{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_56998/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_56998","id":"gutenberg_56998","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/56998","summary":null,"tags":["Baptism -- Church of England","Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: History - Modern (1750+)","Category: History - Religious","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Church and state -- Church of England","Church and state -- Great Britain","Church of England -- Doctrines","Gorham, George Cornelius"],"text":"Transcribed from the 1850 William Pickering edition by David Price, email\nccx074@pglaf.org\n\n\n\n\n\n                             A Second Letter\n                                  TO THE\n                        REV. WILLIAM MASKELL, M.A.\n                                  BY THE\n                      REV. MAYOW WYNELL MAYOW, M.A.\n\n\n            VICAR OF MARKET LAVINGTON, WILTS, RURAL DEAN, AND\n                  LATE STUDENT OF CHRIST CHURCH, OXFORD.\n\n               SOME THOUGHTS ON THE POSITION OF THE CHURCH\n                      OF ENGLAND, AS TO HER DOGMATIC\n                                TEACHING.\n\n                      [Picture: Decorative graphic]\n\n                                 LONDON:\n                            WILLIAM PICKERING.\n                                  1850.\n\n                                * * * * *\n\n    \u201cIs, then, the Church of England so isolated from the Universal, that\n    the faith of the Church Universal has no influence into its\n    theology?\u201d\u2014_A Letter to the Right Rev. the Lord Bishop of\n    Chichester_, _by_ HENRY EDWARD MANNING, M.A. _Archdeacon of\n    Chichester_, p. 41.\n\n\n\n\nADVERTISEMENT.\n\n\nI NEED hardly express my sorrow that the publication of this letter has\nbeen delayed so far beyond the time I had calculated upon.  But I hope I\nmay be allowed to say, the delay has been occasioned not so much by\nidleness as by business; and that, chiefly upon subjects akin to those\ntreated of in the letter itself.  Still I cannot but be grieved at the\ndelay, both on general grounds, and because during this time, Mr. Maskell\nhas taken the step which would seem to make the letter wholly useless as\nregards himself.  Still my grief would be of a very different and of a\ndeeper character, did I imagine that what I have written would have\ninfluenced him to any other conclusion than that to which he has come.\nThough I fully believe him to have been honest in his seeking an answer\nto his difficulties, I have not the presumption to suppose that such\nanswer as I have here attempted, would by him have been deemed\nsufficient.  For others who may read this letter, I would only say in\njustification of even now publishing it, that certainly the subject has\nlost none of its interest, nor is the necessity for some reply, that I\ncan see, diminished.  Therefore, perhaps, I need take up no more time in\napologizing for the publication, even though so late.\n\nIt may be useful to observe that far the greater part of the manuscript\nhas been written many weeks, though I have not found time earlier to\ndigest it, and correct the proofs, which fact, if borne in mind, may\nperhaps explain many expressions, not recognizing the altered position in\nwhich Mr. Maskell now stands, which certainly I do not think it worth\nwhile to correct.\n\nThe reader will perceive that I have availed myself largely of portions\nof Mr. Badeley\u2019s speech before the Committee of Council, as well as of\nother assistance, wherever I found any thing already collected or\ncondensed, which appeared to me useful in the statement of my\nargument:\u2014my object being, (as I am certain it will be allowed it ought\nto be) to set this forth in the most intelligible manner I was able to\ndo, without being careful as to any charge of want of originality or\nresearch.\n\nMarket Lavington, August 10th, 1850.\n\n\n\n\nLETTER.\n\n\nMY DEAR MASKELL,\n\nONE who has known you so long and loved you so well as I have, cannot\nfail to experience much sorrow of heart in now addressing you.  But\nprivate sorrows, and private feelings have little place in the great\ncrisis in which we live.  I do not mean that we are required to be\nstoically indifferent; but that our duties to God and God\u2019s truth, are so\nparamount over any regard to earthly ties, or private griefs, that we\nmust needs put them by\u2014so far at least as that they be no hindrance or\nimpediment to the doing His will.  Truly, in our time does the cycle of\nthe world\u2019s course seem to have come round, and never perhaps since the\nearly days of persecution has there been so much need to remember and\napply the warning, \u201cHe that loveth father or mother more than me, is not\nworthy of me.\u201d  Believe me, I acknowledge fully, and am glad to\nacknowledge thus openly, that I am as much persuaded you are acting under\nthe constraint of this great law, as that I am desirous to be guided by\nit myself.  I acknowledge your trial (and have good cause to know how\nseverely you have felt it), and I as much believe in your sincerity as I\ndo in my own.  I trust, therefore, that never by me at any rate shall\nyour anticipation be realized, when you say, \u201cI am prepared to be judged\nharshly, and the more harshly by oldest friends.\u201d {6}  Though I do not\ncome to the same conclusions with you, and am about to controvert the\ngeneral argument of your \u201cSecond Letter,\u201d I know you will be the first\nand readiest to do me justice as to the temper in which I write.\n\nWhatever view the world may have taken of that letter, or however it may\nregard its author, I think few will deny it is well it should have some\nanswer.  It is a different thing to say, it were well it had not been\nwritten, or, not written by one in this or that circumstance, from saying\nthat _being_ written, it does not demand a reply.  Persons may and will\njudge differently, as to the propriety of your having published it,\nthough I dare say, far the greater part of English Churchmen will be\nagainst you in that respect, and say they know not how to reconcile your\nhaving done so with either dutifulness or wisdom.  For my own part,\nhowever, I must say (whatever may be thought of me for saying so) I do\nnot condemn you for having published it; if only you will seek patience\nto weigh all circumstances indicating the line of duty, before you shall\nfinally act upon the doubts and difficulties it discloses.  I confess, to\nmy mind, there is but one justification for any man in the communion of\nthe Church of England, having written and published such a letter;\nviz.\u2014that, feeling the oppression of the difficulties it sets forth, he\nis yet _no more than in doubt_, as to the matters debated in it, and the\nconclusion to be drawn from them.  Perhaps in ordinary times even such a\nframe of mind would not be a sufficient excuse for the unsettling\ntendency of that which you have written; but certainly these are _not_\nordinary times; and, I agree with you in thinking, many ordinary rules do\nnot apply.  Enquiries therefore how far the Church of England may have\nsanctioned error, or failed to teach the whole Catholic truth, pressed\neven with painful nakedness and pertinacity, must, perchance, now of\nnecessity be instituted, in order \u201cto do her good at her latter end.\u201d  At\nany rate there is a show of reason on _his_ side, who says, \u201cIf her\n\u2018grievous wound\u2019 be not probed to its full depth, it will never be more\nthan \u2018slightly healed;\u2019\u201d and of this argument, I, at any rate, am\ndisposed to allow you the full benefit.  Moreover, when it cannot be\ndenied that practically \u201cthe trumpet\u201d _has_ given \u201can uncertain sound,\u201d\nit seems far more \u201ctolerable\u201d to have enquiry pushed even to what some\nwill call the verge of disloyalty, than would be the case if the cause of\nuncertainty were only in the writer\u2019s mind, and might not, with any\nplausibility or truth be charged upon the Church herself.  Still, after\nmaking all due allowance for these disturbing forces, there is, I think,\nno justification at all for such statements as those in your \u201cSecond\nLetter,\u201d but in the one consideration that the writer is grievously\npressed by the difficulties of the case; (\u201cthe archers have hit him, and\nhe is sore wounded;\u201d) yet, believing it would be _sin_ to let go his hold\nupon the Church in which his lot has been cast without the most direct\nand earnest endeavours to ascertain whether his doubts have not an\nanswer, and his difficulties a solution somewhere, he lays them as a\nduty, and with great pain, though with all plainness, before his brethren\nof the same communion, that he may rejoice in such answer and such\nsolution if they can be given.  Take away this honest motive, and\nconsider the writer\u2019s mind as already made up, and I see no escape from\nthe reproach of his having written as a traitor: but grant the\nsupposition I have made (and I know, better, I believe, than most men,\nhow safely it may be granted you), and there remains, to my mind, no\nground for the invective and reproach with which in some quarters you\nhave been met. {8}\n\nYou will not misunderstand me, if I say that I approach the task I have\nundertaken with a certain disquietude, arising from the responsibility I\nappear to take upon myself, and the consciousness how little qualified I\nam duly to discharge it.  These thoughts have made me feel at times\nuncertain whether I do well to attempt it at all.  Still, as I do not\nthink at present there is any notice of another undertaking it; and as,\nif there be, my letter will be no hindrance to any one else more worthily\noccupying the same ground, and as I do seem (to myself at any rate) to\nhave _something_ to answer as to the principle on which your difficulties\nrest, perhaps I better discharge my duty by writing what I _can_, than I\nshould do in withholding my letter, from the knowledge my ability does\nnot reach to the half that I could wish.  I trust, however, you will\nremember, if I have not learning or skill to state the Church of\nEngland\u2019s argument in the way it may best be stated, that _I_ only am\nresponsible; and it is no fair mode of reasoning, to argue, the Church of\nEngland can say no more in defence of her position than I may be able to\nset down for her.\n\nBut I proceed to the subject before me.\n\nThe drift of your whole second letter appears to me to be summed up in\nthis one sentence towards its close, \u201cI have resigned my cure of souls,\nbecause I have no doctrines and no faith to teach, as certainly the faith\nand doctrines of the English Church.\u201d {10}  Plainly this involves the\nwhole point at issue; for if _you_ have none, (I mean as a result not of\nyour own mind, but from the Church\u2019s defect,) then of course neither have\nI, nor has any one of her priests; and if so, we have all, (all, that is\nto say, who are enough imbued with the spirit of Catholic antiquity to\nknow and feel that we _must_ teach as the Church in all ages has taught,)\nno other line before us but to follow your example in resignation of our\ncures.  And this again is a sentence of deposition to the Church of\nEngland altogether; for that Church which drives from her all that is\nsound and Catholic, and can admit none but such as are more or less\nheretics to minister at her altars, is manifestly faithless to her trust,\nand has forfeited the \u201cgood deposit.\u201d  She can claim no longer to be a\nliving branch of the true vine; nor can any man believe that she can bear\nand convey the grace of life-giving sacraments.  To ascertain whether\nindeed this be so with us, is the point to which I purpose presently to\ndirect my argument, endeavouring to show the contrary, inasmuch as I\nthink it may be proved, that where the faith has been directly assailed,\nas on the subject of Baptism by the late decision of the Privy Council,\nour business is to clear and vindicate it; and that we have _time_, and I\ntrust also, _means_ to do this; whilst upon all other essential subjects,\nnot in like manner attacked, though the Church of England may possibly\nseem upon some of them more open to objection or assault than upon\nBaptism, we yet have a rule of Catholic teaching which _is_ dogmatic, and\n_ought_ to be received _as such_ by every one of us on the very face of\nthe matter, until in any like mode it may be brought into question, when\nagain, as such cause arises, the objection must be met, and the faith\nvindicated and cleared.\n\nBefore, however, I proceed to these positions and the proofs of them, I\nam anxious to say something on one or two preliminary considerations.\nAnd first, I must make an observation on my own former letter, and on the\nnotice taken of it by you, (in the kindest terms, but, as I think, with\nsome little misapprehension of its argument,) in the appendix to your\n\u201csecond letter.\u201d  I refer to this, not merely to clear up the\nmisapprehension, which might appear a personal matter hardly worth the\ntime, but also because I think the point will be found to have a further\nand necessary bearing on my present subject as we proceed.  After\nspeaking of my letter as to its tone, you say, \u201cBut as it was not\nintended to be an answer to the facts stated in my first letter, so it\nseemed to me to fail in meeting the real difficulty of the case.\u201d {12}\nIt is quite true it was not intended to be an answer to the _facts_, viz.\nthe positions advanced by you as to the powers of the regal supremacy,\nand the jurisdiction of the Committee of Privy Council, as a court of\nappeal.  Rather, it admitted the facts, for argument\u2019s sake at any rate,\n(I did not intend to commit myself, and, I think, did not commit myself\nto more than this in the way of concession,) in order to show that, even\nso, the conclusions you drew would not follow legitimately from them.\nIts aim, therefore was, that even granting the premises to be as you had\nstated them, as to the authority of the said court, and granting also the\njudgment (then about to be delivered) to be heretical, still the Church\nmight not be thereby committed to heresy; and _would not be so_, unless\nit could be reasonably made manifest that she _intended_ such heresy to\nbe permissible; that her _animus_ was to include the heresy in her\nteaching.  \u201cIts point was,\u201d (you continue) \u201cthat even granting such an\nambiguity to exist in our formularies, yet it might have been an\ninadvertence at the time when our Prayer Book and Articles were put\nforth, and that we must prove that the Church of England at the\nReformation _intended_ that there should be such an ambiguity.  But this\nis a line of argument which must admit that which has been so\nenergetically denied to bear upon the question at issue, namely, the\nopinions of the reformers and divines of the sixteenth century; and it is\nto be remembered that if such are to be referred to as evidence of the\nanimus of our Church on the subject of Baptism, so they must equally be\nappealed to upon the doctrines, for example, of the Eucharist and\nsacramental grace.  In short, it is making use of an argument wisely and\nlong repudiated by the High Church party.\u201d {13}\n\nThis statement, as I conceive, does not represent the argument of my\nformer letter at all, and therefore is no answer to it.  And for this\nreason it does not represent it; that it confounds together and then\nunconsciously interchanges, two somewhat similar, but by no means\nidentical propositions, making me answerable for both, whereas to one\nonly of them am I really committed.  Observe, it is one thing to say, \u201cIt\nis necessary to take into account the animus of those who sanctioned\nthem, in order to ascertain _the true sense of the documents_:\u201d it is\nanother to say, \u201cIt is necessary to do this, in order to determine _the\nguilt of the Church_.\u201d  The first of these propositions I have never\nmaintained at all.  The second was the very essence of my argument.  I\nnever maintained we were to go to the intentions of the compilers in\norder to arrive at the meaning of the formularies; but I did say, (and I\nmust venture still to think the argument sound, at any rate not refuted\nby your remarks,) that we could not condemn our Church of heresy, without\nconsidering whether she had ever _intended_ to sanction heresy.  For (let\nme say it once more) I was speaking of the animus, not to show the sense\nof the documents, but to show the guilt or innocency of the Church.  The\nfirst, as I understand the matter, is the ground \u201cso wisely and long\nrepudiated by the High Church party,\u201d (and which I quite agree in\nrepudiating;) the second, I think is, when fully stated, almost a\nself-evident truth wheresoever a moral delinquency is to be affirmed.\nThe first view too, would not really have agreed with my argument; for, I\nsaid, \u201cThe only postulate I ask is, that the Church shall not, and cannot\nstand committed to heresy, without proof that her _crime_ is something\nnot accidental but wilful and deliberate; something more than a mistake\nwhich she is ready and willing to clear up the moment opportunity is\ngiven her to do so.  In short, that as a man is not a liar without the\nintention to deceive, so a Church is not heretical, unless the animus of\nheresy be proved against her.\u201d {14a}  Neither would this representation\nof the drift of my argument agree with the particular illustration, of\nthe factory act, by which I tried at some length to make my meaning\nplain: for certainly I never said, the judges were to have recourse to\nthe animus of the framers of that measure in order to ascertain _its\nlegal sense_, though I did (as I think justly) argue, they who framed or\npassed it were not to be _convicted of cruelty or double-dealing_ because\nan inadvertent ambiguity might for a time defeat their object. {14b}\nNeither should it be forgotten that ecclesiastical history itself\nfurnishes plain instances of the difference of those two propositions,\nand I think of the justness of that one which alone I supported.  There\nwas a time when the Apostles\u2019 Creed was found insufficient to protect the\none Faith, even on the most sacred subject of the true divinity of the\nSon of God.  Arianism crept in, in spite of its wording: and had there\nbeen a Judicial Committee of Privy Council to hear the case of Arius, no\ndoubt we should have heard there too, of \u201ccharitable interpretations,\u201d\nand \u201cqualified senses,\u201d and the impropriety of \u201cfixing one meaning upon\ndoubtful words,\u201d and the liberal intention to include as many as possible\nunder an \u201chypothetical construction.\u201d  It might not have been deemed even\nthen, cogent or sufficient merely to appeal to the known sentiments of\nthe framers to arrive at the sense of the document in question: at any\nrate to have done so, might have been the introduction of a dangerous\nprinciple for another day: but surely then, and in all times, it would be\na maxim among the faithful, that the Church could not be condemned as\nguilty of the heresy, (whether of Arius or any other,) even if there were\nan ambiguity or want of strict definition in her holy words, without\nconsidering also whether her animus in her sanction of them had been\nheretical.  The absence of any such suspicion, even had the East and West\nbeen then divided, would have prevented any from withdrawing from the\ncommunion of the Church at Constantinople at that time, even though she\nmight fail for a brief space to enforce the truth.  And this very\nconsideration, as it seems to me, was sufficient to clear the Church\u2019s\nfaithfulness, during the rise of Arianism, and until the great Council of\nNicea could be held.  It gave her time to pass what we may call a\ndeclaratory act of the true meaning of the Creed, without in the mean\ntime forfeiting her trust. {15}  There can be no doubt the Nicene Creed\nwas such an act; and I have asked for ourselves only the patience that we\nmay try to procure such a vindication of ourselves and of our faith, now\nin our day, as to baptism, in our somewhat parallel circumstances.  I\nhave endeavoured to enforce only the similar claim so far as this\nparallel will hold good: viz. not at all the claim to have our\nformularies interpreted by the known or suspected intentions of their\ncompilers; but merely, not to have our branch of the Church Catholic\nhastily adjudged guilty of heresy, or of forfeiting her name and place in\nChristendom, without consideration had of her real guilt or innocence:\nwithout weighing the point, whether, even granting it were true (though\n_I_ cannot see it) that her formularies on Baptism are ambiguous, she has\never had the guilty intention of permitting heresy within her.  The only\nclaim therefore which I have made, is that she has the right to _time_ to\nthrow off the ambiguity, and re-affirm her faith.  If she will neither\ndo, nor try to do this, I have all along admitted she will \u201cbecome bound\nby the said sentence,\u201d forfeit her claim on our allegiance, and blot out\nher name from the kingdom of Christ: but she does not appear to me to\nhave done this already, and _our duty_ is now to see that she do not.  As\nI have said, I think we have the _time_, and I trust we have the _means_,\neffectually, though it may be gradually, to vindicate her.\n\nI must cite a few lines more from the next paragraph of your appendix, in\norder the more directly to mark what I feel called upon to do in this\nletter more than I attempted in the last.  You say (App. p. 86), \u201cI\ncannot refrain from citing one passage more from Mr. Mayow\u2019s letter.  He\nsays: \u2018Let me be well understood.  If such ambiguity of language can be\nshown to be intentional on the part of the Church; if she can be proved\nto have _desired_ in drawing up her articles and services to have\nadmitted two interpretations on baptismal regeneration; if her view and\nplan be to include two such opposite parties within her as those\nrepresented by Mr. Gorham and the Bishop of Exeter, by such ambiguous and\ntherefore comprehensive language; I most fully admit she stands convicted\nof unpalliated heresy both in form and matter.\u2019\u201d  On which your\nobservation is, \u201cInstead of _baptismal regeneration_ in the above\nsentence, put _the Eucharist_ or _justification_!\u201d  This opens new\nground, and I own involves very weighty considerations, most fairly\ncalling for a reply.  It is the application of the whole principle of\nyour second letter, the want of dogmatic teaching, to an extension of the\nsubject of my first.  You say in fact, \u201cIf the Church\u2019s animus be sound\non baptism, consider whether it is so likewise, on justification and the\nEucharist, and then answer as to her condition.\u201d  Of course in all these\ncases I conceive you exaggerate the grounds against me, rather, I should\nsay, against the Catholic character of the formularies of our Church, by\nhaving imagined I appealed to the opinions of the compilers of our\nservices, in order to ascertain their meaning; but, as I have allowed,\nnay claimed, that in one respect, i.e. in order to ascertain the Church\u2019s\n_guilt_, such reference to her animus is necessary, I do not think it is\na sufficient answer merely to have pointed out the above distinction.  A\nfurther examination and reply I think is needful, which I propose\npresently to give.\n\nHere, however, I wish merely to observe, that my former letter did not\ndeal with this extension of the subject; did not go into the general\nprinciple of the dogmatic teaching, or want of dogmatic teaching, in the\nChurch of England, because this was not a point embraced or discussed in\nyour first letter; and mine of course was not an answer by anticipation\nto your second, but merely a brief argument as to the one point of the\nCatholic doctrine of baptism, and the way in which the (then) expected\njudgment of the Committee of Privy Council, should it impugn that\ndoctrine, would affect our Church\u2019s position: and I think I am justified\nin saying (even upon your own showing since {18}) that _had that point\nalone_ been brought in question, my argument would have been sufficient;\nat any rate, so far sufficient and satisfactory, that you would have felt\nwith me we might one and all remain at our posts, and that the Church of\nEngland would not be involved in the heresy of that sentence, upon the\nvery grounds which I enforced, namely, that her mind and heart were not\nproved to be unsound, and therefore that we _have time_ to strive\nearnestly to clear her from the ambiguity of her words (so considered),\nand to vindicate her character for Catholic truth.  But it is your\nfeeling, now since enunciated, that there are other points of equal\nimportance less clearly defined; that, in fact, baptism was the very\n_best_ ground for our Church to stand upon in her conflict with the\nliberalizing spirit of the day; and if she could not maintain herself\nthere, what chance has she elsewhere:\u2014it is this, which supplies the fuel\nto your despondency, and almost despair of her.  I say again, to this\nargument I propose to come in the sequel, and would only here explain,\nwhat perhaps I ought to have stated, something more definitely, in my\nformer letter, (though it is a point on which I think you will make no\nquarrel with me for \u201camending the record,\u201d) that when I say, if \u201cthe\nChurch intended to include two such opposite doctrines,\u201d I mean, of\ncourse, \u201c_intended to include_\u201d and _did include_.  I should not be\nshaken in my persuasion of her innocency of heresy, either as to baptism,\nor any other doctrine, merely by being convinced, if so it were, that\nthere was an evil intention of an unlawful comprehension by the Church of\nEngland of the sixteenth century, if yet, in God\u2019s mercy, it were\nfrustrated in the actual settlement of her rule of faith.  I hold that\nboth parts must combine to place us in a dilemma now, that is to say,\nboth the heretical intention, (so that it is not merely an inadvertence,)\nand the actual ambiguity, (so that the heresy _is_ permitted).  If the\nlatter be not found, she will stand upon her formularies, in God\u2019s\nprovidence, enunciating the truth; if the former be not found, then, as I\nhave already said, I think she is not so hastily to be pronounced guilty,\nas not to be allowed the reasonable time (so she do but begin to use it)\nto vindicate or re-affirm her faith.\n\nThere is a second preliminary matter on which I must likewise ask leave\nto make some remark before I proceed further.  It is obvious that any\nman\u2019s view of the catholicity of our Church\u2019s mind on baptism, will be\nmuch affected by the force he may attribute to the argument, and his\ngeneral opinion of the soundness of the judgment, of the Privy Council in\npoint of fact.  It is true, even one of the Judges themselves might say,\n\u201cI believe our decision to be the only correct one; the one we were\nobliged to come to upon the wording of the formularies and articles\nminutely scanned; but I do not believe it represents the mind of the\nChurch;\u201d and if this were so, (supposing, that is, the words to have this\nambiguity really inherent in them, and the Court skilfully to have\ndetected it,) the judgment might be called in this sense \u201cable,\u201d or\n\u201cprobably correct,\u201d as you have called it, {20} and yet the whole\nargument of my former letter still remain intact.  But if anywhere it be\nthought that the late judgment is sound or probably correct as a true\nrepresentation of the Church\u2019s mind, then in so far is the force of my\nletter and its argument diminished or destroyed.  Of course, just in so\nmuch on the other hand, if it be thought or proved that it is not \u201can\nable judgment,\u201d or \u201ca probably correct\u201d one, the position I have\nmaintained is strengthened, because it is, a priori, to a certain extent\nprobable that the _intention_ is, as _the sound interpretation_ of the\nwords is; and consequently that if the words cannot, without straining\nthem, or an ignorance of their subject-matter be made to include heresy,\nthen the animus of the Church must not be supposed to be heretical.\nTherefore, although, if upon mere technical grounds of legal\nconstruction, the late judgment be \u201cable,\u201d and \u201cprobably correct,\u201d my\nargument remains still, as I think, tenable and sound; yet much more\nweighty and conclusive is it, if that judgment can be shown to be neither\nable nor acute, neither well considered, nor fairly apprehensive of the\npoints at issue.  On this subject therefore I will ask you to bear with\nme for a few words.\n\nI am persuaded that such is the case:\u2014that the judgment is not sound; nor\nable; nor probably right; regarded merely as an exposition of the\ndocuments which the court had before it, independently of all\nconsideration of the abstract truth or falsehood of the theology\ninvolved.  I do not indeed mean to go into this subject at large, or to\ntest the decision throughout in its several parts, but I do desire to\ndirect your attention to two or three particulars, in the hope even these\nmay make you re-consider your verdict as to its being \u201cprobably a right\ndecision.\u201d  If in that expression you meant \u201cprobably right,\u201d not merely\non the technical ground of verbal criticism, but as I certainly imagine\nyou mean us to understand, \u201c_right_\u201d according to your present view of\nthe likely aim and intention of those who put forth our articles and\nformularies, and of the Church of England of the sixteenth century which\nsanctioned them; \u201c_right_\u201d therefore as to a real intention of leaving\nbaptismal regeneration an open question, then it becomes all the more\nimportant to subject some few points of the judgment to a careful\nscrutiny, that we may see on what foundation such an opinion rests.\n\nIn the first place then, we find the following declaration of the judges,\npresenting their own view of their powers.  \u201cThe Court,\u201d they tell us,\n\u201chas no jurisdiction or authority to settle matters of faith:\u201d {21} that\nis, they give us to understand it was by no means its province, and as\nlittle its desire, to invade the precincts of the Church\u2019s sanctuary and\n\u201cdetermine what ought in any particular to be the doctrine of the Church\nof England.\u201d {22a}  Of course the latter part of this sentence is true.\nTheir duty was to declare, (so far as any jurisdiction they had might\nenable them to declare,) not what _ought_ to be, but what _was_ the\ndoctrine of the English Church.  If they only meant therefore to say, it\nwas not their business or their wish to enact any new canon on baptism,\none is almost tempted to smile at their simplicity in thinking it\nnecessary so solemnly to enunciate such a truism, or thus to magnify\nthemselves upon such moderation and forbearance; but if they thought or\nmeant to disclaim settling any thing concerning doctrine by the powers of\ninterpretation, which they could not avoid exercising, one is tempted\nagain to smile, only more bitterly, to think of any persons, and\nespecially judges in so solemn a cause, entertaining so chimerical a\nnotion as this disclaimer evinces.  What! did they imagine they could\nescape \u201csettling doctrine\u201d by the judgment they gave, merely by leaving\nevery man to teach what he pleased?  Did they forget that interpretation\nitself _is_ a power that settles what it interprets? {22b}  Did they\nsuppose a translator assigns no sense to the book which he translates?\nDid they, or could they for a single moment lose sight of the fact, that\nthey _must_ \u201csettle\u201d whether Mr. Gorham were to be instituted to the\nliving of Bramford Speke or not; and in so doing must determine that \u201cthe\ndoctrine held by him\u201d was, or \u201cwas not, contrary or repugnant to the\ndeclared doctrine of the Church of England?\u201d  One can hardly believe they\ncould lose sight of or misunderstand such a point, and therefore we seem\ndriven rather to let them take refuge in the truism, than chase them into\nthe paradox, however the latter may be the more natural suggestion of\ntheir words.  But even so, it must I think be allowed that the diction of\nwhat ought to have been a most carefully considered document is very\nclumsily obscure; as is evident from the number of persons since its\npublication who keep continually quoting upon us those words of the\njudgment, and assuring us that by the showing and declaration of the\nCommittee of Privy Council itself, \u201cdoctrine is not affected.\u201d  And this\nobscurity is darkened even more by the aid of the published comment upon,\nor perhaps I should say reiteration of, the same view, given since by an\neminent member of the court.  Lord Campbell in one of his letters to Miss\nSellon says, \u201cI assure you we have given no opinion contrary to yours\nupon the doctrine of baptismal regeneration.  _We had no jurisdiction to\ndecide any doctrinal question_, and we studiously abstained from doing\nso.  We were _only called upon to construe the articles and formularies\nof the Church_, (!) and to say whether they be so framed as to condemn\ncertain opinions expressed by Mr. Gorham.\u201d {23}  If Lord Campbell\nindividually, or the judges generally, mean merely that their own\npersonal faith being in agreement or disagreement with Mr. Gorham\u2019s\nopinions, is not a point decided by their sentence, I most entirely allow\nthis; but if they mean, as certainly a large portion of the world has\nunderstood them to mean, that to admit Mr. Gorham to a benefice with cure\nof souls, and to say the doctrine held and published by him is \u201cnot\ncontrary or repugnant to the declared doctrine of the Church of England,\u201d\ndoes not \u201csettle doctrine,\u201d so far as that Church\u2019s teaching is\nconcerned, (and so far as they have authority,) this certainly strikes me\nas a most marvellous inaccuracy, bespeaking any thing rather than ability\nor judicial clearness.  Yet if they did not mean this, (though to speak\nof a matter of personal faith might be in point, as far merely as\nregarded Lord Campbell\u2019s clearing himself with Miss Sellon,) how should\ntheir judgment tend, as they seem to have hoped it would, to peace:\u2014\u201cto\nheal,\u201d as Lord Campbell expresses it, {24} \u201cthe wounds from which the\nChurch of England has lately suffered?\u201d  \u201cWhat hast thou to do with\npeace,\u201d surely we may demand of the judgment itself, unless something\nreal is to be made of this profession of not settling doctrine?  By such\na mode of writing, the judges appear to have thought peace could be\npreserved; nothing being settled, but the latitude of interpretation\nwhich might, as they supposed, include all, and let every man do \u201cthat\nwhich was right in his own eyes:\u201d\u2014a scheme that might possibly have\nanswered if the points in question had been mere matters of human\nopinion, or if there had been none in the Church who believed them to be\nGod\u2019s truth which they had no right to give away: none also who were\nsharp-sighted enough to see that to make any doctrine an open question,\n_is_ to rule that there is no dogmatic teaching upon it at all.  Not to\nhave observed these things more distinctly, and not more distinctly to\nhave expressed themselves as to what they really thought their office\nwas, appears to me, in the very outset, to be _not_ indicative of ability\nor acuteness in the Court.\n\nSecondly, I see no marks of an able view of the subject in the Court\u2019s\nextraction and representation of the peculiarities of Mr. Gorham\u2019s\nopinions.  On the contrary, the Committee of Council appear to me (I\ntrust I shall stand excused in speaking very plainly; the matter is of\ntoo much importance to permit soft words merely for fashion\u2019s sake;) to\nhave been absolutely unable to master the sense of what he wrote.  It is\nso _manifest_ they have not accurately represented it, in their summary,\nthat if I _did_ think they really understood his book, I should be\n_compelled_ to believe they knowingly softened down, and _mis_represented\nhis doctrine, to be able the more easily to pronounce _for_ his\ninstitution, without daring absolutely to say the Church did not condemn\nhis heresy; that they made his doctrine into something which it is _not_,\nsomething, at any rate, less glaringly heretical than it is, in order to\nsatisfy his partizans, by giving judgment in his and their favour, at the\nsame time that they trusted to escape the direct assertion of his real\nopinions being admissible in the Church of England, by altering them\nknowingly themselves.  But I certainly do not make any such charge\nagainst the Committee; only, I have no alternative but to believe they\ndid not rightly apprehend his book at all.  They took it, in fact, with\nmany (perhaps not unnatural) complaints, that they should be expected to\nfind out its meaning; {27a} and then, even with all the help of counsel,\nand all the advantage of the really able judgment of the Court below,\n(which, however, as has been pointed out by the Bishop of Exeter, they\nappear wholly to have ignored, and thought unworthy of consideration,)\nthey set down sundry propositions as those maintained by him, which not\nonly are _not_ in his book, but which do not even represent what _is_ in\nit.  Thus they say, \u201cThe doctrine held by Mr. Gorham appears to us to be\nthis: . . . that the grace of regeneration does not so necessarily\naccompany the act of baptism that regeneration invariably takes place in\nbaptism: that the grace may be granted before, in, or after baptism: . . .\nthat infants baptized, and dying before actual sin, are undoubtedly\nsaved, but that in no case is regeneration in baptism unconditional;\u201d\n{27b} statements not found in his answers, though perhaps he may hold\nsome of them; while some of them are actually inconsistent with what he\ndoes maintain.  Thus, the Committee of Privy Council say, Mr. Gorham\nholds the grace of regeneration may be granted \u201cbefore, in, or after\nbaptism,\u201d apparently never having perceived at all his own words, which\nexclude, as the Bishop of Exeter has most justly pointed out, the\npossibility, in his (Mr. Gorham\u2019s) real view, of justification _in_\nbaptism, except by a miracle; the miracle of one coming to baptism\nhypocritically, but being converted at the very moment, and so receiving\nthe benefit concomitantly with the Sacrament. {28a}  But the Privy\nCouncil appear never to have seen, or seeing, not to have weighed, those\npassages in Mr. Gorham\u2019s answers in which he positively asserts that all\nthe benefits which we ascribe to baptism, through God\u2019s gift and mercy,\nare given neither _in_ nor _by_ baptism, but in all cases _before_ it,\nwhere baptism is rightly received at all.  Thus he says, \u201cThat they (i.e.\ninfants) must have been regenerated by an act of grace prevenient to\nbaptism, in order to make them worthy recipients of that Sacrament.\u201d\n{28b}  Again, \u201cThe new nature must have been possessed by those who\nreceive baptism rightly, and therefore possessed before the seal was\naffixed.\u201d {28c}  Again, \u201cAs the stipulation of faith goes before baptism,\nand as the condition of being \u2018the child of God\u2019 is a blessing conferred\nby faith, hence the blessing of adoption also precedes baptism in its\nessence.\u201d {28d}  Again, \u201cThe blessing is, \u2018adoption to be the sons of\nGod;\u2019 that blessing is undoubtedly to be \u2018ascribed to God.\u2019  For faith is\n\u2018not of ourselves: it is the gift of God:\u2019 and to such as possess faith,\nto them giveth He (Jesus Christ) power to become the sons of God.  But\nthat faith and that filial state, though clearly to be \u2018ascribed to God,\u2019\nwas given to the worthy recipient (for we are all along assuming this\nworthiness) _before_ baptism, and not _in_ baptism\u201d {28e} (sic).  Again,\n\u201cAs faith must precede beneficial baptism, and as justification is\ninvariably consequent on faith, therefore justification also precedes\nbeneficial baptism, and cannot be equivalent to it.\u201d {29}  Thus Mr.\nGorham, when heard for himself, plainly declares that the gifts of\nregeneration, adoption, remission of sins, and justification, so far from\nbeing ever given to any one _in_ baptism, must have been possessed before\nit, if it be not hurtful; and so far from being ever given _by_ baptism,\nare always given, if given at all, by prevenient grace.  I cite these\npassages here, however, not in the least to argue upon the amount of\ntheir error or heresy; but merely to show how very superficially the\nCommittee of Privy Council have regarded them; how very inadequately they\nhave represented them in their summary of Mr. Gorham\u2019s opinions.  And I\nmust own here again, I am unable to discover any marks of ability or\nacumen; of discrimination or accuracy.  This unreadiness and slowness to\nthrow their minds into abstruse points of theology, may be very\nexplainable, by considerations of the want of previous training; by the\nnaturally untheological character of their mental habits; and by a\ncertain very imaginable ignorance of the subjects with which they were\ncompelled to deal.  These things may be their personal excuse; may show\nit was, in great measure, their misfortune, and not their fault to err;\nbut yet must necessarily be taken into consideration in determining the\nmoral weight and importance of their judgment.\n\nThirdly, I am unable to find any acuteness or probable approximation to a\nright decision in the manner in which the Committee of Council examine,\ncompare, and draw conclusions from the various services of the Church.\n\nAnd first, as to the burial service:\u2014They say {30a}\u2014\u201cIn every case in the\nburial service, as the earth is cast upon the dead body, the priest is\ndirected to say, and doth say, \u2018Forasmuch as it hath pleased Almighty God\nof his great mercy to take unto himself the soul of our dear brother here\ndeparted; we therefore commit his body to the ground, earth to earth,\nashes to ashes, dust to dust, in sure and certain hope of the\nresurrection to eternal life;\u2019 and thanks are afterwards given\u2014\u2018for that\nit hath pleased Almighty God to deliver this our brother out of the\nmiseries of this sinful world;\u2019 and this is followed by a collect in\nwhich it is prayed that \u2018when we shall depart this life, we may rest in\nGod, as our hope is that this our brother doth.\u2019  The hope here\nexpressed,\u201d (continues the judgment) \u201cis the same \u2018sure and certain hope\nof the resurrection to eternal life,\u2019 which is stated immediately after\nthe expression\u2014\u2018it hath pleased Almighty God of his great mercy to take\nto himself the soul of our brother here departed.\u2019  In this service,\ntherefore, there are absolute expressions implying positive assertions,\nwhich must\u201d (the Court tells us) \u201cbe construed in a qualified or\ncharitable sense.\u201d {30b}  Thus it will be seen, not only is \u201c_a hope_\u201d\ndeclared to be \u201can absolute expression implying a positive assertion;\u201d (I\nthought there was good authority to say that hope, however confident or\nwell founded, is always to be distinguished from, not made identical\nwith, certainty: \u201cHope that is seen is not hope:\u201d) but even beyond this,\nthe Court seems never to have entertained the notion at all; never to\nhave weighed the matter; never to have grasped the idea; never to have\nhad it occur to their minds, that any one else thought or could think\notherwise than they did; never to have supposed it possible, that there\n_could_ be any difference in the _object_ of the hope mentioned in these\ntwo places; that \u201cthe sure and certain hope of the resurrection,\u201d might\nperhaps mean, the _general resurrection_ (a topic not unsuitable to be\nintroduced one would think) whilst the hope of the other passage might be\nthe hope of the individual\u2019s welfare.  However, in each place, the\nCommittee of Privy Council unhesitatingly assure us, the hope _is the\nsame_, and _that_, the hope of the individual\u2019s resurrection to eternal\nlife.  They are dogmatic enough in their own teaching, in the\nconstruction of the service to suit the conclusion to which they are\ncoming (this hope _is_ the same as the one before-mentioned); but, alas!\nall this, only in order to make away with dogmatic teaching, of a higher\nprestige surely than theirs;\u2014to evolve a charitable hypothesis out of the\nmost definite expressions! and these used in a most solemn religious\noffice!  Again, I say, and know not how to avoid saying, I cannot see\nherein the mark of ability or acumen. {31}\n\nFurther, it seems as if the judges had never even heard of any other\nmeaning being given to the \u201cthanks, that it hath pleased Almighty God to\ndeliver this our brother out of the miseries of this sinful world,\u201d than\nthat thereby a thanksgiving must be intended that the dead person is\ntaken to heaven.  They appear never even for a moment to have entertained\nthe thought that there might be a cause for thankfulness, even in the\ncutting off of a soul unprepared, if this were the cutting off a life of\nlonger and deeper sin, so that by a further time, the man would only have\nplunged himself deeper in misery, and have \u201creceived greater damnation.\u201d\nThey perhaps had never contemplated such things as possible in the depths\nof the counsels and mercies of God; never thought of any as being\npossibly so past salvation, that the only remaining mercy which could be\nshown them was to cut short a life whose daily continuance was an\nincrease of crime; whose daily walk a progress, farther and farther into\nthe wrath of God.  Yet had Lord Campbell been as well read in another\ngreat poet, as he seems to have been in Milton, he might perhaps have\nbeen reminded of these things:\u2014\n\n    \u201cThe longer life, I wot, the greater sin;\n       The greater sin, the greater punishment:\n    All those great battles which thou boast\u2019st to win,\n       Through strife and bloodshed and aveng\u00ebment,\n       Now prais\u2019d, hereafter dear thou shalt repent:\n    For life must life, and blood must blood repay.\n       Is not enough thy evil life forespent?\n    For he that once hath missed the right way,\n    The further he doth go, the further he doth stray!\u201d {33}\n\nGod forbid, indeed, that we should say this of a man, because he \u201conce\nhath missed the right way;\u201d (nor is Spenser answerable as implying that\ndoctrine, as the context will show:) but at least the thought is\nsuggested which might have assisted the Committee of Council in\nconsidering whether there may not be a time when it will be lawful and\nreasonable to give thanks to God, if the removal of a man unprepared, has\nyet removed him from only fresh sins, and saved a soul from greater\npunishment.  Neither, let it be observed, is it in the least necessary to\nthis view to suppose that we are either called upon, or able, to\ndetermine _who_ among the departed have so fallen past grace, that an\nimmediate death was the only mercy left for them.  It is sufficient that\nsuch an explanation can be given, if perplexity should appear to be\ninvolved in the fact that for every one for whom our burial service is\nused, thanks are given \u201cthat it hath pleased Almighty God to take unto\nhimself,\u201d or \u201cto deliver, this our brother out of the miseries of this\nsinful world.\u201d {34a}\n\nAgain: there is the treatment of the service for private baptism.  In one\nor two respects this service is unquestionably stronger in its wording\nthan the office for public baptism, as to regeneration being the gift of\nbaptism, which made a careful examination of it very important.  Let us\ntherefore see how the Committee of Privy Council have dealt with it.\n\nIn the certificate of the due baptism of children privately baptized,\nwhen brought to be received into the Church, (and Sir H. J. Fust has very\nproperly pointed out that \u201cthis is not the certificate of the minister,\u201d\n(who had baptized the child,) \u201cbut the certificate of the Church\u201d (to the\ncongregation) \u201cfounded upon the answers given as to what had been done;\u201d\n{34b} in this certificate,) it is stated that the child, having been\n\u201cborn in original sin, and in the wrath of God, is now, BY THE LAVER OF\nREGENERATION IN BAPTISM, received into the number of the children of God,\nand heirs of everlasting life; for our Lord Jesus Christ doth not deny\nhis grace and mercy unto such infants, but most lovingly doth call them\nunto Him;\u201d {34c} and in the further part of his office, where the priest\nis directed to declare what benefits that child hath received, and how\nreceived them, the words are, \u201cSeeing now, dearly beloved brethren, that\nthis _child is by_ BAPTISM _regenerate_, _and grafted into the body of\nChrist\u2019s Church_;\u201d {35a} where, in the corresponding place in the public\noffice, the two words, \u201c_by baptism_\u201d do not occur.  Mr. Badeley had\ndrawn especial attention to this point; and had most aptly explained why\nthey are introduced in the private office, and omitted in the public.\n\u201cOmitted, (he says) not being necessary there, where the rite was being\nadministered.\u201d {35b}  The Church does not seem to have contemplated any\njudicial-committee-hypothesis to separate the benefits mentioned, from\nthe whole service in which their mention occurs; nor to have provided any\nsafeguard against eyes prying curiously into the point, whether, though\nall these benefits are declared to be given in the very office for the\nministration of public baptism, yet, perhaps, it might not be \u201c_by\nbaptism_\u201d after all.  But in the office for private baptism, the very\nwords, \u201c_by baptism_,\u201d do occur; \u201cimportant here, (as Mr. Badeley\ncontinued,) that the regeneration might be exclusively referred to the\n_previous administration in private_;\u201d that no one might be under any\npossible doubt that it was by no rite or ceremony of admission into the\ncongregation, by nothing else but by baptism itself, before administered,\nthat the child became partaker of all the privileges of a Christian.\n\nI wish to draw out this point a little further, because it seems to me to\nbear much upon the ability of the judgment.  That judgment acknowledges\n(as it cannot help doing) that the office for private baptism provides\nfor \u201ca baptism which may have taken place without any prayer for grace,\nor any sponsors,\u201d {36a} but it deals with it \u201cas exceptional,\u201d as\n\u201cintended only for cases of emergency;\u201d and seems to put by the argument\nto be drawn from it as nothing worth upon that ground.  But is it\nintended by this that the benefits of baptism, whatever they be, are not\ngiven in cases of emergency, as well as in cases of leisure?  Is it meant\nby the judicial committee that the effects are different, the blessings\nless full, the statements less to be relied upon, as to what is given the\nchild and _how_ given, in one case than in the other?  It almost seems as\nif they thought so.  \u201cThe private baptism of infants (they tell us) is an\nexceptional case provided for an emergency, and for which, if the\nemergency passes away, although there is to be no repetition of the\nbaptism, a full service is provided.\u201d {36b}  I do believe, if the rubric\nhad not been absolutely too strong for them, (\u201cLet them not doubt but\nthat the child so baptized is lawfully and sufficiently baptized, and\nought not to be baptized again;\u201d) that they would have wished well to the\nidea of some further baptism than this \u201cexceptional\u201d proceeding, and (I\nsay, _but_ for this rubric,) would have tried to make out there _was_\nsome completion of the sacrament in the latter part of the office used\nwhen the child is brought into the Church, that the congregation may be\ncertified respecting the baptism.  Nay, one almost wonders they have not\ndone so as it is: for surely there might have been found as much\nimplication, that there is ground for doubt in the words, \u201cLet them _not_\ndoubt;\u201d as there can be for the \u201camazing\u201d assertion in another place,\nthat the very earnestness of the prayers of the Church afford an argument\n\u201cfor thinking that they are not uniformly granted.\u201d  Why should we pray\n(is the argument of the judges, {37a}) \u201cfor that which God has promised\nto give unconditionally.\u201d  \u201cThose who are strongly impressed with the\nearnest prayers which are offered for the divine blessing and the grace\nof God, may not unreasonably suppose that the grace is not necessarily\ntied to the rite, but that it ought to be earnestly and devoutly prayed\nfor, in order _that it may_ THEN, or WHEN GOD PLEASES, be present to make\nthe rite beneficial.\u201d {37b}  Such is absolutely a part of the actual\njudgment delivered by this court, sitting as a solemn court of appeal, to\nweigh and determine the force of words, and to draw necessary\nconsequences from them.  Surely they might equally have argued, \u201cThose\nwho need to be instructed \u2018_not to doubt_,\u2019 may not unreasonably suppose\nthat there must be _some_ ground for _doubt_, or else why should they be\nthus cautioned;\u201d and so make a reason out of the very rubric in question\nfor supposing a child baptized with this \u201cexceptional\u201d baptism, is _not_\nthereby \u201clawfully and sufficiently baptized.\u201d\n\nAnd in truth the Judicial Committee do seem to come very near to\nbelieving, if they do not actually believe, that something more _is_\nessential to baptism than the form appointed in the private office,\nprovides, for they tell us, \u201cAny other conclusion\u201d (than that the\npromises of the sureties are implied,) \u201cwould be an argument to prove\nthat none but the imperfect and incomplete ceremony allowed in the\nexceptional _case would be necessary in any case_\u201d (sic.)  This looks as\nif they had no notion of what are the essentials of baptism at all, and\nthen it appears they use their ignorance as _an argument_, _a fortiori_,\nto establish their heretical conclusion.  They are ignorant that \u201cnothing\nmore is necessary in any case,\u201d and therefore they deem the benefits do\nnot come to the child in and by baptism.  I cannot call this able or\nacute; quite independently of all view as to the truth or falsehood of\nthe conclusion they arrive at.\n\nBut still further on this very point; consider how sharp-sighted they\nhave been to see that the words \u201cby baptism,\u201d do not occur in another\nplace.  \u201cIt is certain by God\u2019s word, that children which are baptized,\ndying before they commit actual sin, are undoubtedly saved.\u201d  Yes! (says\nthe Court) saved no doubt\u2014Mr. Gorham does not deny it\u2014by prevenient\ngrace; (which their death, he thinks, proves them to have had; though\nthis too seems rather a charitable construction than anything else;\nfounded, so far as I see, \u201cupon no sure warranty\u201d of either \u201cScripture,\u201d\nor the Church\u2019s teaching;) _saved_, however, again says the Court, but\nnot _by_ baptism.  \u201cThis Rubric does not, like the article of 1536, say\nthat such children are saved _by baptism_.\u201d {38}  Thus sharp-sighted are\nthey to see what makes for the side they advocate (no one can feel it to\nbe too strong a word); whilst all notice of the very same words occurring\nwhere they might be difficult to construe in the same sense is entirely\nomitted.  \u201cSeeing, dearly beloved brethren\u201d (says the office for private\nbaptism), \u201cthat this child _is by baptism_ regenerate.\u201d  Here there is\nsurely a plain statement how, and when it is, the regeneration takes\nplace.  But the words do not occur in the public office; and so they are\nignored apparently as being \u201cexceptional,\u201d as if they could mean nothing.\nLet us see, carefully, what this amounts to, if pursued and followed out.\nInstead of taking Mr. Badeley\u2019s most reasonable argument into\nconsideration, that the thing intended is exactly the same in each case,\nonly it was too plain to require to be stated that the regeneration was\n_by baptism_ in the public office, when the declaration \u201cseeing this\nchild is regenerate\u201d is made in the very midst of the celebration,\nimmediately upon the administration of the sacrament; but that it _was_\nstated in the other service to prevent all doubtfulness as to _when_, and\n_by what means_, the regeneration was given to the child;\u2014instead,\ntherefore, of interpreting the one office by the other; instead of saying\nwe must suppose regeneration, and grafting into the body of Christ to be\nthe same, and attained by the same means in each case, the Court appears\nto have said simply, we will ignore the office which is most express, as\nan \u201cexceptional case,\u201d and proceed upon the wording of the other only.\nBut see, yet again, what this amounts to; it is declaring that there is a\ndifference of the gift in these different baptisms.  Take ten children\nbaptized privately, who have lived to be brought to church, and ten\nbaptized publicly, and of the first ten you will have it said by the\nChurch that they are \u201c_by baptism regenerate_:\u201d of the others that they\nare regenerate\u2014but, according to the Gorham phraseology\u2014by prevenient\ngrace, and _not_ by baptism; or, by the Privy Council\u2019s exposition of\nthis (not exactly a correct one, however), \u201ctaking place either before,\nin, or after baptism.\u201d  Is any man in his senses expected to believe such\na mode of interpretation to be sound and true; or the way to make the\nChurch\u2019s services agree together; or that it is a due application of the\nprinciple to let the services explain each other, as would be the case in\nany and all ordinary legal documents.  Why! according to this rule, the\nright and blessed thing for parents to do, would be, _not_ to bring their\nchildren to church to be baptized as soon as they _can_; _not_ to give\nany heed to the exhortation of \u201cthe curate of every parish, often\nadmonishing the people that they defer not the baptism of their children\nlonger than the first or second Sunday next after their birth, or other\nholy-day falling between unless upon a great and reasonable cause;\u201d {40}\nbut in every possible case TO _defer_ the baptism, till the children may\nbe sick, and then procure them to be baptized privately.  _Then_ will\nthey have the Church\u2019s assurance that \u201ctheir infants are _by baptism\nregenerate_, and grafted into the body of Christ;\u201d\u2014then will they make\nthe exception the rule, and take all advantage of the \u201cexceptional\ncase;\u201d\u2014then may they feel that knowing _when_ the regeneration took\nplace, they may be sure it _has_ taken place;\u2014but if they be obedient and\nfaithful to the Church\u2019s exhortation; and bring their infants soon to\nchurch to be baptised, then indeed, according to the Gorham theology, and\nthe Privy Council\u2019s judgment upon it, then will they have no knowledge\nwhether \u201cremission of their sins by spiritual regeneration\u201d hath come to\ntheir babes at all, every thing being dependent upon the prevenient\ngrace, which no one pretends is given to all infants; and though, (it is\nsaid,) to some, yet no one can pretend to say, to which!\n\nThe Privy Council, although this point of the force of the words\n\u201c_regenerate by baptism_\u201d in the office for private ministration, was\npressed upon them by Mr. Badeley, take no notice at all of it I think in\ntheir judgment; merging all they had to say on the subject of that office\nin \u201cits being exceptional,\u201d and \u201cintended for an emergency.\u201d  I cannot\ndeem this clear-sighted and acute.  If I thought it so, I could not by\nany compulsion think it honest.  I do not impugn their honesty; but they\nmust (and will _find_ they must in time) take the world\u2019s verdict as to\nthe ability of such reasoning.\n\nOne other passage I must briefly notice: \u201cThe whole Catechism\u201d (the court\ntells us) \u201crequires a charitable construction, _such as must be given_ to\nthe expression, \u2018God the Holy Ghost who sanctifieth me, and all the elect\npeople of God.\u2019\u201d  Thus it is evident the Judicial Committee have lived so\nout of all theological training and the commonest catechetical\ninstruction, that it has never occurred to them this passage can have a\nliteral meaning.  They seem never to have heard or dreamed of such a\nthing as \u201cthe elect people of God\u201d being, _the baptized_; never to have\nsupposed that the words \u201cGOD THE HOLY GHOST _who sanctifieth_,\u201d might be\ndescriptive of the _office_ of the HOLY SPIRIT, and mean (surely an easy\nand natural sense enough) who _is the Sanctifier of_; never,\nconsequently, to have considered the possibility that the intention of\nthe whole passage might be (and be thus literally true), that it is _God\nthe Holy Ghost who is the Sanctifier of the baptized_, at their baptism\nat any rate, although such persons may no doubt afterwards fall away,\ngrieve or quench him, and drive him from them. {42}  Again I say, they\nuse their own ignorance on a point upon which any catechumen might have\ntaught them better, as a cumulative argument to explain the whole\nCatechism in an hypothetical and unreal sense, such as they tell us\n_must_ be given to these words.  Truly, if, like the boy in the tale, the\nCourt had expressed their thankfulness for their ignorance, (and it is, I\nfear, their best friend as to many parts of this decision\u2019s merits,) one\nwould be tempted to agree with the response there given, that they \u201chave\na great deal undoubtedly for which to be thankful.\u201d\n\nI do not think, then, I could call this document, put forth to the world\nafter so long a preparation, and known by the court itself to be of so\nmuch importance, a clever paper, even if looked upon merely as the\nexercise of an advocate, desired to make up a judgment upon a \u201cforegone\nconclusion.\u201d  But assuredly this is _one thing_; to be an able judicial\ndocument is _another_:\u2014another and so different a thing, that I presume\nthere will be little dispute, whether among lawyers, or any men of sense,\nthat for a judicial document to be (_if_ it be) _but_ the subtil,\ningenious effort of a partisan, is so far from even faint praise, that it\nis the most disastrous imputation which could rest upon a judge\u2019s\ncharacter, to have been a party in any such transaction as the framing\nit.  I cannot either call it talent of any high character, to see all\nthat makes _for_ one view, and nothing that makes _against_ it.  I cannot\npraise _that_ discrimination which is only great at finding a solution to\none-sided difficulties.  I cannot consider these as the marks of an able\njudge, however they may be the natural characteristics or proceedings of\nan advocate or partizan.  Yet let me explain;\u2014even so, I do not say a\npartizan is by any means necessarily a dishonest man.  The habit of being\nbiassed by what we much wish, is as natural as, in some cases, to\nforecast what we much fear.  It works even unconsciously to ourselves,\nand is not inconsistent with the most upright intention, nay, sometimes,\nnot with the most earnest endeavour after truth.  But certainly _he_ only\nis to be called a great judge who can master this habit; whose mental\ndiscipline is such, that he can abstract himself from these circumstances\nof his wishes, and in spite of all the promptings of his heart, preserve\nthe coolness of his head; who can divest himself, when he takes his place\non his judicial throne, almost of his personal existence, and pass\njudgment as if the world would end to-morrow.  The calculation of\nconsequences; the being guided by what shall make most for peace, or any\nother desiderated end, is one of the snares to be most carefully shunned\nby any man who would occupy a distinguished place in the temple of\njustice.  _He_ has no pretence to stand upon the roll of fame, as eminent\nin his calling as a judge, whose eyes wander into the future, whose mind\nis pondering the consequences which may ensue.  Such an one shows\nmanifestly that he is unable to separate his judgment from his advocacy;\nhis judicial character from the wishes and bias of his mind; and\ntherefore, though a very honest man it may be, still that he is deficient\nin the first of all the qualities necessary to form a great judicial\ncharacter, or secure a lasting judicial name.\n\nI do not say, in saying these things, that Lords Campbell and Langdale,\nMr. Pemberton Leigh, Dr. Lushington, and Mr. Baron Parke were consciously\none-sided in the judgment they delivered: but I do say, it appears to me,\nand I believe it will appear to posterity, when all these things shall be\nmatters of unimpassioned historic reference, that whatever their judgment\nin the case of Gorham v. the Bishop of Exeter may be as to its\nuprightness, they lose caste as to ability, by its delivery.  They lose,\nand will lose caste, if only from the fact that they were not able to\nsee, to remember, to combine, to take count of various matters (some of\nwhich I have just noticed) bearing upon the very documents, (the great\nthings as they themselves allow by which they were to be guided,) and\nessential to a fair decision; and this moreover when those very points\nhad been distinctly pressed upon their attention.  They deviated\nlikewise, I believe, from all the ordinary rules of courts of appeal, in\nignoring, instead of examining, the judgment of the court from which the\nappeal came up, the decision of which they were about to reverse.  Many\nwill be the hearts that will grieve over these things as time goes on,\nfirst, generally, on the ground of the dissatisfaction and distrust which\nsuch proceedings cast upon the character of the administration of our\nlaw; but next also, on the narrower though hardly less painful ground, of\nseeing men who might have stood so high, losing their position in the\nworld\u2019s history, by the too sensitive desire to do the things which, as\nthey imagine, make for peace, rather than boldly daring to adopt the\ndivine motto, \u201cBe just, and fear not.\u201d\n\nTo say nothing of others, how many will think remorsefully of the deed\ndone which cannot now be undone, when they find (as find I am sure they\nwill) that this judgment has struck down from the pedestal of honour\nwhere he might perchance have stood with few equal and none superior to\nhim, one, whose name as a lawyer was promising to fill the world.  That\nlearned Baron\u2019s name might perhaps have descended to posterity, coupled\nwith the very greatest of the judicial names this country has ever\nboasted; but now, (sorrowfully will many hearts attest it,) in spite of\nall the blind flattery of party feeling, and all attempts to patch the\nmatter up or smooth it over by party declamation; now;\u2014_for_ and _by_\nthis Gorham judgment, will he fall from that pre-eminence, and be found,\nto those highest honours, to have forfeited his claim.\n\nBefore I leave this part of my subject there is one further remark I must\nneeds make.  This is not the first time that the people of this country\nhave had cause to look with suspicion upon the administration of the law,\nwhere the interests of the Church have been affected.  There is, I think,\na growing feeling in the world, that, (it may be unadvisedly and\nunconsciously in those concerned, still really and practically,) the\nChurch does not meet with exactly the same measure which would be dealt\nout in mere legal construction of documents to a railway company or a\nmerchant\u2019s clerk.  When in the year 1848, in the Hampden case, the Lord\nChief Justice of the Queen\u2019s Bench of that day reversed the unvarying\npractice of his court for 250 years: {46} (if I am mistaken in the fact,\nno doubt I shall be corrected,) when Lord Denman nullified in that case\n(and expressly from a _regard to consequences_;\u2014his own reason, as stated\nby himself in his judgment;\u2014) so general and so just a practice as that\nwhen the judges are divided equally in opinion, \u201cthe writ should go,\u201d to\ngive opportunity for further argument, and consideration by a higher\ncourt (that a writ of error, I believe it is termed, may lie), he did a\nthing so pernicious, that Englishmen may well be grieved he should ever\nhave held so high an office.  To throw suspicion on the fountains of\njustice is among the greatest wrongs any man can inflict upon his\ncountry.  It is high treason against the majesty of law.  It is a\nteaching of rebellion to all who have the wit to understand what has been\ndone.  It substitutes distrust even in the rightfully condemned, for the\ngeneral and generous confidence even of him who may think or know, in his\nown case, the law has erred.  Let such a persuasion grow but a little,\nand we shall find no more instances of the spirit of him who said\n\n                   I had my trial\n    And must needs say a noble one: . . .\n    The law I bear no malice for my death,\n    It has done, upon the premises, but justice;\n\nwhilst \u201cevery puny whipster\u201d who thinks himself aggrieved, will only\nproclaim \u201cwith outstretched throat,\u201d the impossibility of obtaining equal\njustice, and the corruption of the law.  No man can doubt it is the\nparamount duty of those concerned in its administration to \u201cabstain from\nall appearance\u201d of this \u201cevil,\u201d and give no possible colour to its\nexistence.  In truth, so sacred is the subject I have here handled, that\nnothing but the most weighty considerations should induce us to mention\nat all the circumstance of so just a rule having ever been disregarded.\nThese however do exist in reference to the present matter; and where the\nquestion at issue is the preservation of the true faith in our branch of\nthe Church of Christ, we dare not omit the notice of any of the dangers\nwhich beset it.  We dare not, for peace\u2019 sake, or for the sake of a\nworldly expediency, \u201ckeep silence.\u201d  We dare not, for fear of casting an\nimputation (not, observe, a vague one, but supported by fact and\ntestimony) on the administration of human law, run the risk of its being\ncast upon the truth of God, and the Church of Christ.  Much have these\nthings pressed upon me, in reference to our present state, and future\nprospects: and many times have I weighed them before venturing thus to\nbring my thoughts to light.  \u201cMy heart was hot within me, and while I was\nthus musing, the fire kindled, and at the last I spake with my tongue.\u201d\n{48}\n\nBut it is more than time that I turn from these, however very important,\nyet somewhat preliminary considerations, to the more direct purport of\nyour letter, and to the answer I may be able to give to the charge\ncontained in it.  What this is, your title-page sufficiently declares:\n\u201cThe want of dogmatic teaching in the reformed Church of England:\u201d and my\nanswer is plain and simple: such as you will not quarrel with for want of\ndistinctness and pertinency, if only I sustain it.  I join issue as to\nthe fact.  I maintain we _have_ a rule of dogmatic teaching in our\nChurch\u2019s constitution on all those points on which it is essential a\nChurch should have it.  I think, in and by God\u2019s good providence over us,\n(and if it be so, you will yourself allow it is a most singular mark of\nhis gracious favour towards us,) this has been preserved as to what we\n_ought_ to teach, though I acknowledge in practice and in fact, we fall\nlamentably short of teaching, and our people of believing according to\nit.  I imagine, however, you will not charge it as any conclusive\nargument against the catholicity of either ourselves, or any branch of\nthe Church of Christ, that gross and frequent cases of practical\nshort-comings may be adduced, if it can nevertheless be shown, that the\nChurch\u2019s rule requires what is right, and, rightly understood,\ndogmatically inculcates it.\n\nYou may be curious to learn upon what basis I think myself able to\nsustain so direct a challenge to the whole principle and bearing of your\nsecond letter; and, strange to say, I know no one, whose words so aptly\nenunciate, and give expression to my argument as your own.  You will\nthink, I doubt not you have disarmed the quotation I am about to make,\n(which by this time you anticipate,) by having already brought it forward\nyourself, and stated you can no longer rely upon it.  But you must excuse\nme for not so easily parting with it, and for endeavouring to prove you\nright in your earlier view, even against your own subsequent change of\nmind.  \u201cIt is a miserable matter,\u201d (you say, after having given various\nauthorities among our ritualists to confirm your view of absolution,) \u201cit\nis a miserable matter merely to be able to escape from condemnation.  I\nam not content to think the interpretation which I insist upon is but one\nof many which _may_ or _may not_, according to individual caprice or\nindividual ignorance be held without rebuke by our people, and taught by\nour clergy.  If any one of the above theories is the true one, all the\nrest are false.  And are we for ever to remain disputing?  Is there no\nvoice by which we may learn the truth?  I believe that there is a voice,\nlong neglected and long forgotten, the voice of the Church of England.\nLet us listen to her teaching, and we shall find that now, as of old, by\nthe great grace of God, she does not speak with a doubting or hesitating\ntongue.\u201d {50}\n\nThis was your opinion at the close of the year 1848, and this is what I\nstill claim.  I am prepared, even against yourself, to maintain, and I\nbelieve I can shew, its soundness.  Do not suppose that I dream of\nquoting this or a further passage which I shall have occasion to extract\npresently, merely in order to show a discrepancy between what you\nasserted then, and what you hold now.  I do not desire to cavil with your\nright to be inconsistent in search of truth, if that were all; and I must\nallow besides such things have \u201ccome to pass in these our days,\u201d between\nthen and now, as may much diminish our surprise at inconsistency or\nchange of mind in any one.  At any rate, it would be, I am well aware, a\nmost idle task to endeavour to prove _my_ position in favour of the\ndogmatic teaching of the Church of England, merely by convicting you or\nany man of inconsistency, and showing that what you think and say now is\ndifferent from what you thought and said a year and a half ago.  In all\ntruth this is not my object; but I cite these passages, because I know\nnot how better, nay, not how so well to express my own meaning; that I\nmay also comment a little upon the passages I cite, and your reasons for\nthinking the position they take up no longer tenable; and that in so\ndoing I may add a few words beyond what you said even in 1848, for\nbelieving in their soundness.  Let me turn to your words.  You say, \u201cHere\nthough open to the charge of repetition, I must again lay down the\nprinciple upon which alone we can possibly decide what the judgment of\nthe Church of England really is; and to which principle we are bound to\nbring for proof as to a test every doctrine which we assert or deny.\u201d\n\nThen this principle follows, most clearly enunciated:\u2014\n\n    \u201cWe declare, therefore, that the Church of England now holds,\n    teaches, and insists upon, all things whether of belief or practice,\n    which she held, taught and insisted on before the year 1540, unless\n    she has since that time, plainly, openly and dogmatically asserted\n    the contrary.  This we declare in general.  And in particular, as\n    regards that most important question, the right interpretation of the\n    various services in our Common Prayer Book, we further add: that\n    whatsoever we find handed down from the earlier rituals of the Church\n    of England, and neither limited nor extended in its meaning by any\n    subsequent canon or article, must be understood to signify (upon the\n    one) hand fully and entirely all, and (on the other hand) no more\n    than it signified before the revision of the ritual.\u201d {51}\n\n                                * * * * *\n\n    \u201cFew persons will deny that the existence of a doctrine known,\n    acknowledged, and taught in the Church of England at the beginning of\n    the sixteenth century, coupled with the fact that no reformation or\n    alteration of that doctrine has at any time since been made\u2014and\n    therefore that it was intended to be still known, acknowledged and\n    taught, is strong evidence by itself that such a doctrine must be\n    true.  The obligation to enquire accurately into it, and if possible\n    overthrow it, is in the first place, upon the shoulders of those who\n    are inclined to doubt or to dispute.  It will then be for us to see\n    if it can be defended.  One thing only I am bound to say before I\n    pass on.  And it is this: that, equally on this matter of absolution,\n    as upon all other essential portions of the One Faith once delivered\n    to the saints, I believe that the Church of England holds the true\n    and complete doctrine of the holy gospel, and follows in her practice\n    of it, the example of the primitive age.  Our Church now claims, in\n    right of her succession, all the ordinary powers and privileges which\n    the Apostles received from their and her Almighty Lord; now offers to\n    her children all the means whether in aid of, or as being necessary\n    to, the salvation of each one which were offered from the beginning;\n    and now, as of old and ever, either insists upon the reception, or\n    entreatingly urges the acceptance, according to their various nature,\n    of all and every of those means of grace.\u201d {52}\n\nI think I am justified in saying that you admit yourself, by inference,\nin your second letter, that if the principle of these passages can still\nbe sustained, the case and position of the Church of England will be\ntenable against the charge of being without necessary dogmatic teaching.\nBut you explain in your recent letter that you feel you must give up the\nsoundness of these views; that you cannot now believe the same things\nconcerning our Church\u2019s rule of faith.  Let me give this comment in your\nown words:\u2014\n\n\u201cHere, very probably, some one may object against me my own language,\npublished rather more than a year ago.  I allude to my book on the\ndoctrine of absolution.  Let me quote it.\u201d  Then follows the quotation I\nhave already made as to our Church retaining the teaching she held\nprevious to 1540, except where expressly repealed; upon which you add:\n\u201cWhen that passage was written, it was written in entire assurance that\nevery word might be established.  I do not think so now.  And with\nwhatever pain I say this, it is not because my belief has altered from\naccepting the fixed principle that all essential Christian truth is one\nand eternal; and that every part of the Church-Catholic is bound of\nnecessity to hold it whole and undefiled.  Believing, as at that time I\ndid, with the strongest confidence and trust that the Church of England\nwas a living and a sound portion of the one holy Catholic Church, _I\ncould not but assert_, as being capable of undeniable proof, her claims\nto teach authoritatively and undeniably every single doctrine of the\nCatholic faith.  If I searched into her foundations it was with no shadow\nof fear lest they should be seen not to be resting on the rock, but much\nrather in the undoubting hope that the more she was tested and examined\nthe more triumphantly she would declare herself to be divine.\n\n\u201cIf the end of long enquiry and consideration has resulted in\ndisappointed hope, and what seems to be evidence of the fallacy of former\nexpectations; if I am compelled to own that the utmost we are justified\nin declaring seems to be\u2014not that the Church of England now \u2018holds and\nteaches\u2019 &c., but\u2014that the Church of England how _suffers_ and _permits_\nto be held and taught; and again, as to the right interpretation of the\nprayer book, not \u2018_must_ be understood,\u2019 but \u2018_may_ be understood:\u2019 let\nnone suppose that I have lightly yielded up that ground upon which alone\na minister of the Church of England, as a minister of the Church\nCatholic, can stand securely.\u201d {54}\n\nNow, the first observation which hereupon occurs is this:\u2014you state you\ncan no longer think that ground tenable; but you do not sufficiently give\na reason why you thus change your mind.  I do not say you give _no_\nreason, because I suppose we are to take the whole of your second letter,\nas in fact the reason; but I mean, you do not go into the particulars of\nthe matter, nor in detail state the grounds why you should think the\nChurch of England does not still appeal to her doctrine before the year\n1540, wherever unrepealed, to supply the defect or short comings (if any)\nof her later teaching.  You seem to have condemned her on her _practical_\nor _external_ deficiencies, not as going into and proving her to have\nchanged her internal rule.  Indeed, it seems to me you have hardly\nweighed at all, either in asserting or denying the principle you formerly\nmaintained and now yield up, the external evidence for its truth.  This,\nperhaps, was originally not an unnatural omission, since you held the\nview co-ordinately with, and as an essential part of, your belief in the\nCatholicity of the English Church, not as a proof of it, nor as an answer\nto objections.  You then so unhesitatingly believed the Church of England\nto be \u201ca living and sound portion of the one holy Catholic Church,\u201d (and\nwere not engaged in _proving_ any thing about this at that time, your\nargument quite allowing you to assume it;) that, as you say, \u201c_you could\nnot but assert_ her claims to teach authoritatively and undeniably every\nsingle doctrine of the Catholic faith.\u201d  It followed directly as a\nnatural and necessary consequence from the position you assigned her,\nthat she _must_ be able so to teach; and, I repeat, you had no need to do\nmore than assume it, because none of those with whom you were arguing,\ndenied it; and your point was to show what followed from this\nunquestioned statement as to the particular doctrine you were then\ntreating of, not to give the proofs of it in detail, if at all.  That the\nChurch of England was a true and living branch of the Church Catholic was\ntherefore your premiss: that she taught necessarily the one essential\nChristian truth, all necessary dogmatic teaching, was your natural and\njust inference.  And to show what this Christian truth was on absolution,\nyou referred to the prior teaching of the Church of England, and of the\nChurch Catholic as received by her before the reformation.  But no\nwonder, when upon other grounds your premiss was shaken, the truth (as\n_I_ still believe it) of the inference was shaken also in your mind.  It\ncould not be its own proof.  If you are no longer certain the Church of\nEngland _is_ a true and living branch, you lose _your_ evidence, I mean\nthe evidence adduced by you in that treatise, and on which you were then\nresting, that she embraces all necessary dogmatic teaching.  But if _I_\ncan shew by plain reasoning in the nature of things, or by external\nproof, without first assuming her Catholicity, that she _has_ this rule\nof faith; that she is linked up to, and holds on by, the whole of her\nteaching previous to the reformation, except where she has \u201cplainly,\nopenly, and dogmatically asserted the contrary,\u201d I shall have just so\nmuch proof to give that she does not fail in point of dogmatic teaching,\nand therefore so far an answer to your difficulty and your enquiry, \u201cWhat\nam I to teach as the faith and doctrines of the English Church?\u201d  If by\nthis process I can make it reasonably clear that, \u201cby the great grace of\nGod,\u201d the Church of England has had preserved to her a strict rule by\nwhich she does teach the whole Catholic faith, then shall I meet all the\nobjection of your recent letter, so far as _principle_ is concerned, and\nsustain, as _my_ conclusion, what was _your_ premiss, that (in so far, at\nany rate, as her dogmatic teaching is concerned,) we have no right to\ndoubt her claims; but that she is still what you so unhesitatingly\nbelieved her to be in 1848, a living portion (though it may be now a\nwounded one) of the one holy Catholic Church.\n\nYou have touched upon, though without entering into proofs to sustain it,\n(which as I have said before, your argument did not there require,) the\nprinciple by which the said dogmatic rule is to be established; viz. \u201cthe\nChurch of England now holds and insists upon all things, whether of\nbelief or practice, which she held, taught, and insisted upon before the\nyear 1540, unless she has since that time plainly, openly, and\ndogmatically asserted the contrary.\u201d . . . Again:\u2014\u201cWhatsoever we find\nhanded down from the earlier rituals of the Church of England, and\nneither limited nor extended in its meaning by any subsequent canon or\narticle, must be understood to signify (on the one hand) fully and\nentirely all, and (on the other hand) no more than it signified before\nthe revision of the ritual.\u201d\n\nYou do not say precisely _why it must_ be so received, unless we are to\nunderstand (a position with which I make no quarrel) that common sense\nand the nature of things declare it to be a self-evident truth,\nimmediately the proposition is announced.  But I venture to think, beyond\nthis strong support it has other and more particular evidence, and so\nrests altogether upon a much wider basis than is overthrown by the\ngeneral and sweeping rejection of it in your assertion, that you do not\nnow think it tenable.  It appears to me in the first place, as I have\nsaid, to rest on principles of reason and common sense, and next to admit\nof particular proof, that the Church of England does retain such\nteaching.\n\nLet me ask you to examine with attention the evidence I am about to\nadduce.  I would arrange it under the following heads:\u2014\n\nI.  Common sense, and the nature of things.\n\nII.  Appeals of our Church to antiquity, and the teaching of the Church\nuniversal, as well as to her own previous constitutions and canons.\n\nIII.  Recognition of such previous teaching by the civil power; if not\nproving the same point positively, yet at least shewing negatively that\nit is not contradicted.\n\nIV.  Some confirmation of the above view from considerations of what the\nChurch of England would deprive herself of, (which no one has ever\nsupposed her to have done) if the principle were to be carried out that\nher existence is to be dated from the sixteenth century only; and nothing\nto belong to her rule of faith but what was then determined, and in words\nset down.\n\nI.  Surely it is most certain on grounds of abstract reason and common\nsense, that things will stand as they are, if they neither fall to decay\nof themselves, nor are altered by any external power.  No one pretends\nthat the dogmatic teaching of a Church will fall to decay of itself.  The\nother alternative, therefore, is all we have here to consider.  I say\nthen that, of any building, what you do not destroy, remains.  You find\nsuch or such a fabric standing.  It is, in your opinion, out of repair,\nor deformed with unnatural or unsightly excrescences, which in process of\ntime have overgrown, or been engrafted upon it.  Additions you may\nconceive them to be to the original structure, and now, injurious or\ninconvenient.  You resolve that these, whether accidental or evilly\ncontrived, shall be removed, and you address yourself to the task.\nSurely, your own principle in 1848, that what is not removed, remains, is\nmost sound: I know not how to consider it less than axiomatically true.\nIf a tower be taken down here, or a turret there, a window blocked up on\nthis side, or a door opened in that, still the foundations remain the\nsame as ever, unless you absolutely root them up.  The basis of the\nbuilding, except in such case, cannot be imagined to be moved, and just\nso much of the superstructure as you do not throw down, must stand as\nheretofore.  It may be obscured by something else; it may be much less\nnoticed, or noticeable, than it has been; it may be disregarded in the\npublic eye; one whole side of the building may be clothed in shadow, but\nyet, if not destroyed, there it will remain, and remain as an integral\npart of the building to sustain its uses, and to be claimed for them when\nneed is by the owner of the whole, and by his servants at his bidding.\nAnd so in that \u201ccity set on a hill,\u201d her foundations are the same for\never; and, unless the Church of England at the reformation destroyed the\nfoundations;\u2014save where she may have \u201cplainly and openly\u201d pulled down any\nthing which had before-time been built up;\u2014that which was laid, and that\nwhich was built remains, and is our heritage at this very day.  So great\nis the absolute and essential difference between FORMATION and\nREFORMATION, and such the argument in favour of your principle in 1848,\nfrom abstract reason and the nature of things! {59a}\n\nBut further, we are not without an abundance of external proof, if I may\nso call it, besides this common sense reasoning, shewing that the Church\nof England at the reformation, if we gather her intentions not from\nopinions of individual reformers, but from her own authoritative acts,\ndid not mean to adopt a wide and indiscriminate destruction of her\nprevious teaching, and _did_ mean to keep all that she did not mark to be\ndestroyed.  This point was the foundation of a large part of the most\nlearned and able argument of Mr. Badeley before the Committee of Privy\nCouncil, by which he asserted, and as it seems to me, proved (although\nthe Court appears to have taken absolutely no notice at all of this part\nof his speech) the certain and positive connection of the Church of\nEngland with the previous Church in this country, and with the Church\nuniversal, and this, not only by the links of the same apostolical\nsuccession, but in the maintenance of a connected doctrine.  And the\ngeneral principle as to antiquity, and the sense of the Church precedent\nto the reformation, which Mr. Badeley laid down expressly with a view to\nthe matter of the suit in which he was engaged, and in order to apply it\nimmediately to baptism; that same principle, be it observed, is\napplicable in exactly the same way, and the same fulness to every other\narticle of the faith, unless any where it can be shown that the Church of\nEngland at the reformation did \u201cplainly, openly, and dogmatically\ncontradict it.\u201d  It would therefore be very much to my present purpose to\ncite here nearly the whole of this part of Mr. Badeley\u2019s speech, but as\nyou know it well, and can easily refer to it, I shall but extract a few\nof the more important passages, where the proofs of this principle being\nthe rule of the English Church are given.\n\n    \u201cI shall next appeal\u201d Mr. Badeley says, \u201cto antiquity in order to\n    shew more fully that this doctrine for which I contend,\u201d (of course\n    the immediate doctrine which Mr. Badeley had in view, was baptismal\n    regeneration: but his argument reaches, as I have just said, to the\n    full purpose for which I cite it;) \u201chas always been, and must\n    necessarily still be, the doctrine of the Church of England. * * * If\n    there can be any doubt at all about the sense and meaning of our\n    Church, if it can be supposed by any criticism or minute\n    construction, that these Articles and Formularies do leave any\n    question open\u2014do omit in any degree to declare with certainty the\n    doctrine of the Church, resort must be had not to the writings of the\n    reformers, not to the opinions of any individuals, however\n    respectable they may have been; the only appeal can be to the early\n    Church, and the doctrines which that Church professed.  That is\n    indisputably the standard to which we are referred, not only by our\n    Prayer Book and our Homilies, but by those who took the most\n    prominent part in the reformation in this country, and it is natural\n    that this should be so, because what was in fact the reformation, and\n    what its object?  My friend, Mr. Turner, the other day, spoke of the\n    Church of England in 1552, as being then in its infancy: but\n    according to my understanding, it was then at least more than 1200\n    years old, for we have evidence of British bishops having attended\n    some of the earliest councils.  Some are supposed to have been\n    present at the Council of Nicea, and it is positively stated that\n    three attended the Council of Arles, which was prior to that of\n    Nicea.  The Church of England, therefore, is an ancient and an\n    apostolic Church, deriving its succession from the primitive Church,\n    and one and the same through all ages.  The Reformation was no _new\n    formation_, not a creation of a _new_ Church, but the correction and\n    restoration of an old one; it professed only to repair and reform,\n    not to found or create\u2014and it assumed to do this, according to the\n    doctrines and usages of the primitive Church.  The reformers well\n    knew, that if they did not stand upon that ground, they had no\n    resting place for the soles of their feet; they were fully conscious\n    that if they attempted to alter the Church any otherwise than\n    according to its ancient model, it would crumble to pieces\n    altogether, and probably bury them in its ruins.  All they professed,\n    was to strengthen it where it was decayed, and to strip off those\n    additions, which have encrusted or grown upon it in the lapse of\n    time, without the authority of the Scripture, or of primitive\n    tradition; but to this they declared that they adhered; they bound\n    themselves down by this rule, and appealed to antiquity for all they\n    did.\u201d {63}\n\nThen having quoted a passage from Bishop Jewell\u2019s Apology, appealing to\nantiquity as our Church\u2019s guide, and shewing (to use Mr. Badeley\u2019s words)\n\u201cthat the intention of our reformers in departing from the Church of\nRome, was not at all to depart from the doctrine of the Catholic Church,\u201d\nhe goes on to cite confirmatory authority to the same point in even more\nweighty documents.\n\n    \u201cIn the preface to the Prayer-book, as well as in the Articles, we\n    have frequent references to the Fathers and the Primitive Church.  We\n    have the same in the Homilies; in almost every page they teem with\n    quotations from the Fathers, and support themselves upon the ancient\n    doctrine and the Catholic tradition; and therefore, in inquiring into\n    what was the doctrine of the early Church upon the question now in\n    issue, we are following precisely that course of inquiry, and\n    appealing to that tribunal, which was marked out for us by the\n    reformers themselves.  They referred to the primitive doctrine as an\n    indication of their meaning; and of course, if they had departed from\n    that, they would have departed from the Church itself, because the\n    Church, and the faith of the Church, can be but one.\u201d\n\n                                  * * * * *\n\n    \u201cI can show, that at the time of the Reformation there certainly was\n    no intention to depart; and was no real departure in any respect from\n    the doctrine of the early Church, on this or any other matter,\n    certainly not on the Sacrament of Baptism, or upon the Sacraments\n    generally; AND WHATEVER WAS NOT ALTERED AT THE PERIOD OF THE\n    REFORMATION, REMAINS, AND CONTINUES TO BE THE DOCTRINE AND LAW OF THE\n    CHURCH TO THIS DAY.\u201d {64}\n\nAgain, Mr. Badeley says, \u201cwe have authority for looking to antiquity in\none or two public documents which are of importance; for in the canons\nwhich were made in the year 1571, in that very Convocation which ratified\nthe Thirty-nine Articles, we have this in the directions to preachers:\u2014\n\n    \u201cImprimis vero videbunt, ne quid unquam doceant pro concione quod a\n    populo religiose teneri et credi velint, nisi quod consentaneum sit\n    doctrin\u00e6 veteris aut Novi Testamenti, _quodque ex ill\u00e2 ips\u00e2\n    doctrin\u00e2_, _Catholici Patres et veteres episcopi collegerint_.\u201d\u2014Pp.\n    100, 101.\n\nThere can be no doubt that what the Convocation considered to stand _not_\nwith this foundation, they lopped off and pulled down: what, therefore,\nthey left, _of what was in their time so taught_, is to be _so taught\nstill_; and remains as the dogmatic teaching of the Church of England.\n\n    \u201cAgain, we have,\u201d (continues Mr. Badeley, for I know not how to omit\n    these links in his argument, so much are they to the purpose of my\n    own,) \u201cwe have, in the directions given to the bishops by the lords\n    of the council in the year 1582, with a view to their disputations\n    with the Jesuits and seminary priests, a similar rule laid down.  \u2018If\n    the latter shall show any ground of Scripture\u2019 (says this order in\n    council), \u2018and wrest it to their sense, you shall call for the\n    interpretation of the old doctors, such as were before Gregory I.,\n    for that in his time began the first claim of the supremacy, &c.\u2019  So\n    that in these we have public directions by authority as to the rule\n    to which parties are to conform,\u2014there is that of Convocation with\n    reference to the clergy in their preaching, and there is this of the\n    council with reference to public controversies and disputations; and\n    therefore there is plenty of authority, as I conceive, for appealing\n    to the early Church, for the Church and State both send us to the\n    same source.  No doubt it was the case in all the disputations which\n    were held about the period of the Reformation, to appeal to primitive\n    doctrine and tradition.  In one of the statutes of Elizabeth (stat. 1\n    Eliz. c. 1), there is a direction as to what is to be regarded as\n    heresy, and that is to be judged by the authority of the first four\n    general councils, or any of them, and any other general councils\n    which declare it heresy in the words of Scripture. {66a}  We come,\n    therefore,\u201d (thus Mr. Badeley concludes this part of his argument)\n    \u201cunder such sanction to the ancient Church, and to primitive and\n    Catholic tradition, and I think we shall see beyond question that\n    these prove the doctrine of baptism, &c.\u201d {66b}\n\nWhat Mr. Badeley cites for the special purpose of his particular case, I\nconceive holds good, and may be asserted precisely in the same way for\nthe whole range of doctrine which our Church maintains; and with this\npersuasion it is that I have so largely cited passages from his most\nlucid speech.  This part of his argument, though of course limited in its\napplication by him to the special circumstances in which he stood, and\nthe case then before the Privy Council, is evidently not _exclusive_; and\nI think proves thus much at least satisfactorily; that the Church of\nEngland at the reformation never intended for a moment to shut out\nprevious _doctrine_, (though she might not actually mention and repeat\nit,) any more than she could have intended to shut out previous\n_history_.  Whatever may have been said _of_ her, or _for_ her, since,\nthe idea that she was then a new Church; making a beginning for herself,\ncreating herself, as it were, and her doctrine; not being joined to the\nwhole early Church, and not acknowledging her own previous existence, was\nevidently not only never in her mind, but the exact contradictory was so\nentirely an essential part of her life and being, that it is everywhere\nfelt and assumed, and the only wonder is, it is as much stated as it is.\n\nI have just said that Mr. Badeley advances these proofs of the character\nof our Church as to dogmatic teaching for one particular purpose, and in\norder to support one specific doctrine\u2014baptismal regeneration.  To that\nsubject he confines himself in the application of what he had said, and,\nof course, most properly; because such only was the subject-matter in the\nappeal on which he was pleading; such the doctrine which, on behalf of\nhis client, the Bishop of Exeter, he was bound to clear.  But what I\nventure to say generally, from all these considerations and proofs as\nadvanced by Mr. Badeley, is this,\u2014that his mode of meeting the attack on\nthe Catholic doctrine of baptism is precisely the just mode, and the\nright mode for us to meet _any_ assault upon the faith of the Church of\nEngland; because those considerations of the nature of her rule of faith,\nand those proofs of her appeal to antiquity, and to the unrepealed dogmas\nof preceding ages, connecting herself with them, and showing her mind to\nretain the same teaching, are general, and apply not merely to baptism,\nor to any one doctrine, but to all our doctrines.  And this defence, as\nit appears to me, is not only legitimate but sufficient: at any rate\nsufficient until specific exceptions are made and particular defects\nnamed, and proofs given, (if they may be,) of a contradictory teaching,\nby reference to the later authoritative expression of our Church\u2019s mind;\na position however which, as I shall presently show, you do not yourself\nassert.  One thing further I would here observe before I proceed; that\nthis line of argument and mode of defence of the Catholic doctrine of\nbaptism not having been successful in this particular instance, and with\nthis particular court, (although a reason to stir up all our energies to\nshow the Church _does_ not and _never will_ acquiesce in the decision of\nthat court,) affords no ground to any man to affirm that it has been\nauthoritatively condemned as an unsound defence, nay, shows not at all\nthat it might not even be admitted, and succeed in another case.  The\ncourt cannot be said to condemn all the arguments on the losing side,\nhowever it may disregard them.  The court is not sitting to try the\narguments of counsel, but the general merits of the case; and no one, I\nsuppose, would say that all the arguments of every lawyer who may not\ngain his cause are judicially pronounced worthless or unsound.  What may\nbe justly said of them appears to be no more than that they are not\naccepted as of weight by that court, or, at the most, that there is an\nimplication of some censure or contempt upon them; but certainly there is\nnothing to prevent individuals still believing in their soundness;\nnothing to prevent their being advanced again as occasion may again\narise; nothing to prevent them at another time, before even the same,\nand, much more, before another tribunal, being weighed, being allowed,\nand being successful. {69}\n\nUnder such sanction then it is that we claim the Catholic teaching of the\nuniversal Church, and the teaching of the Church of England prior to the\nreformation as _our_ dogmatic teaching still, in all points save where it\nmay be shewn (if it may) to be since plainly and expressly contradicted\nor repealed.  And let us observe, more particularly, to what this\nprinciple will reach.  Mr. Badeley\u2019s beautifully connected statement has\ngiven as many grounds to think we know the _Church\u2019s_ mind upon the\nmatter: it has also touched upon the injunction of the _State_ looking in\nthe same direction: (to this point, however, I shall have occasion to\nreturn).  But I say at once, observe to how much doctrine this principle\nwill take us; how much, at the very outset, it will claim and secure for\nus.  Surely, _every matter of faith embraced in the first four general\ncouncils is retained_; for no one I presume will dare to say that the\nChurch of England at the Reformation repealed, or intended to repeal, any\nsingle article, canon, or doctrine of those four councils.  \u201cYea, even as\nit were a thing unreasonable,\u201d says Hooker, \u201cif in civil affairs the king\n(albeit the whole universal body did join with him) should do any thing\nby their absolute supreme power for the ordering of their state at home,\nin prejudice of any of those ancient laws of nations which are of force\nthroughout the world, because the necessary commerce of kingdoms\ndependeth on them; so in principal matters belonging to Christian\nreligion, a thing very scandalous and offensive it must needs be thought,\nif either kings or laws should dispose of the affairs of God, without any\nrespect hath to that which of old time had been reverently thought of\nthroughout the world, and wherein there is no law of God which forceth us\nto swerve from the way wherein so many and so holy ages have gone.\nWherefore, not without good consideration, the very law itself hath\nprovided,\u201d he continues, quoting the section of the same act of\nparliament (1 Eliz. c. 1, \u00a7 36,) already referred to by Mr. Badeley,\n\u201c\u2018that judges ecclesiastical appointed under the king\u2019s commission shall\nnot adjudge for heresy any thing but that which heretofore hath been so\nadjudged by the authority of the canonical Scriptures, or by the first\nfour general councils, or by some other general council wherein the same\nhath been declared heresy by the express words of the said canonical\nScriptures, or as hereafter shall be termed heresy by the high court of\nparliament of this realm, with the assent of the clergy in the\nconvocation.\u2019  By which words of the law,\u201d Hooker adds as his comment,\n\u201cwho doth not plainly see how that in one branch of proceeding by virtue\nof the king\u2019s supreme authority, the credit which _these four general\ncouncils_ have throughout all churches evermore had, was judged by the\nmakers of the foresaid act a just cause wherefore they should be\nmentioned in that case as a requisite part of the rule wherewith dominion\nwas to be limited.\u201d {71}\n\nThe admission, then, of the decrees of these four general councils, which\nI see not how any man can dispute to be admitted and received by the\nreformed Church of England, will surely give us a certain large,\ndefinite, important body of theology _from_ and _by_ which to teach our\npeople; not perhaps all that we may want, explicitly set forth, however\nimplicitly contained, because it was of course not until \u201cemergent\nheresies\u201d pressed upon the Church that she saw, or could see, in what\ndirection her declaratory acts required to be put forth.  But certainly\nin the adoption of these councils and their decrees, the Church of\nEngland both indicates her love and reverence for antiquity; and clears\nherself from all suspicion of attempting to begin \u201ca new thing\u201d at the\nreformation; as well as establishes a wide and satisfactory basis, on\nwhich to rest her further teaching.  Can you yourself deny that so far we\nbuild upon a good and sure foundation?  Or will you say that, after all\nthis is _but_ a semblance? that whatever the ecclesiastical appearance or\ntendency of these matters may have been, the erastian current swept them\npractically away?  Will you say?  \u201cEven if I grant you the first four\ngeneral councils, yet this is _all_; and this is insufficient; at the\nreformation, whatever her own wish, the Church was so grievously\noppressed by the civil power (as she is now) that all the further links\nconnecting her with the doctrine held previously to 1540 were snapped\nasunder: the enormous jurisdiction claimed by, and conceded to, and used\nby, King Henry VIII. swept away that Catholicity which you are bent to\nshew, and which the Church herself might have been glad to keep.\u201d  Will\nyou say?  \u201cWhatever may be the vague expressions of some at that time or\nafterwards appealing to antiquity, yet look at the acts of Parliament of\nthat date, and you will see all this is a delusion, and no real adherence\nto the prior doctrine is sustainable.\u201d  Even this charge I am not afraid\nto meet.  I promised to return in order to consider a little more fully\nthe secular recognition, at the least, non-condemnation of the principle,\nthat whatever previous teaching is \u201cnot plainly, openly, and dogmatically\ncontradicted\u201d at the reformation or since, remains to us; and I will\nendeavour to fulfil my pledge.  I think I shall be able to show, that\nwhatever claims of an erastian nature might be made or might be conceded\nin the sixteenth century (I am not arguing how great they were), yet they\ndid not reach to the point, and were not used to the end, you now\nsuppose, but in God\u2019s good providence over us, left your own principle of\n1848 still untouched.  By whatever constraint or chance it may seem to\nman\u2019s eye to have occurred,\u2014with whatever view, or by whatever mind\ndevised, there is something where we should least have expected to find\nit, in the famous statute called \u201cThe Submission of the Clergy,\u201d so much\nand often lately brought under notice (25 Henry VIII. c. 19), which, if\nit do not expressly prove the point in hand in favour of the Catholicity\nof the English Church, yet at any rate, to my mind, much supports it;\nand, at the very least, shows that the law of that day leaves the matter\nas it found it; and therefore does not militate against the position of\nour Church as it stands and is maintained in Mr. Badeley\u2019s statement, nor\nexclude any of the general arguments from abstract reasoning on the\npoint.  \u201cHast thou appealed unto C\u00e6sar? unto C\u00e6sar shalt thou go.\u201d\n\nI turn to the _Submissio Cleri_\u2014the statute 25 Hen. VIII. c. 19.  The\nfirst section recites that several canons have been made in time past\nprejudicial to the king\u2019s prerogative as well as to the laws and statutes\nof the realm; and thereupon refers to the petition of the clergy that the\nking\u2019s highness with two-and-thirty commissioners may examine, confirm,\nor abolish such canons, ordinances, and constitutions.  It provides also\nthat henceforth the clergy shall not enact or promulge any constitutions\nor ordinances without the king\u2019s assent; and that convocations \u201calway\nshall be assembled by authority of the king\u2019s writ.\u201d  The second section\nempowers the king to name the two-and-thirty commissioners, and makes\nprovision for the supply of the said number in case of the death of any\nof them.  It also further prescribes their duties.  Then after sundry\nenactments in the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth sections as to the\ncourts and modes of appeal, and \u201cthe restraint of appeals\u201d to Rome, the\nseventh section contains a proviso, thus stated, and commented upon by\nLord Coke, in his fourth Institute: \u201cBut by the said act of 25 Henry\nVIII. their jurisdiction and power\u201d (i.e. the clergy\u2019s in convocation)\n\u201cis much limited and straitened concerning the making new canons; for\nthey must have both licence to make them, and after they be made, the\nroyal assent to allow them, before they be put in execution.  But in the\nend of that act there is an express proviso that such canons as were made\nbefore that act, which be not contrariant nor repugnant to the king\u2019s\nprerogative, the laws statutes or customes of the realm, should be still\nused and executed as they were before the making of that act.\u201d {75}  This\nis Lord Coke\u2019s comment, and it is much to be noted that he should stop\nwhere he does in citing the words of the proviso; because, as thus given,\nno one would entertain a doubt that all previous canons and ordinances,\nso far from being abrogated, were by this very act specially confirmed,\nexcept just in so far as they might be found contrariant or repugnant to\nthe king\u2019s prerogative, or the laws of the realm.  It is manifest, too,\nthat this is no oversight (lawyers will smile even at the supposition) on\nthe part of Lord Coke, but that such indeed is his reading of the\nproviso; for he immediately applies it to a matter which he wishes to\nshow was not binding in law before that time, to bar it, as it were, from\n_claiming_ under the powers of that very act, which evidently it could\nnot do, unless that proviso were understood to confirm precedent canons.\n\u201cBut before that time,\u201d he continues, \u201ca disme\u201d (i.e. a tenth) \u201cgranted\nby the clergy at the convocation, did not binde the clergy before the\nking\u2019s royal assent.\u201d  The argument of Lord Coke in this place appears to\ndetermine the point, that he so read the proviso, as to make it\nabsolutely confirmatory, even under the terms of this very act \u201cfor the\nsubmission of the clergy and restraint of appeals,\u201d of all \u201ccanons,\nconstitutions, ordinances, and synodals provincial being already made,\nwhich be not contrariant or repugnant to the laws, statutes, and customes\nof this realm, nor to the damage or hurt of the king\u2019s prerogative\nroyal,\u201d and that these should, as the proviso directs, \u201cnow still be used\nand executed as they were afore the making of this act.\u201d  I repeat that\nthis view of the force of the said proviso, and this method of quoting\nit, is certainly remarkable\u2014remarkable because there are further words in\nthe latter part of the section appearing to qualify the sense, which yet\nare wholly passed over by Lord Coke, not merely in his quotation, but\nactually in his argument.  I mean that his argument touching the previous\npower of the clergy to grant a disme, implies his belief that the\n_general_ previous powers of the canon law still prevailed and this,\n(whether he considered the said disme to infringe the king\u2019s prerogative\nor not) shews that the remaining apparently qualifying words of the\nproviso are by him advisedly set aside.  Nevertheless, I will here add\nthem, lest, in spite of such authority for the omission, I should be, or\nseem to be, acting unfairly, and not making the most of the adverse\nargument.  The words I allude to are these: \u201cThe previous canons,\nconstitutions, &c. shall now still be used and executed as they were\nafore the making of this act, _till such time as they be viewed_,\n_searched or otherwise ordered and determined by the said two-and-thirty\npersons_, _or the more part of them_, according to the tenor, form, and\neffect of this present act.\u201d {76}  It would no doubt appear from these\nwords, as well as from Section 2 of the act, that there was an intention\nat that period of reviewing the whole body of the canon law, with a view\nto the obliteration of everything in the previous enactments which might\nappear to those commissioners unsound or inconvenient.  This design,\nhowever, was never carried into effect.  I know not how to regard it as\nother than a special mark of God\u2019s great mercy and gracious goodness to\nthis branch of his Church that it was frustrated.  Perhaps it is not\nquite clear that the powers of these commissioners were intended directly\nto touch doctrine, or to reach beyond the abolition of canons and\nconstitutions appearing to be contrariant to the king\u2019s prerogative, or\nrepugnant to the laws and customs of the realm, though I think the terms\nemployed embrace a wider field, and at any rate in the temper of that\nday, might very probably have been understood and used to a wider\npurpose.  \u201cGreat and manifold\u201d indeed would have been the perils\nattendant on so sweeping a reformation of all the previous doctrine and\ndiscipline received by the English Church; and not without a trembling\nthankfulness as well as, to my mind, a heart-felt acknowledgment of the\ndivine mercy, are we to think of our escape from so great a danger.  To\nhave had only so much of the laws and usages, doctrine and discipline of\nthe primitive Church, or of the distinctive teaching of our own Church\nprevious to the passing of this act, as such a board of commissioners\nmight have thought good to leave us, would indeed have been to be put to\nthe utmost hazard as to the measure of dogmatic teaching left us at all,\nand to the greatest risk of our being cut off from Catholic antiquity\naltogether.  Of course even then, the mere act of parliament, and its\nauthority to the commission could not have effected this.  The Church\nmight, theoretically at any rate, have broken from the bondage, and\nsevering her connexion with the State at whatever cost, have preserved\nher purity and freedom. {78a}  But, considering how little likely any\nsuch resistance appears to have been, if that commission\u2019s work had been\ncarried out, we may well thank \u201cthe Lord our defence,\u201d that in another\nmode we were delivered from the danger; and that although in the reign of\nKing Edward VI. the two and thirty persons (at any rate one and thirty of\nthem) were appointed, yet they never accomplished the review in question.\n\u201cIt is not necessary,\u201d says Mr. Gladstone, \u201cto discuss the wisdom or\npropriety of this petition of the clergy,\u201d (i.e. to have such a\ncommission appointed) \u201csince the enactments passed in consequence of it\nnever took final effect; and however material they may be as illustrating\nthe spirit and tendencies of the day, they have not in any direct manner\nentered into the constitution of the English Church.\u201d {78b}  \u201cThe review\nof the laws ecclesiastical, indeed,\u201d he says again in a further passage,\n\u201chas no longer any effect for us, as the scheme ultimately failed of\neffect, and has now no legal or practical being.\u201d {78c}  It is not,\nindeed, that the whole act is repealed.  As we well know this is not the\ncase.  It _was_ repealed by the 1 & 2 Philip and Mary, but revived by the\n1 Eliz. c. 1, so that, if it bind some things upon us now which the\nChurch might wish otherwise, we yet have the advantage of that proviso in\nits last section, establishing previous canons and constitutions of the\nChurch of England, (with the exception of such as may be contrariant to\nthe king\u2019s prerogative, or repugnant to the laws,) _until_ a contingency\nshould arise, which has never been fulfilled.  That it never was\nfulfilled, may perhaps explain Lord Coke\u2019s comment upon the proviso in\nquestion as an absolute assertion of the previous canon law, and his\nhaving apparently passed over as entire surplusage the, at first sight,\nqualifying words with which it concludes.  And thus we may see there is\nan actual statute of the realm declaring, however unintentionally, yet\nreally and practically, the authority, so far as statutes can declare it,\nof that very rule of the Church\u2019s teaching previous to 1540, which you\nyourself so happily, as it seems to me, explained and enforced in 1848.\nThus the very act of parliament, and the very proviso in it which\nthreatened to be the destruction of the Catholic character of our Church,\n(i.e. if those commissioners had done the work contemplated,) become not\nonly a witness in its favour, but actually declaratory by law of its\nconnection with the Church previously existing.  Henry VIII., and his act\n\u201cfor the submission of the clergy,\u201d become the one,\u2014really \u201cDefender of\nthe Faith,\u201d and the other,\u2014so far as the temporality can effect it,\nabsolutely a charter, securing the Church\u2019s dogmatic teaching by legally\nbinding upon us the general body of the canons and constitutions,\nordinances and synodals provincial of the previous ages.  Surely we\nshould be slow to say it is a straining of the eye of faith if herein it\nseems to see an accomplishment of the prophet\u2019s word, \u201cNo weapon that is\nformed against Thee shall prosper, and every tongue that shall rise\nagainst Thee in judgment, Thou shalt condemn: This is the heritage of the\nservants of the Lord.\u201d\n\nI have spoken of the proviso in this act of parliament (25 Hen. VIII. c.\n19) as confirming generally the canons precedent to its enactment.  Of\ncourse I have not forgotten that the statute itself makes two exceptions,\nor rather, excepts two classes of canons and constitutions from that\nconfirmation.  1. Such as may be \u201ccontrariant or repugnant to the laws\nand customes of the realm.\u201d  2. Such as may be \u201cto the damage or hurt of\nthe king\u2019s prerogative royal.\u201d  It may be well to pause a few moments,\njust to point out, though it is so plain it will require only to be\nmentioned to be allowed, that these limitations in no wise affect the\nargument as to the dogmatic teaching of the Church on doctrine.  They\npoint evidently to the claims of the papacy, and the powers of the\nsupremacy.  Indirectly, no doubt, the question of the supremacy may come\nto _affect_ doctrine, as we plainly see at this time, but I mean that, as\nto previous canons upon doctrine, properly so called, these limitations\nof the act do not touch our assertion, that they remain as they were,\nexcept they may be shown to be plainly and openly repealed.  Thus the two\nexceptions made have no bearing upon those great doctrinal points,\nwhereon you and I alike desiderate dogmatic teaching; for no man will\ncontend that the doctrine of the Church Catholic on baptism, on\njustification, on confirmation, on the holy eucharist, or on absolution,\nthough carried ever so far, will in any wise clash with the king\u2019s\nprerogative, (\u201cthat only prerogative which we see to have been given\nalways to all godly princes in Holy Scriptures by God himself:\u201d) nor are\nwe asking that any doctrine shall be received which may be, _if it be_,\nrepugnant to the laws and customs of the realm.  All that we assert is,\nthat where previous canons be not so, (and we fully believe those for\nwhich we contend do not come into collision with either law or\nprerogative at all,) and where the Church has not herself directly\nannulled them, there these same doctrines remain, as they have ever been\nreceived by the Church Catholic, and by the Church of England as a branch\nthereof;\u2014as indeed she has, and had received them from primitive times\nand sources;\u2014as she had accepted, guarded, and enforced them prior to the\nyear 1540.\n\nOf course in matters of law and legal construction I desire to speak with\nall deference and submission.  Here, less than any where, should I wish\nto argue with over-confidence.  I trust I shall not be doing so, if I sum\nup this part of my argument by saying, that it appears to me we are\nentitled to believe that the proviso in the 25 Henry VIII. c. 19 (the\ncondition stated in the \u201cuntil,\u201d &c. never having been fulfilled), either\nactually asserts the force of the general body of previous canons and\nconstitutions of the Church of England; or, at any rate, and at the very\nleast, that it offers no bar, even secularly, to the general reasons as\nstated before, from common sense and the nature of things, as well as\nfrom the Church\u2019s own appeals to previous teaching that those canons must\nremain in force, and that, to use again Mr. Badeley\u2019s words: \u201c_Whatever\nwas not altered at the period of the Reformation_, _remains and continues\n__to be the doctrine and law of the Church to this day_.\u201d {82}\n\nIV.  I have said that there appears to be another confirmation of this\nview, from the consideration of what the Church of England would deprive\nherself of, if the contrary principle were to be carried out, and her\nexistence dated only from the sixteenth century, and if it were ruled\nthat nothing could belong to her faith and doctrine, but what was then\ndetermined and in words set down.  It will not be necessary to enlarge\nupon this topic, but a few instances it may be well to give.\n\nWhat then could we say is the teaching of our Church upon the inspiration\nof Scripture, if we had no appeal to ancient law, usage, or belief?  The\nwhole, which it was thought necessary to declare upon this matter at the\nreformation, is contained in the sixth Article, and that deals not with\nthe inspiration of Scripture at all, a point not in dispute, but with its\nsufficiency, as containing all things necessary to salvation, as opposed\nto a particular view of tradition.  That article also enumerates the\ncanonical books, and speaks of their \u201c_authority_;\u201d (the Church also, we\nmay remember, is said to have \u201c_authority_,\u201d in another article, but many\nwho assent to that would scruple perhaps to say they believe in her\ninspiration); and I do not think any man can say that there is in the\narticle in question any declaration either that those books which are\ncanonical are inspired, or those which are uncanonical are uninspired;\nnot of course, in the least, that it was intended to throw a doubt upon\nthe inspiration of the Scriptures, but that the articles, and even the\nformularies of the Church of England were not drawn up to declare all\npoints of belief, because the Church unhesitatingly threw herself upon\nall previous doctrine, except where in any particular case she saw cause\nto alter, correct, or repeal.  Just in the same way consider many other\npoints.  What strict belief should we have, upon the other hypothesis, as\nto the existence and power of evil spirits; or the eternity of\npunishment; or what rule for the observance of the Lord\u2019s Day (save just\nas any other holy-day); or what mode of ascertaining the Church\u2019s mind\nupon very many other subjects which have arisen or may arise, especially\nwith regard to the pantheistic tendencies and theories of modern times,\nnot treated of because utterly unknown and uncontemplated in the\nsixteenth century, if we were tied down to the mere wording of the\nreformation documents, but which are all of them capable of refutation in\nthe broad expanse of doctrine preserved from the beginning!  It will, I\nthink, be plain to any one who will pursue this subject into its details,\nthat the connexion of our Church with the Church previous to the\nreformation, is a fact necessarily to be assumed by us all, unless we\nwould bring the whole question of her doctrine into a manifestly false\nposition.  To suppose this connexion to be wholly dissolved, is in truth\nsuch an evident reductio ad absurdum, as amounts to a full proof that no\nparty of men, I do not say of great ability, but of an ordinary reason,\ncould have intended to adopt that theory.  Therefore it is impossible to\nbelieve that our reformers, in drawing up articles of religion, \u201cto avoid\ndiversities of opinions, and for the establishing of consent touching\ntrue religion,\u201d and which treated of course of the diversities which then\nprevailed; and in putting forth practical offices of devotion, could, I\nsay, have designed to ignore all that previous body of doctrine, which\nhappened not to come into direct mention in those documents.  If they had\nnot purposed to retain the provincial ordinances of their own country,\nthey might be expected plainly to have said so; but even if they had done\nthis, they _must_ have cast themselves upon the general teaching of the\nChurch Universal, in a manner from which after all we should have nothing\nto fear, or, they would have left the Church they were reforming in such\na bareness and nakedness of doctrine altogether, as no opponent of the\nCatholic character of our Church has ever pretended to imagine or assert.\nOn this ground therefore, once more, I cannot but believe that the\nconclusion which you held and so lucidly expressed in 1848 is tenable and\nsound; and therefore that what we are still bound to teach, is the\nexclusive doctrine of the Church Catholic, unless the further\nexplications on any matter at the reformation render it not merely\nambiguous, as far as the documents of the reformation are themselves\nconcerned, (this is insufficient to harm us, and nothing to the purpose,)\nbut positively heretical, and absolutely contrariant to \u201cthe faith once\ndelivered to the saints.\u201d\n\nYou will see what I mean by saying that mere ambiguity in our reformation\ndocuments will not harm us, is this, that we have a prior and superior\nrule to appeal to, (if the preceding argument be sound,) by which such\nambiguity will be corrected.  No one pretends there can be any hurtful\nambiguity or insufficiency in the connected teaching of the Church\nCatholic; and therefore wheresoever we may take refuge in that to cover\nany omissions or defects, if such there be, on essential doctrine in our\nlater rule, we shall take no damage.  The only thing which would really\nharm us, would be absolute contradiction of the truth, or positive\nassertion that such or such essential points were intended to be left\nvague and ambiguous.  But this would be harmful, because in fact such\ndeclarations would not be merely declarations of vagueness or ambiguity,\nbut would be heresy; would not be to assert, of two conflicting\ndoctrines, that the Church teaches _both_, but, in fact, to rule that she\nteaches _neither_.  No one however will, I think, pretend to say that the\nChurch of England has said any where, in so many words, that she means to\nleave open such or such a doctrine, which the Church Catholic has closed.\nPerhaps you will say, \u201cNot in so many words:\u2014but by inference she does\nit; by her undecided manner where she has dealt with the topic, by the\nlaxity which her words too evidently permit, by the known bias and\nopinions of many of those who framed them.\u201d  This, however, is just what\nI have been saying amounts to nothing against the previous unrepealed\ndoctrine to which she is to be referred, and the consent of Catholic\nantiquity, by which she is really bound.  I do assert _such_ a repeal, if\nit be no more, is no repeal at all.  _No_ statute law can be so set\naside, and assuredly not this, the law of Christ and his Church.  If,\nindeed, we _had only_ what the Reformation left us; if we were\nconstrained to think all needful doctrine was there treated, and fully\ntreated of; if any document of authority of that period had declared that\nno previous doctrine was admissible, unless then repeated and specially\nrecognized; that nothing was important as a matter of faith beyond what\nthe writings of that time included in their summaries, or embraced in\ntheir definitions; if the reformation had thus pronounced itself\n_a\u1f50\u03c4\u03acp\u03c7\u03b7\u03c2_, and thus separated its Church and doctrine from primitive\nantiquity and the faith of Christendom, then indeed should we see that we\nwere \u201cin evil case,\u201d to be required \u201cto make bricks,\u201d and yet to have \u201cno\nstraw given us.\u201d  But, since there is no such document, and no plausible\nevidence of even any such design, we trust we may put aside all fear that\nwe are in this dilemma, and still build up our doctrine upon the sure\nfoundation of \u201cthat which hath been from the beginning.\u201d\n\nWill you say? \u201cI allow you have the old teaching upon points not\nmentioned at the reformation, but on no others: where any thing is\ntreated of at all, it is definitely settled by whatever is set down; and\nthereupon no regard must be paid to any complement of doctrine derived\nfrom earlier teaching.\u201d  I answer, on what authority are we to receive\nthis arbitrary distinction?  Surely not upon the shewing of any direct\nevidence: if so, produce it.  Not on the implied injunction or animus of\nthe Church at the reformation, for she is full of appeals to precedent\nteaching on all points.  Not on that of the state, for, as I have been\nshewing, at the very least, and if it do not enjoin the direct contrary,\nit enforces no such prohibition.  And if the reformers of the\necclesiastical polity of that day intended any such restriction in their\nappeals to earlier times, (which I do not think they did) yet in that\ncase, as it appears to me, God has overruled their intention, and brought\nto nought their counsel, by their having left no record to bind any man\u2019s\nconscience in the Church of England to such a denial of Catholic\ntheology.  And _who_ shall say, if they \u201c_intended to include_\u201d but \u201c_did\nnot include_\u201d, the latitudinarian rule; {87} if these things be so\nindeed, it was not for this very purpose they have fallen out after such\na fashion; that even after so many practical abuses as we know have crept\nin among us, after so many years when the ancient landmarks have been\nwell nigh removed from sight, after so much deadness of heart among mere\nformal religionists, and so much running after novelties among the more\nearnest, enthusiastic, or self-willed, after all these things, and after\nso long a period of darkness on the land, yet now when there has been\nagain a brightening, an awakening, \u201ca zeal\u201d more \u201caccording to\nknowledge,\u201d a regard to antiquity, and a longing for the religion of\napostles and apostolic men of old time, that now we might indeed _have\nthat_ to fall back upon which should prove our safety: might find the\nlandmarks were only buried, not removed: might experience indeed and in\ntruth that \u201cheaviness may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the\nmorning,\u201d and might in that morning\u2019s light be able to clear the path\nagain which leadeth \u201cinto all truth,\u201d and so walk onward into the \u201cbright\nshining of the perfect day.\u201d\n\nHere too you will perceive why I said in the early part of this letter\nthat it was important to state plainly _what_ it was to which I had\ncommitted myself with respect to the animus of the reformers, and that\nthis matter of intention being clearly understood, would be found to have\na necessary bearing upon our present subject as we proceeded.  If I had\nasserted the authority of the animus of the reformers to explain the\nmeaning of the documents they put forth, interminable questions might be\nraised as to the subjects on which there could or could not be considered\nenough of ambiguity to allow the appeal to the previous Church.  But, as\nI have before explained, not any where intending to assert that the sense\nof those documents was to be determined by the intentions or opinions of\ntheir framers, I trust I am in no dilemma here when I cannot admit the\nanimus of the reformers, even if it were proved to have been to exclude\nsuch appeals, to be a reason for their exclusion.  Even if the animus of\never so large a body of them could be absolutely shewn to have been to\nconciliate all parties by leaving open questions on essential doctrines\nin the formularies they put forth; if even they believed of themselves\nthey had attained this end, yet as they forgot (if we may use the term)\nto break asunder the bond which connected the Church of England at that\ndate with herself in the preceding ages, and with the Church Catholic,\nthey left us all we want, to maintain the one faith once delivered, the\nfaith of Christ our Lord, and of his Church from the beginning.  If this\nresult came by inadvertence, (as perhaps _they_ might say) but of God\u2019s\ngreat mercy, and the stretching forth of his arm over us, (as I should\naffirm) i.e. not by the oversight of man, but by the overseeing of God,\nstill, any way, the rule of a Catholic theology has been retained, and\ntheir counsel has been brought to nought, so as merely to give us, as\nperhaps I may allow, from one point of view the _semblance_, but in no\nwise the _reality_ of a lax rule of faith.\n\nThere is one argument indeed which, if it could be supported, might prove\nthe rule to be really lax.  I mean if it might be maintained with truth,\nthat there are declarations in our articles, or doctrines in our\nformularies not merely ambiguous, or less clearly defined on the Catholic\nside than we might wish, but actually repugnant to the faith and\ncontradictory to it.  Of course this would be a fatal objection to the\nwhole line of argument I have been using; for it would show, so far at\nany rate, a repeal of the previous doctrine, and preclude our gaining\nthat reference to it on which I have been insisting.  But I shall need\ntake no great time or toil to show that this is not the case.  You grant\nme the point yourself, not merely in your treatise on absolution, in\n1848, but in the very letter to which I am now replying.  Thus you\nconcede it in the passage already quoted, and even in the very charge you\nmake\u2014\u201cI am compelled to own that the utmost we are justified in declaring\nseems to be\u2014not that the Church of England now \u2018holds and teaches, &c.;\u2019\nbut\u2014that the Church of England now _suffers and permits_ to be held and\ntaught; and again, as to the right interpretation of the Prayer Book, not\n\u2018_must_ be understood,\u2019 but \u2018_may_ be understood,\u2019 to mean all that was\nmeant before the year 1540.\u201d {89}  Your charge against the present state\nof the Church, you will observe is _no more_ than that questions are left\nopen; it is not that heresy is exclusively maintained or enforced.\nAgain, to the same purport are the following passages: \u201cRemember, I am in\nno degree withdrawing from the full extent of the assertion, repeated\nmore than once, that the Church of England leaves \u2018open\u2019 so many deep and\nimportant questions.\u201d {90a}  So, in another passage, where you speak of\nthe Eucharistic sacrifice\u2014\u201cAgain I remind you that I am very far from\nsaying now that the Catholic doctrine is denied and repudiated . . . for\nI have for many years taught (and as you know, have lately published in a\nsermon) that in the blessed Eucharist the body and the blood of our Lord\nare truly offered as a propitiatory sacrifice for the living and the\ndead.\u201d {90b}  It is plain you do not think this denied by the English\nChurch; but your complaint is, that the articles and liturgy do not\nperemptorily enforce it.\n\nAgain, in commenting upon the \u201creal presence,\u201d and the words of the\nCatechism, that the body and blood are verily and indeed taken and\nreceived by the faithful, you say, \u201cAt the risk of weary repetition, let\nme once more say, that of course this place of the Catechism does not\nassert that the body and blood of Christ are not verily and indeed taken\nby all; and if there were in other places of our formularies anything\neven approaching to a statement of the reality of the presence of our\nblessed Lord in the consecrated bread and wine, independently of any\nqualifications or dispositions in the soul of the receiver, we might be\nable to show at once and distinctly that these passages in the liturgy\nand catechism cannot justly mean what they are generally brought forward\nto prove.\u201d {91}  I need not multiply quotations on this head, though I\nbelieve I have not nearly exhausted the passages I might cite.  In short,\nyour whole letter merely charges the heresy of \u201copen questions\u201d upon our\nChurch, not the heresy of our being forbidden on any point to teach the\ncatholic truth.  And I say again, if this be all, we fall back at once\nupon your own former principle, though now by you abandoned and forsaken.\nWe say, that we are not left to these the documents of the reformation\nalone, and therefore, if there are in them deficiencies merely negative,\nwhich is all your charge, we can supply the necessary teaching from those\ndeeper wells of truth from which, whether intentionally or otherwise, the\npromoters and managers of the reformation have not debarred us.  Neither\nthe Church nor State enactments hinder, as I contend, this appeal; and\nobserve, _if we_ MAY _make it_, _we_ MUST.  We are not at liberty to use\nit if we please, and discard it if we please, for it is \u201cTHE VOICE OF THE\nCHURCH OF ENGLAND,\u201d\u2014a voice, as I firmly believe, which, if duly listened\nfor, and scrupulously obeyed, will clear up every open question which the\nChurch Catholic demands should be cleared up, and will answer every\ncharge which a shallow observation of only the later documents, of the\nreformation, might bring against us.  So fair and strong from these\nconsiderations do the grounds of hope and confidence appear, that I am\ntempted to paraphrase, though in a contradictory sense, one of the most\ndespairing pages of your letter.  You argue, \u201cIt is not necessary to\npretend to know the dealings of Almighty God with men and nations so\naccurately, as to attempt to lay one\u2019s finger upon the one, two, or three\nspecial acts which may avail to cut off any portion of the one holy\nCatholic Church;\u201d {92a} and then you further bid us think whether with us\nthe actual cutting off may not have been at the reformation, although a\ncertain life may have been found for a time even in the severed limb.  I\nam not concerned indeed to deny that there may have been much in the\nreformation to wound the branch; but I also maintain that its connection\nwith the parent stem never having been severed, the life remains, and the\nwound may be wholly healed. {92b}  \u2018As regards the Church of England in\nparticular, it may be that the so-called reformation contained\u2014perhaps\nunknown to the original promoters of it\u2019\u2014precious \u2018seeds\u2019 of good \u2018to\nbring in a certain though slow\u2019 revival of all vital powers weakened by\nso great a shock; \u2018and that then either\u2019 old principles were secretly\npreserved, which in their after development would most surely avail to\nthe restoration of all essential truths, or new principles were,\nunintentionally perhaps, so guarded and circumscribed that \u2018the gradual\ncourse of time,\u2019 as they came to be applied, would show them to be\nharmless.  \u2018Or, once more, it may be with portions of the Church Catholic\nas with the vine her mysterious type.  \u201cI am the vine, ye are the\nbranches,\u201d were the words of our blessed Lord, speaking of his body the\nChurch, of which he is himself the Head.  And we may well conceive how a\nbranch,\u2019 partially injured by some disease or canker, may suffer from the\npruning-knife which endeavours to eradicate it; and yet in a\nperiod,\u2014longer or shorter, as the case may be,\u2014never having been severed\nfrom the stem, but deriving from IT the fulness of its life and sap, may\nwholly recover from the wound which the knife has made, and after a time\nflourish again in its pristine vigour, even as in its days of early\nyouth, before any corruption had laid hold upon it, and bring forth fruit\nagain an hundredfold for its master\u2019s use; though requiring time to heal\nits wound, yet certain to be restored, if no fresh accident befall it,\nbecause of its union with the parent tree.\u2019\n\nI know well, analogies and similitudes may be made on all sides, and in\nsupport of almost anything.  I know also, however useful as illustrations\nto clear our meaning, and to answer objections taken in limine, yet how\nlittle they can be relied upon as proofs: but I venture upon this\nantagonistic paraphrase of your illustration, that I may ask the\nquestion, whether perchance the view sustained by mine may not as\nprobably be the truth as that sustained by your\u2019s; and that I may express\nmy trust we shall none of us be led astray from doing all that duty bids\nus do, in the tendance of our branch of the vine, by any such similitudes\nas those you have advanced, if the principle of your letter may be\nsupposed to have found an answer; if, upon the grounds I have endeavoured\nto draw out, we may claim our union with the parent tree; in short, if\nthe fact of the severance of the reformed Church of England from the\nChurch Catholic be not made out beyond question or dispute.  Until it be\nso proved, _I_ at any rate feel it to be my duty stedfastly to cleave to\nher; not being blind to practical shortcomings, not refusing to\nacknowledge the dangers which beset her, even to the extent that she\n_may_ so bend to the spirit of the world, and recognize the erastian\nliberalism of this day and age, that she may, instead of rising up again,\nbe wofully and entirely cast down, but certainly not seeing that God hath\nso cast her down as yet.  I do not, and I cannot take this as proved, or\nas done already, and therefore cannot accept the statements of your\nletter, nor the conclusions to which they lead.  For you ought to have\nproved in detail, not that our Church\u2019s articles or formularies since the\nmiddle of the sixteenth century, taken by themselves, or interpreted by\ncotemporary opinions, admit a double meaning, but that they actually\n_exclude_ the sense and meaning of the Church previous to 1540; because\nif they do less than this, the admission in themselves of open questions\n(if it be so) is qualified and overruled by the earlier unexcluded\ndogmatic teaching; and I say it boldly, in spite of the scorn and\ncontumely with which the liberalism of the day will greet such a\nsentiment, the present Church of England must thereby be understood to\n_require_ all those ancient dogmas to be enforced, as the ONE ONLY TRUE\nSENSE of documents, themselves perhaps, _by_ themselves, capable of a\ndoubtful interpretation.  Nothing less than the having \u201cplainly, openly,\nand dogmatically asserted the contrary\u201d will annul this obligation, and\nherein, as I believe, and as I have endeavoured now to show, will be\nfound, in God\u2019s providence, the safeguard and shield which He has thrown\nover this branch of his Church,\u2014a safeguard and a shield, under the which\nwe may rest a little while, \u201cuntil this tyranny be overpast,\u201d until she\nshall be able not merely to _claim_, but again to _use_, \u201cthe whole\narmour of God,\u201d and convince the world practically of her _teaching_ as\nwell as _holding_ \u201cthe Catholic faith whole and undefiled.\u201d  I do not, I\ndare not, shrink from the thought that further proof, shall I say trial,\non this point awaits us.  In God\u2019s time and in God\u2019s way I expect it.\nHumbly and reverently I trust I may add, \u201cLet it come.\u201d  Perhaps it may\nbe nearer than we think; for it is evident those who agree with me at all\nin the defence I have here set up against the charge of want of dogmatic\nteaching, must, in these days, as the assault upon catholic truth grows\nfiercer, be even more and more distinct, earnest, and plain-spoken in its\nassertion.  As we claim, so will we, if it please God, more and more use\nthe ancient faith, whether men \u201cwill hear, or whether they will forbear.\u201d\nNot indeed as a process of tentation upon the Church, but as a simple\nmatter of duty, and as a safeguard to our people, lest unawares, and step\nby step, they \u201cforfeit all their creed.\u201d  But this, one way or another,\nis likely to bring us to a trial, and to a very practical solution of the\nquestions raised, perhaps I may say somewhat speculatively, in your\nletter.  If the Church of England then \u201cwill not endure sound doctrine,\u201d\nlet her say so.  It may be we shall have immediately to distinguish\nbetween the voice of the Church and the voice of the establishment; but\nat any rate, let the Church speak out.  Our perils are too great and too\npressing on the side of acquiescence in heresy, to give us any option now\nas to speaking or keeping silence.  Will you tell me that the bishops of\nour Church neither hold nor will tolerate these ancient doctrines; that\nthey will soon settle this matter, \u201cmake a short work,\u201d speak out, and\nshow us the true Anglican faith; and drive from the Church of England\nthose whose walk and whose heart are with a faith older than three\nhundred years?  God forbid that I should sin against them by believing\nyou.  God forbid that I should believe any such thing, unless I live to\nsee it.  But if it _should_ be so indeed; if the erastianism and\nlatitudinarianism of the day _should_ so have eaten, or _should ever_ so\neat their way into the heart of our episcopate, that such assertion of\nour Church\u2019s catholicity, such clinging to ancient doctrine, such walking\nwith the Church of the Apostles, and the religion derived in\nuninterrupted succession from them, shall be no longer endured among us,\nthen let them know assuredly that they who bring this to pass,\u2014they who\ndrive the matter to such a point,\u2014they who take the aggressive against\nsound doctrine, and ancient faith, will be responsible for that which\nshall follow, and will excite and evoke a spirit, with the which they and\nall their\u2019s will in vain contend.  They will do that which will provoke,\nnot dribbling secessions, here a few and there a few, but that which,\nsetting up the mark of Jeroboam in the land, as the symbol and banner of\nthe establishment, will drive from _it_ and _them_ all the true\npriesthood and really Church feeling of the country.  Then will there be,\neither a return to the Roman communion such as \u201cneither their fathers nor\nthey\u201d have ever dreamed of, or a free Episcopacy, which shall cast aside\nthe establishment as an \u201caccursed thing,\u201d throw itself upon Christendom\nfor communion, and appeal to a general council of Christendom for\napproval, and, shaking to the very centre the whole religion of this\ncountry, shall gather into its own bosom, I will not say all that is good\nand holy, but all that is good and holy, and has with this goodness and\nthis holiness any distinctive Church knowledge or Church feeling.  Men\nwho calculate consequences, if there be such, may well ponder these\nthings, before they tremble \u201cat the fear of man,\u201d or think any way safer\nthan the old paths, and the ancient faith.  Let no man say I threaten\nwrongly, or threaten vainly.  I desire not to threaten at all; but I know\nwhat I write; and truly, \u201cis there not a cause?\u201d  Let all, friends and\nfoes alike, know and well weigh on what a sea they are now embarked.  Let\nthem be prepared for what must come, if there be anything like\nfaint-heartedness or cowardice among us, anything like treason to the\nCatholic faith in those in high place.  Let it be known well that we, who\nare firmest and plainest in declaring the duty of cleaving to the Church\nof England now, and so are fighting her battle against you, and those\nlike you, who take the easier perhaps, at any rate the shorter, road to\nescape from her embarrassments, that we do not pretend _if_ the\ndifficulty should arise that we cannot remain members of the English\nChurch, and members of the Church catholic at the same time, we can\nhesitate as to our duty.  Neither can we unlearn all that we have learned\nfrom the ancient fountain-heads of doctrine, and believe the catholic\nfaith to be a thing of yesterday, or square it by the liberal theories of\nmodern schools.  We have drunk too deeply from the well-heads of\nantiquity for this to be possible.  We can no more go back and believe\nthe catholic truths we have imbibed to be no more than superstitious\ninventions and human figments, than we could return to the system of\nPtolemy, and believe this earth to be the centre round which the sun and\nthe stars revolve.  These things we cannot do; but certainly we can, in\nmind and theory, and we do in fact, separate the ideas of the _Church_\nand the _establishment_, and can contemplate the possible arrival of a\ntime and circumstance when the one must be kept to at the expense of the\ntotal abnegation of the other.  And here foreseeing, we also count the\ncost.  We compute whether we be able, \u201cwith ten thousand, to meet him\nthat cometh against us with twenty thousand,\u201d and in His name, and with\nHis presence, who has promised to be \u201cwith His Church always,\u201d we are not\nfearful, and shall not be careful if we must let the establishment go.\nWe sit down to \u201cbuild our tower,\u201d not without considering whether we have\n\u201csufficient to finish;\u201d and again, in the riches of His grace, we deem we\nhave.  We would make it \u201cafter the pattern which has been showed us,\u201d and\nknow then full well it will be a building which shall be able to shelter,\nand an ark which shall be able to save, all that are committed to us, all\nwho will take refuge in it.  To attain this, we are ready to sacrifice\nall but truth, to fight against all but GOD!\n\nBut I say once more, our perils are too great at the present time to\nallow of silence in the Church, to admit of any compromise or\nuncertainty, when inquisition is made as to what we hold, or teach our\npeople.  Let the Church of England speak, and speak unequivocally, and we\nshall know what to think.  Let her courts, duly constituted, and\nespecially her synods if they may meet, pronounce what she will bear, and\nwhat she will not bear; what she will recognize as her own with a\nmother\u2019s love; what she will repudiate and put from her with a\nstep-mother\u2019s aversion.  Then shall we know our duties, and see our way.\nThen perchance will it be found the State has reckoned unwarily, and\ncounted upon too much.  Then, if it try to bind _her_ with the chains of\nthe spirit of the day, may it be seen of all men that they are but as\n\u201cgreen withs,\u201d or \u201cas threads of tow touched by the fire,\u201d to bind the\nmighty.  Even should the State prevail in mere numbers, who shall say but\nthere shall be found some high in authority, and endowed with the powers\nof the Apostolate, who will stand \u201cvaliantly for the truth,\u201d and \u201cbe of\ngood courage, and behave themselves valiantly for their people, and for\nthe cities of their God,\u201d and use their powers, and the authority\nreceived from Christ, to shake, as I have said, the establishment to its\nfall, if there be any effort, by means of it, to take from us \u201cone jot or\ntittle\u201d of the faith?  If _they_ do this, even but six, or three, or two,\nor one among them, with the Creeds and Christendom to back them, surely\n_we_ shall know what to do also.  If they do not, we shall again know\nboth what to think and what to do!  Surely then God will \u201cmake a way\nunder us for to go,\u201d and at his word alone, we shall go forth; not\ncertainly, as _I_ should go forth now, were I to follow your steps, and\nremove from the place where He has cast my lot, with no light upon my\npath, no assurance, no conviction, no belief that I was proceeding under\nhis guidance, or doing that which is according to his will.  Rather, I\ncannot but adopt, and with it I will conclude this part of my present\nsubject, the noble profession of thankful confidence made by yourself at\nthe close of your treatise on absolution, where, acknowledging the\nsingular preservation to us of a very minute particular, (involving, as\nyou considered, important doctrine,) even a single letter in one of our\nrubrics, you thus expressed yourself:\u2014\n\n    \u201cThe more I consider this circumstance, with the more heartfelt\n    thankfulness and confidence do I look upon it as a token among many\n    hardly to be unseen of the care and guiding with which the Almighty\n    Head of the Universal Church ceaselessly has guarded, to his own wise\n    ends and purposes, this our Church of England.  These considerations,\n    and such as these, bring their especial comfort.  Some men, perhaps,\n    may be indifferent about them.  For myself, at one time in one thing,\n    and at another in another, light and trivial as alone or singly they\n    may or might have been together in their accumulation they supply\u2014not\n    arguments merely, for that in comparison would be a poor result,\n    but\u2014patience, in days of dispute and difficulty, in days of trial and\n    obloquy and reproach; motives, again, to exertion and untiring labour\n    in our Church\u2019s cause; constant confirmation of the sacred truths\n    which I believe she holds; and above all, with God\u2019s most gracious\n    help, an undoubting determination to endeavour by all means, and in\n    every possible way, under her own holy shadow and protection, still\n    and for ever to defend her against avowed enemies from without, and\n    against mistaken friends within.\u201d {101}\n\nAlthough these remarks have extended far beyond the length which I\ncontemplated when I began them, I am unwilling to bring my letter to a\nclose without adverting to one or two points further, connected with the\nwhole subject of which I have been treating, and the prospects which are\nbefore us.  I have said, \u201cI think we have the _time_, and I trust we have\nthe _means_, effectually, though it may be gradually, to vindicate our\nChurch.\u201d {102}  You may ask, perhaps, \u201cWhat are these means?\u201d  You may\nsay, \u201cDeeply as many may feel the present crisis; earnest as they are to\ndisclaim the decision of the Judicial Committee, that Mr. Gorham is fit\nto hold a benefice with cure of souls in the Church of England;\ndetermined as they may be to leave nothing undone which may be done to\nshake off the grasp of state interference with her spiritual rights and\njurisdiction; yet what _can_ they do more than uselessly agitate, or\nhopelessly complain?  I know well,\u201d you may say, \u201cyou are looking to the\nrevival of the Church\u2019s synodical functions; to the restoration of her\nconvocation, to set all these matters right; to clear her doctrine, and\nconsolidate her freedom.  But these things are too uncertain and too\ndistant to be accounted of.  If you have nothing nearer and more direct\nthan these, or such hopes as these for remedies, I can but reckon them\n\u2018as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal.\u2019  You will sooner be committed\nto the denial of the whole faith, than regain from the ingrained\nsuperstitious erastianism of this day and this people, the slightest\napproach to \u2018the churchmen\u2019 being permitted in their convocation to \u2018do\nthe work which is proper unto them.\u2019\u201d  Now, I do not think this, yet I\nwill not argue it:\u2014but will rather come to something nearer and more\ndirect as, at any rate, the beginning of a remedy.  This, then I say, is\nnearer:\u2014direct to clear ourselves individually from blame, and, it may\nbe, competent in time to work for us an efficient cure either with or\nwithout the consent of the State, as God in his providence shall order.\nThis I say:\u2014to break communion with the Archbishop, and with those who\nuphold him in upholding the judgment of the Privy Council.  This is a\ncourse open to us all; and is a direct course towards one part, at any\nrate, of our objects\u2014the freeing ourselves from blame.  Perilous,\nhowever, as our position is, I do not say the time has come for this to\nbe done as yet; much less that _I_ am competent to decide when such time\nshall have arrived.  But I mention the thought, that you may perceive\nmen\u2019s minds are not without the suggestion of something immediate,\npractical, and real.  However fearful the thought of such a course;\nhowever loth we may be to contemplate it; however startling it may sound\nin many ears to hear a priest in the Church of England speak such words,\nas of cutting himself off from communion with the primate of his Church;\nyet it is so far more fearful to think of that Church coming to deny an\narticle of the creed, falling into such a condition that no Christian\nChurch in ancient times would have communicated with her; (and this, I\nwill plainly say, is what I think we are in danger of coming to, and\nshall come to if we acquiesce in the present state of things; and) this\nis so much more fearful than the alternative I have suggested, that I\nfeel it is only right to call attention to that alternative, as a means\nby which we may escape being \u201cpartaker of other men\u2019s sins.\u201d  _Your_\ndifficulty is, whether a man may lawfully remain a member of the Church\nof England and trust his soul to her keeping.  _Mine_ would be to justify\nmyself in leaving her whilst such a remedy remained in my hand unused.\nSurely if we are able to separate ourselves from all responsibility in\nthe latitudinarian guilt, it will be sufficient for us, for the time at\nany rate, and may besides result in further good.  If our archbishops or\narchbishop should bring things to that pass that no early Church would\nhave communicated with them, then, no doubt, if we cannot escape from\nimplication with what they have done, we shall be ourselves involved in\nthe desert of excommunication; but if we can do what those very Churches\nwould have done, we may hope this will avail to show we should not have\nbeen cast out of the communion of Christendom.  If we can so separate\nourselves from their deed, and the erastian influences which admit\nheresy, that we should have been received by all early Churches as \u201cthe\northodox,\u201d or \u201cthe Catholics\u201d of the English Church\u2014then I do not think\nwe shall have any excuse for deserting our spiritual mother for the\nblandishments of another communion, for anything that has been done as\nyet.  Thoughts of this method of proceeding, and musings whether the time\nhas not come openly to disclaim communion with all those who support the\nJudgment of the Privy Council in the recent case, have been now for many\nmonths in the minds of some.  Thus I may cite the very passage quoted by\nyourself, at the close of your first letter, from Mr. Keble\u2019s first\nnumber of \u201cChurch matters in 1850.\u201d  \u201cIf the decision be adverse, it\nneeds to be distinctly proved that a bishop or archbishop acting on that\ndecision would not involve in heresy both himself and all in communion\nwith him.\u201d p. 26.  Again, the same author has said: \u201cIn old time, such a\nstep\u201d viz. as the archbishops have taken, \u201cwould have been met by the\nChristian people withdrawing from their communion for a time.\u201d {105a}  It\nis true the writer did not appear then to contemplate such a measure as\npossible for us; and added some explanations at a later date on this\npoint, showing what were our peculiar difficulties in reference to it:\nyet he added, at the same time, \u201cI do not say that such interruption of\ncommunion may not even now be an orthodox bishop\u2019s duty; although, as\nyet, by God\u2019s good providence, the contingency which we have been told\nwould make it so has not occurred.\u201d  (I presume this means the\nArchbishop\u2019s institution of Mr. Gorham.)  \u201cI do not say that it may not\nere long be a priest\u2019s, or even a layman\u2019s, duty; I only say that it is\nnot _the_ step for priests or laymen to take just now.\u201d {105b}  Again,\nlet it be remembered, that as might be expected, he who has borne the\nbrunt of this battle, who has waged the Church\u2019s war after the pattern of\na soldier and bishop of ancient time, was among the very first to suggest\nthis remedy; nay, more, to encourage and cheer us by openly saying he\nshould in a certain contingency, himself adopt it.  Even so far back as\nlast March, immediately upon the delivery of the judgment, the bishop of\nExeter thus sounded the note of warning:\u2014\n\n    \u201cI have to protest,\u201d he said at the close of his letter to the\n    Primate, \u201cagainst your Grace\u2019s doing what you will speedily be called\n    upon to do, either in person, or by some other exercising your\n    authority.  I have to protest, and I do hereby solemnly protest\n    before the Church of England, before the holy Catholic Church, before\n    Him who is its Divine Head, against your giving mission to exercise\n    cure of souls within my diocese to a clergyman who proclaims himself\n    to hold the heresies which Mr. Gorham holds.  I protest that any one\n    who gives mission to him (Mr. Gorham) till he retract, is a favourer\n    and supporter of those heresies.  I protest, in conclusion, that I\n    cannot, without sin, and by God\u2019s grace I will not, hold communion\n    with him, be he who he may, who shall so abuse the high commission\n    which he bears.\u201d {106}\n\nWhat, then, do such weighty passages press home upon us, but that the\ntime for such action may come?  Perchance even now it is drawing very\nnear.  One almost trembles to write it; so fearful and awful a thing it\nis to contemplate openly breaking the unity of the Church of England, and\ninterrupting communion with its primate, if he proceed to consummate, or\npermit to be consummated by his authority, (nay, without his most deep\nand solemn protest on behalf of God\u2019s truth, the Catholic faith, and his\nown high office,) the institution of Mr. Gorham.  If he make no\ndisclaimer, and throw no impediment in the way, the Rubicon indeed is\npassed, and there must come the counter-action of all earnest-minded\nCatholics in this \u201ccity of our God.\u201d  I, at least, am desirous to say\nthat I stand prepared (not indeed to act alone and upon my own mere\njudgment, but if those who may best advise us sanction the proceeding, as\nI verily believe in no long time they will,) to withdraw openly from\ncommunion with the archbishop.  You will ask what I mean by the term.  I\ndo not pretend to answer for other persons\u2019 meaning: but what _I_ mean is\nat least this, that I will say openly and solemnly I would refuse him the\nholy communion in my parish church, were he to come into it, and offer\nhimself at the altar, and equally refuse to receive it at his hands, or\nwith him.  Nay, more, I think we have it as a weapon in our armoury, to\nbe used, were it well advised and sanctioned, (and certainly to be used\nbefore one would think of giving up the Church of England as forsaken by\nGod,) to extend this same withdrawal from communion, from him who is \u201cthe\nhead and front,\u201d even to all those, at any rate of the clergy, who refuse\nthus to join in breaking off communion with him.  However strange,\nhowever painful, however solemn, however awful it may be to say such\nthings, I esteem it now an absolute duty not to withhold them, both that\nthose whose steps are faltering, whose hands are made weak, whose feet\nare sliding, whose hearts are \u201cfailing them for fear, and for looking for\nthose things that are coming upon the earth,\u201d may know to what resources\nsome among us at any rate are looking, and also (with all humility and\ndue reverence would I say it,) that he who has been set as the highest\necclesiastic in our branch of the Church of Christ, may at least know to\nwhat extremities he is driving matters by such efforts for peace, at the\nexpense of an article of the creed, and the faith once for all delivered.\n\nIt may be well to draw out even a little further still, some of the\nthoughts suggested by the foregoing observations.  It is plain that, if\nit shall come to pass that we have to withdraw from communion with the\narchbishop, it will immediately and at once become also our duty to\nwithdraw from all societies retaining him as their head.  Rather, it will\nbe their duty to remove his Grace\u2019s name from their committees, and\nrefuse to act under his presidency.  If we may not hold communion with\nhim, we may not acknowledge him as fit to preside over, or be a manager\nin, our church societies.  In such societies as he now holds the post of\npresident by annual election, or by some standing rule, the proceeding\nwill be comparatively easy, because the next general meeting of the\nsociety can elect some other in his room, or annul the rule by which he\nis ex officio the president, or a member of the committee.  In cases, if\nthere be such, where he holds such position by charter, the matter may be\nmore difficult and more perplexing, but I believe myself it will then be\nany and every such Church society\u2019s duty to apply for an alteration in\nits charter under the new and unforeseen circumstance of the Archbishop\nof Canterbury having abetted heresy.  But if such societies, or any of\nthem, neglect or refuse to take these steps, it will immediately become\nthe imperative duty of individuals to withdraw their names, and (so far\nas it may depend upon them,) break up their parochial or district\nassociations in support of such societies as refuse to recognise the\nimportance of keeping the faith of the Church of England pure, and thus\nbecome partakers in the guilt of allowing it to be stained.  Many will\nsay, no doubt, \u201cHow can you contemplate, much more counsel, so violent\nand destructive a policy?  What is the Church to do in missions and\npromotion of Christian knowledge, if such a plan be put in execution?\u201d  I\ncan but answer, _if things come to that point_, _that we must break\ncommunion with the archbishop_, in order to save our name and keep our\nplace in Christendom, then these consequences necessarily follow, and we\nhave no choice.  We shall never come to such resolve but upon the\nweightiest grounds:\u2014grounds that will leave us no option as to following\nthem out.  We shall have no right to make matters of principle into\nmatters of expediency or calculation of consequences.  But if I did look\nto such, I should come to the same conclusion: for, whether is it better\nto paralyze our efforts for the present, if so it be, by the weakening\nsuch societies, or to aid them when they, those very societies\nthemselves, will be actually spreading no longer truth, but error and\nsinful compromise?  Whether is it better for us all that we be stopped in\na career of sin, or that we run on in it, in a seeming prosperity\nperhaps, but in reality spreading wherever we go, and whatever we do, the\nheresy that the Church in which we live and serve, has _no doctrine_ on\nbaptism, and _we_ think it best to take no notice of the fact; but still\nto hold willingly in the post of chief honour and authority him who has\n\u201c_concurred_\u201d in, who justifies, who acts upon the decision which thus\nassails the faith?  No! indeed and in truth, if we do look to\nconsequences, the very confusion, perplexity and distress which may\nensue, do but bind upon us the more this line of action: they are the\nvery things probably to \u201cbring us to ourselves.\u201d  If we prove that our\nChurch cannot do her work under the charge of heresy, surely it is well.\nNo doubt all this is full of dismay and sorrow; but any thing is better\nthan to be easy in or under heresy.  And it is _by_ distress, _by_\nsuffering, by being made \u201cto go through fire and water,\u201d that we may\nafterwards be \u201cbrought out into a wealthy place.\u201d  It is by being exposed\nto any amount of misery and degradation that we are to be purified.  If\nwe never feel \u201cthe mighty famine,\u201d and even be driven \u201cinto the fields to\nfeed swine,\u201d and have to \u201cfill our bellies with the husks that the swine\ndo eat,\u201d and \u201cno man,\u201d perchance, \u201cgive unto us,\u201d or pity us, it may be\nwe shall never be brought to say, \u201cI will arise and go to my Father;\u201d\u2014I\nwill seek again in all its purity the early faith, even though it be\nthrough the sufferings also of those who early held it.  And \u201c_who_\nknoweth but God may be gracious unto us,\u201d to forgive us our sins,\nespecially the sin of lax holding, or practical denial of that early\nfaith on so many sides; who knoweth but He may bring us back into our\ngood place in his favour, that He may give us \u201cbeauty for ashes, the oil\nof joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of\nheaviness;\u201d\u2014even the place of favoured children in our Father\u2019s house,\nfor the isolation of a \u201cfar country;\u201d\u2014nay, that He may even say, \u201cBring\nforth the best robe and put it on him, and put shoes on his feet, and a\nring on his hand; and bring hither the fatted calf and kill it, and let\nus eat, and be merry, for this\u201d\u2014this Church of England so long, as it\nwere, estranged from Christendom, is again at one with her; whereof let\nChristendom rejoice together!\n\nThe thoughts of such results as possible in God\u2019s providence, if now we\nstand firm, and fight for the truth, must not make us forgetful of our\npresent state and our present danger.  I must repeat it, if these be so\nevil, we must look for sorrows before we expect relief; we must be ready\nto go through it; we must, like our divine Master, \u201cset our face like a\nflint;\u201d whatever reproaches be cast upon us, we must be prepared not to\nhide it \u201cfrom shame and spitting.\u201d  We must not care for any loss or\nconfusion in this time of rebuke, if only we may preserve the faith _for_\nand _in_ our Church, whole and undefiled.\n\nSo strongly do I feel these things, that I can deliberately say I could\neven wish we might be laid under an interdict;\u2014no baptisms, no marriages,\nno communions, no christian burials, rites, or ordinances be performed or\ncelebrated among us, until we humble ourselves, and return unto our God,\nrather than the Church among us fell asleep, and all our zeal and fervour\ncool down, and we lose an article of the creed, and merely cry\ndespairingly, \u201cwhat can we do?\u201d\u2014recognising in all this no real\ndifference, and believing in no real loss.  Such an affliction, if there\nwere any to put it on us, (and it may be it would be laid upon those who\nare hardened or careless, as the result of what we are now doing, if we\nbe still and tranquil, supposing only an \u0153cumenical council could be held\nto pass its judgment on these things, I say, such an affliction) might\npurge and purify us, might separate the wheat from the chaff, might prove\n_who_ were infidels, and _who_ believers in that other article of the\ncreed, \u201cthe one Catholic and Apostolic Church,\u201d and might show we were\nnot without such \u201ca remnant\u201d at any rate, as might cause HIM to look upon\nus with some favour who is all mercy to those whom He perceives to be\nreally bent, to bow no knee to Baal.\n\nI cannot bring myself to leave these things unsaid, much as, on many\naccounts, I should be glad to do so; because they serve to show what kind\nof action I think we have it in our power to use, and prove of course how\nlight a matter it must be to withdraw from this or that voluntary\nsociety; nay, comparatively how easy to strike off an archbishop\u2019s name\nfrom a committee; nay, even to withdraw from communion with him, and\nthose who may uphold him, when placed in the scale with such a tremendous\ninfliction as I have named.  And although the effects of such withdrawal,\nif done by but one priest here and there, may be little indeed; yet,\nwhatever line of action shall be deemed necessary, if it be taken by many\nin different parts, separated by distance and circumstance, but one in\nheart and action, this will, I think, produce so great a difficulty in\nthe position of affairs, that the restoration of a convocation will be\nthe only remedy.  Whatever may be the difficulty, if it prove the Church\nof England cannot do its work whilst under the curse of heresy, that is,\nnot until it shake it off, (for the which we trust we shall be found to\nstrive unto the death,) it cannot be amiss. {112}\n\nI cannot leave this subject without adding a few words, to explain how it\nis I feel compelled to say these things, and yet continue to hold\npreferment in the Church of England; how \u201cI justify my deeds unto\nmyself,\u201d in contemplating and speaking of the possibility of refusing the\nholy communion to her highest ecclesiastic, were he to present himself\nfor it, in my parish church, and yet retain any parish or parish church\nat all.  I have no doubt this will strike some persons as requiring, some\nperhaps as not admitting, explanation.  But since what I have here said\nis not the result of petulant feeling or hasty resolve, but is said with\nthought and deliberation, it may be better to state the grounds on which\nI feel bound _both_ thus to speak _and_ to retain my living, than leave\nit to be supposed I have never considered whether there is any\ninconsistency in my conduct, and to each man\u2019s own mind to guess my\nmotives, and supply my reasoning.  Honestly, if I know my own heart at\nall, can I say, I do not think still to hold my cure of souls in the\nChurch of England for the sake of the loaves and fishes to be obtained by\nso doing.  I am ready and willing, if any man can show me my duty\nrequires it in consequence of what I have written, to resign my living\nto-morrow.  But I do _not_ resign it, because I am fully persuaded there\nare times when, much as we should delight to pay to those in highest\nplace superabundant honour and the most glad submission without scrutiny\nor question of any kind, yet we are bound to institute inquiry whether we\n_can_ do this, and not betray HER \u201cwho is the mother of us all;\u201d\u2014times\nwhen it is a duty to \u201cwithstand to the face\u201d those who inherit even an\nApostle\u2019s robe;\u2014times when we are forbidden to \u201cflee away,\u201d even if it\nwere \u201cto be at rest.\u201d  Then we must learn to bear not only the reproach\nof \u201cenvious tongues,\u201d and the \u201cevil report\u201d of such as are adversaries to\nthe whole cause we have at heart; not only the hard thoughts of those\nwhose utmost charity is only able\n\n          \u201cin see-saw strain to tell\n    Of acting foolishly, but meaning well;\u201d\n\nbut even the misconstruction and condemnation of some, who do go with us\non the catholic side a certain way, but who are alarmed when anything is\nproposed or done beyond the ordinary routine of a gentle resistance.\nNay, even more than bearing these things from others, we are constrained\nto become, yet in no ill sense of the word, casuists ourselves, and weigh\nminutely what that is which in principle we are bound to give to them\n\u201cwho sit in Moses\u2019 seat,\u201d and where we must stop, lest we should be found\nto break a higher command than theirs \u201cby doing after their works.\u201d\nThere are, no doubt, difficulties on the side of _action_, lest we be not\nsufficiently observant of the \u201cpowers that be.\u201d  There are difficulties\non the side of _inaction_, lest, while we sleep, \u201ctares may be sown\u201d\nwhich we shall never be able to eradicate.  So we come to be obliged,\neven against our will, to consider _what_ deference, _what_ authority,\n_what_ guidance of affairs, must _needs_ be given to a chief ruler,\nsimply for his office\u2019 sake.  And the first thought which meets one is,\nthat undoubtedly no Archbishop in the English Church can claim to be to\nus a Pope; the second, that matters are much simplified as to compliance,\nif it be any fundamental of Christianity, any article of the creed, which\nis brought in question.  For then, history, and the uniform tradition of\nthe Church, alike teach us that it is not merely the _right_, but the\n_duty_, not merely of the _priest_, but of the _lay people_ also, to\ncontend for the faith openly and uncompromisingly, by whomsoever it may\nhave been assailed, and under whatever circumstances.  The word, too,\nwhich is above all words, speaks not of gentle resistance, or moderate\nopposition, or needful quiet, or charitable construction: but is,\n\u201ccontend earnestly;\u201d\u2014\u201cresist unto blood;\u201d\u2014\u201cquit you like men, be\nstrong;\u201d\u2014\u201caccept no man\u2019s person\u201d\u2014fear no man\u2019s rebuke;\u2014regard no man\u2019s\nfavour;\u2014consult no mans feeling;\u2014\u201cwish him not so much as God speed,\u201d be\nhe who he may, who would give away God\u2019s honour and God\u2019s truth.  \u201cIf thy\nbrother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife\nof thy bosom, or thy friend which is as thine own soul, entice thee\nsecretly, saying, Let us go serve other gods, which thou hast not known,\nthou, nor thy fathers:\u201d\u2014(let us make a new faith other than that once for\nall delivered:\u2014let us change the creeds of the Church Catholic) . . .\n\u201cthou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him; neither shall\nthine eye pity him, neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal\nhim.\u201d  Well, surely, have we been reminded, \u201cIt was a simple bishop who\naddressed the First Patriarch of the Church with the _Anathema tibi_,\n_pr\u00e6varicator Liberi_, when that Pope had tolerated Arianism; they were\nsimple priests who appealed against the Second Patriarch of the Church,\nand him too a saint, when Dionysius of Alexandria appeared to deny the\nCatholic faith concerning the Son of God; it was a simple layman who\nattacked the then Second Patriarch of the Church for heresy when\nNestorius broached his errors on the Incarnation; and both bishop,\npriest, and layman have received eternal honour, as having been \u2018valiant\nfor the truth upon the earth.\u2019  In our ordination oath, to \u2018be ready with\nall faithful diligence to banish and drive away all erroneous and strange\ndoctrines, contrary to God\u2019s word,\u2019 I find no proviso, \u2018except they shall\nbe supported by superiors.\u2019\u201d {116}  Surely, then, to refuse communion to\none, however high in station, is no such great thing, where the faith is\nput in peril.  Alas! I fear those who talk most of peace and quiet, who\nare, more than anything else, afraid lest Churchmen should do _too mush_,\nforget, or it may be have never realized, that it is _no less than the\nfaith_ which is now endangered.  And if there is one thing more than\nanother which now disquiets and disheartens thoughtful, earnest-minded,\nfar-seeing men, it is this;\u2014to perceive that there are numbers who are\nnot themselves in the least heretical on baptism, who yet say that all we\nneed is rest; whose great anxiety is that excitement should cease, and\nquiet be restored; who believe all would be well if these \u201cunhappy\ndifferences,\u201d as they call them, could be forgotten; these \u201csad\nanimosities,\u201d as they appear to them, could be laid aside, and all things\nreturn into a peaceful current.  Alas! \u201cPeace, peace, when there is no\npeace,\u201d is the order of the day, I fear, with only too many.  Oh! that I\ncould \u201clift up my voice like a trumpet,\u201d to arouse such, before they give\nup, step by step, to the encroaching liberalism of the day the very\nvantage ground it covets, and be only turned at last, and _made_ to stand\nat bay, when they find they can recede no further without being pushed\nabsolutely down the gulph; discovering this, however, only when it is too\nlate, because they will already have surrendered their strongholds, and\nyielded up God\u2019s armour, and then find, to their sorrow and dismay, that\neven such weapons as they may still have left are profitless and vain,\nthe space in which they are pent up being all too strait to allow them\nrightfully to wield them.  Oh! that I could awaken the sleeping heart of\nthis English people to feel for God\u2019s honour as for their own, or for\ntheir country\u2019s! and to know, if they would indeed win His battle, they\nmust, one and all who have Catholic hearts, throw themselves into the\nvery midst of the fight, and strain every nerve, and use every weapon,\nnow whilst there is time, as I believe, in God\u2019s might, and by His help,\nto win it.  Oh! that we all knew we may not leave our cause to fight for\nitself alone, (which is to desert it,) and so provoke Him our Saviour and\nDefence to forsake us, and permit us to become at last as Ephesus and\nSmyrna, as Pergamos and Thyatira, as Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea.\n\nI do not, then, resign my cure of souls, because I feel God has appointed\nme to be one in this warfare, and I may not give away anything He has put\ninto my hand wherewith to bear my part in it.  I do not resign my cure,\nbecause I think I should not be doing my Lord\u2019s work;\u2014I should not be\nfighting his Church\u2019s battle;\u2014I should not be using his weapons;\u2014I should\nnot be feeding his flock;\u2014I should not be avouching his truth;\u2014I should\nnot be bearing, in any appreciable degree, the same testimony to it, were\nI to resign my cure of souls, and then say, \u201cI would not admit such or\nsuch to holy communion _if I had a parish_.\u201d  No! let it be known and\nfelt that as a priest, in the exercise of the priestly office, I do what\nI do, and promise what I promise.  And although I have allowed even\nherein I am but speaking prospectively of what may _become_ our duty, I\nrepeat that I dare not withhold my thought of what possibly is coming\nupon us, both that we may all be prepared if it come, and that those who\nhave most power to avert any such necessity, may see how very urgent and\nextreme is the crisis in which our (and their) lot is cast.\n\nI know well how the world will take my saying, and meet my argument.  It\nwill say this at least, if it say no worse, \u201cGranting what you urge has a\ncertain force and consistency in itself, if you were merely a priest; how\nis it reconcileable with being a priest in the diocese of Sarum, and\nprovince of Canterbury? how is to say these things, compatible with the\ncanonical obedience which you have sworn?\u201d\n\nI might answer, perhaps, that I know not that I _have_ sworn anything to\nthe Archbishop, since I never was in his diocese, either in Chester or\nCanterbury; but this answer would be possibly insufficient, even for my\nown case, as there may be an implied canonical obedience through the\nsuffragan bishop to the metropolitan.  Moreover, if it cleared other\ndioceses, and the priests in them personally, it would be no general\nanswer, but leave a burden on the consciences of those who minister in\nthe diocese of Canterbury.  I will therefore make a further, and, I\ntrust, a more complete reply.  I say, that what I myself, and every\npriest among us, has subscribed to, is obedience to his bishop \u201cin things\nlawful and honest.\u201d  Can this ever bind me to acquiesce in expunging an\narticle of the Nicene creed? in not contending to the _utmost_ against\nthe heresy that our Church has no dogmatic teaching on baptism at all?\nYou may tell me, the law will take another view of what is \u201clawful,\u201d and\ncompel me to subscribe to it.  When it does, it will be time enough for\nme to think what I shall next do; and I trust I shall not be forgetful\nthat there is an authority higher than the law of man. {120}  Therefore\nthis I will say even now, (indeed I have already said it,) if the time\never come when this _Church_ and realm shall so receive doctrine that we\ncannot hold the Catholic faith, and remain members of the Church of\nEngland too, one thing at least will be clear, that we must then give up\nthe Church of England, and I will join with you in seeking somewhere else\na purer faith.  But I do not believe as yet, whatever _this realm_ may\nthink, that _this Church_ hath acknowledged the Gorham theology to be her\nfaith; and I will say this besides, if ever it shall come to pass that it\nis about to be ruled, not to be \u201clawful and honest\u201d to separate from any\nthat openly abet or foster heresy; that our subscription to \u201cobey in\nthings lawful and honest,\u201d binds us to a bishop or an archbishop so\ncommitting himself, so aiding and abetting the permission of heresy, then\nwill a new phase open upon our Church; then will that great argument of\nthe day be ranged on our side, \u201cTake heed what you do, or three thousand\npriests will resign their cures, and seek some other shelter!\u201d  Yes! then\nindeed will it be, (I doubt it not) that some of our spiritual fathers\nwill make it plain to all men wherein our great \u201cstrength lieth,\u201d and\nshow that we depend not upon \u201can arm of flesh;\u201d that there are men of all\nranks and circumstances among us, willing to \u201ccount all things but loss,\u201d\nso they may \u201ckeep the faith,\u201d and that in deed and in truth _the Church_\nis separable from _the establishment_.  In the mean time, as I have said,\nI find myself, not as yet bound down to the decision of the Privy\nCouncil, nor ensnared, by having undertaken to minister in my cure as\n\u201cthis Church and realm hath received\u201d doctrine, because, even though this\nrealm may have received that judgment as legal, I think the Church has\nnot ratified it as valid.  I find no burden upon my conscience in having\nsubscribed to obey my ordinary \u201cin things lawful and honest,\u201d nor do I\nperceive how I shall find it, even though I may come to think it unlawful\nto hold communion with the Primate.  And I find no cause to resign my\ncure, though I have deemed it necessary to say these things.\n\nThere is one subject more, which I cannot make up my mind to pass over.\nI have said the very struggles which we make for freedom, will, in their\nmaking, test our Church.  This itself is used as an argument by some,\nagainst exertion; at least against exertion for the objects which most\nChurchmen now advocate\u2014the regaining for her, her free synod or\nconvocation.  \u201cConvocations and Synods.\u2014Are they remedies for existing\nevils?\u201d is the title of a thoughtful pamphlet which I have seen.  The\n\u201cAnglican Layman\u201d (such is the author\u2019s description of himself on his\ntitle page) says, the remedies which he has heard suggested appear to him\n\u201cone and all of a dilatory and inconclusive character, in part hopeless,\nin part useless, and in part of doubtful propriety.\u201d {122}  I will not\nswell what I have already written by any comment on the first two of\nthese objections; on the last I must say something; and, to introduce it,\nI will make a further extract from the pamphlet in question:\u2014\n\n    \u201cSuppose the convocation assembled with universal consent, or even\n    suppose a properly constituted synod to be convened with the\n    approbation of the State, or suppose the united episcopate to be\n    assembled without it, would the decision of any or either of these be\n    really _authoritative_?  In what sense would it be so?  Would any or\n    either of the parties in the Church consent to be bound by it?  What\n    is meant by an _authoritative decision_?  What do the \u2018Resolutions\u2019 I\n    have quoted mean by an \u2018_authoritative declaration_\u2019?  What does the\n    Metropolitan Church Union mean by \u2018_the only body possessing\n    authority in controversies of faith_\u2019?  What does the Bishop of\n    London mean by \u2018_finally settling the question by a synodical\n    decree_\u2019?  Would you be bound by it?\u2014Should I be bound by it?\u2014Would\n    the minority of such an assembly be bound in conscience by the\n    majority?\u2014Would the majority itself be bound by the decision in any\n    permanent sense, because they were the majority?  In fact, who can\n    doubt that there is on both sides a determined foregone conclusion on\n    the point in dispute, and that no one individual on either side would\n    hold himself bound in conscience to abide by the decision.\u201d\n\n                                * * * * *\n\n    \u201cBut it will be said\u2014it _is_ said, \u2018although the decision, if wrong,\n    will not bind us, it will _bind the Church_, and if the Church should\n    commit itself to heresy, our course would be plain.\u2019  Now, a great\n    deal of very solemn and serious language is used in speaking of the\n    Church of England, and of the duty, and allegiance we owe her, much\n    too solemn indeed, and too serious, unless we mean what we say; she\n    is \u2018the Church of our Baptism,\u2019 we are her \u2018children,\u2019 we call her\n    \u2018our Sion,\u2019 \u2018our beloved Church,\u2019 \u2018our holy Mother,\u2019 we profess to be\n    jealous that any one should intrude upon her office as a \u2018teacher of\n    the Truth,\u2019 or speak in her name without her commission.  All this\n    implies respect, deference, an admission of her right to guide us.\n    Now, if it be true that whatever our Mother may say, we shall one and\n    all turn a deaf ear to her voice, unless she speaks in accordance\n    with our own previous convictions, that we are reserving our\n    objections to her authority till we hear her judgment\u2014that we intend\n    to test her authority by her judgment, is not our language of\n    reverence and affection somewhat unreal?\n\n    \u201cTo assemble the Church in Convocation or Synod, for such a purpose\n    as this, would be to place her in a most undignified position, that\n    of exhibiting herself for approbation.  We should be treating her as\n    a mob would treat a popular leader; if she should speak our\n    language\u2014\u2018hosanna,\u2019 if not\u2014\u2018crucify.\u2019  We should have the air of\n    enquiring of an oracle, whereas we should only be questioning a\n    suspected delinquent.  We should seem to ask advice, but approbation\n    of our own predetermined opinions would be all the answer we should\n    condescend to receive.\n\n                                 * * * *\n\n    \u201cIf the assembling of the convocation or synod would in any real\n    sense \u2018settle the question,\u2019 if its declaration would be really\n    \u2018authoritative,\u2019 if the members of the Church would be religiously\n    bound to listen to its voice as that of the teacher of truth, or even\n    if it would be a step towards a decision by a higher tribunal, that\n    may be a reason for assembling it; but if it is to bind no one, and\n    its decision is only sought for as a test of its own vitality, then I\n    should be disposed to ask whether such a proceeding is not of very\n    _doubtful propriety_.\n\n    \u201cNo doubt, it might be quite right to force a subordinate court to\n    speak, in order to arrive at a decision by a higher tribunal, but to\n    force a _final_ court of appeal to speak when you have no intention\n    of obeying it, seems to me to be an act of the same kind as pleading\n    before, or sitting upon, a tribunal, against the authority of which\n    you intend to protest, should its decision displease you.\u201d {124}\n\nI have cited this somewhat lengthy passage: but it will enable me to make\nmy own remarks the briefer that I have thus fully stated the objection.\nThe answer to its whole drift seems to me to be this, that no synod or\nconvocation of the English Church is, or can be, a \u201cfinal court.\u201d  This\nwriter seems to have let it escape him that, though we may have _among\nourselves_ no higher appeal, yet there is one in the world.  The Church\nCatholic, and especially It in council, is an authority to which all\nprovincial synods are subject, and to which our deepest reverence is due.\nThe writer in question does say indeed, _if_ a decision by convocation\nwould be \u201ca step towards a decision by a higher tribunal,\u201d it would be a\nreason: for convocation being assembled; not however, I think, as\ncontemplating any higher tribunal than our convocation, but merely as\nshewing the impropriety of its being called together at all.  In the next\nparagraph he explains this:\u2014\u201cNo doubt it might be quite right to force a\nsubordinate court to speak, in order to arrive at a decision by a higher\ntribunal; but to force a _final_ (_sic_) court of appeal to speak,\u201d\n(evidently assuming this quality to belong to the English synod or\nconvocation) \u201cwhen you have no intention of obeying it, seems to me to be\nan act of the same kind as pleading before, or sitting upon, a tribunal,\nagainst the authority of which you intend to protest, should its decision\ndisplease you.\u201d  Now, my view certainly is not merely that we should\nprotest against (though we will not contemplate) any heretical decision\nby convocation; but, if it were so, should also appeal from it to the\nvoice of Christendom.  \u201cThe only superior known to the local Church is\nthe authority of the Church universal.\u201d {125a}  Surely of that authority\nwe must not be forgetful, whatever be the difficulties at present in the\nway of an appeal to it.  \u201cIs the Church of England so isolated from the\nUniversal, that the faith of the Church universal has no influence unto\nits theology?\u201d {125b}  And yet this point seems to be forgotten by the\notherwise careful writer of the pamphlet in question.  And in forgetting\nthis, of course he must do wrong to the position of the Church of\nEngland, as well as, I fear, discourage those who are labouring for her\nfreedom.  We are but a part of Christendom, but this claim to allow no\nappeal from our convocation, seems to arrogate to ourselves to be either\nthe whole, or so capable of standing by ourselves, that we desire to be\nfreed from any subordination to the whole, which would be, in fact, no\nless than to make ourselves \u201cguilty of a formal schism from the universal\nChurch of Christ.\u201d {126}  We must not allow ourselves to forget there is\nsuch a thing as an \u0153cumenical council of Christendom, and whatever the\ndifficulties in the way of its assembling, yet to it, as I believe, all\ntrue hearts should turn.  Certainly, for myself I can say that this, as\nthe great remedy for all our troubles and distractions, and \u201cnot for\n_ours_ only,\u201d but for those of Christendom at large, has been constantly\npresent to my mind these many years.  That God of his mercy, and in His\ngood time, would grant us a general council to ease and compose our\ndifferences, and to restore the unity of Christendom, and, if it come,\ngrant us all the due mind of submission to it, has been now for no short\nperiod a portion of my daily prayers; and I think there is no just ground\nto decry the petition as either fanciful or wrong; at least we have the\nwarrant of some among us of great name who have not thought so.  \u201cThat I\nmight live to see the re-union of Christendom,\u201d says Archbishop Bramhall,\n\u201cis a thing for which I shall always bow the knees of my heart to the\nFather of our Lord Jesus Christ.\u201d * * * * \u201cHowsoever it be, I submit\nmyself and my poor endeavours,\u201d he continues, \u201cfirst to the judgment of\nthe Catholic \u0153cumenical essential Church, which, if some of late days\nhave endeavoured to hiss out of the schools, as a fancy, I cannot help\nit.  From the beginning it was not so.\u201d * * * * \u201cLikewise I submit myself\nto the representative Church, that is, a free general council, or so\ngeneral as can be procured, and until then to the Church of England,\nwherein I was baptized, or to a national English synod.\u201d {127}  I do not\nsay whether the confidence with which Bramhall trusted an English synod,\nwas excessive in his day, or would be excessive in ours, but assuredly he\nrecognises the appeal to a higher court; and this is exactly what I\naffirm we must bear in mind there is, if we seem to put our own Church to\nthe test, by demanding that her convocation shall again be allowed to\nmeet.  It may be supposed, indeed, that an \u0153cumenical council is at\npresent hopeless, and therefore that all mention of an appeal to it is\nout of place; but I do not think this, and for two reasons; in the first\nplace that there are certain points of doctrine which have been so\ndefinitely ruled by general councils, that we _know_ on them there could\nbe no variation; and in the second, that I see no ground to despair of\nanother such council in God\u2019s good time being called together. {128}\nEven in the mean time the thought of such a council is neither\nimpertinent, nor unpractical: for I suppose no one will hold that a\nnational synod or convocation may determine _anything_ as to its Church\u2019s\ndoctrine, and yet no man be justified in leaving her communion.  Such\ncourse however must be taken, to be taken rightly, not on the impulse of\na man\u2019s own will, or the bent of his own mind; but only in obedience to\nwhat Christendom _has_ definitely ruled, and in implicit submission to\nwhat she would now say, could she meet in free and general council.  Such\nright of action, so guarded, I think must be allowed, for if not, it\nwould follow that, during the suspension of the voice of the Church\nUniversal, any provincial Church might commit herself to Socinianism,\nnay, to Deism, or Pantheism, under the name of Christianity, and yet no\nman have even his individual remedy against a body so lapsing from the\nfaith, until a general council could pronounce upon the matter.  This is\nclearly a reductio ad absurdum, and therefore we may and ought, (though\nwe will never contemplate our Church authorising or affirming heresy in\nher synods or convocation,) yet not to be afraid to strive for their\nrevival, as though there were no appeal above her, and no solution if she\nshould fail under the trial.  When too we remember what we are in danger\nof sanctioning by acquiescence, and in what a position we may thus place\nourselves for the judgment of an \u0153cumenical council upon us when it may\ncome, we see all the greater cause to wish for the restoration of our\nsynods and convocations, nay, to account it an absolute duty which, thank\nGod, needs no calculation of results at all, to run the risk, if risk it\nbe considered, of what our Church will say, and positively claim by them.\nIn order to clear herself, she _must_ be allowed to speak.\n\nFurther, the \u201cAnglican Layman\u201d admits if convocation\u2019s meeting \u201cwould be\na step towards a decision by a higher tribunal, that may be a reason for\nassembling it.\u201d  I take him at his word; I ask him especially to consider\nif this be not one of the results to be expected, and, (if he shall, upon\nconsideration, be satisfied on the point) then I ask him further to join\nin the efforts which are being made to obtain the revival of our Church\u2019s\nsynodical functions.\n\nI have said what the higher tribunal is.  I have said I think we ought to\nwork even now with a view to its judgment.  Suppose a general council\nwere to be held;\u2014say then, whether the determination of these questions,\nwhich now distract us, would not be a step towards a final resolution of\nthem all by its authority.  For, say first, the English Synod or\nConvocation boldly asserted the catholic verity on Baptism, would not\nthis be a great step towards our being received openly and unhesitatingly\ninto the bosom of Christendom, when her council shall meet, and say, as\nsay it must, in what light the Anglican communion is to be regarded.  Or\nsuppose (let me be forgiven for the supposition in the way of argument,\nand here necessary to it,) that the result of her counsel were an\nambiguous or heretical determination.  Surely even this would not be\nwithout its use in limiting the points in issue, and help (no small\nconsideration) all Catholic-minded men among us to acquiesce in any\ncensure which Christendom might pass upon us.  This, I cannot regard as\nan unimportant gain, since owing to our isolation, and I fear I must say,\nour national prejudices, there might be great danger, that even the\ndecision of an \u0153cumenical council upon our position and our duties, would\nhardly be received as it ought to be even by all those who are striving\nhumbly after truth.  But if then we must be condemned (I am not saying it\nwould be so; again and again I must repeat it; but if it were so,) it\nwould surely be something for the comfort and guidance of us all, that it\nshould be on plain and undisputed grounds; that our Church had spoken,\nand spoken amiss; that she had tampered with the ancient faith, and\nchanged the prim\u00e6val creeds.  Though I do not say any of these things\nwill come upon us, yet I do think the position in which we stand without\nconvocation, and the dangers of, what would be called in human affairs, a\ndownward policy, are so great that they justify us in speaking out very\nplainly, and in looking to help from Christendom in case of need.  I do\nbelieve never till we get to look out of ourselves to Christendom at\nlarge, never till we remember our due place in it, never till we are\nready to accept its decrees better to define our position, and help us in\nthe practical restoration of our teaching to what it ought to be, shall\nwe be in that right mind and heart, which is waiting duly for the\nBridegroom\u2019s call.\n\nI am quite prepared to have these remarks called visionary and unreal;\nand all dependence on, nay all reference to, the Universal Church,\nunpractical and absurd.  But \u201cnone of these things move me,\u201d and I am,\nthough I trust, no fanatic, yet hopeful of the help of God for those who\nwill try to help themselves.  As I have said before, I cannot think the\nexpectation of a general council is chimerical.  I cannot believe if it\ncome it will be useless.  I agree with you in saying, \u201cwe have no right\nto expect an audible or visible interposition of Almighty God,\u201d to direct\nus in our difficulties.  \u201cWe must not wait to see his handwriting on the\nwall, or to hear his voice among us;\u201d {131} but I have yet faith enough\nin miracles to believe, if that be one, that God may grant us the miracle\nof Christendom again in council, and make it the means to heal all our\ndistempers, and bind up all our wounds.  Of this hope and this faith, no\nman shall deprive me by the mere calculations of human policy, or by the\nperverseness of an un-Catholic despair.\n\nAnd now, my dear Friend, if you have followed me through these pages, as\nI know with all kindness and attention you will have done, you will see,\nin some measure at any rate, why I must bitterly lament and utterly\ncondemn the steps which you have taken.  I cannot see that the Church of\nEngland has forfeited her trust.  I cannot, therefore, believe God has\nforsaken her.  I cannot think that He bids us leave her.  I have not\nindeed concealed my opinion of the dangers which beset her.  Humanly\nspeaking, her _safety_ lies in their being known and felt by her\nchildren; but I firmly believe there is yet a battle to be fought _in_\nher, and _for_ her, which is worth all our energies and should engage all\nour hearts.  No man knows better than you what is to be done: no man\nbetter how great is the stake: no man better how glorious the result, if\nGod grant the battle to be won.  Alas! that it should be bitter now to\nsay it, no man has fought more nobly in the ranks of the English Church:\nno man more distinctly or with less hesitating lips has enunciated her\ndogmatic teaching: no man has contended more boldly on the side of God,\nand the creeds, and the Catholic faith than you have done in this our\nbattle for life and death!  Oh! that you might even now once more \u201ccast\nin your lot among us;\u201d confess you believe you have been blinded by care\nand grief, and so been at least over-hasty in your resolves; and throw\nyourself once more into the ranks of the chosen warriors among us, and\ninto the battle with us.  Believe me,\u2014nay, rather judge it for\nyourself\u2014great things are coming on apace: things which will make men\u2019s\ncourse plain before their face, without their being over-forward to\ndecide them in isolation for themselves by the mere act of their private\njudgment; and perchance if we may but be wisely guided, and have patience\nto endure, we may both come out ourselves \u201cas silver purified seven times\nin the fire,\u201d and be the means, though all unworthy, to unite Christendom\nagain in one.  Oh! what heart can exaggerate the beauty with which our\nChurch shall again shine forth, if she can retain the good that is in her\nand discard the evil!  How nobly will then appear the characteristic\nvirtues of the English mind;\u2014its love of honesty and truth;\u2014its\nconscientiousness and repudiation of pious frauds;\u2014its loathing disbelief\nin the avail of expiation of sin by mere formal observances, the sinner\nremaining unrepentant all the while!  If these qualities may be fostered,\nand its characteristic vices;\u2014its arrogancy and pride;\u2014its unbounded\nreliance upon itself, and the miserably ignorant as well as utterly\ndestructive habit and abuse of private judgment: therefore its refusal of\nCatholic teaching, and practical denial of sacramental grace; if these\ncan be eradicated, how fairly indeed shall the Church of England shine\nforth once more, as \u201cclothed in white raiment,\u201d as able \u201cto save alive\nthe souls\u201d committed to her, as \u201cthe ransomed\u201d and \u201cwell-beloved\u201d of the\nLord! \u201cas a fountain of gardens, a well of living waters, and streams\nfrom Lebanon.\u201d  But for this (though we know God needeth no man\u2019s help,\nand can spare _whom_ he pleaseth, and his work not the less be done, and\nhis counsel stand,) yet _we_ seem to be able to spare no man from our\nranks who has ever fought upon our side.  Oh! (with a breaking heart, one\nis almost tempted to exclaim:) Oh! that we could but have with us now,\nall those who in these last five or ten years have \u201clost patience\u201d in our\ncamp.  What with them, could they be restored to us, might we not seem\nready to attain, even against all the \u201cprincipalities and powers\u201d that\nlatitudinarian indifference or infidel philosophy may array against us?\nBut, I may not indulge in such longings.  I may not ask, nor think of,\nnor hope, even _your_ return.  I do not ask it, for I know it is a thing\nyou may not grant for asking.  I will not think of it, for \u201cvain are the\nthoughts of man!\u201d  I will not even hope it; for why should \u201cthe heart be\nmade sick,\u201d when so much work is to be done.  But I may and will _pray_\nfor it, if it be His gracious will, who is able to give more than we know\nhow either to ask or to think, \u201cwhose way is in the sea, and whose paths\nin the great waters, and whose footsteps are not known.\u201d\n\nBelieve me, my dear Maskell, yours, though in sorrow, still in affection,\n\n                                                       MAYOW WYNELL MAYOW.\n\n\n\n\nAPPENDICES.\n\n\nA. p. 15.\n\n\nIT should be observed, that as to the point of encouragement to \u201cpatient\nwaiting,\u201d I have in the text much understated the force of the argument\nto be drawn from the ecclesiastical history of the fourth century,\ninasmuch as even after the Council of Nicea, there were fresh troubles\nand disturbances upon the same doctrine, which were not settled for more\nthan fifty years.  To use Mr. Keble\u2019s words (on July 23rd), \u201cThe Church\nwaited till the Council of Constantinople, A.D. 381, under all sorts of\ninterruptions and anomalies, charges of heresy, and breaking of\ncommunion.\u201d  My purpose, however, in referring to that period of history\nbeing chiefly to point to the Nicene Creed as an instance of a\ndeclaratory act, explanatory of the Apostles\u2019, I did not think it\nnecessary to pursue the matter further than A.D. 325.\n\n\n\nB. p. 22.\n\n\n    \u201cIT is plain that the meaning of a mute document, if it be tied to\n    follow the utterance of a _living_ voice, which shall claim the\n    supreme right of interpretation, must vary with its living\n    expositor.\u201d\u2014MANNING\u2019S _Rule of Faith_, (1838).  App. p. 85.\n\n    \u201cBut neither can it be admitted that if the justification of the\n    reformers is to rest on such grounds as the foregoing, their\n    reputation can owe thanks to those who would now persuade the Church\n    to acquiesce in a disgraceful servitude, and to surrender to the\n    organs of the secular power the solemn charge which she has received\n    from Christ, to feed his sheep and his lambs: for the real feeder of\n    those sheep, and those lambs, is _the power that determines the\n    doctrine with which they shall be fed_.  Whether that determination\n    shall profess to be drawn straight from the depths of the mine of\n    revealed truth, or whether it shall assume _the more dangerous and\n    seductive title of construction only_; _of a license of construction\n    which disclaims the creation_, _the declaration_, _or the decision of\n    doctrine_, _but which simultaneously with that disclaimer has marked\n    out for itself a range of discretion which has already enabled it to\n    cancel all binding power in one of the articles of the faith_, and\n    will hereafter as certainly enable it to cancel the binding power of\n    all those which the first fell swoop has failed to touch.\u201d\u2014_Letter to\n    the Lord Bishop of London_, _by the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone_,\n    _M.P._ p. 60.\n\nSee also Archdeacon Manning\u2019s recent letter to the Bishop of Chichester,\nwhere the same subject is again treated in the most convincing manner,\npp. 35, 37.\n\n\n\nC. p. 34.\n\n\nIT will immediately occur to the reader that this particular point as to\nthe burial service, as well as many others here touched upon, have been\nalready handled in the most masterly way by the Bishop of Exeter, in his\nletter to the Primate.  I suppose I hardly need say I have entertained no\nso absurd notion as that I could surreptitiously plagiarize from such a\nsource; but I may perhaps be allowed to explain, that I should not have\nventured upon the same ground at all, had it not been for a further\nobject in my remarks than that which appears to have been most\nprominently before his Lordship\u2019s mind in writing.  I have been concerned\nin my particular argument, not so much to clear our services from being\nsupposed to require the \u201ccharitable construction\u201d asserted by the Privy\nCouncil, as to draw out in somewhat greater detail the points which show\nthe marvellous inapprehensiveness (as it appears to me) displayed by the\nCourt on the whole subject-matter with which they had to deal.\n\n\n\nD. p. 35.\n\n\n\u201cTHE question must be decided,\u201d says the Court, (Judgment, p. 9,) \u201cby the\narticles and liturgy, and we must apply to the construction of those\nbooks the same rules which have long been established, and are by law\napplicable to the construction of all written instruments.  We must by no\nmeans intentionally swerve from the old established rules of\nconstruction, or depart from the principles which have received the\nsanction and approbation of the most learned persons in time past, as\nbeing on the whole, the best calculated to determine the true meaning of\nthe documents to be examined.\u201d  It may be worth while, in reference to\ntheir treatment, especially of the office for private baptism, to append\nhere a few words of the rule of construction as laid down by Blackstone.\n\u201cThe construction shall be upon the _entire deed_, and not merely upon\ndisjointed parts of it, so that _every part_, if possible, shall _take\neffect_, and _no word but what may operate in one shape or another_.\u201d\n(Comm. ii. 379.)  It is manifest there was _no impossibility_, nay, _no\ndifficulty_, in such a construction of the office for private baptism as\nshould allow \u201c_every part_\u201d to \u201c_take effect_;\u201d such also that there\nmight be \u201c_no word but what should operate_,\u201d so far as merely making\nthat service agree with the other; the only difficulty was to give every\nword its effect, _if both were to lead to a particular conclusion_.\n\n\n\nE. p. 46.\n\n\nON a matter of so grave a character as that referred to in this place it\nseems necessary to give at rather more length that part of Lord Denman\u2019s\njudgment (in the case of Dr. Hampden in the Queen\u2019s Bench) delivered on\nthe 1st of February, 1848, which states his reasons for refusing to let\nthe writ issue, when two of the judges of his court were in favour of\ndoing so.\n\n    \u201cNow comes the question which presses most on my mind.  Having stated\n    my reasons for the opinion which I deliberately form, and\n    conscientiously entertain that this has never been at any time the\n    law in the Church of England, I must be of opinion that the court\n    ought to refuse the writ of mandamus; but upon that opinion I have\n    had the greatest difficulty, and have felt the greatest possible\n    hesitation in acting, because I feel the authority of my two learned\n    brothers, and the ungracious appearance of refusing the opportunity\n    of inquiry.  In any ordinary set of circumstances, in the case of an\n    inclosure, of a railway, or matter of property, we should have no\n    question what ever that the doubt of any one on the bench would have\n    made further inquiry desirable.  I should have instantly agreed.  A\n    writ of error would lie in that case to correct any opinion that\n    might be shown on more discussion to be erroneous.  But every judge\n    must act on his own conviction.  I own that my opinion is so entirely\n    settled, and, I must say, so entirely unchanged by what I have heard\n    of the argument to-day, that feeling the utmost disposition to do all\n    that can be done to show my respect for my learned brothers, I do not\n    think that I can consent to say for my part that this writ ought to\n    go.  I think it ought not. * * * * * I am satisfied that the only\n    effect would be to keep alive the dreadful agitation and frightful\n    state of religious, or rather, let me say, theological animosity,\n    which it is impossible not to observe in this country.  There would\n    be a delay of at least two years; probably four more days would be\n    consumed in argument, and we cannot tell how much more when it would\n    come into the court of error.  The bishopric all that time would be\n    vacant, perhaps other vacancies might occur, and no doubt the example\n    here set would be followed; and in every case I should expect, in the\n    excited state of men\u2019s minds, that the archbishop would be called\n    upon to summon all mankind, to hear whether they had anything to say\n    against the bishop elect, and to open a court, that would probably\n    never be closed.\u201d\n\n                                * * * * *\n\n    \u201cNow, under all these considerations, feeling the utmost respect for\n    my learned brethren, and the greatest regret that we do not take the\n    same view, I must own that I feel some deference is due also to the\n    high person who is named as the defendant in this rule.  Some\n    deference is due to those who certify the fitness of Bishop Hampden\n    for the office to which he is elected.  Still more deference is due\n    _to the peace of the Church_, and _to the tranquillity of the State_.\n    It seems to me that we should be _putting every thing to hazard_ and\n    _leading to consequences which it is impossible to foresee_, if we,\n    who are firmly convinced that there is no such law as that upon which\n    these parties seek to act, encouraged the smallest doubt as to its\n    existence.  Reserving my opinion on that point till I had heard all\n    the observations of my learned brothers, and keeping my mind open to\n    the last, and free to say that this is a question which ought to be\n    discussed, I must fairly say, with all respect for my brother\n    Coleridge\u2019s admirable argument, that it has confirmed me in the\n    opinion of the danger of exposing the Act of Parliament, and the most\n    simple construction of the plainest language, and the most inveterate\n    and universal opinion on its effect, to the speculations of those who\n    will bring their forgotten books down, and wipe off the cobwebs from\n    decretals and canons, before they can find one argument for\n    disturbing the settled practice of three hundred years.\n\n    \u201cIn my opinion this rule ought to be discharged.\u201d\u2014_Rule discharged_.\n    _Lord Denman\u2019s Judgment in the Hampden case_.  _Report_, _by R.\n    Jebb_, _Esq._ pp. 495, 496.\n\nI have no doubt at all, that the honest conviction of the Lord Chief\nJustice was, that his view of the law was the sound one; nor any, that he\nthought he was doing rightly in using his power to refuse the writ; but\nthere can be no doubt on the other hand (for he explicitly avows it) that\nthe reasons upon which he arrived at such conclusion, and reversed the\nuniversal practice not only of his own court but of every court in\nWestminster Hall, were a _calculation of consequences_, and a regard to\n_future contingencies_, _as they seemed dangerous or advantageous_ to his\neye: and this is precisely the point of view in which I have desired to\nlay the matter before my readers in the body of my letter.  It will be\nobserved that in nothing which I have here said am I impugning Lord\nDenman\u2019s Law, or giving any opinion as to the soundness of his view of\nthe matter then in question before the Court of Queen\u2019s Bench.  I appeal\nnot to any matter of opinion, but to matter of fact; to the incontestible\nfact, that all the precedents of that and every other court of law in\nthis country for a very long period, were set aside by his Lordship on\nthat occasion.  I give no opinion at all, save that to do such a thing\nupon a ground of expediency, applying, as it appeared to him, to the\nindividual case, was a course calculated to shake persons\u2019 confidence in\nthe administration of the law in cases where the Church is affected.  Let\nno man therefore say, \u201cWhat are you, to set up your opinion against the\nChief Justice of the Queen\u2019s Bench?\u201d  I say, again, I set up no opinion,\nI appeal to no matter of opinion at all, but to the undisputed matter of\nfact, that the usage of the court _was_ at any rate so set aside and set\nat naught.\n\n\n\nF. p. 48.\n\n\nI CANNOT refrain from quoting here a few lines from the very able speech\nof the Chairman of the Meeting of July 23, so singularly apposite and\nillustrative do they seem to me of this passage in my letter written some\ntime previously.\n\n    \u201cAn instinctive reverence for the law, and a well-founded confidence\n    in the judges of our land exclude from the minds of some men even the\n    thought of questioning the propriety of this judgment\u201d\u2014(i.e. of the\n    Committee of Privy Council).  \u201cIt is painful to shock this natural\n    sentiment\u2014but when such grave interests are at stake, we must not\n    allow them to escape the responsibility to which they are\n    summoned.\u201d\u2014_Speech of J. G. Hubbard_, _Esq. at St. Martin\u2019s Hall_,\n    _July_ 23, 1850.\n\n\n\nG. p. 71.\n\n\nI AM aware it may be said this act (1 Elizabeth, c. 1) was repealed when\nthe High Commission Court was abolished; but it has been held, I believe\nby Lord Coke (I know I have lately seen it referred to, though I have not\nmarked the reference,) that though no longer binding as law, it would be\naccounted probably of some authority to show the mind in which law would\ndeal with heresy, and as a guide to a judge in any such matter.  Add to\nwhich, this law indicating what was, _at any rate_, and _at the least_,\nto be adjudged heresy was restrictive, not augmentative of the offence.\nEven so, as we see, it allowed the authority of those first four general\ncouncils, and therefore by its enactment is a special witness for their\nreception by the English law.  And its repeal by no means destroys the\nforce of this argument in their favour, because the law itself having\nbeen, as I have said, restrictive, and no other act being passed upon its\nrepeal to limit again the judgment of the courts, they would revert at\nonce to the former rule, and the Church gain instead of losing by the\nproceeding.  In other words, the statute (1 Eliz. c. 1) shows what at all\nevents the law, when most bent upon restriction, acknowledged as to those\ngeneral councils, whilst its repeal only removes a limitation, and\nrestores things again to their ancient footing.  This is well stated in\nthe following extract:\u2014\n\n    \u201cOur church law acknowledges many other heresies besides those which\n    were condemned by the four first \u0153cumenical councils.  The clause in\n    1 Eliz. c. 1, which I quoted as the least stringent measure of heresy\n    ever allowed among us, was repealed when the court which was\n    restrained by it (the High Commission Court) was abolished; and now,\n    whatever was heresy before the reformation is still heresy, (by 25\n    Hen. 8, c. 19, s. 7,) unless there have been special enactment to the\n    contrary.  Now there can be no question that the African canons were\n    in force here before the reformation; for, whether received at\n    Chalcedon or no, they had been severally received by the whole\n    Church, both east and west.  Therefore it still remains to be proved,\n    \u2018that a bishop or archbishop, acting on the late decision, will not\n    involve in direct heresy both himself and eventually all in communion\n    with him,\u2019 by the very law of the Church as at present\n    existing.\u201d\u2014_Letter_, _J. K. Guardian_, _May_ 1_st._ 1850.\n\n\n\nH. p. 128.\n\n\nI WILL venture to print in this place, as illustrative of several points\ntouched upon in the preceding letter, and as showing that many of the\nviews there set forth have not been of recent growth, or merely taken up\nas the readiest expedients to suit an emergency, part of a sermon\npreached (in my turn, as Master of Arts) before the University of Oxford.\nThe sermon was preached upon St. Barnabas\u2019 day, 1845.  The early part, of\nwhich I do not here print more than a few sentences, was occupied with\nsome considerations relating more immediately to the particular festival,\nand to the thoughts suggested as to conduct under ministerial\ndiscouragements by the \u201csharp contention\u201d between Barnabas and Paul.  The\nlatter part is taken up more directly with general topics, as to our own\ndifficulties and trials, and with some mention of the hope of a remedy by\nmeans of a general council.  These few remarks will sufficiently\nintroduce the extract which follows.\n\n                         \u201cYe have need of patience.\u201d\n\n                                             _Hebrews_ x. 36, former part.\n\n    PATIENCE would be unnecessary if there were no trial: consolation\n    would be out of place if there were no affliction.  Without these,\n    \u201cthe son of consolation\u201d would not have found his office, nor\n    received his distinctive name, in being added to the number of the\n    apostles.  But He who knew that he came, \u201cnot to send peace, but a\n    sword;\u201d whose advent was marked with blood, and his very birth,\n    though it were \u201cglad tidings of great joy which should be to all\n    people,\u201d yet gave occasion for the voice of \u201clamentation, and\n    weeping, and great mourning;\u201d whose own end was even of a piece with\n    this beginning, when He had \u201cblood sprinkled upon his garments,\u201d and\n    all his \u201craiment stained\u201d therewith; the intermediate time, too, of\n    whose mortal life was one of such hardship and privation that He had\n    \u201cnot where to lay his head;\u201d He who foretold that if men called \u201cthe\n    Master of the house Beelzebub, much more would they so call them of\n    the household;\u201d who _warned_ his disciples that they should be \u201c_as_\n    their Master,\u201d and _promised_ them that they should indeed \u201cdrink of\n    his cup, and be baptized with his baptism;\u201d HE did not fail to supply\n    grace and consolation; a fitting and sufficient Paraclete for the\n    nature which was thus to be tried, and the circumstances which should\n    try it.  And though, in the only full and perfect sense, the HOLY\n    GHOST is _the_ COMFORTER, and that divine PARACLETE; yet also in a\n    true, though inferior sense, as an instrument to the same end, such\n    as the ever-blessed Son of God saw to be needed, it was appointed\n    there should be one, even called by the same name, \u201ca son of\n    consolation,\u201d in that Joses, surnamed by the Apostles, Barnabas. * *\n    * * *\n\n    But here I would extend our subject, and come more particularly to\n    consider some of the trials and discouragements which we (weak and\n    unworthy followers of the holy apostles) meet with in our ministry.\n    \u201cYe have need of patience,\u201d says the apostle.  Let me then speak\n    to-day, brethren, upon some of those trials and discouragements which\n    beset the Church \u201cin these last days when perilous times have come.\u201d\n    It is far too wide and large a subject to be fully treated of.  I\n    shall but touch on one or two points as I have found their pressure,\n    and in so doing shall speak familiarly of the parochial charge.\n\n    Now we know well that a distinctive character of the Church\u2019s\n    teaching is this, that she instructs her members that God\u2019s grace,\n    and therefore salvation, is not given (as we may say) at random, and\n    by a mere inner motion of each man\u2019s heart or mind; that our grafting\n    into Christ, and our growth in Christian stature and grace (I mean,\n    of course, according to God\u2019s ordinary mode of dealing with us, which\n    is what only we have practically to consider;) that these blessings\n    are not given according to a mere inner motion of each man\u2019s heart or\n    mind, but that (of God\u2019s will and commandment, and for our good) they\n    are, I say, in ordinary rule, linked and tied to ordinances: to a\n    certain method of bestowal, and a certain method of reception; to his\n    Church, and to the ministry of his word and sacraments.  In other\n    words, he saves us, not after a manner of each man\u2019s own heart\u2019s\n    devising, _but by covenant_.  If we would have his promises and his\n    grace, we must seek them in the way of, and according to the terms of\n    that covenant.  So it is, we must teach; \u201cExcept any one be born of\n    water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.\u201d\n    By the terms of the covenant: no promise of salvation to the\n    unbaptized!  Again: \u201cExcept ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and\n    drink his blood, ye have no life in you.\u201d  No promise of salvation to\n    the non-communicant!  Again: \u201cWhosesoever sins ye remit, they are\n    remitted unto them; and whosesoever sins ye retain, they are\n    retained;\u201d and, \u201cHe that despiseth you, despiseth me, and he that\n    despiseth me, despiseth him that sent me.\u201d  No warrant, then, to any\n    one to think he has a share in the gospel covenant, if he despise\n    God\u2019s ministry, and forsake his Church.  Without these, _where_ are\n    the valid sacraments?  Without these, _where_ are the channels of\n    saving grace?  Without these, _where_ are the sure promises of the\n    covenant?  Alas! for the hardness of heart and unbelief of this our\n    day, and this our country!  Are such indeed God\u2019s ways? are such his\n    words? are such his works?  (Yea, \u201cHe worketh, and no man\n    regardeth.\u201d)  But is it not written (let us fear, lest it be for\n    _us_), \u201cBehold, ye despisers, and wonder, and perish: for I work a\n    work in your days, a work which ye shall in no wise believe, though a\n    man declare it unto you?\u201d  If God indeed be strict with the\n    despisers,\u2014with those who deride the power of his sacraments, and\n    their necessity,\u2014how shall we abide it?  If he come, and make\n    inquisition with us of our faith, and question with us of our\n    unbelief, shall not some one take up his parable against us as a\n    nation, and say, \u201cAlas! who shall live when God doeth this?\u201d\n\n    For indeed and in truth, if this _be_ truth touching the nature of\n    God\u2019s covenant, _who_ are there among us that believe it?  \u201c_Who_\n    hath believed our report, and to whom is the arm of the Lord\n    revealed?\u201d  To a scanty few, I fear!  Surely, comparatively to no\n    more; even among those who have been baptized into the Church, and\n    received the Church\u2019s teaching.  Let any man try seriously any\n    approach, (which is all I profess to have tried,) any approach to the\n    dealing with a parish upon the belief and system, that of those who\n    are not partakers of the sacraments of the Church\u2014of those who,\n    though baptized, are not communicants, we have no right to hope,\n    according to the terms of the Gospel covenant; and not only how\n    arduous and discouraging a work will he find before him, from the\n    practical neglect of these things, but how direct and open-mouthed\n    will be the opposition of many, and how utter the disbelief of how\n    many more, ay, even among such as call themselves members of the\n    Church.  Alas! the truth is, (let me say it, however sad, however\n    startling! it may be useful,) the real truth is, that the belief of\n    there being a ONE HOLY, CATHOLIC, AND APOSTOLIC CHURCH, is almost\n    gone from among us!  The belief in ONE BAPTISM FOR THE REMISSION OF\n    SINS, is almost gone from among us!  The belief in the REAL POWER OF\n    THE SACRAMENTS is almost gone from among us!  The belief of there\n    being ANY CHRISTIAN PRIESTHOOD, and any _value_ in it, as such, is\n    almost, (nay, among the mass,) quite gone from among us!  Alas! how\n    many of our people do not believe these things; will not endure them\n    to be said; will risk their souls upon the chance of their being\n    false; will sooner condemn the \u201cquod semper, quod ubique, quod ob\n    omnibus\u201d of the Church for 1500 years, as an idle fable, than give\n    the least reception into their hearts of such doctrines.  And alas!\n    even among _us_ ourselves, the Christian ministry, there is, as men\n    phrase it, difference of opinion.  Instead of unity of sentiment,\n    (rather, we should say, the one faith, once delivered,) there is\n    \u201ccontention so sharp\u201d that we all but depart, or do \u201cdepart one from\n    the other:\u201d and this gives the most frequent occasion both for\n    enemies to blaspheme, and for the ignorant to be bewildered.  Instead\n    of our Church (i.e. by her ministers, and in her practical teaching:\n    I speak not of her formularies,) with one mind and one mouth\n    glorifying God, _these_ bring railing accusation the one against the\n    other; and _that_ speaks well-nigh the language of Babel: and the\n    consequence is, as might be expected, the lay people, if pressed with\n    the Church\u2019s doctrines, and the neglect of the Church\u2019s commands,\n    (which are Christ\u2019s) find, of course, an easy solution of their\n    difficulty by observing that many clergymen think otherwise, and\n    attach no importance to these _views_, (as they call them) either\n    wholly neglecting them, or even speaking against them.  And if a man\n    thus pressed with the objection of diversity of opinion now-a-days,\n    and at home, appeal to the concordant sense of the early Church, and\n    to the even now united and distinct voice of separate branches of the\n    Church, on such points as the nature and power of the Christian\n    priesthood, and Christian sacraments: the distinct voice, I say, of\n    all the Church, except ourselves, (for our\u2019s, surely, practically in\n    expression as heard among us, is uncertain and confused, though in\n    itself it really have and bear the Catholic meaning,) if any one thus\n    appeal to the voice of the Church at large on such points; a voice in\n    some respects a more sure witness, as coming from those who are not\n    agreed among themselves in others, what happens but the immediate cry\n    of how many?  \u201cThe man is false, and falleth away to the Chald\u00e6ans.\u201d\n    Thus the truth is stifled and borne down by clamour, and the\n    authority of the Church is yet more set at nought, neglected, and\n    despised.\n\n    Many of those too, it is to be feared, who really are sound and\n    orthodox upon the doctrines themselves, have yet been too fearful of\n    stating the truth plainly, dreading the gainsaying of the multitude,\n    or else the imputation of magnifying themselves, if they should\n    endeavour to \u201cmagnify their office.\u201d  Nor, I suppose, will any man\n    maintain (not I myself _of_ myself, God knoweth,) that he has kept\n    clear of such offence, though he may have tried somewhat where his\n    lot has been cast, to make these doctrines of the Church and\n    sacraments, and salvation by the terms of a covenant, not according\n    to each man\u2019s private feeling, or each man\u2019s private judgment, the\n    basis on which to give the knowledge that might \u201cmake wise unto\n    salvation.\u201d  Yet _who_ will dare to say other than that he has failed\n    grievously, and fallen short miserably, both in the due development\n    of such views, and in the effects which they are intended to produce:\n    partly, no doubt, from his own deficiencies, but partly it may be\n    also from lack of those weapons to carry on the warfare with which\n    the Church intended to supply her soldiers; but which, alas! we are\n    hardly allowed to wield!\n\n    For, let us notice next, the most serious loss the Church sustains in\n    the almost total suspension of her discipline, of her power of\n    inflicting censures.  Surely it is not wholly our people\u2019s fault that\n    they do not know the sinfulness of sin; nor our ministers\u2019 fault that\n    they cannot make them believe it, when the weapon with which they\n    should smite they are obliged to leave rusting in the scabbard, and\n    the pen with which they should write on a man\u2019s forehead the penalty\n    of his sin, (that he is excluded from the house of God, and cut off\n    from Christian brotherhood,) is cast aside, and never used.  Our\n    people sin, and no note is taken of it!  Our people sin, and the\n    Church does not bear her witness against them! first, of private\n    rebuke, next of openly censuring, and lastly of exclusion from her\n    worship and sacraments, including herein (what would be a plain mark\n    also for the living to see,) the refusing burial to those who refuse\n    to seek reconciliation with her.  She almost abdicates, as it were,\n    her office of binding and loosing, and shall we wonder that men know\n    not or care not whether they are bond or free? or, that with all ease\n    and security they consider they are all free, though committing sin,\n    which, in any period of effective discipline, would have received the\n    solemn warning and most sure witness to its sinfulness, of\n    excommunication.  And how again, I say, does this work upon our\n    familiar intercourse and daily teaching, and attempts to make our\n    people believe the Church\u2019s doctrines?  They regard not what we say,\n    because we act as though we did not ourselves believe it.  Those who\n    _would_ be excommunicate, were the canons but in half their measure\n    carried out, who die perchance in open schism, or other notorious\n    sin, _have_ yet claimed for them the offices of the Church in their\n    burial, and so, receiving these, the great witness of the Church\n    against such courses of living, is rendered nugatory, or even worse.\n    She even seems to witness _for_ them.  How, then, shall the mass of\n    the careless and self-willed, be persuaded the Church thinks ill of\n    the state in which those have lived, who have received no public\n    censure, who have made their claim, and had it, at least passively\n    allowed, to be buried, as her faithful children?  Further still,\n    regard this lack of discipline, as it affects the obedience of the\n    people to the Church\u2019s voice, if she speak, or were to speak again,\n    with her just authority.  _Who_ supposes that any real heed would be\n    given to a censure of the Church, declaring such or such a man to be\n    \u201crightly cut off\u201d from its fellowship, \u201cand excommunicate,\u201d so that\n    he \u201cought to be taken of the whole multitude of the faithful as an\n    heathen man, and a publican, until he be openly reconciled by\n    penance?\u201d  _Who_, I say, supposes that such a sentence would now be\n    regarded?  _Are_ such indeed regarded when rarely they _do_ occur?\n\n    Or, again, look at the state of things among us, as to the confession\n    of sin; I speak not of regular systematic confession; nor of\n    self-sought confessions on the part of a disturbed and awakened mind,\n    with the view to the benefit of absolution, together with ghostly\n    counsel and advice; but merely with regard to such points as the\n    Christian priest feels it often necessary to enquire into, lest a man\n    _wholly forget his sins_, and so, _wholly forget to repent of them_.\n    What is the awful result at which we arrive here also.  Why, so\n    entirely are people unused to be charged with their sins; so entirely\n    are they accustomed to be let _remember_ what they please, and let\n    _forget_ what they please, that they are only too apt consider all\n    such helps to self-examination (I mean when it comes to particulars)\n    to be an unwarrantable intrusion: at least this would be so, were the\n    thing much attempted: and at any rate, so wholly are they used to\n    justify themselves, and bent upon doing it, and determined to do it,\n    that it sometimes requires the greatest caution and circumspection\n    before we can believe even a dying man\u2019s account of his previous\n    life.  Men will confess indeed what is notorious; what they know is\n    known; but where they think a matter hidden, there they will deceive.\n    Alas! I fear, people will speak untruly, even when spoken to most\n    solemnly on such points.  They will speak untruly to God\u2019s minister.\n    They will speak untruly to him on their sick bed.  They will speak\n    untruly even on their death-bed.  They will speak untruly, I fear,\n    even when _they know_ it is their death-bed.  They will desire to\n    receive the Holy Communion, without having spoken the truth, but\n    whilst persisting in their lie.  I do not say such extreme things are\n    common, or wholly attributable to any condition of want of\n    discipline, but I am certain they exist, and I do fear they are much\n    owing to our having no system of discipline, by which in health,\n    persons are made aware, that the priest of God is in any wise to be\n    had recourse to, as an adviser, and ghostly counseller, or that he\n    has any thing to do with their sins, or practically with the mode of\n    remitting them in the name of God.  So the fear and shame attendant\n    on speaking to any one whom they have never considered in his true\n    relation to their sin, and to their souls, and with whom, it may be,\n    they have always had the natural desire to stand well, as with other\n    respectable persons in their parish; these things overpower all other\n    considerations, even in sickness and in death; and we not only very\n    scantily attain to true accounts, but have hardly even the power to\n    keep back from communion those who we may feel sure are thus\n    attempting to deceive us.\n\n    Now I think it is plain, these defects rest not entirely (surely we\n    may say, not chiefly) on individuals.  What is, as a nation, our\n    great reproach, is, as individuals, our best excuse.  The fault lies\n    in our system: in that practically worked and working system which we\n    have among us.  We have well-nigh no weapons to fight with\u2014and we\n    wonder that we gain no victory.  We have no means to make people\n    believe the Church system, as it exists in theory, is true, or is\n    important, and we wonder men neglect the sacraments.  We cannot\n    grapple with the wants of our people;\u2014hardly with the cravings of the\n    earnest-minded on the one hand, and not at all adequately with the\n    mass of irreligion, infidelity, and schismatical proceeding on the\n    other.\n\n    These are but a few thoughts, on a small part, of a most large and\n    painful subject.\n\n    But truly, \u201cenough,\u201d it may be said, \u201cwe have of [ministerial] trials\n    and discouragements.  Every one knows it.  To what end then, merely\n    to enumerate, and bewail them?  Where, rather is the remedy; and what\n    is the drift of these observations?\u201d\n\n    I will very briefly address myself to this point, before I conclude.\n\n    First, then, surely, these things being so: it is well to know them.\n    If they are so, we have need of _patience_, but surely we have need\n    also of _fear_.  In the days of Jehoiachim, King of Judah, when\n    iniquity abounded, and wickedness came to that pass, that the Word of\n    the Prophet\u2019s Roll, was not honoured, but \u201ccut with the penknife,\u201d\n    and \u201cburned in the fire,\u201d what was even the additional sign of the\n    hardness of heart then prevailing?  When this was done, \u201c_yet they\n    were not afraid_, nor rent their garments: neither the king, nor any\n    of his servants that heard all these words.\u201d  The utmost that was\n    done was only this:\u2014that \u201cElnathan, and Delaiah, and Gemariah, made\n    intercession to the king, that he would not burn the Roll, but he\n    would not hear them.\u201d  And, if now in our day our evil state be such,\n    that, as I have said, if we do not discard, yet we much disbelieve\n    God\u2019s teaching; following any teacher of heresy or schism, whom we\n    please, or following just the rule of our own private spirits; if\n    thus doing, we have lost practically from among us, that is, from\n    among the great bulk of our people, the belief of there being any\n    Christian priesthood: the true doctrine of the nature, power, and\n    importance of the sacraments: (I speak not of places where, under\n    peculiarly advantageous circumstances, Catholic truth has been more\n    closely brought home, but of the general state, if you \u201cnumbered the\n    people\u201d throughout the land, in our dense city populations and\n    crowded manufacturing towns; nay, in our wild rural districts and\n    sequestered villages also,) if throughout the country generally our\n    evil state be such, that not one in a hundred of our population ever\n    dreams of coming to communion; if, again, when we, as God\u2019s\n    ministers; press upon them their duties, and privileges in such\n    matters, speaking plainly, boldly, and without circumlocution the\n    Church\u2019s language; if then \u201cbye and bye they are offended;\u201d if, being\n    offended, they will, as it were, excommunicate themselves, _and think\n    nothing of it_; if, indeed, we seem to be living especially in that\n    time and place where men \u201cwill not endure sound doctrine,\u201d surely\n    there is need _of fear_! yet, for all this, _where_ are our fears?\n    _where_ are our lamentations? _where_ are the signs of our\n    repentings!  Nay, on the contrary, we have _not_ feared; we have\n    _not_ mourned; we have _not_ humbled ourselves; rather we have\n    boasted, and been puffed up, as if we were better than our\n    neighbours!  Oh! I ask again, where indeed are our prayers; where our\n    sorrows; where our fastings, for the sin and misery of our state?\n    Where are our \u201csupplications offered up with strong cryings and tears\n    unto him that is able to save us,\u201d with the hope \u201cthat we may be\n    heard _in that we fear_.\u201d  \u201cMine eye runneth down with rivers of\n    water,\u201d says the prophet, \u201cfor the destruction of the daughter of my\n    people.\u201d  \u201cOh! that my head were waters,\u201d he says again, \u201cand mine\n    eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the\n    slain of the daughter of my people.\u201d  But, alas! is it _so_ with us?\n    Rather is it not\u2014that we are _not_ humbled: we are _not_ ashamed: we\n    are _not_ alarmed.  We are in evil case, but we see it not.  We are\n    in awful blindness; and yet _so_ blinded, we find not our want of\n    eyes.  We are dull and heavy with sleep, yet _so_ inapprehensive,\n    that we think ourselves in light and vigour: we cannot see the signs\n    of woe, nor hear the sounds of warning!\n\n    And where are our means or hope of our remedy?  The remedy for such a\n    state of things?  _Surely_, _if any where_, _first_, _in being\n    awakened_, _next in humiliation_, _and then in patience_.  We \u201chave\n    need of patience,\u201d and all other things will fail without it.  But\n    with humility, and with patience there may be hope; \u201ca hope that\n    maketh not ashamed.\u201d  Oh! if we seek God rightly, \u201csurely there must\n    be hope in thine end, that thy children shall come again to their own\n    border,\u201d as saith the prophet.\n\n    If I humbly may, without going through other hopes, or ways of\n    remedy, however nearer, more immediate, and more depending upon\n    ourselves, (such for instance as the remedies that might come from\n    the godly gathering together again of the Church\u2019s National Synod);\n    without dwelling upon such topics, I will direct your thoughts to one\n    source of consolation and hope of remedy yet wider, more general, and\n    more complete; more powerful and direct (if ever it please God to\n    grant it us) than any other means, to salve our wounds, and restore\n    the efficiency of our Church\u2019s working for the salvation of souls.\n    Surely there may be hope to heal our distractions, and to restore\n    true faith and doctrine among us, (nay, even to do _more_ than this,)\n    by a general council of the Church, if it please God to allow such to\n    be again assembled.  I know not what should forbid the hope.  A\n    general council of Christendom, East and West together might do such\n    things for us, that \u201cthen should our mouth be filled with laughter,\n    and our tongue with joy;\u201d till it should \u201cbe told out among the\n    heathen, the Lord hath done great things for them whereof they may\u201d\n    well \u201crejoice.\u201d\n\n    Why should we not pray, and hope, that universal Christendom might\n    meet again in council.  I do not mean now, at once.  I fear we are\n    not fit for such a council, if it came.  We should refuse to submit\n    to it.  We should despise its authority; and too probably, at once\n    repudiate its decrees.  If it were to come so, and we _so_ to receive\n    it, we might only be filling up the measure of our iniquity.  But,\n    _if_ we prepare for it, God may give it us, when we can receive it in\n    a better temper.  If we prepare for it, hoping for it, longing for\n    it, and being ready to submit rightly, and give due weight to it, God\n    may make it our remedy, and the healing of all our distractions,\n    heart-burnings, and disorders.  We may become again a united people\n    among ourselves: or even if all the nation _will_ not be re-absorbed\n    into the Church, yet we who are of the Church may be again of one\n    mind, and _re-union in Christendom might follow_!  Oh! if this were\n    so indeed, \u201cwho should express the noble acts of the Lord, or shew\n    forth all his praise?\u201d  \u201cThen,\u201d indeed, \u201cshould the earth bring forth\n    her increase, and God, even our own God should give us his blessing.\n    God should bless us, and all the ends of the world should fear him!\u201d\n    Oh! then, let him who would deserve well of the Church of England,\n    pray yet for such a day; and set forward constantly and continually\n    the mind and temper which shall first long for, and next be prepared\n    for, such a council.  The temper which would not presumptuously\n    reject, but gladly accept such appeal to smooth our differences and\n    sharp contentions, is perhaps our best defence against the danger, or\n    the charge of schism; and when we are in such a mind, let us not\n    fear, but rather let us humbly hope, that the general council will\n    come.  Nay, be not impatient: be content to wait for years upon\n    years, seeking to grow towards it, in love, and preparation for it.\n    Perchance it would be of the Lord, even were it now ordered by\n    authority that one day weekly, besides the Church\u2019s continued rule of\n    a weekly fast, should be set apart; (and gladly by many would it be\n    observed) as a day of humiliation, and of prayer: if it were\n    appointed, for seven, for fourteen, nay, for forty years, (it may be\n    needful a generation should pass away, as was the case in those that\n    came up out of Egypt;) whilst we earnestly continued to supplicate\n    and beseech our God that it might please him thus to grant us peace\n    and consolation: that what we lack might be restored to us, even \u201cthe\n    years which the locust, and the caterpillar, and the canker-worm have\n    eaten;\u201d a renewed strength, a good courage, a sound discipline, a\n    believing heart; surely all things are possible with him, \u201cHe bloweth\n    with his wind, and the waters flow.\u201d  To HIM let us pray, and in HIM\n    let us trust, who can \u201crenew our strength as eagles:\u201d who is \u201cmighty\n    to save:\u201d \u201cwho only doeth wondrous things:\u201d who can \u201cmake a way under\n    us for to go,\u201d even when there seemeth no path, and disentangle all\n    the knots, even of men\u2019s evil hearts, and evil passions.  But \u201c_we\n    have need of patience_.\u201d  \u201cLet us run _with patience_ the race that\n    is set before us.\u201d  \u201c_In our patience_ possess we our souls.\u201d  In\n    this spirit, therefore, let us then thank God, and hope in God, and\n    proceed upon our way!\n\n                                * * * * *\n\n                                  FINIS.\n\n                                * * * * *\n\n                                * * * * *\n\n                        C. Whittingham, Chiswick.\n\n\n\n\nFOOTNOTES.\n\n\n{6}  Second Letter, p. 4.\n\n{8}  The above was written several weeks before Mr. Maskell took the\nfinal step which he has since taken.  Possibly many will point to this,\nand wonder at my blind credulity, as it will seem to them.  But, I\nneither cancel, nor wish to cancel, any part of my remarks.  All I will\nventure to do, is to add (and I trust I shall have Mr. Maskell\u2019s\nforgiveness, under these peculiar circumstances, for quoting from a\nprivate letter) one or two extracts which may perhaps help to justify\nwhat I have said, and do him at the same time no wrong.  In a letter to\nme, bearing date, \u201cEaster Eve, 1850,\u201d not long before the publication of\nthe \u201cSecond Letter,\u201d he says\u2014\u201cI wish, for my own present comfort, that I\nhad your _now_ faith, hope, trust and determination; but I have _not_\u2014yet\nlet me think that we may yet be, as we ever have been, true friends; you\nwill not repudiate me, even if I do find that for a while we must be\nseparate in communion; for you will know, surely, that I am not one who\n\u2018would change his faith like a garment unsuited to the clime in which he\ndwells.\u2019 . . .  All this is sad enough\u2014sad for it will break up many ties\nnear and very dear. . . .  Well! it is God\u2019s will\u2014now one, now another;\nhere a few; there many: as He sees fit, so He calls, and so we _ought_ to\nobey. . . .  I am very, very sad: sad especially, because of seeming to\ndesert and forsake one acting so nobly and so bravely as my Bishop.  _He_\nhas no doubt about the Church of England: yet _I_ know that, at whatever\ncost and pain, God\u2019s truth alone must be fought for.  Yet for all this,\ndo not conclude that I have _decided_:\u2014only, you will be prepared to know\nthat the first step has been taken, I mean resignation\u2014and with it my\nsecond letter. . . .  Pray do not judge me harshly. . . .  What an\nEaster! yet one day there will be the rising of the morning of the\nresurrection: may God grant to you and me, and all whom we love, so to do\nour duty here towards him, and to his Church, and to the faith, that we\nmay be _glad_ to look upon the brightness of those beams.  Here all seems\ntrouble and anxiety and fear; sorrows, and regret, and parting.  I have\nhad sorrows before this: scarcely any, nay NONE, (_can_ it be true?) more\nbitter.  There is now responsibility; before, endurance only.  God ever\nbless you, my dear Friend, ever yours affectionately\u2014W. M.\u201d  And in a\nletter somewhat later, written I believe on my first intimating my\nintention to publish a second letter to him: he says\u2014\u201cClear up these\ndoubts; not one or two, but generally the subject of the dogmatic\nteaching; say, especially, with reference to justification and the Holy\nEucharist, and no man will bless you more fervently than I shall.\u201d  Those\nwho do not know Mr. Maskell may judge him hardly.  I trust I shall never\nhave that guilt upon my conscience, however I differ from him, or combat\nhis conclusions.  And perhaps some even of those who may have been least\nindulgent to him heretofore, will not now so much question my remarks,\nand may possibly believe I know him at least as well as they do.\n\n{10}  Second Letter, p., 77.\n\n{12}  Second Letter, App., p., 85.\n\n{13}  Second Letter, App., pp., 85, 86.\n\n{14a}  Letter to Maskell, p. 7.\n\n{14b}  Ibid. pp. 14, 15.\n\n{15}  See Appendix A.\n\n{18}  Second Letter, pp. 78, 79.\n\n{20}  Second Letter, p. 19, note; p. 75.\n\n{21}  Judgment of the Privy Council, p. 18.\n\n{22a}  Judgment of the Privy Council, p. 18.\n\n{22b}  Appendix B.\n\n{23}  Lord Campbell\u2019s first letter to Miss Sellon, Guardian, April 17th.\n\n{24}  Lord Campbell in his second letter to Miss Sellon, (Guardian, Ap.\n17,) has these words, which are likewise remarkable.  \u201cNo reproach can be\nbrought upon her (the Church of England) by a misconstruction of her\narticles and formularies; and it must be a very slight reproach to her if\nshe has omitted to denounce one false doctrine as heretical, considering\nthat no Christian Church has professed to settle dogmatically all points\nof doctrine.\u201d  The beginning of this sentence is a tolerably bold\nassumption, I think, unless Lord Campbell will allow a few words to be\nsupplied, to explain what I trust he will feel to be an omission; that no\nreproach will come upon her, by a misconstruction of her formularies, by\nthat court, _if only with all her heart and soul_, _she set herself to\ncorrect it_, _and cast the misconstruction from her_: but the latter part\nof the above quotation seems to admit of no palliation by any possible\naddition, and is surely a most marvellous slip for a mind of any\nacuteness to have made.  \u201c_A very slight reproach_,\u201d Lord Campbell says\nit must be, \u201c_to have omitted to denounce one false doctrine as\nheretical_;\u201d without apparently a single thought as to _what_ the\ndoctrine in question may be.  That it is an article of the creed which is\nexpunged, and therefore denied, appears never to have crossed his\nLordship\u2019s mind, as worthy of the slightest consideration.  \u201cIt is _but\none_ doctrine out of many:\u2014reckon them up by tale, and you will never\nmiss _one_:\u2014no Churches settle _everything_:\u2014why then so uneasy?\u201d  What\nhope, what possible chance that a mind constituted so as to be _able_ to\nwrite such a sentence, can ever have appreciated, or believed, or\nunderstood, the meaning or importance of dogmatic teaching at all.  Had\nhe lived in the time of the Arian controversy, could the writer of the\nabove sentence have believed it was possible any matter of moment was, or\ncould be, involved in so minute a distinction as in the two letters of\nthe \u1f41\u03bc\u03bf\u03bf\u03cd\u03c3\u03b9\u03bf\u03bd, that it _could_ be worth the toil of Athanasius\u2019s life, to\ncontend for so slight a point? and repay all the labours and persecutions\nof a host of saints to win it? and in truth Lord Campbell\u2019s method of\narguing, or consolation to an afflicted Church, would apply just as much,\nhad it been the doctrine of the atonement, or of the divinity of the Son\nof God, which had been brought in question by Mr. Gorham\u2019s examination.\n\u201cNo need to settle every thing.  So _one_ open question can be no great\nmatter, and no great reproach!\u201d\n\n{27a}  Judgment, p. 8.\n\n{27b}  Judgment, p. 9.\n\n{28a}  Bp. of Exeter\u2019s Letter, p. 52.\n\n{28b}  Efficacy of Baptism, p. 85.\n\n{28c}  P. 88.\n\n{28d}  P. 112.\n\n{28e} P. 113.\n\n{29}   P. 197.\n\n{30a}  Judgment, p. 14.\n\n{30b}  Ibid. 14.\n\n{31}  A letter in the Guardian, of March 13th, signed \u201cSolicitus,\u201d has\nplaced this statement in a very intelligible point of view.  As it is\nbrief I will venture to quote it.\n\n    \u201cIt has been asserted by the Privy Council that the baptismal and\n    burial offices are parallel cases:\u2014we _hope_ that the child is\n    regenerate: we _hope_ the dead brother is to rise to eternal life?\n\n    \u201cBut are the cases parallel?  Is it not a notorious fact, that at the\n    Savoy Conference in consequence of the Puritan objections, the words\n    \u2018in sure and certain hope of resurrection to eternal life\u2019 were\n    altered into \u2018in sure and certain hope of _the_\u2019 (i.e. the general)\n    \u2018resurrection to eternal life.\u2019  And on the other hand when the words\n    \u2018it hath pleased thee to regenerate this infant by thy Holy Spirit,\u2019\n    were objected to by the same parties (on the ground that the\n    \u2018regeneration of every child that is baptised,\u2019 is at least\u2019 a\n    \u2018disputable point,\u2019) no alteration was made.  How came this to pass?\n    Surely the Church of England wanted to show that her language with\n    regard to the dead was only that of charitable hope; but that she\n    held the doctrine of regeneration in baptism absolutely and without\n    qualification.\u2014Yours, faithfully,\n\n                                                              \u201cSOLICITUS.\u201d\n\nAs I have said, the notion of the general resurrection being the object\nof the hope alluded to, appears never to have presented itself to the\nmind of the Court.  If it did not; where was their ability?  If it did;\nwhere their honesty; so entirely to suppress all mention of it, and\n_force_ this service to one construction only, in order to open the door\nto many constructions in another?\n\n{33}  Faery Queen, Book I. C. IX. St. 43.\n\n{34a}  See Appendix C.\n\n{34b}  Judgment of Sir H. J. Fust, p. 48.\n\n{34c}  Office for Private Baptism of Infants.\n\n{35a}  Office for Private Baptism of Infants.  See also Appendix D.\n\n{35b}  Badeley\u2019s Speech, pp. 58, 59.\n\n{36a}  Judgment, p. 16.\n\n{36b}  Ibid.\n\n{37a}  See Bishop of Exeter\u2019s Letter, p. 88.\n\n{37b}  Judgment, p. 17.\n\n{38}  Judgment, p. 17.\n\n{40}  Rubric in Office for private Baptism.\n\n{42}  It is obvious, _sanctified_, or _hath sanctified_ would not express\nthe sense intended; just as the Holy Ghost who _comforted_, or _hath\ncomforted_, would not convey the meaning of the words \u201c_The Holy Ghost_\u201d\n(who is,) \u201c_the Comforter_.\u201d\n\n{46}  \u201cIn any ordinary set of circumstances, in the case of an enclosure,\nof a railway or matter of property, we should have no question whatever\nthat the doubt of any one on the bench would have made further enquiry\ndesirable.  I should instantly have agreed, &c.\u201d  Lord Denman\u2019s judgement\nin the Hampden case; Report of the Case of the Right Rev. R. D. Hampden,\nD.D. by R. Jebb, Esq. p. 495.  See also Appendix E.\n\n{48}  Appendix F.\n\n{50}  Maskell on Absolution, p. 49.\n\n{51}  Maskell\u2019s Doctrine of Absolution, pp. 49, 50.\n\n{52}  Maskell\u2019s Doctrine of Absolution, pp. 50, 51.\n\n{54}  Maskell\u2019s Second Letter, pp. 41, 42.\n\n{59a}  It may be worth while to observe here also how entirely this\nprinciple is acknowledged in the foundations of English law.  I should\nindeed soon get beyond my depth, were I to attempt an analysis of this\npart of the subject; but I gladly avail myself of the labours of another\nwhose pen and legal knowledge the present crisis has put in motion, to\nbring into juxtaposition with my own observations, one or two of the\nacknowledged maxims by which the construction of legal documents among us\nis governed.  Mr. Chambers, {59b} in his recent letter to the Bishop of\nSalisbury, has several times referred to this subject.  Thus he quotes\nMr. Dwarris (himself quoting Lord Coke):\u2014\n\n    \u201cTo know what the common law was before the making of a statute,\n    whereby it may be seen whether the statute be introductory of a new\n    law, or only affirmatory of the common law, is the very lock and key\n    to open the windows of the statute.  For it is not to be presumed\n    that the Legislature intended to make any innovation upon the common\n    law further than the case absolutely required; the law rather infers\n    _that the act did not intend to make any alteration other than what\n    is specified_, _and beside what has been plainly pronounced_: for if\n    the Parliament had had that design, _it is naturally said they would\n    have expressed it_.\u201d {60a}\n\nIt appears to me that in some sense, i.e. in reference, at any rate, to\nposterior legislation, _the pre-reformation doctrines_ may be called the\n_common law_ of our Church; and if so, we shall readily see the analogy\nof the civil law, and the authoritative declaration of its rule of\nconstruction of statutes, is, that no alteration is made by subsequent\nenactments, _but what is specified_, or _beside what is plainly\npronounced_;\u2014that is to say, what is not \u201copenly, plainly, and\ndogmatically\u201d altered, remains as it was before.  To the same purpose\nexactly Mr. Chambers adds another passage, stating again \u201cthe canon of\nconstruction appropriate to statutes,\u201d and again quoting Mr. Dwarris:\u2014\n\n    \u201cAffirmative words do not take away the common law, former custom, or\n    a former statute.\u201d {60b}\n\nAnd again, a little further on, citing further authorities:\u2014\n\n\u201cWhen particular words are followed by general ones, the latter are to be\nheld as applying to persons and things of the same kind only which\nprecede,\u201d {61a} so that \u201cif a particular thing be given or limited in the\npreceding parts of a statute this shall not be altered by the subsequent\ngeneral words of the same statute;\u201d {61b} an observation surely of much\nweight to show how definitely any part of a statute must be examined, and\nhow directly mentioned in order to its repeal, according to the usage of\nEnglish law.  Once more, to quote but one further passage to the same\neffect:\u2014\n\n    \u201cUnless the intention be apparent for that purpose, the general words\n    of another and later statute shall not repeal the provisions of a\n    former one.\u201d {61c}\n\nSuch is the testimony from rules of English law to the principles I\ndesire to maintain, that the pre-reformation dogmatic teaching remains to\nus, except where it has been \u201copenly, plainly, and dogmatically\u201d\nrepealed.\n\nI need hardly say, these extracts very inadequately represent the force\nof Mr. Chambers\u2019s argument.  A reference to the pamphlet itself will well\nrepay the trouble.\n\n{59b}  A Review of the Gorham Case, by John David Chambers, M.A. Recorder\nof New Sarum.\n\n{60a}  Chambers\u2019 Review, pp. 23, 24.  Lord Coke, 2 Ins. 30; 3 Rep. 31,\nper Dwarris, 564.\n\n{60b}  Chambers, p. 34.  Dwarris, 605.\n\n{61a}  Chambers, p. 44.  Sandeman v. Breach, 7 B. and C. 96.\n\n{61b}  Ibid.  Stanton v. University of Oxford, 1 Jon. 26.\n\n{61c}  Ibid. p. 45.  Gregory\u2019s Ca. 6 Rep. 196; Dwarris, 514.\n\n{63}  Speech of Edward Badeley, Esq. pp. 95\u201397.\n\n{64}  Badeley, p. 99.\n\n{66a}  Badeley\u2019s Speech, pp. 101, 102.\n\n{66b}  Ibid. p. 102.\n\n{69}  The objection to be drawn from the sentence of the court in the\ncase in question, with reference to Mr. Badeley\u2019s argument from\nantiquity, and the teaching of the Church previous to the reformation, is\neven of less real weight than I have here implied; because that court\ndoes not appear at all to have applied itself to the principle for which\nMr. Badeley contended.  It seems rather to have forgotten its existence,\nthan seriously to have examined and condemned it; and though it may be\nsaid, perhaps, that such passing it over affords a _presumption_ of its\nunsoundness, yet this, I think, is _all_ that can be made out of its\ntreatment by that tribunal.  Whatever, therefore, be the _presumption_,\nit is _certainly no proof_ and no _sentence_ as to the unsoundness of the\nposition taken up by Mr. Badeley even for the purpose of the particular\ncase, much less of its unsoundness generally.  So many other causes may\nbe conceived to have operated upon the Judges\u2019 minds in coming to the\nconclusion they did; for instance, they _may have_ admitted Mr. Badeley\u2019s\nprinciple, but thought the doctrine in question, as maintained by the\nBishop of Exeter, was not sufficiently identified with the universal\nteaching of the Church; or that that very teaching was itself vague; or\nthat posterior documents of the English Church absolutely contradicted\nthe earlier doctrine; (however improbable, such reasons are conceivable\nas influencing the actual decision;) and thus we are not warranted in\nsupposing there is any sentence unfavourable to the soundness of Mr.\nBadeley\u2019s principle of catholic tradition, by the proceedings of this\ncourt of appeal in reference to it.\n\nI am persuaded no lawyer will contradict what I have here said, as to\nsecular affairs, and I see no reason why the same measure should not be\ndealt forth in causes ecclesiastical and spiritual.  I mean, that no\nlawyer will contradict the principle, that because a certain argument or\nline of defence has not been taken into consideration, or not admitted as\nconclusive upon the side on which it is advanced in any given instance,\nit should be looked upon as judicially condemned, or not be used again if\noccasion should arise.  If even the reasons of a court of law on which it\nfounds its sentence are really no formal part of the judgment, much less\ncan the mere overlooking or ignoring a particular line of argument,\ndisable or disfranchise that line of argument, so as to render it for\never unavailable.\n\n{71}  Eccles. Polity, book viii. ch. ii. \u00a7 17, vol. iii. pp. 447\u20138,\nKeble\u2019s Edit.  See also Appendix G.\n\n{75}  Coke\u2019s 4th Inst. p. 323.\n\n{76}  25 Henry VIII. c. 19, \u00a7 7.\n\n{78a}  This, however, in the particular case, is an almost impossible\nsupposition, because it was from the petition of the clergy themselves,\nhowever obtained, that the scheme emanated, and in accordance with its\nprayer that this board of two-and-thirty persons was to be appointed.  25\nHenry VIII. c. 19, s. 1.  See also Gladstone\u2019s Letter to the Bishop of\nLondon, p. 9.\n\n{78b}  Gladstone, p. 9.\n\n{78c}  Ibid. p. 62.\n\n{82}  Badeley, p. 99.\n\n{87}  See p. 19.\n\n{89}  Second Letter, p. 42.\n\n{90a}  Second Letter, p. 57.\n\n{90b}  Ibid. p. 61.\n\n{91}  Second Letter, p. 63.\n\n{92a}  Second Letter, p. 72.\n\n{92b}  \u201cAs regards the Church of England in particular, it may be that\nthe so-called reformation contained\u2014perhaps unknown to the original\npromoters of it\u2014poisonous seeds of evil, bringing in certain though slow\ndecay; and that either new principles were then secretly established,\nwhich in their development would most surely lead to the destruction and\nconfusion of essential truths, or old principles were, in ignorance,\ngiven up, which the gradual course of time would prove to be necessary,\nbecause they lie at the very foundation of Christianity itself.  Or, once\nmore, it may be with portions of the Church Catholic as with the vine,\nher mysterious type.  \u2018I am the vine, ye are the branches,\u2019 were the\nwords of our Blessed Lord, speaking of His body, the Church, of which he\nis himself the Head.  And we may well conceive how a branch, full of sap\nand vigour, may be severed from the stem, and yet for a period\u2014longer or\nshorter\u2014still continue to put forth leaves, and perhaps the blossoms of\nfruit also; nevertheless, cut off all the while, and severed; requiring\ntime to die, but death itself inevitable at last.\u201d\u2014Second Letter, pp. 72,\n73.\n\n{101}  Maskell\u2019s Doctrine of Absolution, p. 291.\n\n{102}  Letter, p. 16.\n\n{105a}  Letter in Guardian, March 20th, 1850.\n\n{105b}  Guardian, May 8th, 1850.\n\n{106}  Bishop of Exeter\u2019s Letter, p. 90.  I am not unaware that Mr. Keble\nhas recently further explained his views on this matter in a second\nnumber of his \u201cChurch Matters in 1850;\u201d and of course I am not forgetful\nthat the Bishop of Exeter has repeated his protest and declaration on the\npoint: but as these authorities serve only to confirm and strengthen the\nsubstance of what I had previously noted down, I do not see any occasion\nto withdraw or alter it.\n\n{112}  It may be useful to observe here, that nothing affecting our\nChurch at large seems to me to result from the correspondence published\nin May last, between the Archbishop and Mr. Maskell.  However\nunsatisfactory the answers given by the Archbishop to Mr. Maskell\u2019s\nqueries may be deemed, they do not, as it appears to me, commit the\n_Church of England_ to anything, but _himself_ only.  I cannot but think\nhis Grace is quite right when he says he cannot be understood, in an\nunofficial correspondence of that kind, to speak for the Church, but only\nfor himself.  Therefore, however his answers may serve as evidence of his\nown opinion, and be a help in determining how far he stands committed to\nhaving, personally, little or no dogmatic teaching on the subjects\nbrought under his notice by Mr. Maskell; however, therefore, those\nanswers may be valuable in the settlement of the question whether we are\nmorally bound to withdraw from communion with his Grace, they prove\nnothing as to our Church at large, and can commit her to nothing unless\naccepted, confirmed, and adopted by herself; that is to say, they have no\nbearing at all in reference to the argument of this letter, and being\nunauthoritative statements, are no refutation of any proofs I may have\ngiven of our rule of dogmatic teaching.  If the intentions of our\nreformers are not to be taken as evidence of the meaning of our various\nformularies, much less the construction of them by an individual\narchbishop.\n\n{116}  Neale\u2019s Few Words of Hope, p. 22.\n\n{120}  No doubt there are persons whose habitual view is so absorbed in\nthe majesty of human law, that they appear to forget there is any higher\nlaw with which we have to do.  \u201cSir, I have had the honour to receive\nyour letter, in which you intimate to me your intention of violating the\nlaw,\u201d was an answer of some celebrity in its day.  Perchance the question\nhad not presented itself to the writer\u2019s mind,\n\n          \u201cWhat law is that?\n    \u2019Tis not the law of God, nor yet _above_ it.\u201d\n\n{122}  Convocations and Synods, by an Anglican Layman, p. 6.\n\n{124}  Convocations and Synods, p. 11\u201314.\n\n{125a}  Archdeacon Manning\u2019s Letter, p. 23.\n\n{125b}  Ibid. p. 41.\n\n{126}  Manning, p. 23.\n\n{127}  Bramhall\u2019s Works, p. 141.  See also Manning\u2019s Sermon on the Rule\nof Faith.\n\n    \u201cThe Church of England so far from submitting either the rule, or her\n    decisions according to the rule, to the judgment of her individual\n    members, will not submit them even to the judgment of particular\n    Churches, or to any tribunal less than that to which all particular\n    churches are subject, that is, a general council, of which either the\n    members shall truly _represent_ the Church Catholic, or the decrees\n    be universally _received_. * *\n\n    \u201cWe therefore no more submit the doctrinal decisions of the Church to\n    the judgment of individual minds, than the canon of Scripture itself.\n    We do acknowledge an authority higher than either the Church of\n    England, or of Rome in particular.  What hinders an appeal to that\n    tribunal, Dr. Wiseman knows as well as we.  But if such a council,\n    truly general, freely assembled, should meet to-morrow, the rule of\n    its decisions would be, \u2018non sua posteris tradere, sed a majoribus\n    accepta servare.\u2019\u201d\u2014Pp. 25, 26, note.\n\n{128}  See Appendix H.\n\n{131}  Second Letter, p. 80.","title":"A Second Letter to the Rev. William Maskell, M.A.: Some thoughts on the position of the Church of England, as to her dogmatic teaching","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":46841}