The Sun.
London, England, 1845-01-13 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON', MONDAY,.EV_ENING,. JANUARY l3, 1845

SI_)IRIT.uL tue i2qIB:tIC JOURNALS.

FROM THE EVENING PAPERS OF SATURDAY.

STANDARD.—We rejoice to announce the ex-
tinction of the cause of the late distressing movement
in the diocese of Exeter. The Bishop of the diocese
has addressed to his clergy a circular, couched in the
most grateful and affectionate terms, and stating that,
having received from the Lord Primate, that most
Reverend Lord's address to the diocese of Can•
terbury, he (the Bishop of Exeter) cordially adopts
the views and sentiments of that address,
and " advises all his clergy to act in con-
formity with the views so plainly set
forth by the Archbishop; that is, to continue the
services in their several churches as they now are,
making no attempt to approach nearer to an exact
observance of the rubric, unless they shall in any
instance ascertain that the wish of the people is
clearly in favour of such an advance." More than
this cannot be desired ; and now is the time
for those who opposed the innovations attempted
to be introduced in Exeter diocese to prove that
their opposition rested upon religious grounds, and
did not proceed from a wish to resist the due
authority of their ecclesiastical superior ; and this
they will most effectually demonstrate by gratefully
embracing the Bishop's proposition, that the late
events " may be as if they had never been." We
earnestly recommend a vigilant care of this "bond of
peace" among churchmen, because we know that the
enemies of the Church, emboldened by the late
unhappy differences, will seek to rend it ; and we
offer this recommendation with more confidence,
because, while we have all along tried to do
justice to the honourable, pure, and sincerely
religious motives of the Bishop, we have used no
reserve in combating what we believe to be his
errors. We trust that the Right Reverend Lord will
live to receive the same justice from the hands of
others : sure we are that he will have it from poste-
rity. When the present, or rather let us say the late,
heats shall have fully subsided, men will re-
member that it was not the Bishop of Exeter
who first patronised the Tractarian innovations ;
they had been introduced in the metropolitan and
in many other dioceses with episcopal connivance,
in some cases with episcopal commendation, before
the Bishop of Exeter was compelled to take some
part, by the urgency of men who required him to
sanction the novelties, and defied him to refuse his
sanction, with the rubric in their hands. The
Bishop saw, or thought he saw, that he could not
resist the demand; and, therefore, he issued his
pastoral, recommending a general adherence to
the rubric (as he read it), but nothing more.
It is unfair to the Right Reverend Lord to read
his recommendation as if it operated only in li
one direction. It had, as it plainly was in-
tended to have, a two-fold operation—to prohibit the
Romanising mummeries for which the rubric afforded
no authority, as well as to enforce the surplice preach-
ing, and the offertory which, according to the
Bishop's interpretation (an erroneous interpretation,
as to the surplice, in our opinion), the rubric en-
joined. Now, in such a difficulty, a sincere and
pious man, keenly sensitive to the obligations of
duty, might very justly reason as follows—l
see the Church torn by schism in other dioceses,
because the bishops will not take a part on one side
or the other. I see our Church dishonoured, and
religion itself degraded, in defiance of law, by the
introduction of Roman Catholic ornaments and
ceremonies, because the bishops will not enforce
the law against them ; because some of the bishops
have even approved of these Romanising violations
of the law. I will protect my diocese from these
evils, by a strict enforcement of the law re-
buking deficiency on the one side, and rendering
impossible excess on the other. Is not such reason-
ing just and natural, and what would almost neces-
sarily offer itself to a man keenly sensitive to
duty? It, however, involved more than one original
error in fact. The Bishop was, we think, mistaken
as to the rubrical injunction of surplice preach-
ing—he was certainly mistaken as to the public
feeling on the point. The question being at
best a doubtful one, and the practice having
been revived by the Romanising Tractarians, the
people, the sound part of the clergy as well as
the laity, classed surplice preaching with the
other Tractarian innovations. This, probably, the
Bishop did not know, though he ought to have
known it. Again, the Bishop had, we apprehend,
a rash confidence in his services to the Protestant
cause to protect him from the suspicion of favouring
Romanist practices. Certainly no man was better
entitled to cherish such a confidence, but it is
ever dangerous to be confident in one's former
services, when opposing a conscientious public feeling.
When men's minds are violently- heated, they think
that every other conscience is like their conscience,
and will suspect of duplicity even those whom
they have been most accustomed to venerate and
love, if they differ from them. The Bishop's con-
stitutional kindliness, too, had seduced him into
some good-natured acts to the very worst and most
dishonest of the Tractarians, which aided a suspi-
cion of his hostility to the tenets of that party the
practices of which he seemed to sanction, in part at
least, and the leaders of which he admitted into
his friendship, and sought to protect from a just
condemnation. Then, as always happens when a su-
perior gives unpalateable commands, a new ques-
tion as to the limits of authority was raised. All,
however, is happily at an end. And while we
must always disapprove of the delay that
has been permitted by the episcopal bench in
enforcing that Protestant uniformity, which the
address of the Lord Primate is calculated to enforce,
we can scarcely regret (except on account of
the pain that it must have given to himself) that
the Bishop of Exeter has fairly brought the question
to issue. It now rests with the other bishops to
take instruction by his Lordship's (to him distressing)
experiment, and to imitate his example by enjoining
a return to the old Protestant uniformity. What-
ever the Bishop of Exeter does, he does it ho-
nestly. If he errs, he errs in a manly and ingenuous
manner; if he repairs the error, he is sure to make
the reparation ingenuously, and without reserve.
Such characters may sometimes provoke our hos-
tility, but they will always command our respect ;
and, if we are good for anything, some share of our
affection. Would that all our bishops were as in-
genuous and decided, whatever their opinions.
GLOBE.—The meeting held at Rochdale on
Thursday last, to petition Parliament against the
introduction of the New Poor-law into the Rochdale
Union, will give to the opponents of that measure
no additional strength. Large meetings and loud
talking,
a alone,s e nevernceateneroefmr
ng b
esevee permanently serve any
good purpose in this country ; and at the meet-
ingy
stbtiohavuet
vociferation,beenan
al-
mostitivecitn invective, questiont:ta,l b h
and false reasoning. A detailed notice of the
speeches would only be a repetition of the worst and
weakest points made by the opponents of the New
Poor-law during the last ten years. Something
must of course be allowed for the difficulty of saying
anything new upon such a subject, and also for the
temptations to exaggeration and random assertion to
which all who now attempt to speak on that side of
the question, and hope to be listened to, are inevitably
exposed. The petition to the House of Commons, pre-
sented to and adopted by the meeting, may, however
be taken as a fair specimen of what the Anti-Poor-
law gentlemen of Rochdale can, with all the advan-
tages of deliberation, say in favour of their view of
the matter. In the first paragraph, then, it is
asserted that, in the opinion of the petitioners, " the
principle of self-government will be destroyed by
the introduction of tile provisions of the Poor-
law Amendment Act into Rochdale"—that this
principle has hitherto been acted upon by the
inhabitants " with perfect satisfaction to them-
selves and the poor of these townships"--and that if
the New Poor-law be forced upon them, "the conse-
quences will be feelings of hatred and contempt, instead
of that due respect for the laws and constitution which
has hitherto characterised the people of these locali-
ties ;"—which, obviously, conveys nothing more than
that the petitioners would rather he without the New
Poor-law ! Had such an expression of opinion been
allowed to have weight, perhaps there is not a parish
in the kingdom which would ever have been afflicted '
with it. In the next paragraph the petitioners
call the notice of the House to " the value of
resistance can he justified by
the nature
aggression 1— and then seek to
resistance
o when
the
justify resistance to " the acts of the Poor-
law borernissloners " by what they Consider
" the spirit of the law of England ;" on the
ground that the Commissioners in issuing " mandates
called rules and orders" do so only " under pretence"
of administering the law ; and furthermore that they
(the Commissioners) are " irresponsible to the people
for their actions!" Have the gentlemen who have
signed this extraordinary document ever given them•
selves the trouble to consider what is the real effect
of those reckless and groundless assertions ? If the
powers of the Commissioners have been illegally used,
this is a reason, not for the non-introduction of their
" rules and orders into one corner of the kingdom,
but for their entire abolition or modification; while
the prayer of the petition extends only to the privi-
lege of appearing at the bar of the House "by
COUTllifil, to show cause why the New Poor-law
should not be forced into these districts," The peti-
tioners next remind the House of those great and
glorious principles of civil liberty," &c,&e., and as-
sert that the Poor-law Commissioners have assumed
the power of taxing the people without the consent
of Parliament! And then follows a general denuncia-
tion of " all commissions, of whatsoever nature they
be," as " illegal arid unjust ;" and the Bill of Rights
is appealed to as the authority for this very sweeping
doctrine. Such is the enidra scope of the Rochdale
petition, Whatever might be the real merits of a
cause, it is not in the nature of things that it should
receive anything but injury from such scivocacp