THE RIGHT REVEREND FATHER IN GOD,
RICHARD, LORD BISHOP OF OXFORD,
ON OCCASION OF THE NINETIETH TRACT
IN THE SERIES CALLED
THE TRACTS FOR THE TIMES
1841.
A Letter, &c.
My DEAR Lord,
It may seem strange that, on receipt of a message from your Lordship, I should proceed at once, instead of silently obeying it, to put on paper some remarks of my own on the subject of it; yet, as you kindly permit me to take such a course with the expectation that I may thereby succeed in explaining to yourself and others my own feelings and intentions in the occurrence which has given rise to your interposition, I trust to your Lordship’s indulgence to pardon me any discursiveness in my style of writing, or appearance of familiarity, or prominent introduction of myself, which may be incidental to the attempt.
Your Lordship’s message is as follows: That you consider that the Tract No. 90 in the Series called the Tracts for the Times, is “objectionable, and may tend to disturb the peace and tranquillity of the Church,” and that it is your Lordship’s “advice that the Tracts for the Times should be discontinued.”
Your Lordship has, I trust, long known quite enough of my feelings towards any such expression of your Lordship’s wishes to be sure I should at once obey it, though it were ever so painful to me, or contrary to the course I should have taken if left to myself. And I do most readily and cheerfully obey you in this instance; and at the same time I express my great sorrow that any writing of mine should be judged objectionable by your Lordship, and of a disturbing tendency, and my hope that in what I write in future I shall be more successful in approving myself to your Lordship.
I have reminded your Lordship of my willingness on a former occasion to submit myself to any wishes of your Lordship, had you thought it advisable at that time to signify them. In your Charge in 1838, an allusion was made to the Tracts for the Times. Some opponents of the Tracts said that your Lordship treated them with undue indulgence. I will not imply that your Lordship can act otherwise than indulgently to any one, but certainly I did feel at the time, that in the midst of the kindness you showed to me personally, you were exercising an anxious vigilance over my publication, which reminded me of my responsibility to your Lordship. I wrote to the Archdeacon on the subject, submitting the Tracts entirely to your Lordship’s disposal. What I thought about your Charge will appear from the words I then used to him. I said, “A Bishop’s lightest word ex Cathedrâ, is heavy. His judgment on a book cannot be light. It is a rare occurrence.” And I offered to withdraw any of the Tracts over which I had control, if I was informed which were those to which your Lordship had objections. I afterwards wrote to your Lordship to this effect: that “I trusted I might say sincerely, that I should feel a more lively pleasure in knowing that I was submitting myself to your Lordship’s expressed judgment in a matter of that kind, than I could have even in the widest circulation of the volumes in question.” Your Lordship did not think it necessary to proceed to such a measure, but I felt and always have felt, that, if ever you determined on it, I was bound to obey.
Accordingly on the late occasion, as soon as I heard that you had expressed an unfavourable opinion of Tract 90, I again placed myself at your disposal, and now readily submit to the course on which your Lordship has finally decided in consequence of it. I am quite sure that in so doing I am not only fulfilling a duty I owe to your Lordship, but consulting for the well-being of the Church and benefiting myself.