The Sun.
London, England, 1842-11-25 00:00:00

tjs

LONDON :
FRIDAY MORNING. NOVEMBER 25, 1842.

We have received the following letter. Con-
sidering the important subject it refers to, and
the high authority it quotes, we publiSh it with-
out reluctance, notwithstanding the blame it
casts on us :
WORDSWORTH AND THE OXFORD
TRACTARIAN S.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN.
Sin,—Reading the lately published volume of our
great philosophic poet, Wordsworth (" Poems of Early
and Late Years"), I was struck with his notice (p. 402)
of the present Religious Movement, erroneously (for it
is of no locality) ascribed to the influence of the
writings of the Oxford divines, but, in reality, gene-
rated by a wide-spread feeling of disgust in the public
mind at the meagre and unsatisfactory nature of mo-
dern ultra-Protestantism, witliks self-indulgent prac-
tices, its effete and mawkish divinity; and the absence
of all self-denial and high and ennobling charac-
teristics, from its system. This conviction has been
deepened by the revival of the writings of our elder
divines—Hooker, Hammond,_ Bull, Taylor, Beveridge,
&c., those giants of our theological literature—and
the feeling is exercising a vast and increasing influence
over the more earnest and deeper minds of the United
States, as well as of Great Britain and her depen-
dencies. Nov, I could not help contrasting the calm
and reverential tone of the poet's observations—(bear
with me if I speak plainly, a-s I feel strongly)—with
the flippant character of some of your late remarks on
the same subject. May I, then, submit to your con-
sideration, and that of your readers, the opinion of
William Wordsworth—a name dear to all true Eng-
lish hearts, a witness most. unexceptionable, as a lay-
man and a bystander, whose sole interest can be to
vindicate that sound truth to, which he has dedicated
a long and beautiful life :—"lt would be ungenerous
not to advert to the religious movement that has made
itself felt, more or less strongly, throughout the Eng-
lish Church—a movement that takes for its first prin-
ciple a devout deference to the voice of Christian an-
tiquity. It is not my office to pass judgment on
questions of theological detail ; but my own repug-
nance to the spirit and system of Romanisrn has been
so repeatedly, and, I trust, feelingly expressed, that
I shall not be suspected of a leaning that way,
if I do not • join in the grave charge, thrown
out, perhaps,- in the heat of controversy,
against the learned and pious men to whose
labours I allude. I speak apart from contro-
versy ' • but, with strong faith in the moral temper
which could elevate the present by doing reverence
to the past, I would draw cheerful auguries for the
English Church from this movement, as likely to re-
store among us a tone of piety, more earnest and real
than that produced by the mere formalities of the un-
derstanding, reusing, n a degree which I cannot but
lament, that its own temper and judgment shall be
controlled by triose of antiquity."—Worinswoum
I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
Nov. 21, 1542. CANDIDUS.

We must, in justice to ourselves, deny the accu-
sation ofour cri tic. What he probably mistakes for
flippancy, is a sincere conviction different from his
own. The writer he quotes, and h e himself, have, and
the authors he alludes to had, a sincere reverence
for the English Church; we have as sincere a
conviction that it is totally unworthy of respect.
What does the writer himself say of it ?
That " ultra-Protestantism is meagre and unsa-
tisfactory; it is self-indulgent ; its divinity is effete
and mawkish; its system lacks all high and en-
nobling characteristics." Let us add, that the

Church is keheat on the public understanding.
It receives from the nation an imuce‘nse income,
under the pretence of instructing the people, and
devotes it to maintaining a proud and worthless
I priesthood in princely magnificence. It leaves
the people in the darkest ignorance, or rather
it labours to plunge them in ignorance, lest they
should learn their rights and their duties, which
are totally incompatible with priestly power.
We marvel at the mind of our Correspondent,
which can think of ultra-Protestantism as he
thinks, and reproach us for speaking without re-
verence for such a worldly fungus, planted on
the religious feelings of mankind.
The celebrated author he quotes, in common
with most reflectieg men, repudiates Romanist
on his own showing, ultra-Protestantism is
rather worse than Rotnanism, end thus there is
"wide-spread disgust in the public mind," and
a "religious movement in England and her de-
pendencies." But when the public mind has
been so imposed on by ultra-Protestantism and
Romanism, each in its turn, is there any flip-
pancy in holding back our confidence from the
Oxford divines? They may be very sincere, for
aught we know, and so may JOE SMITH, the
Mormon prophet. It happens, however, un-
fortunately for both, that great worldly advan-
tages will be the consequence of their success,
JOE SMITII will have numerous contributing
followers; and the Oxford divines, becoming
paramount in the Church, will be the recipients
of its vast wealth. We, then, are quite as sin-
cere in our disbelief of the great merit ascribed
to the Oxford divines and their writings, as our
Correspondent is sincore in his belief; and it is
no more flippant in us to express our want of
rei gt
newhe m measured
s
wosrpdesc
itsl it4a
rite
ait t is
refoverrleiinncietofois.
movement and its authors.

CANDIDUS refers to HOOKER, and the other
giants of our theological literature, few or none
of whom flourished since the Elector of HANO-
VER ascended the Throne. They were the im-
mediate children of the Reformation, and of
those troublesome times which followed it. They
had not seen the Anglican Church in quiet pos-
session of all its revenues and honours for a cen-
tury, and a half, and they had bright hopes,
which we know have been completely disap-
pointed, that it would be a blessing to the nation.
Had they seen the ministers of the English
Church slumbering in ease on their ye.
vet cushions for more than a century,
busy. only in plundering the endowments of
the poor, and flattering the rich, that
they might to be protected in their iniquity,
promoting no useful kno-Medge, but .trying to
impede its advancement, and bursting with
envy, spite, and anger when they were com-
pelled to exert themselves by the success of
Dissent,—had those strong-minded and honest
men seen ultra-Protestanism, as described by
CANDIDUS, they would have turned from it and
from the Church with greater disgust than does
the- public at present, and would -
,have repu-
diated, as we do, the notion of the Oxford
divines, that to establish the influence of re-
ligion the clergy must go backward, and take
refuge in the ignorance, superstition, and vice
of semi-Papism. If those giants referred to
Christian antiquity, it was to expose the errors
of Rome, and justify ultra-Protestantism ; the
Oxford divines refer to it to discard Pro-
testantism, to throw dirt on the Reformation,
and to justify that prostration of the understand-
ing before the priesthood which was the master
vice of Rome, and is the most injurious of all
superstitions. Fetiche worship is a mere idolatry
of wood and stones, which inflict no injury on
their devotees; the worship of the priesthood is
an idolatry of active, worldly, cunning, tyrannous
men, who use the power it bestows to debase
others and aggrandise themselves.
Let us, in conclusion, say one wordabout the an.
tiquity Mr. WORDSWORTH honours, and which is
described as flippant in us not to reverence. With
all respect to our great living Contemporary we
must obserVe that the ancients were only men
like ourselves. Their thoughts and their expres-
sions, except as they were more true, are no more
to be honoured than the thoughti of living men ;
but of that relative truth we must be the judges.
Over them we have many advantages. In rela-
tion to them we are the aged and hoary men of
the world. We possess whatever was preserved
oftheir experience, of the experience of all men
betwixt them and us, and we possess our own ex-
perience. While to them (and the more ancient
the people the more correct is the remark) almost
all phenomena, both of the external world and of
the mind, were irregular, unconnected, and extra-
ordinary,to us who have the hoarded experience of
so many more ages, the bulk of those phenomena,
both of the physical world and the mind,
however minute, as the cysts 'of little insects
which constitute diseases of the skin, or however
vast, like the motions of the comets, are all regu-
larly connected by one chain of cause and effect,
methodical and harmonious. For them things
were marvels, wonders, inexplicable, inspiration,
which we know to be and to have been part of
the regular and ordered course of that system
which has endured in unity, or oneness, with all
time changing and succeeding generations of men.
Having, therefore, so much more knowledge and
experience than the ancients, we must confirm
to think and assert, though it may be called flip-
pant by the priesthood, whose constant endea-
vour it is to vaunt, antiquity and depress living
men, that no useful reformation can be obtained
for the Church by consulting the works of anti-
quity. The generation have seen its errors; we
know pretty well what it can do and what i
cannot do ; we know, much better than the
ancients, what is required by our society; and
we tell the public to seek counsel rather from
the living than the dead.

..

-- -
IN A FEW DAYS WILL BE PUBLISHED, A

NEW CHINA SUN

With full and accurate descriptions of the Pro-
vinces, Inhabitants, and History of the Country,
with an Account of Recent Transactions brought
down to the present moment.
Sun-office, 112, Strand.

. •
;• _
*-s;c-,,' • 'tit
• ) •