The Express.
London, England, 1851-01-01 00:00:00

BISHOP OP LONDON.

" We, the archdeacon anti u taeisiined clergy men of the
arctideaconry of Middlesex, desire to enure your lordship
of our gratitude for the promptitude and taithitulnem with
which, in your Mte charge ani in your replies to various
deputation., you have telexed the enaracter of the aggres-
sion made by the Bishop of Rome on the constitution of our
country, the prerogatives of the crown, ant the rights and
independence of our national church. The cordiality and
unanimity with which the laity as well as the clergy came
forward to support the sentiments you declared in mat
emergency, must give your lordship the most encouraging
assurance of co-operation on all occasions which may affect
the wel are of the church and the interests of pure religion.
"But we should not do justice to our estimate of your
lordship's character, if we confined ourselves to the expres-
sion of our feelings with respect to this the immediate ntject
of our address. We gladly avail ourselves of the opportu-
nity now afforded us to acknowledge publicly the privilege
we enjoy in being placed by Providence under the spiritual
jarieducuen of a diocesan who, having himself expesienced
the difficulties and anxieties of the pastoral Glace in a large
metropolitan parish, can so well make allowance for our de
ficiencies and advise us in our perplexities. We feel indebted
to you (or the readiness with which at all times that advice
is riven us; for your munificent support of charitable
objects, whether parochial. diocesan, or national ;
for your frequent and effective recommendation of
such objects from our pulpits ; —for your conti-
nued and unprecedented exertion to relieve, by the
erection of churches, chapel*, and school-roams, the
deplorable spiritual destitution of the metropolis and its
suburbs ;—and for that unremitting devotedness to the hum.
riot. of your arduous office, from which the most diligent
among us have still much to learn.
" We fervesly pray that the Divine gotelness may long
preserve your health and mental powers, and enable you to
preside with undiminished energy over the diocese, which,
during twenty.two years of more than erdinary, eta:silty,
has had the ben, fit of your spiritaal guidance.
" We have the honour to b:, with much respect, your
lordship's most faithful and obedient nts."
Tee right rev. prelate delivered the following reply:
" Rev. rend ant dear Brethren,—l; is highly satisfactory
and encouraging to me, to receive a renewed assurance of
your affection and respect. 1 need at all times all the sup-
port which it is in your power to *Herd me, by ycur sym-
pathy, your co-cperation, and your prayers; but I need It
tapecially at this ECLIOI2 of morn than ordinary diffizul:y ;
when our clearer is assaicel from without, and troubled
from within • when persons, holding oppqsite and e :quote
opinions, are loud and hitter in their mutual censures ; while
bath are forward to heap r, pr• ach upon thee; who endeavour
to keep an mu course of moderation and forbeararce.
" The recent aggression of the Bishop of Rome upon the
rights acd independence of our national church, and upon
the prerogative of our Sovereign, has stirred up in the very
depths of the nation'. heart a feeling of asWinshment and
indignation which is fully justified by the occasion, bat

which, if it be not reguliteil by just 'and consistent prin-
ciples, and auided to legitimate ends, may overflow its
pr. per bounds, and endanger the real safeguards of our pro-
testant faith.
"The cordial unanimity with which both the laity and
clergy have come forward, to protest against the papal act of
aggression, does indeed tumors ge us to hope, that, as far as
it depends upon the sentiments of the great body of the
people, the interests of pure religion, and toe welfare of our
Whim:led Church, wh:ch is its chief stronghold, have little
to fear. It will be our duty, as ministers of that church, to
be more than ever active in citifying nut the designs ot its
institutions ; in dispensing, the putts Word cf God, and his
holy Sacraments: in maintaining it. apostolical order and
godly ducipline, neither falling short of its wholesome rules,
nor gong beyond them.
"Hat it is more esceetally incumbent upon us at the pre-
sent cried., carefully to abstain from doing or saying any-
thing, whether in our public or our private micas:rat:ma,
which may wear the 'eueblace of an intended approach to the
distinctive doc•einee or discipline of an erring and corrupt
church ; from using language which may appear to semboliza
with its teaching; and from reviving practices. which were
purposely rejected and laid aside by our own church at the
time of its Reforniati.n.
"This duty I have urged upon the clergy in my visitation
charges of 1b12,1846, and 1850; in every one of which I
censured, in the strongest terms, all attempts to fraternise,
with It 'wish error or superstition; and all ritual innovations
introduced, as it is said, with the design of making our own
church approach more nearly to what is termed 'the catho-
lic standard; that is, in fact, the standard of the church of
home; not that which our reformers believed to be the
standard of holy scripture and of primitive antiquity.
" The di.approvol of all such attempts, whicn I have ex-
pressed in public to the clergy at large of my diocese, I have
also signified in my priests admonitions and comas Is to these
iodiveluals amongst oem who have been mast inclined to
ritual pcculiarihu, sanctioned neither by the church'. order,
nor by lung.est eblishen custom.
" The present crisis, which has brought the church of Eng-
land into more direct and immediate conflict with that of
Rome, has made it my duty to speak still more op .nly and
strongly ; anti to endeavour, by all the means in my power,
to chece the growth of practices, which 1 firmly believe, in
every instance are likely to smooth the way for a transition
to the Roman communion, and in some instances 1 fear, are
indicative of opinions, CO the pert of those who usethem,
which are at variance with the doctrines of our reformed
church. I cannot but suspect, that many of the forms which
have been of late introduced into the celebration of the holy
communion, are the expressions of belief in a doctrine, em-
phatically denied by the church of England, and are nothing
less than acts of adoration done to the supposed corporal
presence of the body and blood of our Saviour Christ.
" The use of these forms, together with other observances,
copied from the practices of the Rcmieh priesthood, induces
unlearned people to think that, atter ali, there is no such
great difference between the reformed church and that of
Rome k and that the passing from one to the other is merely
a question of believing or practising a little more or a little
Ise; not one which nearly concerns their eternal salvation.
"It is for this reason, that, while I object to any needless
departures from the prescribed order of tne English church,
in the way of either defect or excess, 1 thick the fault of
exceu is the more dangerous of the two, where it tends to
countenance the superstitions of the church of Rome; and
less defensible, both on that account, and as not having long
established custom to plead in ex use, as is the cue with
certain faults of defect, such as the disuse of the Offertory
and of the Prayer for the Church Militant, on Sundays when
there is no Communion. No such excuse, however, will
serve to defend omissions which involve any point of doc-
trine, or which the law and custom of the church elate con-
demn.
But though I deo:re to put • stop to those observances
and forms, which are neither autherised by the church's
order, nor sanctioned by long-establised practice, 1 must
still adhere to the opinion, which I have before expressed,
that the Rubric should be usupulouly observed, when no
insuperable diffieulty steads in the way.
" You have alluded, in terms of kind approval, to the
effort which I have made to lessee the fearful amount cf
spiritual destitution in this vast metropo is, by procuring the
erection of additional churches and 'chola Great re non
have Ito be thankful to God for the moues with which he
has been pleased to bless that effort. By means of the me-
tropolis churches fund, sixty-three new churches, with many
parsonages houses and schools, have been erected in London
and its suburbs; and the happy results which have followed
from that work of charity, may well encourage us to perse-
vere in our endeavours to multiply the means and sppliaoces
by which the pure iteht of gospel truth may be diffused
through the darkest hiding-places of ignorance and vice, and
the blessings of Christie's civilisation may be carried home to
multitudes, who are now in a state almost of barbarism and
heathenism. This will be the most effectual, I may say the
only effectual method of resisting the inroads of popery, and
of checking the growth of infidelity and socialism: and this
cannot be done without the general and cordial co-operation
of the *terry.
" I earnestly recommend to your consideration the neers•
city of raising additional funds for the erection of more
churches end schools; and, which is of greater moment
still, for sending more clergymen into our neglected and
benighted districts. Greatly should I rejoice, it the encl.
dilutes of Mergers who will come amongst us during the
ensuing year, should find us engaged, with one hurt and
purpose, in proutering this great wort of piety and charity ;
in advancing the honour of God's holy name, and extending '
the boundaries of the ltedeemee'a kingdom; proving cu'-
selves to be not only a powerful and prosperous, but • truly
aril:lan nation ; that so they might ' report that God is in
SI of a truth.'
" I am sensible that I have exceeded the customary limits
of au answer to an address ; but the great importance of the
questions upon which I have touched, and the interest which
they excite at the present moment, will be my excuse.
' Let me, in conclusion, offer to you my grateful acknow-
ledgment of your kind whites for the continuance of that
heath and 6:meth for which I hue so much num to be
thankful to the Giver of all Goad ; and enure you that I
"ball not cease to pray to him, that he may be pleased to
pour down upon you, and upon ell who are committed to
your charge, the abundant dew of his blueing.
" C. J. LONDON."