LETTER. (continued 2)

What Mr. Badeley cites for the special purpose of his particular case, I conceive holds good, and may be asserted precisely in the same way for the whole range of doctrine which our Church maintains; and with this persuasion it is that I have so largely cited passages from his most lucid speech. This part of his argument, though of course limited in its application by him to the special circumstances in which he stood, and the case then before the Privy Council, is evidently not exclusive; and I think proves thus much at least satisfactorily; that the Church of England at the reformation never intended for a moment to shut out previous doctrine, (though she might not actually mention and repeat it,) any more than she could have intended to shut out previous history. Whatever may have been said of her, or for her, since, the idea that she was then a new Church; making a beginning for herself, creating herself, as it were, and her doctrine; not being joined to the whole early Church, and not acknowledging her own previous existence, was evidently not only never in her mind, but the exact contradictory was so entirely an essential part of her life and being, that it is everywhere felt and assumed, and the only wonder is, it is as much stated as it is.

I have just said that Mr. Badeley advances these proofs of the character of our Church as to dogmatic teaching for one particular purpose, and in order to support one specific doctrine—baptismal regeneration. To that subject he confines himself in the application of what he had said, and, of course, most properly; because such only was the subject-matter in the appeal on which he was pleading; such the doctrine which, on behalf of his client, the Bishop of Exeter, he was bound to clear. But what I venture to say generally, from all these considerations and proofs as advanced by Mr. Badeley, is this,—that his mode of meeting the attack on the Catholic doctrine of baptism is precisely the just mode, and the right mode for us to meet any assault upon the faith of the Church of England; because those considerations of the nature of her rule of faith, and those proofs of her appeal to antiquity, and to the unrepealed dogmas of preceding ages, connecting herself with them, and showing her mind to retain the same teaching, are general, and apply not merely to baptism, or to any one doctrine, but to all our doctrines. And this defence, as it appears to me, is not only legitimate but sufficient: at any rate sufficient until specific exceptions are made and particular defects named, and proofs given, (if they may be,) of a contradictory teaching, by reference to the later authoritative expression of our Church’s mind; a position however which, as I shall presently show, you do not yourself assert. One thing further I would here observe before I proceed; that this line of argument and mode of defence of the Catholic doctrine of baptism not having been successful in this particular instance, and with this particular court, (although a reason to stir up all our energies to show the Church does not and never will acquiesce in the decision of that court,) affords no ground to any man to affirm that it has been authoritatively condemned as an unsound defence, nay, shows not at all that it might not even be admitted, and succeed in another case. The court cannot be said to condemn all the arguments on the losing side, however it may disregard them. The court is not sitting to try the arguments of counsel, but the general merits of the case; and no one, I suppose, would say that all the arguments of every lawyer who may not gain his cause are judicially pronounced worthless or unsound. What may be justly said of them appears to be no more than that they are not accepted as of weight by that court, or, at the most, that there is an implication of some censure or contempt upon them; but certainly there is nothing to prevent individuals still believing in their soundness; nothing to prevent their being advanced again as occasion may again arise; nothing to prevent them at another time, before even the same, and, much more, before another tribunal, being weighed, being allowed, and being successful. [69]

Under such sanction then it is that we claim the Catholic teaching of the universal Church, and the teaching of the Church of England prior to the reformation as our dogmatic teaching still, in all points save where it may be shewn (if it may) to be since plainly and expressly contradicted or repealed. And let us observe, more particularly, to what this principle will reach. Mr. Badeley’s beautifully connected statement has given as many grounds to think we know the Church’s mind upon the matter: it has also touched upon the injunction of the State looking in the same direction: (to this point, however, I shall have occasion to return). But I say at once, observe to how much doctrine this principle will take us; how much, at the very outset, it will claim and secure for us. Surely, every matter of faith embraced in the first four general councils is retained; for no one I presume will dare to say that the Church of England at the Reformation repealed, or intended to repeal, any single article, canon, or doctrine of those four councils. “Yea, even as it were a thing unreasonable,” says Hooker, “if in civil affairs the king (albeit the whole universal body did join with him) should do any thing by their absolute supreme power for the ordering of their state at home, in prejudice of any of those ancient laws of nations which are of force throughout the world, because the necessary commerce of kingdoms dependeth on them; so in principal matters belonging to Christian religion, a thing very scandalous and offensive it must needs be thought, if either kings or laws should dispose of the affairs of God, without any respect hath to that which of old time had been reverently thought of throughout the world, and wherein there is no law of God which forceth us to swerve from the way wherein so many and so holy ages have gone. Wherefore, not without good consideration, the very law itself hath provided,” he continues, quoting the section of the same act of parliament (1 Eliz. c. 1, § 36,) already referred to by Mr. Badeley, “‘that judges ecclesiastical appointed under the king’s commission shall not adjudge for heresy any thing but that which heretofore hath been so adjudged by the authority of the canonical Scriptures, or by the first four general councils, or by some other general council wherein the same hath been declared heresy by the express words of the said canonical Scriptures, or as hereafter shall be termed heresy by the high court of parliament of this realm, with the assent of the clergy in the convocation.’ By which words of the law,” Hooker adds as his comment, “who doth not plainly see how that in one branch of proceeding by virtue of the king’s supreme authority, the credit which these four general councils have throughout all churches evermore had, was judged by the makers of the foresaid act a just cause wherefore they should be mentioned in that case as a requisite part of the rule wherewith dominion was to be limited.” [71]

The admission, then, of the decrees of these four general councils, which I see not how any man can dispute to be admitted and received by the reformed Church of England, will surely give us a certain large, definite, important body of theology from and by which to teach our people; not perhaps all that we may want, explicitly set forth, however implicitly contained, because it was of course not until “emergent heresies” pressed upon the Church that she saw, or could see, in what direction her declaratory acts required to be put forth. But certainly in the adoption of these councils and their decrees, the Church of England both indicates her love and reverence for antiquity; and clears herself from all suspicion of attempting to begin “a new thing” at the reformation; as well as establishes a wide and satisfactory basis, on which to rest her further teaching. Can you yourself deny that so far we build upon a good and sure foundation? Or will you say that, after all this is but a semblance? that whatever the ecclesiastical appearance or tendency of these matters may have been, the erastian current swept them practically away? Will you say? “Even if I grant you the first four general councils, yet this is all; and this is insufficient; at the reformation, whatever her own wish, the Church was so grievously oppressed by the civil power (as she is now) that all the further links connecting her with the doctrine held previously to 1540 were snapped asunder: the enormous jurisdiction claimed by, and conceded to, and used by, King Henry VIII. swept away that Catholicity which you are bent to shew, and which the Church herself might have been glad to keep.” Will you say? “Whatever may be the vague expressions of some at that time or afterwards appealing to antiquity, yet look at the acts of Parliament of that date, and you will see all this is a delusion, and no real adherence to the prior doctrine is sustainable.” Even this charge I am not afraid to meet. I promised to return in order to consider a little more fully the secular recognition, at the least, non-condemnation of the principle, that whatever previous teaching is “not plainly, openly, and dogmatically contradicted” at the reformation or since, remains to us; and I will endeavour to fulfil my pledge. I think I shall be able to show, that whatever claims of an erastian nature might be made or might be conceded in the sixteenth century (I am not arguing how great they were), yet they did not reach to the point, and were not used to the end, you now suppose, but in God’s good providence over us, left your own principle of 1848 still untouched. By whatever constraint or chance it may seem to man’s eye to have occurred,—with whatever view, or by whatever mind devised, there is something where we should least have expected to find it, in the famous statute called “The Submission of the Clergy,” so much and often lately brought under notice (25 Henry VIII. c. 19), which, if it do not expressly prove the point in hand in favour of the Catholicity of the English Church, yet at any rate, to my mind, much supports it; and, at the very least, shows that the law of that day leaves the matter as it found it; and therefore does not militate against the position of our Church as it stands and is maintained in Mr. Badeley’s statement, nor exclude any of the general arguments from abstract reasoning on the point. “Hast thou appealed unto Cæsar? unto Cæsar shalt thou go.”

I turn to the Submissio Cleri—the statute 25 Hen. VIII. c. 19. The first section recites that several canons have been made in time past prejudicial to the king’s prerogative as well as to the laws and statutes of the realm; and thereupon refers to the petition of the clergy that the king’s highness with two-and-thirty commissioners may examine, confirm, or abolish such canons, ordinances, and constitutions. It provides also that henceforth the clergy shall not enact or promulge any constitutions or ordinances without the king’s assent; and that convocations “alway shall be assembled by authority of the king’s writ.” The second section empowers the king to name the two-and-thirty commissioners, and makes provision for the supply of the said number in case of the death of any of them. It also further prescribes their duties. Then after sundry enactments in the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth sections as to the courts and modes of appeal, and “the restraint of appeals” to Rome, the seventh section contains a proviso, thus stated, and commented upon by Lord Coke, in his fourth Institute: “But by the said act of 25 Henry VIII. their jurisdiction and power” (i.e. the clergy’s in convocation) “is much limited and straitened concerning the making new canons; for they must have both licence to make them, and after they be made, the royal assent to allow them, before they be put in execution. But in the end of that act there is an express proviso that such canons as were made before that act, which be not contrariant nor repugnant to the king’s prerogative, the laws statutes or customes of the realm, should be still used and executed as they were before the making of that act.” [75] This is Lord Coke’s comment, and it is much to be noted that he should stop where he does in citing the words of the proviso; because, as thus given, no one would entertain a doubt that all previous canons and ordinances, so far from being abrogated, were by this very act specially confirmed, except just in so far as they might be found contrariant or repugnant to the king’s prerogative, or the laws of the realm. It is manifest, too, that this is no oversight (lawyers will smile even at the supposition) on the part of Lord Coke, but that such indeed is his reading of the proviso; for he immediately applies it to a matter which he wishes to show was not binding in law before that time, to bar it, as it were, from claiming under the powers of that very act, which evidently it could not do, unless that proviso were understood to confirm precedent canons. “But before that time,” he continues, “a disme” (i.e. a tenth) “granted by the clergy at the convocation, did not binde the clergy before the king’s royal assent.” The argument of Lord Coke in this place appears to determine the point, that he so read the proviso, as to make it absolutely confirmatory, even under the terms of this very act “for the submission of the clergy and restraint of appeals,” of all “canons, constitutions, ordinances, and synodals provincial being already made, which be not contrariant or repugnant to the laws, statutes, and customes of this realm, nor to the damage or hurt of the king’s prerogative royal,” and that these should, as the proviso directs, “now still be used and executed as they were afore the making of this act.” I repeat that this view of the force of the said proviso, and this method of quoting it, is certainly remarkable—remarkable because there are further words in the latter part of the section appearing to qualify the sense, which yet are wholly passed over by Lord Coke, not merely in his quotation, but actually in his argument. I mean that his argument touching the previous power of the clergy to grant a disme, implies his belief that the general previous powers of the canon law still prevailed and this, (whether he considered the said disme to infringe the king’s prerogative or not) shews that the remaining apparently qualifying words of the proviso are by him advisedly set aside. Nevertheless, I will here add them, lest, in spite of such authority for the omission, I should be, or seem to be, acting unfairly, and not making the most of the adverse argument. The words I allude to are these: “The previous canons, constitutions, &c. shall now still be used and executed as they were afore the making of this act, till such time as they be viewed, searched or otherwise ordered and determined by the said two-and-thirty persons, or the more part of them, according to the tenor, form, and effect of this present act.” [76] It would no doubt appear from these words, as well as from Section 2 of the act, that there was an intention at that period of reviewing the whole body of the canon law, with a view to the obliteration of everything in the previous enactments which might appear to those commissioners unsound or inconvenient. This design, however, was never carried into effect. I know not how to regard it as other than a special mark of God’s great mercy and gracious goodness to this branch of his Church that it was frustrated. Perhaps it is not quite clear that the powers of these commissioners were intended directly to touch doctrine, or to reach beyond the abolition of canons and constitutions appearing to be contrariant to the king’s prerogative, or repugnant to the laws and customs of the realm, though I think the terms employed embrace a wider field, and at any rate in the temper of that day, might very probably have been understood and used to a wider purpose. “Great and manifold” indeed would have been the perils attendant on so sweeping a reformation of all the previous doctrine and discipline received by the English Church; and not without a trembling thankfulness as well as, to my mind, a heart-felt acknowledgment of the divine mercy, are we to think of our escape from so great a danger. To have had only so much of the laws and usages, doctrine and discipline of the primitive Church, or of the distinctive teaching of our own Church previous to the passing of this act, as such a board of commissioners might have thought good to leave us, would indeed have been to be put to the utmost hazard as to the measure of dogmatic teaching left us at all, and to the greatest risk of our being cut off from Catholic antiquity altogether. Of course even then, the mere act of parliament, and its authority to the commission could not have effected this. The Church might, theoretically at any rate, have broken from the bondage, and severing her connexion with the State at whatever cost, have preserved her purity and freedom. [78a] But, considering how little likely any such resistance appears to have been, if that commission’s work had been carried out, we may well thank “the Lord our defence,” that in another mode we were delivered from the danger; and that although in the reign of King Edward VI. the two and thirty persons (at any rate one and thirty of them) were appointed, yet they never accomplished the review in question. “It is not necessary,” says Mr. Gladstone, “to discuss the wisdom or propriety of this petition of the clergy,” (i.e. to have such a commission appointed) “since the enactments passed in consequence of it never took final effect; and however material they may be as illustrating the spirit and tendencies of the day, they have not in any direct manner entered into the constitution of the English Church.” [78b] “The review of the laws ecclesiastical, indeed,” he says again in a further passage, “has no longer any effect for us, as the scheme ultimately failed of effect, and has now no legal or practical being.” [78c] It is not, indeed, that the whole act is repealed. As we well know this is not the case. It was repealed by the 1 & 2 Philip and Mary, but revived by the 1 Eliz. c. 1, so that, if it bind some things upon us now which the Church might wish otherwise, we yet have the advantage of that proviso in its last section, establishing previous canons and constitutions of the Church of England, (with the exception of such as may be contrariant to the king’s prerogative, or repugnant to the laws,) until a contingency should arise, which has never been fulfilled. That it never was fulfilled, may perhaps explain Lord Coke’s comment upon the proviso in question as an absolute assertion of the previous canon law, and his having apparently passed over as entire surplusage the, at first sight, qualifying words with which it concludes. And thus we may see there is an actual statute of the realm declaring, however unintentionally, yet really and practically, the authority, so far as statutes can declare it, of that very rule of the Church’s teaching previous to 1540, which you yourself so happily, as it seems to me, explained and enforced in 1848. Thus the very act of parliament, and the very proviso in it which threatened to be the destruction of the Catholic character of our Church, (i.e. if those commissioners had done the work contemplated,) become not only a witness in its favour, but actually declaratory by law of its connection with the Church previously existing. Henry VIII., and his act “for the submission of the clergy,” become the one,—really “Defender of the Faith,” and the other,—so far as the temporality can effect it, absolutely a charter, securing the Church’s dogmatic teaching by legally binding upon us the general body of the canons and constitutions, ordinances and synodals provincial of the previous ages. Surely we should be slow to say it is a straining of the eye of faith if herein it seems to see an accomplishment of the prophet’s word, “No weapon that is formed against Thee shall prosper, and every tongue that shall rise against Thee in judgment, Thou shalt condemn: This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord.”

I have spoken of the proviso in this act of parliament (25 Hen. VIII. c. 19) as confirming generally the canons precedent to its enactment. Of course I have not forgotten that the statute itself makes two exceptions, or rather, excepts two classes of canons and constitutions from that confirmation. 1. Such as may be “contrariant or repugnant to the laws and customes of the realm.” 2. Such as may be “to the damage or hurt of the king’s prerogative royal.” It may be well to pause a few moments, just to point out, though it is so plain it will require only to be mentioned to be allowed, that these limitations in no wise affect the argument as to the dogmatic teaching of the Church on doctrine. They point evidently to the claims of the papacy, and the powers of the supremacy. Indirectly, no doubt, the question of the supremacy may come to affect doctrine, as we plainly see at this time, but I mean that, as to previous canons upon doctrine, properly so called, these limitations of the act do not touch our assertion, that they remain as they were, except they may be shown to be plainly and openly repealed. Thus the two exceptions made have no bearing upon those great doctrinal points, whereon you and I alike desiderate dogmatic teaching; for no man will contend that the doctrine of the Church Catholic on baptism, on justification, on confirmation, on the holy eucharist, or on absolution, though carried ever so far, will in any wise clash with the king’s prerogative, (“that only prerogative which we see to have been given always to all godly princes in Holy Scriptures by God himself:”) nor are we asking that any doctrine shall be received which may be, if it be, repugnant to the laws and customs of the realm. All that we assert is, that where previous canons be not so, (and we fully believe those for which we contend do not come into collision with either law or prerogative at all,) and where the Church has not herself directly annulled them, there these same doctrines remain, as they have ever been received by the Church Catholic, and by the Church of England as a branch thereof;—as indeed she has, and had received them from primitive times and sources;—as she had accepted, guarded, and enforced them prior to the year 1540.

Of course in matters of law and legal construction I desire to speak with all deference and submission. Here, less than any where, should I wish to argue with over-confidence. I trust I shall not be doing so, if I sum up this part of my argument by saying, that it appears to me we are entitled to believe that the proviso in the 25 Henry VIII. c. 19 (the condition stated in the “until,” &c. never having been fulfilled), either actually asserts the force of the general body of previous canons and constitutions of the Church of England; or, at any rate, and at the very least, that it offers no bar, even secularly, to the general reasons as stated before, from common sense and the nature of things, as well as from the Church’s own appeals to previous teaching that those canons must remain in force, and that, to use again Mr. Badeley’s words: “Whatever was not altered at the period of the Reformation, remains and continues to be the doctrine and law of the Church to this day.” [82]

IV. I have said that there appears to be another confirmation of this view, from the consideration of what the Church of England would deprive herself of, if the contrary principle were to be carried out, and her existence dated only from the sixteenth century, and if it were ruled that nothing could belong to her faith and doctrine, but what was then determined and in words set down. It will not be necessary to enlarge upon this topic, but a few instances it may be well to give.

What then could we say is the teaching of our Church upon the inspiration of Scripture, if we had no appeal to ancient law, usage, or belief? The whole, which it was thought necessary to declare upon this matter at the reformation, is contained in the sixth Article, and that deals not with the inspiration of Scripture at all, a point not in dispute, but with its sufficiency, as containing all things necessary to salvation, as opposed to a particular view of tradition. That article also enumerates the canonical books, and speaks of their “authority;” (the Church also, we may remember, is said to have “authority,” in another article, but many who assent to that would scruple perhaps to say they believe in her inspiration); and I do not think any man can say that there is in the article in question any declaration either that those books which are canonical are inspired, or those which are uncanonical are uninspired; not of course, in the least, that it was intended to throw a doubt upon the inspiration of the Scriptures, but that the articles, and even the formularies of the Church of England were not drawn up to declare all points of belief, because the Church unhesitatingly threw herself upon all previous doctrine, except where in any particular case she saw cause to alter, correct, or repeal. Just in the same way consider many other points. What strict belief should we have, upon the other hypothesis, as to the existence and power of evil spirits; or the eternity of punishment; or what rule for the observance of the Lord’s Day (save just as any other holy-day); or what mode of ascertaining the Church’s mind upon very many other subjects which have arisen or may arise, especially with regard to the pantheistic tendencies and theories of modern times, not treated of because utterly unknown and uncontemplated in the sixteenth century, if we were tied down to the mere wording of the reformation documents, but which are all of them capable of refutation in the broad expanse of doctrine preserved from the beginning! It will, I think, be plain to any one who will pursue this subject into its details, that the connexion of our Church with the Church previous to the reformation, is a fact necessarily to be assumed by us all, unless we would bring the whole question of her doctrine into a manifestly false position. To suppose this connexion to be wholly dissolved, is in truth such an evident reductio ad absurdum, as amounts to a full proof that no party of men, I do not say of great ability, but of an ordinary reason, could have intended to adopt that theory. Therefore it is impossible to believe that our reformers, in drawing up articles of religion, “to avoid diversities of opinions, and for the establishing of consent touching true religion,” and which treated of course of the diversities which then prevailed; and in putting forth practical offices of devotion, could, I say, have designed to ignore all that previous body of doctrine, which happened not to come into direct mention in those documents. If they had not purposed to retain the provincial ordinances of their own country, they might be expected plainly to have said so; but even if they had done this, they must have cast themselves upon the general teaching of the Church Universal, in a manner from which after all we should have nothing to fear, or, they would have left the Church they were reforming in such a bareness and nakedness of doctrine altogether, as no opponent of the Catholic character of our Church has ever pretended to imagine or assert. On this ground therefore, once more, I cannot but believe that the conclusion which you held and so lucidly expressed in 1848 is tenable and sound; and therefore that what we are still bound to teach, is the exclusive doctrine of the Church Catholic, unless the further explications on any matter at the reformation render it not merely ambiguous, as far as the documents of the reformation are themselves concerned, (this is insufficient to harm us, and nothing to the purpose,) but positively heretical, and absolutely contrariant to “the faith once delivered to the saints.”

You will see what I mean by saying that mere ambiguity in our reformation documents will not harm us, is this, that we have a prior and superior rule to appeal to, (if the preceding argument be sound,) by which such ambiguity will be corrected. No one pretends there can be any hurtful ambiguity or insufficiency in the connected teaching of the Church Catholic; and therefore wheresoever we may take refuge in that to cover any omissions or defects, if such there be, on essential doctrine in our later rule, we shall take no damage. The only thing which would really harm us, would be absolute contradiction of the truth, or positive assertion that such or such essential points were intended to be left vague and ambiguous. But this would be harmful, because in fact such declarations would not be merely declarations of vagueness or ambiguity, but would be heresy; would not be to assert, of two conflicting doctrines, that the Church teaches both, but, in fact, to rule that she teaches neither. No one however will, I think, pretend to say that the Church of England has said any where, in so many words, that she means to leave open such or such a doctrine, which the Church Catholic has closed. Perhaps you will say, “Not in so many words:—but by inference she does it; by her undecided manner where she has dealt with the topic, by the laxity which her words too evidently permit, by the known bias and opinions of many of those who framed them.” This, however, is just what I have been saying amounts to nothing against the previous unrepealed doctrine to which she is to be referred, and the consent of Catholic antiquity, by which she is really bound. I do assert such a repeal, if it be no more, is no repeal at all. No statute law can be so set aside, and assuredly not this, the law of Christ and his Church. If, indeed, we had only what the Reformation left us; if we were constrained to think all needful doctrine was there treated, and fully treated of; if any document of authority of that period had declared that no previous doctrine was admissible, unless then repeated and specially recognized; that nothing was important as a matter of faith beyond what the writings of that time included in their summaries, or embraced in their definitions; if the reformation had thus pronounced itself aὐτάpχης, and thus separated its Church and doctrine from primitive antiquity and the faith of Christendom, then indeed should we see that we were “in evil case,” to be required “to make bricks,” and yet to have “no straw given us.” But, since there is no such document, and no plausible evidence of even any such design, we trust we may put aside all fear that we are in this dilemma, and still build up our doctrine upon the sure foundation of “that which hath been from the beginning.”

Will you say? “I allow you have the old teaching upon points not mentioned at the reformation, but on no others: where any thing is treated of at all, it is definitely settled by whatever is set down; and thereupon no regard must be paid to any complement of doctrine derived from earlier teaching.” I answer, on what authority are we to receive this arbitrary distinction? Surely not upon the shewing of any direct evidence: if so, produce it. Not on the implied injunction or animus of the Church at the reformation, for she is full of appeals to precedent teaching on all points. Not on that of the state, for, as I have been shewing, at the very least, and if it do not enjoin the direct contrary, it enforces no such prohibition. And if the reformers of the ecclesiastical polity of that day intended any such restriction in their appeals to earlier times, (which I do not think they did) yet in that case, as it appears to me, God has overruled their intention, and brought to nought their counsel, by their having left no record to bind any man’s conscience in the Church of England to such a denial of Catholic theology. And who shall say, if they “intended to include” but “did not include”, the latitudinarian rule; [87] if these things be so indeed, it was not for this very purpose they have fallen out after such a fashion; that even after so many practical abuses as we know have crept in among us, after so many years when the ancient landmarks have been well nigh removed from sight, after so much deadness of heart among mere formal religionists, and so much running after novelties among the more earnest, enthusiastic, or self-willed, after all these things, and after so long a period of darkness on the land, yet now when there has been again a brightening, an awakening, “a zeal” more “according to knowledge,” a regard to antiquity, and a longing for the religion of apostles and apostolic men of old time, that now we might indeed have that to fall back upon which should prove our safety: might find the landmarks were only buried, not removed: might experience indeed and in truth that “heaviness may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning,” and might in that morning’s light be able to clear the path again which leadeth “into all truth,” and so walk onward into the “bright shining of the perfect day.”

Here too you will perceive why I said in the early part of this letter that it was important to state plainly what it was to which I had committed myself with respect to the animus of the reformers, and that this matter of intention being clearly understood, would be found to have a necessary bearing upon our present subject as we proceeded. If I had asserted the authority of the animus of the reformers to explain the meaning of the documents they put forth, interminable questions might be raised as to the subjects on which there could or could not be considered enough of ambiguity to allow the appeal to the previous Church. But, as I have before explained, not any where intending to assert that the sense of those documents was to be determined by the intentions or opinions of their framers, I trust I am in no dilemma here when I cannot admit the animus of the reformers, even if it were proved to have been to exclude such appeals, to be a reason for their exclusion. Even if the animus of ever so large a body of them could be absolutely shewn to have been to conciliate all parties by leaving open questions on essential doctrines in the formularies they put forth; if even they believed of themselves they had attained this end, yet as they forgot (if we may use the term) to break asunder the bond which connected the Church of England at that date with herself in the preceding ages, and with the Church Catholic, they left us all we want, to maintain the one faith once delivered, the faith of Christ our Lord, and of his Church from the beginning. If this result came by inadvertence, (as perhaps they might say) but of God’s great mercy, and the stretching forth of his arm over us, (as I should affirm) i.e. not by the oversight of man, but by the overseeing of God, still, any way, the rule of a Catholic theology has been retained, and their counsel has been brought to nought, so as merely to give us, as perhaps I may allow, from one point of view the semblance, but in no wise the reality of a lax rule of faith.

There is one argument indeed which, if it could be supported, might prove the rule to be really lax. I mean if it might be maintained with truth, that there are declarations in our articles, or doctrines in our formularies not merely ambiguous, or less clearly defined on the Catholic side than we might wish, but actually repugnant to the faith and contradictory to it. Of course this would be a fatal objection to the whole line of argument I have been using; for it would show, so far at any rate, a repeal of the previous doctrine, and preclude our gaining that reference to it on which I have been insisting. But I shall need take no great time or toil to show that this is not the case. You grant me the point yourself, not merely in your treatise on absolution, in 1848, but in the very letter to which I am now replying. Thus you concede it in the passage already quoted, and even in the very charge you make—“I am compelled to own that the utmost we are justified in declaring seems to be—not that the Church of England now ‘holds and teaches, &c.;’ but—that the Church of England now suffers and permits to be held and taught; and again, as to the right interpretation of the Prayer Book, not ‘must be understood,’ but ‘may be understood,’ to mean all that was meant before the year 1540.” [89] Your charge against the present state of the Church, you will observe is no more than that questions are left open; it is not that heresy is exclusively maintained or enforced. Again, to the same purport are the following passages: “Remember, I am in no degree withdrawing from the full extent of the assertion, repeated more than once, that the Church of England leaves ‘open’ so many deep and important questions.” [90a] So, in another passage, where you speak of the Eucharistic sacrifice—“Again I remind you that I am very far from saying now that the Catholic doctrine is denied and repudiated . . . for I have for many years taught (and as you know, have lately published in a sermon) that in the blessed Eucharist the body and the blood of our Lord are truly offered as a propitiatory sacrifice for the living and the dead.” [90b] It is plain you do not think this denied by the English Church; but your complaint is, that the articles and liturgy do not peremptorily enforce it.

Again, in commenting upon the “real presence,” and the words of the Catechism, that the body and blood are verily and indeed taken and received by the faithful, you say, “At the risk of weary repetition, let me once more say, that of course this place of the Catechism does not assert that the body and blood of Christ are not verily and indeed taken by all; and if there were in other places of our formularies anything even approaching to a statement of the reality of the presence of our blessed Lord in the consecrated bread and wine, independently of any qualifications or dispositions in the soul of the receiver, we might be able to show at once and distinctly that these passages in the liturgy and catechism cannot justly mean what they are generally brought forward to prove.” [91] I need not multiply quotations on this head, though I believe I have not nearly exhausted the passages I might cite. In short, your whole letter merely charges the heresy of “open questions” upon our Church, not the heresy of our being forbidden on any point to teach the catholic truth. And I say again, if this be all, we fall back at once upon your own former principle, though now by you abandoned and forsaken. We say, that we are not left to these the documents of the reformation alone, and therefore, if there are in them deficiencies merely negative, which is all your charge, we can supply the necessary teaching from those deeper wells of truth from which, whether intentionally or otherwise, the promoters and managers of the reformation have not debarred us. Neither the Church nor State enactments hinder, as I contend, this appeal; and observe, if we MAY make it, we MUST. We are not at liberty to use it if we please, and discard it if we please, for it is “the voice of the Church of England,”—a voice, as I firmly believe, which, if duly listened for, and scrupulously obeyed, will clear up every open question which the Church Catholic demands should be cleared up, and will answer every charge which a shallow observation of only the later documents, of the reformation, might bring against us. So fair and strong from these considerations do the grounds of hope and confidence appear, that I am tempted to paraphrase, though in a contradictory sense, one of the most despairing pages of your letter. You argue, “It is not necessary to pretend to know the dealings of Almighty God with men and nations so accurately, as to attempt to lay one’s finger upon the one, two, or three special acts which may avail to cut off any portion of the one holy Catholic Church;” [92a] and then you further bid us think whether with us the actual cutting off may not have been at the reformation, although a certain life may have been found for a time even in the severed limb. I am not concerned indeed to deny that there may have been much in the reformation to wound the branch; but I also maintain that its connection with the parent stem never having been severed, the life remains, and the wound may be wholly healed. [92b] ‘As regards the Church of England in particular, it may be that the so-called reformation contained—perhaps unknown to the original promoters of it’—precious ‘seeds’ of good ‘to bring in a certain though slow’ revival of all vital powers weakened by so great a shock; ‘and that then either’ old principles were secretly preserved, which in their after development would most surely avail to the restoration of all essential truths, or new principles were, unintentionally perhaps, so guarded and circumscribed that ‘the gradual course of time,’ as they came to be applied, would show them to be harmless. ‘Or, once more, it may be with portions of the Church Catholic as with the vine her mysterious type. “I am the vine, ye are the branches,” were the words of our blessed Lord, speaking of his body the Church, of which he is himself the Head. And we may well conceive how a branch,’ partially injured by some disease or canker, may suffer from the pruning-knife which endeavours to eradicate it; and yet in a period,—longer or shorter, as the case may be,—never having been severed from the stem, but deriving from IT the fulness of its life and sap, may wholly recover from the wound which the knife has made, and after a time flourish again in its pristine vigour, even as in its days of early youth, before any corruption had laid hold upon it, and bring forth fruit again an hundredfold for its master’s use; though requiring time to heal its wound, yet certain to be restored, if no fresh accident befall it, because of its union with the parent tree.’

I know well, analogies and similitudes may be made on all sides, and in support of almost anything. I know also, however useful as illustrations to clear our meaning, and to answer objections taken in limine, yet how little they can be relied upon as proofs: but I venture upon this antagonistic paraphrase of your illustration, that I may ask the question, whether perchance the view sustained by mine may not as probably be the truth as that sustained by your’s; and that I may express my trust we shall none of us be led astray from doing all that duty bids us do, in the tendance of our branch of the vine, by any such similitudes as those you have advanced, if the principle of your letter may be supposed to have found an answer; if, upon the grounds I have endeavoured to draw out, we may claim our union with the parent tree; in short, if the fact of the severance of the reformed Church of England from the Church Catholic be not made out beyond question or dispute. Until it be so proved, I at any rate feel it to be my duty stedfastly to cleave to her; not being blind to practical shortcomings, not refusing to acknowledge the dangers which beset her, even to the extent that she may so bend to the spirit of the world, and recognize the erastian liberalism of this day and age, that she may, instead of rising up again, be wofully and entirely cast down, but certainly not seeing that God hath so cast her down as yet. I do not, and I cannot take this as proved, or as done already, and therefore cannot accept the statements of your letter, nor the conclusions to which they lead. For you ought to have proved in detail, not that our Church’s articles or formularies since the middle of the sixteenth century, taken by themselves, or interpreted by cotemporary opinions, admit a double meaning, but that they actually exclude the sense and meaning of the Church previous to 1540; because if they do less than this, the admission in themselves of open questions (if it be so) is qualified and overruled by the earlier unexcluded dogmatic teaching; and I say it boldly, in spite of the scorn and contumely with which the liberalism of the day will greet such a sentiment, the present Church of England must thereby be understood to require all those ancient dogmas to be enforced, as the ONE ONLY TRUE SENSE of documents, themselves perhaps, by themselves, capable of a doubtful interpretation. Nothing less than the having “plainly, openly, and dogmatically asserted the contrary” will annul this obligation, and herein, as I believe, and as I have endeavoured now to show, will be found, in God’s providence, the safeguard and shield which He has thrown over this branch of his Church,—a safeguard and a shield, under the which we may rest a little while, “until this tyranny be overpast,” until she shall be able not merely to claim, but again to use, “the whole armour of God,” and convince the world practically of her teaching as well as holding “the Catholic faith whole and undefiled.” I do not, I dare not, shrink from the thought that further proof, shall I say trial, on this point awaits us. In God’s time and in God’s way I expect it. Humbly and reverently I trust I may add, “Let it come.” Perhaps it may be nearer than we think; for it is evident those who agree with me at all in the defence I have here set up against the charge of want of dogmatic teaching, must, in these days, as the assault upon catholic truth grows fiercer, be even more and more distinct, earnest, and plain-spoken in its assertion. As we claim, so will we, if it please God, more and more use the ancient faith, whether men “will hear, or whether they will forbear.” Not indeed as a process of tentation upon the Church, but as a simple matter of duty, and as a safeguard to our people, lest unawares, and step by step, they “forfeit all their creed.” But this, one way or another, is likely to bring us to a trial, and to a very practical solution of the questions raised, perhaps I may say somewhat speculatively, in your letter. If the Church of England then “will not endure sound doctrine,” let her say so. It may be we shall have immediately to distinguish between the voice of the Church and the voice of the establishment; but at any rate, let the Church speak out. Our perils are too great and too pressing on the side of acquiescence in heresy, to give us any option now as to speaking or keeping silence. Will you tell me that the bishops of our Church neither hold nor will tolerate these ancient doctrines; that they will soon settle this matter, “make a short work,” speak out, and show us the true Anglican faith; and drive from the Church of England those whose walk and whose heart are with a faith older than three hundred years? God forbid that I should sin against them by believing you. God forbid that I should believe any such thing, unless I live to see it. But if it should be so indeed; if the erastianism and latitudinarianism of the day should so have eaten, or should ever so eat their way into the heart of our episcopate, that such assertion of our Church’s catholicity, such clinging to ancient doctrine, such walking with the Church of the Apostles, and the religion derived in uninterrupted succession from them, shall be no longer endured among us, then let them know assuredly that they who bring this to pass,—they who drive the matter to such a point,—they who take the aggressive against sound doctrine, and ancient faith, will be responsible for that which shall follow, and will excite and evoke a spirit, with the which they and all their’s will in vain contend. They will do that which will provoke, not dribbling secessions, here a few and there a few, but that which, setting up the mark of Jeroboam in the land, as the symbol and banner of the establishment, will drive from it and them all the true priesthood and really Church feeling of the country. Then will there be, either a return to the Roman communion such as “neither their fathers nor they” have ever dreamed of, or a free Episcopacy, which shall cast aside the establishment as an “accursed thing,” throw itself upon Christendom for communion, and appeal to a general council of Christendom for approval, and, shaking to the very centre the whole religion of this country, shall gather into its own bosom, I will not say all that is good and holy, but all that is good and holy, and has with this goodness and this holiness any distinctive Church knowledge or Church feeling. Men who calculate consequences, if there be such, may well ponder these things, before they tremble “at the fear of man,” or think any way safer than the old paths, and the ancient faith. Let no man say I threaten wrongly, or threaten vainly. I desire not to threaten at all; but I know what I write; and truly, “is there not a cause?” Let all, friends and foes alike, know and well weigh on what a sea they are now embarked. Let them be prepared for what must come, if there be anything like faint-heartedness or cowardice among us, anything like treason to the Catholic faith in those in high place. Let it be known well that we, who are firmest and plainest in declaring the duty of cleaving to the Church of England now, and so are fighting her battle against you, and those like you, who take the easier perhaps, at any rate the shorter, road to escape from her embarrassments, that we do not pretend if the difficulty should arise that we cannot remain members of the English Church, and members of the Church catholic at the same time, we can hesitate as to our duty. Neither can we unlearn all that we have learned from the ancient fountain-heads of doctrine, and believe the catholic faith to be a thing of yesterday, or square it by the liberal theories of modern schools. We have drunk too deeply from the well-heads of antiquity for this to be possible. We can no more go back and believe the catholic truths we have imbibed to be no more than superstitious inventions and human figments, than we could return to the system of Ptolemy, and believe this earth to be the centre round which the sun and the stars revolve. These things we cannot do; but certainly we can, in mind and theory, and we do in fact, separate the ideas of the Church and the establishment, and can contemplate the possible arrival of a time and circumstance when the one must be kept to at the expense of the total abnegation of the other. And here foreseeing, we also count the cost. We compute whether we be able, “with ten thousand, to meet him that cometh against us with twenty thousand,” and in His name, and with His presence, who has promised to be “with His Church always,” we are not fearful, and shall not be careful if we must let the establishment go. We sit down to “build our tower,” not without considering whether we have “sufficient to finish;” and again, in the riches of His grace, we deem we have. We would make it “after the pattern which has been showed us,” and know then full well it will be a building which shall be able to shelter, and an ark which shall be able to save, all that are committed to us, all who will take refuge in it. To attain this, we are ready to sacrifice all but truth, to fight against all but God!

But I say once more, our perils are too great at the present time to allow of silence in the Church, to admit of any compromise or uncertainty, when inquisition is made as to what we hold, or teach our people. Let the Church of England speak, and speak unequivocally, and we shall know what to think. Let her courts, duly constituted, and especially her synods if they may meet, pronounce what she will bear, and what she will not bear; what she will recognize as her own with a mother’s love; what she will repudiate and put from her with a step-mother’s aversion. Then shall we know our duties, and see our way. Then perchance will it be found the State has reckoned unwarily, and counted upon too much. Then, if it try to bind her with the chains of the spirit of the day, may it be seen of all men that they are but as “green withs,” or “as threads of tow touched by the fire,” to bind the mighty. Even should the State prevail in mere numbers, who shall say but there shall be found some high in authority, and endowed with the powers of the Apostolate, who will stand “valiantly for the truth,” and “be of good courage, and behave themselves valiantly for their people, and for the cities of their God,” and use their powers, and the authority received from Christ, to shake, as I have said, the establishment to its fall, if there be any effort, by means of it, to take from us “one jot or tittle” of the faith? If they do this, even but six, or three, or two, or one among them, with the Creeds and Christendom to back them, surely we shall know what to do also. If they do not, we shall again know both what to think and what to do! Surely then God will “make a way under us for to go,” and at his word alone, we shall go forth; not certainly, as I should go forth now, were I to follow your steps, and remove from the place where He has cast my lot, with no light upon my path, no assurance, no conviction, no belief that I was proceeding under his guidance, or doing that which is according to his will. Rather, I cannot but adopt, and with it I will conclude this part of my present subject, the noble profession of thankful confidence made by yourself at the close of your treatise on absolution, where, acknowledging the singular preservation to us of a very minute particular, (involving, as you considered, important doctrine,) even a single letter in one of our rubrics, you thus expressed yourself:—

“The more I consider this circumstance, with the more heartfelt thankfulness and confidence do I look upon it as a token among many hardly to be unseen of the care and guiding with which the Almighty Head of the Universal Church ceaselessly has guarded, to his own wise ends and purposes, this our Church of England. These considerations, and such as these, bring their especial comfort. Some men, perhaps, may be indifferent about them. For myself, at one time in one thing, and at another in another, light and trivial as alone or singly they may or might have been together in their accumulation they supply—not arguments merely, for that in comparison would be a poor result, but—patience, in days of dispute and difficulty, in days of trial and obloquy and reproach; motives, again, to exertion and untiring labour in our Church’s cause; constant confirmation of the sacred truths which I believe she holds; and above all, with God’s most gracious help, an undoubting determination to endeavour by all means, and in every possible way, under her own holy shadow and protection, still and for ever to defend her against avowed enemies from without, and against mistaken friends within.” [101]

Although these remarks have extended far beyond the length which I contemplated when I began them, I am unwilling to bring my letter to a close without adverting to one or two points further, connected with the whole subject of which I have been treating, and the prospects which are before us. I have said, “I think we have the time, and I trust we have the means, effectually, though it may be gradually, to vindicate our Church.” [102] You may ask, perhaps, “What are these means?” You may say, “Deeply as many may feel the present crisis; earnest as they are to disclaim the decision of the Judicial Committee, that Mr. Gorham is fit to hold a benefice with cure of souls in the Church of England; determined as they may be to leave nothing undone which may be done to shake off the grasp of state interference with her spiritual rights and jurisdiction; yet what can they do more than uselessly agitate, or hopelessly complain? I know well,” you may say, “you are looking to the revival of the Church’s synodical functions; to the restoration of her convocation, to set all these matters right; to clear her doctrine, and consolidate her freedom. But these things are too uncertain and too distant to be accounted of. If you have nothing nearer and more direct than these, or such hopes as these for remedies, I can but reckon them ‘as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal.’ You will sooner be committed to the denial of the whole faith, than regain from the ingrained superstitious erastianism of this day and this people, the slightest approach to ‘the churchmen’ being permitted in their convocation to ‘do the work which is proper unto them.’” Now, I do not think this, yet I will not argue it:—but will rather come to something nearer and more direct as, at any rate, the beginning of a remedy. This, then I say, is nearer:—direct to clear ourselves individually from blame, and, it may be, competent in time to work for us an efficient cure either with or without the consent of the State, as God in his providence shall order. This I say:—to break communion with the Archbishop, and with those who uphold him in upholding the judgment of the Privy Council. This is a course open to us all; and is a direct course towards one part, at any rate, of our objects—the freeing ourselves from blame. Perilous, however, as our position is, I do not say the time has come for this to be done as yet; much less that I am competent to decide when such time shall have arrived. But I mention the thought, that you may perceive men’s minds are not without the suggestion of something immediate, practical, and real. However fearful the thought of such a course; however loth we may be to contemplate it; however startling it may sound in many ears to hear a priest in the Church of England speak such words, as of cutting himself off from communion with the primate of his Church; yet it is so far more fearful to think of that Church coming to deny an article of the creed, falling into such a condition that no Christian Church in ancient times would have communicated with her; (and this, I will plainly say, is what I think we are in danger of coming to, and shall come to if we acquiesce in the present state of things; and) this is so much more fearful than the alternative I have suggested, that I feel it is only right to call attention to that alternative, as a means by which we may escape being “partaker of other men’s sins.” Your difficulty is, whether a man may lawfully remain a member of the Church of England and trust his soul to her keeping. Mine would be to justify myself in leaving her whilst such a remedy remained in my hand unused. Surely if we are able to separate ourselves from all responsibility in the latitudinarian guilt, it will be sufficient for us, for the time at any rate, and may besides result in further good. If our archbishops or archbishop should bring things to that pass that no early Church would have communicated with them, then, no doubt, if we cannot escape from implication with what they have done, we shall be ourselves involved in the desert of excommunication; but if we can do what those very Churches would have done, we may hope this will avail to show we should not have been cast out of the communion of Christendom. If we can so separate ourselves from their deed, and the erastian influences which admit heresy, that we should have been received by all early Churches as “the orthodox,” or “the Catholics” of the English Church—then I do not think we shall have any excuse for deserting our spiritual mother for the blandishments of another communion, for anything that has been done as yet. Thoughts of this method of proceeding, and musings whether the time has not come openly to disclaim communion with all those who support the Judgment of the Privy Council in the recent case, have been now for many months in the minds of some. Thus I may cite the very passage quoted by yourself, at the close of your first letter, from Mr. Keble’s first number of “Church matters in 1850.” “If the decision be adverse, it needs to be distinctly proved that a bishop or archbishop acting on that decision would not involve in heresy both himself and all in communion with him.” p. 26. Again, the same author has said: “In old time, such a step” viz. as the archbishops have taken, “would have been met by the Christian people withdrawing from their communion for a time.” [105a] It is true the writer did not appear then to contemplate such a measure as possible for us; and added some explanations at a later date on this point, showing what were our peculiar difficulties in reference to it: yet he added, at the same time, “I do not say that such interruption of communion may not even now be an orthodox bishop’s duty; although, as yet, by God’s good providence, the contingency which we have been told would make it so has not occurred.” (I presume this means the Archbishop’s institution of Mr. Gorham.) “I do not say that it may not ere long be a priest’s, or even a layman’s, duty; I only say that it is not the step for priests or laymen to take just now.” [105b] Again, let it be remembered, that as might be expected, he who has borne the brunt of this battle, who has waged the Church’s war after the pattern of a soldier and bishop of ancient time, was among the very first to suggest this remedy; nay, more, to encourage and cheer us by openly saying he should in a certain contingency, himself adopt it. Even so far back as last March, immediately upon the delivery of the judgment, the bishop of Exeter thus sounded the note of warning:—

“I have to protest,” he said at the close of his letter to the Primate, “against your Grace’s doing what you will speedily be called upon to do, either in person, or by some other exercising your authority. I have to protest, and I do hereby solemnly protest before the Church of England, before the holy Catholic Church, before Him who is its Divine Head, against your giving mission to exercise cure of souls within my diocese to a clergyman who proclaims himself to hold the heresies which Mr. Gorham holds. I protest that any one who gives mission to him (Mr. Gorham) till he retract, is a favourer and supporter of those heresies. I protest, in conclusion, that I cannot, without sin, and by God’s grace I will not, hold communion with him, be he who he may, who shall so abuse the high commission which he bears.” [106]

What, then, do such weighty passages press home upon us, but that the time for such action may come? Perchance even now it is drawing very near. One almost trembles to write it; so fearful and awful a thing it is to contemplate openly breaking the unity of the Church of England, and interrupting communion with its primate, if he proceed to consummate, or permit to be consummated by his authority, (nay, without his most deep and solemn protest on behalf of God’s truth, the Catholic faith, and his own high office,) the institution of Mr. Gorham. If he make no disclaimer, and throw no impediment in the way, the Rubicon indeed is passed, and there must come the counter-action of all earnest-minded Catholics in this “city of our God.” I, at least, am desirous to say that I stand prepared (not indeed to act alone and upon my own mere judgment, but if those who may best advise us sanction the proceeding, as I verily believe in no long time they will,) to withdraw openly from communion with the archbishop. You will ask what I mean by the term. I do not pretend to answer for other persons’ meaning: but what I mean is at least this, that I will say openly and solemnly I would refuse him the holy communion in my parish church, were he to come into it, and offer himself at the altar, and equally refuse to receive it at his hands, or with him. Nay, more, I think we have it as a weapon in our armoury, to be used, were it well advised and sanctioned, (and certainly to be used before one would think of giving up the Church of England as forsaken by God,) to extend this same withdrawal from communion, from him who is “the head and front,” even to all those, at any rate of the clergy, who refuse thus to join in breaking off communion with him. However strange, however painful, however solemn, however awful it may be to say such things, I esteem it now an absolute duty not to withhold them, both that those whose steps are faltering, whose hands are made weak, whose feet are sliding, whose hearts are “failing them for fear, and for looking for those things that are coming upon the earth,” may know to what resources some among us at any rate are looking, and also (with all humility and due reverence would I say it,) that he who has been set as the highest ecclesiastic in our branch of the Church of Christ, may at least know to what extremities he is driving matters by such efforts for peace, at the expense of an article of the creed, and the faith once for all delivered.

It may be well to draw out even a little further still, some of the thoughts suggested by the foregoing observations. It is plain that, if it shall come to pass that we have to withdraw from communion with the archbishop, it will immediately and at once become also our duty to withdraw from all societies retaining him as their head. Rather, it will be their duty to remove his Grace’s name from their committees, and refuse to act under his presidency. If we may not hold communion with him, we may not acknowledge him as fit to preside over, or be a manager in, our church societies. In such societies as he now holds the post of president by annual election, or by some standing rule, the proceeding will be comparatively easy, because the next general meeting of the society can elect some other in his room, or annul the rule by which he is ex officio the president, or a member of the committee. In cases, if there be such, where he holds such position by charter, the matter may be more difficult and more perplexing, but I believe myself it will then be any and every such Church society’s duty to apply for an alteration in its charter under the new and unforeseen circumstance of the Archbishop of Canterbury having abetted heresy. But if such societies, or any of them, neglect or refuse to take these steps, it will immediately become the imperative duty of individuals to withdraw their names, and (so far as it may depend upon them,) break up their parochial or district associations in support of such societies as refuse to recognise the importance of keeping the faith of the Church of England pure, and thus become partakers in the guilt of allowing it to be stained. Many will say, no doubt, “How can you contemplate, much more counsel, so violent and destructive a policy? What is the Church to do in missions and promotion of Christian knowledge, if such a plan be put in execution?” I can but answer, if things come to that point, that we must break communion with the archbishop, in order to save our name and keep our place in Christendom, then these consequences necessarily follow, and we have no choice. We shall never come to such resolve but upon the weightiest grounds:—grounds that will leave us no option as to following them out. We shall have no right to make matters of principle into matters of expediency or calculation of consequences. But if I did look to such, I should come to the same conclusion: for, whether is it better to paralyze our efforts for the present, if so it be, by the weakening such societies, or to aid them when they, those very societies themselves, will be actually spreading no longer truth, but error and sinful compromise? Whether is it better for us all that we be stopped in a career of sin, or that we run on in it, in a seeming prosperity perhaps, but in reality spreading wherever we go, and whatever we do, the heresy that the Church in which we live and serve, has no doctrine on baptism, and we think it best to take no notice of the fact; but still to hold willingly in the post of chief honour and authority him who has “concurred” in, who justifies, who acts upon the decision which thus assails the faith? No! indeed and in truth, if we do look to consequences, the very confusion, perplexity and distress which may ensue, do but bind upon us the more this line of action: they are the very things probably to “bring us to ourselves.” If we prove that our Church cannot do her work under the charge of heresy, surely it is well. No doubt all this is full of dismay and sorrow; but any thing is better than to be easy in or under heresy. And it is by distress, by suffering, by being made “to go through fire and water,” that we may afterwards be “brought out into a wealthy place.” It is by being exposed to any amount of misery and degradation that we are to be purified. If we never feel “the mighty famine,” and even be driven “into the fields to feed swine,” and have to “fill our bellies with the husks that the swine do eat,” and “no man,” perchance, “give unto us,” or pity us, it may be we shall never be brought to say, “I will arise and go to my Father;”—I will seek again in all its purity the early faith, even though it be through the sufferings also of those who early held it. And “who knoweth but God may be gracious unto us,” to forgive us our sins, especially the sin of lax holding, or practical denial of that early faith on so many sides; who knoweth but He may bring us back into our good place in his favour, that He may give us “beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness;”—even the place of favoured children in our Father’s house, for the isolation of a “far country;”—nay, that He may even say, “Bring forth the best robe and put it on him, and put shoes on his feet, and a ring on his hand; and bring hither the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat, and be merry, for this”—this Church of England so long, as it were, estranged from Christendom, is again at one with her; whereof let Christendom rejoice together!

The thoughts of such results as possible in God’s providence, if now we stand firm, and fight for the truth, must not make us forgetful of our present state and our present danger. I must repeat it, if these be so evil, we must look for sorrows before we expect relief; we must be ready to go through it; we must, like our divine Master, “set our face like a flint;” whatever reproaches be cast upon us, we must be prepared not to hide it “from shame and spitting.” We must not care for any loss or confusion in this time of rebuke, if only we may preserve the faith for and in our Church, whole and undefiled.

So strongly do I feel these things, that I can deliberately say I could even wish we might be laid under an interdict;—no baptisms, no marriages, no communions, no christian burials, rites, or ordinances be performed or celebrated among us, until we humble ourselves, and return unto our God, rather than the Church among us fell asleep, and all our zeal and fervour cool down, and we lose an article of the creed, and merely cry despairingly, “what can we do?”—recognising in all this no real difference, and believing in no real loss. Such an affliction, if there were any to put it on us, (and it may be it would be laid upon those who are hardened or careless, as the result of what we are now doing, if we be still and tranquil, supposing only an œcumenical council could be held to pass its judgment on these things, I say, such an affliction) might purge and purify us, might separate the wheat from the chaff, might prove who were infidels, and who believers in that other article of the creed, “the one Catholic and Apostolic Church,” and might show we were not without such “a remnant” at any rate, as might cause Him to look upon us with some favour who is all mercy to those whom He perceives to be really bent, to bow no knee to Baal.

I cannot bring myself to leave these things unsaid, much as, on many accounts, I should be glad to do so; because they serve to show what kind of action I think we have it in our power to use, and prove of course how light a matter it must be to withdraw from this or that voluntary society; nay, comparatively how easy to strike off an archbishop’s name from a committee; nay, even to withdraw from communion with him, and those who may uphold him, when placed in the scale with such a tremendous infliction as I have named. And although the effects of such withdrawal, if done by but one priest here and there, may be little indeed; yet, whatever line of action shall be deemed necessary, if it be taken by many in different parts, separated by distance and circumstance, but one in heart and action, this will, I think, produce so great a difficulty in the position of affairs, that the restoration of a convocation will be the only remedy. Whatever may be the difficulty, if it prove the Church of England cannot do its work whilst under the curse of heresy, that is, not until it shake it off, (for the which we trust we shall be found to strive unto the death,) it cannot be amiss. [112]

I cannot leave this subject without adding a few words, to explain how it is I feel compelled to say these things, and yet continue to hold preferment in the Church of England; how “I justify my deeds unto myself,” in contemplating and speaking of the possibility of refusing the holy communion to her highest ecclesiastic, were he to present himself for it, in my parish church, and yet retain any parish or parish church at all. I have no doubt this will strike some persons as requiring, some perhaps as not admitting, explanation. But since what I have here said is not the result of petulant feeling or hasty resolve, but is said with thought and deliberation, it may be better to state the grounds on which I feel bound both thus to speak and to retain my living, than leave it to be supposed I have never considered whether there is any inconsistency in my conduct, and to each man’s own mind to guess my motives, and supply my reasoning. Honestly, if I know my own heart at all, can I say, I do not think still to hold my cure of souls in the Church of England for the sake of the loaves and fishes to be obtained by so doing. I am ready and willing, if any man can show me my duty requires it in consequence of what I have written, to resign my living to-morrow. But I do not resign it, because I am fully persuaded there are times when, much as we should delight to pay to those in highest place superabundant honour and the most glad submission without scrutiny or question of any kind, yet we are bound to institute inquiry whether we can do this, and not betray HER “who is the mother of us all;”—times when it is a duty to “withstand to the face” those who inherit even an Apostle’s robe;—times when we are forbidden to “flee away,” even if it were “to be at rest.” Then we must learn to bear not only the reproach of “envious tongues,” and the “evil report” of such as are adversaries to the whole cause we have at heart; not only the hard thoughts of those whose utmost charity is only able

“in see-saw strain to tell Of acting foolishly, but meaning well;”

but even the misconstruction and condemnation of some, who do go with us on the catholic side a certain way, but who are alarmed when anything is proposed or done beyond the ordinary routine of a gentle resistance. Nay, even more than bearing these things from others, we are constrained to become, yet in no ill sense of the word, casuists ourselves, and weigh minutely what that is which in principle we are bound to give to them “who sit in Moses’ seat,” and where we must stop, lest we should be found to break a higher command than theirs “by doing after their works.” There are, no doubt, difficulties on the side of action, lest we be not sufficiently observant of the “powers that be.” There are difficulties on the side of inaction, lest, while we sleep, “tares may be sown” which we shall never be able to eradicate. So we come to be obliged, even against our will, to consider what deference, what authority, what guidance of affairs, must needs be given to a chief ruler, simply for his office’ sake. And the first thought which meets one is, that undoubtedly no Archbishop in the English Church can claim to be to us a Pope; the second, that matters are much simplified as to compliance, if it be any fundamental of Christianity, any article of the creed, which is brought in question. For then, history, and the uniform tradition of the Church, alike teach us that it is not merely the right, but the duty, not merely of the priest, but of the lay people also, to contend for the faith openly and uncompromisingly, by whomsoever it may have been assailed, and under whatever circumstances. The word, too, which is above all words, speaks not of gentle resistance, or moderate opposition, or needful quiet, or charitable construction: but is, “contend earnestly;”—“resist unto blood;”—“quit you like men, be strong;”—“accept no man’s person”—fear no man’s rebuke;—regard no man’s favour;—consult no mans feeling;—“wish him not so much as God speed,” be he who he may, who would give away God’s honour and God’s truth. “If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go serve other gods, which thou hast not known, thou, nor thy fathers:”—(let us make a new faith other than that once for all delivered:—let us change the creeds of the Church Catholic) . . . “thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him; neither shall thine eye pity him, neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him.” Well, surely, have we been reminded, “It was a simple bishop who addressed the First Patriarch of the Church with the Anathema tibi, prævaricator Liberi, when that Pope had tolerated Arianism; they were simple priests who appealed against the Second Patriarch of the Church, and him too a saint, when Dionysius of Alexandria appeared to deny the Catholic faith concerning the Son of God; it was a simple layman who attacked the then Second Patriarch of the Church for heresy when Nestorius broached his errors on the Incarnation; and both bishop, priest, and layman have received eternal honour, as having been ‘valiant for the truth upon the earth.’ In our ordination oath, to ‘be ready with all faithful diligence to banish and drive away all erroneous and strange doctrines, contrary to God’s word,’ I find no proviso, ‘except they shall be supported by superiors.’” [116] Surely, then, to refuse communion to one, however high in station, is no such great thing, where the faith is put in peril. Alas! I fear those who talk most of peace and quiet, who are, more than anything else, afraid lest Churchmen should do too mush, forget, or it may be have never realized, that it is no less than the faith which is now endangered. And if there is one thing more than another which now disquiets and disheartens thoughtful, earnest-minded, far-seeing men, it is this;—to perceive that there are numbers who are not themselves in the least heretical on baptism, who yet say that all we need is rest; whose great anxiety is that excitement should cease, and quiet be restored; who believe all would be well if these “unhappy differences,” as they call them, could be forgotten; these “sad animosities,” as they appear to them, could be laid aside, and all things return into a peaceful current. Alas! “Peace, peace, when there is no peace,” is the order of the day, I fear, with only too many. Oh! that I could “lift up my voice like a trumpet,” to arouse such, before they give up, step by step, to the encroaching liberalism of the day the very vantage ground it covets, and be only turned at last, and made to stand at bay, when they find they can recede no further without being pushed absolutely down the gulph; discovering this, however, only when it is too late, because they will already have surrendered their strongholds, and yielded up God’s armour, and then find, to their sorrow and dismay, that even such weapons as they may still have left are profitless and vain, the space in which they are pent up being all too strait to allow them rightfully to wield them. Oh! that I could awaken the sleeping heart of this English people to feel for God’s honour as for their own, or for their country’s! and to know, if they would indeed win His battle, they must, one and all who have Catholic hearts, throw themselves into the very midst of the fight, and strain every nerve, and use every weapon, now whilst there is time, as I believe, in God’s might, and by His help, to win it. Oh! that we all knew we may not leave our cause to fight for itself alone, (which is to desert it,) and so provoke Him our Saviour and Defence to forsake us, and permit us to become at last as Ephesus and Smyrna, as Pergamos and Thyatira, as Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea.

I do not, then, resign my cure of souls, because I feel God has appointed me to be one in this warfare, and I may not give away anything He has put into my hand wherewith to bear my part in it. I do not resign my cure, because I think I should not be doing my Lord’s work;—I should not be fighting his Church’s battle;—I should not be using his weapons;—I should not be feeding his flock;—I should not be avouching his truth;—I should not be bearing, in any appreciable degree, the same testimony to it, were I to resign my cure of souls, and then say, “I would not admit such or such to holy communion if I had a parish.” No! let it be known and felt that as a priest, in the exercise of the priestly office, I do what I do, and promise what I promise. And although I have allowed even herein I am but speaking prospectively of what may become our duty, I repeat that I dare not withhold my thought of what possibly is coming upon us, both that we may all be prepared if it come, and that those who have most power to avert any such necessity, may see how very urgent and extreme is the crisis in which our (and their) lot is cast.

I know well how the world will take my saying, and meet my argument. It will say this at least, if it say no worse, “Granting what you urge has a certain force and consistency in itself, if you were merely a priest; how is it reconcileable with being a priest in the diocese of Sarum, and province of Canterbury? how is to say these things, compatible with the canonical obedience which you have sworn?”

I might answer, perhaps, that I know not that I have sworn anything to the Archbishop, since I never was in his diocese, either in Chester or Canterbury; but this answer would be possibly insufficient, even for my own case, as there may be an implied canonical obedience through the suffragan bishop to the metropolitan. Moreover, if it cleared other dioceses, and the priests in them personally, it would be no general answer, but leave a burden on the consciences of those who minister in the diocese of Canterbury. I will therefore make a further, and, I trust, a more complete reply. I say, that what I myself, and every priest among us, has subscribed to, is obedience to his bishop “in things lawful and honest.” Can this ever bind me to acquiesce in expunging an article of the Nicene creed? in not contending to the utmost against the heresy that our Church has no dogmatic teaching on baptism at all? You may tell me, the law will take another view of what is “lawful,” and compel me to subscribe to it. When it does, it will be time enough for me to think what I shall next do; and I trust I shall not be forgetful that there is an authority higher than the law of man. [120] Therefore this I will say even now, (indeed I have already said it,) if the time ever come when this Church and realm shall so receive doctrine that we cannot hold the Catholic faith, and remain members of the Church of England too, one thing at least will be clear, that we must then give up the Church of England, and I will join with you in seeking somewhere else a purer faith. But I do not believe as yet, whatever this realm may think, that this Church hath acknowledged the Gorham theology to be her faith; and I will say this besides, if ever it shall come to pass that it is about to be ruled, not to be “lawful and honest” to separate from any that openly abet or foster heresy; that our subscription to “obey in things lawful and honest,” binds us to a bishop or an archbishop so committing himself, so aiding and abetting the permission of heresy, then will a new phase open upon our Church; then will that great argument of the day be ranged on our side, “Take heed what you do, or three thousand priests will resign their cures, and seek some other shelter!” Yes! then indeed will it be, (I doubt it not) that some of our spiritual fathers will make it plain to all men wherein our great “strength lieth,” and show that we depend not upon “an arm of flesh;” that there are men of all ranks and circumstances among us, willing to “count all things but loss,” so they may “keep the faith,” and that in deed and in truth the Church is separable from the establishment. In the mean time, as I have said, I find myself, not as yet bound down to the decision of the Privy Council, nor ensnared, by having undertaken to minister in my cure as “this Church and realm hath received” doctrine, because, even though this realm may have received that judgment as legal, I think the Church has not ratified it as valid. I find no burden upon my conscience in having subscribed to obey my ordinary “in things lawful and honest,” nor do I perceive how I shall find it, even though I may come to think it unlawful to hold communion with the Primate. And I find no cause to resign my cure, though I have deemed it necessary to say these things.

There is one subject more, which I cannot make up my mind to pass over. I have said the very struggles which we make for freedom, will, in their making, test our Church. This itself is used as an argument by some, against exertion; at least against exertion for the objects which most Churchmen now advocate—the regaining for her, her free synod or convocation. “Convocations and Synods.—Are they remedies for existing evils?” is the title of a thoughtful pamphlet which I have seen. The “Anglican Layman” (such is the author’s description of himself on his title page) says, the remedies which he has heard suggested appear to him “one and all of a dilatory and inconclusive character, in part hopeless, in part useless, and in part of doubtful propriety.” [122] I will not swell what I have already written by any comment on the first two of these objections; on the last I must say something; and, to introduce it, I will make a further extract from the pamphlet in question:—

“Suppose the convocation assembled with universal consent, or even suppose a properly constituted synod to be convened with the approbation of the State, or suppose the united episcopate to be assembled without it, would the decision of any or either of these be really authoritative? In what sense would it be so? Would any or either of the parties in the Church consent to be bound by it? What is meant by an authoritative decision? What do the ‘Resolutions’ I have quoted mean by an ‘authoritative declaration’? What does the Metropolitan Church Union mean by ‘the only body possessing authority in controversies of faith’? What does the Bishop of London mean by ‘finally settling the question by a synodical decree’? Would you be bound by it?—Should I be bound by it?—Would the minority of such an assembly be bound in conscience by the majority?—Would the majority itself be bound by the decision in any permanent sense, because they were the majority? In fact, who can doubt that there is on both sides a determined foregone conclusion on the point in dispute, and that no one individual on either side would hold himself bound in conscience to abide by the decision.”

* * * * *

“But it will be said—it is said, ‘although the decision, if wrong, will not bind us, it will bind the Church, and if the Church should commit itself to heresy, our course would be plain.’ Now, a great deal of very solemn and serious language is used in speaking of the Church of England, and of the duty, and allegiance we owe her, much too solemn indeed, and too serious, unless we mean what we say; she is ‘the Church of our Baptism,’ we are her ‘children,’ we call her ‘our Sion,’ ‘our beloved Church,’ ‘our holy Mother,’ we profess to be jealous that any one should intrude upon her office as a ‘teacher of the Truth,’ or speak in her name without her commission. All this implies respect, deference, an admission of her right to guide us. Now, if it be true that whatever our Mother may say, we shall one and all turn a deaf ear to her voice, unless she speaks in accordance with our own previous convictions, that we are reserving our objections to her authority till we hear her judgment—that we intend to test her authority by her judgment, is not our language of reverence and affection somewhat unreal?