LETTER.

My dear Maskell,

One who has known you so long and loved you so well as I have, cannot fail to experience much sorrow of heart in now addressing you. But private sorrows, and private feelings have little place in the great crisis in which we live. I do not mean that we are required to be stoically indifferent; but that our duties to God and God’s truth, are so paramount over any regard to earthly ties, or private griefs, that we must needs put them by—so far at least as that they be no hindrance or impediment to the doing His will. Truly, in our time does the cycle of the world’s course seem to have come round, and never perhaps since the early days of persecution has there been so much need to remember and apply the warning, “He that loveth father or mother more than me, is not worthy of me.” Believe me, I acknowledge fully, and am glad to acknowledge thus openly, that I am as much persuaded you are acting under the constraint of this great law, as that I am desirous to be guided by it myself. I acknowledge your trial (and have good cause to know how severely you have felt it), and I as much believe in your sincerity as I do in my own. I trust, therefore, that never by me at any rate shall your anticipation be realized, when you say, “I am prepared to be judged harshly, and the more harshly by oldest friends.” [6] Though I do not come to the same conclusions with you, and am about to controvert the general argument of your “Second Letter,” I know you will be the first and readiest to do me justice as to the temper in which I write.

Whatever view the world may have taken of that letter, or however it may regard its author, I think few will deny it is well it should have some answer. It is a different thing to say, it were well it had not been written, or, not written by one in this or that circumstance, from saying that being written, it does not demand a reply. Persons may and will judge differently, as to the propriety of your having published it, though I dare say, far the greater part of English Churchmen will be against you in that respect, and say they know not how to reconcile your having done so with either dutifulness or wisdom. For my own part, however, I must say (whatever may be thought of me for saying so) I do not condemn you for having published it; if only you will seek patience to weigh all circumstances indicating the line of duty, before you shall finally act upon the doubts and difficulties it discloses. I confess, to my mind, there is but one justification for any man in the communion of the Church of England, having written and published such a letter; viz.—that, feeling the oppression of the difficulties it sets forth, he is yet no more than in doubt, as to the matters debated in it, and the conclusion to be drawn from them. Perhaps in ordinary times even such a frame of mind would not be a sufficient excuse for the unsettling tendency of that which you have written; but certainly these are not ordinary times; and, I agree with you in thinking, many ordinary rules do not apply. Enquiries therefore how far the Church of England may have sanctioned error, or failed to teach the whole Catholic truth, pressed even with painful nakedness and pertinacity, must, perchance, now of necessity be instituted, in order “to do her good at her latter end.” At any rate there is a show of reason on his side, who says, “If her ‘grievous wound’ be not probed to its full depth, it will never be more than ‘slightly healed;’” and of this argument, I, at any rate, am disposed to allow you the full benefit. Moreover, when it cannot be denied that practically “the trumpet” has given “an uncertain sound,” it seems far more “tolerable” to have enquiry pushed even to what some will call the verge of disloyalty, than would be the case if the cause of uncertainty were only in the writer’s mind, and might not, with any plausibility or truth be charged upon the Church herself. Still, after making all due allowance for these disturbing forces, there is, I think, no justification at all for such statements as those in your “Second Letter,” but in the one consideration that the writer is grievously pressed by the difficulties of the case; (“the archers have hit him, and he is sore wounded;”) yet, believing it would be sin to let go his hold upon the Church in which his lot has been cast without the most direct and earnest endeavours to ascertain whether his doubts have not an answer, and his difficulties a solution somewhere, he lays them as a duty, and with great pain, though with all plainness, before his brethren of the same communion, that he may rejoice in such answer and such solution if they can be given. Take away this honest motive, and consider the writer’s mind as already made up, and I see no escape from the reproach of his having written as a traitor: but grant the supposition I have made (and I know, better, I believe, than most men, how safely it may be granted you), and there remains, to my mind, no ground for the invective and reproach with which in some quarters you have been met. [8]

You will not misunderstand me, if I say that I approach the task I have undertaken with a certain disquietude, arising from the responsibility I appear to take upon myself, and the consciousness how little qualified I am duly to discharge it. These thoughts have made me feel at times uncertain whether I do well to attempt it at all. Still, as I do not think at present there is any notice of another undertaking it; and as, if there be, my letter will be no hindrance to any one else more worthily occupying the same ground, and as I do seem (to myself at any rate) to have something to answer as to the principle on which your difficulties rest, perhaps I better discharge my duty by writing what I can, than I should do in withholding my letter, from the knowledge my ability does not reach to the half that I could wish. I trust, however, you will remember, if I have not learning or skill to state the Church of England’s argument in the way it may best be stated, that I only am responsible; and it is no fair mode of reasoning, to argue, the Church of England can say no more in defence of her position than I may be able to set down for her.

But I proceed to the subject before me.

The drift of your whole second letter appears to me to be summed up in this one sentence towards its close, “I have resigned my cure of souls, because I have no doctrines and no faith to teach, as certainly the faith and doctrines of the English Church.” [10] Plainly this involves the whole point at issue; for if you have none, (I mean as a result not of your own mind, but from the Church’s defect,) then of course neither have I, nor has any one of her priests; and if so, we have all, (all, that is to say, who are enough imbued with the spirit of Catholic antiquity to know and feel that we must teach as the Church in all ages has taught,) no other line before us but to follow your example in resignation of our cures. And this again is a sentence of deposition to the Church of England altogether; for that Church which drives from her all that is sound and Catholic, and can admit none but such as are more or less heretics to minister at her altars, is manifestly faithless to her trust, and has forfeited the “good deposit.” She can claim no longer to be a living branch of the true vine; nor can any man believe that she can bear and convey the grace of life-giving sacraments. To ascertain whether indeed this be so with us, is the point to which I purpose presently to direct my argument, endeavouring to show the contrary, inasmuch as I think it may be proved, that where the faith has been directly assailed, as on the subject of Baptism by the late decision of the Privy Council, our business is to clear and vindicate it; and that we have time, and I trust also, means to do this; whilst upon all other essential subjects, not in like manner attacked, though the Church of England may possibly seem upon some of them more open to objection or assault than upon Baptism, we yet have a rule of Catholic teaching which is dogmatic, and ought to be received as such by every one of us on the very face of the matter, until in any like mode it may be brought into question, when again, as such cause arises, the objection must be met, and the faith vindicated and cleared.

Before, however, I proceed to these positions and the proofs of them, I am anxious to say something on one or two preliminary considerations. And first, I must make an observation on my own former letter, and on the notice taken of it by you, (in the kindest terms, but, as I think, with some little misapprehension of its argument,) in the appendix to your “second letter.” I refer to this, not merely to clear up the misapprehension, which might appear a personal matter hardly worth the time, but also because I think the point will be found to have a further and necessary bearing on my present subject as we proceed. After speaking of my letter as to its tone, you say, “But as it was not intended to be an answer to the facts stated in my first letter, so it seemed to me to fail in meeting the real difficulty of the case.” [12] It is quite true it was not intended to be an answer to the facts, viz. the positions advanced by you as to the powers of the regal supremacy, and the jurisdiction of the Committee of Privy Council, as a court of appeal. Rather, it admitted the facts, for argument’s sake at any rate, (I did not intend to commit myself, and, I think, did not commit myself to more than this in the way of concession,) in order to show that, even so, the conclusions you drew would not follow legitimately from them. Its aim, therefore was, that even granting the premises to be as you had stated them, as to the authority of the said court, and granting also the judgment (then about to be delivered) to be heretical, still the Church might not be thereby committed to heresy; and would not be so, unless it could be reasonably made manifest that she intended such heresy to be permissible; that her animus was to include the heresy in her teaching. “Its point was,” (you continue) “that even granting such an ambiguity to exist in our formularies, yet it might have been an inadvertence at the time when our Prayer Book and Articles were put forth, and that we must prove that the Church of England at the Reformation intended that there should be such an ambiguity. But this is a line of argument which must admit that which has been so energetically denied to bear upon the question at issue, namely, the opinions of the reformers and divines of the sixteenth century; and it is to be remembered that if such are to be referred to as evidence of the animus of our Church on the subject of Baptism, so they must equally be appealed to upon the doctrines, for example, of the Eucharist and sacramental grace. In short, it is making use of an argument wisely and long repudiated by the High Church party.” [13]

This statement, as I conceive, does not represent the argument of my former letter at all, and therefore is no answer to it. And for this reason it does not represent it; that it confounds together and then unconsciously interchanges, two somewhat similar, but by no means identical propositions, making me answerable for both, whereas to one only of them am I really committed. Observe, it is one thing to say, “It is necessary to take into account the animus of those who sanctioned them, in order to ascertain the true sense of the documents:” it is another to say, “It is necessary to do this, in order to determine the guilt of the Church.” The first of these propositions I have never maintained at all. The second was the very essence of my argument. I never maintained we were to go to the intentions of the compilers in order to arrive at the meaning of the formularies; but I did say, (and I must venture still to think the argument sound, at any rate not refuted by your remarks,) that we could not condemn our Church of heresy, without considering whether she had ever intended to sanction heresy. For (let me say it once more) I was speaking of the animus, not to show the sense of the documents, but to show the guilt or innocency of the Church. The first, as I understand the matter, is the ground “so wisely and long repudiated by the High Church party,” (and which I quite agree in repudiating;) the second, I think is, when fully stated, almost a self-evident truth wheresoever a moral delinquency is to be affirmed. The first view too, would not really have agreed with my argument; for, I said, “The only postulate I ask is, that the Church shall not, and cannot stand committed to heresy, without proof that her crime is something not accidental but wilful and deliberate; something more than a mistake which she is ready and willing to clear up the moment opportunity is given her to do so. In short, that as a man is not a liar without the intention to deceive, so a Church is not heretical, unless the animus of heresy be proved against her.” [14a] Neither would this representation of the drift of my argument agree with the particular illustration, of the factory act, by which I tried at some length to make my meaning plain: for certainly I never said, the judges were to have recourse to the animus of the framers of that measure in order to ascertain its legal sense, though I did (as I think justly) argue, they who framed or passed it were not to be convicted of cruelty or double-dealing because an inadvertent ambiguity might for a time defeat their object. [14b] Neither should it be forgotten that ecclesiastical history itself furnishes plain instances of the difference of those two propositions, and I think of the justness of that one which alone I supported. There was a time when the Apostles’ Creed was found insufficient to protect the one Faith, even on the most sacred subject of the true divinity of the Son of God. Arianism crept in, in spite of its wording: and had there been a Judicial Committee of Privy Council to hear the case of Arius, no doubt we should have heard there too, of “charitable interpretations,” and “qualified senses,” and the impropriety of “fixing one meaning upon doubtful words,” and the liberal intention to include as many as possible under an “hypothetical construction.” It might not have been deemed even then, cogent or sufficient merely to appeal to the known sentiments of the framers to arrive at the sense of the document in question: at any rate to have done so, might have been the introduction of a dangerous principle for another day: but surely then, and in all times, it would be a maxim among the faithful, that the Church could not be condemned as guilty of the heresy, (whether of Arius or any other,) even if there were an ambiguity or want of strict definition in her holy words, without considering also whether her animus in her sanction of them had been heretical. The absence of any such suspicion, even had the East and West been then divided, would have prevented any from withdrawing from the communion of the Church at Constantinople at that time, even though she might fail for a brief space to enforce the truth. And this very consideration, as it seems to me, was sufficient to clear the Church’s faithfulness, during the rise of Arianism, and until the great Council of Nicea could be held. It gave her time to pass what we may call a declaratory act of the true meaning of the Creed, without in the mean time forfeiting her trust. [15] There can be no doubt the Nicene Creed was such an act; and I have asked for ourselves only the patience that we may try to procure such a vindication of ourselves and of our faith, now in our day, as to baptism, in our somewhat parallel circumstances. I have endeavoured to enforce only the similar claim so far as this parallel will hold good: viz. not at all the claim to have our formularies interpreted by the known or suspected intentions of their compilers; but merely, not to have our branch of the Church Catholic hastily adjudged guilty of heresy, or of forfeiting her name and place in Christendom, without consideration had of her real guilt or innocence: without weighing the point, whether, even granting it were true (though I cannot see it) that her formularies on Baptism are ambiguous, she has ever had the guilty intention of permitting heresy within her. The only claim therefore which I have made, is that she has the right to time to throw off the ambiguity, and re-affirm her faith. If she will neither do, nor try to do this, I have all along admitted she will “become bound by the said sentence,” forfeit her claim on our allegiance, and blot out her name from the kingdom of Christ: but she does not appear to me to have done this already, and our duty is now to see that she do not. As I have said, I think we have the time, and I trust we have the means, effectually, though it may be gradually, to vindicate her.

I must cite a few lines more from the next paragraph of your appendix, in order the more directly to mark what I feel called upon to do in this letter more than I attempted in the last. You say (App. p. 86), “I cannot refrain from citing one passage more from Mr. Mayow’s letter. He says: ‘Let me be well understood. If such ambiguity of language can be shown to be intentional on the part of the Church; if she can be proved to have desired in drawing up her articles and services to have admitted two interpretations on baptismal regeneration; if her view and plan be to include two such opposite parties within her as those represented by Mr. Gorham and the Bishop of Exeter, by such ambiguous and therefore comprehensive language; I most fully admit she stands convicted of unpalliated heresy both in form and matter.’” On which your observation is, “Instead of baptismal regeneration in the above sentence, put the Eucharist or justification!” This opens new ground, and I own involves very weighty considerations, most fairly calling for a reply. It is the application of the whole principle of your second letter, the want of dogmatic teaching, to an extension of the subject of my first. You say in fact, “If the Church’s animus be sound on baptism, consider whether it is so likewise, on justification and the Eucharist, and then answer as to her condition.” Of course in all these cases I conceive you exaggerate the grounds against me, rather, I should say, against the Catholic character of the formularies of our Church, by having imagined I appealed to the opinions of the compilers of our services, in order to ascertain their meaning; but, as I have allowed, nay claimed, that in one respect, i.e. in order to ascertain the Church’s guilt, such reference to her animus is necessary, I do not think it is a sufficient answer merely to have pointed out the above distinction. A further examination and reply I think is needful, which I propose presently to give.

Here, however, I wish merely to observe, that my former letter did not deal with this extension of the subject; did not go into the general principle of the dogmatic teaching, or want of dogmatic teaching, in the Church of England, because this was not a point embraced or discussed in your first letter; and mine of course was not an answer by anticipation to your second, but merely a brief argument as to the one point of the Catholic doctrine of baptism, and the way in which the (then) expected judgment of the Committee of Privy Council, should it impugn that doctrine, would affect our Church’s position: and I think I am justified in saying (even upon your own showing since [18]) that had that point alone been brought in question, my argument would have been sufficient; at any rate, so far sufficient and satisfactory, that you would have felt with me we might one and all remain at our posts, and that the Church of England would not be involved in the heresy of that sentence, upon the very grounds which I enforced, namely, that her mind and heart were not proved to be unsound, and therefore that we have time to strive earnestly to clear her from the ambiguity of her words (so considered), and to vindicate her character for Catholic truth. But it is your feeling, now since enunciated, that there are other points of equal importance less clearly defined; that, in fact, baptism was the very best ground for our Church to stand upon in her conflict with the liberalizing spirit of the day; and if she could not maintain herself there, what chance has she elsewhere:—it is this, which supplies the fuel to your despondency, and almost despair of her. I say again, to this argument I propose to come in the sequel, and would only here explain, what perhaps I ought to have stated, something more definitely, in my former letter, (though it is a point on which I think you will make no quarrel with me for “amending the record,”) that when I say, if “the Church intended to include two such opposite doctrines,” I mean, of course, “intended to include” and did include. I should not be shaken in my persuasion of her innocency of heresy, either as to baptism, or any other doctrine, merely by being convinced, if so it were, that there was an evil intention of an unlawful comprehension by the Church of England of the sixteenth century, if yet, in God’s mercy, it were frustrated in the actual settlement of her rule of faith. I hold that both parts must combine to place us in a dilemma now, that is to say, both the heretical intention, (so that it is not merely an inadvertence,) and the actual ambiguity, (so that the heresy is permitted). If the latter be not found, she will stand upon her formularies, in God’s providence, enunciating the truth; if the former be not found, then, as I have already said, I think she is not so hastily to be pronounced guilty, as not to be allowed the reasonable time (so she do but begin to use it) to vindicate or re-affirm her faith.

There is a second preliminary matter on which I must likewise ask leave to make some remark before I proceed further. It is obvious that any man’s view of the catholicity of our Church’s mind on baptism, will be much affected by the force he may attribute to the argument, and his general opinion of the soundness of the judgment, of the Privy Council in point of fact. It is true, even one of the Judges themselves might say, “I believe our decision to be the only correct one; the one we were obliged to come to upon the wording of the formularies and articles minutely scanned; but I do not believe it represents the mind of the Church;” and if this were so, (supposing, that is, the words to have this ambiguity really inherent in them, and the Court skilfully to have detected it,) the judgment might be called in this sense “able,” or “probably correct,” as you have called it, [20] and yet the whole argument of my former letter still remain intact. But if anywhere it be thought that the late judgment is sound or probably correct as a true representation of the Church’s mind, then in so far is the force of my letter and its argument diminished or destroyed. Of course, just in so much on the other hand, if it be thought or proved that it is not “an able judgment,” or “a probably correct” one, the position I have maintained is strengthened, because it is, a priori, to a certain extent probable that the intention is, as the sound interpretation of the words is; and consequently that if the words cannot, without straining them, or an ignorance of their subject-matter be made to include heresy, then the animus of the Church must not be supposed to be heretical. Therefore, although, if upon mere technical grounds of legal construction, the late judgment be “able,” and “probably correct,” my argument remains still, as I think, tenable and sound; yet much more weighty and conclusive is it, if that judgment can be shown to be neither able nor acute, neither well considered, nor fairly apprehensive of the points at issue. On this subject therefore I will ask you to bear with me for a few words.

I am persuaded that such is the case:—that the judgment is not sound; nor able; nor probably right; regarded merely as an exposition of the documents which the court had before it, independently of all consideration of the abstract truth or falsehood of the theology involved. I do not indeed mean to go into this subject at large, or to test the decision throughout in its several parts, but I do desire to direct your attention to two or three particulars, in the hope even these may make you re-consider your verdict as to its being “probably a right decision.” If in that expression you meant “probably right,” not merely on the technical ground of verbal criticism, but as I certainly imagine you mean us to understand, “right” according to your present view of the likely aim and intention of those who put forth our articles and formularies, and of the Church of England of the sixteenth century which sanctioned them; “right” therefore as to a real intention of leaving baptismal regeneration an open question, then it becomes all the more important to subject some few points of the judgment to a careful scrutiny, that we may see on what foundation such an opinion rests.

In the first place then, we find the following declaration of the judges, presenting their own view of their powers. “The Court,” they tell us, “has no jurisdiction or authority to settle matters of faith:” [21] that is, they give us to understand it was by no means its province, and as little its desire, to invade the precincts of the Church’s sanctuary and “determine what ought in any particular to be the doctrine of the Church of England.” [22a] Of course the latter part of this sentence is true. Their duty was to declare, (so far as any jurisdiction they had might enable them to declare,) not what ought to be, but what was the doctrine of the English Church. If they only meant therefore to say, it was not their business or their wish to enact any new canon on baptism, one is almost tempted to smile at their simplicity in thinking it necessary so solemnly to enunciate such a truism, or thus to magnify themselves upon such moderation and forbearance; but if they thought or meant to disclaim settling any thing concerning doctrine by the powers of interpretation, which they could not avoid exercising, one is tempted again to smile, only more bitterly, to think of any persons, and especially judges in so solemn a cause, entertaining so chimerical a notion as this disclaimer evinces. What! did they imagine they could escape “settling doctrine” by the judgment they gave, merely by leaving every man to teach what he pleased? Did they forget that interpretation itself is a power that settles what it interprets? [22b] Did they suppose a translator assigns no sense to the book which he translates? Did they, or could they for a single moment lose sight of the fact, that they must “settle” whether Mr. Gorham were to be instituted to the living of Bramford Speke or not; and in so doing must determine that “the doctrine held by him” was, or “was not, contrary or repugnant to the declared doctrine of the Church of England?” One can hardly believe they could lose sight of or misunderstand such a point, and therefore we seem driven rather to let them take refuge in the truism, than chase them into the paradox, however the latter may be the more natural suggestion of their words. But even so, it must I think be allowed that the diction of what ought to have been a most carefully considered document is very clumsily obscure; as is evident from the number of persons since its publication who keep continually quoting upon us those words of the judgment, and assuring us that by the showing and declaration of the Committee of Privy Council itself, “doctrine is not affected.” And this obscurity is darkened even more by the aid of the published comment upon, or perhaps I should say reiteration of, the same view, given since by an eminent member of the court. Lord Campbell in one of his letters to Miss Sellon says, “I assure you we have given no opinion contrary to yours upon the doctrine of baptismal regeneration. We had no jurisdiction to decide any doctrinal question, and we studiously abstained from doing so. We were only called upon to construe the articles and formularies of the Church, (!) and to say whether they be so framed as to condemn certain opinions expressed by Mr. Gorham.” [23] If Lord Campbell individually, or the judges generally, mean merely that their own personal faith being in agreement or disagreement with Mr. Gorham’s opinions, is not a point decided by their sentence, I most entirely allow this; but if they mean, as certainly a large portion of the world has understood them to mean, that to admit Mr. Gorham to a benefice with cure of souls, and to say the doctrine held and published by him is “not contrary or repugnant to the declared doctrine of the Church of England,” does not “settle doctrine,” so far as that Church’s teaching is concerned, (and so far as they have authority,) this certainly strikes me as a most marvellous inaccuracy, bespeaking any thing rather than ability or judicial clearness. Yet if they did not mean this, (though to speak of a matter of personal faith might be in point, as far merely as regarded Lord Campbell’s clearing himself with Miss Sellon,) how should their judgment tend, as they seem to have hoped it would, to peace:—“to heal,” as Lord Campbell expresses it, [24] “the wounds from which the Church of England has lately suffered?” “What hast thou to do with peace,” surely we may demand of the judgment itself, unless something real is to be made of this profession of not settling doctrine? By such a mode of writing, the judges appear to have thought peace could be preserved; nothing being settled, but the latitude of interpretation which might, as they supposed, include all, and let every man do “that which was right in his own eyes:”—a scheme that might possibly have answered if the points in question had been mere matters of human opinion, or if there had been none in the Church who believed them to be God’s truth which they had no right to give away: none also who were sharp-sighted enough to see that to make any doctrine an open question, is to rule that there is no dogmatic teaching upon it at all. Not to have observed these things more distinctly, and not more distinctly to have expressed themselves as to what they really thought their office was, appears to me, in the very outset, to be not indicative of ability or acuteness in the Court.

Secondly, I see no marks of an able view of the subject in the Court’s extraction and representation of the peculiarities of Mr. Gorham’s opinions. On the contrary, the Committee of Council appear to me (I trust I shall stand excused in speaking very plainly; the matter is of too much importance to permit soft words merely for fashion’s sake;) to have been absolutely unable to master the sense of what he wrote. It is so manifest they have not accurately represented it, in their summary, that if I did think they really understood his book, I should be compelled to believe they knowingly softened down, and misrepresented his doctrine, to be able the more easily to pronounce for his institution, without daring absolutely to say the Church did not condemn his heresy; that they made his doctrine into something which it is not, something, at any rate, less glaringly heretical than it is, in order to satisfy his partizans, by giving judgment in his and their favour, at the same time that they trusted to escape the direct assertion of his real opinions being admissible in the Church of England, by altering them knowingly themselves. But I certainly do not make any such charge against the Committee; only, I have no alternative but to believe they did not rightly apprehend his book at all. They took it, in fact, with many (perhaps not unnatural) complaints, that they should be expected to find out its meaning; [27a] and then, even with all the help of counsel, and all the advantage of the really able judgment of the Court below, (which, however, as has been pointed out by the Bishop of Exeter, they appear wholly to have ignored, and thought unworthy of consideration,) they set down sundry propositions as those maintained by him, which not only are not in his book, but which do not even represent what is in it. Thus they say, “The doctrine held by Mr. Gorham appears to us to be this: . . . that the grace of regeneration does not so necessarily accompany the act of baptism that regeneration invariably takes place in baptism: that the grace may be granted before, in, or after baptism: . . . that infants baptized, and dying before actual sin, are undoubtedly saved, but that in no case is regeneration in baptism unconditional;” [27b] statements not found in his answers, though perhaps he may hold some of them; while some of them are actually inconsistent with what he does maintain. Thus, the Committee of Privy Council say, Mr. Gorham holds the grace of regeneration may be granted “before, in, or after baptism,” apparently never having perceived at all his own words, which exclude, as the Bishop of Exeter has most justly pointed out, the possibility, in his (Mr. Gorham’s) real view, of justification in baptism, except by a miracle; the miracle of one coming to baptism hypocritically, but being converted at the very moment, and so receiving the benefit concomitantly with the Sacrament. [28a] But the Privy Council appear never to have seen, or seeing, not to have weighed, those passages in Mr. Gorham’s answers in which he positively asserts that all the benefits which we ascribe to baptism, through God’s gift and mercy, are given neither in nor by baptism, but in all cases before it, where baptism is rightly received at all. Thus he says, “That they (i.e. infants) must have been regenerated by an act of grace prevenient to baptism, in order to make them worthy recipients of that Sacrament.” [28b] Again, “The new nature must have been possessed by those who receive baptism rightly, and therefore possessed before the seal was affixed.” [28c] Again, “As the stipulation of faith goes before baptism, and as the condition of being ‘the child of God’ is a blessing conferred by faith, hence the blessing of adoption also precedes baptism in its essence.” [28d] Again, “The blessing is, ‘adoption to be the sons of God;’ that blessing is undoubtedly to be ‘ascribed to God.’ For faith is ‘not of ourselves: it is the gift of God:’ and to such as possess faith, to them giveth He (Jesus Christ) power to become the sons of God. But that faith and that filial state, though clearly to be ‘ascribed to God,’ was given to the worthy recipient (for we are all along assuming this worthiness) before baptism, and not in baptism” [28e] (sic). Again, “As faith must precede beneficial baptism, and as justification is invariably consequent on faith, therefore justification also precedes beneficial baptism, and cannot be equivalent to it.” [29] Thus Mr. Gorham, when heard for himself, plainly declares that the gifts of regeneration, adoption, remission of sins, and justification, so far from being ever given to any one in baptism, must have been possessed before it, if it be not hurtful; and so far from being ever given by baptism, are always given, if given at all, by prevenient grace. I cite these passages here, however, not in the least to argue upon the amount of their error or heresy; but merely to show how very superficially the Committee of Privy Council have regarded them; how very inadequately they have represented them in their summary of Mr. Gorham’s opinions. And I must own here again, I am unable to discover any marks of ability or acumen; of discrimination or accuracy. This unreadiness and slowness to throw their minds into abstruse points of theology, may be very explainable, by considerations of the want of previous training; by the naturally untheological character of their mental habits; and by a certain very imaginable ignorance of the subjects with which they were compelled to deal. These things may be their personal excuse; may show it was, in great measure, their misfortune, and not their fault to err; but yet must necessarily be taken into consideration in determining the moral weight and importance of their judgment.

Thirdly, I am unable to find any acuteness or probable approximation to a right decision in the manner in which the Committee of Council examine, compare, and draw conclusions from the various services of the Church.

And first, as to the burial service:—They say [30a]—“In every case in the burial service, as the earth is cast upon the dead body, the priest is directed to say, and doth say, ‘Forasmuch as it hath pleased Almighty God of his great mercy to take unto himself the soul of our dear brother here departed; we therefore commit his body to the ground, earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, in sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life;’ and thanks are afterwards given—‘for that it hath pleased Almighty God to deliver this our brother out of the miseries of this sinful world;’ and this is followed by a collect in which it is prayed that ‘when we shall depart this life, we may rest in God, as our hope is that this our brother doth.’ The hope here expressed,” (continues the judgment) “is the same ‘sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life,’ which is stated immediately after the expression—‘it hath pleased Almighty God of his great mercy to take to himself the soul of our brother here departed.’ In this service, therefore, there are absolute expressions implying positive assertions, which must” (the Court tells us) “be construed in a qualified or charitable sense.” [30b] Thus it will be seen, not only is “a hope” declared to be “an absolute expression implying a positive assertion;” (I thought there was good authority to say that hope, however confident or well founded, is always to be distinguished from, not made identical with, certainty: “Hope that is seen is not hope:”) but even beyond this, the Court seems never to have entertained the notion at all; never to have weighed the matter; never to have grasped the idea; never to have had it occur to their minds, that any one else thought or could think otherwise than they did; never to have supposed it possible, that there could be any difference in the object of the hope mentioned in these two places; that “the sure and certain hope of the resurrection,” might perhaps mean, the general resurrection (a topic not unsuitable to be introduced one would think) whilst the hope of the other passage might be the hope of the individual’s welfare. However, in each place, the Committee of Privy Council unhesitatingly assure us, the hope is the same, and that, the hope of the individual’s resurrection to eternal life. They are dogmatic enough in their own teaching, in the construction of the service to suit the conclusion to which they are coming (this hope is the same as the one before-mentioned); but, alas! all this, only in order to make away with dogmatic teaching, of a higher prestige surely than theirs;—to evolve a charitable hypothesis out of the most definite expressions! and these used in a most solemn religious office! Again, I say, and know not how to avoid saying, I cannot see herein the mark of ability or acumen. [31]

Further, it seems as if the judges had never even heard of any other meaning being given to the “thanks, that it hath pleased Almighty God to deliver this our brother out of the miseries of this sinful world,” than that thereby a thanksgiving must be intended that the dead person is taken to heaven. They appear never even for a moment to have entertained the thought that there might be a cause for thankfulness, even in the cutting off of a soul unprepared, if this were the cutting off a life of longer and deeper sin, so that by a further time, the man would only have plunged himself deeper in misery, and have “received greater damnation.” They perhaps had never contemplated such things as possible in the depths of the counsels and mercies of God; never thought of any as being possibly so past salvation, that the only remaining mercy which could be shown them was to cut short a life whose daily continuance was an increase of crime; whose daily walk a progress, farther and farther into the wrath of God. Yet had Lord Campbell been as well read in another great poet, as he seems to have been in Milton, he might perhaps have been reminded of these things:—

“The longer life, I wot, the greater sin; The greater sin, the greater punishment: All those great battles which thou boast’st to win, Through strife and bloodshed and avengëment, Now prais’d, hereafter dear thou shalt repent: For life must life, and blood must blood repay. Is not enough thy evil life forespent? For he that once hath missed the right way, The further he doth go, the further he doth stray!” [33]

God forbid, indeed, that we should say this of a man, because he “once hath missed the right way;” (nor is Spenser answerable as implying that doctrine, as the context will show:) but at least the thought is suggested which might have assisted the Committee of Council in considering whether there may not be a time when it will be lawful and reasonable to give thanks to God, if the removal of a man unprepared, has yet removed him from only fresh sins, and saved a soul from greater punishment. Neither, let it be observed, is it in the least necessary to this view to suppose that we are either called upon, or able, to determine who among the departed have so fallen past grace, that an immediate death was the only mercy left for them. It is sufficient that such an explanation can be given, if perplexity should appear to be involved in the fact that for every one for whom our burial service is used, thanks are given “that it hath pleased Almighty God to take unto himself,” or “to deliver, this our brother out of the miseries of this sinful world.” [34a]

Again: there is the treatment of the service for private baptism. In one or two respects this service is unquestionably stronger in its wording than the office for public baptism, as to regeneration being the gift of baptism, which made a careful examination of it very important. Let us therefore see how the Committee of Privy Council have dealt with it.

In the certificate of the due baptism of children privately baptized, when brought to be received into the Church, (and Sir H. J. Fust has very properly pointed out that “this is not the certificate of the minister,” (who had baptized the child,) “but the certificate of the Church” (to the congregation) “founded upon the answers given as to what had been done;” [34b] in this certificate,) it is stated that the child, having been “born in original sin, and in the wrath of God, is now, BY THE LAVER OF REGENERATION IN BAPTISM, received into the number of the children of God, and heirs of everlasting life; for our Lord Jesus Christ doth not deny his grace and mercy unto such infants, but most lovingly doth call them unto Him;” [34c] and in the further part of his office, where the priest is directed to declare what benefits that child hath received, and how received them, the words are, “Seeing now, dearly beloved brethren, that this child is by BAPTISM regenerate, and grafted into the body of Christ’s Church;” [35a] where, in the corresponding place in the public office, the two words, “by baptism” do not occur. Mr. Badeley had drawn especial attention to this point; and had most aptly explained why they are introduced in the private office, and omitted in the public. “Omitted, (he says) not being necessary there, where the rite was being administered.” [35b] The Church does not seem to have contemplated any judicial-committee-hypothesis to separate the benefits mentioned, from the whole service in which their mention occurs; nor to have provided any safeguard against eyes prying curiously into the point, whether, though all these benefits are declared to be given in the very office for the ministration of public baptism, yet, perhaps, it might not be “by baptism” after all. But in the office for private baptism, the very words, “by baptism,” do occur; “important here, (as Mr. Badeley continued,) that the regeneration might be exclusively referred to the previous administration in private;” that no one might be under any possible doubt that it was by no rite or ceremony of admission into the congregation, by nothing else but by baptism itself, before administered, that the child became partaker of all the privileges of a Christian.

I wish to draw out this point a little further, because it seems to me to bear much upon the ability of the judgment. That judgment acknowledges (as it cannot help doing) that the office for private baptism provides for “a baptism which may have taken place without any prayer for grace, or any sponsors,” [36a] but it deals with it “as exceptional,” as “intended only for cases of emergency;” and seems to put by the argument to be drawn from it as nothing worth upon that ground. But is it intended by this that the benefits of baptism, whatever they be, are not given in cases of emergency, as well as in cases of leisure? Is it meant by the judicial committee that the effects are different, the blessings less full, the statements less to be relied upon, as to what is given the child and how given, in one case than in the other? It almost seems as if they thought so. “The private baptism of infants (they tell us) is an exceptional case provided for an emergency, and for which, if the emergency passes away, although there is to be no repetition of the baptism, a full service is provided.” [36b] I do believe, if the rubric had not been absolutely too strong for them, (“Let them not doubt but that the child so baptized is lawfully and sufficiently baptized, and ought not to be baptized again;”) that they would have wished well to the idea of some further baptism than this “exceptional” proceeding, and (I say, but for this rubric,) would have tried to make out there was some completion of the sacrament in the latter part of the office used when the child is brought into the Church, that the congregation may be certified respecting the baptism. Nay, one almost wonders they have not done so as it is: for surely there might have been found as much implication, that there is ground for doubt in the words, “Let them not doubt;” as there can be for the “amazing” assertion in another place, that the very earnestness of the prayers of the Church afford an argument “for thinking that they are not uniformly granted.” Why should we pray (is the argument of the judges, [37a]) “for that which God has promised to give unconditionally.” “Those who are strongly impressed with the earnest prayers which are offered for the divine blessing and the grace of God, may not unreasonably suppose that the grace is not necessarily tied to the rite, but that it ought to be earnestly and devoutly prayed for, in order that it may THEN, or when God pleases, be present to make the rite beneficial.” [37b] Such is absolutely a part of the actual judgment delivered by this court, sitting as a solemn court of appeal, to weigh and determine the force of words, and to draw necessary consequences from them. Surely they might equally have argued, “Those who need to be instructed ‘not to doubt,’ may not unreasonably suppose that there must be some ground for doubt, or else why should they be thus cautioned;” and so make a reason out of the very rubric in question for supposing a child baptized with this “exceptional” baptism, is not thereby “lawfully and sufficiently baptized.”

And in truth the Judicial Committee do seem to come very near to believing, if they do not actually believe, that something more is essential to baptism than the form appointed in the private office, provides, for they tell us, “Any other conclusion” (than that the promises of the sureties are implied,) “would be an argument to prove that none but the imperfect and incomplete ceremony allowed in the exceptional case would be necessary in any case” (sic.) This looks as if they had no notion of what are the essentials of baptism at all, and then it appears they use their ignorance as an argument, a fortiori, to establish their heretical conclusion. They are ignorant that “nothing more is necessary in any case,” and therefore they deem the benefits do not come to the child in and by baptism. I cannot call this able or acute; quite independently of all view as to the truth or falsehood of the conclusion they arrive at.

But still further on this very point; consider how sharp-sighted they have been to see that the words “by baptism,” do not occur in another place. “It is certain by God’s word, that children which are baptized, dying before they commit actual sin, are undoubtedly saved.” Yes! (says the Court) saved no doubt—Mr. Gorham does not deny it—by prevenient grace; (which their death, he thinks, proves them to have had; though this too seems rather a charitable construction than anything else; founded, so far as I see, “upon no sure warranty” of either “Scripture,” or the Church’s teaching;) saved, however, again says the Court, but not by baptism. “This Rubric does not, like the article of 1536, say that such children are saved by baptism.” [38] Thus sharp-sighted are they to see what makes for the side they advocate (no one can feel it to be too strong a word); whilst all notice of the very same words occurring where they might be difficult to construe in the same sense is entirely omitted. “Seeing, dearly beloved brethren” (says the office for private baptism), “that this child is by baptism regenerate.” Here there is surely a plain statement how, and when it is, the regeneration takes place. But the words do not occur in the public office; and so they are ignored apparently as being “exceptional,” as if they could mean nothing. Let us see, carefully, what this amounts to, if pursued and followed out. Instead of taking Mr. Badeley’s most reasonable argument into consideration, that the thing intended is exactly the same in each case, only it was too plain to require to be stated that the regeneration was by baptism in the public office, when the declaration “seeing this child is regenerate” is made in the very midst of the celebration, immediately upon the administration of the sacrament; but that it was stated in the other service to prevent all doubtfulness as to when, and by what means, the regeneration was given to the child;—instead, therefore, of interpreting the one office by the other; instead of saying we must suppose regeneration, and grafting into the body of Christ to be the same, and attained by the same means in each case, the Court appears to have said simply, we will ignore the office which is most express, as an “exceptional case,” and proceed upon the wording of the other only. But see, yet again, what this amounts to; it is declaring that there is a difference of the gift in these different baptisms. Take ten children baptized privately, who have lived to be brought to church, and ten baptized publicly, and of the first ten you will have it said by the Church that they are “by baptism regenerate:” of the others that they are regenerate—but, according to the Gorham phraseology—by prevenient grace, and not by baptism; or, by the Privy Council’s exposition of this (not exactly a correct one, however), “taking place either before, in, or after baptism.” Is any man in his senses expected to believe such a mode of interpretation to be sound and true; or the way to make the Church’s services agree together; or that it is a due application of the principle to let the services explain each other, as would be the case in any and all ordinary legal documents. Why! according to this rule, the right and blessed thing for parents to do, would be, not to bring their children to church to be baptized as soon as they can; not to give any heed to the exhortation of “the curate of every parish, often admonishing the people that they defer not the baptism of their children longer than the first or second Sunday next after their birth, or other holy-day falling between unless upon a great and reasonable cause;” [40] but in every possible case TO defer the baptism, till the children may be sick, and then procure them to be baptized privately. Then will they have the Church’s assurance that “their infants are by baptism regenerate, and grafted into the body of Christ;”—then will they make the exception the rule, and take all advantage of the “exceptional case;”—then may they feel that knowing when the regeneration took place, they may be sure it has taken place;—but if they be obedient and faithful to the Church’s exhortation; and bring their infants soon to church to be baptised, then indeed, according to the Gorham theology, and the Privy Council’s judgment upon it, then will they have no knowledge whether “remission of their sins by spiritual regeneration” hath come to their babes at all, every thing being dependent upon the prevenient grace, which no one pretends is given to all infants; and though, (it is said,) to some, yet no one can pretend to say, to which!

The Privy Council, although this point of the force of the words “regenerate by baptism” in the office for private ministration, was pressed upon them by Mr. Badeley, take no notice at all of it I think in their judgment; merging all they had to say on the subject of that office in “its being exceptional,” and “intended for an emergency.” I cannot deem this clear-sighted and acute. If I thought it so, I could not by any compulsion think it honest. I do not impugn their honesty; but they must (and will find they must in time) take the world’s verdict as to the ability of such reasoning.

One other passage I must briefly notice: “The whole Catechism” (the court tells us) “requires a charitable construction, such as must be given to the expression, ‘God the Holy Ghost who sanctifieth me, and all the elect people of God.’” Thus it is evident the Judicial Committee have lived so out of all theological training and the commonest catechetical instruction, that it has never occurred to them this passage can have a literal meaning. They seem never to have heard or dreamed of such a thing as “the elect people of God” being, the baptized; never to have supposed that the words “God the Holy Ghost who sanctifieth,” might be descriptive of the office of the Holy Spirit, and mean (surely an easy and natural sense enough) who is the Sanctifier of; never, consequently, to have considered the possibility that the intention of the whole passage might be (and be thus literally true), that it is God the Holy Ghost who is the Sanctifier of the baptized, at their baptism at any rate, although such persons may no doubt afterwards fall away, grieve or quench him, and drive him from them. [42] Again I say, they use their own ignorance on a point upon which any catechumen might have taught them better, as a cumulative argument to explain the whole Catechism in an hypothetical and unreal sense, such as they tell us must be given to these words. Truly, if, like the boy in the tale, the Court had expressed their thankfulness for their ignorance, (and it is, I fear, their best friend as to many parts of this decision’s merits,) one would be tempted to agree with the response there given, that they “have a great deal undoubtedly for which to be thankful.”

I do not think, then, I could call this document, put forth to the world after so long a preparation, and known by the court itself to be of so much importance, a clever paper, even if looked upon merely as the exercise of an advocate, desired to make up a judgment upon a “foregone conclusion.” But assuredly this is one thing; to be an able judicial document is another:—another and so different a thing, that I presume there will be little dispute, whether among lawyers, or any men of sense, that for a judicial document to be (if it be) but the subtil, ingenious effort of a partisan, is so far from even faint praise, that it is the most disastrous imputation which could rest upon a judge’s character, to have been a party in any such transaction as the framing it. I cannot either call it talent of any high character, to see all that makes for one view, and nothing that makes against it. I cannot praise that discrimination which is only great at finding a solution to one-sided difficulties. I cannot consider these as the marks of an able judge, however they may be the natural characteristics or proceedings of an advocate or partizan. Yet let me explain;—even so, I do not say a partizan is by any means necessarily a dishonest man. The habit of being biassed by what we much wish, is as natural as, in some cases, to forecast what we much fear. It works even unconsciously to ourselves, and is not inconsistent with the most upright intention, nay, sometimes, not with the most earnest endeavour after truth. But certainly he only is to be called a great judge who can master this habit; whose mental discipline is such, that he can abstract himself from these circumstances of his wishes, and in spite of all the promptings of his heart, preserve the coolness of his head; who can divest himself, when he takes his place on his judicial throne, almost of his personal existence, and pass judgment as if the world would end to-morrow. The calculation of consequences; the being guided by what shall make most for peace, or any other desiderated end, is one of the snares to be most carefully shunned by any man who would occupy a distinguished place in the temple of justice. He has no pretence to stand upon the roll of fame, as eminent in his calling as a judge, whose eyes wander into the future, whose mind is pondering the consequences which may ensue. Such an one shows manifestly that he is unable to separate his judgment from his advocacy; his judicial character from the wishes and bias of his mind; and therefore, though a very honest man it may be, still that he is deficient in the first of all the qualities necessary to form a great judicial character, or secure a lasting judicial name.

I do not say, in saying these things, that Lords Campbell and Langdale, Mr. Pemberton Leigh, Dr. Lushington, and Mr. Baron Parke were consciously one-sided in the judgment they delivered: but I do say, it appears to me, and I believe it will appear to posterity, when all these things shall be matters of unimpassioned historic reference, that whatever their judgment in the case of Gorham v. the Bishop of Exeter may be as to its uprightness, they lose caste as to ability, by its delivery. They lose, and will lose caste, if only from the fact that they were not able to see, to remember, to combine, to take count of various matters (some of which I have just noticed) bearing upon the very documents, (the great things as they themselves allow by which they were to be guided,) and essential to a fair decision; and this moreover when those very points had been distinctly pressed upon their attention. They deviated likewise, I believe, from all the ordinary rules of courts of appeal, in ignoring, instead of examining, the judgment of the court from which the appeal came up, the decision of which they were about to reverse. Many will be the hearts that will grieve over these things as time goes on, first, generally, on the ground of the dissatisfaction and distrust which such proceedings cast upon the character of the administration of our law; but next also, on the narrower though hardly less painful ground, of seeing men who might have stood so high, losing their position in the world’s history, by the too sensitive desire to do the things which, as they imagine, make for peace, rather than boldly daring to adopt the divine motto, “Be just, and fear not.”

To say nothing of others, how many will think remorsefully of the deed done which cannot now be undone, when they find (as find I am sure they will) that this judgment has struck down from the pedestal of honour where he might perchance have stood with few equal and none superior to him, one, whose name as a lawyer was promising to fill the world. That learned Baron’s name might perhaps have descended to posterity, coupled with the very greatest of the judicial names this country has ever boasted; but now, (sorrowfully will many hearts attest it,) in spite of all the blind flattery of party feeling, and all attempts to patch the matter up or smooth it over by party declamation; now;—for and by this Gorham judgment, will he fall from that pre-eminence, and be found, to those highest honours, to have forfeited his claim.

Before I leave this part of my subject there is one further remark I must needs make. This is not the first time that the people of this country have had cause to look with suspicion upon the administration of the law, where the interests of the Church have been affected. There is, I think, a growing feeling in the world, that, (it may be unadvisedly and unconsciously in those concerned, still really and practically,) the Church does not meet with exactly the same measure which would be dealt out in mere legal construction of documents to a railway company or a merchant’s clerk. When in the year 1848, in the Hampden case, the Lord Chief Justice of the Queen’s Bench of that day reversed the unvarying practice of his court for 250 years: [46] (if I am mistaken in the fact, no doubt I shall be corrected,) when Lord Denman nullified in that case (and expressly from a regard to consequences;—his own reason, as stated by himself in his judgment;—) so general and so just a practice as that when the judges are divided equally in opinion, “the writ should go,” to give opportunity for further argument, and consideration by a higher court (that a writ of error, I believe it is termed, may lie), he did a thing so pernicious, that Englishmen may well be grieved he should ever have held so high an office. To throw suspicion on the fountains of justice is among the greatest wrongs any man can inflict upon his country. It is high treason against the majesty of law. It is a teaching of rebellion to all who have the wit to understand what has been done. It substitutes distrust even in the rightfully condemned, for the general and generous confidence even of him who may think or know, in his own case, the law has erred. Let such a persuasion grow but a little, and we shall find no more instances of the spirit of him who said

I had my trial And must needs say a noble one: . . . The law I bear no malice for my death, It has done, upon the premises, but justice;

whilst “every puny whipster” who thinks himself aggrieved, will only proclaim “with outstretched throat,” the impossibility of obtaining equal justice, and the corruption of the law. No man can doubt it is the paramount duty of those concerned in its administration to “abstain from all appearance” of this “evil,” and give no possible colour to its existence. In truth, so sacred is the subject I have here handled, that nothing but the most weighty considerations should induce us to mention at all the circumstance of so just a rule having ever been disregarded. These however do exist in reference to the present matter; and where the question at issue is the preservation of the true faith in our branch of the Church of Christ, we dare not omit the notice of any of the dangers which beset it. We dare not, for peace’ sake, or for the sake of a worldly expediency, “keep silence.” We dare not, for fear of casting an imputation (not, observe, a vague one, but supported by fact and testimony) on the administration of human law, run the risk of its being cast upon the truth of God, and the Church of Christ. Much have these things pressed upon me, in reference to our present state, and future prospects: and many times have I weighed them before venturing thus to bring my thoughts to light. “My heart was hot within me, and while I was thus musing, the fire kindled, and at the last I spake with my tongue.” [48]

But it is more than time that I turn from these, however very important, yet somewhat preliminary considerations, to the more direct purport of your letter, and to the answer I may be able to give to the charge contained in it. What this is, your title-page sufficiently declares: “The want of dogmatic teaching in the reformed Church of England:” and my answer is plain and simple: such as you will not quarrel with for want of distinctness and pertinency, if only I sustain it. I join issue as to the fact. I maintain we have a rule of dogmatic teaching in our Church’s constitution on all those points on which it is essential a Church should have it. I think, in and by God’s good providence over us, (and if it be so, you will yourself allow it is a most singular mark of his gracious favour towards us,) this has been preserved as to what we ought to teach, though I acknowledge in practice and in fact, we fall lamentably short of teaching, and our people of believing according to it. I imagine, however, you will not charge it as any conclusive argument against the catholicity of either ourselves, or any branch of the Church of Christ, that gross and frequent cases of practical short-comings may be adduced, if it can nevertheless be shown, that the Church’s rule requires what is right, and, rightly understood, dogmatically inculcates it.

You may be curious to learn upon what basis I think myself able to sustain so direct a challenge to the whole principle and bearing of your second letter; and, strange to say, I know no one, whose words so aptly enunciate, and give expression to my argument as your own. You will think, I doubt not you have disarmed the quotation I am about to make, (which by this time you anticipate,) by having already brought it forward yourself, and stated you can no longer rely upon it. But you must excuse me for not so easily parting with it, and for endeavouring to prove you right in your earlier view, even against your own subsequent change of mind. “It is a miserable matter,” (you say, after having given various authorities among our ritualists to confirm your view of absolution,) “it is a miserable matter merely to be able to escape from condemnation. I am not content to think the interpretation which I insist upon is but one of many which may or may not, according to individual caprice or individual ignorance be held without rebuke by our people, and taught by our clergy. If any one of the above theories is the true one, all the rest are false. And are we for ever to remain disputing? Is there no voice by which we may learn the truth? I believe that there is a voice, long neglected and long forgotten, the voice of the Church of England. Let us listen to her teaching, and we shall find that now, as of old, by the great grace of God, she does not speak with a doubting or hesitating tongue.” [50]

This was your opinion at the close of the year 1848, and this is what I still claim. I am prepared, even against yourself, to maintain, and I believe I can shew, its soundness. Do not suppose that I dream of quoting this or a further passage which I shall have occasion to extract presently, merely in order to show a discrepancy between what you asserted then, and what you hold now. I do not desire to cavil with your right to be inconsistent in search of truth, if that were all; and I must allow besides such things have “come to pass in these our days,” between then and now, as may much diminish our surprise at inconsistency or change of mind in any one. At any rate, it would be, I am well aware, a most idle task to endeavour to prove my position in favour of the dogmatic teaching of the Church of England, merely by convicting you or any man of inconsistency, and showing that what you think and say now is different from what you thought and said a year and a half ago. In all truth this is not my object; but I cite these passages, because I know not how better, nay, not how so well to express my own meaning; that I may also comment a little upon the passages I cite, and your reasons for thinking the position they take up no longer tenable; and that in so doing I may add a few words beyond what you said even in 1848, for believing in their soundness. Let me turn to your words. You say, “Here though open to the charge of repetition, I must again lay down the principle upon which alone we can possibly decide what the judgment of the Church of England really is; and to which principle we are bound to bring for proof as to a test every doctrine which we assert or deny.”

Then this principle follows, most clearly enunciated:—

“We declare, therefore, that the Church of England now holds, teaches, and insists upon, all things whether of belief or practice, which she held, taught and insisted on before the year 1540, unless she has since that time, plainly, openly and dogmatically asserted the contrary. This we declare in general. And in particular, as regards that most important question, the right interpretation of the various services in our Common Prayer Book, we further add: that whatsoever we find handed down from the earlier rituals of the Church of England, and neither limited nor extended in its meaning by any subsequent canon or article, must be understood to signify (upon the one) hand fully and entirely all, and (on the other hand) no more than it signified before the revision of the ritual.” [51]

* * * * *

“Few persons will deny that the existence of a doctrine known, acknowledged, and taught in the Church of England at the beginning of the sixteenth century, coupled with the fact that no reformation or alteration of that doctrine has at any time since been made—and therefore that it was intended to be still known, acknowledged and taught, is strong evidence by itself that such a doctrine must be true. The obligation to enquire accurately into it, and if possible overthrow it, is in the first place, upon the shoulders of those who are inclined to doubt or to dispute. It will then be for us to see if it can be defended. One thing only I am bound to say before I pass on. And it is this: that, equally on this matter of absolution, as upon all other essential portions of the One Faith once delivered to the saints, I believe that the Church of England holds the true and complete doctrine of the holy gospel, and follows in her practice of it, the example of the primitive age. Our Church now claims, in right of her succession, all the ordinary powers and privileges which the Apostles received from their and her Almighty Lord; now offers to her children all the means whether in aid of, or as being necessary to, the salvation of each one which were offered from the beginning; and now, as of old and ever, either insists upon the reception, or entreatingly urges the acceptance, according to their various nature, of all and every of those means of grace.” [52]

I think I am justified in saying that you admit yourself, by inference, in your second letter, that if the principle of these passages can still be sustained, the case and position of the Church of England will be tenable against the charge of being without necessary dogmatic teaching. But you explain in your recent letter that you feel you must give up the soundness of these views; that you cannot now believe the same things concerning our Church’s rule of faith. Let me give this comment in your own words:—

“Here, very probably, some one may object against me my own language, published rather more than a year ago. I allude to my book on the doctrine of absolution. Let me quote it.” Then follows the quotation I have already made as to our Church retaining the teaching she held previous to 1540, except where expressly repealed; upon which you add: “When that passage was written, it was written in entire assurance that every word might be established. I do not think so now. And with whatever pain I say this, it is not because my belief has altered from accepting the fixed principle that all essential Christian truth is one and eternal; and that every part of the Church-Catholic is bound of necessity to hold it whole and undefiled. Believing, as at that time I did, with the strongest confidence and trust that the Church of England was a living and a sound portion of the one holy Catholic Church, I could not but assert, as being capable of undeniable proof, her claims to teach authoritatively and undeniably every single doctrine of the Catholic faith. If I searched into her foundations it was with no shadow of fear lest they should be seen not to be resting on the rock, but much rather in the undoubting hope that the more she was tested and examined the more triumphantly she would declare herself to be divine.

“If the end of long enquiry and consideration has resulted in disappointed hope, and what seems to be evidence of the fallacy of former expectations; if 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 how 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:’ let none suppose that I have lightly yielded up that ground upon which alone a minister of the Church of England, as a minister of the Church Catholic, can stand securely.” [54]

Now, the first observation which hereupon occurs is this:—you state you can no longer think that ground tenable; but you do not sufficiently give a reason why you thus change your mind. I do not say you give no reason, because I suppose we are to take the whole of your second letter, as in fact the reason; but I mean, you do not go into the particulars of the matter, nor in detail state the grounds why you should think the Church of England does not still appeal to her doctrine before the year 1540, wherever unrepealed, to supply the defect or short comings (if any) of her later teaching. You seem to have condemned her on her practical or external deficiencies, not as going into and proving her to have changed her internal rule. Indeed, it seems to me you have hardly weighed at all, either in asserting or denying the principle you formerly maintained and now yield up, the external evidence for its truth. This, perhaps, was originally not an unnatural omission, since you held the view co-ordinately with, and as an essential part of, your belief in the Catholicity of the English Church, not as a proof of it, nor as an answer to objections. You then so unhesitatingly believed the Church of England to be “a living and sound portion of the one holy Catholic Church,” (and were not engaged in proving any thing about this at that time, your argument quite allowing you to assume it;) that, as you say, “you could not but assert her claims to teach authoritatively and undeniably every single doctrine of the Catholic faith.” It followed directly as a natural and necessary consequence from the position you assigned her, that she must be able so to teach; and, I repeat, you had no need to do more than assume it, because none of those with whom you were arguing, denied it; and your point was to show what followed from this unquestioned statement as to the particular doctrine you were then treating of, not to give the proofs of it in detail, if at all. That the Church of England was a true and living branch of the Church Catholic was therefore your premiss: that she taught necessarily the one essential Christian truth, all necessary dogmatic teaching, was your natural and just inference. And to show what this Christian truth was on absolution, you referred to the prior teaching of the Church of England, and of the Church Catholic as received by her before the reformation. But no wonder, when upon other grounds your premiss was shaken, the truth (as I still believe it) of the inference was shaken also in your mind. It could not be its own proof. If you are no longer certain the Church of England is a true and living branch, you lose your evidence, I mean the evidence adduced by you in that treatise, and on which you were then resting, that she embraces all necessary dogmatic teaching. But if I can shew by plain reasoning in the nature of things, or by external proof, without first assuming her Catholicity, that she has this rule of faith; that she is linked up to, and holds on by, the whole of her teaching previous to the reformation, except where she has “plainly, openly, and dogmatically asserted the contrary,” I shall have just so much proof to give that she does not fail in point of dogmatic teaching, and therefore so far an answer to your difficulty and your enquiry, “What am I to teach as the faith and doctrines of the English Church?” If by this process I can make it reasonably clear that, “by the great grace of God,” the Church of England has had preserved to her a strict rule by which she does teach the whole Catholic faith, then shall I meet all the objection of your recent letter, so far as principle is concerned, and sustain, as my conclusion, what was your premiss, that (in so far, at any rate, as her dogmatic teaching is concerned,) we have no right to doubt her claims; but that she is still what you so unhesitatingly believed her to be in 1848, a living portion (though it may be now a wounded one) of the one holy Catholic Church.

You have touched upon, though without entering into proofs to sustain it, (which as I have said before, your argument did not there require,) the principle by which the said dogmatic rule is to be established; viz. “the Church of England now holds and insists upon all things, whether of belief or practice, which she held, taught, and insisted upon before the year 1540, unless she has since that time plainly, openly, and dogmatically asserted the contrary.” . . . Again:—“Whatsoever we find handed down from the earlier rituals of the Church of England, and neither limited nor extended in its meaning by any subsequent canon or article, must be understood to signify (on the one hand) fully and entirely all, and (on the other hand) no more than it signified before the revision of the ritual.”

You do not say precisely why it must be so received, unless we are to understand (a position with which I make no quarrel) that common sense and the nature of things declare it to be a self-evident truth, immediately the proposition is announced. But I venture to think, beyond this strong support it has other and more particular evidence, and so rests altogether upon a much wider basis than is overthrown by the general and sweeping rejection of it in your assertion, that you do not now think it tenable. It appears to me in the first place, as I have said, to rest on principles of reason and common sense, and next to admit of particular proof, that the Church of England does retain such teaching.

Let me ask you to examine with attention the evidence I am about to adduce. I would arrange it under the following heads:—

I. Common sense, and the nature of things.

II. Appeals of our Church to antiquity, and the teaching of the Church universal, as well as to her own previous constitutions and canons.

III. Recognition of such previous teaching by the civil power; if not proving the same point positively, yet at least shewing negatively that it is not contradicted.

IV. Some confirmation of the above view from considerations of what the Church of England would deprive herself of, (which no one has ever supposed her to have done) if the principle were to be carried out that her existence is to be dated from the sixteenth century only; and nothing to belong to her rule of faith but what was then determined, and in words set down.

I. Surely it is most certain on grounds of abstract reason and common sense, that things will stand as they are, if they neither fall to decay of themselves, nor are altered by any external power. No one pretends that the dogmatic teaching of a Church will fall to decay of itself. The other alternative, therefore, is all we have here to consider. I say then that, of any building, what you do not destroy, remains. You find such or such a fabric standing. It is, in your opinion, out of repair, or deformed with unnatural or unsightly excrescences, which in process of time have overgrown, or been engrafted upon it. Additions you may conceive them to be to the original structure, and now, injurious or inconvenient. You resolve that these, whether accidental or evilly contrived, shall be removed, and you address yourself to the task. Surely, your own principle in 1848, that what is not removed, remains, is most sound: I know not how to consider it less than axiomatically true. If a tower be taken down here, or a turret there, a window blocked up on this side, or a door opened in that, still the foundations remain the same as ever, unless you absolutely root them up. The basis of the building, except in such case, cannot be imagined to be moved, and just so much of the superstructure as you do not throw down, must stand as heretofore. It may be obscured by something else; it may be much less noticed, or noticeable, than it has been; it may be disregarded in the public eye; one whole side of the building may be clothed in shadow, but yet, if not destroyed, there it will remain, and remain as an integral part of the building to sustain its uses, and to be claimed for them when need is by the owner of the whole, and by his servants at his bidding. And so in that “city set on a hill,” her foundations are the same for ever; and, unless the Church of England at the reformation destroyed the foundations;—save where she may have “plainly and openly” pulled down any thing which had before-time been built up;—that which was laid, and that which was built remains, and is our heritage at this very day. So great is the absolute and essential difference between FORMATION and REFORMATION, and such the argument in favour of your principle in 1848, from abstract reason and the nature of things! [59a]

But further, we are not without an abundance of external proof, if I may so call it, besides this common sense reasoning, shewing that the Church of England at the reformation, if we gather her intentions not from opinions of individual reformers, but from her own authoritative acts, did not mean to adopt a wide and indiscriminate destruction of her previous teaching, and did mean to keep all that she did not mark to be destroyed. This point was the foundation of a large part of the most learned and able argument of Mr. Badeley before the Committee of Privy Council, by which he asserted, and as it seems to me, proved (although the Court appears to have taken absolutely no notice at all of this part of his speech) the certain and positive connection of the Church of England with the previous Church in this country, and with the Church universal, and this, not only by the links of the same apostolical succession, but in the maintenance of a connected doctrine. And the general principle as to antiquity, and the sense of the Church precedent to the reformation, which Mr. Badeley laid down expressly with a view to the matter of the suit in which he was engaged, and in order to apply it immediately to baptism; that same principle, be it observed, is applicable in exactly the same way, and the same fulness to every other article of the faith, unless any where it can be shown that the Church of England at the reformation did “plainly, openly, and dogmatically contradict it.” It would therefore be very much to my present purpose to cite here nearly the whole of this part of Mr. Badeley’s speech, but as you know it well, and can easily refer to it, I shall but extract a few of the more important passages, where the proofs of this principle being the rule of the English Church are given.

“I shall next appeal” Mr. Badeley says, “to antiquity in order to shew more fully that this doctrine for which I contend,” (of course the immediate doctrine which Mr. Badeley had in view, was baptismal regeneration: but his argument reaches, as I have just said, to the full purpose for which I cite it;) “has always been, and must necessarily still be, the doctrine of the Church of England. * * * If there can be any doubt at all about the sense and meaning of our Church, if it can be supposed by any criticism or minute construction, that these Articles and Formularies do leave any question open—do omit in any degree to declare with certainty the doctrine of the Church, resort must be had not to the writings of the reformers, not to the opinions of any individuals, however respectable they may have been; the only appeal can be to the early Church, and the doctrines which that Church professed. That is indisputably the standard to which we are referred, not only by our Prayer Book and our Homilies, but by those who took the most prominent part in the reformation in this country, and it is natural that this should be so, because what was in fact the reformation, and what its object? My friend, Mr. Turner, the other day, spoke of the Church of England in 1552, as being then in its infancy: but according to my understanding, it was then at least more than 1200 years old, for we have evidence of British bishops having attended some of the earliest councils. Some are supposed to have been present at the Council of Nicea, and it is positively stated that three attended the Council of Arles, which was prior to that of Nicea. The Church of England, therefore, is an ancient and an apostolic Church, deriving its succession from the primitive Church, and one and the same through all ages. The Reformation was no new formation, not a creation of a new Church, but the correction and restoration of an old one; it professed only to repair and reform, not to found or create—and it assumed to do this, according to the doctrines and usages of the primitive Church. The reformers well knew, that if they did not stand upon that ground, they had no resting place for the soles of their feet; they were fully conscious that if they attempted to alter the Church any otherwise than according to its ancient model, it would crumble to pieces altogether, and probably bury them in its ruins. All they professed, was to strengthen it where it was decayed, and to strip off those additions, which have encrusted or grown upon it in the lapse of time, without the authority of the Scripture, or of primitive tradition; but to this they declared that they adhered; they bound themselves down by this rule, and appealed to antiquity for all they did.” [63]

Then having quoted a passage from Bishop Jewell’s Apology, appealing to antiquity as our Church’s guide, and shewing (to use Mr. Badeley’s words) “that the intention of our reformers in departing from the Church of Rome, was not at all to depart from the doctrine of the Catholic Church,” he goes on to cite confirmatory authority to the same point in even more weighty documents.

“In the preface to the Prayer-book, as well as in the Articles, we have frequent references to the Fathers and the Primitive Church. We have the same in the Homilies; in almost every page they teem with quotations from the Fathers, and support themselves upon the ancient doctrine and the Catholic tradition; and therefore, in inquiring into what was the doctrine of the early Church upon the question now in issue, we are following precisely that course of inquiry, and appealing to that tribunal, which was marked out for us by the reformers themselves. They referred to the primitive doctrine as an indication of their meaning; and of course, if they had departed from that, they would have departed from the Church itself, because the Church, and the faith of the Church, can be but one.”

* * * * *

“I can show, that at the time of the Reformation there certainly was no intention to depart; and was no real departure in any respect from the doctrine of the early Church, on this or any other matter, certainly not on the Sacrament of Baptism, or upon the Sacraments generally; AND 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.” [64]

Again, Mr. Badeley says, “we have authority for looking to antiquity in one or two public documents which are of importance; for in the canons which were made in the year 1571, in that very Convocation which ratified the Thirty-nine Articles, we have this in the directions to preachers:—

“Imprimis vero videbunt, ne quid unquam doceant pro concione quod a populo religiose teneri et credi velint, nisi quod consentaneum sit doctrinæ veteris aut Novi Testamenti, quodque ex illâ ipsâ doctrinâ, Catholici Patres et veteres episcopi collegerint.”—Pp. 100, 101.

There can be no doubt that what the Convocation considered to stand not with this foundation, they lopped off and pulled down: what, therefore, they left, of what was in their time so taught, is to be so taught still; and remains as the dogmatic teaching of the Church of England.

“Again, we have,” (continues Mr. Badeley, for I know not how to omit these links in his argument, so much are they to the purpose of my own,) “we have, in the directions given to the bishops by the lords of the council in the year 1582, with a view to their disputations with the Jesuits and seminary priests, a similar rule laid down. ‘If the latter shall show any ground of Scripture’ (says this order in council), ‘and wrest it to their sense, you shall call for the interpretation of the old doctors, such as were before Gregory I., for that in his time began the first claim of the supremacy, &c.’ So that in these we have public directions by authority as to the rule to which parties are to conform,—there is that of Convocation with reference to the clergy in their preaching, and there is this of the council with reference to public controversies and disputations; and therefore there is plenty of authority, as I conceive, for appealing to the early Church, for the Church and State both send us to the same source. No doubt it was the case in all the disputations which were held about the period of the Reformation, to appeal to primitive doctrine and tradition. In one of the statutes of Elizabeth (stat. 1 Eliz. c. 1), there is a direction as to what is to be regarded as heresy, and that is to be judged by the authority of the first four general councils, or any of them, and any other general councils which declare it heresy in the words of Scripture. [66a] We come, therefore,” (thus Mr. Badeley concludes this part of his argument) “under such sanction to the ancient Church, and to primitive and Catholic tradition, and I think we shall see beyond question that these prove the doctrine of baptism, &c.” [66b]