A Lecture

DELIVERED AT

SOUTHAMPTON, READING, AND PORTSEA,

BY

THE REV. WILLIAM BROCK, M. A.

Of Queen's College, Oxford, and Rector of Bishop's Waltham, Hants.

WITH AN

INTRODUCTORY LETTER

TO THE

RIGHT REV. THE LORD BISHOP OF OXFORD

ON

LIBERTY OF SPEECH.

"In order to re-establish a religion and a morality in Europe, in order to
give to truth the strength it requires for the conquest it meditates, it is an
indispensable preliminary to efface from the European dictionary that fatal
word Protestantism."-LE MAISTEE.

London: HATCHARD, Piccadilly; SHAW, Paternoster Row.
Edinburgh: JOHNSTONE & HUNTER, 104, High Street.
Dublin: OLDHAM, Suffolk Street; WALBROOK, 40, Lower
Ormond Quay.

-

Price Sixpence.

1855

Tractarian Books of Popular Instruction and Devotion 121

Late Proceedings against the ex-Archdeacon Wilberforce . 125

ERRATA.

Page 11. References, Bishop of Exeter's Pastoral, for 1851
read 1854.

Page 48. Quotation from Dublin Review, for mere read own.

Page 61. At the beginning of the fifth line insert the words,
"by intruding."

CHEC

BODLE

THE irritation and excitement that are invariably produced amongst the Tractarian party in the Church whenever such Lectures as the following are delivered is a proof of their necessity and importance. "Whatsoever doth make manifest is light:" and when the light is annoying to us, it is a pretty good evidence that we are either in an unhealthy state, or not very creditably engaged. I have noticed repeatedly that there is nothing which is more offensive to the Tractarians than to call attention to their operations and to ventilate their principles in public. This is not surprising. The anti-Protestant movement in the Church has been admitted to be a conspiracy. The term conspirators" was adopted by one at least of those who were engaged in the movement, and applied by him to the rest. The light, therefore, which, by means of the Pulpit, the Platform, or the Press, is let in upon the plans and progress of the "Conspirators" must needs be very unwelcome to them; but by all honest and loyal members of the Church, as well as by all well-wishers to the Throne and Constitution of these realms, it will be deemed both safe and salutary for this light to be as widely diffused as possible. " Truly the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the sun."

66

"

Bishop M'Ilvaine has compared the Oxford system to the operations of the " sapper," who while men sleep is digging at the base" of the fortifications, and "works unseen in the mine." We can well understand that such secret workers would always be seriously embarrassed and impeded by the light breaking in upon their work. Bu ought we not, for that very reason, to let in the fight, and allow the "sappers" to be seen? Are we to give no alarm of their stealthy approaches against our bulwarks? "In the dark they

dig through houses which they had marked for themselves in the day-time: they know not the light: for the morning is to them even as the shadow of death.” Are we then to play their game by keeping silence, and, as it has been absurdly and treacherously said even by some in our own ranks, for peace-sake to let the Tractarians alone?" That is, in plain words, are we to let the sappers and miners quietly go on with their insidious and destructive work? Are we to ignore the danger, and, for the sake of a present peace, allow the foundations of our Protestant Christianity to be silently picked to pieces, and the citadel to be surrendered without a struggle?

I am deeply thankful that my own Right Rev. Father in God has supplied his clergy with an indig nant negative to this question, however many there may be amongst the professedly Protestant portion of them who are content with a silent and a secret protest. The Bishop of Winchester's words to us in 1845 were these, and he has reminded us of them since: The one great object on which, as it seems to me, the Lord's watchmen are bound to keep their eyes steadily fixed, under existing circumstances, is the aspect of Romanism in its position relative to our Church. Not to see the perils that menace from that quarter would be, I think, the blindness of infatuation: to see them and not to lift up the standard against them, if not treachery would be cowardice."(Bishop of Winchester's Charge, 1845, p. 31.)

I am well and painfully aware of the fearful inroads which infidelity and scepticism are making on our borders. But what is this owing to, in a great measure, but to the spread of Anglican Popery amongst us? We are now beginning to reap the legitimate fruits of this heresy. We have sown the wind and we reap the whirlwind. "If many years ago Dr. Pusey had been condemned by the Bishops and degraded by