The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1844-02-06 00:00:00

Feb. 6, 1844.

UNIVERSITY AND CLERICAL NEIVS.

,NSIVER OF THE CHANCELLOR, THE,
VICE-CHANCELLOR, AND THE HEADS OF
HOUSES TO THE LAY ADDRESS AGAINST
THE TRACTARIAN PAU,TY.

•To the Right Honourable Lord Ashley and other Lay
Members of the United Church of England and Ire-
land.
We have received, and have had for some time under
our consideration, the letter addressed to us by your lord-
ship and other gentlemen, in our character as the re-
sponsible Governors of the University of Oxford, on the
subject of sentiments diffused by means of various publi-
os,tions, sent forth within thelast few years, by several
alatioguished members of the University, the tendency
I)! which, it has grieved you to observe, has been to ex-
cite disc tisfaction with the principles of our Reformed
Church, as embodied in the Book of Common Prayer,
and especially in the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion.
After stating the opinion of your lordship, and of the
gentlemen who, with your lordship, have signed this let-
ter, of the great national evils which will he the result of
any deviation from the Protestant character of the Church
of England, and the alarm with which you have observed
symptoms of such deviation, which have appeared in the
opinions avowed by some whose station in the Univer-
sity gives them extensive influence over the younger por-
tion of the academical body ;
Your lordship, and the gentlemen who, with your lord-
ship, have signed this letter, call upon us, the authorities
of the University, to take such steps as are open to us
for protecting the youth committed to our superintending
care from the dangerous influence referred to, and for
securing to them, for the future, such tuition as is in
strict aecordance with the Protestant Church of Eng-
land and the Constitution of these realmq.
It is undoubtedly true, that within the last few years
certain tracts or pamphlets have been published by seve-
ral distinguished members of the University, containing
opinions and sentiments considered by many to be not
conformable to, or consistent with, the doctrines of the
Reformed Pr itestant Church of En eland, as embodied in
the Bonk of Common-prayer, and in the articles of reli-
gion called " The Thirty-nine Articles."
The opinions and doctrines contained in these tracts
or pamphlets have been considered, discussed, and replied
to in other publications, and those discussions have, at
different times, attracted more or less of the public at-
tention.

Against the prevalence, however, of erroneous opi-
nions among its members generally, the University pos-
sesses a safeguard in the statute enacted more than two
centuries ago, which provides that every candidate for
matriculation should subscribe the Thirty-nine Ai titles,
and every candidate ft.r a degree should again subscribe
the Thirty-nine Articles, and, in addition thereto, the
Three Articles in tile 36th Canon.
The authorities of the University have not lost sight
of their duty in enforcing a strict compliance with this
statute ; nor have they shown themselves indifferent to
the improvement of religious instruction within the Uni-
versity. For, when her Majesty was enabled, by recent
Acts of the Legislature, to provide for the foundation,
maintenance, and regulation of additional Professorships
of Divinity, the authorities of the University, with the
assistance of Convocation, adopted every measure for
which they were competent, to carry into execution the
views of Government and of Parliament. And they
trust that, by perseverance in a course of moderation and
watchfulness, they will be enabled, under the Divine
blessing,
to train up the youth committed to their care in
the pure principles of the Reformed Church of England.
WELLINGTON, Chancellor,
P. WINTER, Vice-Chancellor,
On behalf of the Heads of Houses.

JANUARY 26.
In a Congregation holden this day the following degrees
were conferred :
Masters of Arta.—Charles Kemble, Wadham College,
Grand Compounder • the Lord Viscount Cranley, Christ
Church ; Peter Leopold Dyke Acland, Christ Church ;
RBill, ev. Thos. D'Oyly. Walters, Christ Church ; Rev. H.
Wadham College • Rev. Charles Compton Don-
vine, Wadham College;'Rev. William Thomson. Scholar
of Queen's College • Rev. Temple Hamilton Chase Mi-
chel, Fellow of Queen's College; Hon. Adolphus Frede-
rick Octavius Liddell, Fellow of All Souls College ; Rev.
George Barons Northcote, Exeter College ; Rev. Charles
Henry White, Oriel College; Rev. William Rogers, Bal.
liol College • Rev. Hugh Bennett, Fellow of Worcester
College.
Bachelors of Arts.—Henry George Livius, Edmund
Ball; Henry Abud, Wadham College; Michael Seymour
dgell, Oriel College; William Henry Townsend Hotch-
ins, Scholar of Lincoln College ; Charles Henry S. Golly,
Lincoln College; John Maurice Foster, Lincoln College;
John Swire, University College ; John William Syden-
ham, Balliol College; Edward Vaughan Richards, Stu
dent of Christ Church; Thomas Offspring Blachall, Stu-
dent of Christ Church ; Richard Lowndes, Christ Chula,
Ralph Ludlow Lopes, Christ Church ; Charles George
Douton, Christ Church.

MACMULLEN V. HAMPDEN.—This case has been put
an end to by the plaintiff declining to appeal within the
specified time, consequently the decision of the •• Dele-
gates in Congregation" in favour• of the Regius Professor
of Divinity remains undisputed.

THE HIGH SHERIFF'S CHAPLAIN.—The Rev. Dr.
Whittaker, the respected Vicar of Blackburn, has been
appointed by John Fowden Hindle, Esq.. High Sheriff
for this county for the present year, as his chaplain.
The new church of St. Paul, at Forebridge, Stafford,
Was consecrated on Thursday lase , by the Lord Bishop of
Lichfield, in the presence of Viscount Sandon and a very
large assemblage of ladies and gentlemen of the county.
The
anni Bishop of Winchester has consented to preach the
versary
tianitySermon of the Society for Promoting
amongst the Jews on Thursday, May 2, at the
PiseoPal Jews' Chapel, Bethnal green.
joint
It is not k
produc nown to the public, but I't should be, that a
Yoltun . a
e tko, which will amount probably to an octavo
the sub and
aPPear in the spring, is being prepare on
land,
°t Christian union, by many of the most dis-
bodies of Scot-
land, i ionl. cc of the various Evangelical
Ward!" -ine the names of Chalmers and Candlish,
aVV, King, and others.—Watchman.
41100 duct
In our last week's paper we mentioned the disinterested
Dr. Hook, the vicar of Leeds, by the an-
.2u.neeeteent of his desire to divide that ve. y extensive
beeps.Zh under the provisions of the recent act of parlia-
We understand preliminary measures have already
~ taken to divide the parish of Sculcoares, and that it
la Probable the parishes of Holy Trinity and Sutton may
also be divided under the above-named statute.
_ A discussion between the Rev. John Venn, Vicar of
Nt. Peter's, Hereford, and the Rev. Mr. Waterworth,
Catholic priest of Newark, is expected to commence in
Hereford in about ten days. Two chairmen (a Protestant
and Catholic) have been named, with a committee of Ca-
tholics and Protestants ; and the affair is looked forward
to with considerable interest. With a view to publication
afterwards, it is intended to secure the services of two
able shorthand-writers. Mr. Venn has very handsomely
declared his willingness to make up auy deficiency, should
the money collected not prove sufficient to cover the ex-
penses.—Cheltenham Paper.
LOCRiNG PEWS IN CHURCHES.—An important meet-
ing was held at Plymouth oil the 15th ult., at which the
Lord Bishop of Exeter proceedings his Lordshi p
presided. In the course of the
deprecated th practi de-
fraying the costs of the
church servicese out ofce theof pew
rents instead of by a church rate. He said that the
church rate was a common law obligation, a charge, not
for t upon the property of the land, and it was not right
the rich to say that they would not pay it, and that,
therefore, the poor should be shut out of the church.
Having been asked whether pews which were locked
might be broken open, his answer was, that during divine
service no disturbance of the sacred and solemn rites was
lawful, but there were other means of reaching those who
dared to lock pews, No one bad a right to do so, and he
hoped that churchwardens would take measures to remove
this state of things wherever it existed. His lordship
also condemned the practice of locking the doors of
churches during divine service.
TRACTARIAN Asso RANCE.—The confidence—the ap-
parently increasing confidence—with which the Tractarian
journalists persist in assuming that they are the only
sound and orthodox Churchmen, becomes, in the
i
position of affairs, almost ludicrous. For t wou
hard to find, in modern ecclesiastical annals, any
sect or
by
party which had been more distinctlycondemned
Church authority than this. Convocation no longer ex-
isting, for any practical purpose, censure
can only now be
inflicted by individual bishops or University Boards.. But
it stands on record, that on the Tracts for thelies.
being brought into a focus, or general summary of Times
being
Plea, in No. 90, a public condemnation was issued by the
Hebdomadal Board of the University of Oxford.
That
this was followed up by a desire (amounting to a command)
expressed by the Bishop of the diocese, that the publication
of th tracts might be brought to a close. That Dr.
PuseY, in rank the first of the party, has been brought to
btriaeen l for a sermon preached before the University, and has
found guilty, and suspended from preaching. That
Mr. Newman, the actual head, has also been induced, by
some unseen authority, but doubtless not of his own free-
will, to resign his church in Oxford, and to go into retire-
thernentThat the _British Critic, the remaining organ of
party, after
having been publicly condemned by the
Bishop of Salisbury in his charge, has at last been de-
nounced by Mr. Palmer, one of the original founders of
the Beet, and has, under the weight of all this public cen-
nre, and
has,
discontinued. That about eigh-
'een or nineteen of he English prelates have, ex cathedra,
condemned the sects; and only two or three, and these not
,1131".gst the highest in reputation, have hesitated in their
_ecistons. May we not repeat, with perfect confidence,
that at the present moment Tractarianism stands before Church as a condemned system ; as a heterodox
she
; as something declared to be wrong and danger-
letters ? And yet, if we take up the Morning Post, or the
!etters of " Ridley" in the Times, we find throughout the
‘,1c4e,,,,,,at assumptions, that Dr. Posey, the suspended, and
fr*""tviman, the deprived, are the very types and patterns
(t) orthodoxy ; and that there are, in fact, no sound or
frUatworthy Churchmen but those who follow in their
tt°:tatePs ! We doubt, however, if it will be possible, by
) S Measure of assurance, to carry on this game much
4ciger.
Thr

ae Gat z _
Od eiaad Observe). states that the corporation of
134-aoewtoan intes
nd to apply to parliament next session for a
of th of sd. per ton on coals, for improving the streets
Metropolis.