Litchfield enquirer., 1873-01-09
From Tie New York World. s1 THE CONFLICT OF THE cREEDs.

HE COMFLlCT OF THE CREEDS. I FREE THOUGHT IN THE ENGLISH CHURCH
 ELECTION OF DEAN STANLEY AS SPECIAL 1 PREACHER FOR oXF0RD-SIGNIFIcANCE OF THR EVENT. 1z l. LONDON, December 12.-The resident
 authorities of the University of Oxford
 nominate each alternate year & certain number of E'select preachers" for the Uni versity. These nominations are subject to the veto of s'conyocation," and convo- cation is made up of all the graduates residing in England. The majority of these graduates are country clergymen. Now, for many years custom has made
 this power of veto merely nominal one,
 and am not aware of a single instance in which it has been recently exercised. The University authorities have been SUD- posed to be sufficiently trustworthy judges
 of who were fit persons to preach to the
 students, and their appointments have been accepted until now without question.
 But when it was announced the other day that the authorities, in their appointment
 of preachers for the coming two years,
 had included Dean Stanley, cry of in- digpation broke out, and immediate steps
 were taken to revive the almost forgotten and obsolete power of ''convocation, and
 to bring up the rural clergy in body to Oxford to out vote the authorities and
 their supporters. Who is Dean Stanley, 1 and what has he done that he should be excluded from the pulpit of his Universi- ty, and that those who wished to place him there should be rebuked? That Is a question which may be answered in sev-
 eral ways. It may be said with perfect truth that no clergyman impersonates so 1 thoroughly and plainly as Dean Stanley does, the idea on which the Church of
 England IS founded. That idea is that
 the Church comprehends everybody and
 everything that wishes to be comprehend ed, and that within it's pale every shade
 of belief and unbelief can find a home.
 The Dean of Westminster is the broad
 est of all broad churchmen; he has equal charity for ritualist and for evangelical;
 he teaches that the church should em-
 brace Mir. Voysey on one hand and Df.
 Pusey on the other; and his favorite ar
 gument is that, as there is no such thing as absolute and perfect truth, there is no
 use in quarreling about fragments of it.
 Now, say Dean Stanley's friends, if 1t is
 wrong to defend the tolerance of the En-
 glish Church. then this tolerance must be a bad thing; but it is only by virtue of 1 exist at all. The clergymen who have hocked to Oxford to-day to say that thls tolerance Is so bad thing that the stu dents at that university must be proteet-
 ed from hearing 1t defended, are them selves enjoying place and pay and con- tlnulng to be members of the same Church only because this tolerance exists. Some or them are Roman Catholics in every thing but submission to the Pope: others are as evangelical" as Methodist or a Baptist; but they all continue to call
 themselves members of the Church of England simply because that Church fol- lows the line which Dean Stanley says is the right line, and leaves every man to be
 his own judge and his own Pope; and ] ii tLey condemn Dean Stanley for this is good sfate of things, sheg t5a t6a5 demn themselves, since they held their positions by virtue af this fact.
 suspect that this IS the strong side of the question, but it is interesting to ob. serve what is said on the other side.
 ssThe Church of England is very broad, it is true" say Dean Stanley's foes; "but tlaere are s,. limits beyond which, &c.,, and ! Dean Stanley has passed thes.- -l:..,its Not to put too fine point on 1t, he is @ nationalist, a Unitarian, scoffer at the virtue of holy orders, disbeliever in the | efficacy of the sacraments, and a delier of the inspiration of the Bible," I confess there are grounds for these accusations. Dean Stanley is a very charming speaker and the crowds who go to hear him eve | " Sunday at Westminster Abbey are alternately shocked at the purport of the words they hear and charmed by the beauty of the words themselves. In this old temple, in which still repose the ash es of Edward, saint and king. they hear words like these: 1.-The damnatory clauses of the Athar 6 Ean reed are not 10 | be believe;" ''the sacrament of baptism Is n 1t essential" the High Church doctrine of the real presence Is a superstition;
 ':the eucharistic sacrament IS only the to believe that three bishops, by laying ] dow him with any graces that he did not before possess or invest him with any new spiritual powers;" s'the doctrine of the verbal inspiration of the Scriptures IS ab- surd" The foes of Dean Stanley are not ! mealy y-mouthed in telling him to his face ] of these things. ''You are ill the habit, {" l writes one of them to him, ''of throwing the whole weight of your high character, your brilliant abilities, and your eminent l position into the support of the rational istic school which seeks to eliminate from Christianity both its doctrinal and its su- pernatural element, and to reduce 1t to system of moral truth, illustrated by 1 bright example, which, in regard to the, written word of God, claims the right of accepting only such parts of it as approve themselves to the natural reason and con- 1 science of man. T hold it to be the para mount duty of every churchman and ev- cry Christian to take every opportunity ot entering his protest against the views of this school, which honestly believe to l be undermining the faith of many young men, and paving the way for the total re- therefore it is that my name will appear among those who are endeavoring to op- pose your appointment and who intend to give an adverse vote when your name as
 select preacher is admitted to convOca- tion."'. -5sa sz s5 -- "
 "I cannot think, says another, ''that the advocate of the Westminster Abbey sacrilegious communion, the patron of l Mir. Vance Smith, the Unitarian teacher;
 the partisan of Mir. Voysey, the infdel; the avowed champion of negative and cloudy Christianity, which is really pre-
 paring the way for the rejection of all re-
 vealed truth, is fit person to be select
 ed to address the youth of this Univer-
 sity."
 Now, it is not surprising that that sec ton of the clergymen of the Establish ment who believe in the inspiration of the
 Bible, the supernatural efficacy of the sacraments. the virtue and necessity of
 holy orders, and the other dogmas of
 definite Christianity, should respond to
 the appeal made to them to come to Ok
 ford to-day and vote against Dean Stan ley's appointment. Nor is it any less
 surprising that the section who share
 Dean Stanley's opinions should rally to his defence. So into Oxford there were trooped to-day several hundreds of grad
 uates, lay and clerical, from all parts of
 the country. There were smooth-shayen
 ritualists and full-bearded broad chureA-
 men, evangelicals with voluminous white
 neckties, lawyers with cap, gowd and
 hood hidden in their brief-bags, and