Chapter I: NEED hardly express my sorrow that the publication of this letter has (2)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Then this principle follows, most clearly enunciated:—

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

* * * * *

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

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

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

“If the end of long enquiry and consideration has resulted in disappointed hope, and what seems to be evidence of the fallacy of former expectations; if I am compelled to own that the utmost we are justified in declaring seems to be—not that the Church of England now ‘holds and teaches’ &c., but—that the Church of England how _suffers_ and _permits_ to be held and taught; and again, as to the right interpretation of the prayer book, not ‘_must_ be understood,’ but ‘_may_ be understood:’ let none suppose that I have lightly yielded up that ground upon which alone a minister of the Church of England, as a minister of the Church Catholic, can stand securely.” {54}

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

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

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

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

I. Common sense, and the nature of things.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

* * * * *

“I can show, that at the time of the Reformation there certainly was
no intention to depart; and was no real departure in any respect from
the doctrine of the early Church, on this or any other matter,
certainly not on the Sacrament of Baptism, or upon the Sacraments
generally; AND WHATEVER WAS NOT ALTERED AT THE PERIOD OF THE
REFORMATION, REMAINS, AND CONTINUES TO BE THE DOCTRINE AND LAW OF THE
CHURCH TO THIS DAY.” {64}

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

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

There can be no doubt that what the Convocation considered to stand _not_ with this foundation, they lopped off and pulled down: what, therefore, they left, _of what was in their time so taught_, is to be _so taught still_; and remains as the dogmatic teaching of the Church of England.

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

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

I have just said that Mr. Badeley advances these proofs of the character of our Church as to dogmatic teaching for one particular purpose, and in order to support one specific doctrine—baptismal regeneration. To that subject he confines himself in the application of what he had said, and, of course, most properly; because such only was the subject-matter in the appeal on which he was pleading; such the doctrine which, on behalf of his client, the Bishop of Exeter, he was bound to clear. But what I venture to say generally, from all these considerations and proofs as advanced by Mr. Badeley, is this,—that his mode of meeting the attack on the Catholic doctrine of baptism is precisely the just mode, and the right mode for us to meet _any_ assault upon the faith of the Church of England; because those considerations of the nature of her rule of faith, and those proofs of her appeal to antiquity, and to the unrepealed dogmas of preceding ages, connecting herself with them, and showing her mind to retain the same teaching, are general, and apply not merely to baptism, or to any one doctrine, but to all our doctrines. And this defence, as it appears to me, is not only legitimate but sufficient: at any rate sufficient until specific exceptions are made and particular defects named, and proofs given, (if they may be,) of a contradictory teaching, by reference to the later authoritative expression of our Church’s mind; a position however which, as I shall presently show, you do not yourself assert. One thing further I would here observe before I proceed; that this line of argument and mode of defence of the Catholic doctrine of baptism not having been successful in this particular instance, and with this particular court, (although a reason to stir up all our energies to show the Church _does_ not and _never will_ acquiesce in the decision of that court,) affords no ground to any man to affirm that it has been authoritatively condemned as an unsound defence, nay, shows not at all that it might not even be admitted, and succeed in another case. The court cannot be said to condemn all the arguments on the losing side, however it may disregard them. The court is not sitting to try the arguments of counsel, but the general merits of the case; and no one, I suppose, would say that all the arguments of every lawyer who may not gain his cause are judicially pronounced worthless or unsound. What may be justly said of them appears to be no more than that they are not accepted as of weight by that court, or, at the most, that there is an implication of some censure or contempt upon them; but certainly there is nothing to prevent individuals still believing in their soundness; nothing to prevent their being advanced again as occasion may again arise; nothing to prevent them at another time, before even the same, and, much more, before another tribunal, being weighed, being allowed, and being successful. {69}

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