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This tract against Romish Anglicanism appeared in the August 1865
issue of The Sword and the Trowel. The Tractarian Movement, begun in the 1820s and led
by John Henry Newman, had started a drift toward Catholicism within the Church of England.
Newman himself converted to Catholicism in 1845, and in the intervening 20 years,
more than 250 Anglican clergy followed him. This tract was part of Spurgeon's response to that trend.
 HO
is this gentleman? You guess him to be a Romish priest; and so
indeed he is, but he is not honest enough to avow it. This, with the
exception of the face, is a correct representation of a clerical gentleman,
well known in the South of England, as a notorious clergyman of that
religious association, which is commonly, but erroneously, called "The
Church of England." We can assure the reader that our artist has faithfully
given the robes and other paraphernalia with which this person makes a
guy of himself. We beg to ask, what difference there is between this style
and the genuine Popish cut? We might surely quite as well have a bona fide
priest at once, with all the certificates of the Vatican! There seems to be an
unlimited license for papistical persons to do as they please in the Anglican
Establishment. How long are these abominations to be borne with, and
how far are they yet to be carried?
Protestant Dissenters, how can you
so often truckle to a Church which is assuming the rags of the old harlot
more and more openly every day? Alliance with true believers is one thing,
but union with a Popish sect is quite another. Be not ye partakers with
them. Protestantism owed much to you in past ages, will you not now raise
your voice and show the ignorant and the priest-ridden the tendencies of all
these mummeries, and the detestable errors of the Romish Church and of
its Anglican sister.
Evangelical Churchmen, lovers of
the Lord Jesus, how long will you remain in alliance with the defilements of
High Churchism? You are mainly responsible for all the Popery of your
Church, for you are its salt and its stay. Your brethren in Christ cannot
but wonder how it is that you can remain where you are. You know better.
You are children of light, and yet you aid and abet a system by which
darkness is scattered all over the land. Beware, lest you be found in union
with Antichrist, when the Lord cometh in his glory. What a future would
be yours if you would shake yourselves from your alliance with Papists and
semi-Papists. Come out for Christ's sake. Be ye separate, touch not the
unclean thing!
NO. 16.—Sword and Trowel Tracts, by C. H.
Spurgeon—6d. per 100. Post free, 8 stamps. Passmore & Alabaster, 28,
Paternoster Row.
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