The Sun.
London, England, 1842-01-25 00:00:00

Citt •

LONDON
TUESDAY, JANUARY 25, 1842.

The Reverend FRANCIS DIEDRICH WACNI..
ERBARTU, Bachelor of Arts of Queen's 'Col-
lege, Cambridge ; Honorary 'Corresponding
Member of the College of Civil Engineers; late
Priest of the Anglican Church; now a Priest
of the, Church of Rome, and destined, in
his 'own opinion, to figure in the Rubric some
two hundred dears hence as a canonised 'saint
and conf:nsor, has just published a very extra-'
ordinary pamphlet, under the curiously quaint
title of -" The Egyptian Bondage ; or, a Second
Call-to Union;" dedicated to that mystical con-
coctor of creeds, ST. ATHANASIUS, and addressed
to the benighted people of England. Whatever
importance -might otherwise attach to this pam-
phlet, neither its subject, nor the reputation of
its author (which, by the way, has yet to travel
beyond his title-pages), would provoke,us to no-
tice it, but for two reasons, which affect rather
the accidents of its publication than the tract
itself. The first is, that the Reverend author, a
very short time ago, so abused the Editor of the
Tablai for a supposed attack on his "brethren"
the Puseyites, ag to draw down upon himself the
rebuke of one of his spiritual superiors in the
Romish Church-=thus manifesting, by his ill-
timed zeal, the identification of his principles
with those of the Puseyite sect. The second
reason is, that he assures us in his Preface that this
tract was prepared by him " while a member of
the Established Church, and while it was his
full intention to remain within her pale." Mr.
WAC,KERBARTII, while a clergyman of the
Church of England was a Puseyite, and agree-
ably to the principles of Puseyisrn he composed
this pamphlet. Being manifestly, from his style
of writing, a man of warm imagination, and more
remarkable"for zeal than sound judgment, he
did not, like the Tractarians of Oxford, make
his approaches to Rome by gradually but surely
sapping the foundations of the Anglican Church.
naturally a fanatic, he could not drill his mind
into •the adoption of the zigzag shiftings Lnd
turnings of hypocrisy. What Puseyisui
vately inculcated lie thought it a sin not to pro-
claim and to . practice. Hence- his pamphlet is
important as a real exposition of the principles of
the Puseyitcs, arid of those of many. clergymen
who, with intentions less pure than Mr. WAcs-.1.7.n-
BARTH, are resolved to "live and die within the
pale" of a Church which compensates for want
of faith by superabundance of pelf—;which
makes up for schism by rich benefices and ec-
clesiastical sinecures. Hear, then, how an -An-
glican priest, resolved to "live and die" within
the pale of the Church could write of the Lu-
theran Reformation :
It is evident to every person who has eyes to see
withal, that the Church of England, as at present con-
stituted, does not answer its purposes • nor is this to be
wondered at ; for while, instead of bewailing and la-
bouring to remove the deplorable schism which rends us
from the rest of Christendom, the greater number of us
will rejoice therein, and speak thereof as of a thing
that is " glorious,"—while we hear on all sides among
us such phrases as "our glorious separation from Rome,'
" our . happy deliverance from Papal dominion," and the
like,—while so many thousands in our communion
proudly boast, like the Pharisee, of their own purity,
and revile as antichrist our holy and apostolic mother,
blindly thanking God that they are not as other men
are, nor even as the mother church of Christendom,—it
is indeed with but faint and flickering hope that we
can look out for Heaven's blessing on our labours.
The withering curse of Erastianism has eaten its way
into the very heart of the people, and they have learned
to look upon God's Church merely as an engine of the
State, and are content with those sad fragments of the
Gospel which the tyranny .a•ad rapacity of the libidi-
nous monsters of the sixteenth century have left them
_nay, they- will even rejoice in having lost the rest ;
they will patiently, and even ••approvingly, look on,
while the high dignities of God's Church are made the
reward, of the vilest political profligacy,--while rich
benefices, prebends,, deaneries, • and, alas! even the thrones
of the apostolic order, are lavished upon men without-
principle and without devotion, as the pay of simonious
electioneering service, or • the' price •of support in Par-
liament,—or, at best, as a provision for a pauper rela-
five or hanger-on of some person in political pow',/..
0 Amazement and. horror are come to pass in the hand ;
the prophets prophesy in deceit,• and the P--Ti4ce.s domi-
neer by their hands, and my people love to 'oe „.,,
feel Versuaded that there is but one way to, put an end
to this miserable state of corruption and `ecular bondage,
and. that way is to repent speedily-, 'and return to the
obedience•of faith ;—to replace the. Church of England
under- the dominion of Christ: s appointed Universal
Yicar, that the weight of I.,is sacred authority may
counterbalance the hopeless, corruption of the State. I
avow, then, once for al:/b that my object is to repeal
the Reformation, whiell maintain to be the vilest hoax
whereby a nation v:as ever defrauded of its faith and
freedom, or God' ,s. poor robbed of their subsistence,—to
recongregate rrAy ce,untry men within the fold of God's
shepherd Catholio--whence, for libidinousness and ra-
pacityd's sake, brutal tyrant 'Henry the Eighth de-
so e thern,---to free them from State-bondage in holy
things, and to bring them once more to the enjoyment
of that holy peace and Christian liberty which spring
from e;nity of faith and righteousness of life Such is
my avowed object;—to which I desire to consecrate my
le, 121 y labour, and all that I have to offer ; as
men's minds and notions are now formed, my prospect
is but dark, aid well nigh desperate ;—and iris with a
heavy heart, and distant misgiving hopes, that I 'address
myself to so great a task.

The open avowal of such sentiments as these is
not likely to please the cunning Pueyite, albeit
written by one of the sincerest of their fraternity.
Mr. WiteicEnnAwrit next proceeds to expose and
denounce the three " grand locks whereby the
chains of the Anglican Church are rivetted."
The Rev. Gentleman is certainly no great master
of style, but that is his affair, not ours. These
" locks" are, firstly, usurped patronage or inves,
titure, which Mr. WACKERBARTH would take out
of the hands of Kings and Kings' concubines,and
restore to the Holy See; secondly, the concu-

binage of the clergy; and, thirdly, impropria-
tions. It would be an insult to the good taste and
Christian feeling of our readers to quote all the
ribaldry against the Church of England which
Mr. WACKERBARTH has written under these
these several heads. The title of the second,
" concubinage of the clergy, " proves that it was
written before he had made himself fully ac-
quainted with the doctrines of the Romish
Church. That Church never charged our clergy
with the crime of concubinage, because it has
never been brought to admit that Holy Orders
exist in the Church of England. This is one of
the sorest points touched upon by the Puseyites,
and the one which has given most mortification
to Church of England divines. Thus, if a Roman
Catholic priest enter the communion of the
Church of England his ordination previously is
acknowledged valid, and he can at once enter
upon the discharge of the priestly functions. But
a clergyman of the Church of England on em-
bracing the faith of Rome, is but a layman, and
before he can administer the sacraments he must
here-ordained by a Prelate of the Romish Church.
In the eyes,
therefore, of Roman Catholic divines
the Anglican priests are mere laymen, and there.:
fore as well entitled to marry as other members
of the community. This our clergy look upon