The question, be it remembered, is not as to the honesty of the motives which led the Cardinal to bestow such eulogiums on his Oxford friends.
It is a much more simple question and much more easy of satisfactory proof.
Is the Cardinal’s opinion of “Tractarians” warranted by facts?
Let the names of Wilberforce, Manning, Thynne, Haskell, Allies, and a host of others, now Priests of the Church of Rome, give the answer.
We must not lose sight of the fact in dealing with “Tractarians,” that just in proportion as they have received the commendation of Cardinal Wiseman and the Organs of the Romanists; in like proportion, have all true Protestants been energetic in the condemnation of their teaching and principles.
Dr. Irons says that Cardinal Wiseman “never abuses Low Churchmen,” but he omits to say (what is much more to the point), that the Cardinal never praises them.
When Romanists shall praise Low Churchmen and Dissenters, we may be assured that serious errors are creeping in amongst them. If friends condemn, we may yet be right. But if enemies bestow their praises upon us, there can be little doubt but we are wrong.
I will not attempt to put my knowledge of Church History on a par with that of Dr. Irons. A life spent on the watery element has precluded me from the opportunity of being deeply versant on such subjects; but I have always understood, that in the days of Queen Elizabeth, the Protestant Ministers of the Church of England were, with few exceptions, Calvinists: and the idea of a Jesuit pretending to be a Calvinist and preaching to Dissenters in such a character in Elizabeth’s reign, appears to me altogether an imagination of the Reverend Doctor; and must have reference to a subsequent period, when principles (the exact counterpart of “Tractarian”), had crept into the Church and were bidding fair to lead the nation back to Rome.
The Puritans of Elizabeth’s reign were not Dissenters, they had not then been driven out of the Church. If Elizabeth did carry a high hand towards them, her conduct was merciful and humane if put in contrast with the tyranny and oppression they suffered at a later period, when the Monarchs of the Stuart line were aided by the bigotry and persecuting principles of Archbishop Laud and others, whose memories are held in such high esteem by the “Tractarians” of the present day.
In endeavouring to ignore the evidence of Cardinal Wiseman in favour of “Tractarianism,” Dr. Irons certainly has the example of high ecclesiastical authority. In a correspondence lately published between a Bishop of our Church (whose “Tractarian” leanings are but too evident) and an esteemed Clergyman; the Bishop takes nearly the same line of argument (if such tortuous reasoning can be called argument), in regard to “Tractarian” publications highly eulogized by the literary organs of the Romanists.