The Sun.
London, England, 1841-05-21 00:00:00

CORRESPONDENCE ON' CERTAIN
POINTS OF THE BISHOP OF LONLON'S
PUBLIC CONDUCT.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN.
Feniton, May
11. 17, 1841.
‘leile; in one of his eloquent addresses,
recently mentioned two classes of persons—Church Ex-
tensionists, .and Popish Extensicmists. But for the sake
of the health of the Church of England, it is to be hoped
there is a third class of persons, who deem that Church
reformation ought to go before Church extension—which
Mr. M‘Neile himself seemed inclined 'to admit in his
London lectures last year.
I enclose for insertion a correspondence which cer-
tainly concerns the public.
I hare the honour to be, Sir,
Your most obedient servant,
H. E. HEAD.

Athenteinn Club, London, April 28, 1841.
SIR,—I have , read in The Sun, Evening Paper, a
letter bearing your name and address, and on these
grounds I presume to address you.
When writers appeal to the public through the news-
papers there is, I apprehend, no discourtesy in answering
them, especially if they are misleading public opinion.
My acquaintance .with the Bishop of London is of
so limited a kind, that it would be a great mark of pre-
sumption were I to undertake to defend one so especially
able to defend himself. But I have not the same deli-
cacy as to the principal matter of your letter ; and must
hope that I am rendering you a useful service, in sending
you the form, and its authority, by which converts from
the Church of Rome have been received during the last
century in the diocese of London.
What steps you may now think it requisite to take, in
justice to the Bishop and to your own character, it mus
rest with yourself to determine:
I ani; Sir, your obedient Servant,.
The Rev. H. E. Head.
•

G. G. STONESTREET,
Preby. of Lincoln.

Feniton, 30th April, 1841.
SIR,—I have the honour of acknowledging the receipt of
your letter. Arid of its enclosure, and of thanking you for
both.

With regard to the existence of the form which you
have courteously done me the honour to send me—that
circumstance does not, call upon me for any concession to
the Bishop of London. For I never asserted; nor did I
at all intend to convey the idea that the Bishop had
coMposed that form. 'His Lordship makes it his own by
Adopting it—so that it may be fairly called " the Bishop
of London's form of prayer" in contradistinction to the
authorized forms in the Prayer-book.
The name or names of the Prelates who had previously
composed or adopted-it, together with the circumstances
its composition-:—are questions .which do not in the
least concern the public in a legal point of view—how-
ever interesting the information may be as a matter of
fact or history. And I beg to renew my thanks for the
information which you have afforded me on this point.
With regard to the authority of the form, it is not ne-
3essary to say much, as in the preface you fairly concede
the point that it never obtained the Royal sanction, and
that it is, in an ecclesiastical point of .view, therefore, of
no authority at all.
With regard to the merits or demerits of the form,
they are chiefly relative, therefore the more pernicious,
as being less 'obvious to undiscerning minds. My mean-
ing is •this. While error continues to lurk in our
rituals, this form is liable to the strongest objections.
For it denounces, with no small parade, the errors of
the clergy of Rome, while at the same time it calls
upon the Almighty covertly and indirectly to sanction
the errors of the clergy of England.
I have the honour to-be, Si!, your obedient servant,
HENRY ERSKINE- HEAD.
_ _ _

The Rev. Prebendary Stonestreet. •
P.S. Are these Roman Catholic clergymen now corn,
petent to preach in our pulpits without further ordina.
tion ? I rather think they are—according to current
opinion.

Athenaeum Club, London, May 3, 1841.
SIR,—I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your letter
f the 30th ult., which I confess I read with regret.
Upon considering your observations I find it difficult
to conceive any course whatever which the Bishop of
London could have adopted, which would have given you
satisfaction. Three priests of the Roman Church present
themselves tothat prelate, upon whose conduct you mi.
inadvert, for resolution of doubts and for spiritual coun-
sel ; they believe themselves to be in error ; they desire
to renounce publicly a doctrine contrary to God's' word,
.tnd, upon examination, had to be admitted, by the
Bishop so addressed, into communion with our Church.
Is the Bishop to reject or to receive them, if satisfied of
the sincerity Of the profession ?
If he were to reject them, upon the simple ground of
not knowing in what manner, and by what formality to
comply, would not this be a very great hardship upon the
seceders ; is any such reluctance to receive converts
exhibited in any other Church, however numerous or
scanty its proselytes ? were they to be treated as mere
recusants who might, by only going to church,
protect
themselves under the statute against penalties, or take
some oath,-.to remove certain disqualifications ? How
would such a rejection have comported with the Episcopal
oath in the Examen of Consecration, when the question is
put. " are you ready With all 'faithful diligence tt, banish,
and drive away all erroneous l;toetrinp4,&u.,&c.," would
not a Bishop .who should so treat, an applicant, and that
applicant a cleigzman, at the present day be considered
as not very affeettiely fulfilling his high pastoral (Atwell
On the other hand, supposing the Bishop to conse'7i to
receive these converts publicly, thee. 1,0 must el-tlier com-
pose or select some formulary of merely-private charac-
ter, or he must use that of his 'D'Yrtlecessor in offica, ac-
credited by the sanction of file 'State and the co-opera-
tion of the Houses of Convocation in the exercise of
their legitimate function, Ta the first of these cdurses
your printed letta t4hes objection • your written letter
to me repudiiites his right to the other alternative. What
is he to do ? If you will not allow him, upon individual
responsibility, to construct or adopt a special form--
nor ti avail himself of an order of prayer, accredited
at least arrionpt ecclesiastics by its:very constitution, and
suppoi4esl by the usage of the diocese (as Archdeacon Pott
informed me) and probably by luxe general custom—
you drive him back to the neoessity, under supposk legal
scruple, of rcieoting those unfortunate 'candiAttes,. hence-
forth to belong to neither fold ; a strange. way, indeed,
of discharging his conscience or. Ills dotty. If my in-
ference be wrong, Sir, it is PAW 0.1.411 reasonable that I
should inquire which fused several courses ought to
be pursued, RAld by what possible election the Bishop
could WV escaped the infliction of your reproaches r
When you say that the preface to my edition of Te-
nison's Formula " concedes that, itt an ecclesiastical point
of view, it is of no real atltWrity," you have not cor-
rectly stated its import, "Why then should I print it
I had felt The want of such an authority, and so mated it.
Burn, certainly a judge of ecclesiastical authority, does
not hold it so cheap. In fact it leantesilaiing but the sign
manual of the minister of t,heddy (as that of Bute in 1761
to the four occasional eayers), to make it a constitnent
part of the Book of Common Prayer. Many of the
Canons wanted the final Royal sanction the results of
the Hampton Court conference Virl3 I believe similarly
circumstanced : the same exception is applied to Orn of
the versions of the Psalter. But there is a ca 36 so ex-
acta as to authOrity and date, detailed at large
in Burn, that I cannot forbear to ii,kr to it,
.as mate-
rially affecting the question which ydu have raised, It
is that of the "'pall itn, the Consecration of Churches."
The cokidenees are in all respects conw.liete ; each form
had Royal origination, each passed Loth Houses of COD:,
vocation, each was stopped in the Council Chamber by no
other difficulty whatexue than the Royal demise. But will
any clergyma os jurist at the present hour admit your.
inference, that not one of 1,000 churches which have
since been built, is consecrate, and that the ceremony
(if you will pariah me to repeat your words as to the
contemporaneous formula), is, in an ecclesiastical
point of view, of no real authority at all, and that the
names of the Prelates who have composed it, and the cir,
cumstances of the composition, are questions which do'•
not in the lease „concern the public in a legal point of
view Is this really to give its din; weight to
.the
Royal initiative and the deliberate judgment of 'the
Church in her assembly, upon the adaptation of a ,
specific ceremony, of which the Church had need 7.
You inquire in your postscript, " whether these three
Roman Catholic clergymen are compete to preach in our
pulpits Without further ordination r I have never heard
that any Protestan %Aw) has impeached the validity
the Roman, prim orders, properly attested. ques-
tion of jurisdiction is distinct from ord-Q44; often
un-
heeded, but distinct. Certainly no title to any jurisdiction,.
domestic orcolonial; I conceive
of theouldiss,su:eettoscno,nuN;letq
priest, the Bishop -beili2co
ire had been sn}'`..neeted to the same or even more strict ex'
amination [than that 'Which isj required *inn our own
candidates, 'always at ordittation;.somethnes upon appli-
cation for license, and ,gcnorally in cases of plurality at
Lambeth. Under what degree of caution this may' pro-,
eed lam unskie itidie; • I can
In cases asuSpected heterodox epinitt);:p.sriloPporPseose tclu'artiliega•
would be taken.
am, Sir.-your moat obedient servant, 1.)
The Rev, G. G. STONESTREET..
IL E. Head, &c. &c., Feniton.

Fenton,May 5, 1841.
have the honour to acknowledge your letter of
the 3d instant, and to thank you for the information it
contains. The-point on which I have the misfortune to
differ from you is this. You view the proceeding of the
Bishop of London abstractedly. and exclusively with, re-
ference to the matter of the three 'Minim! Catholic cler-
gymen. I, on the contrary, have all along considered it
in connexion with other parts of his Lordship's public
Conduct. Hence my reply to your very reasonable
question—' by what possible course could the Bishop of
London have exempted himself from the appliCation of
my strictures"—will he this :

Had the Bishop of London favoured those moderate
proposals of Church Reform which were brought before
Parliament last year—had his Lordship even contented
himself with forbearing to oppose them, his Lordship
would have escaped my, bitter reproaches on the present
occasion. For he then would not so clearly have involved
the Church of England in the. doubly pharisaic guilt of
binding heavy burthens upon the consciences of men by
over stringent subscription, and, at the same time, of pub-
licly thankino• God that she is not like that publican the
Church of Rome.
I beg your pardon if I have misstated the substance
of your preface ; but really .I could not perceive thatit
amounted to anything more than this—that Tenison's
Formula is of great authority—to, those who chuse to de-
fer to it.
I do not think lightly of the Royal wish, or of the
assembly of the Church, or of any of those initiative
proceedings on which you lay so much stress.
I should
agree with you as to the conventional -thithority of the
form, and indeed ,perhaps as to the form itself—if the
Church. of Englaud•were :perfect. But it really ought
—kast
of all by a Prelate who opposes himself to the
rezna
not to. be used by any Church Minister as 10.
-present corruptions prevail in our Establishment—least
ent thlve.