The following petition was also presented :

To the Right Honourable THE LORDS SPIRITUAL AND TEMPORAL in Parliament assembled.

THE HUMBLE PETITION OF

Sheweth,

1. That your Petitioner is Incumbent of

2. That your Petitioner desires to call the attention of your Right Honourable House to an act called “An Act for the Commutation of Tithes in England and Wales," 6 and 7 William IV. c. 71.

3. That your Petitioner regards the provisions of this act as injurious to the best interests of the Church and the country.

4. That Bishop Andrews has observed, that "two Patriarchs,-as many Prophets,--CHRIST,-His Apostles,-the whole Church,Fathers,-Councils,-history, both laws civil and canon,-Reason, --the imperfect pieces and fragments of the heathen,-and finally, experience itself, have brought in their evidence for Tithes." (De Decimis, 1629.)

5. That in accordance with these authorities, your Petitioner believes the payment of Tithes to be obligatory upon all, as an essential part of Christian worship, and as the appropriate practical thanksgiving for that Divine blessing through which "the earth brings forth her increase."

6. That Lord Coke, in commenting upon the provision of Magna Charta, observes, "When anything is granted for God, it is deemed in law to be granted to God; and whatsoever is granted to His Church, for His honour and the maintenance of his religion, is granted for and to God." Quod datum est Ecclesiæ, datum est Deo. But Tithes have in this country been given to His Church, and therefore are due on grounds doubly sacred.

7. That the present rights of the Clergy to the Tithes have been secured almost from time immemorial by successive Acts of Parlia

ment.

8. That our ancient statutes prohibit all permanent commutation of Tithe, and that the wisdom of this prohibition may be seen from the disastrous effects of commutations effected in certain parishes under local Acts.

9. That there is no precedent in the history of the country for any commutation of Tithes, (much less for any commutation upon the terms provided for in the Tithe Act,) without the free consent of the Bishop of the Diocese, the Incumbent, and the Patron of the Living.

10. That your Petitioner cannot enter into any such voluntary agreement as is provided for in the Tithe Act; that a compulsory agreement is a contradiction in terms; and that your Petitioner, being deeply impressed with the sacred principles of the Tithe system, could not, without much distress of mind, and perplexity of conscience, avail himself of any award made by the Commissioners.

11. That to subject your Petitioner to an Act of Parliament opposed both in letter and spirit to all the ancient statutes of this realm relating to Tithes, and also directly at variance with principles esteemed sacred by the highest authorities, ecclesiastical and civil, is, in the judgment of your Petitioner, to deprive him of his constitutional

privileges, and especially of the rights secured to him and his Church in the oath of the Sovereign.

Your Petitioner therefore most earnestly intreats your Right Honourable House to take these grievances into your serious consideration, and either by the repeal of the Tithe Act, by the discontinuance of the Tithe Commission, or by prohibiting every commutation without the consent of the Bishop, the Incumbent, and the Patron, or by such other way as may seem advisable to your Right Honourable House, to afford him that redress to which, in his judgment, he has a most sacred, equitable, and constitutional claim. And your Petitioner will ever pray.

REMARKS ON THE "LATITUDINARIAN HERESY." SIR,-May I beg your insertion of a few remarks upon an article headed "Latitudinarian Heresy," which appeared in your Magazine for June last. I should have forwarded them to you sooner, but, having been for some time in the South, the article did not meet my eye till the end of June, when it was too late to hope for a place in your July number. I confess, also, that, at first, I thought a more serious and lengthened reply might be necessary than would perhaps have found admission into your columns; but subsequent reflection, and a regard for the peace of the Church, torn as it is by controversy, have induced me to confine my contradiction to that source alone in which the charge appeared, and I trust that a sense of justice, as well as courtesy, will secure its admission.

The article to which I refer begins by charging a large body of the (so-called) Evangelical school with being Latitudinarians, and tainted with heresy to a greater extent than is generally supposed. The language is somewhat ambiguous, but such I take to be its meaning. The writer points to what, he says, is "occurring in almost every parish in England;" to the Articles (which it is to be presumed he reads) in the "Record" and the "Christian Observer;" to a certain text, with his own private interpretation put upon it, "in the fifth chapter to the Galatians;" and then conceives that the truth of his statement" cannot be denied."

Now, with all this I have nothing to do. It may pass for as much as it is worth-ingeniously framed to support some fancied theory, or as the sad and sincere conviction of the writer's mind.

But when, as a case in point, he goes on to instance what passed at a public meeting in my parish, and to involve in the charge a whole body of clergy and laity, for whom I have the highest esteem, and with whom it is my happiness to be closely connected, the matter is very different, and for my own sake, as well as theirs, I am bound to repel the charge he makes, and to deny the inferences he draws.

The statement he makes is, that at a religious meeting held in Huddersfield, and presided over by an Archdeacon, the vicar of a large parish in the neighbourhood came forward with the avowed intention of attacking Catholics, especially those of the Oxford school, and that he was very zealous in anathematizing the Romanists; that, in the course of his remarks, he asserted the Nestorian Heresy; and that, by ridiculing the idea of speaking of the Virgin Mary as the

"Mother of God," he denied, in effect, that the LORD JESUS CHRIST was GOD.

Hard words follow: the clergyman is forthwith styled "Heretic;" his words are called "blasphemy" against God; and all who were One only is excepted-" one present are involved in the charge. respected clergyman, who worships the Lord Jesus Christ in spirit and in truth, and who trembleth to hear his God blasphemed "-the rest, by their silence it is to be presumed, fall under one sweeping condemnation.

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The remainder of the article consists of insinuations, unworthy, I must be allowed to say, of any writer. It is insinuated that we preach the doctrine of the "Atonement" only because others have advocated reserve;" and that, since they have now begun to preach it "in a fundamental popular shape," we shall soon deny or disuse it as a verity." Much more is added about self-will, uncharitableness, perversion of terms, persecution, and cruelty, which I will not condescend to notice.

Now, Sir, will it be believed that the writer of this article was not present at the meeting? will it be believed that his information was all gathered at a subsequent and transient visit to my parish, where he was welcomed and courteously entreated? will it be believed that the very "trembling clergyman," whom he so highly praises, was his informant as to the whole matter? will it be believed that the statement, as it now appears, was formally disclaimed and contradicted by the chairman of the meeting (his own Archdeacon and ours) when submitted to his inspection, and that, in consequence of such contradiction, it was laid aside and avowedly destroyed? and finally, will it be believed that not one word was said about the Oxford Tracts or the Oxford controversy by any one speaker, at any one period of the meeting? It may be difficult to believe these things in connexion with the article before us; but I assert, and that without fear of contradiction, that every one of them is true to the letter.

The It needs not, nor do I intend to enter into many details. meeting was held in Huddersfield in the month of February last, agreeably to the wish of our Diocesan, for the formation of a Local Board of Education. It was presided over by the Archdeacon of Craven, our official chairman, at my special request. The vicar of a neighbouring parish, comprised within the limits of the Board, attended, and, with others, addressed the meeting. His main point was to show the necessity of bestirring ourselves in the work of education, because In illustraof the many errors which were promulgated around us. tion of this latter position, he instanced the teaching of the Socialists, the Mormonites, and others, and animadverted upon certain extracts which he read from the Romish Catechism as circulated amongst the poor. These extracts from the Catechism were chiefly on points connected with the Holy Eucharist; with the Limbo, or place of departed spirits; and with the style or title of " Mother of God," conferred on the Virgin Mary. The last of these only has been selected by "a Catholic" for notice.

Now, whether the whole question connected with it had been fully considered by the speaker-whether he remembered that the phrase had once formed a useful barrier against heresy-whether he was

aware of the inferences which might be drawn from its rejection, I do not know. But this I know, that the Church to which both "a Catholic" and myself belong, seems to have designedly dropped the phrase from common use. Nowhere does it appear in any of her articles, formularies, collects, homilies, or catechism; and yet when they were framed, what expression was more frequent and more common? Does not this look somewhat like a tacit disapproval? For myself, I neither use nor yet condemn the use of the term, as applied to the blessed Virgin. I do not use it, not from the slightest objection to the term itself in the abstract, but because that branch of the Church to which I. belong does not, and because I find no warrant for its use in Holy Scripture; but, on the other hand, I do not condemn it, because the Church does not,-because it has been and may be again an effectual barrier against heresy, and because its condemnation would seem to involve important consequences. But then I can easily imagine other clergymen, orthodox in their views as "a Catholic" himself, who might off-hand demur to the popular use of a phrase as put into the mouth of a child, with which they are not familiar, which their own Church has dropped from all her formularies, and which, as applied to the Virgin Mary, they may conceive liable to much perversion and abuse. Will the writer himself venture to assert, that none can believe rightly in the full, true, and perfect divinity of our blessed LORD AND SAVIOUR JESUS CHRIST, unless he calls the Virgin Mary the "Mother of God," and teaches others to call her so? Is the phrase indispensable to the doctrine? Strange, if it be so, that it appears nowhere in Holy Scripture, and that it was never formally adopted in the Christian Church till the fifth century. Even Bishop Pearson himself, (Art. "Born of the Virgin Mary,") when arguing on the very subject, and showing both the origin and propriety of the expression, carefully excludes it from his usual summary of things necessary to be believed by every member of the Church, and teaches us the rather to say, "that there was a certain woman named Mary,"

of whom "the Saviour of the world" was born.

I have said thus much, lest I should appear to avoid the question, without being careful to show either agreement or disagreement with what passed at the meeting. The writer argues that our silence on that occasion implied assent to what was stated. Might it not have arisen from an unwillingness, or positive dislike, to make the platform an arena of theological controversy? might it not have been traced up to a feeling of courtesy and disinclination to trench upon the free expression of opinion allowed to every public speaker within certain limits? That these limits were not seriously transgressed; that our silence was, to say the least, harmless; that nothing which passed can, in any sense, justify the charges of "heresy" and "blasphemy so rashly brought forward, will appear from the perusal of the following letter from the Archdeacon, written soon after the meeting, addressed to the writer of the article, and now inserted by permission. I have already referred to it. It is as follows:

"Halifax, March 18, 1812. "MY DEAR —, I should very much regret to see my name in any way introduced into the letter which you have been so good as to send for my perusal, and almost as NO. XX.-N.S. GG

much, the publication of the letter at all. It is very true, that there was much that was irrelevant to the immediate business of the meeting in so lengthened an examination of the Romish Catechism by the individual to whom you allude; but that there was anything in his remarks, so far as it met my ear, that could be fairly construed as directly or indirectly asserting the Nestorian Heresy, or denying that the Lord Jesus Christ is God,' I must unhesitatingly deny. I have been in habit of occasional intercourse with him for nearly twenty years, and have never, to the best of my recollection or belief, had reason to suspect any unsoundness in the faith. "Believe me, yours very faithfully,

"CHARLES MUSGRAVE."

Now I say that this letter disposes of the gravamen of the charge; for I am willing to admit, that had serious error been deliberately promulgated, remonstrance would have been the duty of all present, and peace must have been sacrificed to truth. One clergyman, when it came to his turn to speak, did object to much of what had been previously stated; but, most unluckily for the accuracy of the writer, his objections were directed against almost all the points of the previous speaker, save and except the very one, for his supposed opposition to which he is so highly praised! Alas! the "Heretic" was, after all," unnoticed and unrebuked" for his heresy; for even this "respected clergyman" expressed neither his dissent nor his opinion as to the propriety of teaching children to call the Virgin Mary the "Mother of God." The meeting, however, passed off quietly, and the Local Board of Education was formed.

This, then, is a simple statement of facts, from which such charges have been made, such inferences drawn! Might not all this have occurred anywhere, and amongst any body of clergy? And does it justify the tone of censure adopted by the writer in your Magazine? Are we to be accused of Latitudinarianism, and branded before the Church with heresy, on such slight grounds?

We thank the writer for his anxious care, and the highly commendable vigilance he exercises over us. If he wishes to know our thoughts about it, they may be expressed in plain and homely language. We neither seek nor fear it. We have our own superiors and guides, to whose godly motions we yield glad reverence; but we do not recognise him amongst the number. We think that it would be much better for the peace of the Church, if each clergyman would "be quiet, and do his own business." And we think, moreover, that it is the attempt on the part of some to set everybody right, which makes every thing wrong.

I have not troubled you, Sir, for the name of the writer of the article: you will perceive that it was unnecessary to do so. I only regret that its publication should have thus compelled me to reply.

I am, Sir, your obedient Servant,

THE VICAR OF HUDDERSfield.

[We have inserted this letter from a sense of justice, our admission of "A Catholic''s having rendered it plainly necessary to do so. And we rejoice to think that the latter seems to have been misinformed about the proceedings in question. At the same time, if the Vicar of Huddersfield will but remember that what was supposed to have taken place there has really done so elsewhere, and that the accusation was, therefore, but too credible, he will moderate his wrath. And when he remembers, too, the life and character of him who signed himself “A Catholic,” (and as he seems to know his name, we cannot imagine that he does not know these also,) he will feel sure that he could have no motives but good ones for the step he took.]