y

DR. PUSEY IN COLLISION WITH THE BISHOP
OF OXFORD.

To the Editor of the Standard. Oxford, Dec. 6.
Sir,
The Bishop of Oxford, in a Charge delivered May, 1842,
addressed the following admonition to certain members of
the Tractarian party : —
" I must take leave to tell those persons, whoever they are,
that they are doing no good service to the Church of England,
by their recent publication of manuals of private devotion,
extracted from the Breviary and similar sources, by inserting
therein no small portion of highly objectionable matter, and
tacitly, if not openly, encouraging young persons to be dis
satisfied with what God has given them, and to look on the
contents of our admirable Liturgy as insufficient to meet the
wants of a Catholic mind."
Now, Sir, for a very long time the Tractarians were looked
upon with favour by really sound Churchmen, and by nobody
more than by the Bishop of Oxford himself, for their supposed
reverence for episcopal authority. In his Charge delivered
in 1838 his Lordship remarked, that he " had the best reasons
for knowing that they would be the first to submit themselves
to that authority, which it has been their constant exertion
to uphold and defend;" and Dr. Pusey in return, after thank
ing his Lordship for bestowing upon his party " a refreshing
and paternal praise," assured him that " to obey his godly
ADMONITIONS, AND TO FOLLOW HIS GUIDANCE, "WAS THEIR
EARNEST DESIRE"." Even as late as the year 1842 he
remarked, in a Letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury,
s> Letter to the Bishop, p. 238.

MVjg5

" Much confusion has arisen from people's forgetting that
IT IS TO OUR ow^N DiocESAN, not to Other Bishops, that we
OWE OBEDIENCE. All we should respect for their office sake,
but IT IS TO OUR OWN THAT WE ARE TO LISTEN '."
Will it then be believed, that in the very teeth of his
Lordship's remonstrance against the pubhcation of " manuals
of devotion extracted from the Breviary, and similar sources,"
Dr. Pusey has edited, in the course of the present year, two
Romish books of devotion, which he professes to have
" adapted to the use of the Enghsh Church .?" — one of them,
" The Foundations of the Spiritual Life," by Surin, a Jesuit —
and that Mr. Burns, his publisher, threatens us with no less
than 15 other similar works, " mostly in preparation;" one of
them " Spiritual Exercises, by Saint Ignatius Loyola" ! ! !
But your readers will, no doubt, be curious to learn some
thing of the works which have already appeared. I will take
that which I have already named — " Surin on the Spiritual
Life;" and I think that I shall have little difficulty in proving,
that in adapting it to the use of the English Church, Dr.
Pusey has further ran counter to the wishes of his Diocesan,
by inserting therein " no small portion of highly objection
able matter."
In a preface extending over no less than 68 pages (Dr.
Pusey never writes very briefly) he informs us, that Surin had
confided to him " an undertaking delicate and perilous," viz.
the spiritual direction of a convent of Ursulines, " only half
of which, with the superior, were thought to be possessed by
the devil ! !" " He himself was not permitted to escape the
torments which they endured. On Good Friday of 16.35 he
also fell into a most extraordinary state, and passed nearly
two years in an alternation of conflicts and calm." After a
temporary recovery, he again fell into an almost indescribable
state, in the enjoyment of his reason, and yet deprived of the
outward exercise of his faculties, he could neither walk, talk,
nor write, and was continually assailed by violent tempta
tions- In this humiliating condition it was thought neces-
^ Letter to the Arohbishop of Canterbury, p. 39.

sary to his safety to keep him in confinement " ; and yet it
was during this very period of son-ows, that he composed
the " Foundations of the Spiritual Life," which was written
under his dictation as soon as he was able to speak, and is
the very work which Dr. Pusey has edited, and " adapted to
the use of the English Church." " At the end of more
than 20 years this violent state subsided by degrees. Surin
recovered in 1658 the use of his faculties, and resumed his
correspondence after a long interruption."
This most extraordinary story Dr. Pusey relates upon the
authority of the " Biographie Universelle," but that he him
self believes it is clear from a passage in his preface (p. xl.),
in which he remarks that Surin was led by what in later
times has been a rare way, " direct visible conflict, as it
seems, with Satan. He was brought into the trial in the way
of duty, as sent by his superiors to succour religious persons,
over whose bodies God had allowed Satan to have power,"
aud " seems to have suffered in some way, which they only
may understand who, themselves holy, have been brought
into contact with (' have,' in his own words ' touched') the
Evil One." Upon referring to Dr. Pusey's authority, I was
amused at finding that he had prudently omitted the follow
ing note. " Southwell (a Jesuit chronicler) attributes Surin's
state, which he looks upon as the efiect of witchcraft, to a
potion which some magicians had given him, while he was
asleep ; and adds, that Father Surin, in his desire for the
grace of humility, had earnestly prayed to God that he might
come to be regarded as a fool (' tenu pour un insense'), and
that his prayer was heard, (' quod et reapse tandem obtinuit')."
From another article (Grandier) in the same " Biographical
Dictionary," we learn, that two eminent writers, who lived
contemporary with Surin, looked opon the Loudun posses
sions as chimerical, and that subsequent historians for the
most part had regarded the nuns as poor crazed women,
whose imaginations had been acted upon by designing
persons, in order that they might play a certain game.
•= In England, as Surin could neither walk nor talk, such a measure woul*
have been considered unnecessary.

4
Of course, after so extraordinary a statement, Dr. Pusey's
readers will be surprised at nothing. At p. xxi. he informs
us, that our Lord said to St. Catherine, " I am He that Is,
and thou art she who is not :" and, at p. xii, that temptations
of the flesh were suddenly, at once, removed from St. Francis
and St. Thomas Aquinas ; that St. Peter of Alcantara, lost
the power of distinguishing food; that St. Thomas Aquinas
often knew not what he had eaten ; and that St. Catharine
of Sienna lived for a length of time on no food but the Holy
Eucharist." The only wonder is, that, believing such miracles.
Dr. Pusey should remain out of visible communion with the
Church in which they occurred, and continue a Canon of
Christ Church and Professor of Hebrew in a Protestant
University. I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
A Senior Member of the University of Oxford.

YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

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