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THE OLD CHURCH;
WHAT SHALL WE DO WITH IT?
BY
THOMAS HUGHES, Q.C.,
AUTHOR OF *TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL DAYS.
TO
THE RIGHT HON. W. E. FORSTER. M.R
TO ALL OTHER ENGLISHMEN AND WOMEN,
WHO, WHILE DISSENTING FROM THE PUBLIC EXPRESSION OF THE
NATIONAL FAITH AS EMBODIED IN THE
NATIONAL CHURCH,
ARE YET UNWILLING THAT ENGLAND SHALL, AS A NATION,
ABANDON THE MOST SACRED OF ALL THE MISSIONS
ENTRUSTED TO HER.
IN ALL GOODWILL AND MUCH SYMPATHY BY
THE AUTHOR.
370
CONTENTS.
•0*
PAGE
I. — How THE Question Stands i
II. — Advantages of a Public Church .... 23
III. — Established and Voluntary Churches in
Contrast . 39
IV. — The Condition and Prospects of the
Church of England ....... 79
v.— The great Experiment of the pure Volun-
tary System . . . . • in
VI. — To a Church Union 141
VII. — Conservatism of Clergy, etc 164
VIII.— Church Congresses 202
IX. — The Body of Christ . 211
THE OLD CHURCH:
WHAT SHALL WE DO WITH IT?
HOW THE QUESTION STANDS.
What shall be done with the Old Church? Any-
one who cares has no time to lose in making up his
mind what he wants, and doing what he can to get it.
For some answer will have to be given in the next
Parliament to this question. True, many public men
have been telling us of late that it does not press ;
that it is one for our children ; that at any rate it is
not to be made a test question at the next election.
They should change their mood into the optative.
What they really mean is, that they hope it won't be
made a test ; that whips, or influential persons of one
kind or another, will be able to pull some other wire
than this at the last moment, so that quiet folk may
worry through with a silent bow to the established
authorities over the right shoulder, and an aside to
the Liberationists over the left — " that no one in his
senses would think of establishing religion, or any-
2 THE OLD CHURCH.
thing else, in these days ; that they have only to be
a little patient, such a settlement as will meet their
views being only a question of time," and the like.
A question of time no doubt it is, but were it not that
we make the wish father to the thought, we should
all see that that time is now.
How do I know this ? Well, thus. It may not
be altogether true in our politics that lookers-on
see most of the game, but it certainly is true
that public men on the shelf see most of one side of
it, and from personal experience I can assure all
doubters that in this matter they are deceiving, or
trying to deceive' themselves. Let them be well
assured from one who has the very best reason to
know, that no Liberal will contest a borough at the
next election without being forced to declare himself
distinctly on this subject. The time for sitting on
the fence is past, and every one of us will have to
jump down on one side or the other.
But I may be reminded, that in the very last year
of the last Liberal Parliament, Mr. Miall moved,
" That the establishment by law of the Churches of
England and Scotland involves a violation of religious
equality, deprives those churches of the right of self-
government, imposes on Parliament duties which it is
not qualified to discharge, and is hurtful to the religious
and political interests of the community, and therefore
ought no longer to be maintained," and was utterly
defeated. No doubt that motion was negatived on
the i6th of May, 1873, by the great majority of 295 ;
or 356 against 61, Mr. Bright being the only member
HOW THE QUESTION STANDS. 3
of the then Liberal Government who voted in the
minority. Almost all the other Liberal leaders voted
in that majority, and so decided was the party, that
Mr. Gladstone himself replied at once to Mr. Miall, and
the House would listen to no one afterwards, though
Sir William Harcourt made an effort to improve the
occasion by showing that, in addition to the array of
reasons cited by the late Premier, the Act of Settle-
ment would become waste paper if this motion were
carried.
I remember it well, and thought at the time what a
mistake it was not to allow the question to be properly
debated. The consequence is, that the case has never
been fairly before the country within the short space
over which political memory runs in these days : and
the danger for us Nationalists is, that it never will be
fairly before the country, unless an effort is made at
once for this end. If this be done, I do not share the
fears of many of my friends as to the result. I
believe that there is too much common sense left in
our people to commit such an act of stupidity, and
that the English instinct to reform, and not to
destroy, will certainly prevail in this, as it has in
other departments of our national life.
But the case must be stated, or it is quite likely
that judgment may go by default. For those who
challenged the verdict of the last Parliament are
untiring in their efforts to bring the country round to
their view. They have adopted new tactics, and a
new and formidable organisation is working with and
for them.
B 2
4 THE OLD CHURCH.
I may be wrong perhaps in saying that the Libera-
tion Society and their aUies have adopted new tactics
since 1873, for they have always worked as apolitical
organisation. What I mean is, that they have never
before so distinctly avowed their objects and methods.
" From this time," is now the language of the society,
*' the question must cease to be argued from the
Dissenters' standpoint." And their meaning is most
clearly and authoritatively developed by Mr. R. W.
Dale in his Bradford speech, which may be accepted
as a pronunciamento of the highest authority. " We
think," are his words, " that the time has come for
making the disestablishment question part of the
programme of the Liberal party ; and no time could
be so favourable as this for raising the question of
disestablishment to the dignity of a political question."
This, then, is the distinct policy of the Liberation
Society ; and though I much question whether their
thirty years of life have added much to their real
strength, the experience gained has sifted out, and
brought to the front, able and skilful leaders, who do
not take such a step as this lightly. The coming
assault, so far as the Nonconformists are concerned,
may, as some people think, be that of a forlorn hope,
hurried on because the leaders feel that the supports
are melting away behind them, and it is their last
chance. But forlorn hopes sometimes take citadels.
Besides, in this case if their old supports in "the
denominations " are melting away behind the Libera-
tion Society, new and formidable recruits from the
secular world are marching up. Mr. Dale may
POSITION OF THE LIBERATION SOCIETY. $
faintly protest in favour of the older policy,
and declare that, "we do not desire to win the
triumph of our cause by any political stratagems,"
that " we are not seeking a sinister alliance with any
party in the State " (speech at Derby). Possibly he,
like Dr. Parker, might have preferred to go into
action with those only who are moved by religious
zeal. But the temptation has been too strong, and
we find him and his society in league with those
who mean to win by any stratagem, and, upon this
question of disestablishment, propose in future "to
employ all the most modern resources of scientific
political warfare."* And so the united forces are
fairly on the march, and the campaign has begun,
which, in the words of Mr. Chamberlain, who com-
mands the right wing at any rate if not the whole
army, " will rouse a passionate discord throughout
the length and breadth of the land."
Here at least we are all agreed. Passionate
discord will assuredly be roused ; but we Nationalists
can go into the fight with the satisfaction of feeling
that we had no hand in kindling the flame. And into
it we are bound to go, every man of us who does not
wish to leave his country a weaker and poorer place
than he found it
I have already indicated what I meant just now by
the new and formidable organisation which is working
with the Liberation Society, and it is one which
challenges the serious attention of all English poli-
♦ ' The Next Question,' by Joseph Chamberlain.
THE OLD CHURCH.
ticians. The Liberal Association of Birmingham is
pretty well known, I suppose, by this time to every
one who is likely to read these pages. I desire to
speak of it with all respect, while I must wholly
decline at present to follow the leaders of my party in
holding it up as an example to all who would be good
Liberals. I look upon it as a very formidable experi-
ment, which has undoubtedly had great success in
certain directions, and may fairly claim a place (to
use Mr. Chamberlain's words again) amongst "the
most modern resources of scientific political warfare."
But it is as yet in its infancy, and has much to do
before it can claim allegiance from any Liberal who
really loves liberty.
In the best account* I have been able to see of it
we are told that "the Liberal Association is the
organisation of the people themselves for the purposes
of self-government " and that " its forms permit the
free play of individual convictions " around all political
questions. Very good. If this should prove to be so
it will in due time have my warmest support for
what that is worth. I have no admiration for the
" hordes of wayward free lances " in politics, which it
is part of the Association's mission to crush ; though
1 am bound to say that I look with some misgiving
on the other hand on those " armies of disciplined
men well accustomed to stand side by side and move
in unbroken battalions," who form, according to Mr.
Crosskey, the forces at the disposal of the Liberal
* By Mr. Crosskey, Macmillan^s Magazine ^ vol. xxxv.
THE, NEW ALLIANCE. J
Association. Again, if at Birmingham the Liberal
leaders have been able to " take the party as a whole
into their direct and immediate confidence," so much
the better ; and if, by doing so bonafide^ they have
been able to effect their object of " securing as a party
a working majority in every representative body con-
nected with the borough," I cannot refuse my humble
meed of admiration for their patience and executive
ability. At the same time I must own that the
machine seems to me, even in a single borough, a
dangerous one to handle. The wheels within wheels
of ward committee, general committee, executive
committee, ending at last, by a complicated sifting
process, in a small " management sub-committee "
of ten or eleven members at the outside, must need
so much looking after to make them work smoothly,
that little leisure will be left to any except the half-
dozen sub-committee-men at the centre to attend
to anything but the oiling. The mill may grind well
enough, but will the rank and file of miller's men ever
get a real chance of knowing beforehand what kind of
grist is going to be ground } I don't say that they
will not. The professions of the leaders are fair, and
I have no desire to question the genuineness of their
intentions, or ability, to steer clear of the evils of the
caucus system. But human nature is weak, and
lust of power strong, and one can't help hearing
the echo in one's memory of many transatlantic
warnings, when we see the Liberal Association
posing as " the people in the act of self-govern-
ment." For myself I confess to deep distrust of
8 THE OLD CHURCH.
any approach to a system such as that in the United
States, when,
** The elect gut the offices down to tide waiter,
And the people took skinning as mild as a tater,
Seemed to choose who they wanted to, footed the bills.
And felt kind as tho' they wuz hevin' their wills,
"Which kep 'em as harmless and cherfle as crickets ;
While all we invested wuz names on the tickets :
Wal, ther's nothin' for folks fond of liberal consumption
Free of charge, like democracy tempered with gumption."*
And the spread of this Liberal Association points
disagreeably in this direction.
For, supreme at home, with a working majority in
every representative institution connected with the
borough, the Birmingham Association has of late
turned its attention to foreign conquest. What is
good for Birmingham must be good for other places ;
and accordingly a propagandist movement has been
set on foot, to spread the blessings now enjoyed by
the metropolis of hardware over the rest of the
English boroughs. A confederation of associations
on the Birmingham model is spreading rapidly over
the country, and adopting, not only the organisation
but, the shibboleths of the parent association. Of
these the disestablishment and disendowment of the
National Church is the most vital — though the county
franchise, and redistribution of seats, are often allowed
to occupy the foreground for strategical reasons — and
every man who cannot pronounce the selected words
distinctly is to be marked, and opposed by the con-
federation.
I will only mention one fact to show how strong
♦ Lowell's • Biglow Papers,' 2nd Series.
RESULT OF THE NEW ALLIANCE. 9
the pressure has already become. Within a week I
have heard three active polititians, all of whom are
or have been M.P.s, admit that they expected to have
to vote for disestablishment after the next election.
They were all men whom I had known to be opposed
to that policy, and on questioning them I found that
neither of them had changed his opinion on the merits :
but as a matter of party expediency all three were
prepared to humiliate themselves by sacrificing their
convictions. A this rate, as the number of possible
candidates is limited, we may have the question
settled before it ever comes up again seriously for
debate in the great council of the nation.
While there is yet time, then, and before we are all
at the mercy of a party organisation with a cut-and-
dried bundle of pledges to be swallowed on pain of
party ostracism, it is worth while to challenge the
authority of those who are asking us to " foot their
bills." We shall soon see whether it is their intention
to allow the full play of individual conviction around
this question, or to force it on an uninstructed
public by the skilful use of the " most modern
weapons of scientific political warfare."
Meantime, as a thorough-going Liberal, who was
trained thirty years ago in the belief that democracy
— not " tempered by gumption," but " freed from
Jacobinism" — was a cause well worth the devotion
of a life, and who has never consciously been false to
that early faith, I would ask my brother Liberals to
look this matter fairly in the face, and judge it by
the true democratic, and therefore by the true Liberal,
10 THE OLD CHURCH.
test. If they really hold that what our time has to
do as its special work, with singleness of purpose
and all its might, is, to lift the people to a fair and
full share of all the best things of this life, — its highest
culture, hopes, aspirations, burdens, as well as its
loaves and fishes — to set before them a truly noble
ideal of citizenship, and help them to attain 'that —
then I would ask them to look this " next question "
round, and see how its decision will tell, not on this
class or that class, this party or that party, but on the
character and life of our English nation.
That at any rate I hold to be the true work of
a Liberal, in a Liberal age. Whatever goes beyond
that, or beside that, savours of Jacobinism, for
then comes in that jealousy which is the bane of
true democracy. The true democrat has no old
scores to pay, covets no man's good things, wants
nothing for himself which is not open to his neigh-
bours, will destroy nothing which others value merely
because he doesn't value it himself, unless it is
palpably and incurably unjust and unrighteous. I
need not go on to contrast the Jacobin with him,
beyond saying that the one is before all things
constructive, the other destructive. The difference
between them will, I hope, come out clearly enough
in this discussion.
If the National Church, as we have it in England, is
not, in its idea and its essence a truly popular demo-
cratic institution, then assuredly it must go, and I for
one would not move a finger to preserve it. But let
us see how the case really stands, and hear both sides,
THE LIBERATIONIST SUGGESTIONS. II
before we fold our hands lazily, or let our voices swell
a cry, which, come from which side it may, from
Liberationists, Ritualists, or Unbelievers, has none
of the true democratic ring in it.
These are the three hosts which are joined for the
campaign, but it is only the first who have attempted
as yet to give any answer to the question from which
we must start, what shall we do with the Old Church ?
Let us see what that answer is, in their own words,
taken from the ' Practical Suggestions relative to
the Disestablishment and Disendowment of the
Church of England,' published at the office of the
Liberation Society.
First, then, the Irish Church Act is not to be fol-
lowed in its governing principle. That Act dealt
at once with the Irish Church as a corporate body ;
appointed a body of " Commissioners of Church
temporalities in Ireland," for the immediate custody
and management of its property, and contemplated
the formation of a " Church body " in the future, to
whom the Commissioners should transfer the property
remaining in their hands after the compensations had
been paid ; and which would become the successor by
direct inheritance of the Disestablished Church of Ire-
land. But, say the Liberationists, this portion of that
measure "has been the subject of unfavourable criti-
cism," and so they propose to depart both in principle
and detail from the Irish Church Act. One naturally
asks. Why .? and, though they are careful not to state
it plainly themselves, the reason stands out clearly
enough in their scheme. " It is of cardinal import-
12 THE OLD CHURCH.
ance," say the Suggestions, " to recognise the fact that
the Church of England is not a corporation." Their
object, in short, is, by every possible precaution, to
prevent the Episcopal Church, which, as they admit
must be hereafter organised in England, from being,
either in spiritual or temporal matters, the old Church
reorganised, or the lineal and acknowledged heir and
successor to the Old Church. Whether the attempt
be successful or not there can be no mistake, I think,
as to its meaning, which is, to make the transition not
as easy but as difficult as possible — not to connect
the old order with the new, but to sever them once
and for ever. The proposal shows the animus of the
present attack, which is simply destructive and
Jacobin. " The Irish Church," say the Liberationists,
" if it ever revives, as seems not unlikely, will do so
as the admitted successor of the Old Church, and has
already gained strength from being able to assert that
position for herself We didn't foresee this in the
case of Ireland, but will take care, now that we do
see it, to hinder any such advantage accruing to the
English Church." There is no other interpretation
possible of this part of the Suggestions that I can see.
The same jealousy comes out in the compensation
clauses. The clergy individually are to be dealt with,
and in fixing the amount to be paid in each case,
regard is to be had to the fact that " their services
will be no longer required." Their parsonages and
glebes will vest at once in Commissioners, who will
deal with them " in the same way as with th e other
surplus property coming to their hands." But here
THE LIBERATIONIST SUGGESTIONS. 1 3
even the Liberation Society feel that " a proposal to
eject the inmates of all the parsonages in the country
would be regarded as a harsh proceeding," and there-
fore the suggestion is, that existing incumbents
should be allowed to occupy their parsonages, upon
payment of rent, " so long as they continue ministers
of the churches in which they now officiate : " in
other words, should a parson be elected by the future
congregation (if any) their minister, he will be allowed
to stay in the parsonage paying rent for it, but, when
he leaves, it will in any case pass to the nation for
secular purposes. These purposes are not at present
defined ; it is only insisted that they shall be secular.
So much for the glebes and parsonages. The cathe-
drals and abbeys, with the bishops' palaces, and " the
buildings in the nature of appendages to the cathe-
drals," (including, I presume, deaneries and canons*
houses, schools and almshouses being dealt with
separately), are to be at once at the disposal of the
state, and are to be placed under national control, for
such uses as Parliament may from time to time
determine.
It occurs to one here, that should Parliament deter-
mine that cathedrals and abbeys shall be maintained
for the purposes of worship, these " suggestions " and
the whole liberation policy, tumble at once to pieces.
For if we are to have any public worship conducted in
St. Paul's, Westminster Abbey, Canterbury Cathedral,
&c., by anybody, under the control of Parliament, that
is simply re-establishing a National Church of some
kind. It is impossible to suppose that such men as
14 THE OLD CHURCH.
Messrs. Dale and Crosskey do not see this ; and so
one is driven to the conclusion that they do not con-
template the cathedrals and abbeys being used in
future for any kind of worship, though it does not
of course suit their purpose to put this prominently
forward.
Be that as it may, at any rate no analogous pro-
vision to that above quoted as to incumbents is made
as to cathedral dignitaries. They, it would seem, are
not to be allowed to rent their own houses as long as
they continue to perform their present duties ; for the
simple reason, I presume, that they are not in any
case to be allowed to perform those duties in the
future.
Let me then just point out how the scheme thus
proposed would work in a case which is familiar, and
I presume of some interest, to every Englishman.
In our own day, and specially within the last
fifteen years, Westminster Abbey has been re-
stored and beautified with a thoughtfulness and
reverence which have doubled its value to the
nation. The great English memories with which it
is culotte (if I may use the phrase wjiich best
expresses my meaning) have become the property of
the people as they never have been till now. Crowds
of them — from royal suites to working men's clubs
and pauper children — visit it at short intervals, and
learn from the successor to the proud old mitred
abbots the stories, glorious, pathetic, tragic, humorous,
but all full of deepest national and human interest
and instruction, which haunt every tomb and column
WESTMINSTER ABBEY. IS
and niche of the building. Four or five times a
week (besides the ordinary daily services) the fore-
most scholars and orators in the National Church
preach there to ever-increasing crowds, till there is
no such sight I imagine in the world as the Abbey
congregations on Sundays and saints' days. Now
apply the Suggestions, and what happens ?
The Dean, who by the devotion of fifteen years of
his life has perfected this work for the nation, must be
turned out at once with a pension, his connection
with the Abbey ceasing absolutely — for I don't see
that he would, under the " Suggestions " scheme, be
even allowed to hire his own house — and all religious
services would thenceforth cease in the Abbey.
And what has been going on in St. Peter's Abbey
has been going on in every cathedral in the kingdom.
They have become the people's churches in a sense
which is as real as it is astonishing. And all this the
Liberationists and their allies are not only willing, but
apparently anxious to destroy in the sacred name of
religious equality, to which they do service with their
lips, while in their hearts they must either hate or
misunderstand it. To the average Englishman, the
idea of shutting off the services of the Abbey, and
driving the Dean out of the Westminster precincts
by Act of Parliament, will seem the queerest kind of
Liberal measure — the most remarkable boon to the
people, and step in the direction of true democracy —
yet suggested in our time.
But the Liberationists will turn on me and ask,
as they have full right to do. What, then, do you
l6 THE OLD CHURCH.
Nationalists, Church Reformers, or whatever you
please to call yourselves, mean to do in this matter ?
You talk of a public Church, a national Church, a
democratic Church, fitted for the new time. You
own that the Church of England as it stands to-
day is not such a Church. How are you going to
make it so ?
Well, so far as method goes, we reply, by the same
machinery as you would use for its destruction. The
nation in its great Council must remodel the Church,
as it did three hundred years ago : and, much as the
task goes against the grain, Parliament will have to face
it in one form or another, and that before long. The
sooner all statesmen understand that, the better it will
be for us all. As to the principles upon which the
work should be done, I don't think there will be much
difference of opinion amongst Liberal Churchmen,
though the details will, of course, develop very great
differences. We should all agree, then, I think, that
the Church should be made in fact, what she is in
theory, the Church of the nation. To this end she
should be made wide enough to include all English
Christians who own no human allegiance outside their
own nation. Further than this we cannot go, because
to do so would destroy the national idea, the corner-
stone on which, humanly speaking, our Church rests.
A universal Church we look for, but only as composed
of independent national Churches, and with no human
head. If there are groups of English Christians who
still insist on standing apart, so it must be. We
cannot help it. All the nation can do is to make the
REFORMS. 17
standing ground wide enough inside for all who like
to come there.
Starting from this point we can approach every
vexed question with confidence. Let us try it on one
or two of them. Of the most notorious, the Burials
Bill, it is scarcely worth while to speak here. Every
Liberal Churchman is not only willing, but anxious
that Nonconformists should bury their dead in the
national graveyards, with their own services, under
such regulations only as will insure reverence. By so
doing they are acknowledging the national character
at any rate of Church property. Many of us hold that
they have the right already to what they ask in this
matter, without any alteration in the law.
But the churchyards are only a step to the churches .'*
Well : even should this prove to be so the nerves of
Liberal Churchmen may endure the shock. We do
not desire to be soldiers holding intrenchments against
enemies (unless driven into that attitude). We must
acknowledge that there is plenty of spare room in our
fabrics, and that the national services leave much time
unoccupied. The spirit of a national Church should
not be one of jealous exclusiveness, and the best
traditions of ours are in favour of hospitality. The
fugitives from Alva's persecutions were received as
brethren, and had parish churches allotted for their
worship, at Colchester and elsewhere. A chapel in
Canterbury Cathedral was set apart for the French
Huguenots, after the massacre of St. Bartholomew,
and is still used by their Presbyterian descendants.
We should be prepared then to consider any such
C
1 8 THE OLD CHURCH.
proposals, if made, with a sincere desire to make all
concessions consistent with the maintenance of order.
We should hail with pleasure the restoration of the
old liberty (for instance) of throwing open Church
pulpits to persons not in Anglican orders. But there
must be no anarchy ; and there is neither demand for,
nor advantage in, extravagant concessions, which would
raise alarm amongst Churchmen, and which Non-
conformists would not welcome.
Working on the same principle in other directions,
Liberal Churchmen would desire to see the Act of
Uniformity repealed — the subscription to the Articles
given up altogether. Their only use now is a mis-
chievous one, if, as is said, they hinder the ablest
and most conscientious young men from taking orders,
which they would be ready and anxious to do, were
they only required to declare that they can use the
Common Prayer Book, and conduct public worship
as there prescribed, loyally and with a whole mind. It
will be also desirable to remove great stumbling-
blocks, like the Athanasian creed, from the place they
now occupy. The Irish Church have already done
this, with the most beneficial results, so that there is
good precedent for the change. Other modifications
in the rubrics and Common prayer would be necessary,
upon the liberal and Christian principle of avoidmg
offence wherever this can be done without abandoning
essentials, or violating principles.
The same liberal and tolerant policy should be
followed in all matters of discipline and ritual, and in
dealing with questions of patronage and endowments.
REFORMS. 19
That wisdom and forbearance and patience will be
necessary in order to work out such a reconstruction
in Parliament is of course true : but then it is equally
true of all important work which Parliament has to do,
and I fail to see what is the great advantage of our
boasted methods of government and legislation, if
they are unable to deal in this spirit with the most
important national concerns.
Indeed, as the nation is in any case to be forced to
face this question by those who admit that it will
rouse " passionate discord from one end of the king-
dom to the other," I believe that Parliament will find
it quite as easy, and certainly as wise and patriotic,
to reform and reconstruct the old foundations and
superstructure, as to make a clean sweep and begin
building again from the ground.
It would be out of place to dwell ^further here on
the details of the reforms which may be necessary to*
make our Church in fact what it still is, and always
has been, in theory, national and popular. Enough,
I hope, has been said to prove that Liberal Church-
men will not shrink from that task, but will be ready to
consider all such proposals on their merits, come from
what quarter they may. It does not lie in our mouth
to object to Mr. Leatham and Mr. Richards as Church
Reformers. They have just as much right as we to take
that position, and we shall gladly help them ; merely
remarking, in passing, that if they had been of this
mind in the last Parliament, a long step might have
been then taken in the direction of Church Reform.
But my object now is, not to raise discussion on details,
C 2
20 THE OLD CHURCH.
but to assert a principle. I would appeal to my
countrymen, especially to those who call themselves
Liberals, not to be satisfied with the commonplaces
which pass muster in our ranks, but to look a great
question fairly in the face, and make up their own
minds about it honestly and independently.
I should have been glad if I could have put what I
have to say on the subject in another form than that
which I have been led to adopt. No one is more
thoroughly aware than I of the defects inherent in
such addresses as those collected in this volume, and
if I had believed that I could have attracted more
readers by throwing my views into a more methodical
shape, I would gladly have given whatever labour
might have been required for that end. But, for one
man or woman who will take the trouble to master a
carefully written treatise on such a subject, such as
that of Mr. Harwood, there are a hundred nowadays
(the more the pity) who will read a short address,
printed just as it was spoken : and it is numbers who will
have to settle this question in the end, and to whom
the appeal must be made. Besides, I must repeat,
time presses. " The citadel of the Establishment," the
Liberator tells us, " must be approached by mines," and
when people are at work undermining the foundation
of your house, you will not wait for a Toledo rapier
or a Krupp gun, but catch hold of the first stick
which lies ready to hand. To any who may wish
to study the subject more carefully, I can recommend
Mr. Harwood's book, and Dean Stanley's Essays on
Church and State ; meantime, I trust that the most
THE IRISH ACT. 21
hasty reader will, at all events, find enough in these
pages to convince him that, apart from all higher con-
siderations, the disestablishment of the Church of
England is a business, even in a political point of view,
upon which Liberals cannot enter with light hearts
and closed eyes, if they mean to be true to their
principles.
If they distrust such appeals from a Churchman,
let me cite a witness from the foremost ranks of the
Liberationists themselves. Mr. Laxton, who repre-
sents the policy of the " Suggestions for Disestablish-
ment " already referred to, denounces the Irish Church
Act more bitterly than any Episcopalian, as the " most
prodigious blunder that a statesman ever committed,"
and declares that Mr. Gladstone "has not liberated
the Irish Church, but delivered it up bound hand
and foot into the hands of a priestly party," and that
*' rather than see the same thing done in England, he
would vote that the present connection between
Church and State, with all its evils, should be per-
petuated for ever." If this be so in the case of the
green tree, what will be done in the dry ? An alien
Church which had never taken fair root in the soil,
which reminded three-fourths of the people of cruel
wrongs, and the remaining fourth of an ascendancy
won and kept by the sword, could make terms which
can wring such a protest from able and thorough
advocates of the separation of Church and State in
England. Is it the part of wise men to carry the
experiment further }
But I am far from wishing that the issue should be
tried on any but the highest grounds, and will state it
22 THE OLD CHURCH.
therefore in the words of one of the strongest Liberals
and truest and bravest EngHshman of this century —
the man who was the first to open one of our seats of
the highest education of Nonconformists.
" The Church of Christ," Arnold wrote in December
183 1, "was originally distinct from the national
society, to which its members belonged as citizens
or subjects. It was promised, that these National
Societies should become Christian Societies ; and so
they have become, but, unfortunately not so entirely
in spirit as in name. Hence, many good men wish
the two societies to be again distinct, believing that
the Church is more likely to be secularised by the
union, than the nation to be Christianised. And,
doubtless, as things are and have been, this belief has
too much to warrant it. But, on the other hand, as
things ought to be, and as I believe they yet may be,
the happier alternative is the one to be looked to,
namely, the carrying forward God's work to its
completion — the making the kingdoms of the world
become the kingdoms of Christ ; not partially, or
almost, but altogether, in spirit and in truth. It is
certainly very bad to remain as we are ; and to go
back to the original state of the Church would be
most desirable, if we could have no hope of going on
to that glorious state of perfection for which Christ
designed it. But this hope is too precious to be
lightly abandoned, and our present state is a step to
something better, however little we have chosen to
make it so ; the means are yet in our hands, which it
seems far better to use, even at the eleventh hour,
than desperately to throw them away,"
( 23 )
II.
ADVANTAGES OF A PUBLIC CHURCH.
[Reprinted from the Birmingham Gazette^
The following speech was made at a meeting held in
the Town Hall of Birmingham, on the 7th of November,
1872, under the presidency of J. D. Goodman, Esq.
The Liberation Society had lately been holding a
series of meetings in that town, at which facts, and
the views and principles of Churchmen, had been so
misrepresented, that it was considered wise to let the
other side be heard. The meeting was, I believe,
called by the local branches of the Church Defence
and Church Aid Societies, to neither of which do I
belong ; but I was requested to attend, and move the
following resolution, and did so. I should add, that
the meeting was specially intended for work-people.
The resolution was as follows : —
"Believing that there are some matters in the
administration of the Church which depress many of
her friends, and give a handle to her adversaries, this
meeting believes it to be the wisdom of the friends of
24 A rUBLIC CHURCH. [1872.
the Church to endeavour to carry out those reforms
which may be calculated to increase and extend her
usefulness, such, for example as the following: — (i)
Reform of Convocation, so as to secure a more
adequate representation of the Church. (2) The
provision of some means whereby the laity of a
parish or congregation may have a voice in Church
work. (3) The adoption of a scheme whereby all
traffic in benefices may be abolished without disregard
of existing rights and interests. (4) The substitution
of a less objectionable plan in the appointment of
bishops for the cong^ d'dire. (5) The utilisation of
cathedral endowments to a greater extent for spiritual
and practical work in harmony with the parochial
system. (6) The union of small parishes, and the
augmentation of poor livings to a fair minimum."
I art! glad that the resolution you have placed in
my hands refers to reforms in the national Church.
Defence apart from reform I could not support. I
probably occupy a very different position on this
platform from most of those who will speak to-night
and look at this question from quite a different point
of view. I come here as a Radical. I entirely accept
on this question, as on every other, the test of "the
greatest good (not happiness) of the greatest number."
I desire to apply this test strictly, and to ask, " Will
disestablishment benefit the greatest number of living
Englishmen — is it likely to make them wiser, stronger,
more righteous .?" If Mr. Miall, or the Liberation
Society can show me that it will, I will join them
18/2.] THE TRUE TEST FOR LIBERALS. 2$
then and there ; for I hold that the Established
Church was made for the nation, not the nation for
the Established Church.
Now, I wish at once to escape from generalities,
and to put the case in what seems to me the most
direct and practical manner. Let us take the first
carpenter, smith, labourer, or other poor man we meet
with in town or country, and ask ourselves, "What
good will happen to this man — and to those like him
who form the great mass of the English nation, and
are therefore in my judgment entitled to the first con-
sideration — by disestablishment ?" I must make one
assumption, however, at starting, and that is, that the
English nation still has a respect for Christianity, and
desires to continue Christian. I do not dispute, of
course, that there are a large number of persons,
ranging from the Duke of Somerset to Mr. Bradlaugh,
who hold Christianity to be a played out superstition,
and most of whom desire every trace of it to be swept
away. But I do believe that these persons make a
noise entirely disproportionate to their numbers, or
their wisdom, and that I am right in assuming that
the nation is Christian, and wishes to remain so. At
any rate I have a right to assume this in arguing with
the Liberationists, for it is just as much a part of their
case (as put by Mr. Miall and their recognised leaders
and organs) as it is of ours. This being so, let us
return to my carpenter.
In this month of November, 1872, there is no
corner of this island in which he will not find an
educated clergyman, for whom he, as an Englishman,
26 A PUBLIC CHURCH. [1872.
has a right to send, and who is bound to come and
mmister to him in all spiritual things, if he will accept
the ministration, and is not living in open sin. In
every corner of the island there is a building in
which generations of Englishmen have worshipped
for hundreds of years, and into which he has an
undoubted right to go and worship, without the power
in any person whatever to ask him a question, or take
a penny from him.
Let me put the case as I see it in another form.
You in Birmingham have of late come to the conclu-
sion, and have been urging on your representatives,
that a constant water supply is one of the necessities
of wholesome living. In this I cordially agree. Now,
suppose that we had a great system of reservoirs and
aqueducts in this island, which had been provided and
paid for by munificent persons, or by the State,
hundreds of years ago-^so long ago, indeed, that the
best authorities differ as to how it was paid for — and
which brought a constant supply of water to the door
of every cottage in the kingdom. Suppose that this
supply was thus offered free of all cost, and that every
English citizen was perfectly free to take it or let it
alone, as he pleased. What would my friend the
working man think of politicians who, in the name of
advanced Liberalism, were to say to him, " This State
water supply is a gross breach of sanitary equality ;
the State has no business to give us water for nothing.
The offer demoralises us. Help us to pull down these
aqueducts, and build hospitals and schools with the
stones. Water which the State supplies for nothing
1872.] WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO GET? 2/
must be bad. There can't be enough fixed air in it.
Try our pump!"
I think the working man would be likely to
answer, when he had looked well round the proposal,
" Well, I don't use much water myself ; but the women
want it ; and perhaps the children may get a taste for
it. So, on the whole, I will let the old waterworks
alone. The stuff seems to have been good enough for
my grandfather, and if I don't want it I needn't take
it, and at any rate I don't pay for it. When I seem to
want more fixed air in my water, I will come and buy
my pennyworth at your pump." Now, just change
the word " water," into " worship and the ministrations
of religion," and you have the case of the national
Church. Here in England we have an establishment,
entirely under the control of the nation, by means of
which, what even Messrs. Dale and Crosskey will, I
think, allow to be a not entirely objectionable form of
Christian worship, and all the ministrations of religion
are freely offered to every British subject. Since the
Toleration Act no British subject has been obliged to
use this worship. In our own time every disability
has been removed from those who will not use it, or, if
there be any shadow of disabilities left, these may be
easily abolished. Whether we use this worship or let
it alone, not a man of us need pay a penny towards
its maintenance unless we like. And all this being
beyond dispute, I would just ask the working man
what he is likely to gain by sweeping away the whole
system ? In what respect — spiritual, moral, or mate-
rial — are you, my friend the carpenter, going to be
28 A PUBLIC CHURCH. [1872.
the better for disestablishment ? I ask the great mass
of my poorer countrymen, to whom the Liberation
Society has appealed, and who, both sides admit, have
no great interest yet in this controversy, to answer me
this simple question, for as yet I have heard no answer
from any quarter.
Well, then, if, as I maintain, the existence of the
establishment (that is to say of the direct and avowed
connection between this nation and Christianity)
forces nothing on you, and takes nothing away from
you ; if you are just as free and as well off, whether
it continues or whether it ceases, just let me ask you
to try to understand the case of those to whom it has
a very deep and real meaning — my case, for instance,
and that of many others, who have always endeavoured
to gain for you your fair share of political power, of
mental culture, and of all the good things of this
world.
We believe, then, in the first place, that the connec-
tion between State and Church as it exists in England
has this immense value, that it forces on the Legislature,
on the Government, on statesmen, on all men engaged
in public affairs — and so, upon the national conscience
— the fact that the nation in its corporate capacity has a
spiritual as well as a material life ; that it cannot, even
if it would, confine itself to the preservation of material
things, of body and goods. The endeavour to separate
things secular from things spiritual in individual,
family, or national life, is, we hold, a grievous blunder,
and certain to prove both mischievous and futile.
The man, the family, the nation, must live both
18/2.] membership: wpio is to define it? 29
lives. We desire that they may be pledged as
deeply as possible to live them according to Christian
standards.
Again, the connection of Church and State (in
England, at any rate, if not everywhere) is the surest
guarantee for keeping the religion of the country
broad and comprehensive. The national Church is
accused of latitudinarianism, that it embraces men
of very different beliefs ; of " multitudinism ; " that it
makes no attempt to distinguish between spiritual
and unspiritual men. One of the ablest advocates of
disestablishment urges this argument in these words ;
"The early Churches, like modern Congregational
Churches, had clearly some means of distinguishing
between catechumens and the faithful, of determining,
that is, the distinctive religious character of individual
men. And if, as communities of the faithful. Churches
are to exist at all, the distinction must be maintained."
Now it seems to me one of the most precious charac-
teristics of the national Church that it makes no such
attempt, draws no such distinction. What human
power can determine, or ought to try to determine,
what are " the distinctive religious characters of indi-
vidual men " ? Let both grow together till the harvest.
But, once sever the connection of Church and State —
take the Church from under the control of Parliament
and the law courts, and who shall say that it will not
follow the example of all other English denominations,
and set about this wretched sifting sectarian business ?
In any case, Church membership would no longer
remain the birthright of every Englishman.
30 A PUBLIC CHURCH. [1872.
Again, if you sever the connection you must make
the Church a corporation, independent of the State.
Are we prepared to do this ? Parliament hesitates
before the proposal to allow the amalgamation of two
great railway companies. Such a corporation would
be too powerful, it is said. What, then, of such a
corporation as our national Church would become, if
disestablished } " The Protestant Church " says Dr.
Newman, in his * Historical Sketches * (p. 230), "would
be an imperium in imperio, considering the immense
wealth and power and influence of its constituent mem-
bers, were it itself a corporation." It would, indeed,
be a corporation as powerful as, not two, but all the
railway companies of the kingdom, if it held together.
Yes, I shall of course be told, " if it held together,"
but it will break in pieces. And then, I reply, when
it has broken, say into three sections, we arrive at this
result, that there will be three more denominations in
England — separated only by differences which it is
clear need not divide Christian men, for they exist
now side by side in the national Church — and every
one of us will have lost his rights in two-thirds at least
of the old national places of worship. I cannot under-
stand why religious men should think this so great an
improvement.
But, I may be told, these differences of yours are
so great, that, as honest men, you ozight to be in three
or four different communities. I cannot think so ; in-
deed, I do not see why, so far as doctrinal differences
are concerned, all the Protestant denominations should
not be in the same communion, as they were in the
1872.] THE ACT OF UNIFORMITY. 3 1
Tudor times. Dean Stanley's name for the Dissenting
denominations, or free Churches, as they seem now to
delight to call themselves, " non-conforming members
of the Church of England," describes accurately the
view which national Churchmen should take of them.
But for the Act of Uniformity they might be so now.
That Act, always mischievous, has become practically
powerless ; has already been in part repealed, and I
trust may be wholly repealed before long. " Pity,"
said Dr. Allen to Sheldon, when it was passed in
1662, "you have made the door so strait ;" and after
two hundred years, during which it has driven many
of the best and most zealous Christians out of the
national Church — in the latter years of which it has
been practically ignored, not only by extreme Ritual-
ists, but by good moderate Churchmen — surely it is
time to get it buried.
Let me now remind you that the great names in
the great times of the godly denominations were in
favour of a national Church. In the times of the
Commonwealth Dr. Owen, their foremost representa-
tive in the Long Parliament, denounced strongly
those who maintained that the State had no concern
with religion. Calamy wished to conform ; Baxter
and Matthew Henry wrote strongly in favour of a
national Church, though they could not conform ; and
the followers of Wesley never proposed to separate
from the national Church till after the death of their
founder. Our chief business seems to me to be now^
so to provide for the future that no such defections
as those of the Non-Jurors and the Wesleys can
32 A PUBLIC CHURCH. [1872.
possibly happen, and that, perhaps, some of those
who have seceded may be led back to the national
communion.
But if this is to be we must consider what reforms
are required, for the Church must meet the times as
well as all other institutions. First, then, we are bound
to consider any grievances which Dissenters still put
forward. These are practically reduced, so far as I
know, to two. They cannot bury their dead with
their own services in the parochial graveyards ; and
their members are still excluded from some of the
highest posts in the national universities. I think
the Church would be wise to meet the Dissenters
more than half-way in both cases. I find it difficult
to be patient with the spirit in which Mr. Osborne
Morgan's bill is met in the House of Commons
by Mr. Beresford Hope and others, who profess
to represent the National Church. It enables one to
understand, and make allowance for, that attitude of
watchful jealousy which, as Mr. Winterbotham said
two years ago, is habitual with Dissenters. If we
take away these last remnants of ascendancy, we
may hope to see the " watchful jealousy " give place
to a better feeling, and one more in accordance
with the teaching of St. Paul and St. John. For,
beyond question, a sense of social inferiority is at the
bottom of much of the bitterness which finds expres-
sion in the Liberation movement. The clergy of the
Established Church have, as a rule, had educational
advantages from which the Dissenting clergy have
been excluded, and treat Nonconformist ministers as
18/2.] REFORMS IN CONVOCATION. 33
an inferior caste. When, as I hope soon to see, they
are educated side by side at the universities, much of
this feeling will disappear. Indeed, the effect which
recent legislation has had on the best and most
cultivated Dissenters is a most hopeful sign of what
we may look for when perfect religious equality in
these respects has been established.
We need not look for perfect uniformity, and I,
for one, should not care to see it. In a country of
free thought, it would indicate an unnatural state.
We never have had it in England, and never can.
There will always be a large minority at any rate of
Englishmen, who would sooner be big fish in a small
hole than small fish in a big hole ; and while this is
so we must expect to have Dissenting denominations,
or free Churches. But there is no reason why the
Church and the Nonconformists should not work
together, side by side, at their Master's business, if
their officers had only something more of their
Master's spirit.
But, besides these remnants of grievance which
Dissenters can still allege, and by far more serious, are
the anomalies which exist inside the Church, weaken-
ing its power, and paralysing its energies ; and these
it should be the object of every good Churchman
to reform. Several of the most pressing of these
much-needed reforms are referred to in this resolution.
I will follow the order in which they are placed before
you there. First, as to Convocation. No Churchman,
I believe, would now deny that this body needs
radical reform. At present it represents nothing but
D
34 A PUBLIC CHURCH. [1872.
the clergy, and this in an utterly inadequate manner.
In the Lower House more than two-thirds are deans,
archdeacons, and other ex officio members. If it is to
continue it is indeed necessary that it should be re-
formed, so as to secure a more adequate representation
of the whole Church. I confess, however, that I am
not sanguine as to the reform of Convocation, and do
not see clearly the advantage of such a body in a
truly national Church, or how any legislative power
can be given to it which will not interfere with the
authority and lessen the power of the national
Legislature.
But there is no such difficulty as to the second
proposal in this resolution, the provision of some mode
whereby the laity of a parish may have a voice in
Church work. There is no question which has been
more thoroughly discussed than this, and the conclusion
is almost unanimous that the formation of parochial
councils is the proper method. Lord Sandon's Paro-
chial Councils Bill embodies this reform, and is to be
introduced again in the coming session. It is worthy
of the support of all Churchmen, and, I trust, may
become law in spite of the active opposition of those
Churchmen who oppose all reform.
Then comes the question of the sale of benefices,
the great scandal of our Church ; and here, again, I
rejoice to think that there is little real difference of
opinion. Simony in all its forms must be abolished.
The evil is, indeed to some extent, curing itself
already in the presence of this better feeling, for ad-
vowsons have declined in value to a point which prac-
1872.] THE BISHOPS. 35
tically prohibits their sale. But there is urgent need
of legislation on the subject, and whatever course may-
be taken as to patronage generally, one thing should
be insisted on. The parishioners through their council
should at least have a veto on the appointment of
their clergyman.
The fourth reform suggested in the resolution re-
fers to the appointment of bishops. No doubt there
are many objections to the present system. The
cong^ ddire is a clumsy and obsolete method, but
as yet opinion is not matured on this question, and
one may simply take note of it as a matter to be
carefully considered.
In the same way, although it is generally agreed
that cathedral endowments should be utilised to a
greater extent for some spiritual and practical work in
harmony with the parochial system, no plan has been
matured for the purpose. It will be enough that
we should affirm the proposition generally, without
pledging ourselves to any particular scheme.
And now we come to the last, and, I think, the
most important of the reforms referred to in this
resolution — the union of small parishes and the
amalgamation of small livings. The parochial system
has always been, and must continue to be, the main-
stay or backbone of a national Church. But the
constant shifting of population has thrown the old
machinery out of gear. The pressing need of reform
in this direction has long been recognised, and to a
certain extent met by the Act which allows the union
of neighbouring benefices where the population does
D 2
36 A PUBLIC CHURCH. [1872.
not exceed 1,500. But this is merely a makeshift. A
friend of mine, an ardent Church Reformer, who has
gone very carefully into this question, brings out the
following remarkable results. Taking a population
of 300 as the lowest which will provide work for a
clergyman, and ;^200 as the lowest income which will
provide him with decent maintenance, there are at
present 1,409 livings which provide neither work nor
food, 1,141 which provide food but not work, 3,032
which provide work but not food, and, of the last
division, many hundreds consist of the poorest
suburban populations of great towns, the very places
where spiritual destitution prevails most, and the
need is the sorest. In the face of such facts as
these it is high time that Churchmen bestirred them-
selves.
The ancient Church of the nation must be reformed,
and can easily be reformed if her children are wise in
time, so as to remove all reasonable cause of offence.
If she moves steadily in this direction, she may
disregard the indiscriminate attacks which are made
on her, and abide the issue with confidence. Her
best defence is reform ; her greatest danger the
temptation to return railing for railing. I wish we
could see the controversy carried on, on one side at
least, as carried on it must be, in a very different
spirit from that which prevails in not a few of what
are called Church Defence organisations. I don't
know how you feel, my friends, on this subject ; but
to me it is a saddening and humiliating thought that
we should have at this time to fight this battle, not
18/2.] A LEGEND OF ST. AMBROSE. 3/
with that one-third of our countrymen who (according
to your member, Mf. Dixon) are not Christians at all,
but with the one-third who beHeve in and worship the
same Lord with us. Nothing but the most earnest
conviction that the severance of this immemorial
connection — this attempt to relegate the State to
material things, and to declare that the nation as a
nation has nothing to say, has no help to give, in the
sore struggles of humanity to rise out of the material
to something higher — should induce me to take part
in it. For I can take little interest in the questions
which divide Christian Churches and sects, can see no
reason why they should not now be working side by
side to redeem our waste places, and to make the
kingdoms of this world the kingdoms of our Lord
and of His Christ.
Let me close what I have to say with a Church
legend, which seems to me full of wisdom for this
controversy. St. Ambrose was a holy man and ex-
ceeding zealous, even to slaying, for the one true
creed. One day as he was walking in deep medita-
tion as to how to bring all men to his own mind, he
was aware of a stream, and a youth seated beside
it. He had never seen so beautiful a countenance,
and sat down by him to speak of those things on
which his mind continually dwelt. To his horror he
found that the beautiful face covered a most heretical
mind, and he spoke in sorrowful anger to the youth of
his danger. Whereupon the young stranger produced
six or seven vases, all of different shapes and colours,
SS A PUBLIC CHURCH. [1872.
and, as he filled them from the brook, said to the
saint (as the legend is versified by Mr. Lowell) —
" Now Ambrose, thou maker of creeds, look here —
As into these vases this water I pour ;
One shall hold less, another more ;
But the water the same in every case,
Shall take the figure of the vase.
O thou who wouldst unity reach through strife,
Canst thou fit this sign to the Water of Life?"
When Ambrose looked up, the youth, the vases, and
the stream were gone ; but he knew he had talked
with an angel, and his heart was changed. I wish
that angel would come and do a great deal of
preaching to our English Ambroses.
( 39 )
III.
ESTABLISHED AND VOLUNTARY
CHURCHES IN CONTRAST.
(An Address delivered at St. Andrew's Hall, Norwich, at the
request of the Church Defence Association^ on Monday
evenings May \ith^ 1873.)
[Reprinted from the Norfolk Chronicle^
The Meeting was a very noisy one, strong par-
tisans on both sides being present, so, to make the
allusions clear, I have been obliged to leave some
of the interruptions as they were reported, while
striking out mere notices of applause or dissent.
Mr. Sheriff, Ladies, and Gentlemen. — I trust
that my friends around me will not think I am begin-
ning by telling tales out of school if I venture to
confide to this great meeting a little secret. When I
undertook to deliver this address in your great city,
I of course entered into correspondence with the
officers of this association. I wrote to the secretary to
state that I should deliver it " as a politician." I con-
fess, sir, that the remarks which have just fallen from
you have explained to me what I thought was rather
40 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. [1873.
unnecessary alarm on the part of the gentlemen who
had invited me here when that announcement came
to them. But I see now since our chairman's address
the grounds upon which I was warned that it was not
as a politician that I was expected to appear here to-
night. Now, my friends, I see very good reason for
that little alarm. Politics, in the ordinary sense of the
word, are so mixed up with those party squabbles in
which I and my hon. friend (Mr. Clare Read), whom
I am glad to see here, and who sits on the opposite
side of the House to myself, are often engaged in St.
Stephen's, Westminster, that I don't wonder that
those who are convening these meetings for so great
a purpose as that for which we are gathered here to-
night should wish to abstain as much as possible from
the word " politics." But just let me explain very
shortly why it is that on all such occasions as this I
stand before any audience which may come to listen
to me as a politician. As I understand the word
" politician," it means a man who, whatever his other
engagements in life may be, and however he may earn
his daily bread, feels above all things deeply inte-
rested, feels that he is bound to be deeply interested,
and to take as active a part as he can, in the public
affairs of his country. A politician of that kind is, I
believe, a specially English institution. I believe that
every Englishman, if he is worth anything at all, is
bound to be a politician, and can't for the life of him
help taking a deep interest in the public affairs of his
country. My friends, what is the object of politics in
that sense ? The object of politics is the well-being
1 873-] THE POLITICIAN. 4I
of the nation. [" That's it."] I am glad to hear an
enthusiastic friend below applaud that sentiment. I
am quite sure that it will gain applause not only from
him but from everybody who hears me to-night. The
object of politics is the well-being of the nation, or, "
as we heard in that noble lesson which was read
yesterday morning in our churches, to make " a wise
and an understanding people." Now, what are the
means by which a wise and an understanding people
is to be made ? Well, of course, the chief means of
making a wise and understanding people is by training
them up in wisdom and understanding. The State
wants men who are brave, truthful, generous ; the
State wants women who are pure, simple, gentle. By
what means is the State to get citizens of that kind ?
Such a politician, then, looking around him and
seeing how the national conscience is to be touched —
for unless the national conscience be touched you
can never raise citizens of that kind — finds that the
great power which alone can do it, in this as in other
free countries, is that which goes by the name of
religion. He finds also that the Christian religion
prevails in this country, and that it is by means of this
Christian religion that all the civilisation and all the
progress of the nation has been hitherto attained.
What does he find next } He finds all over this
country, in every parish and in every great town and
in every corner of this land, a number of magnificent
buildings — cathedrals, churches, schools— all belonging
to this religion, which is the religion of the English
nation — the religion of England. [A Voice : " What
42 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. [1873.
about Rome ?" and interruption.] He finds a regular
organisation existing all over the country of persons
— professional persons — engaged in this special work of
touching the national conscience, educating the boys
and girls, the men and women, and making them more
moral and wiser and better through the instrumentality
of this religion.
He sees next that, spread all over the country, there
are many other religious societies — many different
communities of Christians engaged in work of the
same kind — yet that this one society alone, which is
by far the largest, by far the most powerful, by far
the richest, has been for more than a thousand years
— in fact ever since this nation could be called a
nation at all — intimately connected with the govern-
ment of the nation and under the control of that
government. He finds that in this largest, richest,
and greatest of religious communities all the chief
officers are appointed by the government for the time
being — that is to say, by the nation ; that its dis-
cipline, its ritual, its doctrine are all under the control
of the nation, and that this intimate connection has
been kept up, as I have said before, for upwards of a
thousand years.
He finds, furthermore, that these other religious
societies, although they are not so large, although
hardly any of them have existed for more than 200
years, yet they, although not connected with the State,
are under the protection of the State, are protected by
the laws, and have a position — an established position —
under the laws of the country to do the work they
1873.] ESTABLISHED DENOMINATIONS. 43
have got to do in the country. If there are any
gentlemen from Nonconforming communities here to-
night, as I trust there may be, I suppose that they
will protest against my using the word " established "
in connection with them. All I have to say is that
the word is not mine, but that the connection between
them and the State has been laid down to be an
^^established'' connection by one of the greatest
lawyers who has ever sat on the Bench of England.
I am alluding now to the great judgment of Lord
Mansfield, from which I will give you a few words to
show you the real position which these Nonconforming
communities occupy in this country in the eye of the
law. The case to which I refer — and I daresay many
of my Nonconformist friends if they are here, know it
as well as I do — is the great case of 1767, the City
of London v. Evans.
Mr. Evans was an eminent citizen of London. He
was a Nonconformist, and on being elected to the
office of Sheriff he said — " I won't be the Sheriff of
London. You cannot have a man as Sheriff of London
unless he has taken the Sacrament according to the
rites of the Church of England within a year from the
time of his appointment. I have never done this, I
never mean to do it, and I won't serve the office of
Sheriff." What did the Corporation of London do ?
They sat in council and they fined him a heavy fine.
He went into the courts of law to see whether they
could enforce that fine against him or not. His
defence was that he was a Nonconformist ; that
according to the Toleration Act he had a right to
44 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. [1873.
be a Nonconformist and not to receive the Sacrament
according to the rites of the Church of England ; that
not receiving it he was not liable to be made Sheriff,
and the fine could not be imposed upon him. What
said Lord Mansfield ? He decided entirely in his
favour. He said that the Toleration Act had freed
all Nonconformists from the liability to serve. I want
particularly to call your attention to his words,
because they justify me in the use of the word " estab-
lished " with regard to Nonconformists : " The Dis-
senters' way of worship is not only exempted from
punishment, it is rendered innocent and lawful ; it is
established ; it is put under the protection, and not
merely under the connivance of the law."
This is the status and position of those other com-
munities to which I have referred, and therefore, they
should consider before they use the word " Establish-
ment " as a kind of sneer with regard to the national
Church of England.
Now, from this bird's-eye view, as I may say, of
the position of things in England, on this very great
subject, what are the conclusions which an ordinary
politician wishing for the well-being of his country
would draw ? It appears to me that the first con-
clusion he would draw would be, that this arrange-
ment which . has existed as regards the Established
Church for more than a thousand years, as regards
these Nonconformist societies for more than two
hundred years, must be an arrangement which must
meet very fairly some particular need of this English
nation. I think we must conclude, too, that this
1873.] THE politician's DIFFICULTIES. 45
arrangement has worked well as regards this country,
because I don't suppose that anybody who is a citizen
of this country is not proud of being a citizen, — I
don't suppose that there is any one in this large
assembly, either man or woman, who would change
his or her English citizenship for that of any other
country in the world. And I think he will also come
to the conclusion, looking around him on what is
happening in the other nations of the world about this
time, regarding the question from the point of view
that I have indicated, that this is not quite the time
to be overturning old foundations without some very
good reason. At such a time as that in which we live
we should not rashly cut off any of our old links with
the past without trying very steadily, and testing very
severely, whether they won't stand the strain of the
present — whether they are not better for this time
than anything we should be likely to make under
new circumstances }
Well, then, having come so far, my friend, the poli-
tician, — i.e., I, myself, — holding the views which I have
explained, has got to meet certain other facts ; the
conclusions to which he has come are met with
certain facts which, of course, at the first blush
disturb them very much. For what does he find .?
He finds that all those, or almost all those, other
Christian communities of which I have spoken, which
are not directly in connection with the State, are
wishing and striving to sever that connection between
the State and religion which exists between the State
and the Established Church. These are not persons
46 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. [1873.
who are irreligious. Remember, all those Noncon-
formists who are trying to sever the connection
between the State and the Established Church will
tell you they believe just as heartily as we do in the
paramount need and importance of religion to the
State. And yet they tell us that although they believe
in the paramount need and importance of religion to
the State, the very best way they can think of to get
Christianity, to get religion known and honoured in
this country, is to abolish all national recognition of it.
[" Oh, oh, " and ironical cheers.] Well, that is to me, I
confess— [Interruption by SCURLL frequently repeat-
ing, " Take away the money."] If my noisy friend
down there will have the goodness just to wait, we
shall come to the money in plenty of time. But this
question is a matter so serious, and requires such very
temperate statement, and such very careful considera-
tion, that I sincerely trust you won't import into it
any of those noisy ebullitions which one expects in
an ordinary political meeting, but which I must say
are not in place at a meeting called for so solemn a
purpose as that for which we are met to-night.
Then, when I find Christians for whom I myself
have the greatest respect maintaining this, of course,
I, as a politician, am obliged to look very carefully
over those conclusions to which I have come, and I
am bound to consider very carefully the arguments of
those who oppose them.
This brings me to another point. I told you that I
started as a politician, and now I stand before you as
a Liberal politician. Let me explain my idea of a
1 873-] THE LIBERAL POLITICIAN. 4/
Liberal politician. A Liberal politician is a man who
looks to the future and not to the past ; he looks for
progress ; he desires to see the whole nation raised ;
he desires it to go on from better things to better
things, and he is not afraid of new things ; he holds
that every institution must be tried by its worth and
its value to the nation ; — he holds above all things
that there should be equality before the law for every
institution, for every society, and for every individual
citizen. Well, then he comes right upon the question
that presses upon us all in considering these subjects
— he comes upon the question. What is religious
equality ?
I have had to think a great deal upon this subject
for my own guidance in public life, and I will tell you
what I think are the real tests of religious equality.
In the first place, if there is to be religious equality
every Englishman must be free within certain limits
(which I will explain directly) to set up, and to en-
joy, any form of religion that he pleases. This is, I
think, the first requisite of religious equality. The
second requisite of religious equality is this — that no
citizen shall be bound to contribute to a religion
which he does not believe in. The third requisite I
take to be this — that every man shall be free to use
or to let alone those religious appliances which the
State has to offer to him. In order to make a perfect
and exhaustive division of the subject, I think there is
a fourth, and that is that every man shall be free to
try to alter the conditions on which the State offers
its religious appliances to the people of the country.
48 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. [1873.
Now then, my friends, just try this question of
religious equality as regards the national Church by
every one of these tests. In the first place, is every
man in England free to set up and to enjoy any form
of religion that he pleases ? You perfectly well know
— and in stating what is done universally in England
I shall be able to show you where the hand of the
State comes in, and where the people are stopped
in this matter — you know perfectly well there are
Mormon congregations in this country, that Mormons
are perfectly free to assemble and worship as they
please. But the State simply steps in and says that
Mormons shall not in this country be allowed to marry
two wives ; if a man marries two wives he is indicted
for bigamy, but so long as he desires only to worship
in the Mormon form, whatever that may be, he is not
prohibited doing so here.
Well, in London there have been a number of
gentlemen — some of them have left the Church of
England, and some have left other communities —
who have been setting up a purely secular religion ;
and nobody has hindered them, because they may
set up any worship they please, provided they don't
break the law. I will give you one more instance,
because, so far as I know, that particular body is
confined to the eastern counties. I don't know
whether you have any in Norwich, but I know they
are scattered about in the eastern counties ; and
they are the people who call themselves " the Peculiar
People." Now, the Peculiar People are perfectly free
in this country to worship just as they please, but
1873.] FREEDOM OF WORSHIP. 49
one of their tenets is, that it is wicked to use medi-
cine, and so they let their children die because they
won't allow them to be attended by any medical man.
The law steps in then and says, " We can't allow this ;
have any religious worship or belief you please, but
you must attend to your children, and shall not allow
them to die from the want of medical attendance."
As I have said, the first test of religious equality
is that every man shall be free to set up and to enjoy
any worship he pleases, and so far at least no one
can deny that we have perfect religious equality in
England.
The second test is, that no man shall be called
upon to pay for a form of worship which he does not
approve. Now, no man in this country is called upon
to pay a single penny since Church-rates — [cheers,
and noise in front of the platform] — I say that it is
the second condition of religious equality that no
man shall be called upon to pay for a religion he does
not believe in, and since the abolition of Church-rates
no man has a single penny to pay to the Church
unless he pleases. This is too long a business to go
into ; but if all my friends in this room will just think
and consider for themselves, they will find that they
have not had to pay a single penny towards the Estab-
lished Church, unless they chose to do it voluntarily,
— to put it into the plate at church, or to subscribe
it to some church charity.
My third point is, that every man shall be free to
use such religious appliances as the State has to
give him, or to let them alone. Now, every man and
E
50 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. [l^73-
woman in this room is perfectly aware that they have
the right to go to church if they please, in their own
parish, and nobody can hinder them ; whilst, on the
other hand, if they don't like, they can go to any
other place of worship ; or, if they prefer it, they need
not go to any place of worship at all. They are
perfectly free, without any interference from, the
Church or the State, to go or not to go to church just
as they please. Well, you can't get nearer equality
than that. My fourth test is, that if a man is not con-
tented with the use that the State makes of those
religious appliances which it has to offer to all the
citizens of the country, he should have the right to
change them. So he has. What in the world am I
sent to Parliament for, or what do you send my friend
Mr. Clare Read to Parliament for — if it is not to look
after these things for you ? If you Nonconformists
are strong enough to say that the way in which the
State deals with that great religious inheritance which
it has inherited from the time of Alfred and before,
does not please you, you have nothing to do but to set
to work and elect men who will go and represent you
and try and get these things changed. It is perfectly
within your right to do this : and if you can do it, and
if those other things which I have just been advancing
are true — and I am certain that no man in this room
is able to refute them — then I say so far as religious
equality goes there is perfect religious equality, at this
time, in this country.
I know the answer that will be made to me by
my friends among the Nonconformists. They will say,
1873.] PROPERTY. 51
"How about the property; how about the endow-
ments ; you have been talking about disestablishment,
but you have left out disendowment altogether." I
have not left it out altogether ; I am coming to it, and
I hope to satisfy you — I don't know whether I shall
satisfy my friend below there, but at any rate I intend
to make very clear to him — what I myself think on
this question of Church endowments.
The first question I wish to ask my Nonconformist
friends, and I have no doubt my friend below is one
of them, is this — Are they ready to take any part
of the Church endowments ? [SCURLL : " No."] No ;
that is precisely what I thought. I am not myself
against it — I tell you plainly that I don't object to
what is called concurrent endowment. I should not
particularly object to it ; I should not object if the
revenues of the national Church were applied to the
helping of other religious bodies which own allegiance
to no earthly head outside the nation. That is my
private opinion. It is one rather unusual. At any
rate, it is one which is intensely unpopular with Non-
conformists. What have they been doing ? When
the Tories a few years ago — I beg their pardon, I will
say Conservatives if they like it better — when the
Conservatives proposed a few years ago in Ireland
what is called concurrent endowment, my Noncon-
formist friends in the House and in the country said,
" No, no ! whatever else we have we will not have con-
current endowment ; not a bit of it." Consequently,
concurrent endowment we did not have, and the first
article of the creed of the Liberal party, especially of
E 2
52 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. [1873.
the Nonconformist part of the Liberal party, is " No
concurrent endowment, on any terms."
Well ! No concurrent endowment ! but how about
this Church property and all these great endowments ?
You say you don't want them, you won't have any
part of them. You say it is a great weakness to any
religious body to have endowments ; you say it is
sure to make that body degenerate, and to make it
weak, and not able to hold its own against inde-
pendent bodies. All this is a great disadvantage, and
you must feel that if there be any inequality the
inequality is on the side of the Church. We are
weighted with all these dreadful endowments, and
how in the world we manage to bear them, and how it
is that weighted as we are we yet manage on the
whole to hold our own pretty well, is to me a perfect
wonder.
But, however, I pass from this point, which I hope
my Nonconformist friends will turn over, and just
ask themselves, if they don't want these endowments
themselves and would not have them at any price,
whether it is better to leave them for religious uses,
or better to turn them into the pockets of the land-
lords } [SCURLL : " Anywhere rather than the
Church."] That is precisely the feeling. My friend
does not feel that the work which we are all doing,
which the Church is doing as well as the Noncon-
formist community to which he belongs, is all one and
the same work, — that we are working in the same line
though with different methods ; and his hatred to the
name of the Church is so strong that though he won't
1873.] FREE THOUGHT. 53
have these endowments, and though he thinks that
the Church may make use of them for rehgious
purposes, yet he so dislikes the Church that he says,
" Do anything else you like with them — throw them
into the horse-pond, throw them into the river, — but
don't let the Church have them."
The next argument of my Nonconformist friends
— I have a great many amongst them and I have
a great respect for them, for I think they have done a
great deal of good in the countiy — their next argu-
ment is that these endowments and the Establishment
extinguish the spiritual life of the Church. Do they }
I know my friend there holds this belief strongly.
Now, let me argue with him for a moment or two.
What is the sign of the extinguishing of spiritual
life .? Well, the first way that spiritual life expresses
itself is by the voice — by published works, by its
speech. What, then, has been the speech of the
national Church to the country } How do those
belonging to it speak .? What influence has it had on
modern thought in this wonderful time in which we
live ? What contributions have the members given —
I won't even say its members, but what contributions
have its officers, the clergy, given — towards the
activity of modern thought and the guidance of
England in that wonderful labyrinth of difficult social
and other questions which we have come upon in
our day }
We will take the activity in literature. Let me
mention a few names of men I have myself known
— and my life is not a very long one — let me just
54 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. [l^73-
mention the activity I have known in men of my own
personal acquaintance since I was a boy. There is no
department of human thought in which such activity
has been exhibited as in the study of history during
that time. Let us look at the names which officers of
the Church of England have contributed towards the
history of this country and the development of histori-
cal knowledge. There are Milman, Merivale, Arnold,
and Thirlwall, four great names among the modern
historians of England, and all of them clergymen of
the Established Church. Take moral philosophy and
metaphysics, the highest subject on which human
thought can work, and think of such men as Maurice,
Mansell, Professor Grote, and Professor Whewell.
Then in general literature, there is a name which
should be very dear in this town, Dean Stanley.
Look, again, at Canon Kingsley, who has lately
thrown the whole of the cathedral machinery of
Chester, so far as he has command of it, into the
direction of, as he calls it, wedding science with the
Church. Look at other names. There are Robert-
son, the two Hares, Canon LIddon, Bishop Temple,
Professor Jowett, Mr. LI. Davies, and I might name
twenty others. I have named men from some of
whom I differ much more than I do from my Noncon-
formist friends, but they are all Church clergymen
whom I have known in my own life-time. So far,
then, from the Establishment extinguishing spiritual
life, precisely the contrary is true ; and the very fact
of being officers of that State Church which many of
my friends hate so much, has just given a stimulus
1 873-] INTELLECTUAL FREEDOM. 55
and a freedom to those men which has led them to
distinction in these different studies.
No one respects more than I do a great many
of the Nonconformist ministers and leading men of
Nonconformist bodies ; but try them by this test.
You say that spiritual life, and that intellectual life, is
extinguished by the State Church. What names of
Nonconformists can you think of to put beside those
fifteen or sixteen names that I took as the first I
thought of in the Church of England. There is one
great Nonconformist name that will occur to us all, —
that of a native of Norwich, Mr. Martineau : but
although there are many excellent writers and minis-
ters among the Nonconformist bodies, there has not
been one except Mr. Martineau who has contributed
in the same measure as these Churchmen to all that
new thought that has come flooding into religious
matters, into historical matters, into metaphysics, into
all branches of knowledge.
This leads me naturally on to the other side of the
argument, as to that freedom which the Liberationists
wish to bestow upon us. It is quite clear we don't
want freedom in that direction ; that with all the
gagging which the State must necessarily (according
to their theories) put on the Church, the literature of
the Church has been more powerful than that of any
other portion of this British nation.
But we are to be set free in other respects. Now
I hold that if we were not freer than any other portion
of the community so far as religion is concerned, the
result that I have stated could not have happened.
56 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. [1^73-
But I fancy that my Nonconformist friends would
account for it in this way. They would say, " Yes,
but you have had peculiar advantages ; you have had
the Universities, which have not been open to us."
And this was true until lately, so far as regards
Oxford and Cambridge. But just remember that the
Liberals, and amongst others a very large majority
of Churchmen, have now thrown those Universities
entirely open to you Nonconformists. Every intel-
lectual advantage of the Universities of Oxford and
Cambridge, as you know, is just as open to every
Nonconformist who chooses to go and avail himself
of them as they are to me.
Then, again, I say besides, that although, during
that time, the Nonconformists have not had Oxford
and Cambridge open to them, yet they have always
had the University of London, which with its affiliated
colleges is a great educational institution, and for all
purposes is just as able to train men to take the
lead in the intellectual activity of this country as the
older Universities. But in any case, that objection has
passed away now, for, as I say, all Nonconformists
have been placed in precisely the same condition as
Churchmen with respect to the culture of the Univer-
sities. ["Can a parish get rid of a clergyman.?"
frequently ejaculated by SCURLL.] If my very
vigorous and excellent friend will merely let me go
on my own way, I think he will probably find that
I shall touch all the points on which he wishes to be
instructed before the end of my talk.
Now, let me say that the reason by which I account
1 8/3-] A TRUSTEE OF NATIONAL PROPERTY. 5/
for this great difference between the intellectual activity
in the highest regions of thought of the Church of
England, and that of Nonconformist communities, is
this — it is because the clergy of the Church are in a
freer atmosphere, because the nation, which governs
the Church of England, which has a special connection
with the Church of England, is a far greater and freer
body than any portion of it can possibly be. There is
a very wise saying of a French statesman called Tal-
leyrand, that " there is one person who is wiser than
anybody, and that is everybody " — and it is the whole
British nation as represented in the regular constitu-
tional Government of the country which is responsible
for, and which is connected with, the Church of
England. And this I think is the reason why it is in
a freer atmosphere, and is much more intellectually
and spiritually active in my opinion, than those com-
munities, of one of which I have no doubt my friend
below is a very ardent and enthusiastic member.
Then the Liberal politician finds that the Church, as
it stands now in our time, is the trustee for the nation
of a great number of splendid buildings — cathedrals,
churches in every parish, schools, and parsonages. In
every parish it has got one of its own officers on
duty, and buildings dedicated to religious purposes,
which are open to every citizen, and to every man,
who chooses to take advantage of them. And what do
my Nonconformist friends propose the State should do
with these .? They propose that the State should toss
that all over and have nothing whatever to do with it,
and I, as a Liberal politician, don't intend, if I can
58 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. [1873.
help it, to allow the State to make such a fool of
itself. Mind you — and I speak as a Liberal — we are
not asked by them to improve and adapt, but we are
asked simply to destroy ! I say it is not the part
of a wise nation to do that.
Just to give an illustration of it : Suppose that this
nation, hundreds of years ago, long before any of us
were born, before any of us could have any exact
evidence of how it had come about, became possessed
of gas works : that ever since the State had owned
those gas works : and that in every town and village of
England gas was still carried to the door of every man.
And suppose that a great number of bodies in this
country were to rise up and say, "We object to this
gas ; we think that petroleum oil and tallow candles
are much better things than gas, and we won't allow
you (the State) to bring that gas (as you bring the
services of the clergyman and the use of the parish
church) to every man's door." He can, you see, use
the gas if he pleases, or he can let it alone if he pleases,
and yet my friends come and say, " Oh ! but this is
abominable tyranny ; why should all these people
have gas ? We won't have it, so why should he ?
Pull down the gas works ; let everybody light them-
selves by petroleum oil and tallow candles, — and let
these old gas works, and all that belongs to them, be
carted away and sold, and the money distributed in
the relief of the rates, or anyhow you please." Would
that be a reasonable contention ? [" No, no," and
ejaculations by Scurll, rendered inaudible by cries of
** Turn him out."]
1 873-] THE CURE OF BODIES AND SOULS. 59
The Sheriff (addressing Scurll) said — " I must beg
of you to be silent. You are breaking your contract
with the committee — ["hear, hear"] — for you were
only admitted on a ticket pledging yourself to submit
to the chair."
Mr. Hughes continued — Well, if my friend does
not like that illustration I will give him another. He
may say that gas is a material thing, and that he
would like an illustration from a learned profession.
I will take then a profession which is most analogous
to the profession of a clergyman, to the curing of souls.
In every parish in England my friend and anybody
who likes, whatever his religious opinions are, has a
right to send for the parson of the parish : and the
parson of the parish is bound to come and minister to
him, and to cure all his spiritual ailments if he can.
Suppose that the State from ancient times had en-
dowments under which it kept a doctor in every
parish, and by which it had command of all the great
hospitals of the country. Now you know that there
are a number of different schools of medicine in this
country. At present the school of medicine which has
the command of all the hospitals, and of the medical
profession in this country, is what is called the allo-
pathic system. I won't say whether I am an allopathist,
but at any rate whether I am a nonconformist in this
matter of medicine or not, there are a great many
nonconformists who have something to say : homceo-
pathists, hydropathists, mesmerists, and advocates of
half-a-dozen other forms of disestablished medicine.
Now, suppose that the State owned all the hospitals in
6o THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. [1873.
the country, and had a medical officer in every parish
of the country, who was bound to minister to every
man who chose to go to him, and the homoeopathists
were to say, " This will never do ; this is not medical
equality ; let us pull down these hospitals ; we won't
have these hospitals ; oh ! this connection between the
State and the doctors is dreadful ; let us abolish all
the hospitals ; down with them !" [" No."] But that is
what the demand of the Nonconformists is. They
say, "Let us abolish the Establishment altogether."
Now, should you think it would be wise of the State,
in case it had such appliances as these for the curing
of the bodies of the people, to act upon the suggestion
of the homoeopathists and the hydropathists ? The
case of the Church is precisely analogous. It is
simply a question in the one case of the doctors of the
body ; in the other case it is the doctors of the soul.
I think I have sufficiently explained what the Non-
conformists want, and what the Liberation Society,
if it had its way, would take away from the people of
this country. As I say, the people of this country
at present have a right in every parish to the parish
church, have a right to the ministrations of the officer
of religion ; they may use the church or not, as they
like, and they need not send for the ministrations of
the clergyman if they don't like. This is what they
will have to give up if this disestablishment movement
is successful.
Now, what do the Nonconformists propose to give
them in exchange ? and this brings me to the pro-
posals of the Liberationists as I understand them.
1 873-] NONCONFORMIST PROPOSALS. 6 1
The first of their proposals is to adopt something like
the Irish plan. The plan of disestablishment which
has been adopted in Ireland, as you perfectly well
know, has left the cathedrals, the parish churches, the
manses, and a considerable portion of the endowments
in the hands of the clergy and the present Synod of
the Irish Church. Well, supposing that plan adopted
here, every non-Churchman in the first place would
be deprived of his birthright. My friend down there
and the Nonconformists would have no longer any right
to enter the parish church ; he would have no longer a
right to the ministrations of any clergyman in the
country ; he would have no right to any of those ap-
pliances to which he and his fathers have had a right
ever since the nation was a nation. This many
Englishmen perhaps would not object to very much,
but as a Churchman and a politician I do object to
any such course as that being adopted with regard to
the English people.
For myself I say, that if the Church held together,
as I sincerely trust it would, it would become far too
powerful, — it would become an imperium in imperio
that would be very dangerous to any civil government.
No government that came into power would be able
to stir hand or foot until it had made terms with the
disestablished Church. We should have a disestab-
lished Church whose roots were intertwined with the
whole political and social life of the country, and whose
power would be dangerous to the civil government.
If it were to break up into sections — into two or three
divisions — then we Churchmen in our turn should lose
62 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. [^^73-
our birthright. For we could not belong to more than
one of the sections into which the Church was split
up, and we should lose our right in two-thirds of the
parish churches of England. The parish churches
would belong to those sections of the Church and not
to us, and we should no longer have the right which
we inherited from our fathers to use those churches
and to call upon the clergymen who serve in them to
minister to us. Therefore, I object to disestablishment
on this ground. Whether the Church remained to-
gether or broke up into sections, matters little to my
mind. In either case the nation, and I, are losers.
Then, there is a second proposal which I don't think
I need dwell upon, although it is far more consistent
— that is, to sell the cathedrals and churches to the
highest bidders, and apply the whole of the endow-
ments to purely secular purposes. I quite feel that I
need not dwell upon this subject here. I was talking
it over with a thorough-going disestablishment man
only the other day, in the House of Commons. I said,
** What are you going to do with Westminster Abbey
and St. Paul's ?" He replied that in Westminster
Abbey there were a great many monuments, and
perhaps it was fit for a picture and sculpture gallery,
whilst St. Paul's might be bought for a great auction
mart. Are you prepared — is my friend below prepared
— to go that length ? Now, you have, I must say, the
ugliest terminus that I ever saw to your railway in
this town. Suppose that disestablishment had taken
place, and the cathedrals were to be put up by public
auction, and suppose the Great Eastern Railway
1 8/3-] OPEN CHURCHES. 6^
Company were to be the highest bidders for your
cathedral : would you like to see them turn that build-
ing into a terminus for your railway ? I am quite sure
you would not. You feel that the cathedrals and
churches throughout the country have been used for
500 years for the highest possible purposes for which
any buildings can be used in this world, and you would
not have them degraded, any more than Churchmen
would, to any purposes less high.
There is a third proposition, to throw the churches
open to all religious communities. I should not object.
But then comes in the trouble, that is nothing less than
concurrent endowment, or just precisely the thing
to which Nonconformist communities have pledged
Parliament on no consideration whatever to consent.
And, even supposing the churches and cathedrals were
to be thrown open to all the religious communities of
the country, you don't get out of the difficulty. There
must be some hands to hold them, — some organisation
to deal with them, — you cannot leave them there for
the several congregations to fight over: for one to march
in at one door, and another to march in at the opposite
door. I see my friend is very reasonable ; he shakes
his head ; he sees that this would be utterly impossible.
What, then, is the only alternative } It is, to arrange
some hands in which they should be held ; and I think if
you consider the matter you will find that they could
not be held by anybody who would exercise that
trust more fairly, or more for the good of the nation,
than those to whom they are at present confided.
Again, amongst the other arguments which I should
64 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. [1873.
wish to put before this meeting is this — that the
certain tendency of religious communities not in con-
nection with the State is, narrowness. What has kept
the Church of England so broad as it is at present .?
I believe it is simply its connection with the State.
[SCURLL : " We agree there."] Exactly. My friend
does not think it necessary to have a community
broad. I think it desirable to have it as broad as
possible. I should be glad to worship with my fellow
Christian below (I don't know what form he belongs
to) because I am a State Churchman : but he, ' sitting
there as a Nonconformist, I daresay would look three
or four times before he would worship with me. I
say that the breadth of the Church of England has
been maintained by its connection with the State.
Let me remind you of what has happened during our
lifetime. You remember there have been three great
crises in the English Church, and in each one of these
some one party has risen up and striven to cast out
another party from the Church. The first case was
the celebrated case in which the late Bishop of Exeter,
with the High Church party behind him, tried to cast
out Mr. Gorham. They were unsuccessful. The case
went before calm lawyers who were greatly bothered
— there is nothing that judges so much dislike as to
have ecclesiastical questions before them, but, when
they are there, they bring trained intellects and calm
minds, and all the wisdom that they have gained from
long practice of their profession, to bear upon these
questions, — and, as you remember, Mr. Gorham was
not turned out. Then came the celebrated case of the
1 873-] CASTING OUT TARES. 6$
* Essays and Reviews.' In the same way a section of
the Church rose up and said, " These men have been
writing things contrary to the doctrine of the Church
of England ; let us cast them out." But the State
stepped in and said, " No no ! they have been writing
things which perhaps we cannot approve : they have
been writing things which it may be difficult to
reconcile with certain portions of the creeds of the
Church of England : but still, as they can be interpreted
in such a way as to be not clearly incompatible with
those creeds, you shall not cast them out." Then,
what happened the other day } The time of trial came
for the High Church party. There was the case against
Mr. Bennett. The privy Council said, " We very much
regret what this gentleman has written ; we don't
think it at all right that a clergyman of the Church of
England should have written these things ; but we see
that they can be interpreted in a way which is not
necessarily incompatible with the doctrines of the
Church of England." Therefore, the State holds an
equal and firm hand between all schools within the
Church and says, " Gentlemen, your duty is to live
together as Christian men, and not to be casting one
another out of the inheritance of your fathers." My
friend down there evidently thinks this is a disgrace
to the Church. [SCURLL : " I do." ] My friend says he
does. But then, you see, if he thinks it is a great thing
to be able to cast out the tares and to keep the wheat,
he does not agree with the Author of our religion, or
with the Apostles. They said that the tares and the
wheat were to grow together until the harvest, and
F
66 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. [1873.
that it was not for human judgment to go and root
up those whom we please to call tares, and to tie
them up in bundles to burn them, upon mere human
judgment.
Let me now look for a moment at the different way
in which these religious communities act. Without in
the least wishing to throw any disparagement upon
the body of which I am going to speak, I will take
the broadest of the Nonconformist communities, the
Independents. Their government is a self-elected
and absolute committee. What has happened within
the last few years } We all remember that two or
three years ago the Rev. Mr. Brewin Grant was cast
out of that Church for I don't really know what.
But I will speak of a more recent case. There was
the Rev. Mr. Webster, of Eckington, near Chester-
field, who had been a minister in the Independent
Church for more than fifteen years. It appears that
in this community there is the * Congregational
Year Book,' and that it is necessary that the names
of all the ministers should appear in that book every
year. He found in the year 1871 that his name had
not been inserted among the ministers. He wrote to
the editor of the * Year Book ' to ask why his name had
not been returned, and the editor, the Rev. Mr. Ashton,
made him no answer. Then he referred the editor
to a bye-law of the society, imposing upon the editor
the duty of informing the minister whose name was
omitted. He got no answer. Then he wrote to the
secretary of the Congregational Union. He got an
answer, that if the secretary of the County Union
1 873-] INDEPENDENT LIBERALITY. 6/
does not send the name in, no help can be given.
Then he wrote to the secretary of the County Union,
and he was told that the secretary of the County
Union could give him no information. Then he made
an application straight to the committee of the Con-
gregational Union, and they expressed regret that
they had no power to act. Thus the name of that
clergyman was quietly shunted out by an irresponsible
committee : and the consequence was, that without
having the opportunity of defending himself, or having
his case heard by any tribunal, he lost his share of
the sick funds to which he had subscribed all those
years : he lost the privilege of sending his children to
school at a lower rate of payment, which every Inde-
pendent clergyman has ; . he lost the advantage of
the Pastor's Insurance Society to which he was also
entitled ; and I apprehend that by this time, in con-
sequence of the disappearance of his name from
the ' Congregational Year Book,' he is no longer a
member of the Independent community.
Contrast the difference between this treatment of
the ministers of one of the largest, and by far the most
liberal (so far as I know) of the Nonconformist com-
munities with the treatment which Church of England
clergymen get ! Therefore, I say again, the connection
with the State makes the position of a clergyman
much more free, much more independent, than that of
the minister of any other religious community. I only
cited that case just to prove this point. As a Liberal
politician, I believe that the principle of exclusion is
illiberal, and that the principle of inclusion is liberal.
F 2
68 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. [l^TS'
The one is the idea of religious communities outside
the Church; the other is the idea of the national
Church ; and I as a Liberal, intensely prefer the
principle of the Established Church to that principle
of selection and exclusion which is the principle of
Nonconformist communities.
Again, there is another tendency of Nonconformist
communities which I should be very sorry indeed to
see come into the Church of England, and it seems
to be quite inevitable in the case of communities
not in connection with the State. That is the tendency
to split up. The other day I read in a book of very
considerable authority, that in the community of Bap-
tists there are in England 550 congregations which
are unattached, and which owe no allegiance to the
central organisation. I don't know whether that is
true — at any rate it is stated by those who write
with some knowledge, — but I do know that in
* Guthrie's Conversations,' which is a work of autho-
rity in America, where the Baptists are much more
extended than in England, there is the following list
of sects into which the Baptists have split up :— *
Regular, Campbellites, Free-will Seventh Day, Six
Principles Winnebrunnians, Anti-Mission Christians,
Dunkers, and others. I should be very sorry indeed
to see the chance of having the Church of England
split up in that manner.
I will not only take the Baptists, but take the most
recent of all Nonconformist communities, for which I
have great respect — the Wesleyan community. You
remember that John Wesley up to the end of his life
1873.] WESLEYAN UNITY. 69
considered himself a Churchman. He said, " I have
uniformly gone on for fifty years, never varying from
the doctrine of the Church at all." But even in his
time the Methodists had split up into three portions.
Lady Huntingdon and Whitefield went off with the
Calvinistic portion, another section went off with
Ingham and Gambold, and then there was the Church
section which remained with John and Charles Wesley.
In the year 1795 there was a formal secession of the
Methodists. Two years afterwards, in 1797, came
the first split among them. The New Connexion was
formed. [SCURLL : "They wanted freedom."] That
was an attempt to get the lay members into the
Conference. Then came 18 10, when the Primitive
Methodists went off on some question of preaching in
the open air. [SCURLL : ** Freedom again."] Now, if
they had been of the Established Church connected
with the State, the State would have said, "You
Christians need not quarrel about these things ; go and
do your own work in your own way ; you are perfectly
at liberty to hold all these things within the pale of
the Church." In 181 5 the Bible Christians broke off,
and then followed in 1835 the Wesleyan Methodist
Association. And so you see within the first forty
years of the disestablishment of Methodism, from the
time they were released from State control, there were
no less than five secessions and splits up. [Scurll :
"The result of freedom."] If my friend thinks it
desirable to have no religious organisation throughout
the country, and to have every community splitting
up into a hundred different parts, of course he has a
70 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. [1873.
perfect right to his opinion ; but I don't. There he
and I entirely disagree.
Now, I daresay my friend down there has never
looked into this part of the subject ; but I will ask —
what have the greatest Nonconformists who have ever
lived said on this question ? I have the greatest
possible respect for Nonconformists now living, but
as I have said, with one exception, there are no men
of the first flight of intellectual greatness among the
Nonconformists in England at the present time. But
that was not the case 200 years ago, in the great days
of Nonconformity ; and you shall hear what those
men thought about Disestablishment and Disendow-
ment. First, let us have Oliver Cromwell, whom all
will allow to have been a pretty distinguished Non-
conformist. There was no man more angry than he
at the suggestion to split up the Church. He said,
*' Every man saith, ' O ! give me liberty,' but give it to
him and (to his power) he will not yield it to anybody
else. We are a people who have been unhinged
these twelve years ; as if scattering, division, and
confusion came upon us like things that we desired.
These which are the greatest plagues that God ordi-
narily lays on nations for sin." Oliver would not
stand these splittings up. He appointed Triers, who
went round to see that every Church was properly
served, and that people did not split up and make
divisions. The consequence was that a great number
of Independent and Presbyterian ministers accepted
livings in the Church of England as Nonconformist
ministers. Let us come to John Bunyan, almost the
1 873-] THE GREAT NONCONFORMISTS. /I
greatest of Nonconformists, and not far from the
greatest of English writers. What does he say ? " I
would be, and hope I am, a Christian ; but as for these
factious titles of Anabaptists, Independents, Presby-
terians, or the like, I conclude that they came not
from Jerusalem or Antioch, but rather from hell and
Babylon. For they naturally tend to divisions.; you
may know them by their fruits." Now comes another,
one of the greatest and ablest of all Nonconformists,
and almost of all Englishmen of his time. What does
Matthew Henry say in his commentary on the 45th
chapter of Ezekiel } " It is the duty of rulers to take
care of religion, and to see that the duties of it be
regularly and carefully performed by those under their
charge. Let us give God praise for the national
establishment of our religion with that of our peace
and civil liberty." Then he says, " Christianity is
twisted in with the very constitution of our Govern-
ment." The time is getting late, and I will give you
only one more quotation. This shall be of another
eminent Nonconformist of that time — Dr. Owen,
Cromwell's brother-in-law — whom all of you who study
this question know to have been one of the leading
men in the Long Parliament. A motion for disestab-
lishment came on then, just like the motion which
Mr. Miall is going to bring on next Friday in the
House of Commons. Dr. Owen was one of the leaders
of the religious party in the House of Commons at
that time, and what does he say ? '^ If it comes to
this, and you say you have nothing to do with religion
as the rulers of the nation, God will very soon have
72 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. [1873.
nothing to do with you as rulers of the nation." Well,
I hope that I have proved that in the very greatest
time of the Nonconformists this idea of disestablish-
ment, of severing all connection between the State and
religion, had never occurred at all to the greatest and
best of them. I quite admit that they wanted to put
their Church over the State, and I am as happy they
failed in that as I am happy that they succeeded in
stopping others from severing the connection.
I am told by many Nonconformist friends, " It is
very true what you say about the opinions of the old
Nonconformists, and about our opinions now ; but you
will please to understand it is not only we Noncon-
formists who cry out for disestablishment ; there is a
large party in your own Church which is crying out for
disestablishment." [" No, no."] I am glad to hear that in
Norwich this is not so, and I hope it may not be true
in other parts of the country. But if it be true that
a portion of the Church of England is crying out for
disestablishment, is it Liberal Churchmen, is it Broad
Churchmen, is it men who want all authority to be
obeyed, who wish the bishops to keep their dioceses
in order, who wish to go on the old lines in which the
Church of England has gone for 300 years ? It is not.
The only portion of the Church within its pale who
have made any efforts for its disestablishment are just
those who won't obey the bishops — who want to
break up the order of the Church, who want to do
away with those things which we and our fathers have
held to for 300 years, and who wish to introduce con-
fession and a number of other things. [SCURLL:
1873.] LIBERALITY IN ROMANISM. 73
" That's it."] My friend cries out " That's it." Well,
is he prepared to go into alliance with them ?
[SCURLL : ** No."] But he must do, because they are
the only persons in the Church who, like him, wish
for its disestablishment. Now, I say that all State
Churches are liberal, and that all voluntary Churches
are illiberal. I will give you another proof of this.
As you are aware, the Church of Rome, after a
council which sat in Rome two or three years ago,
have settled that the Pope is infallible. Who were
those who supported the pretensions of the Pope to
infallibility ? Why, they were all the free Churches —
the voluntary Churches. His great supporters were
the voluntary Romish Church of England, the volun-
tary Romish Church of Ireland, the voluntary Romish
Church of America. Archbishop Manning and all
who follow him were the great advocates of Papal
infallibility. Who were the persons who opposed it ?
The members of State Churches. The members of the
State Church of Germany, the members of the State
Church of Hungary, the members of the State Church
of France. There never was a case in which the
principle came out more clearly than in the most
searching ordeal that has been before our generation
— that question of the infallibility of the Pope, on
which probably the very continuance of the great
Romish Church, or heresy, which ever you please to
call it, turned ; and upon that question the great
supporters of the Pope's monstrous claims were the
three voluntary Churches, and his great opponents
were the three State Churches.
74 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. [1873.
In conclusion, I will just say a few words to my
friends the Nonconformists and to my friends who sit
around me, and who have invited me down here. I
would say to the Nonconformists, that I hold their
work has been necessary, has been of immense value
to the religious life of this country, and that it is
likely to be necessary in the future. I also hold
that they have every right to the position which they
occupy, and I sincerely trust they may maintain it,
but I wish they would maintain it inside the Church
instead of outside. Let me remind my friends of one
or two facts. Before the Act of Uniformity there
were Nonconforming members of the Church of
England. In the year 1602 who was it carried the
Millenary petition to King James l.> Why 800
Nonconforming ministers of the Church of England.
As I have told you, Oliver Cromwell put into churches
numbers of men who were Nonconformists, and who
did not accept the doctrines of the Church of England.
There is not the least reason why they should not
now pursue their own views, desiring and preferring
their voluntary organisation to that of the Established
Church : but why should they not accept openly what
they cannot help, because they are Nonconforming
members of the Church of England, whether they
like it or not ? Why should they not say, " As we
cannot get out of you, we will reform you. There
are many ways in which we should like you to
reform. We will join all your own best men in
helping to reform that Church which has been handed
down to us for a thousand years, and make it a noble
1 8/3-] TO CHURCHMEN. 75
temple in which all Christians in this country who
are willing to acknowledge no supremacy outside the
country may join in one great body."
To my friends the Churchmen, who I suppose are
the great majority in this room, I will just say a very
few words. If disestablishment is to come in this
country it will be very much your own fault. I
hear some people say that the day of our visitation
has come, and is past. I should be very sorry indeed
to believe it, and I believe it would be a very sad day
for England if that were true. But in order that it
may never come, I trust that Churchmen will re-
member that this struggle is not to be carried on by
any kind of intemperance, or of intolerance, or of
narrowness. We should remember that truth is
many sided ; that all truth comes from one source.
There is only one sun in the heavens, yet, as you
know, there are many beautiful colours, all which
come from the one sun. You cannot say that the
red is better and truer than the blue, or that the blue
is better and truer than the yellow. You may prefer
one to the other ; you may see that one colour is more
universal, more applicable for different purposes than
another, but there is truth in each. In the same way
there is only one earth, but there are a great many
different trees which grow out of it, and which derive
their nourishment from it : and although the oak may
be very much better suited to England and the fir to
Norway, yet we admit that there is truth in each ;
that one is just as good and true a tree as the other.
Therefore, let us who are apt to think in the Church
^6 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. [1873.
and other religious communities that we have got all
the truth ourselves, remember that truth is wider
than can be comprehended by any body of human
beings, and let us be tolerant to one another, not
forgetting that those who are not in the same com-
munity with us hold their side of the truth as strongly
as we do ours.
Each religious community has witnessed, and is
witnessing, to some side of the truth. Religious
communities are not perfect in themselves like trees
or flowers, but for that very reason it is all the more
necessary that the members of them should be tolerant,
and should make the greatest effort to understand
those of other religious beliefs. If our Church, as I
hold and as I believe, is the broadest, and therefore
in that sense the truest and greatest of those com-
munities, if it be a catholic body, it can do two
things. It can, in the first place, concede more easily
than other bodies, and in the next it can assimilate
better. And I say that the duty of Churchmen in
this day of ours is, to concede everything that can be
fairly conceded to other religious communities. We
Churchmen are very fond of resisting every change,
however small it be, on the old unwise pretence of
not letting in the thin end of the wedge. Now let
me read to you an extract from one whom you will
all admit, whether you agree with him or not, to be a
great statesman, and whose name will be honoured in
any assembly of living Englishmen. I am going to
quote to you from Lord Russell's * History of the
Christian Religion,' p. 185. It is the wisest sentence
1873.] ASSIMILATION. ^J
in the whole book. "There is no doubt that con-
cession gives rise to demands for fresh concession,
— [* Hear, hear ' from the platform] — and it is right
that it should be so." [Laughter.] Then comes the
point to which I wish specially to call the attention of
my friends behind : — " The true limit is, that all it is
just to concede should be conceded ; all that it is true
to affirm should be affirmed ; but that which is unjust
should be rejected, and that which is false should be
denied." Besides this power of concession, which she
has in a much greater degree than any other religious
body, the Church, if she be a catholic Church, as she
pretends to be, has also greater power of assimilation.
Let her not be afraid of those sides of the truth which
have been most prominently put forward by other
religious communities. She can assimilate them if
she pleases, and it is her duty to assimilate whatever
is true in them. Her mission in this world is not to
hold her own in the sense of resisting all reform, of
resisting all concession, but her duty and mission is
to go to the lost people of our country, and of every
country where she is established or where she exists,
and to draw those together into her fold who cannot
get into that of other religious bodies, which have
such limits as I have been speaking of to bar the
gates of admission. Her great mission is to seek and
save those which are lost in every community. The
highest title of her ministers is Servi servorum Dei
(the servants of the servants of God), and, if she
remembers this high mission, if she endeavours by
her life to exemplify her Master's Spirit and to
78 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. [1873.
illustrate His life, she never need be afraid in this
country, or in any other country, of disestablishment
or disendowment. What did the greatest of Church-
men who ever lived say on the point of people car-
rying on those miserable squabbles that are dividing
us in this day ? They were saying, " We are of
Paul," "We are of Apollos," "We are of Peter," and
he said, " Who is Paul ? Who is Apollos ? Who is
Peter ? " If you only understand what an inheritance
you are called to, "all things are yours, whether
Paul, or Apollos, or Peter, or the world, or life, or
death, or things present, or things to come, all are
yours, for ye are Christ's, and Christ is God's."
( 79 )
IV.
THE CONDITION AND PROSPECTS OF
THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND.
{Delivered at Sion College, March \Zth, 1877.)
I THINK that many of those whom I am about to
address in this college on the condition and prospects
of our national Church, may very probably be asking
themselves at this moment what possible claim I can
have to do so, or what possible good can come of
anything I may say. I, at any rate, very readily
admit that such questions would be most reasonable,
so perhaps a few preliminary words of explanation
may not be out of place.
It was some months ago, before the late occurrences
at Hatcham and all that has followed on them, that
the proposal was made to me. Even then I had
serious doubt as to accepting, and ultimately did so
with some reluctance. The doubt arose from a
genuine belief that I had much more to learn from
than to teach the members of Sion College on such a
subject. It is true that I had been asked to speak
or lecture on the Church question at Birmingham,
Norwich, and elsewhere ; but those addresses were
8o THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. [iS//.
delivered to popular audiences, to whom I had been
asked to speak as a politician, and at times when this
great controversy was in a very different phase. But
in this place I knew that I should be addressing an
audience of experts, the metropolitan representatives
of the great profession (or " calling," to use the better
word) of ordained ministers of the national Church —
a very different and much more serious matter.
Hence my doubt.
My reluctance arose from a dislike to stir still
waters, and raise discussion upon grave matters at a
time when there seemed no pressing need for action
or decision with regard to them. And I own that
the earlier part of the past year appeared to me to
bear many signs of such a time ; for the usual
motions, pointing to a severance of Church and
State, or to reconstruction or reform of one kind or
another, had not been made in the House of Commons.
In the addresses of members and candidates to con-
stituencies last autumn, when reference was made to
the Church question, it was generally treated as a
kind of neutral territory in politics, even advanced
Liberals, like Mr. Leonard Courtney, declaring, that
though they were theoretically in favour of the entire
severance of Church and State when the proper
time might come, yet they saw no sign of its coming,
and deprecated any attempt to force it. On the
other hand, one most important Church reform, the
full meaning of which has never been popularly
appreciated, — I mean the subdivision of dioceses and
the appointment of suffragan bishops who should not
1 877-] THE NEW CRISIS. 8 1
be peers of Parliament, — had made great progress,
almost without opposition from the nonconforming
bodies or the Liberation Society. Thus far the time
seemed one for letting well alone : and I should
certainly have desired to do so then, but for the
smouldering discontent already too apparent in one
extreme wing of the national clergy. In view of
this, however, it seemed to me possibly worth while to
put forward at Sion College a lay view of the matters
which were causing such discontent amongst a section
of Churchmen. So with this view I overcame my
reluctance, never dreaming that before I should
address you here, this smouldering fire would have
burst into a blaze ; that we should have, on the one
hand, the Church Union publicly denying the right
of the nation to control the clergy, and clergymen
declaring that they "will labour night and day to
set the Church of England free from a persecuting
State;" on the other hand, the Liberationists, re-
assured at hearing their own war-cries issuing from
within what they are used to regard as the hostile
camp, openly preparing for a campaign which they
seem to think may be the final one.
Had I been able to foresee such a state of things,
I candidly confess that I should have declined this
invitation. The prospect is to me altogether too sad
and too confusing, and the issues are at present so
undefined, and the forces on either side so unde-
veloped, that I would very gladly have been silent, at
any rate till I could see more clearly how the great
controversy was shaping itself, and what it behoved
G
82 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. [iS//-
one to say or do in this matter, who looks upon the
connection of Church and State — of the spiritual and
temporal life of the nation, as it exists, and has
existed in England ever since we were a nation — as a
part of our national inheritance which it would be
a grievous misfortune, and an irreparable misfortune,
to lose.
I am here, however, to speak to you on the subject,
and must do so to the best of my ability, glad at any
rate that you will hear the views, frankly expressed, of
what I believe to be a much larger proportion than is
generally supposed of ordinary English Churchmen —
laymen who have no strong bias for or against any
party in the Church ; who have neither time nor taste
for the lamentable party wrestling-matches got up by
the (so-called) religious press and societies, but only
desire to use themselves in peace, and to hand down
to their children, the opportunities for Christian wor-
ship and Christian living, which have served their
forefathers for so many generations, improved and
reformed to suit the needs of a new time, but still an
inalienable part of the birthright of every English
child. I repeat that I believe, — and, as one who has
had much intercourse with all classes of our society,
and has for years been much exercised by this
question, have good grounds for my belief, — that
this class is a far larger one than is commonly
allowed. And it would be a great mistake to sup-
pose, because they make no strife or fuss about their
religion, that they do not really care about it. It is
often assumed, nowadays, that the bulk of our Church
1 877-] A COMMON ERROR. 83
laity are mere formalists, supporting religion because
they believe the parson to be the most powerful kind
of policeman ; and ready to welcome whatever form
of new worship, or no-worship, may come next, when
criticism and science shall have dealt finally with the
supernatural and Christianity, so long only as some
form or other be left to keep the common folk in
order, and their own wives and children quiet. On
the contrary, we (for I must rank myself in their
number) are thoroughly satisfied that Christianity is
in no more real danger now than it was a hundred
and fifty years ago, when Dean Swift, and many other
greater wits than we have amongst us nowadays,
thought and said that it was doomed. We hold in
perfect good faith, that the good news our Lord
brought is the best the world will ever hear ; that
there has been a revelation in the Man Jesus Christ,
of God the Creator of the world as our Father, so .that
the humblest and poorest man can know God for all
purposes for which men need to know Him in this
life, and can have His help in becoming like Him, the
business for which they were sent into it : and that
there will be no other revelation, though this one will
be, through all time, unfolding to men more and more
of its unspeakable depth, and glory, and beauty, in
external nature, in human society, in individual men.
That, I believe to be a fair statement of the positive
religious belief of average Englishmen, if they had to
think it out and to put it in words ; and all who hold
it must of course look upon Christ's Gospel as the
great purifying, reforming, redeeming power in the
G 2
84 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. [1^77-
world, and desire that it shall be free to work in their
own country on the most favourable conditions which
can be found for it.
On the other hand, there are a number of matters
which have been commonly insisted upon in England
as part of Christianity, as to many of which the kind
of Englishmen I am speaking of have come to have
no belief at all, one way or the other. They have no
time to spare for such subjects, and do not feel it
needful for their higher life that they should make up
their minds, for instance, as to the exact quality of
the inspiration of Scripture, the origin of evil, the
method of the Atonement, the nature and effect of
sacraments, justification, conversion, and other much-
debated matters. As to another class of ecclesiastical
subjects, such as apostolical succession, and all the
priestly and mediatorial claims which are founded on
it, they have indeed made up their minds thoroughly,
and believe them to be men's fables, mischievous and
misleading to those who teach and those who learn —
to priests and people alike.
Probably many of my hearers will consider such a
belief as this too vague to be of any practical value ;
but at any rate, as a fact, there it is, and it has to be
acknowledged and accounted with as a fact in dealing
with this Church question. And, as a rule, while it
hinders those who hold it from attaching any exagge-
rated or superstitious importance to one form or
another of Church organisation, it inclines them to
respect and value that which they find to have been
thought out and beaten out by successive generations,
1877.] ^ layman's reasons. 85
and to have brought the nation safely at least, and
not without honour, so far. Such a man is therefore
generally an attached, though not an enthusiastic
national Churchman, and in the main for the following
reasons : —
First, the historical. Our time is not one in which
any institution is able to stand on its pedigree only :
but it is also one in which we are bound to be specially
careful of any wholesome links which bind us to the
past, and make our history one of steady and con-
nected life and progress. And from this point of
view the national Church is beyond all question the
most venerable of our institutions, and as intimately
bound up with the national life as the monarchy or
the Houses of Parliament. The latest and best
historian of the Conquest describes the England of
1066 as "a land where the Church and nation were
but different names for the same community ; a land
where priests and prelates were subject to the law like
other men ; a land where the king and the witan gave
away the staff of the bishop;" adding that "such a
land was more dangerous in the eyes of Rome than
one of Jews or Saracens."
And through the long four hundred years' struggle
with the Papacy, the same description holds good ;
and in every great crisis the Church and nation has
held together as one community. When a Becket
backed the Pope's claim to make Church courts
supreme over the clergy, and to exempt them from
the national tribunals, the king answered by the
Constitutions of Clarendon, which declared the Church
S6 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. [iS//.
to be part and parcel of the nation, and the clergy-
amenable to the civil law like all other citizens ; and
those Constitutions were supported by clergy and
laity alike.
When the King, backed by the Pope, refused the
demands of the nation for the Great Charter, it was
Archbishop Langton who headed the barons. Two
of the three sureties to whom John was bound for its
fulfilment were bishops, and the first nine names are
those of Church dignitaries. Again and again the
identity of the Church of England with the nation
was upheld ; sometimes by bishops, as when Robert
Grostete flatly refused to institute Innocent IV.'s
Genoese nominee to an English benefice ; sometimes
by the King or his courts of law, as when the King's
Bench outlawed the members of the assembly of
clergy, who had come together without the King's
writ, and, in deference to a Papal Bull, produced by
Archbishop Winchelsea, refused to grant a subsidy to
Edward I. for his Scotch campaign. The statutes of
mortmain, of provisors, of prohibition, of praemunire,
all aimed at some encroachment of Rome on the
national character of the English Church, were all
passed with the assent and by the help of that Church
which, by its very divisions in such crises, proved its
national character. It is not necessary to follow the
history since the Reformation, for it is part of the case
of those of the clergy who seek to sever the connection
that it has existed in full force from that time. Even
when episcopacy was abolished during the Common-
wealth and Protectorate, the national principle was
1877.] SUPPOSED COMPACT. 87
upheld, and the established Presbyterian Church was
even more intimately allied with the State than its
predecessor had been. Cromwell had no more thought
of severing the connection than Edward or Henry,
but desired to make the Church as broad and tolerant
as possible.
And so the Church has continued to our own day
in theory, and still is to a very great extent in fact, the
nation organized for spiritual purposes, and in striking
sympathy with and faithfully mirroring the nation in
all its varying moods — at times no doubt persecuting,
apathetic, unfaithful — but on the whole faithful to her
g^eat mission, and exercising a noble and purifying in-
fluence on the national conscience and the national life.
If this is at all a true view of the history of the
Church of England, the fallacy of the main argument
of the English Church Union at recent meetings
becomes clear. Appeal is made to some supposed
compact between the State and the Church, and it is
contended that the Church never conceded to the
State the right of control in spiritual matters when
that compact was made. This assumes that the State
and the Church in England were at some time two
distinct corporate bodies, in part at least composed of
different persons, and capable of contracting with one
another. But there never was such a time in England ;
State and Church never stood in such relations to
each other ; there never was any such formal contract
between them as the Church Union argument starts
from. Between the officers of the Church for the time
being and the State, there can of course be, and
88 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. [l877-
â– always has been, a contract of service, as there is
between the officers of the army and the State. But
it is placing matters on a false issue to represent the
Church of England as a power bound by treaty or
compact with the State of England for certain
definite purposes, and competent to annul that treaty
when she pleases. A Church with the pretensions
of Rome, or a voluntary Church, such as the Methodists,
if the nation were to come to them now to make terms,
might assume such an attitude and make such claims,
but they contradict the very idea of our national
Church, as those words have always been understood
in England.
Before quitting the historical ground I would just
remind you that this modern cry for disestablishment,
or the absolute severance of the State from religion,
has really no English tradition at all behind it, at any
rate since the Long Parliament. In that celebrated
assembly it was indeed mooted, but with no success.
Dr. Owen, the brother-in-law of Cromwell, and a
famous Nonconformist minister, was its most vigorous
opponent, and evidently expressed the sense of the
House and the country when he protested in the
most solemn and earnest words against the notion
that they, as rulers of the nation, had nothing to
do with religion. From that time to our own the
effort has never been repeated, while the greatest
names amongst the Nonconformists may be cited as
supporters of the direct and avowed connection of the
State with religion. Thus Matthew Henry thanks
God " for the national establishment of our religion
1877.] SECULAR AND RELIGIOUS. 89
with that of our peace and civil liberty," and Bunyan,
Wesley, Baxter, may all be quoted on the same side.
Even the leading Nonconformists and reformers of
the very last generation had no such policy. Mr.
Grote, who may be taken as their representative man
on this question, in the first Reformed Parliament,
advocated indeed sweeping and stringent reforms
within the Church, but, so far as I am aware, never
hinted at severing the connection between the Church
and the civil government. I need not say that the
cry from within the Church herself for this divorce is
of even more recent origin.
It may of course be replied to all this, that however
strong the historical argument may be, it is after all
mainly a sentimental one, which can be allowed little
weight in the changed and changing conditions and
aims of our time. And I would not press it beyond
this, that if thirty generations of Englishmen, who
have given us our country as we enjoy it, have
insisted on a national profession of Christianity by the
State, those who now oppose it shall at least give us
some grounds for believing that the nation will become
nobler and better for renouncing that profession.
The second reason for which such men as I am
speaking of value the connection, may also possibly
be called a sentimental one, but has I believe a very
important practical side to it. It is that that connec-
tion is a constant and powerful protest against the
desire and effort to divide human life sharply into two
parts, one of which is concerned with the visible, and
the other with the invisible : or, as the commoner
90 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. [1^77-
phrase goes, one with secular, the other with religious
affairs. Notwithstanding the experience of many-
failures, that desire and effort were never more active
than in our time. And, however firmly convinced
we may be from the experience of our own lives, and
from our observation of all that is going on around us,
that no such severance is possible, — that the two
realms will assert their interdependence sooner or
later, whatever rules we may lay down for keeping
them apart, — still the mere attempt to sever them
will always work mischief, and we cannot afford
to part, or to tamper with, any witness that they have
been joined together from the beginning of time, and
will remain so joined to the end, by a law which man
cannot set aside. And the connection of Church and
State is a standing witness to this law in the highest
places, a protest against the notion that the nation
can repudiate its highest functions and duties, any
more than one of its own citizens can do so. Were
the present connection severed, the only result would
be, that, sooner or later — probably after much national
deterioration and humiliation — the law would have
to be reasserted, and the duty accepted again by
the nation under new conditions. Therefore, those
in whom the love of their country is deepest and
strongest, should be foremost in insisting that we shall
not give up the highest national ideal because we find
it hard to realize.
It is scarcely possible to contend that that ideal
is not lowered by severance of the connection. An
abandonment of important functions may be ex-
1877.] RELIGION IN POLITICS. 9 1
pedient, or convenient, or even necessary, but it must
remain a proof of a more stunted and narrower life.
And, without dwelling on the many ways in which
such an abandonment might probably act in England,
I think no one will deny that, in any case, it is certain
to lessen the interest which religious men take in
politics and public life. There is, I know, a school of
politicians, not wanting influential representatives in
the press, who will exclaim at once, " What a blessing !
How smoothly public business would run on in future
if we could only get rid of them altogether ! They
are the bane of public life, at least, just so far as they
will insist on bringing religious considerations to bear
on it. A nation to be great and prosperous can't
afford to keep a religious conscience." But I venture
to think notwithstanding, from all I have seen of
public life in England, that precisely the contrary is
true, that men who are avowedly religious are the
best politicians, and that it is of the highest moment
for the national character, and therefore in the end
for national prosperity, that they should be kept
interested in politics. It is not easy to do this now,
and I am at a loss to see how it will become easier
when we declare that henceforth the nation will take
no cognizance of, and will cease in its corporate
capacity to have anything to do with, religion. If it
is replied by some sections of Liberationists (as I
presume some at least of the nonconforming bodies
would reply) that this is not their meaning — that they
never intended to bring about such a result, and they
do not believe that disestablishment will effect it — I
92 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. [iS//.
can only ask, how they propose to avert it ? By what
machinery can the national supervision and control
of religion be made less irksome to them than the
present arrangement ?
Again, such a man finds himself born to a certain
religious inheritance as an Englishman. He can go
and settle in any remotest hamlet of this island of
ours, and there he shall find provided for him and his
family a public place of worship, an officer of the
State, and all the machinery necessary for enabling
him to enjoy every office and ministration of religion,
if, and so far only as, he desires them. This, I say, is
part of his and of my birthright, and of every man's
birthright as an Englishman, in this year 1877. I
have the right to all these things, not because I hold
any particular religious opinions, but simply because
I am an Englishman, and claim them. If I am too
poor or too miserly to pay for them, I can claim them
without payment.
Now, to put it no higher, this particular portion of
our birthright can do us no harm, for this if for no
other reason, that we need not use it unless we please.
If we do not want to worship God ourselves, or to be
baptized, married, buried, consoled, aided, instructed
— if we want none of these things for our wives and
children — there is no compulsion whatever upon us in
the matter. It is not easy, therefore, to see how we
or our families can be injured by this option, and by
no means clear how any one else can be.
Again, another reason why such men as I am
trying to describe are attached to and desire to main-
1 877-] THE CHURCH OF THE POOR. 93
tain the connection between Church and State, as
the religious condition of things most favourable to
national life, is that they see that the principle which
underlies the National Church is inclusiveness.
Every Englishman born is assumed to be a member,
and continues to be so without question, until he
leaves it by his own act, of his own free will. Whereas
the principle which underlies all voluntary churches is
exclusiveness — they are essentially a section gleaned
out of the nation ; and whereas an Englishman cannot
get out of the national, he cannot get into any
voluntary Church, without an effort of will. It
follows, or at any rate is the fact, that the national
Church is the most liberal in spirit ; for by its very
nature and constitution it is bound to protest against
the sectarian spirit, the spirit of division. Whenever
the National Church is not bearing this protest faith-
fully, it is untrue to itself. The wide divergences of
opinion allowed within its ranks, so triumphantly
cited in some quarters as signs of weakness, seem
to such men proofs of strength.
They see also that the national is the only
organisation by which the Gospel can be carried to
the very poor and the outcasts — to those, in short who
need it most, but who do not value it, and cannot or will
not pay for it. For voluntary Churches cannot live in
the poorest districts, but must follow those who can
maintain them, and are only bound to minister to these.
They see, lastly, that the National Church is best
adapted to the tone and circumstances of the people of
England, as is proved by the fact that the voluntary
94 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. [iS//.
Churches are all imitating her in so many ways — by
using more and more of her Liturgy, by copying her
architecture and music, till it is often difficult to tell
as you pass a place of worship whether it is national
or Nonconformist — by even adopting for their ministers
the titles by which the national clergy have always
been; distinguished.
I have had to dwell at some length, though I trust
so as not to weary you, on the sort of views which are
held by a large number of quiet lay Churchmen who
think about such subjects at all. And now, if there
be the least ground of truth in my picture, if I am
not dreaming when I say that such men are numerous
in England, I would ask any clergyman here to try
to put himself in the place of such a layman, and
consider how he would regard the doings of the last
few months within the Church, and the position which
a section of the clergy are taking up and the language
they are using — I say a section of the clergy, not
meaning for a moment to deny that they have a
following of laymen (not really so numerous as they
suppose, but genuine as far as it goes) with them, but
only to place the burthen on the right back. No
laity would be there but for them. It is idle to talk of
offences coming mainly from the newly aroused zeal
of boys and girls. It is a section of the national
clergy who are responsible, and must answer for, the
present state of things, be it for good or for evil.
Now this extreme section are deliberately breaking
the law, and, to our astonishment, are applauded and
upheld in doing so, not only by newspapers and
1 877-] SUFFERING FOR CONSCIENCE. 95
unions from which nothing better could be expected,
but by considerable numbers of their brethren upon
whom we had been accustomed to look with respect
as honest and faithful ministers, however much we
might differ from them. They do not indeed pretend
to agree with the extreme Ritualists, but they support
them openly and warmly, on the plea that they are
suffering for conscience sake. Well, let the plea pass
— admit that they are making these things matters
of conscience — but we must be allowed to ask, as
Englishmen, whether this is the kind of conscience
which we desire to cultivate in ourselves, or to see
cultivated in this nation. Poor conscience ! to what
pitiful uses is that sacred name turned ! The stolid
Essex peasant, one of the Peculiar People, lets his
child die because he will not allow it to take medicine,
and believes himself to be suffering for conscience
sake because he is summoned before a magistrate to
answer for its life. And he has far more reason on
his side than these Ritualist martyrs. I desire neither
to speak nor think scornfully or bitterly of them, but
this at least I must say, that men who can make
matters of conscience of such trivialities as the shape
and colour of vestments, the burning of candles and
incense, the position of tables, and the like, and in
defence of these things are prepared to defy authority,
and break what they know to be the law of their
country, are not fit to be trusted with the spiritual
guidance of any portion of our people. This nation
has a great work still to do in the world, for which
she needs children with quite other kind of consciences
96 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. [iS//.
than these — consciences which shall be simple, manly,
obedient, qualities which must disappear under such
examples and teaching as these men are giving. It
is with reluctance that one has to come to such a
conclusion, but there is no use in blinding ourselves
any longer as to their meaning. They have resolved
to try their strength with the nation ; to throw off all
civil control as well as to disobey and defy their
spiritual superiors : and they will have to abide the
consequences, which will assuredly be that they will
not be allowed to minister any longer in that National
Church, which they are doing all they can to destroy.
Were it only a question of these extreme men, there
would be small cause for anxiety, but, as already
stated, they have been backed — at any rate, ever
since the judgment in the Hatcham case — by a large
number of High Church clergy from whom we had a
right to look for very different things. I have heard
friends of my own speaking of these men as martyrs,
and echoing the clap-trap cries of the (so-called)
religious press, such as that of "The interference of
the State with the Church has increased, is increasing,
and ought to be diminished." A martyr I have
always understood to be one who suffers willingly, for
his faith. It is abusing an almost sacred word to apply
it to such suffering as is possible here in England
nowadays for any opinion (I will not speak of faith)
about what postures of the body, or shape or colour
of garments, have been in use in churches since
Edward the Sixth's time. And as to interference of
the State having increased, it is notoriously untrue in
* 1 8/7-] PLEAS OF THE DISAFFECTED. 9/
any sense except that offences against the law have
increased, and so that law has had to be (with extreme
reluctance) enforced by the heads of the Church against
the offenders.
I willingly admit, however, that they have more
reasonable arguments than these. They urge, for
instance, that (apart from the extreme Ritualists,
whose proceedings they do not approve) they have
been the moving power of the great Church revival of
our time, the evidences of which lie broadcast over
the whole country, in restored cathedrals and churches,
frequent and reverent services, and the widespread
zeal for all social reform and philanthropic effort,
which has become the honourable and distinguishing
characteristic of the nation in our day. In return for
these services they have met with abuse, distrust,
misrepresentation : and now at last are the subjects of
direct attack on the part of the nation, both in the
Law Courts and in Parliament, the crowning act of
aggression being the Public Worship Regulation Act
which has been aimed at them, and at them only.
Now even those who distrust the High Church
party most, must admit their plea as to the zealous,
and in many respects admirable, work which they
have done since the revival begun by the * Tracts for
the Times ' forty years ago. They have deserved
well of the nation in many ways, and have possibly
some grounds for their complaints as to the suspicion
with which they have, no doubt, been always regarded,
though they have certainly taken no pains to avoid it.
But it is impossible to admit that they have any
98 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. [l^77-
reason to complain of harsh or unjust treatment,
either from the national executive, or from the legis-
lature. The judgment in Mr. Bennett's case shows
how far the Law Courts have been disposed to go in
construing their obligations in the largest and widest
sense. It is only when there has been an obvious
and scandalous disregard and defiance of the law (as
in the case of Mr. Purchas and Mr. Tooth) that it has
been enforced against any of their number. Indeed,
another proof of the advantage of the national prin-
ciple may be found in the reluctance with which the
courts have intervened ; and the steadiness with
which they have upheld the principle of a large
toleration and inclusiveness in the face of strong
popular excitement.
Again, as respects the legislature : so far from
showing any readiness or eagerness to follow the
popular cry, it has been only when the open defiance
of the law had become a public scandal that Parlia-
ment could be induced to interfere at all, and then by
an Act which I venture to think has been greatly
misunderstood and misrepresented.
Let me just remind you of a fact or two with
respect to this Act. In the first place, remember it was
a Church measure. Whereas the custom had pre-
vailed for years, until it had almost become a rule,
that such Bills should be introduced by the govern-
ment of the day in consultation with the bishops,
this bill was not a government measure. I have
never heard why it was that the rule was broken, but
broken it was, and it was not until after the Bill had
1877.] THE PUBLIC WORSHIP ACT. 99
passed the Lords, and been debated for three long
nights in the Commons, that it was at length adopted
by the Government.
It was introduced by the Archbishop of Canter-
bury, and received the general support of the whole
bench, though the Bishops of Lincoln and Oxford
took some objections to small matters of detail.
At the end of the long and able debate in the
Commons, the feeling of the House, and of the nation,
had been so clearly expressed that the second reading
was carried without a division.
I scarcely remember a question which has stirred
the House or the country more deeply in the last
twenty years. It was discussed all over the country,
in meetings held chiefly, I believe, under the auspices
of the Church Association and the Church Union (as to
which bodies the Bishop of Lichfield has to my mind
well said, that there will be no peace in the Church
till they cease to exist). I would only ask any fair
man who is inclined to join in the attempt to take
the Church from under state control, to compare the
speeches in Parliament and those of the members of
these ecclesiastical organisations, during the spring
and summer of 1874, and then say which yoke (as the
phrase goes) he would honestly desire to be under.
As for the Act itself, it was well said by Mr.
Goschen — himself I believe a High Churchman — that
it would prove either a small or a large measure ;
a small one if the clergy meant to obey it, otherwise
most likely a large and searching one.
By its provisions the clergy of every school are
H 2
100 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. [iS//.
protected against any malicious or arbitrary use of
the Act, by the interposition of the chief of their own
body in the diocese in which it is sought to put it in
motion, whose leave must be obtained before the
institution of proceedings. The bishop practically
becomes an arbiter in the case, if both parties are
willing to accept him : if not, an impartial tribunal
is provided for the decision of the questions at issue.
I trust there are even yet hopes that it may prove
a small act, for I cannot believe that, in spite of all
goading of the religious press, and of the semi-eccle-
siastical societies, a body of high-principled English
gentlemen will continue to maintain the attitude of
defiance to the law, and to the clearly expressed will
of the nation.
The often repeated cry that the Act is one-sided,
and aimed against one party only in the Church, may
serve the purpose of excited speakers, but will not
bear examination. For it makes no alteration in the
law, but only simplifies and cheapens the processes
by which the law is administered. Whatever was
lawful in the fabric or arrangement of consecrated
buildings, or in vestments, postures, or decorations,
remains still lawful — whatever was required before
the passing of the Act is still required, the neglect to
use that which is prescribed standing in precisely the
same category as the use of that which is forbidden.
If it be one-sided, every efficient law in the
Statute Book is one-sided, for every such law inflicts
penalties, not on those who keep within, but on those
who break it.
1877.] RITUALIST AIMS. 10 1
The objection to the constitution of the Court
which takes cognizance of these offences, when the
parties will not submit to the bishop, can scarcely be
regarded as serious. It is said that the authority
of this Court " is not derived from the rightful royal
supremacy exercised ' under God,' but of the Sovereign
in council by authority of Parliament." But surely
those who make this protest are aware that the Queen
has no authority by virtue of her mere supremacy to
constitute any court apart from Parliament. .
On the whole, it is not easy to see how, if order
is to be preserved, and the law enforced at all in the
National Church, any more moderate or fair method
could have been found than that adopted by the Act
in question.
But let us pass from the late Act to the remedies
for the present state of things, which have been sug-
gested by those who are taking part in this agitation.
These are not at present very definite. They are
indeed vaguely pledging themselves to "work night
and day to set the Church of England free from a
persecuting State ;" but we are not told with any dis-
tinctness, what they desire to substitute for the yoke
of the nation. If the words of some of their number
are to be taken literally, it would seem as though our
history of seven hundred years had been rolled back,
and that England is again face to face with the monks
who followed a Becket in his attempt to sever
the clergy from the nation, and set them up as a
caste outside and above the law of the land. I do
not of course mean that the present contention is that
102 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. [1877.
the clergy shall not be amenable to the law for
civil offences, like all other citizens ; but apparently
there is a section of them who do claim, that as regards
all matters connected with their position and functions
as clergy, they shall be subject to Church courts only.
And by Church courts they cannot mean any courts
constituted in our national manner, and under the
jurisdiction of Parliament ; for then their grievance
comes to nothing. It is reduced to a mere question
of names, and it does not matter a straw by what
name the Courts which try ecclesiastical causes are
known, if they are constituted, and their judges
appointed, by the head of the State, on the advice
of responsible Ministers, and under the control of
Parliament. One is driven therefore to the conclusion
that they mean a tribunal independent of State
control, the judges of which are elected by, and
responsible to, the clergy, or some purely ecclesiastical
organisation. There was some strength and meaning
in a Becket's proposal, because he had the Pope to
put in the place of King and King's Council, as the
head and fountain of authority for the Courts which
he proposed to substitute for the national Courts.
But, as the Ritualists have not that resource, they
should either cease beating about the bush and make
their demands clear and precise, telling us who is to
be the fountain on earth of ecclesiastical authority, or
leave the national Church, and set up a sect of their
own, in which they may place themselves as priests in
whatever position they please, as they find themselves
unable to accept the grandest of all positions, that of
1 877-] RITUALIST AIMS. IO3
simple citizens, called and appointed to minister to
the nation, whose sons they are, in spiritual things.
There is another course advocated by many High
Churchmen as an escape from our present difficulties,
which is advanced temperately and reasonably, and
has the public sanction of at least one bishop. I
think I shall state it most fairly perhaps in his
words : " I am of opinion," the Bishop of Lincoln
writes, " that for the sake of the State, as well as for
that of the Church, much more liberty ought to be
given, and much more weight attached, to the judg-
ment of the spirituality in ecclesiastical causes, and to
the action of the Church of England in her synods,
diocesan and provincial." I am glad to be able to
quote his further words of warning : " But we shall
never obtain those benefits by violent resistance to
constitutional authority ; on the contrary, we shall
provoke violent reprisals, and shall greatly injure the
cause we desire to maintain."
I presume that these words point to investing
Convocation with some legislative powers in eccle-
siastical affairs ; and with every desire to concede
whatever can be conceded for the sake of peace, I am
bound to say plainly that I do not think it can be
found in this direction. Convocation has now for
some years been sitting, and discussing all questions
upon which legislation is needed, or which seriously
affect the religious condition of the nation. But I fear
that the reports of the debates in both Houses have
not had a reassuring effect on the country ; indeed,
they have been characterised by timidity and narrow-
I04 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. [l^??-
ness, and an apparent want of appreciation of the
forces which are working in the outside world, which
has disappointed those who looked most hopefully
towards this experiment. I am not aware of any
recommendation of practical value which has as yet
come from that body. Indeed, it seems to me, that
the main result of the recent revival of Convocation
has been, to strengthen the convictions of all those who
value the national character of the Church, that that
character cannot be maintained if its direction and
government is to be entrusted to any ecclesiastical
body. It may be said that the proposal is to reform
Convocation by the admission of the laity. But this
would not remove the objection. Such laymen as
would have a chance of election would not represent
the nation, besides which they would be powerless
in such a body. When professionals and amateurs
meet, we know which side is likely to go to the wall.
Convocation was no doubt two hundred years ago
a sort of fourth estate of the realm, representing not
the National Church but the clergy, even for purposes
of taxation. It was at their own request that for
those purposes they were merged in the nation, and
taxed by the same machinery as the laity. From
that time Convocation was practically without func-
tions, and when summoned, as in 1698, the disputes
between the Low Church bishops appointed by the
Crown and the Jacobite clergy, ran so high as to
create scandal and render their debates fruitless ; and
from 17 17 till our own day, though formally sum-
moned, they were always at once prorogued.
1877.] REFORM OF CONVOCATION. I05
But even if the traditions of Convocation were
far more satisfactory, the chief objection remains, that
to hand over the control of the Church to that body-
would be an infringement of the national principle,
and an imitation of the practice of the sects, without
any compensating advantage. For what ground from
recent experience have we for believing that the
various parties in the Church would agree better in
Convocation than they did in 1698 ?
To give the powers that are claimed to Convoca-
tion would be a certain step towards a severance of all
connection with the State, and consequently (in words
probably familiar to many here) would inevitably
lead to that " degradation which by an almost
universal law overtakes religion when, even while
attaining a purer form, it loses the vivifying and
elevating spirit breathed into it by close contact
with the great historic and secular influences, which
act like fresh air on a contracted atmosphere, and
are thus the divine antiseptics against the spiri-
tual corruption of merely ecclesiastical communities"
(Dean Stanley).
I am not aware of any other proposal to which the
same objection does not attach. They are one and
all aimed at further severance of the clergy from the
Church and from the nation ; whereas what we need is
precisely the reverse of this — that the clergy should
be brought into closer contact with the nation, and
should learn to feel more and more the worth and
nobleness of their earthly citizenship.
That they have a higher citizenship is of course
I06 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. [l^//.
true, but only in the same sense in which it is true of
every one of their lay brethren. That Christ is the
only Head of the Church is also true, but is He not
also the only Head of the nation ? He is no more
visible to the Church than to the nation, to the priest
than to the crossing-sweeper. They hold their com-
mission from Him no doubt, but they must receive it,
with some visible seal, from some human hands ;
and what seal can be so worthy, so noble, as that of
the nation whose children they are ?
But if none of the suggestions yet made seem to
offer relief, what is the outlook ? Dark enough I
admit, but still by no means so dark as it has often
been before : for all these struggles and controversies
are, after all, but the signs of a vigorous life. All that
is needed — and surely England will not now for the
first time need it in vain — is some small share of the
self-restraint, the patience, and the courage, which
have never yet failed her under God's blessing. That
there must be a great reform in our national Church
is clear, but she is strong enough to bear it. What
has been done in our day in this direction should be
encouraging instead of depressing to any one who
will look at it steadily and fairly ; but it is only a
fraction of what is needed.
The readjustment of Church property, the establish-
ment of the Ecclesiastical Commission, the abolition
of tests, the relaxation of subscription, the reorgani-
sation of parishes, the appointment of bishops with-
out seats in the House of Lords, the subdivision of
dioceses, the Church Discipline Acts, the revision of
1877.] CHANCE OF REFORMS. I07
the Bible, and lastly, this Public Worship Act,, are
all measures passed within my own memory. And
surely such a list (and it might be doubled) may well
give heart of grace to the most desponding : for these
reforms have been made in a time peculiarly un-
favourable to the development of the Church. The
commercial spirit, with its utilitarian and materia-
listic Gospel, has been in the ascendant, with the
result that the friends of the national Church have
been afraid of touching a brick of the old fabric lest
the whole should come about their ears, while her
•enemies have looked upon every effort for reform
with watchful jealousy, fearing lest it should strengthen
the old walls and foundations. No one can have
been in the House of Commons without becoming
aware of the strength of these two antagonist forces,
both however working in the same direction, that of
making any resolute action in Church reform all but
impossible. And yet all these things I have just
referred to have been done in such a time.
Why, then, should we despair of greater and
better things, when a time has come in which there
are unmistakeable signs that, whatever the controlling
spirit may prove to be, it will not be the utilitarian, or
materialistic ? If the Church has emerged from such
a time as the one which is expiring, fuller than ever of
spiritual life and zeal, and without having as yet lost
anything of her national character, what fear is there
that she will be false to her own and her country's
history in the time which is coming } It was in a
crisis in several respects as serious as the present that
I08 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. [l^??-
a wise and observant, and certainly one of the best-
informed of foreign critics of our national habits and
institutions, wrote : — " To this country belongs the
honour of having, so far as the State is concerned,
succeeded in the mighty task of reconciling in-
dividual liberty with allegiance and submission to the
will of the community, whilst other nations are still
wrestling with it ; and I feel persuaded that the same
earnest zeal and practical wisdom which have made
her political constitution an object of admiration to
other nations will, under God's blessing, make her
Church also a model to the world " (Prince Albert).
It is in this hope, and with this belief, that I have
ventured to speak to you this evening. I know that
I must have said things which may have roused
painful, and possibly indignant, feelings in the minds
of persons for whom individually, and for much of
whose work, I should desire only to express respect
and gratitude. If there should be any such here, I
can only ask them to believe that it is from love to
the Church, of which we are all members, not less
sincere, I trust, or loyal than their own — from an
estimate not lower, at any rate, though in some
respects differing from theirs, of the mission of that
Church, and of the work she has been called to do
for the nation, and for the world — that one is con-
strained to be perfectly outspoken, and not to ignore
or explain away facts, or to call things by any other
than their plainest names at such a time as this.
There is no danger for our Church that I can see
except from her own children, indeed from her own
1 877-] CHANCE OF REFORMS. IO9
officers. There is no deeper feeling on this subject
of disestablishment in the House of Commons than
irritated jealousy, having its root in social and poli-
tical soil, and its expression in clever flippancy and
bitterness : and the House in this matter very fairly
represents the people. Those outside the Church who
represent anything more serious are, I think, constantly
finding it more and more difficult to persuade them-
selves, or any one else, that they are working for the
highest good of the country, and with a single view
of placing religion under the absolutely best condi-
tions for doing the nation's work. It is only within the
Church's own ranks that there is zeal and fire enough
to be dangerous.
Before going further on these new and perilous
ways, the discontented in her own ranks should at
least count the cost more carefully than they seem yet
to have done. Can any one of them say deliberately
that in his conscience he believes the conditions and
prospects of the religious life of this nation will be
improved by the withdrawal of religion altogether
from the cognisance and control of the nation ? If they
can answer " yes," there is no more to be said, and there
can be neither peace nor even truce possible between
us. If not, there is scarcely any length short of the
intrusion of foreign influence in the national Church, or
disobedience to the law, to which Nationalists would
not go to help them. We will join them in eflbrts to
obtain thorough Church reform, the deeper and wider
the better. We have no fear of touching formularies,
or canons, or rubrics, or liturgies ; indeed are anxious
no THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. [l^77*
they should be touched, inasmuch as they are in not
a few respects, obsolete and unfitted to our time.
Whenever the clergy are prepared for this necessary
work, which cannot be long deferred — though in the
midst of the present agitation it is difficult to see
how or by whom it can be taken in hand — they will
find lay Churchmen cordial and strenuous helpers.
All we ask of them is, that in one of the great crises
of the world — the days of the Lord, as they are so well
called — they at any rate shall not wantonly destroy
that example of the conditions on which the Gospel
and the nations can live together, which, with all its
faults, is the best hitherto seen in the world, and the
only one which gives us even a distant hint of how,
in God's good time, the kingdoms of this world may
become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ.
( III )
V.
THE GREAT EXPERIMENT OF THE PURE
VOLUNTARY SYSTEM.
Some years ago I was invited by an eminent Non-
conformist to meet two Congregationalist ministers
from the United States. The party consisted of these
gentlemen, one other Churchman besides myself, and
some ten or twelve of our leading Nonconformists,
amongst them the late Dr. Binney. The conversa-
tion turned almost exclusively on the prospects of
Christianity in the two countries, which were discussed
with singular candour and fairness, and I was pleased,
as well as surprised, to find that most of those present
were disposed to admit that the highest and noblest
ideal was that of a Christian nation, in which the duty
of providing for public worship and the support of
religion should be acknowledged. Only it was urged
that in Christendom as we have it, such an ideal had
become impossible, and that, as matters stood, free
voluntary churches, as existing in the United States,
were a better alternative than the English, or any
other Established Church. I protested against giving
112 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH.
up the ideal, and argued that there was no need to do
so, at any rate in England, where in theory at least
we had it still ; and was not a little delighted to find
that the patriarch of English dissent was in sympathy
with me. We met again on several occasions before
his death, and on each of these he recurred to the sub-
ject, and dwelt on the hope of a possible future — far
off, and of which he should never see the dawn — but
which might yet, by God's blessing, knit together
our children in one communion and fellowship, a
Christian nation in deed and truth, as well as in name.
In another and very different society an even more
significant result came under my notice. The subject
of the connection of Church and State was chosen
for discussion some time since at the Working-men's
College, and debated for many evenings. To the
greater number of those who took part in the dis-
cussion the subject was practically new, and they
appro.ached it with no strong bias one way or the
other : but a considerable minority were strong
Liberationists, while not more than two, or perhaps
three, were, at the start, in favour of maintaining the
connection. At the end of the discussion (which was
a thorough one, not carried on by set speeches, but as
it were in committee, by question and argumentative
conversation) I will not say that there remained no
difference of opinion amongst us, but none such as to
lead to a division : and, I think I may say, we were
practically unanimous, that from the democratic point
of view it would be more patriotic, not to sever, but to
maintain the connection.
THE COLONIES. 113
These two stand out in my memory prominently
amongst the experiences which give me confidence,
that if only plenty of light and air are allowed to
play round the question — as the Birmingham Associa-
tion desire — we shall find candidates regaining the
courage of their convictions, and refusing to follow
the Birmingham lead. My object, however, in citing
them here is, that they lead naturally to an important
side of the question, I mean that of the religious
condition of the United States, and our colonies, as
compared with that of the mother country. I do not
pretend to speak with any confidence here, because
I have had no sufficient personal experience. But I
have done my best to use such opportunities as have
been open to me, and what follows is the result. I
give my views as near as I can in the shape in which
they were put before the members of the College.
During this discussion, our colonies and the United
States have more than once been cited by those who
are in favour of the separation of Church and State,
as examples of the success of that experiment amongst
people of our race. I am not, however, aware that
anything has been advanced beyond general state-
ments founded on hearsay. Nor do I pretend to be
able myself to speak with any confidence on this part
of the question. I have only visited one of our great
colonies, and my stay in Canada was too short to
enable me to form any trustworthy opinion from per-
sonal observation as to the condition and prospects
of that splendid and vigorous scion of our stock in
matters ecclesiastical. In passing, however, I may say,
I
114 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH.
that the one thing which did strike me was, the great
and dominant position which the Roman Catholic
Church seems to occupy, not only in the Province of
Quebec, but in Ontario, where certainly I was not
prepared, by anything I had read or heard, for such
a state of things. I was not surprised to find the
practical ascendancy of that Church decidedly ex-
pressed in the town of Quebec. But two hundred
miles further west, in the great centre of commercial
activity and enterprise, Montreal, the buildings which
at once strike a stranger and give character to the
city, are mostly Roman Catholic ; while he cannot
take up any local journal at his hotel, or walk for an
hour in the streets, without feeling that it is not only
in bricks and mortar, and the possession of the finest
sites, that the power and activity of that Church are
making themselves felt.
Cross the border and you will find much the same
state of things in the Protestant province. Roman
Catholicism seemed to me almost as much in evidence
at Toronto and Hamilton, as at Montreal ; but, as I
have already said, the first impressions of a stranger
are really of small value, and the possession of the
central town-lots and the prominent buildings may
mean very little. I trust that it may prove to be so,
and that the native free churches may be able to hold
their own against their powerful rival, not only in the
Dominion, but in the Australias, where, however,
from all one hears the outlook is by no means en-
couraging. •
Of the United States I have somewhat more confi-
THE UNITED STATES. II5
dence in speaking, as I spent three months there, and
lost no opportunity of observing, and informing my-
self upon this question. I will give you some of my
impressions as shortly as possible, for what they are
worth.
In the first place I was struck by one marked con-
trast in the entertainment of a stranger, with what
would occur in like circumstances in England. The
Americans, besides being the most hospitable of man-
kind, are specially anxious to show you everything
that they think will interest you, and make you ap-
preciate their great country. I visited many cities,
large and small, and was taken by kind friends to
divers town-halls, hospitals, schools, banks, museums,
parks, and all manner of public institutions, but in no
single instance to a church. I don't pretend to ac-
count for, or argue from this fact ; but so it was : and
so far as I could judge, the reason seemed to be, that
they never thought of their churches as public buildings,
which could reflect either credit or discredit on the
nation.
Then again the habit of family worship seems to be
the rare exception in the States, even in the houses
of decidedly religious people. It would be imperti-
nent to go about questioning why this is so, and I
certainly did not take that means of endeavouring to
satisfy my curiosity ; but, from the best observation
I could make, I think that the strength of the feeling
that religion is a strictly private concern, for each
individual man and woman, has much to do with it.
In this matter also I think that the existence of a
I 2
Il6 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH.
public or National Church in England may very pro-
bably account for the difference which certainly exists
in this respect between the two countries. Why else
the national habit should hold in the one, and not in
the other — why one should be often astonished in
England at finding it, and in America at not finding
it, it is not otherwise easy to see.
I had the pleasure and advantage of staying on
terms of intimacy with all sorts of people, professors,
lawyers, parsons, merchants, soldiers, politicians, both
in New England and in other eastern, and several
western. States, and amongst all of these who troubled
at all about the question, I can only recall one who
was satisfied with the condition and prospects of
religion in his country. I remember reading with
much interest the story of Mr. Gerrit Smith's crusade
against the sects, and his attempt to establish a
church on Apostolic lines. The resolutions which
formed the consitution of his New Jerusalem may be
fairly sampled as follows : —
" Whereas the Bible teaches that the union of
Christians is important. Resolved, therefore, that
the division of Christians into rival sects or parties,
is unscriptural and wicked." And, " Resolved that
the Gospel of Jesus Christ makes abundant provision
for the closer and closer union of his disciples with
each other, but makes none at all for their sepa-
ration from each other, etc."
So the staunch but eccentric Abolutionist held that
the Christians in each locality constituted the Church,
and that all sects should be at once and finally abo-
GERRIT smith's CHURCH. 11/
lished: and accordingly called on all his own neighbours
to come and join him in the Church of Peterborough.
He denounced not only sects, but " theologies," as the
curses of mankind : and so was naturally in his turn
denounced as one who " made war upon the Churches
of God ;" and though I believe he struggled on till
his death, a year or two ago, with a small following
of the broadest kind of Christians, his experiment
never took hold of any large number of his country-
men ; and, indeed, is scarcely known at all except to
the curious in such matters. Probably nine out often
of my American friends, if they had ever cared to give
an hour's attention to Gerrit Smith and his crotchet,
would have said he was crazy ; but, for all that, most
of them to a great extent agreed with his fundamental
doctrines when you came to talk it out with them.
They all thought Sectarianism as it exists in their
own country a quite unsatisfactory state of things.
Most of them held that the jealousy between the
various sects kept their belief narrow, and expressed
themselves almost as strongly as Gerrit Smith him-
self against " the theologies." This narrowness, they
admitted, is by no means abating, and makes Church
Membership in the States a real difficulty. Indeed,
I found that several of the best and ablest men I met
belonged to no Church at all in any sense, beyond
renting sittings. They regretted that it should be so,
but had no hope of anything better. One of them,
however, who had lived a good deal in England,
volunteered to me that, for his part, he wished they
had some such arrangement as we had. I was
taken by surprise to hear so strong a protest against
Il8 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH.
the exclusiveness of sects in America, as I had till
then believed them to be more tolerant and liberal
than with us. Mr. R. W. Dale, in his * Ecclesia/
makes it a matter of boast that a person desiring full
membership in our Nonconformist communions, must
be examined ; must " narrate the story of his awaken-
ing to spiritual consciousness " ; and " the inward
conflicts through which he had forced his way to the
kingdom of God." My American friend described an
analogous state of things there with sorrow, not un-
mingled with bitter scorn. What he valued, on the
other hand, in our system, was very much that which
is so strongly denounced by Liberationists — I mean,
the church membership which comes to every citizen
as his birthright, and which he is assumed to possess
without any effort of his own, unless he distinctly
repudiates it after he has grown up. What seemed
to strike him most was, that he and his family had
been allowed, as a matter of course, and without any
question whatever, to worship and communicate in
the English parishes in which he had lived, although
he was not a member of the Episcopal Church in his
own country, and of course not of the English Church.
This, he gave me to understand, could not have
happened in the United States. Whether he was
right or not in this I cannot say, but on the main
point, that there is dissatisfaction with the present
condition of things — unrest and uneasiness more than
is merely incidental in all human arrangements — I
think cannot be doubted. So far as I could judge,
the testimony was practically unanimous.
With more places of worship in proportion to
AMERICAN CHURCHES. II9
numbers than in England, there is far more spiritual
destitution and neglect than with us. The number of
churches to which no minister is attached is very large.
In the Report of the American Tract Society of two
years ago it was put at twelve thousand. The pro-
portion of persons belonging to no religious com-
munity is even larger. It was stated in the same
Report that ** one-third of our people, or from eight to
ten millions, are unreached by the ordinary means of
grace " : while not more than one-sixth even profess
to be members of any Christian Church. Then again
there is another significant difference which struck
me. The churches and chapels there are far more
comfortable in their furnishing and arrangements
than with us. When I remarked this to Mr. Robert
Collier of Chicago with respect to his own fine church
(burnt to the ground I am sorry to say in the great
fire), in which the seats were the most luxuriously
comfortable, and the carpets the richest, I had ever
seen in a place of worship, he assured me that his
congregation was mainly composed of people living
by weekly wages, who nevertheless insisted on going
to this expense.
And I think this costliness as to arrangements for
the comfort of individuals, rather than on the fabric —
a lavishness in cushions and carpets, warming and
ventilation, rather than on painted windows and
architectural ornament — is a characteristic of the
Protestant places of worship in the States as com-
pared with ours in England. At any rate it was so
in those which I visited. It may be that this differ-
120 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH.
ence, if it exists generally, is only an indication of the
practical character of the people, an assertion (very
much needed in England), that warmth and light, and
good air and comfort, are as valuable in churches as
in houses. It seemed to me at any rate sufficiently
marked to make it worthy of notice in comparing the
external features of religious life in the two countries,
as they strike an English Churchman. It is of course
only these external features upon which a mere visitor
can form any opinion at all, and even as to these he
should be very cautious in generalising. I am far
from presuming to do so, and only give you these first
impressions on matters of no great moment in them-
selves, but bearing, I think, on the discussion we have
in hand.
Let me now turn to evidence of a more weighty
kind. There is of course no country in the world
where all the churches, and the faith of which they are
manifestations, have been so entirely free to develop
naturally as in the United States, and to try whatever
experiments in government, discipline, organisation,
might seem good to them. And I admit at once, that
the broad facts of their history seem at first sight to
tell heavily in favour of a complete severance of Church
and State. For, comparing the state of things now
and a hundred years ago, when the connection with
the mother country was severed, we find that establish-
ment of one kind or another was then the rule through-
out the colonies. In every one of them, except New
York, the recognition and support by the State of
public worship in some form was accepted as an
PURITAN PRINCIPLE OF STATE SUPPORT. 121
essential duty. John Adams' contemptuous say-
ing, that you might as well expect to change the
solar system as to get New England to abandon the
control of her own religious life, did not exaggerate
the then prevalent opinion. To-day the connection
has ceased ; every trace of it has been swept away, so
far as enactments and declarations can do this ; and
from Maine to Texas an overwhelming public opinion
has decided, that the State shall be kept a purely
political organism, dealing only with secular affairs.
This very remarkable change was in progress as early
as 1787, when the thoroughly and advisedly secular
character given to the Federal constitution no doubt
lent a strong impulse to the separatist movement.
But even as late as 1833 traces of the old Puritan
principle of state support to public worship lingered
in Massachussets. In that year the Old Bay State
wiped her statute-book clear of them, and proved
John Adams a mistaken prophet. The solar system
remained, but Massachussets had deliberately given
up, as a sovereign state, all recognition of religion.
A protest was heard here and there such as that of
Judge Story, who maintained, that " it yet remained
a problem to be settled in human affairs whether any
free government can be permanent where the public
worship of God and the support of religion constitute
no part of the policy or duty of the State." But, on
the whole, the verdict may be taken as practically
unanimous — the deliberate and unquestioned voice of
the American nation.
And what has the result been ? So far as statistics
122 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH.
go, a marked success. At the end of the war of
liberation the population of the thirteen colonies
stood at three and a half millions, supporting about
1950 churches of all denominations, or one for every
1700 of the people. The last census showed that
while the population had increased to 38,000,000
the churches numbered upwards of 72,000, or one
for every 529 persons. Let full weight be given to
this fact, which, even if we deduct the 12,000 which
have no minister, is a very telling one. It is true that
the multiplication of places of worship is only a
negative proof of healthy religious life in a nation.
But it is undoubtedly one of the essential conditions ;
for there can be no such healthy life where it does
not exist.
The same evidence (of the last census) seems also
to confute the common belief that the governing
tendency of American Christianity is, to split up into
innumerable sects. The name of the sects is indeed
Legion, but the census shows nevertheless that the
nation is gathering more and more into a few large
denominations, which rank in the following order :
Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians, Roman Catholics,
Congregationalists, and Protestant Episcopalians.
But these facts being granted, we are only at the
beginning of the real question. What we need to be
satisfied of is, that the purely voluntary system is
doing the work of Christianity better for the States
than our public Church for England.
In considering this question our attention should,
I think, be mainly fixed on three points : whether the
TESTS OF VOLUNTARYISM. 1 23
poor and the careless (that is to say, precisely that
portion of the people who need it most,) are reached
by the voluntary Churches ; whether these Churches
are working towards union, and developing any more
Catholic adaptation of the Gospel of Christ to the
needs of mankind, than is the case with us; and
lastly, whether they exercise a higher and deeper
influence on public life and the national character.
As to the first point, I have already told you that,
so far as my own personal observation and enquiry
are concerned, the state of things is, to- say the least,
as bad in America as in England. And this impres-
sion has been confirmed by reports and official docu-
ments without number. There, as here, there is a sad
confession on all hands, that the spiritual machinery
does not reach those who need it most. But there
the nation stands on one side, as though this were
not its concern, and it mattered nothing to the United
States that the means by which the evil might be
encountered remain inadequate and powerless. Here
the work of making the means adequate to the
need is still at any rate acknowledged as a national
duty, and, so long as that is the case, there is hope
that the national conscience may be roused to its
fulfilment.
On the second point I prefer to give you American
testimony, and it shall be of the highest class. In
January 1876, the * North American Review ' devoted
its centennial number to the progress of the United
States during the century ; and the first article dealt
with religious progress in a manner quite worthy of
124 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH.
the subject. The following passage bears directly on
the point now under consideration.
*'The tendency so clearly revealed of American
Christianity to aggregate itself in a few great denomi-
national families, strenuously affirming theological or
ecclesiastical tenets that are mutually exclusive, de-
serves special attention in its bearing upon the pro-
spective development of a truly Catholic type of
Christianity. It might have been supposed that the
contact, upon a perfectly equal footing, of so many
Christian bodies, each zealously asserting its distinc-
tive faith, would have provoked such mutual com-
parison as would gradually have brought into clear
relief the essential truths which all were agreed in
recognising. Professing to receive the same Gospel,
it might have seemed that somewhere there must
have existed substantial harmony ; but no such result
has followed. It is amazing to note how slight has
been the reciprocal influence which these bodies have
exerted. They seem to have pursued their separate
paths, coming into contact with each other's opinions
only to controvert them. With individuals, of course,
changes of opinion have been frequent ; but, so far as
concerns the formal affirmations of the leading reli-
gious bodies, with the sole exception of the Congre-
gationalists, there has not been the slightest change.
With most of these bodies no modification has been
thought of ; in one or two cases, where the relaxation
of some distinctive denominational feature has been
suggested, it has drawn forth a storm of indignation.
The irreligious world has laughed at the spectacle of
NATIVE TESTIMONY. I25
an eminent philanthropist actually brought to trial on
the atrocious charge of singing hymns with Christians
of another name. It is evident that our leading re-
ligious organisations have done nothing in the way of
promoting any external Christian unity. There are
many to whom this state of things is not repugnant,
who defend the * denominational ' type of Christianity
as the natural efflorescence of the Reformation, and
rest content with it as the ultimate achievement of
Protestant Christianity. On the other hand, there
have been some who have protested against the
* evangelical ' heresy that the normal state of the
Church universal is a state of schism. From many
quarters have come eloquent expressions of the con-
viction, that the sectarian system, however much it
may stimulate zeal, does not furnish the conditions of
the finest and noblest Christian culture. But no
adequate remedy has thus far been proposed, and
American Christianity seems hopelessly committed
to the denominational experiment."
In a later part of the same essay the writer deals
with the position which the Roman Catholic Church
in America has taken up with respect to education,
by which, to use his words, it " is irrevocably com-
mitted to conflict with a part of our public system
which, by the great majority of our people, is regarded
as absolutely essential to the perpetuity of free insti-
tutions." He is not one of those who regard the
Roman Catholics in the United States as enemies of
democratic political institutions ; but rather gives
them credit for appreciating the full advantages of a
126 The established church.
system under which in the hundred years which have
passed since the Declaration of Independence, from
the last they have risen to the fourth place in numbers,
and to the second in wealth, amongst religious de-
nominations. He sees clearly that their stand as to
the control of education is not only logical, but that
it is a mere re-occupation of the ground which the
Puritans of New England — the founders of the public
schools system — defended so stoutly, during the
century and a half in which they refused to regard
human life as divided into two distinct spheres of
action, and insisted that the spelling-book and cate-
chism should go together. He acknowledges -fairly
that the remedy proposed by the Roman Catholics —
the apportioning the amount raised for school purposes
by taxation rateably amongst the several religious
bodies — is nothing more than the precise arrange-
ment which used to prevail in Massachussets. And
thus step by step he is driven, as a fair and candid
man, to the conclusion that *' the problem of the re-
lations of religious and political society is less simple
than our politicians half a century ago supposed."
For, if this theory of two distinct spheres be the true
one, it would be difficult to defend the present system
of public education : whereas, on the other hand, " if
it be the right and duty of the State to enforce the
support of public education from a class of the popu-
lation conscientiously debarred from sharing its advan-
tages, then our current theory respecting the nature
and functions of the State stands in need of conside-
able revision."
CHURCH PROPERTY AND TAXATION. 12/
And in this dilemma, from which escape is by
no means easy, he leaves this part of the subject,
and proceeds to the consideration of another burn-
ing question, the exemption of Church property
from taxation. " By the immemorial traditions of all
Christian countries," he writes, "such property has
been exempted from taxation. When the Church
was a public institution, and when the benefit of
its ministrations was freely open to rich and poor
alike, a sufficient reason existed for such exemp-
tion. But, it is argued, the effect of our voluntary
system has been to render the modern Protestant
Church little more than a religious club, where
Christians in easy circumstances, by paying an annual
assessment, may listen once a week to reasonably
good music, and to such preaching as it pleases the
Lord to send. The portion of the population debarred
by pecuniary inability from enjoying this soothing
Sunday relaxation is not inconsiderable ; a still larger
number decline to attend for other reasons. The
enormous increase of our public burdens, directing as
it has increased attention to the principles on which
equitable taxation should be adjusted, has raised the
question whether those who derive no benefit from
public worship should be indirectly taxed for its
support. That exemption is such indirect support, and
that so far it tends to throw an additional burden upon
other property, there needs no argument to show. It
only differs from direct support in furnishing the
most liberal assistance to those who need it least.
And, conceding the general benefits that accrue to
128 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH.
society from the positive institutions of religion, the
question still remains, Why should a ' purely political
organism ' give even an indirect support to religious
worship ?
" The manner in which this subject has been handled
affords striking evidence of the confused and unsettled
state of public opinion with reference to the relations
of the spiritual and temporal power. Mr. Brownson
claims that neither in politics nor in religion is it the
destiny of the United States to realise any theory
whatever. What the future may have in store for us
it would be beyond the scope of this paper to predict,
but a review of our past history should incline us to
place a modest estimate on our success.
* Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth.'
He certainly would be a very bold or a very thought-
less man, who would venture to affirm that the ideal
of Catholic unity has been reached in our system of
* strenuously competing sects/ or that the problem of
Church and State has received a final solution in
remitting public worship to voluntary support. At
the close of a century we seem to have made no
advance whatever in harmonising the relations of
religious sects among themselves, or in defining their
common relation to the civil power."
Now I have cited this witness at some length
because he seems to me to be the very best whom
we could call for our purposes. He is no partisan,
but the man who was chosen by the conductors of the
leading review in the United States to sum up the
CONCLUSIONS FROM AMERICAN REVIEW. 1 29
results as regards religion of the first century of a
national life of unparalleled vigour. He is thoroughly-
loyal to his own country, and proud, as all Americans
are, and have good right to be, of the astonishing
progress she has made ; and he is full of hope as to her
future. And yet you have heard him frankly acknow-
ledge, that no progress has been made in the United
States towards the solution of the great problem of
the relations of Church and State — that the churches
and sects under a purely voluntary system do not
show signs of coming together, but are rather inclin-
ing to insist, as essentials, on the distinctions which
separate them — that the voluntary Churches have not
succeeded in reaching that portion of American society
which stands in the greatest need of the message
which they have to deliver.
I do not ask you to infer that we in the mother
country are in a higher, or more satisfactory, religious
condition than our American kinsmen, or that they
may not work out the problem in their own way at
least as well as we shall in ours. But I do ask you to
weigh evidence of this kind against the loose declama-
tory assertions of the Liberationists, that no such
divisions between Christians exist in America as we
have at home.
We will now turn to the third point, the influence
of religion in America on public life, and the
national character, under the purely voluntary system.
It will not be disputed I suppose, that the sever-
ance of religion from politics is intended, in fact as
well as in name, to keep the two spheres apart
K
I JO THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH.
and to provide, as far as may be, that in the
realm of politics — of the dealings of the nation as a
nation, with the lives, property, and destinies of its
citizens — it is best for the people that other standards
and sanctions should be accepted, and should prevail,
than those recognised in the churches. Of course it is
very difficult to estimate with anything like precision
the effect which this policy has had on American
politics, or how far it is answerable for the present
state of things. It has always seemed to me that the
triumph of Jefferson and his party at the beginning of
the century — gained as it was by dressing Jacobinism
in cheap philosophical robes, and professing to fall
down and worship "the great voice of the people,"
" the great heart of the people" — turned the nation out
of the right road, and is mainly responsible for the
degradation of public life in America. Their doctrines
worked with subtlety and success amongst a people
growing rapidly in all material prosperity, to whom,
in their grand new country, the blunders which have
sobered older communities were trifles to be laughed at.
Why should they not believe the leaders who told
them that experience was an old-world delusion, not
applicable to the new conditions of the new world —
that they, who were going ahead faster than any people
had ever done before, had thus proved themselves fit to
decide all questions, and to manage all affairs ? They
did believe : and the belief that one man is as good as
another bore fruit in the election of judges by popular
vote, rotation in office, jealousy of, manifesting itself in
meanness to, all high officials. The stand made by
AN AMERICAN DOCTOR'S SPECIFIC. 13I
John Quincey Adams in his presidency only showed
how the splendid self-reliance of the national character
had been manipulated by politicians, till " the voice
of the people " had come to mean any cry which the
wire-pullers thought might prove popular. Adams
refused to use the government patronage for party
ends, and so General Jackson became president, and
" the spoils to the victors " the law, in the government
of the Union. For fifty years Jeffersonian democracy
has had full swing, and, though the conscience and
intellect of the nation has risen again and again in
protest against it, still holds its own with the tenacity
of a Briareus, every new and popular cry and delusion
giving a new grip to some one of its hundred claws.
Let me again call unimpeachable native evidence
to show that I am not giving my own view, as seen
through English glasses. In 1873, Dr. Thompson, an
American clergyman, while residing in Germany,
submitted to Prince Bismarck a statement of the
solution of the problem of the relations of Church
and State which had been arrived at in the United
States, and which (the Doctor apparently thought)
might be useful in Germany. The book was re-
published in Boston, under the title of ' Church and
State in the United States,' and attracted a good
deal of notice and comment. I will quote to you that
of the Nation, a paper which for ability and indepen-
dence stands deservedly at the head of American
journalism. After admitting the correctness of Dr.
Thompson's presentation of the facts, the writer goes
on, "the statement of our theory of the relation
K 2
1-32 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH.
between Church and State is a very simple matter. It
is a simple negation of any relation at all, and we
have applied that theory positively to separate them in
every respect. We regard every contact and relation-
ship between them with suspicion, and we go so far
(at least this is the popular feeling, which is re-echoed
in the press) as to view with suspicion any citation of
religious principle, or motive, or sanction, in political
affairs. Even this does not exhaust the present
tendency in this matter. While we have certain
religious circles who believe in the persons who are
technically called * Christian statesmen,' we have
another large class who meet the application of
even moral principle to politics with contempt. This
latter class is growing. The downfall of some of the
eminent Christian statesmen has strengthened this
party and increased their number ; for the popular
mind is not careful to reflect, that the downfall of the
Christian statesmen proves no more against Chris-
tianity than against statesmanship."
" Such being the status and tendency of feeling
amongst us in regard to the relation of Church and
State, and a large part of the best thinkers of the country
being profoundly convinced that what is needed above
all else in our politics is moral principle, and moral
stamina, whether based on religious sanctions or not,
it would appear that our experience is not so clear
and positive a proof of our theory that we can go
before the world with it as a final solution of this
difficult problem. Hesitation is suggested also by
another consideration. It appears from our ex-
POLITICAL CHURCHES. 133
perience that the more we popularise government,
the more impossible it is to keep any public interest
* out of politics.' It is very certain that our religious
faiths, of whatsoever form or grade, have very little
effect at the present moment on our public life. Has
the separation of Church and State led to this — that
our moral principle and conscience are all in the
Church, and our practical life all in the State — and
have they thus become permanently sundered ? Still
further, have they separated the population into two
groups — the honest, conscientious, and religious on
the one side, and the intriguing, unscrupulous, and
political on the other ? The actual severance of the
sober, conservative, and reflective part of our popula-
tion from practical politics is an undisputed fact. It
has as yet given rise to no misgivings in the popular
mind as to the finality of our solution of the Church
and State problem : but, if the proposition be true
which is already beginning to attract the faith of the
best political thinkers, that no public interest (taking
public interest in the widest sense) can be severed
from politics under our system of popular government,
then even the separation of Church and State may
turn out to be only a happy compromise, a great
advance at the time it was made, but not a finality.
It has been a great success in our history on the
whole, but we find that its ultimate applications in-
volve great difficulties. We have succeeded in putting
the moral influence of the Church at a distance from
politics, but the political power of the Church, which
can control a consolidated voting power, is a notorious
134 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH.
fact. In view of this, there is room to pause and
hesitate, before we offer our theory to the world as
conclusive and final."
The writer goes on to argue, that it is the social
circumstances, and the popular faiths and traditions
of America, which have made their solution of the
question a possibility, and a success. The social
arrangements and popular traditions of Germany
being entirely different, he doubts whether the solu-
tion suggested by his enthusiastic countryman to
Prince Bismarck, and his colleagues, will be of much
practical value to those brilliant statesmen. And,
while he never hints at any reconsideration of the
question in America, or challenges the success of
what the United States have done, he does doubt
"whether if we had to meet the question with our
Society so far solidified as it now is, and with a
number of churches accustomed to State subsidies,
we could decide it in this way ourselves.'*
I will call one more witness from America. In
December, 1873, the sister Congregational Churches
of Brooklyn remonstrated with Plymouth Church on
the subject of ecclesiastical discipline, which they
considered to be too lax, and not according to Con-
gregational usage, in that community. At Mr.
Beecher's suggestion the remonstrance was disre-
garded, and Plymouth Church accepted, after debate,
his yiew, that it is no business of the Church what
a member's way of life is. Its doors should be " as
wide as humanity for entrance," " as wide as necessity
for departure." This decision of Plymouth Church
THE CASE OF PLYMOUTH CHURCH. 1 35
created some scandal, and no little astonishment and
remonstrance, of which I will again take the Nation
as the ablest spokesman I can find.
This decision, it argued, put in plain language means,
that Plymouth Church is nothing but " an assemblage
of persons taking an interest in spiritual things and
desiring to hear Mr. Beecher preach." It is an
abandonment of the old theory " which has played so
large a part in English and American history, that
there is a real distinction, displaying itself in outward
marks, between members of Congregational churches
and the world outside. According to this theory, the'
Church was composed of a body of persons, who had
not only embraced certain beliefs with regard to
Christ's character and mission, but had, as a conse-
quence or accompaniment of those beliefs, undergone
certain changes of hopes, desires, tastes, and aims,
implied in the term * conversion ' or * change of
heart/ which created a real line of demarcation,
and a real difference of standards, between them
and their non-religious neighbours ; and this change,
and this alone, constituted fitness for participation
in the sacrament in the Lord's Supper " . . . . and
"This theory is not that of the Congregationalists
alone. In the Presbyterian, Baptist, and Methodist
Churches also, membership implies an outward and
visible sign of an inward change, affecting not only
opinions but conduct. In England the case is widely
different. There every one is in theory a member
of the National Church, whatever his character or
beliefs may be, and the tolerant view of what
136 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH.
constitutes a Christian life which this has bred, has, not
unnaturally but under widely different circumstances,
been perpetuated by the Episcopal Church here." But
the Plymouth Church decision cannot of course be
taken as an adoption of the English Church theory.
" Some one has said," the Nation concludes, "that
this is putting the Church on * a democratic basis,' which
is true ; but then, it is by introducing into the Church
organisation that feature of democracy which gives
cause for a very large part of whatever apprehension
exists as to the future of modern society. One of the
greatest helps to conduct — which, as Matthew Arnold
says, is three-fourths of life — in the ancient and
mediaeval world, was the close dependence of men on
each other, created by various artificial arrangements.
Everybody was a member of some small organisation,
whose interests took his thoughts off himself, of whose
honour he was jealous, and whose opinion stimulated
him in any course of action which its code prescribed
as best. He belonged to a small tribe, or state, or
guild, or commune, or order, in which he was every
day reminded of his dependence on his fellow-men ;
in which he lived under continual observation, which
exacted of him continual sacrifice of self, and whose
concentrated censure he dared not face. The result
was that, in spite of barbarism and insecurity, great
ideals were kept alive, and great types of character
were produced in every age. In the modern world,
all these have disappeared. The only organisation
the modern man belongs to is the nation, and when
nations contain thirty millions of persons, each one's
THE OLD NEW ENGLAND CHURCH IDEA. 1 3/
sense of obligation to it is apt to be very slight
Public men have ceased to be responsible to anybody
but * the people,' and the people is so vast and busy
that responsibility to it is hardly more burdensome
than responsibility to Posterity, or the True, or the
Good. Public opinion, too, is expressed through so
many organs, and is distracted by so many objects,
and is made up of so many influences, that it is all
but impossible to concentrate it with any force on any
one man's deeds or misdeeds. Society every day
comes nearer to a promiscuous crowd, each individual of
whom supplies his own tests of conduct, and his own
aims in life, and lets the others go their way. The
one institution which has come down to our time as
an artificial check on wrong-doing, or stimulus to
decent behaviour, is the Church as the Puritans set
it up. It is (if we except the Quakers) the only
organisation which has professed to exact more than
common decency of men engaged actively in the
busy work of life, and exposed daily to its trials and
temptations. It took the best moral opinion of the
day, and brought it to a focus, so that it was felt,
not simply by society at large, but by A and B, and
opposed a practical and visible obstacle to their
cheating, and lying, and licentiousness, by making the
disgrace of it prompt and tangible. There is nobody
who has fairly considered the temptations of our
time but must regret deeply that the process of social
disintegration, which has already worked so much
mischief, and has even attacked the family, should
have reached religious organisations, and dissolved
138 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH.
one of the most successful. What has occurred in
Brooklyn will be taken, however, as a frank confession,
that what so many men of the world have maintained,
is true — that church-membership was no guarantee of
purity of character. Perhaps it was not ; perhaps it
was folly for any tribunal to sit on the condition of a
man's heart ; but this is hardly a reason for resolving
itself into a simple public meeting. It might, if it
cannot exact holiness, at least exact, and successfully
exact, decency of life, by judging and casting out
slanderers, cheats, forgers, blackmailers, adulterers,
and peddlers of worthless securities. The Stock
Exchange does something of this kind, and so do
most clubs ; can it be that we are about to witness a
formal confession by religious bodies, not only that
we are all sinners, but that in democratic communities
one sinner is just as bad as another, and that the
difference between robbery and petulance is not
worth a Christian man's notice ? "
I have dwelt on these matters at some length
because the argument from the religious condition of
America is the strongest shaft in the Liberationist
quiver. It was certainly the one which weighed most
with me until I had been in the country, and had
done my best to learn the opinions of the ablest and
most thoughful Americans themselves. Having done
so I can find nothing in their half-a-century experi-
ment of the voluntary system to make me wish that
England should follow it.
During that half century, however, there has been
one heroic period, which raised not this or that se.ction,
CONCLUSIONS. 139
but the nation, above the ordinary recognised sphere
of politics, and has not only left behind it glorious
memories, but has strengthened men's faith in a nobler
political future. I need not say that I refer to the
struggle for the abolition of slavery, culminating in the
election of Abraham Lincoln, and the civil war. But,
let me remind you that this period was heroic just
because the two spheres which the Jeffersonian would
keep absolutely distinct became here hopelessly mixed
in American politics. Men, who, as the politicians
protested, ought to have known and respected the
rules of the game, got up in Congress with bible-
texts and arguments in their mouths, appealing to
standards and sanctions, which, as all politicians were
agreed, should be kept for the pulpit. So they had
to be assaulted in the House, and ostracised in
society ; to what purpose, the triumph of the cause
for which they contended has shown.
But what do I infer from all this, even if my views
be accepted as true } Do I mean that if the United
States had kept an Established Church they would
have had a judiciary appointed for fitness, a per-
manent civil service, no King Caucus, and would have
abolished slavery a generation sooner ?
No, I mean nothing of the kind. My case doesn't
need it. All I have to show is, that the absolute
severance of the two spheres — the resolute attempt to
keep politics and religion clear of one another — in the
United States, has not in either sphere produced
results which we in England should desire to attain.
If then, as I hold, the other religious bodies in the
I40 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH.
States are not broader or more tolerant than with us,
while the Protestant Episcopal Church is certainly
less so than the mother Church, which still remains
national — if their system has managed to banish the
best men from politics, and their political life is
allowed by themselves to be in a thoroughly unsatis-
factory, if not in a dangerous, condition — my case is
proved. The " severance of Church and State " may
remain in England a Liberal Shibboleth, but as a
policy it cannot be fairly supported by the example
of the United States.
( 141 )
VI.
TO A CHURCH UNION.
{Parts of an Address delivered at Hull, December 1876.)
It seems a somewhat hopeless task just now to speak
in such an Institution as this of any subject but that
most critical one which is absorbing (and rightly
absorbing) the thoughts and energies of every English
citizen who car^s for the good name and the honour
of his country. I say rightly absorbing, because no
less a stake than the good name and honour of
England is at issue in this Eastern Question. Putting
aside all miserable party squabbles and recriminations,
all considerations of whether Tory, Whig, or Radical
are to gain in our insular struggles for power, by the
answer which must be given within the next few weeks
to the question, What shall be done now in these
winter months of 1876, with the unhappy nations
who inhabit the fairest corner of Europe ? one thing
remains perfectly clear, and that is, that the decision
of this Eastern Question practically rests with this
country. We have seen within the last fortnight, since
142 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH.
England's Plenipotentiary has been making the tour
of European Courts, and conferring with the statesmen
who for the moment control the destinies of the great
powers, that, one after another, France, Germany,
Austria, Italy, stand deliberately aside, and give
place in this matter to our representative. He is to
preside at the conference at Constantinople, and it is
he, and therefore, England, who, like the Ambassador
of Rome before the senate of Carthage, holds peace
or war in his mantle, and can give which he will. It
matters not how this has come about, it boots not
now to inquire whether by other action in May or
in August — when the Andrassy Note or the Berlin
Memorandum were open to our acceptance — we
could have shared this tremendous responsibility with
others. May and August are as far behind us in this
matter as last century. What might have been, may be
left to our political leaders to fight over, when their
time comes, as come it surely will ; what is, and shall
be, is still, let us hope, in the nation's power ; and I
for one rejoice therefore to feel, that every man and
every woman who love the land that gave them birth,
can think of nothing, and work for nothing in this
her great hour of need, but the maintenance of her
good name unsullied, and the vindication of her old
renown for good faith and just dealing amongst the
nations.
If, then, I could think that our subject of this
evening would lead you off the scent, or that the
hour to be given to this question of Church prospects
at home, would abate the interest, or slacken the zeal
THE EASTERN A NATIONAL CHURCH QUESTION. I43
of any one here in the Eastern Question, I would ask
you even now to hear me on that subject, or to return
to your homes. But, believing as I do that the two
subjects are at any rate so far in touch that we can
scarcely think seriously on the one which is just now
in the background, without gaining strength and
clearness in dealing with the one which calls for
prompt decision and action, I can go on and say my
say with a clear conscience. For I, at least, hold, and
have always held, the Church question to be one
altogether outside of, and above party politics, one
which we are bound as good citizens to approach
without any thought how its solution in one direction
or another will bear upon the parties or the govern-
ment of to-day or to-morrow. And if this be so, and
we can to-night get ourselves to think, and examine,
to the best of our ability, not how church or chapel,
orthodoxy or dissent, can be strengthened or humi-
liated, but under what conditions the Christian Gospel
— the good news of Christ — can be most effectually
offered to every man woman and child in these realms,
we shall find ourselves in a better frame of mind to
decide in the morning how we would have England
act with regard to her fellow Christians in the East,
and their Turkish masters. The effort to raise
ourselves to the true standpoint in the one case will
help us in the other, though there may be no direct
or obvious connection between them.
Turning then to our subject, we are met on the very
threshold with the question which our age is asking
very eagerly, more eagerly and searchingly than any
144 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH.
which has gone before it : " What is the use of talking
about Church prospects ? Has what you call the
Church, which must mean some form or other of
Christianity, any prospects at all ? There is no
Christian Church or sect which does not stand upon a
supernatural foundation, and has not that foundation
already crumbled to pieces before modern scientific
inquiry ? There is no Christian Church or sect which
does not hold the Bible to be in some special sense
a Divinely inspired book. Has not Biblical criticism
finally reduced your sacred books to the level of
ordinary human literature ?" It would not be honest
to pass these questions by, and I am the last man
to wish to do so. But even if a popular lecture were
the method, this is not the place, for dealing with them.
We are met in a Church Institute, the existence of
which assumes that you, its members, are satisfied (or
I presume you would not belong to it) that, however
severe the shocks may be which Christianity has
sustained, and may have to sustain in the future, it
will surely rise above them, and hold its own hereafter
as a living religion, the only power which can, and
assuredly will, in time, redeem the world out of the
depths of misery and wretchedness in which it still
welters. At any rate, that is my own deepest convic-
tion. I have no doubt whatever that the Christian
faith will survive the deep unrest of our day, and come
forth all the stronger and purer from the fire, whatever
of its old trappings and environments may perish in
the process, as much of them undoubtedly will perish.
And in this conviction I can honestly speak to you on
NATIONALISM OF CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 145
the subject of our Church prospects, and ask you to
consider with me to-night not only what these are,
but what they may be made.
In order to clear the ground then, let me say at
once in what sense I am using the word Church.
Willingly and thankfully acknowledging, as I do, that
widest and highest meaning, which embraces all
Christian organisations, and all individuals who accept
the name "Christian" though they may belong to no
Church or sect, I do not propose to use it in that
sense to-night. I wish to speak of the Church, as that
word is commonly used and understood in England,
and as you, who are members of this Society, use it,
that is to say, as that particular form in which
Christianity has been deliberately accepted, estab-
lished, and upheld by the English nation. This one
cardinal fact is the first upon which the attention
of every one who comes to the serious consideration
of this great subject should be fixed. We have here
in the midst of us a religious national organisation,
older than the national civil government, for, before
the Saxon kingdoms were united under the kings of
Wessex, a thousand years ago, the Church — very much
what it is now, in all essentials, except its relations
with Rome — was already organised and at work in
every English parish. It was, in fact, national, before
our ancestors knew that they were a nation, and has
retained this nationality as its leading characteristic
from that day to this. The Pope claimed, indeed,
supremacy here as elsewhere, and was often very near
making his claim good. But he never did make it
I.
146 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH.
good. Papal supremacy was always illegal in
England, and denied and resisted by Norman and
Plantaganet kings and their Parliaments as firmly as
by the Tudor princes, under whom the final separation
was effected : and no one of the great Englishmen who
bore a part in the final work ever dreamt of establish-
ing a new Church or a new faith, but only of reforming
and purifying the Church and the faith which had
come down to them.
The English nation at the time of the Reformation
never entertained a doubt that the State was bound to
concern itself with other matters besides the preserva-
tion of body and goods. The men of that day knew
that the religion of a nation has more influence on its
character than all other causes put together. They
had a high ideal of what a State should be, and there-
fore claimed for their own State the right, and the duty,
of directing and controlling the religion of the English
people as its highest function. It took some two hundred
years of fierce strife to convince the nation that this
claim had been put too high. Inch by inch, and with
the greatest unwillingness, the ground was abandoned.
The nation learned, through bitter experience, that
there could be no peace in the land till men were left
free in this highest matter to follow the guidance of
their consciences, in whatever direction these might
lead them. This national confession was made, and
the first step towards liberty of conscience taken,
in the first year of the reign of William of Orange,
when the Toleration Act was passed exempting all
Dissenters who would take the oath of allegiance and
ABANDONMENT OF COERCION. 147
sign the declaration against Popery from the penalties
of Elizabeth's Act of Obedience, and Charles II.'s Act
of Uniformity. But the old theories were still strong,
and it was only as it were inch by inch that the ground
was won upon which we now stand so firmly. It was
not till the reign of George III. that, in Hallam's
words, " such a genuine toleration as Christianity and
philosophy alike demand had a place in our statutes."
In that reign Acts were passed for protecting Dis-
senting chapels, and extending the Toleration Act
to Unitarians. In the reign of William IV. the good
work made long strides. Dissenting chapels were
placed on a level with the parish churches, so far as
exemption from Church and poor rates could do this ;
the Test and Corporation Acts were repealed, the
Catholic Emancipation Act was passed. But it was
not till the present reign that the battle for religious
liberty was finally won when the Act of 1846 was
passed, repealing all statutes and parts of statutes
which imposed any penalties on religious belief.
But while the English nation has thus finally and
for ever abandoned all claim to control the relisfious
beliefs of any section, or of any individual amongst its
citizens, it has never abandoned the right, or disclaimed
the duty, of maintaining the connection between the
State as a civil, and the State as a religious, organisa-
tion, but has, on the contrary, hitherto deliberately
maintained that connection, which remains practically
what it always has been. Before passing, then, to the
consideration of how far this national organisation for
religious purposes is in accord with the modern
L 2
148 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH.
democratic spirit of the times in which we live, let
us fairiy recognise the fact for what it is worth, that
this religious organisation of the nation which we
call the Church of England, has been upheld by
our forefathers for thirty generations. This may be
no reason why we should continue to uphold it, if,
after the most earnest consideration, we find that it is
no longer in sympathy with the nation, and that its
continued existence outrages the national conscience.
But it is a reason for pausing, and insisting on the
most deliberate action in this matter. This is no time
for cutting, in lightness of heart, or intellectual im-
patience, any of the links which bind us to the past.
It has not been by such methods that our forefathers
have preserved, and handed down to us, that great
inheritance of which the Church is a part. Thirty
generations of Englishmen have vigorously asserted,
or assented to, the principle, that it is best for the
nation that the outward organisation of religion should
remain under the same control, whatever that may be,
as the other organisations which together make up
England. It is no light thing to reverse their judgment.
And now, turning to consider the question of how
far the Church of England is in harmony with the
modern democratic spirit, let us first remark that it is,
in its national character, a creation of the people
themselves. It has not been forced on them by foreign
prelates or princes, it is not a society apart — in them
but not of them — it is they who have the ultimate
control over it, they govern it through and by the
same machinery which they use for carrying on their
THE DEMOCRATIC SPIRIT. I49
civil business. Through that machinery they can
make it what they please, distribute its revenues, alter
its discipline, prescribe its duties. Of what other
religious organisation can this be said ?
But this modern spirit is before all things an equal-
ising spirit, claiming that the good things of this world
shall be more widely distributed, protesting against
privilege and exclusiveness in temporal and spiritual
matters ; and it is often used as an argument against
the National Church that her existence offends against
this spirit. Even if it were so, the answer is again, ** the
remedy is in our own hands. If the Church is not
democratic enough, make it more so." But let us look
at the matter a little closer. In the first place there is
no wider basis possible for a National Church than the
nation — a truism, no doubt, but one which it is not
superfluous to insist on — and this is the one upon
which our Church stands. Thus, in every centre and
in every remotest corner of this land alike, the nation
offers with open hand all the ministrations of religion
to every one of her children. There is no exception
whatever made by her. The dweller in any English
village has the right to the use of the national buildings
and the services of the minister. These are a part of
his birthright of which he can only be deprived by his
own voluntary act. He need not take up his birth-
right, but there it is for him if he will ; and the clergy^
as officers of the nation, are bound not only to give the
offices of religion to all who ask for them, but to offer
them to those who do not. This is of the very essence
of the Church as the English nation has established it.
150 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH.
The nation holds that these things are good for all ;
that those who accept and use them rightly will be the
best citizens. Accordingly, they are provided for all ;
every person born in these realms or of English parents
being, In theory at any rate, a member of the Church.
It takes an exercise of the will to become a member of
any of the self-governed Churches and sects which
exist amongst us ; whereas, it takes an exercise of the
will not to be a member of the National Church. This
is a vital distinction, and one which it seems to me of
the utmost importance to get clear about in our own
minds. The other Christian bodies in this country are
by their constitution limited to those who have been
converted, or who accept some tests which make them
members, and by their constitution it cannot be other-
wise. But surely this is a very low ideal for the
Christian Church, whose principal work should be with
those who have not come in, who are outside the fold.
Practically it may be said that the self-governed
churches and sects are engaged in missionary work
amongst us as well as the Church of England, but, in
their case, it Is a work of supererogation, while it is an
essential part of her duty. " We see this difference,"
says an able writer, once himself a Nonconformist, " if
we consider that the minister of a Dissenting chapel is
not expected to attend to any but his own congrega-
tion, whilst the clergyman is bound to be at the call of
every person in his parish ; although, of course, others
are welcome, the services of a chapel cannot be joined in
as of right, except by its members, whilst those of the
Church are open to all those who choose to come. It
ELASTICITY OF ORGANISATION. 151
is one thing for work to be done or not as we choose,
and another for it to be a part of our duty. If the
National Church does not do its duty properly, it
should be made to do so. But the destruction of that
Church would be a great blow to the future spread of
Christianity, for then there would be left no organisa-
tion bound to minister to the unconverted as well as
to the converted." (G. Harwood's ' Disestablishment.')
This going out into the highways and hedges is at
once the special glory and the raison d'etre of the
National Church — this carrying the offices and con-
solations of religion to the very doors of those who
have no wish for them, who would sooner be without
them — and it is a work which the voluntary Churches
seem quite unable to perform. And for this simple
reason, that self-supporting religious bodies, as a rule,
cannot exist in the poorest quarters of great towns,
or in remote country districts, the precise places in
which they are most needed. This is no reproach
either to congregations or ministers. The minister
must live, however great his zeal may be, and, in order
to live, he must follow those of his congregation who
hold the purse-strings, and who will not live in poor
and crowded districts. But it is a great gain that the
nation has ready made to its hand a religious organi-
sation which can meet the new conditions of life of
our time, which can and does bear the strain which
our rapidly changing industrial life is throwing upon
it by the accumulation of our people in the outskirts
of our great cities and manufacturing towns, and can
meet crime, and vice, and misery, in their own haunts
152 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH.
with a steady and permament front. I am not for a
moment suggesting that this work is effectually done,
or that there are not great arrears to be made up, but
I do say that there is no hope or chance of its ever
being done at all except by a national organisation,
and that the Church has been roused to the paramount
necessity of doing it, and is proving itself year by
year more equal to the task. There is another cha-
racteristic of the National Church which cannot be
valued too highly in times like ours, and which is, as
I believe, directly due to its connection with the State,
which we are told so narrows and cripples it — of all
religious organisations it is the one which allows and
can bear the greatest freedom of religious thought.
And it is precisely because it is national, because it is
under the final control, in all questions of membership,
of the civil power, because the calm, dispassionate and
trained intellects of laymen are brought to bear upon
the passionate differences of theologians, that this
wise latitude is possible. Does any one suppose for a
moment, that in these last thirty years, in which there
has been so vivid an awakening of spiritual life
amongst us, there would have been no rending of
the Church in fragments, no great schism like that of
the Free Kirk in Scotland, had such a body as Con-
vocation been the ultimate court of appeal, and the
governing power in the Church .'*
Restless spirits, not a few, chafe under this national
control and are tempted from time to time to throw
it off. It is made a subject of reproach against the
Church of the nation by those of other communions.
TENDENCY TO DISINTEGRATION IN ALL SECTS. 1 53
But, surely, all those who believe that Christianity was
intended to be the common inheritance of all men —
that its mission is not to separate men, but to bring
them together, not to build up, but to break down
walls of partition — must in their best moments rejoice
that in our country there is one religious organisation
so tolerant, so elastic, or, if you will, so latitudinarian.
The disease of this same time amongst our other
religious organisations has been the constant tendency
to split up, and it is abundantly clear that the Church
would have suffered from it as severely as any other
body, but for that control of the nation which is said
to be her weakness, and from which she is so loudly
called to free herself.
There is another reason why I think that this large
tolerance within the Church of which I have been
speaking is of immense national value. There is a
large class of the most cultivated and intellectual
people of this country, of excellent moral character,
who are quite contented to remain members of the
National Church, using its offices and ministrations
habitually, but who assuredly would not be admitted,
or desire to be admitted, into any other communion.
The best known perhaps of these is Mr. Matthew
Arnold, who, in his later writings, has explained that,
in his view, the Church is " a National society, for the
promotion of goodness." An entirely inadequate
view, no doubt, most of us would say, but one which
expresses part of the truth ; and which it would be
the height of folly, in the interests of the nation, and of
religion, to run the risk of destroying in men's minds.
154 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH.
Taking, then, these points which have been noticed,
I would ask you to consider whether a religious
organisation which is open to the whole nation, without
any distinction, which is specially devoted to the out-
casts and the poor, which no one need use unless he
pleases, which can and does retain in communion men
of views as widely different as those of the Ritualists
and Mr. Matthew Arnold, and which is under the
control of the State, and of no private body of citizens,
is not, in theory, more in harmony with the modern
spirit than any other religious organisation with
which we are acquainted, or any of which we can at
present form any idea ? If it is not so in practice it is
the fault of the people ; and the remedy is in the
hands of the people, who can apply it in the same way
and through the same machinery, as they would use
to reform any other part of their institutions. That in
one sense it is not democratic, may be readily admitted ;
but then, no more is the English nation, and when the
nation changes we have every ground for believing
that the Church will change also. It is competent
for the nation to change the form of its government
into that of a republic, and for those Englishmen who
desire such a change to work for it. When that time
comes, doubtless the national organisation of religion
will be modified in a similiar direction ; meantime
what we have to consider is, whether the Church does
or does not fairly represent the nation in its present
phase, and in making up our minds upon this point
it is only fair to bear in mind that what are commonly
called the great prizes in the National Church are
SEVERANCE NECESSARILY DESTRUCTION. 1 55
absolutely open to all. There is no profession more
democratic in the true sense of the word than that of
the ministry of the National Church, and none in
which a larger proportion of those who have started
in life with no advantages whatever have risen to the
highest places. * * * * .
It must be borne in mind that to sever the connection
between the State and the National Church must
destroy the Church. It is not its Episcopal constitu-
tion, or its possession of the cathedrals, churches,
glebe and tithes, or its Thirty-nine Articles, or even its
Prayer Book, or its grand history and traditions, which
make the Church of England the National Church. It
might retain all these, and lose its national character ;
or, on the other hand, it might lose its endowments,
and change its constitution, and yet retain its national
character. For this consists in its national continuance,
as an integral part of the constitution of the country —
as the organisation of its higher life which the nation
approves and offers to its people, and keeps under its
own control. Should England, through weariness or
impatience, or from any other cause, ever agree to the
divorce, apart from other dangers, this one would
most assuredly confront us. That indifference to
religion, as a matter with which practical men have no
need to trouble themselves — already so wide spread
at both poles of our civilisation, amongst our cultivated
classes, under the influence of the avowed agnosticism
of many of the most able of our scientific leaders ;
amongst the masses of our poor, under the influence
of the grinding struggle for existence in our competitive
world — will gain tenfold strength. If the nation shall
156 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH.
solemnly declare that it has no longer any concern
with the religion of its people — that it can and will for
the future get on without an effort to provide anything
beyond protection of life and property — what inference
can be drawn, but that obvious one, that these are the
only essential matters about which good citizens need
concern themselves. It would be a virtual abandon-
ment by England of the struggle which she has main-
tained ever since she became a nation, an admission of
failure in the highest sphere of human endeavour, a
confession that, so far as she is concerned, the inspiring
prophecy that one day the kingdoms of this world
shall become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His
Christ, is a fond dream.
But, if the English nation strikes its flag and abandons
the struggle, there is a power which assuredly will not
do so. The Church of Rome has made progress of late
in England, which, while rousing us to watchfulness,
need perhaps as yet cause us little anxiety. But let
the nation once openly profess that the religion of the
people is no longer the affair of the State, and declare
that a National Church is henceforth impossible, and
an impetus will be given to the action, and a sup-
port to the claims, of the Church which professes to
be universal, which the State will find itself unable to
meet, except with weapons which have never proved
of much value in this warfare. If the State will not
rule the Church, the Church will rule the State, and
our children may have to fight over again the battles
which we have been wont to believe had been won
for all time.
The progress which the Romish Church is making
PROCESS OF DISINTEGRATION. 1 5/
here and in the United States, in spite of the late
Vatican decrees, is a subject upon which no thought-
ful man will speak lightly. But, it may be said,
that the Church of England, even after she had been
separated from the State, though no longer carrying
the prestige of national authority, would be strong
enough to hold her own. To me it seems idle to hope
that this would be so. She would then be nothing but
a Religious Society, differing only in size and prestige
from the other Christian Protestant sects. She would
be governed by a Synod, composed chiefly of
ecclesiastics, and, keen as all such bodies must be
to scent heresy, and to magnify doctrinal differences,
there is too much reason to believe that she would
speedily split up into fragments, and so add several new
recruits to the disgraceful war of " strenuously com-
peting sects." But, assuming that she were to remain
unbroken, and were to prove able to hold her own
against Rome and the competing sects, then another
and most serious danger would arise to the nation.
For, though she would be no doubt deprived of
much of her property before being turned adrift, there
are certain portions which no one who understands
England will for a moment suppose can be taken
away from her. She would retain the cathedrals,
parish churches, parsonages, and probably the glebes,
and wealth enough besides to support her machinery
in working order, until the tide of gifts and bequests
(which would pour into her coffers in even greater
abundance than in these last church-building years,
when such contributions must be reckoned by millions)
158 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH.
had more than made up for all that she had lost.
With her roots struck deep in every family and every
parish, her energies thoroughly roused by the struggle
through which she had been passing, and eager to
lose no jot of her influence and prestige ; she would
be left face to face with the civil government, in no
friendly mood with the power which had cast her
adrift. Unless a great and very improbable change
were to come over her spirit in the meantime, the
power over this great religious organisation would
pass into the hands of the High Church party, whose
views as to the proper relations of the temporal and
spiritual power scarcely differ from those of Romanists.
Who can doubt that such power in such hands would
prove a serious danger to civil and religious liberty }
We English might escape the clutches of giant Pope,
for here would be a spiritual power competent to keep
him at bay. But, said Luther, "every little priest,
however humble, carries a little pope under his
cassock " ; and we should fall into hands which we
should scarcely like better than the Pope, and of
which it would be more difficult to loosen the hold on
the political and social life of the nation.
Church prospects, then, you will see by this time,
seem to me to be of the gloomiest character, if this
revolutionary change should be made in our con-
stitution. On the other hand, if, and so long as, the
present relationship continues between Church and
State, in spite of many serious drawbacks, I can look
hopefully to the future.
'* These are anxious days for religion," says the
THE POSSIBILITIES OF NATIONALISM. 1 59
author already quoted more than once, " such as shake
the faith of its timid friends, and even make those sad
who have unswerving confidence in the omnipotence
of God, and in the ultimate and universal triumph of
a religion which has always come victorious out of
dangers which seemed infinitely greater. The old,
simple, manly, practical Christianity which the Bible
teaches, and which has been the faith for so many
generations of the best of our forefathers, is going out
of fashion, and the Christian world seems to be dividing
itself up between priestly domination on the one hand,
and on the other worldly indifference or antagonistic
scepticism. The torch of pure religion, lit by the
Lord Himself with the fire of Heaven, is being trodden
out under the contending feet of fanatics and un-
believers. It can only be picked up and borne onwards
by the hand of a Church which is practical as well as
spiritual, human as well as Divine, National as well as
Christian. Protestant revivalism, like Roman Catho-
licism, sets the other world against and above this,
and to Nationalism is reserved the task of properly
reconciling the two ; of joining practicality and
spirituality, life with religion, earth with heaven ;
of making Christianity a sensible reality as well as a
devout enthusiasm. Can there be a nobler work, or
one more needed than this which lies especially before
the National Church of England ? No better motto
can be chosen as a guide to success than that which
is attributed to Baxter : " In necessary things, unity ;
in doubtful things, liberty ; in all things charity."
But to approach the work of the future with the
l60 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH.
power, and in the spirit here indicated, the Church has
to do much in the way of reform of her own constitu-
tion on the one hand, and of change in the spirit in
which she has but too often dealt with fellow Christians
not of her own communion, and with the poor, on the
other. The nation will make no move in this work
until it sees that the Church is thoroughly in earnest,
Parliament disliking to be called upon to deal with
questions of Church reform more than with any other
business. And the authorities within the Church, it must
be owned, have shown a caution and timidity which
would seem to imply the existence of that distrust
they have been so often accused by enemies of feeling,
the belief that, if one plank or stone were touched,
the whole building would come crashing about their
ears. They must get rid of these fears and doubts
and set to work to overhaul the building. Mr. Arnold
tells us, as a fact within his own knowledge — and the
experience of all men I know who have the means of
forming an opinion on the subject bears him out — that
there are numbers of able young men ready to enter
the service of the National Church, were it not for the
.professions which are still required of them before
they can be admitted to serve. And who can wonder
at this, when we retain the definitions and formulas of
three hundred years ago, as the expression of the
national faith of to-day ? In the face of the wider and
larger knowledge which science and Biblical criticism
have opened to our generation, it is hopeless to expect
that men of cultivation and ability can solemnly pledge
themselves, even in the general form now required, to
PRESSING REFORMS. l6l
the propositions contained in the Thirty-nine Articles,
or to use the Athanasian Creed in the Church Service.
Nor is there the least need why this should be required
of them. The articles served their purpose in their
own day, and continue admirable statements upon
controversies, which were then living, but have long
since been dead and buried. It is good to treat them
with respect ; but to keep them alive any longer, as
tests of the beliefs of young men who have grown up
in the present half century, is to put a wholly un-
necessary impediment in the way of candidates for
holy orders, and to encourage dishonesty, and self-*
deception, in the very places where, before all others,
there should be truthfulness, and clearness of sight.
In speaking on this subject, Mr. M. Arnold says : " The
Ordination Service itself, on a man's entrance into
orders, and the use of the Church Services afterwards,
are a sufficient engagement on the part of those who
desire to take service in the National Church." And
Mr. Arnold is perfectly in the right here. It is the
most crying need of the Church to have these necessary
reforms carried through, that she may no longer be
hampered with the trappings and garments of three
hundred years ago. " It was a premature decision on
the details of Church government and doctrine, in the
absence of a broad leading principle," Prince Albert
writes, in his Memorandum on the Church Crisis in
1 85 1, "and the fact of their being finally settled for
posterity by those into whose hands the conduct of
the Reformation fell, which prevented the Church of
England from participating in that constant and free
M
l62 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH.
development which the State has been able to derive
from the broad principles of Magna Charta."
He had no fear of touching formularies which have
been with us an object of almost superstitious regard
for so long, but believed that new life and strength
would spring up under bold but reverent handling.
The constitution of the Church he knew required
reform, and was strong enough to bear it. He urged
that it should be begun in time, holding that the most
opposite opinions might exist as to details, but that
these might well be left to time and public discussion
to settle by degrees ; and that " the same respect for
historical tradition and vested rights, which has marked
the progress of the British Constitution, added to a
high sense of the sacred nature of the work to be
performed, v/ill not fail to attend this development."
But his advice and warnings have fallen on unwilling
ears, and the reforms which he pleaded for are scarcely
yet commenced. Meantime, the most marked increase
has occurred in the impatience of sectarian differences
and disputes in the minds of all thinking men who
are not engaged in the strife of religious parties.
Especially has this been the case within the Church.
When shall we hear less of these theological j anglings
and hair-splittings and more of the Gospel, which, after
all, we all hold in common } It is said, however, by
some, as I think, unwise defenders of the faith, that a
colourless Christianity iS no Christianity at all, that
you can have no Church without a definite creed. To
the first I would reply that, after all, the bright white
light is, in its purity, better than all colour. To the
PRINCE ALBERT'S ADVICE. 1 63
isecond, I admit that every Church must have a
definite creed, but the more simple and broad that
creed is the better. It is only the simplest creed
which can give us the unity, or the tolerance in
diversity, for which all good men are longing.
It is the business of every Englishman who cares
for the great national inheritance to which he has
been born, and especially of the officers of the Church
of the nation, to lend a hand with these necessary
reforms. The spirit in which parsons should come to
the work cannot be better defined than by Prince
Albert, who writes that a bishop should be " meek
and liberal, and tolerant of other confessions : but
let him never forget that he is a representative of
the Church of the land, the maintenance of which
is as important to the country as that of its con-
stitution, or its throne. Let him be always conscious
that the Church has duties to fulfil, that it does not
exist for itself, but for the people, and for the country,
and that it ought to have no higher aim than to
be the Church of the people."
Meekness, liberality, tolerance of other confessions !
These are great virtues, but hard, very hard to practise
in such hurrying, driving, democratic, competitive
times as ours, when respect for authority seems to
have almost died out. Nevertheless, they must be
practised, if the Church is ever to fulfil her great
mission, and to become in a larger and truer sense than
she has ever yet been, " The Church of the People."
M 2
1 64 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH.
VII.
CONSERVATISM OF CLERGY, etc.
There are several matters frequently debated in this
controversy, which have either been entirely omitted,
or only casually referred to as yet, in these pages. I
have had, however, to speak on them on different
occasions ; so, without troubling my readers with more
addresses, which would be in many respects only
repetitions of those already given, I subjoin the fol-
lowing extracts, which at any rate raise the points
sufficiently to " let the light and air play round them."
All I desire is, that my countrymen and country-
women, especially those who are Liberals, should just
take trouble enough to know what the points at issue
in this Church question are. The facts upon which
their judgment should be formed, lie round on every
side, just as open to them as to me. If they will only
look at them and clear their minds of cant, political
and religious, on this subject, that is all one can ask.
The fear is lest they should leap in the dark.
Conservatism of Clergy.
Let me now say a few words on an argument which
is made to do service constantly on Liberation plat-
PROFESSIONAL CONSERVATISM. 1 65
forms, and which appeals specially to Liberals, I mean
the Conservatism of the Church clergy as a body. It
is said, that as a body, they have opposed every
popular reform upon which the nation has set its
heart, that (to use Mr. Chamberlain's words) they are
" part of a vast mutual assurance against change, to
which the landlord, the publican, and every vested
right and privilege, readily contribute." I will not
question the general truth of this charge, though it is
only fair to remark that, as regards one of the vested
interests referred to, that of the publican, the Church
clergy have shown themselves of late years its most
powerful and dangerous enemy. The Church of
England Temperance Society, with the full bench
of bishops at its head, and a branch in thousands of
parishes, is doing as much as all other influences put
together, to grapple with the national sin : and I for
one don't see how the national sin can be so well
confronted as by a national religious organisation.
But on the whole I freely admit it is beyond dispute
that the Church clergy have been, and are, as a rule.
Conservatives, and that much of their conservatism,
such as their opposition to the Burials Bill, is of a kind
peculiarly exasperating, not only to Nonconformists,
but even more so to Liberal Churchmen. These latter
are apt to get out of patience, and to say, or at any
rate to feel, with Mr. Hugessen, that the parsons
will soon make disestablishment certain.
But, even on the assumption that the National
Church clergy are, and are likely to remain, at any
rate till the Church is reformed, incurably Conservative,
l66 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH.
how far does that go towards proving that it will be
for the good of the nation to sever their connection
with the State ? The army is quite as Conservative as
the Church, and opposed the recent military reforms,
upon which the nation was bent, at least as resolutely
as the clergy are opposing the Burials Bill. Are we
going to abolish the army because of this ? During
the long discussions on the military reforms of the
late government, the professional opposition was often,
and with justice, denounced as factious ; the officers,
it was said, were forgetting that they were servants of
the nation, and acting as though they were a separate
caste, who valued the interests of their caste above
national interests. How were they met ? By the
resolute determination of the nation to assert the
national character of the army, and to regain the
control of it. And the most strenuous asserters of
this principle were that section of the Liberal party,
who are now maintaining just the opposite principle
in the case of the National Church.
They who saw most clearly that the army ought to
be made thoroughly national, and to that end must
be bought back again from the soldiers and thrown
open to the nation, are now taking the opposite
side, and striving to denationalise the Church, and to
narrow it into a sect, from which the nation is to be
excluded. They cannot be right in both contentions.
Of the two the Church is the more powerful body, and
though by its constitution and character it can never
be as dangerous to liberty as a standing army, I feel
that it might become, even in England, a serious
THEOLOGICAL LIBERALISM. 167
danger. Therefore, the conclusion seems to me to follow,
that Liberals at any rate should strive to make it
national. The nation, by its own good nature and
carelessness, has to a great extent lost its control over
the Church, as it had over the army, and I say that we
Liberals should try to make it take hold again in
earnest of the Church, as it has of the army.
And I say further, that the nation will get strenuous
help in this work of reform from the best of the
clergy themselves.
For, Conservative as the profession is as a whole,
there is always a strong band of Liberals of the best
type amongst them. I need only name half-a-dozen
under and with whom I myself have worked, Arnold,
Maurice, Robertson, Kingsley, Stanley, and Davies, in
proof of this. Scores of other names will occur to any-
one, of men who invariably stand on the Liberal side,
through good and evil report, such as Fraser, Temple,
Pattison, Bradley, Fremantle, Jowett, M. Butler,
Stopford Brooke, Brooke Lambert, Hansard, Harry
Jones, and Percival. Why, I could run on to a hundred
of my own acquaintance, were it worth while. I don't
know where you will find a higher and better sample
of what Liberals should be than such men as these.
And if I am told that many, or, at any rate, that the
most distinguished, of them have been suspected — that
the Church (meaning the dominant section of the
Church for the time being) has tried to get rid of them,
and would be only too glad to do so still — I reply that
this, so far from weakening, is all in favour of my ar-
gument. For these men have been able to hold their
1 68 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH.
ground, to speak their minds, and take their line, freely
and fearlessly, just because their Church is national.
The day that it ceases to be so will be the beginning
of a time when such service as they have done, and
are doing, for the nation, will become more and more
difficult. I say " for the nation," because, of course, they
will be still able to do the kind of work which leading
Dissenting ministers are doing for select congregations.
I am glad to acknowledge the strong liberal sym-
pathies and teaching of such men as Mr. Baldwin
Brown, Mr. Newman Hall, Dr. Allon, and other lead-
ing Dissenting ministers. I believe it to be thoroughly
genuine and conscientious, and that no congregational
pressure would induce them to change it. But, neverthe-
less, the fact remains, that they are in full sympathy with
their own congregations in their political Liberalism
— that this is what the people who gather round them
want to hear, and their attention is mainly fixed upon
these people — and all I maintain is, that the theological
(not the political) atmosphere is freer in which the
Church parson breathes, and the ground broader and
firmer upon which he stands. Dr. Parker or Mr. Dale
may be just as good Liberal politicians as Dean
Stanley, for instance ; up to a certain point, are indeed,
far more certain to be found on the side of popular
Liberal cries : but, as Liberal theologians, they cannot
be compared for a moment. Indeed, as far as I am
aware, there is no man amongst English Noncon-
formist ministers (always excepting Mr. Martineau)
who has any claim — or indeed who has shown any
desire to assert a claim — to that title.
THEOLOGICAL LIBERALISM. 169
I do not suppose that any Liberationist would deny
this as to theology. The Society, indeed, puts forward
as one of the reasons for belonging to it, that it " aims
to demolish great hindrances to that freedom of thought
and loyalty to conscience, which are essential to noble
living, national and religious." But it is obvious that
these words are not intended to cover freedom of
thought on theological subjects, because one of their
main arguments against the Church is founded on the
(to them) scandalous laxity of her doctrine, and still
more scandalous freedom of her thought. " The doc-
trine of the Church of England," writes Mr. Parkinson
indignantly, " gives room for the utmost play of theo-
logical limb. Within its boundaries all phases of
faith may disport themselves." "The belief of the
clergy of the Church of England at present ranges
through every shade between Ultramontanism and
Atheism," mourns a Canadian Liberationist. The
Liberator, contrasting the Scotch with the English
Establishment, sneers at a Church, " so broad as to be
practically creedless ; so comprehensive that sceptics
or unbelievers may find in it an undisturbed home."
"Talk of an Act of Uniformity," exclaims the Rev. J.G.
Rogers, " why you will find as many different shades
in the Establishment as you will in all the Dissenting
Communities." I might multiply quotations to any
extent, proving that the "strait gate and narrow
way " is preferred by our Nonconformists, not only in
conduct, but in faith ; but it would be waste of time.
Now these facts point to one or two conclusions
as to the Conservatism of the Church clergy. First,
170 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH.
that it is in the main political, and therefore of com-
paratively little importance. What is of national
importance in regard to professional men is, that
they should be Liberal on their own special sub-
jects, which they do, or ought to, understand, and
on which, at any rate, they are the acknowledged
authorities, and not on subjects on which they are no
greater authorities than other men. Secondly, that
the Church clergy are as a rule more Liberal than
Nonconformist ministers on theological questions, or,
if this be denied, at any rate that a section of them
are more Liberal, and Thirdly, that they are more
Liberal because they are national officers.
For, if it be not that the professional atmosphere and
surroundings in the Established Church are larger and
freer than those of the Voluntary Churches, it must be
because the men themselves are by nature bigger men
— more open to new light, more courageous, more tole-
rant — which I for one do not for a moment believe.
And so, to return to the point from which we started,
I maintain, that in the event of disestablishment, there
is every reason to fear that the work which Liberal
professional theologians have done heretofore for the
nation would be done no longer : for, when the Church
has lost its national character, and been narrowed into
a sect, we may expect that its clergy will, gradually
perhaps, but certainly, become more and more like
their Nonconformist brethren — not more Liberal
probably in politics than they are now, and certainly
less so in theology.
So far as one can judge from experience, the nation
RESISTANCE TO CHANGE. I /I
would lose its Arnolds and Maurices, its Stanleys and
Jowetts, without being by any means sure of getting
Binneys in exchange. I give no opinion as to which
kind of men are the more valuable to the nation. No
one questions the value of either ; why not keep both ?
Church Resistance to Change.
But how do I reconcile my views with the fact that
the history of the Established Church has been one of
continual resistance to wholesome changes, and to the
removal of unwholesome restraints. Well, I am not
concerned to deny that there is much truth in this
indictment, if we substitute the word clergy for Church ;
but then to do so would contradict the very idea of a
National Church. It is the indolence and apathy of
the nation, represented by Parliament, which has
enabled a majority of the national clergy to resist
changes, and to perpetuate abuses. The nation has
tried to shuffle off the duty of attending to its own
highest business, and the usual penalties have followed.
Let us take the last, and most prominent, instance of
this state of things, the dragging on year after year of
the Burials Bill controversy. No doubt there has
been some excuse in this case for indolence and
apathy on the nation's part, because the grievance is
not one which has any great substance of reality in it,
and Englishmen generally don't care to exert them-
selves much when it is only a question of giving a
triumph to one or another set of somewhat narrow
and unreasonable professional disputants. But when
the poor straw had been threshed over again and
1/2 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH.
again, some modicum of grain was left on the floor.
There remains a just claim on the part of Noncon-
formists who choose to exercise their right as English
Christians of burying their dead in the National church-
yards, that they should be free to use a service there
which they do approve, and not one which they do not.
The lay Church conscience, in a lazy way, has come
to acknowledge this at last, and to resolve that right
shall be done. But Liberationists may say, the lay
conscience has been very slow to recognise this right.
True. But how would the question stand, if it had had
to wait for the professional conscience ? There is no
sign whatever that the "No surrender" cry has lost its
power with the body of the clergy, though a considerable
number have been staunch advocates from the first of
the national policy of welcoming their Nonconformist
brethren to a full share in the common inheritance.
From this, and other instances which might be easily
added, but which most readers will be able to supply
for themselves, we may fairly conclude that Convoca-
tions, Synods, and other bodies composed mainly of
Ecclesiastics, will share the disposition of other pro-
fessional bodies, such as the Inns of Court, to take
narrow professional, rather than broad national, views
of questions which touch their own real, or supposed,
interests. And it would seem to be a strange kind
of reform, looking to national interests, to provide that,
for the future, professions shall be left more to them-
selves, the nation abandoning even that control which
it has hitherto exercised. Precisely the contrary
method seems to be the truer and more wholesome
THE NATION AND PROFESSIONS. 1/3
one, and, indeed, the only one which is in accord with
the movement and tendency of modern life.
In short, all experience in England, if not elsewhere,
warns us, that if resistance to wholesome changes, and
to the removal of unwholesome restraint, in any depart-
ment of national life is to be overcome, it must be
by the nation. It is the nation which has kept the
Church of England the widest of all religious com-
munions, the one which has made more wholesome
changes, and removed more unwholesome restraints,
than any other, just because the nation has controlled
the profession on all critical occasions. Let me
remind you of one more typical instance, the action of
the profession and of the nation at the time of the con-
troversy on 'Essays and Reviews/ That controversy
culminated in the prosecution of two of the clerical
authors in the Arches Court, and afterwards, on appeal,
before the Privy Council. The nation, represented by,
and acting through, the highest Court of the realm,
dismissed every one of the thirty-two original charges,
although carefully abstaining from any expression of
approval of the book, or of the views which they had
thus solemnly declared to be lawful for ministers of
the Church to hold. But, while the nation, scarcely
concealing its apprehension of what it nevertheless
felt itself constrained to bear with, stood thus firmly
on the side of toleration and charity, no less than
I i,ooo of the clergy — a majority of the whole of the
profession in 1865 — joined in a declaration as to
what " the whole Catholic Church holds without re-
serve or qualification." This precious document, if it
174 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH.
could have been made binding, would have driven pro-
bably a third of the clergy, and two-thirds of the laity,
out of the National Church fourteen years ago. It
was ignored : and so Canon Farrar, and other orthodox
popular preachers, are now proclaiming without reserve
or qualification, doctrines on "the Inspiration of Scrip-
ture," and " the everlasting punishment of the cursed "
(the two crucial questions before the Privy Council
on that trial) which are quite abreast of anything in
' Essays and Reviews,' but excite scarcely a murmur
or remonstrance even in religious newspapers.
And so, looking back over our ecclesiastical history,
who will be bold enough to assert, that any of the
wholesome changes which have been made since the
Toleration Act, would have been made at all, or any
of the unwholesome restraints removed, by any eccle-
siastical convention or synod ? But does what holds
true of the Church apply with anything like equal force
to the sects ? Has the governing body of any of the
voluntary religious denominations of our country done
anything in these trying times for the relief of the
consciences of ministers or people, which can be named
with the Subscription Act of 1865, by which the
National Legislature freed the National clergy from
the " unwholesome restraints " under which they had
lain since the passing of the Act of Uniformity ?
So far at least as I am aware, the freedom which
has thus been given by the nation to the Church, is
looked upon rather with contempt by the Noncon-
formists, who regard the " general assent " now required
of candidates for ordination as too colourless and
PROTESTANT INFALLIBILITY. 1 75
vague to be of any practical value, and immeasurably
inferior to their own winnowing and sifting processes.
Liberationists are in the habit, indeed, of boasting
of their greater freedom, but it is not easy to discover
in what precise sense they use the word. For their
clergy, instead of having the public law of their
country to rely on, and govern themselves by, are
bound to consult the wishes, and too often the whims
and caprices, of bodies, whose resistance to change in
doctrine, discipline, or ritual, is at least as strong as
that of the clergy of the Establishment. No doubt
there are amongst them men strong enough to make
changes, and to defy their deacons, elders, or other
authorities. Thus Mr. Spurgeon can afford to de-
nounce deacons in language at least as arrogant as any
addressed by the High Church newspapers to bishops,
for daring to object to a change made in the order
of his service, without their approval, by a brother
Independent minister.
And, in this particular. Ritualism no doubt looks
fondly towards Nonconformity. Mr. Spurgeon is
practically as infallible as the Pope ; can change the
order and method of his services, and preach and do
what he pleases. And it is this kind of freedom,
envied by Ritualists, which makes the Abbe Martin
e5cult that the dogma of Infallibility will not prove
any great stumbling-block to them. " What is there
in it which can long withhold them .?" he writes, " an
infallible Pope ! Those amongst themselves whom
they deem infallible may be counted by hundreds."
While the Rock newspaper chafes over the same
176 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH.
phenomenon, " Mr. Mackonochie is infallible, so are
Mr. Bennett, Dr. Lee, Dr. Pusey ; all the Ritualists
are infallible, in spite of the difficulties which divide
them. Each priest is a pope to himself, and to his
congregation."
The Liberation Society.
I have said that, with all the respect which I
sincerely entertain for many ardent members of the
Liberation Society, I cannot look upon their move-
ment as a thoroughly honest and bond fide one, for they
march to some extent under false colours.
To begin then : take their name, and avowed object.
They are Liberators ; persons who are banded together
to set some other persons free : for, to talk about setting
religion in the abstract free is nonsense. Who are
these other persons } Why, you ! they reply ; you, poor
enslaved and deluded members of what you are
pleased to call the National Church. It is out of
regard and consideration for you, and for your Church,
which we value very highly, and whose work, especi-
ally of late years, we cordially admire, that we desire
to liberate you.
Well, that is very thoughtful and kind of you
Liberationists ; but from what are you going to set us
free } From the interference and shackles of the
State, is the reply. Good. But suppose we don't want,
or ask for, your help in this direction, but hold it to
be better for the Church of which we are members, as
well as for the State of which we are members, that
this interference, and these shackles as you call them.
STATE OPPRESSION. 1/7
should exist, then as they don't affect you, we would
respectfully ask when it became the mission of
advanced Liberals to free people against their will ?
There has arisen, indeed, I admit, in the National
Church within the last two or three years, a party who
are crying out for the severance of Church and State,
so that at last the Liberationists may pose with some
semblance of truth as deliverers, rescuers of the op-
pressed. But these oppressed are young priests, bent
on defying authority, and asserting their priestly claims
as a class — not precisely the persons whom Englishmen
in general desire to see taken from under control.
But will Liberationists seriously pretend that they are
pained by these grievances of these extreme Ritualist
clergy > that they cannot possess their own souls or
pulpits in peace because of the oppression of their
Ritualist brethren of the Establishment, under the
Public Worship Regulation Act ? When it suits their
purpose, there are no such stern denouncers of the
Ritualists as they. I do not care to press this point ;
but when they extend their solicitude to us poor
Church-folk generally, one feels inclined to commend
to their consideration Hosea Biglow's remonstrance
with his neighbours in the American civil war, when
they cried out against Lincoln's proclamation of free-
dom to the slaves :
" But why should we kick up a muss
About the Pres' dent's proclamation?
It ain't a-going to liberate us
Ef we don't want no 'mancipation.
The right to be a cussed fool
Is free from all devices human,
And common as a gin'r'l rule"
To every critter born of woman."
N
1/8 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH.
It is no part of any Liberal programme that I ever
heard of that my " right to be a cussed fool " should be
meddled with, unless, indeed, it hinders my neighbour
from being a wise man. Well, then, if the Liberationists
can prove that they are hindered in preaching, praying,
or any act of worship — from electing, paying, and dis-
ciplining their clergy and flocks in whatever way seems
good to them — let them only make this clear to me,
and I as a Liberal will help them to get the hindrance
out of their paths, to knock off these " shackles," as they
like to call them ; only making it clear that it is off
their ankles I am knocking them, and not off mine. So
far they may fairly reckon on a united Liberal party
with them, as they have already upon the Burials Bill,
and, as I believe they will have in the future, when
they claim the use of churches and cathedrals, under
proper national control.
But when they pose as the deliverers of national
Churchmen from the control of the nation in eccle-
siastical affairs, the irony is not of a kind which is easy
to appreciate, or likely to lead to any good result.
The fact is, that this profession of consideration for
the Church— this slide which the leaders of the Libera-
tion Society are always ready to pull out when it
seems to be the right one for the moment — imports a
disagreeable element into the controversy. I don't
pretend to like Mr. Spurgeon's methods of attack, and
wonder that so good-natured and able a gentleman
(not to say so eloquent and zealous a minister) should
allow himself not only to say, but deliberately to print
and circulate such things for instance as these, that
LIBERATIONIST AMENITIES. 1 79
" to ravine like a wolf and to plunder like a freebooter
has been the peculiar prerogative of the Church of
England" " No Church ever ate dirt more abundantly
than our beloved Church of England ; her capacity for
humiliation is infinite." &c., &c.,
But this kind of talk does no harm at all to any one
but the speaker, and is at any rate straightforward and
above board, and therefore to my mind, even as a
matter of taste, infinitely preferable to all the laboured
expressions of anxiety for the good of the Church,
in which other Liberationist leaders are in the habit
of indulging.
And this want of straightforward candour seems
to colour a great deal of the action and speech of the
Society. — The subject is an unpleasant one, and it is
with regret that I have to notice it in connection with
the names of very able and earnest men, most of them,
too, ministers of the Gospel. Nor do I for a moment
believe that they are conscious of the insincerity in
their advocacy which strikes bystanders. But when
we find a man of the character and reputation of Mr.
Dale, who, in addressing Churchmen is as soft spoken
and complimentary as you please, permitting himself
to appeal to the cupidity of the mob, in his eagerness
to carry them to his conclusions, it is a sad proof of
the lengths to which partisanship in this movement
will lead even the best men.
Again and again Mr. Dale has protested that the
Liberationists "repudiate the alliance of the baser
passions," that they have *'no offers to tempt the
unscrupulous or needy," and yet he does not hesitate
N 2
l80 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH.
to suggest to a great public meeting how much a head
the revenues of the Church would come to if divided
amongst the people. I will give the words to show
that I am not exaggerating. The speech was made
at Norwich. After alluding to the difficulty of
estimating Church revenues, and taking them as be-
tween five and six millions a year, he goes on, " as
Mr. Chamberlain said at Sheffield the other day, this
means that if the revenues of the Church of England
when the present vested interests expire were appro-
priated to local purposes, it would amount to about
five shillings a head for every man, woman, and child.
I am told that a penny rate in Norwich produces about
i^i200 a year, and if you had these ecclesiastical
revenues for the city they would equal the sum raised
by a IS. 6d. rate. This is a practical reason for
getting them. I don't know what you would do with
the money if you had it," &c. &c.
Mr. Dale's example is followed by other Libera-,
tionist orators, whom I do not quote, because, as he
probably would be allowed in all respects to stand
first amongst them, there is no need to strengthen
the case by the example of smaller men. Any of
you who care to pursue the inquiry farther may find
the subject fully treated in a pamphlet, entitled,
' The Curiosities of Liberation Literature,' by the Rev.
E. Whitehouse, where the inconsistent and contra-
dictory views and arguments of their writers and
speakers are brought together, and ranged in parallel
columns.
I only note this particular instance because it bears
LIBERATIONIST VIEWS. 1 8 1
on that part of the subject which is likely to excite
most interest in the country, and shows how Libera-
tionists are in the habit of fighting their battle. They
have two or three views as to Church property, which
is represented at one time as given to the nation for
religious purposes ; at another as given by the nation
to a favoured sect ; sometimes as having a voluntary,
at other times a compulsory origin. But it is not on
differences of opinion upon such difficult subjects as
the origin of tithes, &c., that we have a right to look
for consistent views. What we have a right to ask is
that they shall not fight under two or three different
flags, as to the application of Church property in the
future. It belongs to the nation, they say generally,
so let the nation declare what shall be done with it,
to which doctrine I for one do not object. But the
Liberation Society it seems is to be the nation's teacher
in this great business. " We," says Mr. Dale, speaking
for the Society, *' mean to pursue our great enterprise,
until the time shall come — it is not far distant — when
the principles of which it is our glory to be the
representatives and the guardians, shall control the
legislation and the policy of our country."
Those who take such high ground may surely be
asked to say upon which set of principles they mean
to stand. When they control the legislation and policy
of our country they may of course either appropriate
the revenues of the National Church to some kind of
religious uses, or to the relief of rates, or other purely
secular purposes. But as long as they try to ride
both horses at once, plain folks may well be excused
1 82 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH.
for looking with some distrust on them, and the
movement they represent.
Politically, no doubt, it is not a bad position, because
while occupying it they can hold out one hand to
secularists pure and simple, and the other to reform-
ing, or discontented. Churchmen. But it does not
commend itself in ordinary men to the high moral
sense to which Liberationists are in the habit of
appealing.
* * * * *
Since these pages have been in the press an article
has been published by Mr. Guinness Rogers, which
illustrates in a striking manner what seems to me the
extraordinary incapacity of the Liberationist leaders
for understanding the position of Liberal Church-
men. The article referred to is a criticism upon,
and reply to, Mr. W. E. Forster's speech at Bradford
in December, 1877, and may, I suppose, be fairly
taken as an official document, expressing the views
and carrying the weight of the Liberation Society.
In the course of this paper Mr. Rogers finds
himself confronted by the parochial argument, which
Mr. Forster cited as one which had had great weight
with himself How, he had argued, except by a
national organisation covering the whole country,
can you insure that the spiritual needs of remote and
poor districts shall be met ? At any rate the National
Church does provide for these.
Yes, replies Mr. Rogers, that may be all true
enough. " There may be few, if any districts in which
there is not a clergyman accessible to all ; but there
CHRISTIAN WILLINGHOOD. 1 83
are hundreds of cases in which he is provided by
Christian willinghood, not by public taxation."
(Ni7teteenth Century , p. 524.)
But how, one asks, in astonishment, does this affect
the question ? It does not seem to occur to Mr.
Rogers for a moment that " Christian willinghood "
can be possible in a religious organisation, open to
elect and non-elect alike, and supported (as he some-
what inaccurately puts it) "by public taxation."
These hundreds of clergy "provided by Christian
willinghood," must then, by some subtle process
which I am unable to follow, be kept distinct from
the national clergy. And I can quite see how
important this is to Mr. Rogers' case ; for, if the
National Church has a right to count them amongst
her officers, it is obvious that the " Christian willing-
hood " which is the mainstay of the sects is no less
potent in the Establishment.
Possibly he might refer to the next passage in the
same article as containing the key to his view, and
explaining in what sense he would deny the name of
National clergy to all those who are not supported
by tithes (to which I presume he refers when he
speaks of " public taxation "). " The State," he writes
(p. 524), "has given up the attempt to work out the
old idea of an Establishment, and the practical out-
come is that the adherents of the Church of England
supplement the public provision." The Church has
given up nothing. The old idea of Establishment
remains precisely what it has always been.
Certain individual Churchmen have come forward to
1 84 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH.
do this good supplementary work, but they have
only been able to do it, or allowed to do it, by means
of national machinery, and by presenting the nation
with the large sums necessary for the purpose. And,
so far from it being the fact that the State has given
up the attempt to work out the idea of an Establish-
ment, we have only to glance at what has been done,
and is in progress, in subdividing dioceses and parishes,
and bringing the national spiritual machinery up to a
level with the work, to convince ourselves that there
was never more " Christian willinghood "in the nation,
or a stronger feeling that Church work is of no private,
but of a national character.
If one, or a dozen, or fifty Englishmen join to-
gether, and find funds for building a church, and
endowing it, they cannot move a step towards their
object except through the machinery provided by the
State. They must comply with a number of con-
ditions prescribed by statute before they can obtain
assistance or recognition from the State : but, when
they have complied with them that assistance and
recognition is forthcoming. The utmost that the
Liberationists can maintain with any truth is, that
the State has given up providing money by taxation
for this part of the nation's public business. No
doubt, if they could go on to say, "the State no
longer supplies the necessary funds, and so they are
not forthcoming, and never will be till you give up
your foolish ideal ; then you will see what the free
hand of voluntaryism will do for you," the position
would be a strong one. But unluckily for their case
CHRISTIAN WILLINGHOOD. 1 85
the precise contrary is true. The old parochial
machinery is still vigorous throughout the country,
maintaining its place in the constitution with less
friction than almost any other part of the going gear,
and adapting itself easily to new conditions of life,
while, wherever readjustments of that machinery are
needed, the extra bands, wheels, and oil are either
already in hand (in the shape of such funds as Queen
Anne's Bounty, and the property vested in the Ecclesi-
astical and Charity Commissioners), or are found by
" Christian willinghood.'* In either case the new ma-
chinery becomes a part of the national trust property,
held by national officers, for national purposes.
In the case of a like effort on the part of Wes-
leyans or Baptists, the new machinery also becomes
trust property, but the trusts are limited to certain
specified persons, and classes of persons, while
the nation is carefully excluded from any share in the
benefits ; and, as far as possible, from any control
over the administration or disposition of the property.
" Christian willinghood " is an admirable thing in
both cases, but surely not less so where it works for
a distinctly national object.
A Broad Churchman.
(Extract from Address on Charles Kingsley, delivered
to the Midland Institute^ December 3, 1877.)
But there are other sides of his ministry of more
importance at the present moment (and especially in
this place) to which I must devote the short time that
1 86 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH.
is left me. A time of trial is at hand in England for
the faith which Kingsley held so firmly, and for the
Church of which he was so loving and loyal an officer.
It should, I think, be the first duty of one who is asked
to speak of the man to such an audience as this, to
bring out as well as he can his views upon the great
issues which, threatening in his time, are now ap-
parently upon us in earnest.
The first of these is the question of a National
Church. Is it for good, or for evil, that this nation
has for a thousand years maintained what we call
an establishment of religion } What did Charles
Kingsley hold as to this }
I am aware of course that I am speaking in a city
which is the stronghold of those who answer that
question with a confident and passionate, "Cut it
down ; why cumbereth it the ground." But I cannot
believe that where so much has been done to honour
this man, and to perpetuate his teaching in other
directions — where, as is proved by my own presence
here this evening, and the audience which fills this
hall, men and women are anxious still to dwell on
his memory, and keep it alive, — there will be any
unwillingness to hear and consider what he had to
say upon a subject, which he had thought on as
carefully, and which was even nearer his heart, than
sanitary reform. First, then, let me give you one or
two quotations, which will, I think, put you at once
in a position to understand his view of the matter.
Writing to Thomas Cooper the Chartist (of whom he
had made a steadfast friend by generous aid in his
CHARLES KINGSLEY. 1 8/
sorest need, and who had sent him a copy of his
* Plain Pulpit Talk '), Kingsley says : " I see in it the
thorough, right old morality — common to Puritans,
old Anglican Churchmen, apostles and prophets — that
you hold right to be infinitely right, and wrong in-
finitely wrong ; that you call a spade a spade, and
talk to men about the real plagues of their own
hearts. My dear friend, go on and do that, and,
whether you call yourself Baptist or Buddhist, I shall
welcome you as one who is doing the work of God,
and fighting in the battle of the Lord, who makes
war in righteousness. But more — you are no Buddhist,
not even an Unitarian. I happen to be, from reason
and science, as well as from Scripture and Catholic
tradition, an orthodox theologian, and to value or-
thodoxy more the more I think, for its own sake.
And it was a solid pleasure to me to find you or-
thodox. But my dear friend, whatever you do, don't
advocate disestablishing us. We are the most liberal
religious body in these realms. In our pale men can
meet who can meet nowhere else. Would to God
you belonged to us, and we had your powers, as we
might have without your altering your creed, with us.
But if we — the one remaining root of union — we
disestablish, and become a sect like the sects, then
competition, not Christ, will be God, and we shall
bite and devour one another, till atheism and M.
Comte are the rulers of modern thought." This
was the mature judgment of his last years, written in
1872. Fifteen years earlier he wrote to Mr. Evan
Franks : " As to your being an Independent, sir,
1 88 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH.
what's that to me, provided you — as I see well you
do — do justly, and love mercy, and walk humbly with
your God ? I don't think you will ever find the
freedom in your communion which you would in ours,
the freest, thank God, in the world; but I should be
a second Ham if I had no respect for the Independents.
For why ? My forefathers were Independents, and
fought by Cromwell's side at Naseby and Marston
Moor ; and, what is worse, lost broad acres by their
Puritanism."
Again, to one who had written to him on the
abuses and anomalies in the National Church, he
writes : " If you are dissatisfied with the Church of
England, so am I. Stay in it, then, and try to mend
it. But let your emendations be consistent with the
part that is yet pure. To Romanize the Church is
not to reform it. To unprotestantize it is not to
reform it.'*
Thus you see he was perfectly tolerant of and in
sympathy with what he recognised as honest and
faithful Christian profession, by whatever name it
might be called. Indeed, it was only against Phari-
saism, against any attempt to limit or appropriate to
a favoured few , what was meant for mankind, that
his whole soul rose up in stern, often in fierce, protest.
The one thing he could not away with, was the
doctrine, which he sorrowfully recognized to be
creeping into Calvinistic and Evangelical, as well as
into the high Church pulpits in these days, "the
message," as he put it, " that the devil and not Jesus
Christ is the Lord of the present world, that men are
CHARLES KINGSLEY'S TOLERANCE. 1 89
sent into this life to get their souls saved in the next ;
that the soil is not Christ's but man's ; that the State
has nothing to do with religion, or parsons with
'politics ; that property has no absolute and essential
duties towards Christ (why should it if it be not the
Lord who giveth the power to get wealth), but only
works of supererogation in the shape of alms or
charity, and district visiting"; that God is not the
father, or Christ the Lord of all men, but only of a
chosen few, whether ' episcopally baptized ' ones, or *the
converted ' or * the elect ' matters little, in practice
or in spiritual truth — in a word, all that Manichaean
practical atheism of which Rome is the systematized
embodiment, and which is now proving what its
unconscious parentage was, by leading people, the
children of Evangelicals especially, to Rome from
whence it came."
This " practical atheism of Romish birth," was to
be met by the assertion of the holiness of " that
spiritual one body called the English nation," and
that assertion could only be made effectually by *' the
nation organised for spiritual; purposes," or, in other
words, by a national Church. Therefore (as his last
curate tells us), he was never tired of quoting the
words, " as by law established," and gloried in the
feeling that he was a national officer — a soldier in
England's spiritual army.
This intensely national spirit was not incompatible
with the longing for a larger, or Catholic, unity, an
aspiration (as he tells Mr. Maurice) which he at times
thrust away even fiercely — when he thought of what it
IQO THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH.
had come to in Rome — as impossible and a phantom,
and then found himself so much meaner, more careless
of everything worth having, that he always went back
to the old dream.
But nevertheless a dream he felt the idea of a
universal Church to be, for any practical purpose, so
far as he and his generation were concerned ; whereas
the national idea was there before him, a practical
fact. In the National Church, of which he was a
member and officer, he recognized a perfect unity in
theory, and a very remarkable unity in fact. As he
pointed out to Thomas Cooper and other Noncon-
formists, the English Church, just because it is
national, because it inherits and represents that form
of Christianity which the nation has accepted, and
offers to every English child as its birthright, because
it is not an ecclesiastically but a nationally governed
body, is the only organisation which can assert and
uphold the highest life, of "that spiritual one body
called the English nation."
It was this which he valued above all other things,
this consecration, not of one or another select portion,
but of the whole body, to the service of his master.
Nothing pained him more than to be misunderstood
in this matter, as so often happened to him, at the
hands of friendly, as well as hostile, critics. To one
of these, a personal friend, who had used the words
" muscular Christianity " in speaking of his works, he
writes : " My dear Sir, I know of no Christianity save
one, which is the likeness of Christ, and the same for
all men, viz., to be transformed into the likeness of
CHARLES KINGSLEY'S TOLERANCE. I9I
Christ, and to consecrate to His service as far as may-
be, all the powers of body, soul and spirit, regenerate
and purified by His Spirit." And as he strove to
make each man and woman realize that no part of
them is unholy, that their flesh, as well as their
intellect and spirit, is redeemed by Christ for His
service, so he strove and pleaded with and for the
nation, that it should not cut itself up into natural
and supernatural, secular and religious, sections, but
should frankly and with open eye acknowledge, that
every portion of it is redeemed for God's service, " who
takes care not of churches only but of states, not of
religious only but of political and scientific events."
And so, tolerant as he was of religious differences,
he never flinched from maintaining that the sect
principle, viz., " we have bound ourselves together on
opinions as to Christ," is the natural antagonist to the
true principle, of Church as of nation, viz., " God has
bound this whole people together in one divine
society." And, repugnant and painful as the idea of
the separation of the Church from the nation was to
him in hi^ life, I am sure it would be ten times more
so now, when that separation is called for, not only
by those who avowedly prefer the sect principle —
who desire to see the Church turned into a sect
limited to those who agree in opinions, and the nation
left to mind its own business of protecting body
and goods, without interfering in higher matters —
but by those who, hating the sect principle, are ready
to risk turning their own Church into a sect, for the
chance of asserting for it supernatural gifts and graces
192 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH.
as an universal body, which, if they could be main-
tained, would bring family and national life bound
and suppliant to its feet.
Against this putting asunder what God has joined,
his whole life was a faithful and earnest protest.
I trust that in thus endeavouring to put before you
the position which Charles Kingsley occupied on the
question of the connection of Church and State, I
have not unduly trespassed on the ground of party
polemics, from which I should desire, even more
anxiously than he himself would have done, to keep
his name clear. If I have in any respect failed, let
the blame rest on me, and not on his memory.
Laxity OF Doctrine.
Every reader who is at all familiar with the litera-
ture of this great controversy will have recognized how
much I am indebted to the writings of Dean Stanley for
many of the principles and views which are maintained
in these addresses. I desire here, and always, to
acknowledge this obligation in the fullest manner, and
as the question of the laxity and vagueness of the
present form of subscription in the National Church,
and what is often represented as the consequent
dangerous and scandalous latitudinarianism of her
ministry, has been referred to more than once in these
pages, I venture to reprint, for the benefit and plea-
sure of readers, a famous passage from the Dean's
writings, first published twenty-eight years ago, but
which cannot be too often repeated, or too carefully
FIRST SANCTION OF LATITUDINARIANISM. 1 93
considered, by all those who can rise above party
mists and sectarian squabbles, and are looking for
some broader and firmer ground to stand upon as
Christians and as Englishmen, than Liberationists or
Ritualists can offer.
After criticising the action of the High Church
assailants of Mr. Gorham, and alluding to the French-
man's remark, that, while all Europe was rocking and
trembling under the shock of great ideas, the only
revolution which seemed to have any interest for
benighted England was the revolution of '*le pere
Gorham," he goes on : " We have dwelt on the historical
certainty of the fact that the Church of England was
meant to include, and that it always has included,
opposite and contradictory opinions, not only on the
point now in dispute (baptismal regeneration) but on
other points as important or more important than this.
We have dwelt also on the inestimable value, if not
absolute necessity, of retaining this position, as the
best means of dealing with the peculiar mission of a
National Church, especially of a National Church in
England in these times. But we feel that there is a
yet higher ground to be taken, that there is a sanction
and an example of our position almost too solemn to
be insisted on in a temporary argument, were it not
for the greatness of the interests at stake, and for the
sincerity, in many instances, of the scruples which such
a position excites in those who have not considered it
from its true point of view.
" In the second of those vigorous, though mistaken
letters, which have drawn down upon Mr. Maskell the
o
194 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH.
anger of hundreds less plain-spoken or clear-sighted
than himself; after an examination of the various
points on which he truly conceives the Church of
England to have expressed no dogmatic opinion, there
occurs' this (in his view) final and fatal question : Has
the world ever seen — does there now exist anywhere —
another example of a religious sect or community
which does not take one side or the other clearly and
distinctly, upon at least a very large proportion of the
doctrines of which we have been speaking ?
" Yes, the world has seen one example, at least, of a
religious community, whose highest authorities did
refuse to take one side or the other clearly and
distinctly on the questions which were brought for
their decision. There was once a Council in which,
* after much disputing,' it was determined ' not to put a
yoke on the neck of the disciples, which neither their
fathers nor they were able to bear,' and to whom
* it seemed good to lay upon the Church no greater
burden than these necessary things, from which if the
brethren keep themselves they shall do well' There
was once a Conference of ' those who seemed to be the
pillars of the Church,' to decide the claims between
the two rival sections of the Christian community, of
whom we are told that when they perceived that ' he
who wrought effectually on one side, the same was
mighty also on the other side, they gave to both the
right hand of fellowship, that each should go unto his
own peculiar sphere.' There was once a Controversy
which distracted the Church with ' doubtful disputa-
tions,' and the answer which came from an authority,
THE CHURCH OF THE APOSTLES. I95
now revered by the whole Christian world, was a
decision which decided nothing, except that each party
might be left to its own convictions, however opposite
and contradictory they might be. * Let every man be
fully persuaded in his own mind. He that regardeth
the day, regardeth it unto the Lord ; and he that
regardeth not the day, to the Lord he doth not regard
it. He that eateth, eateth to the Lord, for he giveth
God thanks ; and he that eateth not, to the Lord
he eateth not, and giveth God thanks.' It is to the
principle, not the subject-matter, of such decisions,
that our attention is directed. The controversy to
which they related, different as it was to those of
modern times, agitated the ' Apostolic Church no
less fiercely, and was invested by the contending
parties with no less importance. It is enough for
our purpose to learn that the Church of the first
century gloried in the freedom which is now re-
garded as a disgrace, and directed its earliest and
most energetic efforts, not to the enforcement of a
rigid conformity, but to the toleration of wide diver-
sities. It was, indeed, no empty figment of speech
which in that early age of Christianity recalled the
image of the ark prepared against the flood. It is
not an empty boast that we have now within our
reach, and it will be no imaginary guilt if we, of our
own accord, refuse to maintain, a system which shares
in however imperfect a measure, one characteristic
attribute of that perfect Church, which was to float
visibly on the stormy waters, and gather within itself
the characters of various conditions, opinions, and
O 2
196 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH.
tempers, who fled to it for shelter from the waves of
this troublesome world. The Church of England,
however, in this respect, unlike the churches of Rome
or Geneva, may console itself with the reflection that
it presents a likeness, however faint, to the Church of
the Apostolic age."
Disestablishment not Denationalization.
It is well to look all contingencies in the face, so
let us suppose the cry for disestablishment and disen-
dowment to be successful, and consider whether, even
in that case, the Church need abandon her national
character and become a sect. Her distinctive mark
hitherto has been, that she has a message, not for
this or that section, but for the whole nation ; that
she has, apart altogether from material property,
certain possessions, such as her Orders and her
Common Prayer, which she holds in trust for the
nation. How far, then, can this be altered by any
possible legislation }
The aim of a disestablishing Parliament will be
to reduce her to an exact equality with the sects.
How, then, is this to be done .?
The first step will be to place her ministry in the
same position as that of the sects. The State cannot
say there shall be no bishops, but only that they
shall not, as bishops, sit in the House of Lords. If
this change were made, the Houses of Parliament
must remain open to the clergy of the Church, as
citizens, as they are now open to Dissenting ministers.
POSSIBLE CHANGES. 1 9/
lawyers, soldiers, merchants, and others : in which
case both the nation and the profession would be
gainers. One of the strongest influences which tend
to keep the clergy a separate caste would disappear.
The bishops would, as a rule, be left free for the
higher part of their work, in their own dioceses ; while
the country would probably get the services in
political life of a most valuable class of men — the
clergy of independent means. There would be
nothing in such a change as this to affect the national
character of the Church.
The Ecclesiastical Courts must either be abolished,
and the jurisdiction over Church trusts and disputes
transferred to the Court of Chancery, which already
exercises jurisdiction over Dissenting trusts : or the
Ecclesiastical Courts must be reformed, and the
jurisdiction over Dissenting trusts transferred to them.
In neither case would the national character of the
Church be affected.
The question whether the use of the churches
should be allowed to Dissenting bodies would raise a
difficult point. In the case we are contemplating, of
an effort to place the Church and the sects on an
exact equality, the well known principle would come
in, that they who seek equity (or equality) must do
equity, and, tried by this test, the claim of Dissenters
will, scarcely stand. It is unfair and unequal, they
say to the legislature, that one section only of the
nation should have the custody and use of national
buildings ; open them to us. In the supposed case,
the legislature would reply, these buildings are held
iqS the established church.
as national property, and the use of them is given to
all those who will accept it, subject to the control of
the nation in Parliament, and to such conditions as
the nation may from time to time impose on their
use. Are you ready to accept such national control,
and to conform to such conditions ? If so, we will
arrange for your admission : if not, you are kept out,
not by the nation, but by yourselves. I should be
glad myself that the sects should answer, Yes, we
will conform to such conditions ; but, until they do, it
is idle to talk of equality being outraged in this
matter.
With respect to rates, the National Church and the
sects are on an equality already. We all pay rates
that chapels, as well as churches, may be exempt from
them. This exemption would seem scarcely com-
patible with Nonconformist principles, but Liberal
Churchmen will not care to inquire how this form of
State aid is less objectionable to their Nonconforming
brethren than any other. They will rather rejoice to
see all the Voluntary Churches accepting Establish-
ment in this form, at any rate, and content to allow
the nation to recognize them in this practical way,
even though they refuse in return to acknowledge the
nation.
The same difficulty would confront Parliament at
once in dealing with endowments as with buildings.
How are they to be equalised as between denomina-
tions, when the Nonconformists refuse to take any
part in them .? There would be obvious inequality
and injustice in refusing them their proportion, if
INEQUALITY OF THE ESSENCES OF DISSENT. 1 99
they claimed it, and were ready to submit to Parlia-
mentary control, and to bring their own endowments
"into hotchpot" to obtain it. There is none until
they do this.
And so on, through every branch of the question
the same principle runs, and the more it is studied, the
more clearly it comes out, that it is not the nation, or
the Church which the nation controls, but the Non-
conformists themselves, who make equality in this
sense impossible. The State, or nation, holds certain
material properties of different kinds in trust for
Spiritual uses, and lays down certain rules and condi-
tions under which those properties are to be held and
enjoyed by those who will voluntarily conform to the
rules and accept the conditions. Those who will
not, themselves make the inequality of which they
complain.
Our supposed disestablishing Parliament might no
doubt cut the Gordian knot by sweeping away all
religious endowments of every kind, and applying
them to secular purposes : but then, as great part of
Church endowments, though national, are earmarked
as precisely as Nonconformist endowments, these last
would have to go too if there is to be absolute
equality.
Finally, to make the dissolution perfect, so far as
Parliament could do so, I presume that the Church
would have to be incorporated and dismissed with
some species of trust deed, defining her constitu-
tion in future, as that of the Wesleyan community is
defined. But, after all this, and when Parliament had
200 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH.
done all that even Parliament has power to do, I fail to
see how equality in the Liberationist sense would have
been reached, or the Church turned into a sect.
Suppose the law allowed a man who had lived
with his wife hitherto, and been very liberal to her in
the matter of allowances and pin money, to turn her
out of doors, and say. Henceforth you are no wife of
mine, and I never wish to see your face, or hear your
voice, again. Here are these odds and ends of pro-
perty to which you are possibly entitled, and w^hich I
hereby declare by this deed of divorce to be absolutely
your own to deal with precisely as you please ; so
now all bond between us is at an end. Even in such
a case the wife might reply : You cannot effect your
purpose. It took my consent as well as yours to
make us one, and without my consent as well as yours
we can't be made two. I mean to remain loyal to
you in word and deed, and to hold these shreds of
property, and any I may become possessed of here-
after, on the same trusts for you and your children, as
though I were still acknowledged by you and living
in your house. Under such circumstances it seems
obvious enough that nothing the man could do would
really effect his object ; no human will or decree could
alter facts, and the woman who had been his wife
could never be made to him precisely as other women.
And so in the case of the Church and the sects. In
the supposed case, after the State had given the Bill
of Divorce, if the Church remained loyal, and declared
that whatever scraps of material property might be
thrown to her, together with the spiritual property of
TRUSTS OF THE CHURCH. 201
her Common Prayer, her Services, Orders, and the
rest, she would continue to hold, as heretofore, upon
trust for every parish in England, and for every
parishioner in each parish — for every man, woman,
and child in the nation, whether the State consented
or did not consent, she would remain still truly
national, not indeed in Establishment, which is ac-
cidental, but in object which is essential.
An Established Church may be (as of old in Ireland)
an Established sect. A Disestablished Church might
well remain truly national, unless it made itself into
a sect by voluntarily narrowing its own trusts. And
I would fain hope and believe, that, under no possible
circumstances, will the Church of England ever be
guilty of such a piece of folly and stupidity.
202 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH.
VIII.
CHURCH CONGRESSES.
The Relations between the Church and
Dissent.
At the last, and most important, of our Annual
Church Congresses, I was asked to speak on the
subject of the Relations between the Church and
Dissent. The time allowed was only ten minutes,
and I must admit that my ten minutes were in great
measure wasted, for I was led aside into paths which
I had no intention of treading, and so had to leave
unsaid almost all th^t I came prepared to say. I
reprint the speech here, however, partly because it has
been the subject of much comment, and I desire to
say deliberately that there is nothing in it which, after
all that has been said against it, I wish to retract ; but
mainly, because I am permitted to append to it the
best speech, which, so far as I know, has yet been
made on the subject of Church Congresses. I am
glad to be able to leave my readers at the end in a
higher and healthier atmosphere than they have had,
of necessity, to breathe in the earlier pages of this
book.
church congress. 203
Speech at the Church Congress at
Croydon.
In order to make clear what I have to say about
the relations between the Church and Dissent, I must
endeavour in the first place to state distinctly the
standpoint from which I and those who agree with me
look upon ours, as a national Church. It has been,
of course, and is, in one sense, a Catholic Church.
If we mean by that a portion of the great body of
Christian worshippers throughout the world it is to
utter a truism ; but the moment we get beyond that
none of us can agree. ["No, no."] Well, at any rate,
we can all agree that it is a national Church ; and
your Grace knows, as well as anybody, perhaps, that
those amongst whom I have been educated and brought
up hold that to be a very noble name. We have learnt
that the nation is holy as well as the Church ; that
God cares about the nation just as He cares about
the Church ; that Christ is the King of the nation
as well as the Head of the Church. Believing this,
as I do, you may imagine the astonishment — I may
almost say the dismay — with which persons who
concur in the views I have just stated, must read some
of the remarks which apparently have been received
with applause in this hall. I hold in my hand a
statement which was made yesterday in a paper read
by a dignitary, who was supposed, I presume, to re-
present the strongest body in the Church of England.
He said that the standard of prosperity of Church and
State is essentially different ; that the State prospers
204 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH.
when its members increase and are wealthy ; the
Church when its disciples are conformed to the
example of its great Head. [Cheers.] Well, my
friends, I do not perhaps interpret rightly what that
applause means, but if it means that the standard
of prosperity of the Church and State ought not
to be the same, I confess that applause startles
and astonishes me. Why, I have always believed
that this warning the world to keep its distance, is
precisely the standard of the sects, and not of the
Church. I have understood that it is sects that divide
things secular and religious, and that they say the
nation is not holy, that God is not caring for this
English nation as He cared for the Jewish nation of
old. I have always believed that this was the touch-
stone of the position of the sects and not of the
Church. I have been taught by great divines to
regard the Church of England as the nation in its
relations with the invisible. I believe it to be the
organisation of the highest national life. I may be
asked how does this theory tally with the fact that
those sects of whom I am speaking and for whom
I entertain great respect, all deny it as much as
this dignitary of the Church denied it in his paper on
Wednesday last } The denial, I am told, comes from
all sides ; but, my friends, the denial will not alter
the fact. Supposing that all of us choose to deny that
we are Englishmen, can that alter the fact of our
nationality ? Because I do not choose to be called an
Englishman, and refuse, so far as I can, to submit to
the conditions of English citizenship, can that make
THE DUTY OF THE CHURCH. 20$
me less an Englishman ? I see at once, from indica-
tions of feeling in this hall, that my view is not
shared by many of you ; but it is nevertheless, a view
which I can vouch to be, from my own knowledge, held
by many who belong to the Church, and who are not
less earnest members of it than you yourselves. While
the English Church lasts. Englishmen, whatever we
choose to say, cannot take themselves outside it. So
long as there is a national Church, surely my friends
on the platform, and all of you in the hall, will agree
that, in theory, at all events, it should embrace the
whole . of the nation ; and therefore, I say, while it
exists it is no more possible for people to unmake
that unity because they wish to unmake it than it is
to unmake their nationality to which they were born.
They may return to it and acknowledge it, but they
cannot unmake it.
What is the duty, then, of the national Church under
these circumstances ? Surely it is the duty of the
nation and the Church to make the return to unity as
easy as possible to all those who are outside. Are we
doing that } My friends on the platform say " Yes."
I wish I could agree with them with any truth ; but I
confess that that is not the conviction which has come
home to me from an anxious study of this subject.
The nation in past times has settled the form of
Christianity which it thinks best for this people of
England. [" No, no."] At any rate, that is my view ;
and I would only ask, if the nation has not done this,
who has .? The nation has formulated that Chris-
tianity in its Articles and its Prayer Book. If the
206 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH.
nation has not done it, I should Hke to know who has ?
I should like to know what is the meaning of the
Common Prayer Book at all, unless it is the Prayer
Book that has been recognised by this nation ? The
nation has placed churches and national officers in
every parish. My friends cry " No, no !" Well, I
should like to know who has placed them in the
different parishes of this country if it be not the
nation ? At any rate, that is my belief ; and those
who think with me hold these to be the most
precious characteristics of our national Church. The
clergy are the officers and guardians of that national
Church, and how are they doing their duty ? I
admit that they are doing their duty nobly in many
ways, and I speak as one who is not only cordially
but most intimately connected with the clergy, the
national officers of the Church, for my grandfather
was a clergymen, my brother is a clergyman — I have
very many relations who are clergymen. All the
most intimate friends I have had in my life, whom I
have at present, are amongst the clergy ; and no one
honours them or their work more highly than I do ;
but for all that I am bound to acknowledge that that
inheritance of which I am speaking is in danger, and
that danger is mainly due to the conduct of the
clergy in their relations with the Dissent of this
country. They have become too professional in a
narrow sense, they are separating themselves too much
from the nation in general, and particularly from that
portion of it which is outside their own lines, I mean
their Nonconformist brethren. They seem to forget
SEPARATION OF CLERGY. 20/
that after all they are servi servormn Dei ; that they
are to minister not only to their own immediate con-
gregations, like the Dissenting ministers, but to every
Englishman who may desire their services. I speak
from my own conscientious view of what is the real
state of the case. Let me by a couple of illustrations
show what is the policy pursued by the clergy, which
I think is endangering this most precious part of our
inheritance. I would refer to two questions which
have lately come under their consideration. There is
the title of " Reverend " — the title which has been
appropriated by the nation to the ministers of Christ
in this country. A Nonconformist minister claimed
that title, and you all know what happened. Instead
of the clergy of the Church of England saying, " By
all means, you are a minister of the Church of Christ
— and we are only too glad that you come forward
and claim the national title set apart by the nation for
that ministry." [" No, no."] I told you, my friends,
that I looked at these questions from this point of
view as a layman, and I am only letting you know
what I as a layman think you clergy ought to have
done in this business.
Then take the burials question. I confess, when
the reverend gentleman read the first paper just now,
and touched on that subject, I was astonished at the
response with which his remarks were received. It
seems to me and to all laymen [" No, no "] — to all
laymen whom I know — they may not be known to
you, but there are many more than you appear to
imagine — at any rate, they look on this burials
208 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH.
question as virtually settled. We think you ought to
welcome Englishmen who come forward and claim
their portion in the national burying-grounds of this
country, and join in making easy conditions for their
admission. [" No, no."] I anticipated that response
to such a statement. If the clergy or this assembly
think that the opinion of the country is with them, I
believe they will find they are grievously and sorely
mistaken. Let me illustrate my view in another way.
There is a national army in England. That national
army has the charge of the parade grounds, ranges,
and the other military machinery in the country. A
great army of volunteers has come forward and are
desiring to share these ranges and these military pro-
perties with the national army of this country. This
movement has been going on now for eighteen years. I
happen to have seen a good deal of it ; and I can only
say that where there have been wise national officers
who have put those facilities and advantages as far as
possible at the disposal of those who come forward as
volunteers in the same cause as themselves, they have
entirely carried with them those volunteer bodies, and
have been able to do almost whatever they pleased in
educating them professionally. Let me show how that
bears upon the relations of the Church of England
with Dissent. There is a clergyman — I wish I could
call him a friend — with whom I have the honour
of a slight acquaintance, who was appointed two
years ago to a town in the north of England, which
was almost entirely filled with Dissenters. It
was, indeed, a stronghold of the Liberation Society,
THE CHURCH IDEA. 209
and this autumn the Society proposed to hold a
meeting in that town. But the different Noncon-
formist congregations sent to the Liberation Society,
and said if they came none of the congregations
could attend, because they would think it disre-
spectful to their vicar, of whom they were very proud,
to do so. It was not by taking the line, which
seems to be the popular line here on the Burials Bill,
that that result was obtained. While this Congress
has been sitting there has been a similar gathering of
one of the great Nonconformist communities of this
country — that of the Baptist Union. It is now sitting,
I believe, at Newport I was reading the remarks of
the Rev. Hugh Stowell Brown, in a sermon which he
preached at the opening of that meeting. He there
urges, that denominationalism forms the strength, and
not the weakness, of the Church. Well, of course, I
cannot myself agree with that ; but, at any rate, I do
say that constant, friendly relations with the Noncon-
formist bodies would act as a spur to zeal. The ideal,
of course, is unity. Will these bodies come back to
the Church ? I am sorry to say it seems as though
scarcely anybody in this room, except Mr. Harwood and
myself, has the slightest hope of such a result as that,
and I quite admit that considerable changes will have
to be made, and great courage shown, by the Church
if that union is to take place. I, for instance, believe
that we must alter our Articles if the Union is to be
brought about. [" No, no."] I hear dissent to that, but
I should feel glad if it were done, because, in reading
them through, I recognise them as a venerable and
P
2IO THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH.
most valuable document — a document which was of
the greatest service at the time it was prepared by
the wise Churchmen of those days — but for us, I must
say, it is certainly obsolete. I will mention only one
Article, and ask any Churchman in this hall whether
he cordially and bond fide accepts its teaching. I
mean the Thirteenth, which says that works done
before the grace of Christ, and the inspiration of His
Spirit, have no doubt the nature of sin. I do not
believe there are many persons in this room who do
not think that, if we are to get back to the unity we
ought to desire, we shall have to alter not only the
Articles, but also other portions of the Prayer Book.
I do not believe the alterations will be at all extensive,
and I think that, with wisdom, they may very well be
made. Wisdom and courage will be necessary ; and
wisdom and courage we must have, if we are to retain
the national Church in this country. I believe that
we are quite as competent as our fathers to reform it,
and that God is just as much with the nation now
as He was then. If we set to work in the spirit
in which they set to work, I believe we shall, by God's
help, be able also to provide, once more, a new frame-
work for the Church, which will make it again, as it
once was, the worthy national Church of the people
of England.
( 211 )
IX.
THE BODY OF CHRIST.*
''He is the head of the body, the Church:'— Qo\.. i. i8.
The annual "Church Congress," held during the
last few days, has attracted public attention more
strongly than the similar meetings of former years.
This Congress, it should be clearly understood, is a
purely voluntary gathering. It does not even repre-
sent a permanent association, as other congresses
generally do. A local Committee, under the presi-
dency of the Bishop of the Diocese, makes all the
arrangements, and has the entire responsibility, for
the meetings of the Congress week. The meetings
are attended by any persons. Church people or Non-
conformists, who procure themselves tickets of ad-
mission. Those who attend them hear short addresses
on selected topics by selected readers or speakers.
The feature which gives its special interest to a Church
Congress is that care has always been taken by the
local Committee to bring together representatives of
* Preached at Christ Church, St. Marylebone, October 14th, 1877,
by the Rev. J. Llewelyn Davies,
P 2
212 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH.
the different parties or schools in the Church of
England. The attractiveness and success of the
meetings depend to a considerable extent on the
thoroughness with which this policy is carried out ;
and the chief usefulness of the Congresses, in the eyes
of the Bishops and other eminent persons who promote
them, is understood to consist in their thus bringing
together on the same platform, and on terms of mutual
courtesy and Church fellowship, those whom party
conflict is apt to divide very much from each other.
It is obvious that, having this voluntary and irre-
sponsible character, it is only in a very qualified sense
that a Church Congress can be held to be representa-
tive of the Church of England as a whole. But it is
so, in respect of the choice of speakers and the free
publicity of the meetings ; and the presidency, this
year, of the highest dignitary of the Church, and of a
man so comprehensive in his views as Archbishop
Tait, has given to the Congress at Croydon more of
the character of a representative assembly than any
preceding Congress has been able to claim.
I refer to the Congress now, as thus bringing
the Chicrch before our minds. Those who occupied
its platforms were looked upon as representing the
Church of England ; 'they spoke much about the
Church, — about its nature, its prerogatives, its dangers,
its tasks. The Church of England, they would all
have agreed in saying, is a branch of the Church of
Christ. But what is the Church of Christ 1 When
this question is asked among Churchmen or Christians,
great divergences of opinion begin to appear. It
THE BODY OF CHRIST. 213
evidently was so at Croydon ; and we may turn to
account the name and the discussions of the Church
Congress by asking the question for ourselves, and
trying to see how the Apostolic teaching would start
us on the way to the most scriptural views on this
subject.
The Church is the Body of Christ, — we are all
agreed in accepting this statement, which we find
given repeatedly in the New Testament.
There are those who go on to say that the Church
has therefore a supernatural character. They insist
strongly on this term supernatural, — a word unknown
to Holy Scripture, and which it has been no gain to
theology to add to the scriptural vocabulary. This
supernatural body, they say, is an organised society,
living on from age to age, with officers and institutions
and functions belonging to it by the conditions of
its creation, and intrusted with gifts and graces which
it alone has power to dispense. It finds itself placed,
supernatural as it is, in a natural world. Human
beings as living together in civil bonds form, it is held,
a natural society. What a difference there must be,
then, between the Church and the world ! Imagine
the superiority which a supernatural society must
have over one that is merely natural ! When minds
have become thoroughly imbued with this feeling, it
is no wonder that they come to look on all human
things that are not ecclesiastical with a sort of disdain.
The Church is supernatural, the State is natural.
What an intolerable intrusion and usurpation it must
be, if the State asserts any right within the province
214 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH.
of the Church ! A mere aggregation of mortal men
assuming to control Christ and his body ! And this
is precisely the light in which many persons are now
training themselves to regard much that has been done
and is going on in this country under our existing
constitution in Church and State. That a Judicial
Court appointed by authority of Parliament and the
Crown should decide on disputed points of ritual is,
in their eyes, the natural body dictating to the super-
natural. The Body of Christ in this country, it is
taken for granted, is the Church of England. But it
has been of late years a cause of great and increasing
distress to those who hold these views, that the Church
of England, as a supernatural Body, is at the present
time without a voice. If only the Body could fashion
for itself a satisfactory mouth, in the shape of a correct
synod, this very grave defect would be remedied.
Then the Church might speak for itself and judge
for itself and declare its own mind with authority.
The voice of the Church, like itself, would be super-
natural.
There are many obvious difficulties besetting any
view like this, against which the holders of it can only
arm themselves for the most part with what seems to
them to be faith. We ask, supposing that there is this
distinction between the Church and the World, that the"
one is supernatural and the other natural, how are we,
living at this day, to know the Church t Perhaps
some answer like this may be given, — " Any organized
society which has the Apostolical Succession, and the
Threefold Ministry, and the Sacraments, and the
THE BODY OF CHRIST. 21$
Creeds, may rightly claim to be a part of the Super-
natural Body, with the power of dispensing the
supernatural gifts and graces." Are we obliged to
hold then that South American Romanism, for
example, is supernatural, and the Methodist Society
merely natural ? Or, looking on each side of us at
home, are we to say that we of the Church of England
enjoy supernatural gifts and grace, and that Non-
Churchmen have to do as well as they can without
them } And the State, — is that a mere natural
creation ? We should be led on to ask what those
who use these terms natural and supernatural mean
by them. When they call men and things outside
the Church natural, do they mean that they are with-
out God ? • Impossible. They are compelled to be
indefinite, to empty the words of an intelligible mean-
ing. But none the less do they revert to their original
position, and conjure with the word supernatural as
if it meant all that it appears to mean, and affirm
the Church of England as distinguished from the
civil society to be the Body of Christ, and therefore
entitled by Divine right to spiritual independence.
To this policy they pledge their loyalty to Christ.
They think they would be denying Christ, if they
did not claim Divine prerogative as given to his
Body.
But is not then the Church the Body of Christ .?
Is there not some society upon earth which Christ
founded to be permanent, and to the officers and
members of which he assigned certain powers and
graces in perpetuity ?
2l6 TIIK ESTABLISHED CHURCH.
Let US see what the Church was, when St. Paul
declared it to be Christ's Body.
No doubt it was from the first a society of persons
called out from the world. It was formed by the
Apostles, who proclaimed Jesus Christ as a Living
Lord and Saviour, and invited men to receive forgive-
ness of sins through him. Those who were persuaded
to do so were baptized with water and joined to the
existing company of believers. The Holy Ghost, as
a power of warmth and light and utterance, was given
to the society at its beginning, and it was assumed
that every one who came into the society drank
of the same Spirit. Besides the Baptism at the
entrance into the Church, there was one other
ordinance used by the society, the common partaking
of bread and wine, as of the Body and Blood of the
Saviour, on the Resurrection Day.
The government of the society was in the hands of
the Apostles. There was no distinction at first
between the more secular and the more strictly
spiritual provinces of the common life of the Church.
But, as the need arose, of^cers called deacons or
ministers were appointed to relieve the Apostles of
such work as the distribution of funds amongst the
needy. After a time, the Church spread through the
preaching of Christ beyond Jerusalem and Judaea.
St. Paul, when his Apostolic career had begun, went
from city to city, founding small branch societies
wherever his word was received. Each of these
societies was called a Church, and it was assumed
that every one who joined them became a partaker of
THE BODY OF CHRIST. 21/
the Holy Spirit, or Spirit of Jesus Christ, whose power
was manifested in the fervour and faith of the Christian
body. All St. Paul's Churches remained under his
personal government, and every dispute and question
that arose in them was referred to him. But he
appointed elders or overseers in every city, to exer-
cise pastoral care over the believers ; and no doubt
there were deacons also, as a rule, in every Christian
community.
St. Paul delighted to contemplate the organic unity
of this association of believers in Christ. The idea of
it excited his enthusiasm ; he dwells upon it, blesses
God for creating it, exhorts the individual believer to
appreciate it, to use its privileges and to conform
himself and his life to it. You remember the passage
in which this feeling finds its most remarkable utter-
ance. " There is one body and one Spirit, even
as ye were called in one hope of your calling ; one
Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father
of all, who is above all and through all and in all."
With this unity, there are distinctions of function ;
and each member, St. Paul holds, has his own gift of
endowment to enable him to fill his own place. Christ
is the great Giver, and besides these gifts to the
several members of the body, he gave to the body as
a whole the apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors,
and teachers, by whose various ministries sinful and
self-willed men were to be moulded into true members
and the ultimate perfecting of the body to be accom-
plished. St. Paul looked forward in hope to the time
when the Body of Christ might be not only ideally
2l8 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH.
perfect, but actually perfect also, in its adult growth
and in the harmonious co-operation of all its parts.
Surely, it may be said, this is a supernatural
creation of which St. Paul speaks. It cannot be
doubted that the Apostle held the Church of his own
days to be in close relations with the living Christ in
hfeaven, and to have precious gifts and privileges.
True, that cannot be doubted. But St. Paul appears
to me to be in a completely different atmosphere of
thought from that in which the ecclesiastical organiza-
ation is exalted infinitely above the civil, or a Church
organized in one way set infinitely above a Church
organized in another way.
If we supposed that St. Paul was attributing a
Divine authority to a particular organization, we
should have to conclude that the hierarchy of the
Church ought to consist, not of bishops, priests, and
deacons, but of apostles, prophets, evangelists, shep-
herds, and teachers. No doubt, in naming these
agents of Christ in the building of the body, St. Paul
was not thinking of a Divinely-appointed permanent
organization of the Church. But if Christians from
the first age have been right in believing that St.
Paul was not imposing these orders upon the Church,
at all events he does not name the orders of bishops,
priests and deacons. The Church had not yet re-
ceived the full organization which it afterwards ac-
quired. The Apostles held an exceptional position
in the Church, and the place of St. Paul was still
more unique. His government was a personal one,
exercised by him because he was the actual father of
THE BODY OF CHRIST. 219
his Churches. In the Churches under his government,
the two names, bishop (overseer), and presbyter (elder),
were given to the same persons. It was only by
degrees, after the Apostles were gone, that the name
of bishop was appropriated to the presbyter who was
appointed to preside over other presbyters. Nothing
can be clearer, I think, than that St. Paul's faith in
the Divine calling and constitution of the Church
does not attach itself to any defined organization.
We see in the New Testament the administrative
system of the Church growing under our eyes ac-
cording to its circumstances and its needs. Christ
gave whatever sort of agents were wanted for the
building up of the body.
Observe, in the next place, that it is not in the
outward realized shape of the Church, that St. Paul
sees the Divine creation which he glorifies. There
may be every sort of defect and irregularity in the
men and women whom Christ has called to be his
members. The unity is not made by them, and does
not depend upon them. Their business is to keep the
unity, to conform themselves to it. The supernatural
Body of Christ is the ideal one, and it is realized with
various degrees of imperfection wherever men acknow-
ledge Christ as their head.
The truth is, that the Church of Christ is more
supernatural in the New Testament than it is to those
who are now warning off the civil society from pre-
suming to interfere in its domain. We Christians of
the Church of England are a part of the Body of
Christ, in that God has called us to be in fellowship
220 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH.
with his Son and has given us to drink of his filial
Spirit ; and we are a part of the Body of Christ,
again, in so far as we on our side yield ourselves to
be God's children and submit to the motions of his
Spirit. The institutions of the Church are means,
more or less sacred and important, for bringing
us all into our right spiritual places and conditions.
This is the Scriptural account of the Church. In
order to take it in, we must think first and steadily
of what the perfect spiritual society of Christ's mem-
bers would be, in earth and heaven ; and then we must
see in the various processes, ecclesiastical and other,
by which that perfection is promoted, God's gifts
or energies accomplishing the unity which is his
aim.
What guidance may we get, then, from the New
Testament with reference to the ecclesiastical diffi-
culties of our time .?
We find nothing whatever, I think, in the New
Testament, to tell us directly what the relations
between the Church and non- Churchmen, between
the Church and the State, ought to be in circumstances
such as ours. The Apostles were occupied with the
conditions in the midst of which they lived. They
were not speculators, but Apostles. They did not
draw up rules for a world altogether different from
that in which they were working. There was nothing
in their day at all answering to the condition of our
Christian England ; nothing analogous to our Church
and Dissent, nothing analogous to our Church and
State, in the relations of the small Christian com-
THE BODY OF CHRIST. 221
munities of the first age to the heathen and Jewish
world around them.
But it does not therefore follow that the teaching
of the Apostles will give us no help in dealing
practically with the problems of our own age. We
may study their principles, and seek to enter into
their spirit.
(i.) They teach us to keep in view the ideal per-
fection of the Body of Christ. Not St. Paul only,
but all the Apostles and Evangelists, were continually
contemplating the heavenly glory of a brotherhood
of men in full harmony with each other because all
joined to Christ, of men walking in humility and
meekness and love, endeavouring to keep the unity
of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is nothing
in such an ideal less suited to us to-day than to the
Christians of the first age. For ourselves, and for
our neighbours and fellow-men, this hope should be
in our hearts, this Divine ideal before our eyes.
Let us believe that it is the Divine purpose, and that
we are called to the fulfilment of it.
(2.) They teach us, further, to subordinate means
to the end. Is it not an express principle in the
teaching of our Lord Himself and of his Apostles,
that means and instruments and agencies are not to
be worshipped in themselves but to be estimated with
reference to the end they are to promote .? Think,
for example, what is implied in that pregnant saying,
" The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for
the Sabbath." Means and instruments are not dis-
honoured by this principle. If the end they serve
222 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH.
is high and precious, they also will deserve to be
valued. If the spiritual freedom of man is important,
then the ordinance of a Day of Rest, which ministers
to it, may well be sacred. But it is often appointed
in the Providence of God that an apparent dishonour
should be cast on means, that the minds of men may
be forced away from resting upon them. And means
may be varied, according to circumstances, whilst the
same permament end is to be sought. Now the
orders of a sacred ministry, and a historical succession
of Bishops, and an ancient Church, and consecrated
buildings, can claim to be nothing better than means
for the building up of the body of Christ. It is right
to prize them, but it is equally right to regard them
steadily as subordinate to their end. And we might
expect that God would make it plain to us by
fact and history that the end is higher than the
means and independent of them.
(3.) They teach us again, to strive to be spiritual
rather than ecclesiastical. By the ecclesiastical dis-
position, I mean that which makes much of the
dignities and rights of a Church. In the New Testa-
ment, this disposition appears to be illustrated in
the character of the Jews and the Judaizing Christians.
They were always thinking of their exclusive religious
privileges, of the sacredness of the Temple and of the
Law, and of the questionable and dangerous position
of those who were outside the covenant. Now this
habit of mind, undoubtedly religious as it was, is not
held up to our admiration in the New Testament,
but the contrary. It is denounced as being the
THE BODY OF CHRIST. 223
Opposite of a true spirituality. It is shown to us as
associated with intolerance, bigotry, hardness, cruelty,
as most offensive to the Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ and fruitful of mischief in the world. St. Paul
had to undergo the reproach of being disloyal to the
religion of his fathers, because he contended against
this ecclesiastical spirit. But the reproach was as
unjust as it was painful to him. He loved the holy
city and the Temple and the ordinances of the Law
and his kindred according to the flesh ; but he knew
that the proper aim of a devout man was not to hedge
round an organization, but to glorify and bear witness
to the Divine Spirit.
(4.) Again, the Apostles teach us to regard civil
society as a Divine creation, and civil authority as
having a Divine sanction. It is extremely impressive
to remember that when St. Paul wrote, ** The powers
that be are ordained of God," the highest earthly
potentate was the Emperor Nero — not only a Pagan,
but one of the m^ost odious and contemptible of men.
What would he, who treated the Roman adminstration
with such respect, have thought of the civil authority
of a Christian country like Ours ? With what aversion
would he have turned away from the language which
calls it merely " natural," and seeks to foster an
irreverent and defiant spirit towards it !
(5.) And lastly, let me remind you with what
earnestness the New Testament urges us all to seek to
be governed by the gracious and considerate Spirit of
Jesus Christ. Wherever there is good, in whatever
Samaritan or heathen we may see kindness and the
224 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH.
fear of God, there we are to welcome it and rejoice
in it in our Father's name. There is no respect of
persons with God, no acceptance of any man on
account of his religion or his profession ; under what-
ever religious garb, he that loveth is born of God, he
that doeth righteousness is born of God. There is no
danger in being ready to appreciate simple goodness
and to refer it to the working of the Divine Spirit
wherever we may find it ; there is the greatest danger
in failing to appreciate it. This is doctrine of un-
questionable Divine authority, which we may often
have opportunities of putting into practice. Let us
remember to cherish it in all our dealings with those
who do not belong to our own Church. Let us be
afraid lest nature and the flesh should make us in-
tolerant and unsympathetic ; let us be sure that
Christ and the Spirit would win us to modesty and
reverence and sympathy.
I do not deprecate attachment to the Church of
our fathers. God forbid. How can we be thankful
enough for the privileges of which by God's mercy
we are inheritors .'' But let us learn to set Christ
above the Church. Then we shall not, I think, love
our Church the less ; but we shall love it more wisely,
and be more able, perhaps, to draw others into the
fellowship of our love.
THE END.
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