Not only did their most talented men write and preach in this strain, but the literary organs of the party still say so; and when, from time to time, the more honest among them secede to Rome, their friends attribute their apostacy to any cause but the right one, sometimes laying the blame upon the evangelical party for protesting against their unsound and unscriptural teaching.
Dr. Irons, in the letter referred to, defends himself from the charge of refusing to sign the Anti-Papal Petition in 1850:—the charge, however, is neither (as the Doctor calls it) “practically unjust, or untrue.”
Dr. Irons did refuse to sign the Petition, and the reason given at the time for this refusal was, [6]—that a “rider” was added to it (by a vote at the public meeting); “that the Romanizing principles and practices of a portion of the clergy had encouraged the Pope to act as he had done.”
It is not here necessary to prove that the “rider” enunciated a fact; it is sufficient to shew that Dr. Irons refused to sign the Petition, and to state the reasons he gave for that refusal; and then to leave it to the unbiased judgment of his parishioners to decide between his actions, and the paragraph in the letter, which says, “I am not a Tractarian in any sense.”
Dr. Irons refers to the ‘Morning Post’ and other papers for his sentiments as expressed on the occasion of the meeting. I was present at the meeting, and paid some attention to the speech of the Reverend Doctor.
I do not deny but there was indignation expressed against the “aggression,” but this indignation went very little beyond what might have been said, and what was actually said, by sincere Romanists, ere the glorious reformation of the sixteenth century had shone upon our country.
Our forefathers of that period felt the galling chain of ecclesiastical and civil oppression laid upon them by the Papacy, but the light of gospel truth had not penetrated their hearts, and, therefore, in their opposition to Rome they made no protest against her soul-destroying doctrines.
The speech of Dr. Irons certainly amounted to something more than what took place in Scotland, where one of the Bishops of the Scotch Episcopal Church signed a protest against the aggression, “because it was contrary to Ecclesiastical order that one bishop should intrude into the diocese of another.”
In referring to the ‘Morning Post,’ as giving the speech of Dr. Irons at the public meeting, it must be remembered that the ‘Post’ was then (if not now) an organ of the “Tractarians,” and that the tactics of the party it represented were to hoodwink us, and under cover of a zeal for “Church principles” to disseminate Anti-Protestant views.
I respect the liberty of the Press, and would not willingly give up its great advantages, but I bear in mind that it would be about as preposterous to expect from the columns of a “Tractarian” periodical any thing favourable to sound Protestanism, as it would be to look for a true exposition of constitutional principles in civil government from the pen of the Russian Autocrat.