The Sun.
London, England, 1841-11-12 00:00:00

ings of mankind to reduce the enthusiasts to de-
pendence on the order of priests.
Legislators ought, on this principle, to take
the utmost care not to multiply decrees, orders,
prohibitions, and restraints, because the inevit-
able consequence is, that they continually pre-
sent to the minds of the people the idea of some-
body seeking to hinder them, and thus cause the
very actions they are solicitous to prevent. Every
action has its own natural consequences, and
every object its own natural attractions or re-
pulsions for the mind. Prohibitions and re-
straints alter these natural consequences, and
give a false value to the objects and an erroneous
bias to the conduct. Take the preservation of
game and the Game-laws for an example. Ex-
perience has demonstrated that common daily
"labour, however poorly paid, being steady and-
in demand throughout the year, generating
habits of temperance and frugality, is infinitely
more advantageous to the labourer than poach-
ing or hunting or shooting. But these latter
have been made so attractive by the false value
given to the objects by prohibitions and restric-
tions, and such an erroneous bias has been given
to the conduct, that there are multitudes of men
who, like WALTER, will dare anything, will
violate the laws, trespass on their neighbours'
property, and imbrue their hands in blood,
because somebody seeks to hinder them from
taking game. When such consequences result
from decrees, restraints, and prohibitions, it be-
comes extremely difficult to say how much of the
criminality which at any time pervades society
is the consequence of the " natural depravity of
man," presuming that to exist, or of that Great
system of restraints and prohibitions which is
founded on a theory and justified by reasoning,
and which a great mass of law-makers and public
writers are continually anxious to extend. The
case of WALTER is only an illustration of the
very general statement, "I had not known sin,
had you not prohibited it;" and at least com-
mands men, with urgent vehemence, to decree no
restraints and no prohibitions, till their utility,
taking into account their effects in promoting
the crimes forbidden, be unanswerably demon-
strated. In defiance, however, of this plain and
yet certain rule, the greater number of political
writers think they can do nothing so advisable
as devise new restraints and prohibitions.
Besides starving men to death—heinous enough
offence in monopoly—it seems to have the addi-
tional evil effect of disturbing and perverting
the natural relations of man to the objects of
creation—perverting his judgment, erroneously
biassing his conduct, and rendering him im-
moral. Our country teems with invasions of
the right of property ; we are a nation of
swindlers, plunderers, and thieves; we sanction
much of our immorality by law ; and there
seems little chance of amendment as long as we
act unceasingly on the principle of seeking to
hinder men from performing an immense variety
of very innocent and even praiseworthy actions.
Laws are made by ignorant men, very little ac-
quainted with the bearings of their own enact-
ments, and still less acquainted with the vast
phenomena which constitute human society;
and it cannot, therefore, on reflection, excite
any surprise if it should turn out that laws, re.
straints, and restrictions, cause a much greater
number of crimes than they prevent.

whe attention of the public was yesterday at-
tracte74 to the instruction given by the Church
and the two - Universities, by the Tory Herald
and the Tory P 0,..• The observations of botk,
were suggested by the re.'' f
tt conversion o .
E
SIBTIIORP from the Church of nittand to
Popery. We are not surprised that S an
-Z'
event, though now far from unexampled, shouit:'
h
deeply affect our Contemporaries. To them 'it
must be as much a cause of sorrow and lamen-
tation as it will be of rejoicing and exultation to
to Dr.WisEmsN and the Lord Mayor of DUBLIN.
The Ultra-Protestant member of the Cathedral
town of Lincoln will henceforth probably re-
member hibrother, and hold his peace, instead
of attempting a dull joke against Maynooth and
Mr. O'CoririELL. It must contribute to bow
down with affliction many a Protestant horn
now exalted with pride, which the observations
of our Contemporaries will not contribute to
raise: The Herald says—
The secession ,of Mr. Sibtliorp from the Church of
England affords another striking illustration and exposi-
tion of the mystery of l'useyism, and of its close and
essential connection with the mystery of Jesuitism. Here
is a man of accomplished mind and of high family lost
to the cause of Protestantism by listening to the sophis-
tries of Messrs. Pusey and Newman, and depend upon it
he will not be the last—for the cause of this declension
from Protestism is not accidental. It is laid deep in the re-
cesses of that system of school logic which still reigns
supreme and pre-eminent in the University of Oxford.

The followers of High Church, Low Church, and no
Church, are but the successors .of Ramies and Oceans.
The subterfuges of conscience find an easy retreat into
all the varieties of mood and figure. Some bellow out
for Popery, because they think that the Church of Eng.
land is too nearly allied to the principles of Noncon-
formity, and others would admit Dissenters to the 'Uni-
versities, because they deem the Church of England too
Popish and exclusive. But it followed, as usual, that
extremes meet, and that whether you pursue the Low
Church of Whateley, or the High Church el Newman—
the cause of Protestantism and the Reformation is equally
I n' endanered
'
We again say-that until the University of Oxford
expels the system of logic now taught from its schools,
the minds of the English clergy will never be at rest.
There will be a perpetual vacillation between Popery and
Liberalism.

That is the description given of the teaching a
lie University, and of the doctrines taught

They unsettle men's minds; they teach them to
vacillate between good and evil; they make
men infidels or bigots. Nor is the description
which the Post gives of our national religion
much more encouraging. The Establishment,
intended to preserve and prescribe one faith,
seems, according to our Contemporary, to admit

►rithin her bosom—as we know, in fact, from-the

astounding, ,diversity of doctrines which are
taught from her pulpits—men of almost every

creed.

Our Church (says the Post) is not so stern and rigid
a mother as some would have her, though she has for-
mularies fitted for even the most sternly and rigidly-
minded men as to the bounds and limits of orthodoxy.
If a man be but of a reverential temper, not wise in his
own conceit, nor over anxious to thrust his own peculiar
notions upon the acceptance of others, the Church of
England will allow of ample enough range for his
Christianity, without his rushing forth into the trackless
wilds, and inextricable thickets of Dissent. And if, on
the other hand, a man be of that mind which leads him
to seek a shelter for his religious hopes within narrow
bounds, and under authoritative protection, he may find
that comfort too within the Church of England, and
without submitting his mind to the despotic devices and
the intoxicating ceremonials of the Church of Rome.
The consequence of this laxity is thus men-
tioned :
The
eosfwetre
kit`lrtlie religion of the people of England had become a
ristianized ethics, of which the Protestant
branch of public decency
the public selhvaosolsr,ecaocotinnigzetut au-
thoritynrdaetrhetrheasaP
others, delivered protestation
t
nation. \V hat it
-7
Thee than the vital principle of the
twas most zealous in was not a faith of
its own, but a estit,ation against the too ntuch faith of
religion, found their waycoarse
hatre dlsanyliaieglezofwertreiumphant ha-
tredthe
nseissoaaltsh)s,rema. our Prayer-book (a copy of
Parliament
tt
and
itnie
seapi
triumphant
ro
imuemo
pt.
han t
Cthteistromt:
Ca-
tholic Christianity.
Church of Englandilsneudi, a
then,subi
protestation against the faith of
livered in the coarse l
language of triumphant
hatred. What a beautiful, humane, and exalted
creed! The people will thank the Post for such
a graphic description of the faith the of • tithe-
owners. Catholics and Dissenters, with all
who are opposed to religious intolerance,
will be grateful to it for ack nowled.,_
ing that our Acts of Parliament for the
State Church, preservation of the
ex_
eluding Catholics and Dissenters from political
power, were founded
on that hatred, expressed
in coarse language, for the faith of others,
which is the vital principle of Church of Eng_
landiem. The natural consequence of such a
political religion is thus described by the Post :
Many had grown weary and faint under the burden
of mere Protestantism, which is, with regard to Church
matters, a formulary of non-belief; and therefore no sup-
port at all. They wanted a belief and a guidance other
than that which their own fallible judgment gathered
from the original documents. They were going over to
Rome, when the Tractarians stepped in to show them
that the Primitive Church afforded all they wanted, and
that the Church of England is the. true depository of all