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

Feb• 6, 1844.

UNIVERSITY AAD CLERICAL

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

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-
c,a, ti°oB, sent forth within the last few years, by several
ti
members of the University, the tendency
of which it has grieved you to observe, has been to ea-
cite diss,:tisfaction with the principles f 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 realms.
It 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 Protestant Church of England, 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 At 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.

JANUARY 26.
In a Congregation holden this day the following degrees
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.
Hill, Wadham College ; Rev. Charles Compton Don-
Yale, Wadham College; Rev. William Thomson. Scholar
of Queen's College; Rev. Temple Hamilton Chase Mi-
ch
ric el, Fellow of Queen's College; Hon. Adolphus Frede-
k 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
Hall; 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-
ham, Balliol College ; Edward Vaughan Richards, Stu..
dent of Christ Church; Thomas Offspring Blachall, 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
a.PPointed by John Fowden Hindle, Esq.. High Sheriff
'or this county for the present year, as his chaplain.
'Was
The new church of St. Paul, at Forebridge, Stafford,
pchficonsecrated on Thursday last, by the Lord Bishop of
eld, in the presence of Viscount Sandon and a very
large as
'I, —B"nblage of ladies and gentlemen of the county.
...he ti,h
aianiversar
tianit °P of Winchester has consented to preach the
y anion seri:non of the Society for Promoting Chris.
Episcopal°ngst the Jews on Thursday, May 2, at the
je_ ,
It's ~,„ '8 Chapel, Bethnal-green.
ioint prAw:iL known to the public, but it should be, that a
volub,e "s•liction, which will amount probably to an octavo
the . ~. and appear in the spring, is being prepared on
• guoject -• • • • • ost dis-
bums, of Chran union. by many of the m t
languished , neel men of the various Evangelical bodies of S
war,Peluding the names of Chalmers and Candlish,
.r 'Jaw, King, and others.—Watchman.
4n
conduct 13nr last week's paper we mentioned the disinterested
no of Dr. Hook, the vicar of Leeds, by the an-
par of his desire to divide that vei y extensive
Parish
Zentunder the provisions of the recent act of parlia-
We understand preliminary measures have already
en taken to divide the parish of Sculcoares, and that it
is Probable the parishes of Holy Trinity and Sutton may
Idso be divided under the above-named statute.
A discussion between the Rev. John Venn, Vicar of
St. 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.
afterwards, it is intended to secure a v
theiew to publication
services of two
able shorthand-writers. Mr. Venn very
declared his willingness to make up any
y efici handsomelyency, should
the money collected
riot prove sufficient to cover the ex-
Penses.—Cheltenham Paper.
LOCKING PEWS is: CHURCHES.—An important meet-
ing was held at Plymouth on the 15th ult., at which the
Lord ashop 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
church rate was a common law obligation, a charge, not
a tax, upon the property of the land, and it was not right
therefore
for the rich to say that they would not pay it, and that,
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 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 ASSURANCE.—The confidence—thtaerTp-
parently increasing confidence—with which the T
rac an
journalists persist in assuming that they are the only
sound and orthodox Churchmen, becomes, in the present
position of affairs, almost ludicrous. For it would be
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
inflictedin by individual bishops or University Boards.
But
stands on record, that on the Tracts for the Times
being brought into a focus, or general summary of princi-
Ples, 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
?_f
sthose tracts might be brought to a close. That Dr.
ni cY, in rank the first of the party, has been brought to
trial y, for a sermon preached before the University, and has
been found
p geiltY, and suspended from preaching. Th t
* -winan, the actual head, has also been induced, by
some unseen authority, but doubtless not of his own free-
will, tore nthsig his church in Oxford, and to go into retire-
!neut. That e British Critic, the remaining organ of
the party, after havin been publicly condemned by the
Bishop
,of Salisbury ing his charge, has at last been de-
the by Mr. Palmer, one of the original founders of
_ e sect, and has, under the weight of all this public cen-
!tire, and
has,
discontinued. That about eigh-
Leende or nineteen of the English prelates have, ex cathedra,
conmned the sect ; and only two or three, and these not
cm the
the highest in reputation, have hesitated in their
tieleisions. May we not repeat, with perfect confidence,
Lat et the present moment Tractarianism stands before
:tun Charch asa condemned system ; as a heterodox
„..lielne ; as something declared to be wrong and danger-
IX • And yet, if we take up the Morning Post, or the
danger-
letters of ‘ 4
eoOrl.eNst_ Ridley in in the Times, we find throughout the
zastxptioyns, that Dr. Pusey, the suspended, and
the deprived, are the very types and patterns
.of. ortf7odoxy • and that there are, in fact, no sound or
trust
tonotszoprstby Churchmen but those who follow in their
I We doubt, however, if it will be possible, by
10 Y tneasure of assurance, to carry on this game much
nger.
Thr

- - - —
T - Gateshead Observer states that the corporation of
13'_u_lon intend to apply to parliament next session for aax of sd. per ton on coals, for improving the streets
%AI Metr r
opo is.