The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1867-05-28 00:00:00

THE BISHOP OP SALISBURY AND THE
PROTESTANTS.

The Bishop of Salisbury has returned the following
reply to the protest of the churchwardens of the
deanery of Bridport

"Creech Grange, Wareham, May 21.
"My dear ffir,-1 received yesterday the address
which you have forwarded to me from some of the
churchwardens who beard that part of my charge which
I delivered at Bridport.
I am bound to do AU I can to help my clergy to be
faithful to their obliption• 'to minister the duetrine
and sacraments, and the discipline
sad
of Christ, as the
Lord bath commanded, and.. is Church d
hath received the same;' and am persuaded Lain
t;
have jar:tided what I have said in the discharge of this
duty by the authority of the Prayer Book and other
formularies of the Church of England.
I remain, my dear Sir, yours faithfully,
"J. Pope, Bel." " W. K. SARUM."
His lordship answered the protest from clergy and
laity of Dorchester deanery ea under :

" lira/Mord Permsll, May 20, 1887.
"My dear air,—The address which was signed by you
and eight other clergymen, and fifteen laymen, reached
me on Saturday before I left Dorchester. When I
asked my brethren to give my whole charge a calm and
patient and dutiful consideration, I did not expect to
receive within an hour and ahalfof my addressing.
part of it to them, an expression of opinion about it
from any of them. I thank all who signed the address
for their assurance of their earnest prayers for me, and
I remabi, your faithful broth*

ow. K. SARUM."

"Rev. H. Houle."

In reply thereto the Vicar of Fordington thus
wrote :

To the Right 9prertis4 the Lor4 &ahoy of .§alisbury.
Pordington Vicarage, 21st May, 1861.
My Lord, —lt would be difficult for me to as.snibl.
and consult the signatories to the protest delivered to
you on Saturday last, against the doctrines set forth in
your lordship's charge. I shall, therefore, in reply to
your lordship's letter received this morning, answer
solely for myself, and afterwards communicate to them,
and, if needful, to the public, both that letter and this
my rep
My act in so protesting was prompt, but it was
neither • hasty am, nor was it the remit of lm ,
and if it bears on it the appearance of undutifulnes. to
your lordship, I solemnly declare it to have been done
after much previous consideration and under • deep and
conscientious sense of duty; but duty not merely to
your lordship, but to the people committed to my minis-
terial charge, to my Church, and to my Lord and Master
In hearep.,
For, although I utterly reject as a fiction of man your
lordship's claim for us cler of Repot, Judicial, and
Sepernfiteral Powers, I yet to be, through God's
grace, "en Ambassador of Christ" With full considers-
ties of the deep Moot* gl them words, I claim to have
been "moved by the Holy Ghost to take upon me that
aloe," and "to have been truly called according to the
will of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the due order of this
realm, to the ministry of the Church." Through • long
°Dome( years the truths of Holy Scripture embodiedand
set forth in the Articles and Formularies of that Church
have been intelligently held end etecilaidly believed by
; and the gram received and imparted through the
ministration of God's Tford end Searainentt andin the
prayerful
use of our Scriptural Likra, has be to me •
living reality. For half &century either in the prepare.
ation for the ministry or in its exercise, not only have
the Holy Scriptures been my study and delight, but in
actually approaching the in the
use of the service* of our Church (and especially, I
may say, in that for the Holy Communion,) I have
slimly and solemnly weighed their every expression.
Of them sertion also 1 know the history. And al-
though to the testimony of what your lordship is
pleased to all "the undivided Church" I do not
attach that weight which you do, I Satter myself that
my knowledge of it is equal to your lordship's.
Now, according to them convictions of the troths set
forth by our Church, and as one, who in the reality of
Christian faith and experienee knows what it is "to
dwell in Christ and to have Christ dwelling in him, to
be one with Christ, and have Christ one with him," I
have taught my people. They know that I have thus
teuttiranhem. -There are those who have reeeived this
tem • . In this same faith and experience, my lord,
I have al four of my own sons to the military of
our Church. Two of them, as you know, constrained by
the love of "their Incarnate Saviour," reoeived by them
under that training, have devoted themselves as
ter, of our Church to mission work in China; %re‘l.
their father's teaching under God they all continue to pay
• dutiful and intelligent deference.
For an aged Presbyter then, my lord, under such
circumathoes, to be told that his teaching on mob
essential doctrines as those of which you treat has been
erroneous, is no light matter. It is no light matter
either to himself, or to those wham he has taiiersmey
be teaching. And this in your lordship's c Ime
told. For if you be right I must be wrong. you
can mesa by two or more sides to coo truth, I menet
understand. But to the truth in the paints In question
there cannot be two aides. Either I eta by a judicial
act absolve from sins and condemn or I cannot The
eunernatural power to communicede to the Hewed and
LW the preemie of the Ineenate Saviour is mine or
It is not. In the adminielration of the Holy Com-
munion I either oiler a iserillee or I do set. Your
lordship's charge the direct affirmative in each
max My , which I eonlidently maintain to be
that of the Ch of glend, seta forth the direct
▪ [With reform*, to the niainedmint Prorai•
trona, "the reel presence," I "s sties.
tics. to this one staMment of gourober Polity,
hooky. section 67.) 'The real promos of Obrid's
most biased bodj end Mood I. of there/ere to be
sought or in the Ma' on ins I. bat is the wordy rewire,
of the 3ecru.eL And with Ude the very ardor of our
laviour's wards epeolh, Iret 'Take and eel •;' thee
' This is my bads white was braes for pm.' That,
brinh yeeflel this' them fame* 'Ws is my
• Ordlnetten ihr *web lee See pre your Mite
IMMO &Wits UV. "