Arthur Ellis

“ If such a list would have given so formidable an array of Evangelical Churchmen and Dissenters, I can hardly suppose but Dr. Irons (giving him all credit for not wishing to cast stones at others) , would have procured it, from the desire to shew me and other of his parishioners, that the real cause of these perversions was in the “unsound religious education received amongst the ‘Low Church People and Dissenters,’” and that “Tractarian” teaching and principles had nothing to do in the matter. ”

“ I have not, sir, received a University education, nor does it require the mathematical powers of a senior wrangler to discover, that if your premises are correct, the friends and apologists of Romish error would be found not in ‘Tractarian’ Churches, but in the congregations of St. Saviour’s and Park Chapel, where from Sabbath to Sabbath, the blessed truths of the Gospel are preached, in all their Evangelical fulness. ”

“ Our monastic institutions, our charitable and educational provisions, have become more and more objects with them of earnest study; and every thing in fine, that concerns our religion, deeply interests their attention. ”

“ Irons can make good his position by an “ascertainable and presentable list,” or by any other evidence equally convincing, I feel assured, that many who are now under the conviction that “Tractarianism” is the Broad Road to Rome, will acknowledge their error, and confess that they have done the “Tractarian” party much injustice. ”

“ We must not however suppose these principles are in themselves new; they are as old as the earliest ages of Christianity. The Galatian Converts were seduced from the simplicity of the Gospel by them; and coming down to the days of Charles the First, our own Church has great cause to lament the progress they made at that unhappy period.
I am the more solicitous that this should not be lost sight of, as Dr. Irons says his own views “were not obtained from the Oxford Tracts.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ Irons is the son of a respected Dissenting Minister, who was held in high esteem by many eminent Clergymen of the Evangelical party.
[13] “The nearer the candle the safer the moth.” Such is Tractarian logic. ”