The Sun.
London, England, 1844-12-14 00:00:00

•
fitarni Infj.ire

LONDON, SATURDAY, DECEMBER 14, 1844.

The Court of Common Council has had the good
sense and spirit to express itself on the subject of
Puseyism with a firmness and unanimity that cannot
fail to damp the mistaken zeal of those London clergy-
men who support this dangerous heresy. In a re-
newed discussion respecting a grant of two hundred
pounds in furtherance of the erection and endowment
of a new free church in St. Giles's-in-the-Fields, Sir
PETER LAURIE'S amendment, that the consideration
of the question should be deferred for twelve months,
was put and carried by an overwhelming majority,
only five hands, out of a Court consisting of not less
than a hundred and fifty members, being held up
against it ! This is a check more effective than any
that the Puseyites—Tractarians, perhaps, we should
rather call them, seeing that they have shot far ahead
of Dr. PUSEY, and look upon him as much too mode-
rate and conciliatory in his views—have yet sus-
tained ; and if the laity in our leading towns and
cities will but follow the example of the Court of
Common Council, we have little doubt that the Trac-
tarian heresy, despite the insidious, indirect encou-
ragement given it by Dr. PIIILLPOTTS, will be de-
prived of much of the influence which it now exer-
cises, and be reduced to its fitting level in public
estimation. Already in the cathedral city of Exeter
the right spirit is at work, and the inhabitants, under
the very nose of their Bishop, are protesting in the
most strenuous manner possible against the sugges-
tions contained in his late Pastoral Letter. Not less
than three psrishes met last week, and on Monday, at
a meeting of the parishioners of St. Mary Major, it
was moved, among other equally significant resolu-
tions, that " the members now assembled of the
church of St. Mary, Exeter, deeply regret the
changes introduced into our service, by command of
the Bishop, as being highly repugnant to our feelings,
and 'which we apprehend will have. a tendency to
irotroduce more important innovations calculated to
create disunion and strife where peace and good-will
abonld prevail, to impair the us?fulness of the Church
and the cause of true religion ; in fact, we regard it
as the beginning of measures which must tend to un-
Protestantise the State, and consequently endanger
the succession to the Crown of her M tJETY'S
Strong as are the terms of the above resolution, they
are not a bit too strong. The direct, though not yet
avowed, tendency of Tractarianism, is unquestionably
to " un-Protestantise the State," and, by so doing, to
.endanger the succession to the Throne. No one can
doubt this, who has read the mere recent productions
of the abettors of the heresy, wherein they take every
opportunity of sneering at the Reformation as a pub-
lic calamity to he deprecated, thereby shaking, or en-
deavouring to shake, the very foundations of the Pro.
testant fabric. While they thus aim their blows, now
openly, and now in secret, at one time from the pulpit,
at another time through the medium of the Press,
which absolutely groans beneath the weight and mul-
tiplicity of their tracts, sermons, addresses, pamphlets,
poems, &e.—while, we repeat, the Tractarians thus
aim their blows at the Reformed Faith, of which
they still profess to be the chosen ministers, they are
never weary of sounding the praises of the antago-
nist Church of Rome, and even holding up its idlest
mummeries as things worthy of public veneration.
All that Protestantism abjures, these zealots make a
point of reverencing. They strive to enforce the in-
vocation of Saints, the adoption of the Mass, the
worship of the Virgin, and—what is the most inju-
rious heresy of all—the practice of Auricular Con-
fession. As regards the Bible, they are indisposed to
the
great charter of eternal life
\amid much rather that it
and that the :community
direct from the priesthood,
obsequious deference to their
private judgment they are
and sentiments may be

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