The Sun.
London, England, 1834-05-23 00:00:00

UNIVERSITIES.

The LORD CHANCELLOR presented petitions
from the protestant dissenters of Newmarket, and
several other places, complaining of the grievances
under which they laboured, and praying for
relief. The petitioners principally complained
of not being enabled to perform the ceremony
of marriage in their own places of worship,
and of being obliged to undergo ceremonies in the
performance of that right to which they had great re-
pugnance, particularly that of publishing bans. The
Lord Chancellor admitted that it was a great grievance
to be obliged to undergo a ceremony to which there
was great repugnance, but with respect to the pub-
lishing of bans he begged the petitioners to under-
stand that that had nothing to do with religion,
but had been adopted by law for the purpose
of giving publicity, and to prevent persons under age
being married without the consent of parents and
guardians. It would be therefore too much to say that
because the dissenters did not choose to publish bans
the whole of the King's subjects should lose that
security which the Marriage Act had given them.
Lord KENYON presented a petition against the
admission of the Dissenters to the Universities.

Earl FITZWILLIAM said the noble baron had pre-
sented tire petition without stating whether he assented
or dissented from its prayer; but he begged to enter
his caveat against the propositions of those petitioners,
that the Universities were founded for the sole purpose
of propagating the doctrines of the Churcl, England.
Lord KENYON said he did not rise fir the pur-
pose of stating that the universities of this country were
established for the purpose of promoting the doctrines
of the church of England, because it was well known
that many of them were established before the refor-
mation ; but that they were established for the pur-
pose of promoting religious instruction in connec-
tion with the state at the time they were founded,
there could be no difficulty in maintaining. He had
not made any speech in presenting the petition,
because he did not wish to detain their lordships with
any discussion, and therefore he had done nothing
more than shortly state to their lordships what the
nature of the petition was. He had another petition
to present to the same effect from the friends of
the established church at Denbigh, which would
give the noble earl opposite the opportunity, if
he wished it, of making any further observations he
liked. He begged to have the petition read ; it was
signed by the clergy, and all the principal persons,
as well as all the poorer persons residing in that place.
Earl FITZWILLIAM hoped it was quite unne-
cessary for him to assure • the noble lord that the uni-
versities were not founded with that sort of connexion
with the church which was alleged in the peti-
tion ; he had meant merely to state that they were
founded in Roman Catholic times. What he meant
was to call their lordships' attention to the alle-
gation of the petitioners which had been repeated
again in the next petition, and in perhaps still
stronger terms ; viz., that persons who entered the
universities being bound to subscribe to any particular
sect of religion, was not consistent with the original
foundation of those universities. He was satisfied
that the petitioners could not make out that proposition,
inasmuch as it was perfectly well known with respect
to at least one of them, that the tests which are now
required in that _university were, if he might so speak,
of modern introduction, and therefore it was quite
impossible to substantiate-the allegation which the
petitioners made, that the object of the universities
was to maintain one particular sect of christianity.
The Duke of WELLINGTON said it was per-
fectly true that the greater part of the Universities
was founded before the reformation ; but he
defied the noble earl opposite to say that any
one of them was founded for the purpose of
teaching anything but truth—anything besides the
real truths of the Christian religion. The Catholic
religion was reformed, and upon that reformation
the tests complained of by the noble earl were intro-
duced. ( Hear, hear.) They were the tests of
Christianity as maintained by the Church of England,
and, he would venture to say, the tests believed in
by the noble earl himself, as well as every noble lord
in that house ( Hear, hear), and those were the only
tests required to be taken by the students of which
so much complaint was now made. Would the noble
earl say that those tests were now to be done away-
because now the Catholics and Dissenters had
more power than they had three or four years ago—
that because of that, they were to set aside those tests
which had been productive of so much good? If the no-
ble lord wished to do so, he was happy, to say that he
was of opinion that a majority of their lordships
would be of a very different opinion. He main-
tained that the truth alone ought to be taught
at the universities—that the truth was only
found out at the Reformation, and he begged to
ask whether the noble earl would wish that anything
else should be there taught ?
Earl FITZWILLIAM said there were some pro-
positions laid down in the speech of the noble duke,
that in his opinion required some notice, and he trusted
the house would bear with him for a short time. The
noble duke was quite mistaken in the assertion he
had made regarding the time that the tests were im
posed,—he spoke of Cambridge, and of that univer-
sity he would undertake to say that it was long after
the Reformation that they were imposed. There
were a great many sects in existence in England who
would tell the noble duke that the Church of England
was only half reformed—that that church yet savoured
of Popery. ( Hear, hear, hear.) He did not
mean to say so, but others would ; and in his
opinion it was perfectly absurd to suppose that the
Protestant religion was imposed upon the student by
the mere act of his signing the 39 articles. If
it was P renunciation of Popery, lie would not
have said o much certainly against it ; but it was
wel. Known that not one of them related to the sub-
ject that they treated of, viz., free-will, transubstan-
tiation, &c., mere metaphysics of which it was im-

The Bishop of LONDON said he had a petition
to present on the same subject, but from the same
cause as.that referred to by the noble lord ( Kenyon), he
would not at present present it. He could not, however,
avoid saying a few words upon the subject.
The noble earl ( Fitz william) had remarked that
he should not be suprised if a great number
of their lordships were perfectly unacquainted with
the meaningof the thirty-nine articles. In the noble
earl's remars, however, he (the Bishop of London)
discovered some traces of that with which the
noble earl said their lordships were unacquainted.
A long time had probably elapsed since the noble
earl had subscribed to those thirty-nine articles.
The noble earl had said that a person by subscribing
to the thirty-nine articles did not therefore renounce
Popery. The thirty-nine articles did distinctly re-
nounce the error of Popery—he said that not in the
distinctly accurate sense, but every person taking
them, and being a sincere member of the
Church of England, emphatically denied the
errors of Popery. The truth was, and that was
established by that body to which the subject was
referred, viz., the clergy in convocation, that the
errors of popery should be renounced, and
that renunciation was confirmed by the clergy.
( Hear, hear.) The state would not change the
religion of the church ; the church reformed its own
religion, and then the state adopted that reforma-
tion. The universities were founded solely on the
Christian religion, and were upheld by various
acts of the legislature, and if they taught Chris-
tianity at all it must be taught according to the
principles of the Established Church. If the dis-
senters were therefore to be forced on the universities,
from that moment the reformed church would be
so diluted that they would cease to be the fit
place of instruction for members of the Esta-
blished Church. The right reverend prelate then
presented a petition from the hundred of Rochford, in
the county of Essex, against the admission of dis-
senters to the universities.

Earl FIT ZW ILLI AM said he had never con-
tended that the subscription to the thirty nine
articles was a renunciation of Popery. It might
be by implication a renunciation of Popery,
but it was not necessarily so. They possessed so much
of metaphysics and abstruseness, and so much of ab-
surdity that no noble lord could get up and declare
that he perfectly understood them. ( Hear, hear. )
He would even go further, and say that they would
admit of various interpretations ( Hear), so that
even Calvinists and Armenians might subscribe to
them.

The Bishop of EXETER said some of the noble
earl's averments were scarcely credible, particularly
when he asserted that the 39 articles would admit of
various interpretations. ( Hear, from Earl Fitz william. )
The intention of those who drew them up was to make
them as precise as possible. As to a young man of
sixteen being required to subscribe to them, without
understanding them, the student always placed
implicit confidence in his tutor to teach him the
meaning of them, and that had been the
answer upon all occasions to the objections that had
been urged against them. That answer had always
been considered as a triumphant one. •

Earl FIT ZWIL L IA Al.was surprised that the right
rev. prelate should have advocated and sanctioned
such a practice as that which he had stated, which
called upon under graduates to subscribe to one thing,
while they professed another. (Cries of " No, no.")
He (Earl Fitzwilliam) would say " Yes, yes ;" for if
the statements of the right rev. prelate meant anything
they meant that. (No, no.)
The Earl of WINCHIL SEA thought the noble
earl had formed extremely erroneous notions of
what the right reverend prelate had stated. (Hear.)
What he had said was that the under gra-
duates were called npon to subscribe to the 39 articles,
reliance being placed on their tutors to impress
upon them their effect. If the house were to
take from the established church those liberties
which she now possessed, they would place her in a
worse situation than anybody of dissenters in the king-
dom. ( Hear.)
The Archbishop of CANTERBURY would not
have said one word on the presentation of the petition,
had not the noble earl reflected on the statements of
the right rev. prelate who spoke last. Any person
who had heard him would suppose he
had fallen into the casuistry of former times.
He did not know that it was necessary for him to say
that he concurred entirely in all that had fallen from
the right reverend prelate who had just spoken,
and he need not tell their lordships that the
right reverend prelate's construction of the rules of
the University of Oxford was the true one. The
right reverend prelate then read certain parts of the
statutes of the university of Oxford, which required
students to subscribe to the articles of faith,
and to acknowledge the King's supremacy ( Hear),
from which it appeared they were compelled to sub-
scribe to the articles of faith and religion at the age
of twelve years, but were not to take the oath of supre-
macy and fidelity until they arrived at the age of
sixteen.