1. From the Church, as being a positive institution 2. From the supposed insufficiency of the union Why do Protestants maintain their views? Mr. Sibthorp's charitable, but Anti-Romish admission. Controversy with the Oxford Tract writers passed over 69-71 His declension gradual Romish private devotions, not to be mixed with the The English Church gives every needful aid to devotion 75, 76 By her daily devotions,―her hourly offices,-her con- her communion Curious motive for accepting the Invitation 77-81 The question "Why have you become a Catholic? 89 A SERIOUS REMONSTRANCE, &c. &c. DEAR SIR, IF, in your recent proceedings, you have thought of us at all, you will, we doubt not, have supposed, that your letter explanatory of your secession from the Church of England, has been read by us, with deep and painful interest. And we think we should not be doing justice either to you or to ourselves, if we did not, with all openness and sincerity, inform you of the effect it has produced upon our minds. We have known you in your earlier days, when "the candle of the Lord shined upon you," when, under the happiest auspices, you began your ministerial course in this town,* and won the affections of all, not more by the eloquence of your preaching, than by the simplicity of your * Mr. Sibthorp was ordained priest, on a title given by the late Rev. John Scott, to the Curacy of St. Mary's in Hull. B faith, the fervour of your devotion, and the depth of your humility. It is impossible for us to regard your conduct with indifference, or to be affected by it no more deeply than we should have been by that of a perfect stranger, who, like you, had fallen into grievous error. We have strong feelings mingling with our firm convictions-feelings not of bitterness; or if so-not of the bitterness of anger but of grief, towards one whom we loved as a brother, with whom we "took sweet counsel together, and walked in the house of God as friends." Is it then possible that we could witness your gradual declension without regret, and your grievous fall without alarm? We have hitherto mourned over you in silence, but the time is come when we are constrained to speak; and even if our words should be uttered in vain; we shall not regret the measure we are now taking. If our advice and warning cannot reach you, yet our prayers may; and "God forbid that we should sin against the Lord, in ceasing to pray for you!" 66 You profess in your letter, to give only "some of the reasons (p. 2.) which have decided your course, though confessedly such as chiefly have weight" with you. We shall not, then, be deemed presumptuous, if we conclude, that, at all events, we have before us, in a condensed form, the substance of your argument against the church you have left, and in favour of that to which you have now attached yourself. May we then hope, that if we can prove the fallacy of the reasonings, which, by your own acknowledgment, have induced you to take this course; you will submit with Christian humility to "the shame of one more recantation," and will retrace the steps by which you have gone astray? We will follow you in the "narrative of what has been passing in your own mind, and has issued in" your present connexion with the Church of Rome. We do so, with the greater interest, because we are of the number of those who know from your own lips, that "in early life you sought admission into that church, and that but for the interference of the law, being then under age, you would have joined her." (p. 3.) And perhaps you will allow us to remind you, that in alluding to this event, you expressed yourself to us in the strongest terms of gratitude to God for having preserved you from the snare into which your youth and ignorance would then have betrayed you. Little did we who heard you thus speak, imagine, that after a lapse of fifteen or twenty years, you could so far forget the feelings to which, in our hearing, you gave most cordial and unsolicited utterance, as to declare that "the remembrance of the devotional feelings you then had, never entirely quitted you during subsequent years.' Undoubtedly, you remembered your earlier feelings at the time to which we allude, as distinctly as you can do now; but we are certain that you remembered them with a degree of horror, humiliation, and regret, strikingly in contrast with your present favourable recollections of them. When therefore you say: An impression, and in the main a correct one, remained on my mind, that there was among members of the Catholic church, a dedication to the claims and duties of Christianity, an admission of the influence of their belief upon their ordinary life and devotions,a sort of absorbing interest in their religion, which sustained in me a lingering affection towards them, while I openly condemned what I honestly believed to be the errors of their creed"-we can only infer that your present "absorbing interest" in Romanism, has obliterated or obscured your recollection of the actual feelings which you then so freely expressed. We should be glad if this suggestion might lead you to reconsider, with more care and attention than you have yet done, the thoughts which at the period referred to, were really passing in your mind. We come now to the more important part of your narrative, in which you explain what appears to have been the turning point in your career. Your words are: (p. 5.) "About five "About five years since, in the course of my ministry at Ryde, I was led to review the Jewish economy, or the church under the Old Testament dispensation. The subject came minutely under my notice, while engaged |
