THE REV J. E. N. MOLESWORTH, D.

Vicar of Rockdale,
Lancashire: 80.80.

HN Malerarch

Hayward & Moore, Paternoster Row, London.

MEMOIR OF THE REVEREND DR. MOLESWORTH, VICAR OF
ROCHDALE, ETC. ETC.

THE Rev. John Edward Nassau Molesworth, D.D., whose portrait accompanies our present Number, was born in London in the year of our Lord God 1790. He is the representative of the fourth son of the first Viscount Molesworth, his great grandfather. The title is at present in the line of the third

son.

Dr. Molesworth was educated under Dr. Crombie, at Greenwich, and was entered at Trinity College, Oxford, in the year 1809. He took his degree of B.A. in 1813, and was soon afterwards ordained to the Curacy of Milbrook, near Southampton. Previously to his taking holy orders he was but little disposed to study, but on finding himself invested with the sacred office of the ministry, and becoming impressed with the importance of its duties, and of the charge of the parish committed to his care, he began a course of life in accordance with his station in the Church and the world, and with the impressions he had received respecting the fulfilment of the heavy obligations which lay upon God's Clergy.

In 1825, he married Miss Mackinnon (sister to the present member for Lymington) by whom he has a numerous family. While curate of Milbrook he published the "Answer to Davison on the Origin and Intent of Primitive Sacrifice"-"St. Paul's Key to the Types of Genesis xxii."—a volume of Sermons and other works, and contributed to literary and religious periodicals. These productions, and his general conduct and character, deservedly procured for him the warm friendship of the Very Reverend Dr. Rennell, Dean of Winchester; and Dr. Tomline, the Bishop of Winchester, expressed his intention to take an early opportunity of giving him some preferment as a token of the estimation in which he held him. The sudden death of his lordship frustrated these intentions. However, the sound and admirable "Answer to Davison," and his truly excellent character, had attracted the vigilant attention of a yet more powerful and good friend, the venerable and amiable Prelate who now fills the see of Canterbury, and is the "decus et tutamen" of the Church. The first token of the good Archbishop's favour with which he was honoured was the living of Wirksworth, in Derbyshire, presented to him through his Grace's influence. On quitting his curacy of

Milbrook, after a residence of sixteen years, his parishioners testified their regard for him not only by a presentation of plate worth a hundred guineas, but also by sending an address to the Bishop of the diocese expressive of the regret they felt at the great loss the parish had sustained. From the Clergy of Winchester and Southampton equally warm testimonials of respect and affection were offered to him.

VOL. II.

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But as Wirksworth did not prove as advantageous a benefice as the Archbishop had intended for him, Dr. Molesworth resigned it in about two months, and was soon afterwards collated by his Grace to the united living of St. Paul with St. Martin's, Canterbury. He there quickly won, not only from the citizens and from the Prebendaries and the other Clergy, but also from the gentry, magistrates, and the county in general, the same confidence and regard which he had gained in Hampshire. Though living in a comparatively humble situation in life, with a poor benefice, he was on all public occasions, in both the diocese and the county, placed in that prominent position which is due to great talents, sound judgment, and good conduct, and which those qualities are sure, sooner or later, to command. He was also, as might have been expected, frequently requested to draw up memorials and other public documents, both lay and clerical, which it was thought the times demanded. In almost every religious, charitable, or public institution, he took an active and leading part, and was at the same time constant in his attendance to his parochial duties. Such also was the esteem in which he was held, that individuals frequently consulted him on private matters, and ever found him ready to assist them to the best of his power. During the whole of this period he continued his efforts to promote sound religion and morality, and to defend the Church from its various assailants. Of this there is abundant evidence in "The Sunday Reader," "The Domestic Chaplain," "The Pulpit Companion," and a list of between twenty and thirty other works acknowledged; besides many things which he is supposed to have written without having his name attached to them. The high estimation in which he was held in the diocese is shewn by his being selected by the Archbishop to preach in the Cathedral on the Archbishop's Primary Visitation, and also by his being pointed out, we believe, by Archdeacon Todd, when consulted on that question, as the proper person to preach the sermon at Lambeth, on the consecration of Dr. Broughton and Dr. Mountain, the first Bishops of Australia and Montreal. On both these occasions the Archbishop commanded him to print the sermons; and on the former occasion his Grace gave an additional mark of his approbation by appointing him one of the six preachers of Canterbury Cathedral. In 1838, he took his degree as Doctor in Divinity. In April of the following year, the venerable Archbishop, desirous of securing him better preferment than that at Canterbury, collated him to Minster in Thanet, though it is now evident that his Grace did not consider that as a field in which he could be employed to the best advantage for the Church. Therefore, at the end of the year, the valuable vicarage of Rochdale having become vacant, his kind, excellent, and discriminating patron fixed upon him as the most suitable person to undertake that arduous charge-the highest compliment which a clergyman could receive even from the hands of so elevated a personage. From the abominable outcry raised on this occasion by some of the ministerial papers, it may be thought that the political opponents of Dr. Molesworth at Canterbury were personally hostile to him. We know, however, that such was by no means the case; for, violent as they were, Dr. Molesworth could pass their very mobs in times of greatest excitement, by day or night, without any fear; generally, he was even treated with marks of civility and respect, and if at the utmost he received a groan, on giving laugh he usually received a laugh in return, as much as to say, "it is only in joke-we wish you no harm." And even the leaders, when made magistrates, were always most cheerfully and anxiously desirous of attending to his wishes, and of shewing him respect and kindness. It is but justice to his political opponents to say, that however uncompromising and successful he was in maintaining his own views, his consistency and disinterested sincerity were felt and

magnanimously acknowledged by them, and secured for him respect from all parties. As to the part he took in politics it is unnecessary to say anything here. In his spirited and admirable letter to The Times, in reply to the malignant slanders of the hireling ministerial papers, he has fully and ably answered for himself.

We would have given a list of the Reverend Doctor's valuable publications, but we cannot lay our hands upon the one which we somewhere possess. We rejoice that a Clergyman of such sound principles, great ability, and untiring activity, has been placed over so important a parish as that of Rochdale in Lancashire, and long may he be mercifully spared for a blessing to the people, and an ornament to the Church of Christ.

TRADITION, AND THE EPISCOPAL SUCCESSION.

NOTHING is more common than for people in avoiding one extreme to run into the other. The errors which prevailed in the period immediately preceding the Reformation of the English branch of the Christian Church, and the practical measures which the Papists had deduced from them, led men to hold with peculiar abhorrence, every point of faith and every doctrine which the creatures of Romish ambition had perverted. To such an extent was this carried, even in things most essential, that the holy Sacraments which the Lord had ordained, were lowered in the estimation of men and deprived of that peculiar sanctity in which they ought ever to be held; works-the fruits of faith- —were accounted as almost non-essential: ancient tradition was altogether rejected for modern interpretations of the Divine Word.

The abuse of a talent, or the neglect of a blessing, does not render either the one or the other unnecessary. The part of wisdom is to separate the dross from the pure metal,-error from truth; and while you reject the one, to preserve the other, guarding it for the future, with the utmost caution, against the re-introduction of any kind of impurity. This path of true wisdom our venerable Reformers pursued; they rejected the poison that would destroy life, while they preserved the wholesome food and beneficial medicine which would nourish and heal the soul; they retained the Scriptural doctrines and the Apostolical government of the Church Catholic; they restored that branch of the Christian Church, which had in mercy been planted in England, to its original state of truth and purity, and they removed only the filth and the dust which had for ages obscured and defaced the beauty of the sacred fabric, while they preserved the building entire, and with it, the glorious doctrines of Salvation which had been placed therein.

In his Epistles to Timothy and Titus (1 Tim. vi. 20; 2 Tim. i. 13, 14; ii. 2; and Tit. i. 9), St. Paul charges them to keep pure and uncorrupt certain doctrines and matters of Church government and discipline which he had committed to them, to transmit them unalloyed to others who should succeed them —and this transmission of these and other things is called tradition. And as the Papists and other sectaries pervert and abuse tradition to their own bad purposes, it is requisite to place it in its proper light, and restore it to its legitimate use.

In the earliest ages of the Church, before the Gospels were committed to writing, or were but as yet in the hands of comparatively a few, and before the Apostles had penned any of the Epistles which bear their names, there was, most unquestionably, a summary of the chief truths of Christianity prepared, not only for the consolation of those who had embraced the Truth, but as a test by which Christians should be known to each other. This summary was the

chief trust committed to the keeping of the Church, and with a few other matters, on which the Lord had not expressly spoken, but which the Apostles, taught by the Holy Ghost, had enjoined, was received by Tradition and preserved inviolate. Thus tradition went before (Luke i. 1, 2), and testified to the truth of the sacred canon of Scripture, and afterwards Scripture became a test for every thing claiming to be Apostolical tradition.

Before any corruption in these few and clear truths could have taken place, those who had been instructed by the Apostles, and afterwards by others who had received the truth from them, committed to writing these Apostolical traditions, and have recorded them as facts known and received by all. These, again, were succeeded by others, so that we have a series of writers from the very period of the Apostles, who have borne testimony to the deposit which was committed to their charge, and to the doctrines and government which everywhere marked the holy Catholic Church.

Upon oral tradition as a permanent guide, except perhaps in a few simple facts, no reliance can be placed; the memory of man is so treacherous, and his nature is so opposed to godliness, that nothing but the continuance of the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit could preserve any truth from corruption or perversion. Against written tradition, however, such objections cannot be advanced; it presents an evidence of truth not liable to alteration without discovery, and forms a guide to the sincere inquirer after truth, by which he is better enabled to understand those doctrines and that government which were received in the first and purest ages of the Gospel..

The tradition which the Papists had set up, and which, like the Pharisees of old, they held to be even of greater value than the Word of God,* was oral tradition. This, therefore, our venerable Reformers rejected; but written tradition they not only acknowledged in the Thirty-fourth Artitcle, but they made that a ground of all they did in correcting error, removing superstition, and returning to the doctrines of the ancient and primitive Church of Christ. In thus accepting tradition as their handmaid in the great work of purifying the Church of Christ, the venerable Reformers were not unmindful of that caution which became the great work in which they were engaged. They adopted the rule which the ancient Church observed at the Council of Ephesus;† they acted with the caution by which the ancient Bishops and Fathers of the Church were governed in all matters of doctrine and government. Those things which were received "everywhere, always, and of all men (ubique, semper, et ab omnibus) ‡ as the truth they retained. "Universality, antiquity, consent" of all, they held to be essential to justify them in rejecting one thing and preserving another. Hence Bishop Jewel, in his defence of the Apology for the Church of England, says, "we allege against you (the Romanists) the manifest, and undoubted, and agreeable judgments of the most ancient, learned, and holy Fathers; and thereby, as by approved and faithful witnesses, we disclose the infinite follies and errors of your doctrine;" || and again, in his Answer to Mr. Harding's Conclusion, "touching the substance of religion, we believe what the ancient, catholic, learned Fathers believed; we do what they did, we say what they said. And marvel not, in what side soever ye see them, if you see us join unto the same. It is our great comfort that we see their faith and our faith to agree in one." §

While thus taking tradition for their guide, the Reformers were zealously mindful of that which is unquestionably due to the Holy Scriptures. The

* Compare Mark vii. 13, with the Fourth Session of the Council of Trent.

↑ Vide Vincentius Lirinensis against Heresy, 2nd Commonitory, Sec. xxix.

Vin. Lir. 1st Com. Sec. ii. Def. of Apology 1. c. ix. div. 1. ad finem. § Article vi.