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A LETTER

TO THB

REV. E. B. PUSEY, D.D.
REGIUS PROFESSOR OF HEBREW, AND CANON OF CHRIST CHURCH,
ON THE
- PUBLICATION OF No. 90.
OP THE
TRACTS FOR THE TIMES.

WILLIAM SEWELL, M.A.
PROFESSOR OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY IN THE UNIVERSITY
OF OXFORD.

Second Edition, with a Postscript.

OXFORD,
JOHN HENRY PARKER ;
J. G. F. AND J. RIVINGTON, LONDON.
1841.

BAXTER, PRINTER, OXFORD.

My Dear Pusey,
I have been told, that letters have been written
to yourself and to others, expressing the opinions
of individuals on the last-published Tract for the
Times, No. 90. And in the position in which
you are placed, it may be desirable that you
should know as much as possible of the sen
timents of those around you. With the feelings
which I, like so many others, have always
entertained towards yourself and the other Au
thors of the Tracts, I would not willingly leave
you to learn my own sentiments from common
report, which would probably misrepresent them.
And however distressing it is to differ from you,
it seems to be my duty, for many reasons, to
avow at once openly, that the publication of the
Tract has caused me the most serious pain.
I may not be disposed to take precisely the
same line of objection which has been taken
by others. That the Articles were not intended
as a body of dogmatical teaching, but as marks
set upon certain existing errors, to warn us
against them, leaving the whole space between
them free and open, would appear to be an
A 2

obvious fact, recognized by our best divines, and
perfectly in harmony with the true spirit of a
Catholic Church. To treat the Articles as a
regular system of theology, or to erect such a
system and impose its reception by authority,
would probably be a serious evil. But on a careful
and repeated perusal of the Tract, it did to my own
mind convey intimations, which if unintentionally
suggested through incautious expressions, would
still, at such a moment as the present, be most
deeply to be lamented; and if intended, must be
open to considerable discussion, and I will add,
in my own view, to the gravest objections.
But I wish most distinctly and emphatically
to state, that I am describing only the impression
on my own mind, and not presuming to assert
that I have caught the real meaning of the
author. If I am mistaken, it will be a subject
of great satisfaction. And the fact of my own
misconception may prove an apology for others,
who may have been similarly misled with
myself. I allude especially to the disparaging language
in which the Articles appear to be spoken of, —
the representation of them as a bondage, rather
than as a safeguard, — and the suggestion, that
their latitude, and so called ' ambiguity,' is an evil
to be deprecated, and to be palliated for the
present only by a forced strain of the gram
matical meaning ; instead of exhibiting these cha-

racteristics, especially in this place, in the true
light of a most wise and charitable moderation,
and a blessing for which we should be thankful.
Farther, it was difficult not to infer the con
templation in the mind of the writer of some
future and unexplained changes in the external
system of the Church. It is guarded indeed
with certain conditions for the present, but with
such as seem by no means sufficient to allay
or restrain the natural discontent, and tendency
to rash, restless reform, which must be created
by the language in which the present condition
of the Church is described ; not as regards
the sins of her individual members, (for in this
no change can be enforced too earnestly,) but
in her " formularies," " precedents," and " prin
ciples." If the " body of death," which we are
now said t,o bear about, is applied to her system
as established in " uncatholic times," such is
surely not the tone in which our greatest divines
have been accustomed to speak of the Church of
England, especially as distinguished from the
Church of Rome. If it apply to any external op
pression from the State, we have, individually, a
simple remedy in the patient, obedient, but faithful
and bold performance by each of us of our several
duties, as they are enjoined on us by the express
command of God ; and any fetters with which
the State has bound us will then become as flax,
without any formal change in our ecclesiastical

constitution ; the contemplation of which, I
should venture to think, is not to be encouraged,
but to be most fervently deprecated.
In connexion with this point I cannot but feel
uneasy at the palliating, and, if our older divines
are right, tbe erroneous language in which the
criminal usurpation of the Papacy is described,
[p. 77.] simply ' as an event in Providence ;" as
ordained of God while it existed, and claiming our
obedience ; as involving no question of "ought,"
[p. 97.] either in obedience or resistance to it ; and
as coming under the same description with the
Metropolitan and Patriarchal systems. Bar
row's language", for instance, is very different.
And on a point of such vital importance, which
may really form the great line of demarcation
between the Church of England and Popery,
incautious language is full of peril.
To these objections I would add, the ap
pearance of a general disposition to give scope
and indulgence to a number of opinions, not
essential to the faith of Christianity, and not war
ranted by sufficient evidence of their catholicity ;
opinions, which are not indeed formally con
demned by our Church, but of the dangerous tend
ency of which she has surely desired to warn us,
by carefully excluding from our Church Services
so many things which might encourage them.
It is most true that our Church does not
^ Treatise en tlie Pope's Supremacy.

presume to shackle private opinions, beyond
what is absolutely necessary for the preservation
of the faith. But seeing the inevitable tendency
of the mind to slide from private opinions into
Romish errors, is it not wiser and more con
sistent with the spirit of that rule, under which
God has placed us, to lead minds, and young
minds especially, from indulging such opinions,
to the grand indisputable truths of the Gospel, to
the plain practical duties of life, and to an ardent
and sincere devotion to our own Church as it is
constituted ?
Whatever are the evils and defects in the
mode in which her system is administered by
ourselves as individuals, surely she possesses
amply sufficient in herself, without borrowing
from such dangerous sources, to stimulate
and indulge all that is good and safe in the
imagination and affections. Perhaps the very
contemplation of this as an object may be
full of risk, and withdraw us from the simple
task committed to us, of holding up the Catholic
faith before men, and leaving in the hands of
God its effect upon the heart. Our object as a
Church, we must allow, is not to govern men,
but to witness to the truth ; and we know from
a lamentable experience, how easy it is, when
this ground is in the least shifted, to sink into
most fatal errors.
I must think also, that although it is Christian

8
and prudent to speak reverently of the mysteries
of religion, and leniently ot the errors of others,
when there is no risk of leading to their imitation,
our present position in relation to the Church of
Rome, and to many members of our own com
munion, is not such as to warrant any expression,
or any silence, which may tend to throw weak
minds off their guard, and make them insensible
to the real enormities of the Romish system.
And such does not appear to have been the tone
adopted by those great men, who, we know, were
able before this to maintain the highest doctrines
of our Church, with the boast that none of their
disciples had been tempted by them into the
Communion of Rome.
And, lastly, though it is impossible to estimate
too highly the value of the real Catholic Testi
mony of Antiquity to the essential Doctrines of
Christianity, or to look without the highest
veneration on the great Fathers of the Early
Church, is it not dangerous to consider ourselves,
or to lead others to consider themselves, as
' Disciples of the Catholic Church,' rather than
as the dutiful and affectionate children of that
branch of it, to which we immediately belong ?
May it not encourage a fanciful and even self-
willed spirit, to throw them back upon a distant
period of the Church, not for great truths which
we are taught by our own Church, and are com
manded by her to confirm by such testimony ; but

for habits of thought and practice, difficult to be
realized, impossible to be understood in all their
bearings, unfitted, it may be, for our own state,
and powerless for effecting the good which is
-hoped from them; the proof of which need only
be sought in the state of society at the time, and
in the evils which subsequently sprung from them?
From what has come under my own observation,
I do think it more than ever necessary to main
tain, that our access to the ancient Church must
be through the channel of our own English
Church, and under the control of living rulers,
as well as of written rules. Our vitality must
indeed be drawn from Apostolical sources, but
only as the leaf is nourished from the root, by
adhering firmly to the branch on which it is
growing. I have touched on these heads generally, and
should have explained my meaning at greater
length, had I not found myself really unequal to
the anxiety and labour of engaging in such a dis
cussion, farther than seems absolutely necessary.
The objections which I have stated may be
groundless. But they have been forced on me,
and may have been forced on others far more
open to their influence. If readers least disposed
to take offence are startled and pained by a work,
must there not be something to complain of in the
tone or form in which its opinions are put forth?
As startling, they may rouse attention, but surely
such cannot be a proper form in which religious

10
truth should be permitted to appear ? We may
indeed feel indifferent to the effect produced on
one class of opponents ; but are there not tender
and delicate minds, whose eyes are to be couched
gradually, if they are in darkness, and for whose
sake we are bound to be cautious? Does not
any shock in religious opinion, even if in some in
stances it bring us to truth, unsettle the mind, and
dispose it generally for the reception of paradoxes,
and therefore of error? And would it not have
been well, if a truth so obvious as that asserted
in the Tract, had been put forward, without
hazarding the creation of alarm and opposition ?
If you ask me why I have thought it necessary
to say thus much, one reason is, that although I
have never, as you know, been in the slightest de
gree connected with the Publication of the Tracts,
and have always studiously avoided habits of inti
macy with their authors, as fearing the creationof a
party.I was once, as youhave stated to me yourself,
the means underProvidence of considerably allaying
the irritation and alarm, which had been raised
against you and others, by false and silly charges.
If I have ever maintained similar principles with
the Tracts, it has been so far only as I beUeved
them to be the principles of the Church of
England. And in whatever I have hitherto done
I have endeavoured to act independently, only
desirous of guarding Truth, and, where I might
do it without presumption, the characters of
others against idle and malicious calumnies. What

11
I am now doing, I trust, will not be attributed to
a different spirit. But I will venture to entreat
you to consider, whether under present circum
stances, the continuation of the Tracts is not
pregnant with danger to the cause of Peace, and,
what is dearer than Peace, of Truth.
The circumstances of the times may fairly be con
sidered as a sufficient reason for their original pub
lication. But it is dangerous for any body of indi
viduals, however small, to combine to disseminate
peculiar religious opinions within the Church. It
becomes still more dangerous, when their works
have acquired, however improperly, a name, which
compromises a great public University in no way
responsible for them, and when they are put forth
anonymously, and apparently with the sanction of
the whole body; but, as it appears from Mr. Perce
val's Letter, is the case with the Tracts, without any
adequate superintendence being exercised over the
opinions "and expressions of the individual writers.
When the object of this arrangement is, as Mr.
Perceval's statement also indicates, to ' produce
effect,' ' to be effective,^ ' to please,' and ' to strike,^
this bias, however unintentionally, may still farther
interfere with the simple enunciation of truth. And
it has now too become evident, that the continua
tion of the Tracts, at least in their present shape,
may lead to painful colHsions, not with persons in
competent to judge, but with authorities, whom we
must all respect. Under these circumstances may it
not be right to guard against this evil, and against

12
the gradual formation of a party, and the chance
of driving those who differ from you still farther
from what you believe to be truth, and against
even the possibility of a schism — all this, when the
object is accomplished, for which you first com
menced your labours, and when the fundamental
principles, which you have advocated, have
taken root, and spread, and are advancing every
day, with a rapidity, which ten years since
we should have pronounced it a delusion to
imagine ?
I will make no apology for writing thus openly.
You, who have never spoken harshly even of
those who have most cruelly traduced you, will
not be slow to make allowances for one who has
never uttered a word or entertained a thought,
either of yourself or of the other authors of the
Tracts, but those of gratitude and affectionate
respect. But my name has been most improperly con
nected with them. And it is right that neither
of us should be made responsible for any but our
own opinions. And an act even of an individual
so insignificant as myself may not be wholly use
less at this moment, if it shews, that the move
ment now making in defence of the Church and
of her principles is carried on by persons not
connected by party spirit, or other ties than
their duty to the Church — that to differ in such
points, as those to which I have now objected,
does not imply the least dissension on the grand

13
objects for which we are contending — that these
very differences on detached questions will be a
great security against error in those which are
the most important ; and that it is possible to
hold, what are supposed to be extreme opinions
with respect to great Church doctrines, and at
the same time to be keenly (perhaps you will say
unreasonably) sensitive to any thing which seems
to border either on a disparagement of our
English Church, as it is at present constituted,
or on the slightest needless approximation to the
errors of the Church of Rome.
In conclusion I cannot but say, that although
pain may be caused to individuals for the present,
the discussion opened by the Tract, however
unhappily commenced, seems likely to do much
good, in calling our attention to the real character
of our formularies, and leading us to be still more
attached to them, and more grateful for the
Providence, which, whatever were the thoughts
of their authors, watched over their construction.
Nor, I trust, can there be any fear, that the quiet,
sobriety, and kind feeling, which has so long been
the characteristic of the University, is likely to
be disturbed on the present occasion.
Believe me. My dear Pusey,
With the sincerest esteem and regard,
Your's ever truly,
WILLIAM SEWELL.
Exeter College, March 17, 184L

POSTSCRIPT.
I take the opportunity of a second Edition to
add one remark, not with a view to express any
opinion of my own, which might be officious
and useless, but at the suggestion of others.
Without referring at all to the merits or
demerits of the particular Tract in question, I
must confess that I did at the first regard the
Resolution of the Hebdomadal Board with con
siderable uneasiness. And the same uneasiness
has undoubtedly been felt, and to a great degree,
by men of high eminence and station both in the
University and the Church, who are as little
connected as myself with party, and equally
indisposed, I should conceive, to identify them
selves with any opinions, but the acknowledged
and indisputable doctrines of our Church, as
contained in her formularies, and maintained
by her Standard Divines.
If books before this have been condemned in
the University, the condemnation has been
passed by an Act of Convocation, which is the
proper and only Representative of the University
" in matters of greater moment." And for the

16
decision of certain other Theological Questions
within the University, the Statutes have appointed
a particular Tribunal selected from the Faculty
of Theology. If therefore the Resolution of the
Hebdomadal Board were to be represented as an
Act of the whole University, or as a formal
decision on a Theological Question, it would
assuredly introduce a novel and unstatutable pro
ceeding, and might render it imperative on
Members of Convocation to protest publicly
against it, lest it should be turned into a most
dangerous precedent.
But after a careful enquiry, I believe I shall be
justified not only in inferring from the express
terms of the Resolution, but in asserting on the
highest authority, that the Hebdomadal Board
have scrupulously and deliberately endeavoured to
guard their proceedings against a violation of the
privileges, either of Convocation or of the Theolo
gical Faculty. They seem to have acted simply
as the appointed guardians of the Statutes, bound
in the words of the Statute Book itself, " de Statutis
observandis tractare, deUberare, et consiUa inire."
Considering (whether with reason or not, we
need not here enquire) that the Tract in question
might tend to a violation of the Statutes, they
could scarcely avoid taking notice of it. And as
the authorities, by whom in their several Colleges
the Tutors are appointed, to whom the Statutes
have committed the teaching of the Articles,

17
their attention would more especially be called
to it. How far the publication of a separate
Resolution of the Heads of Houses with the public
mark of the University Seal attached to it may
have been objectionable, as seeming to claim for
it a higher authority than it really possesses,
may be open to discussion. But it is only an
act of justice to admit, that it is the mode usually
adopted by the Board, in calling the attention
of the Junior Members of the University to the
observance or violation of any particular Statute.
And under circumstances of no httle difficulty, it
may be well not so much to cavil too scru
pulously at the past, as to hope that such
objections, if they were well grounded, might be
guarded against in future.
It is easy to imagine that the Heads of Houses
might feel strongly the duty of giving some pubhc
warning to young men against a publication,
which they deemed likely to mislead them — and
that they might desire also to take an oppor
tunity of disclaiming that connexion between the
University, and certain publications of individual
members of it, which had been so erroneously and
disingenuously asserted by those who are friends to
neither. And there would be nothing derogatory
to the Board or inconsistent with their proceedings
in supposing that they might wish to adopt a
mode of discharging this duty, as little painful
as possible to an individual, whose character has
B

18
commanded for him the highest respect, and
whose great services to the Church in reviving
many most important Truths it would be im
possible to deny, or to reflect on without the
greatest gratitude. And certainly they have
reason to be satisfied with the result, if, as is
generally understood, the Tracts are henceforth
to be dropped, and great ends have been gained
without involving the University in tbe many
difficulties and evils, which must have attended
any attempt to pronounce formally on the merits
of a publication, which even by those most opposed
to it would probably be condemned chiefly by
implication and suspicion, and as unguarded and
liable to perversion in the application which may
be made of it.
It is scarcely possible that such an act should
be made use of, even by the most unscrupulous
persons, as if it implied a censure either by the
University or the Hebdomadal Board on any
publication but the single Tract named in the
Resolution. Still less as generally condemnatory
of the great fundamental doctrines which have
within these last ten years been advocated by a
large body of the English Clergy, as well as in
the Tracts for the Times, and which are generally
known by the name of Church Principles, as
distinct from any peculiar opinions, which may
have been maintained by individual writers.
Even if the general character of the Universilv

19

and of the Heads of Houses were not sufficient
at once to '^orrect such perverted misrepresent
ations, it would be refuted at once by the well-
known fact, that on many other occasions writers,
who have most earnestly devoted themselves to
the maintenance of Church Principles, have
thought it their duty to dissent from particular
subordinate opinions advocated in the Tracts,
at the very time, when they have expressed
strongly their concurrence in fundamental truths.
The Tracts for the Times never have been taken
as a standard of Church Principles, nor, whatever
opinion may be entertained of them individually,
would it be possible to do this without compro
mising the first of Church Principles, that we
must adhere to no authority but that of our
Ecclesiastical Rulers, our authorized formularies,
and the interpretation of our old standard
Divines, Having before this received through the kind
ness of the Vice-Chancellor a private communi
cation which completely satisfied my own mind
on these points ; and knowing how desirous he
expressed himself that others should be satisfied
likewise ; I have had the less scruple as a private
friend in requesting him to read over these
remarks, that if I have made any mistake, so far
as regards matters of fact, I may correct them

20
before publication. He has with his usual kind
ness consented to do this, and I am happy to be
able to state, that he has not suggested any
alteration. Exeter College, March 31, 1841.

a; * *

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