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

Feb. 6, 1844.

IJNIVERSITY A\D CLLRICAL NEWS,

NSWER OF THE CHANCELLOR, THE
OF
VICE-CHANCELLOR, AND THE HEADS
HOUSES TO THE LAY ADDRESS AGAINST
THE TRACTARIAN PARTY.

To.sthe Right Honourable Lord Ashley and other Lay
'embers 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-
nittions, sent forth within the last few years, by several
distinguished members of the University, the tendency
of which, it has grieved you to observe, has been to ex-
cite dissstisfaction 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
aYmptoms 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 realm 4.
lt is undoubtedly true, that within the last few years
certain tracts or pamphlets have been pnblished 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 England, as embodied in
the Book 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 ticles,
and every candidate for a degree should again subscribe
the Thirty-nine Articles, and, in addition thereto, the
Three Articles in the 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.

JANUAY 26.
In a Congregation holden this day the following degre3s
Were conferred :
Masters of Arts.—Charles Kemble, Wadham College,
Grand Compounder; the Lord Viscount Cranley, Christ
Church ; Peter Leopold Dyke Acland, Christ Church ;
Rev. Thos. D'Oyly Walters, Christ Church ; Rev. H.
Wadham College; Rev. Charles Compton Don-
Tine, 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 Souls College ; Rev.
George Barons Northcote, Exeter College ; Rev. Charles
henry White, Oriel College • Rev. William Rogers, Bal-
Bo! College ; Rev. Hugh Bennett, Fellow of Worcester
College.
Bachelors of Arts.—Henry George Livius, Edmund
Ball; Henry Abud, Wadham College; Michael Seymour
Edgell, 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-
tam, Balliol College; Edward Vaughan Richards, Stu •
dent of Christ Church ; Thomas Offspring Btachall, Stu-
dent of Christ Church ; Richard Lowndes, Christ Church,
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 lasi , 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 Bisho
of Winchester has consented to preach the
atinni;yersary sPermon of the Society for Promoting Chris-
Eani.tY amongst the Jews on Thursday, May 2, at the
P:scoPal Jews' Cha el, Bethnal green.
It is not koown toPthe public,
Joint prodbut it should be, that a
volume,
a„ll,,ctinn. which will amount probably to an octavo
the subi. "" appear in the spring, is being prepared ons
linguistic of
Christian union, by many of the most di--
Land, inper men of the various Evangelical bodies of Scot-
Wardla;uuing the names of Chalmers and Candlish,
' iling, and others.— Watchman.
„nl] our last week's paper we mentioned the disinterested
noumn uct of _
"Jr Hook, the vicar of Leeds, by the an-
varisiclerrent Dr,
of his desire to divide that vet y extensive
blent, nwnder the provisions of the recent act of parlia-
been taken t e understand preliminary measures have already
;Prob• o divide the parish of Seulcoares, and that it
able the parishes of Holy Trinity and Sutton may
41 obe divided under the above-named statute.
Zt..,.4.1 discussion between the Rev. John Venn, Vicar of
a _Peter's, Hereford, and the Rev. Mr. Waterworth,
v. Catholic priest of Newark, is expected to commence in
xiereford in about ten days. Two chairmen (a Protestant
and Catholic) have been named, dwo iiha committee of fholics and have
• naarrde hew& affair is looked forward
Ca-
to with considerable inte're and
the
ha view to publication
afterwards, it is intended to sciiitreinitahseveseryrvices of two
able shorthand-writers.
handsomely
declared his Willingness to rna.ke upnau deficiency, should
the money collected not prove sufficient to cover the ex-
penses.Cheltenham Paper.
. LocRING PEWS IN CHURCHES.—An important meet-
lOg was held at Plymouth on the 15th ult., at which the
Lord I3ishop of Exeter presided. In the course of the
proceedings his Lordship deprecated the practice of de-
fraying the costs of the church services out of the pew
rents instead of by a church rate. He said that the
achurch rate was a common law obligation, a charge, not
tax, upon the
for the rich property of the land, and it was not right
th therefore, e
to sa-
y that they would not pay it, and that,
Paving been Poor should be shut out of the church. might be broken asked whether pews which were locked service open, his answer was, that during divine
ill no disturbance of the sacred and solemn rites was
lavd, but there were other means of reaching those who
dared to lock pews. No one had 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 AssußA2,7CE.—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,_nirn the present
be
F
position of affairs, almost ludicrous.it w
hard to find, in modern ecclesiastical annals, any sect or
party which had been more distinctly condemned by
Church authority than this. Convocation no longer ex-
isting, for any practical purpose, censure can only now be
inflicted by individual bishops or U niversity Boards. Bat
it stands on record, that on the Tracts for the Times
being brought into a focus, or general summary of princi-
Pies, 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 those tracts might be brought to a cos. That Dr.
raseY, in rank the first of the party, hasl beeen brought to
trial for a sermon preached before the University, and has
been found guilty, and suspended from preaching. That
Mr. Newman, the actual head, has also been induced, by
some
tonseen authority, but doubtless not of his own free-
"len, sign his church in Oxford, and to go into retire-
tli ot• That the
_British Critic, the remaining organ of
Bishop of
after
bounced having been pilblicly condemned by the
Peci) Salisbury in his charge, has at last been de-
by Mr. Palmer, one of the original founders of
the sect, and has, under the weight of all this public cen-
sure, been compulsorily discontinued. That about eigh-
teen or nineteen of the English prelates have, ex cathedra,
condemned the sect t;
and only two or three, and these not
rongst the highest in reputation, have hesitated in their
!ecisions. May we not repeat, with perfect confidence,
that at the present moment Tractarianism stands before
"1 the
as a condemned system ; as a heterodox
121:„"e,133e ; as something declared to be wrong and danger-
-'8 ' And yet, if we take up the Morning Post, or the
Loletters of Ridley" in the Times, we find throughout the
olest assunaptios that Dr. Pusey, the suspended, and
411 r. Newman, the deptived, are the very types and patterns
of true'odoxy • and that there are, in fact, no sound or
tworthyChurchmen but those wh foow in their footsteps ! We doubt, however, if it will be possible, by
any
ea
sure of assurance, to carry on this game much
longer.
T

- - ---
-r_.leo Gateshead Observer states that the corporation of
u, intend to apply to parliament next session for a
9;7, tax of sd. p
err e ton on coals, for improving the streets
"4e n