recently pub
lished by the Hon. and Rev. Arthur Perceval, in the
Irish Ecclesiastical Gazette, furnishes conclusive evi
dence. Under the influence of these feelings, Mr.
Perceval himself, and several others (including, with
the remarkable exception of Dr. Pusey, all who have
since become eminent among the Oxford divines)
met, in the summer of 1833, at the house of the late
Rev. Hugh James Rose, then Domestic Chaplain to
the Archbishop of Canterbury. After discussing the
state and prospects of the Church, they came to the
agreement, that the only way of counteracting the
danger by which the Church seemed to be menaced,
was by recalling the minds of Churchmen to the dis
tinctive principles of the Liturgy, Canons, and Arti
cles ; from which there was thought to have been a
very general departure. They agreed in considering
these distinctive principles to be the same which are
now branded with the name of " Puseyism" ; and
these, as the principles distinguishing the doctrine of
the Church of England from all modern innovations,
whether Popish or Protestant, and identifying it with
the primitive faith of the universal Church, they de
termined diligently to recommend and teach. They
believed that by so doing they were only discharging

(with the zeal necessary in difficult times) an obliga
tion imposed upon them by their ordination vows.
Upon this resolution they acted, and in carrying it
out (whether right or wrong) they certainly met
with extraordinary success.
They have succeeded in rescuing from Popery the
appellation of Catholic, and they have not been over-
zealous for the denomination of Protestant, which
occurs nowhere in the Prayer Book, which expresses
no positive belief, and which is the common property
of all who are separated from Rome, however widely
differing among themselves.
Not professing to lay down a system, their object
has been to awaken thought — to suggest investigation
— to combat modern prejudice with the learning of
ancient times — to exhibit the Church of England in
another aspect than that of its negative character of
mere Protestantism, and to assert its positive cha
racter of the Anglo-Catholic Church.
Their teaching has now sunk deeply into the
heart of the Church of England ; it has acquired
not merely a numerical, but a moral power and
influence. The younger Clergy are said to be very
generally of this school ; it has no want of advocates
among their seniors ; it has penetrated into both

4
Houses of Parliament ; and we are confidently in
formed (we suppose, therefore, upon some foundation)
that it has met with countenance from the Bishops
themselves. It has completely succeeded in awakening
in the Church that vital spirit of re-action, the neces
sity for which called it into existence. We hear
nothing now of a demand for the admission of
Dissenters into the Universities, of proposals to
abolish subscription to the Thirty-nine Articles, or
of contemplated changes in the Liturgy ; or, if we
do still hear of them, the manner in which they are
received, as contrasted with their popularity in 1833,
illustrates the completeness of the victory still more
forcibly. The means by which these striking effects have
been produced are not less remarkable than the effects
themselves. The doctrines of the school in question
(whether good or bad) have not been recommended
by any stimulating excitements — any appeals to the
passions or the affections rather than to the conscience
and the reason. We have had no camp-meetings,
or field-preachings, like those of Whitfield and
Wesley ; no platform-speeches, no Exeter-hall agi
tation ; no advertised and placarded sermons by
popular pulpit orators. Neither is it true that the

University lecture-room has been the theatre of these
triumphs. Of the gentlemen whose names have come
before the public as leading men in the school, two
only, Mr. Sewell,* and Dr. Pusey, are in any way
connected with the instruction of youth ; and Dr.
Pusey has only a very limited class of Students in
Hebrew. It is through the press alone, and by the
influence of their lives, that these gentlemen have
endeavoured to disseminate their opinions beyond the
sphere of their immediate duty.
And what is the character of their writings, and
of their lives ? No man, however widely differing
from them, can open any of their publications, with
out perceiving that they write with learning, ability,
calmness, seriousness, command of temper, a strong
sense of responsibility, forbearance, and courtesy of
language towards their adversaries. No man can
know any thing of their lives, without being aware
that they act consistently with their professions ; that
they are more than usually strict, circumspect, self-
denying, and (as far as man can judge by outward
demeanour) pious. The most respectable of their
opponents in controversy, especially the Master of
* Mr. Sewell's testimony is perfectly independent.

6-
the Temple and the present Bishop of Chichester,
have borne free and generous testimony to their merits
in these respects. Such antagonists never, even for
a moment, expressed or felt the smallest doubt, that
the men with whom they had to deal were sincerely
attached to the Church of England, firmly per
suaded that their doctrine was identical with hers,
and utterly incapable of deliberately violating their
oaths. No calumny, we are satisfied, was ever more un
merited than this, which casts upon men who are
peculiarly zealous for ecclesiastical authority (and who
are maligned for being so) the imputation of disre
garding it in practice. They were not " Puseyites"
who contended for the abolition of subscription to the
Thirty-nine Articles in our Universities. They were
not " Puseyites" who, in 1833, made the press teem
with pamphlets in favour of changes in the Prayer
Book. They are not " Puseyites" who, having sworn
to obey the Rubric, depart from it as often as they
think proper in the celebration of Divine Service.
They are not " Puseyites" who alter or leave out such
expressions as do not suit their notions in the offices
of burial and baptism. But men who do these things,
together with the organs of that political party which

has abetted all the attacks of dissent upon the Church
of England, accuse men who do them not of unfaith
fulness to the Church ; and politicians whose whole
official life has been devoted to the advancement of
Popery in the United Kingdom, cry out " No Popery"
with the loudest, if an Oxford Clergyman dares to
suggest that the Church of Rome, though corrupt,
may possibly not be Antichrist,* or ventures to breathe
a prayer for the restoration of Christian unity through
out the world.
* See Review of Todd's Donellan Lectures, Brit. Crit.
Oct. 1840.

For further information, see "Some Documents", and
" Some Papers", published by W. Graham, Oxford.

OXFORD:
PRINTED BY J. MUNDAY, JUN.
FOR W. GRAHAM, HIGH-STREET;
AND J. G. P. AND J. RIVINGTON, LONDON.
1841.

YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

3 9002 03266 1879