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LETTER

TO

THE KEY. THE YICE CHAI^CELLOR

OF THE

©nibersits of ©xforir
AND
THE LEARNED DOCTORS WHO ASSISTED HIM
ON A LATE OCCASION,
FROM
TORQUEMADA THE YOUNGER.

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[fMAOAM
LONDON:
RINTED FOR J. G. F. & J. RIVINGTON,
ST. Paul's church yard,
AND WATERLOO PLACE, PALL MALL.
1843.
pnjNTRD TIV C. ROWORTII AND SOX3, BELL YARD,
1 F.MPI.F BAR.

Gentlemen, I congratulate you, — you have revived
the system of my illustrious namesake at a time
when the mouldering prisons of the Inquisition
proclaim that even in Spain, the land of its
nativity, it has expired ; — and, profiting by a
happy combination of circumstances, you have
done so amidst the plaudits of those to whom
such a system would, a priori, appear least
congenial. Whilst you heap the fagots and
light the torch, the " Globe" applauds you, and
the " Standard" bids you prosper.
You will say that these fires are now but
metaphorical. It is a sad truth that they are
so. But the inquisitorial system was twofold :
as punitive, it inflicted upon the condemned
punishments severe in degree and cruel in their
nature ; as judicial, it condemned by means of
b2

a procedure that rose superior to considerations
of equity, and the forms and safeguards with
which the reason of mankind has fenced the
ordinary administration of justice. You can
not, alas ! revive such punishments ; and we
are left to console ourselves with the hope that,
to a generous and pious mind, the stigma of
undeserved reproach, and the sense of dimi
nished usefulness, may bring the pains without
the crown of martyrdom. But you have re
vived the procedure ; you have done what you
could ; and I, who have inherited the name of
Torquemada, am bound to thank you.
I have alluded to the general applause which
has attended your efforts : this is due to the
discrimination you have shown in the selection
of a victim. In the present age it would be
difficult, perhaps hazardous, to persecute Jew,
Turk, infidel, or ordinary heretic : but Pusey-
ism has contrived to attract the hostility of
those who agree in nothing else but in reviling
it. The Orangeman and the ultra-Radical, —
the man who still smells fire on the .5th of

5
November, and he who calls O'Connell friend,
— the sleek canon, and the hungry dissenter, —
all denounce Puseyism. Nor does it only
engage the attention of newspaper writers and
reviewers, and spouters at Exeter Hall ; or
agitate the common rooms of colleges, or excite
discussions at clerical meetings; it has infected
with the spirit of controversy, and the odium
theologicum, every class of society. Squires
prose about it over their port ; wits scoff at it
over their claret ; in the senate it is made the
subject of questions by those who " must still
be talking," and have nothing else to talk
about ; loungers in the club windows anathe
matize, as if they understood it; and even
young ladies have been heard to lisp its con
demnation in the brief interval between the
waltz and the quadrille.
You wisely therefore inferred that a Puseyite,
being an object of such general animadversion,
might safely, if not fairly, be treated as caput
liipinum — an animal to be hunted down and
allowed no law. Some difficulty there might

6
have been in affixing a charge so vague upon a
given individual ; for a distinct and intelligible
definition of Puseyism has not yet been given
to the world. You however have triumphantly
cut this knot. No such difficulty could protect
Dr. Pusey. With him you were safe. If there
were no other Puseyite in the world — he at
least was one.
This happy choice however constitutes but a
small part of your merit. You have not only
revived the procedure of former Inquisitors —
you have improved upon it. Of course in com
paring you with these your illustrious pre
decessors, I have no intention of exploring the
gloomy pages of Llorente, and of inquiring how
things were managed whilst Spain still rejoiced
in her Autos-da-f6. Such precedents would
not be in pari materia. Racks and dungeons,
and secret tribunals (good things enough in
their time) have past into the world of shadows,
or live only in melodramas. Now-a-days craft
must supply the place of force. Every judge
is in some sense responsible to public opinion.

and he is the best Inquisitor who best knows
how to elude that responsibility.
Allow me, then, to illustrate your merits by
a closer parallel. I have not very far to travel
for the purpose. Jansenism, like Puseyism, was
the offspring of a soft and refined age — like
Puseyism it affronted the Spirit of its Age by
preaching mortification and self-denial — like
Puseyism also the charge was vague, and
consisted in the imputation of the supposed
opinions of one writer to a class — like Puseyism
it not only divided divines, but, permeating the
frivolous classes of society, disturbed even the
repose of courtiers.
Now what did they who, under the authority
and in the name of Pope Alexander VII,, con
demned the book of Jansenius ? — They laid
down five distinct propositions, which they said
they found in that book, and condemned them
as heretical. Clumsy fellows ! they did not
foresee that the Jansenists would say, " We
agree with you, the propositions are heretical ;
unfortunately we do not find them in the book

of Jansenius, and you, the Inquisitors, cannot
point them out." Hence, as you know, issue
was joined on a question of fact; hence arose
questions whether the Pope was as infallible
in matters of fact as in matters of doctrine,
and hence great scandal to the Church, and no
small discredit to the Inquisition.
Again, you will recollect that in the course
of that controversy the Doctors of the Sorbonne
had to deal with a letter of M. Arnauld. The
situation of that writer, as represented by his
admirers, was singularly like what many peo
ple believe to have been that of Dr. Pusey
when he fell into your hands.
" Ignorez vous," says Pascal, — "ignorez vous
ces deux choses, que les moins instruits de ces
affaires connoissent ? L'une que M. Arnauld a
toujours 6vit6 de dire rien qui ne filt puissam-
ment fond^ sur la tradition de I'Eglise ; I'autre
que ses ennemis ont n^anmoins r6solu de Ten
retrancher k quelque prix que ce soit ; et
qu'ainsi les Merits de I'un ne donnant aucune
prise aux desseins des autres, ils ont H6 con-

traints, pour satisfaire leur passion, de prendre
une proposition telle quelle, et de la condamner
sans dire en quoi, ni pourquoi. Car ne savez
vous pas comment les Jansenistes les tiennent
en 6chec, et les pressent si furieusement que, la
moindre parole qui les 6chappe centre les prin-
cipes des pferes, on les voit incontinent accabl^s
par des volumes entiers, ou ils sont forces de
succomber ? De sorte qu'apr^s tant d'^preuves
de leur foiblesse, ils ont jug6 plus a propos et
plus facile de censurer que de repartir, parce-
qu'il leur est bien plus ais6 de trouver des
moines " (when monks are not to be had.
Heads of Houses will serve the turn) " que
des raisons."
How, then, did the Doctors of the Sorbonne
deal with M. Arnauld ? Hear again Pascal,
whose prejudices do not lead him to extenuate
the dexterity of these well-meaning men :
" On a choisi la seconde lettre de M. Arnauld,
qu'on disoit etre remplie des plus grandes
erreurs. On lui a donn6 pour examinateurs ses
plus declares ennemis. lis emploient toute

10
leur dtude a rechercher ce qu'ils y pourroient
reprendre ; et ils en rapportent une proposition
touchant la doctrine, qu'ils exposent a la cen
sure." Again a proposition ! And what did the
Jansenists ? Why they were men of learning,
and they undertook to show that the proposi
tion condemned was based on the authority of
the Fathers. The Jesuits asserted there was a
difference ; the Jansenists denied it ; and many
have thought our friends had the worst of the
argument. Now how have you, the Doctors of Oxford,
dealt with Dr. Pusey ? Warned perhaps by the
examples I have cited, you have not laid down
five propositions : you have not even taken
" une proposition telle quelle" to condemn it.
Not only are the why and the wherefore of
the condemnation, but the thing condemned is
shrouded in impenetrable mystery. Herein
consists your immeasurable superiority over
all inquisitors — past, present, and to come.
Your opponents cannot take issue with you

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upon the fact, whether certain things are in
Dr. Pusey's sermon, because of nothing do you
assert that it is there. They cannot take issue
with you upon the orthodoxy of what is there,
because you refuse to state in what sentence or
page of the Sermon heresy lurks, and nobody
pretends that the whole is heretical. No issue
can be joined where no issue is tendered. Your
position was, in truth, a critical one. You
make no pretensions to infallibility. Your
" placuit" does not even carry with it the
weight of a decree of the Sorbonne. Hence,
had you assigned any particular passage of
the Sermon as pregnant with heresy, this
dangerous man might have brought up his
artillery of Fathers, crushed you with the
weight of authorities, and peradventure proved
you, his judges, to be the heretics. But you
have condemned the whole. Powerless with
all his learning, he cannot disprove the charge
because there is no specific charge on the
record. Let him show that each substantive
proposition in his discourse is borne out by

12
Cyprian, by Cyril, or by Augustine, you may
still reply, " It is not that we mean, the parts
may be orthodox, but the whole is heretical,
we have condemned and do condemn it."
Honour then to you. Doctors of Oxford ! To
convict upon insufficient evidence, to sentence
without hearing the defence, these are the
mere commonplaces of injustice — but to try,
to convict, and to condemn without specifying
a charge, — without, to use technical language,
laying a traversible indictment, — this indeed is
a novelty in criminal jurisprudence, and entitles
you to the high praise of inventive genius.
Fallible Doctors — you have taken up a position
less assailable than that of an infallible Pope.
Protestants — you have shown yourselves less
fettered by rules than the Inquisitors of Rome,
more subtle than the Jesuits of the Sorbonne.
I have not the honour to be a member of
your University — (I graduated at Salamanca
in the good times of the late king Ferdinand)
— and therefore I do not enter at large into
the constitution of your Board, A word how-

13
ever to one of you— Dr. Faussett. — The title of
a cause in the Ecclesiastical Court runs some
times thus, " The Office of the Judge pro
moted by John Doe v. Richard Roe." It is
new, I believe, that the same person should
both promote and exercise the office of Judge,
— sharpen the judicial scythe as accuser and
direct it as assessor. Dr. Faussett has thought
fit to combine these functions — I admire this
as evidence of zeal, but I am not sure that in
point of policy he would not have done better
if, out of deference to the prejudices of man
kind in favour of fair dealing and regularity
of proceeding, he had confined himself to one
of these characters.
Again, I attribute much of your success to
the presence of so many Heads of Houses
amongst you. We all know that Sir Robert
has shaken his head about Puseyism, and per
haps this may be the reason why at the pre
sent conjuncture fAiya,? ihixi^ev "oxv[ji.7ro;. Heads
of Houses are peculiarly susceptible to such con-

14
siderations as the credit of the University with
men in power, or the danger that Lord A. or
the Duke of B. will not send his son to his
former College, from a pious dread that the
youth will turn out a Puseyite instead of a fox-
hunter. Heads of Houses too are just the
wood out of which to cut Inquisitors. From
their position they acquire a sort of pedagogal
strut, and the habit of looking at the rest of
mankind as undergraduates, to be dealt with on
the " stet pro ratione voluntas" principle. I am
told too that this system of suppressing the
articles of charge has been partially acted on
by them upon a former occasion — that of Dr.
Hampden's condemnation in Convocation. By
the way. Gentlemen, may I ask whether any of
you had anything to do with that proceeding ?
If it be so, I am afraid your liberal allies will
accuse you of inconsistency ; I shall only infer
that, like myself, you admire persecution in
the abstract.
I am unwilling to dash your triumph, and

15
yet I cannot but express my fears it will not
be durable. Truth has an invincible reluctance
to be stifled ; and the public, when not blinded
by passion, has an ugly prejudice against what
it calls injustice, particularly that form of it
which denies a fair trial to an accused. More
over, Dr. Pusey's friends, it is vain to deny it,
are both learned and active, and Puseyism may
find its Pascal. I should be sorry to anticipate
evil, yet I much fear the day may come when
you, my worthy friends, will be written down
as doctors without learning and judges without
justice. In the mean time console yourselves
with this : Dr. Pusey is condemned, and the
newspapers applaud his condemnation.
" Pourvu qu'on crie dans les rues, ' Voici la
censure de M. Arnauld, voici la condamna-
tion des Jansenistes,' les .J^suites auront leur
compte." May you, my excellent friends, make the
most of yours. — May Homilies of the purest
Protestantism induce — may visions of prefer-

16
ment soothe your slumbers. Above all, rest
assured that, whatever happens, you will long
enjoy the high consideration of your very
humble admirer, TORQUEMADA THE YOUNGER.

London :
rnlNTED BV C. ROWOHHT AND SONS.
BtXL YAflD, TESIPLE HAH.

3 9002 08561 9717

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