Chapter I: NEED hardly express my sorrow that the publication of this letter has (3)

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

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

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

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

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

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

You will see what I mean by saying that mere ambiguity in our reformation documents will not harm us, is this, that we have a prior and superior rule to appeal to, (if the preceding argument be sound,) by which such ambiguity will be corrected. No one pretends there can be any hurtful ambiguity or insufficiency in the connected teaching of the Church Catholic; and therefore wheresoever we may take refuge in that to cover any omissions or defects, if such there be, on essential doctrine in our later rule, we shall take no damage. The only thing which would really harm us, would be absolute contradiction of the truth, or positive assertion that such or such essential points were intended to be left vague and ambiguous. But this would be harmful, because in fact such declarations would not be merely declarations of vagueness or ambiguity, but would be heresy; would not be to assert, of two conflicting doctrines, that the Church teaches _both_, but, in fact, to rule that she teaches _neither_. No one however will, I think, pretend to say that the Church of England has said any where, in so many words, that she means to leave open such or such a doctrine, which the Church Catholic has closed. Perhaps you will say, “Not in so many words:—but by inference she does it; by her undecided manner where she has dealt with the topic, by the laxity which her words too evidently permit, by the known bias and opinions of many of those who framed them.” This, however, is just what I have been saying amounts to nothing against the previous unrepealed doctrine to which she is to be referred, and the consent of Catholic antiquity, by which she is really bound. I do assert _such_ a repeal, if it be no more, is no repeal at all. _No_ statute law can be so set aside, and assuredly not this, the law of Christ and his Church. If, indeed, we _had only_ what the Reformation left us; if we were constrained to think all needful doctrine was there treated, and fully treated of; if any document of authority of that period had declared that no previous doctrine was admissible, unless then repeated and specially recognized; that nothing was important as a matter of faith beyond what the writings of that time included in their summaries, or embraced in their definitions; if the reformation had thus pronounced itself _aὐτάpχης_, and thus separated its Church and doctrine from primitive antiquity and the faith of Christendom, then indeed should we see that we were “in evil case,” to be required “to make bricks,” and yet to have “no straw given us.” But, since there is no such document, and no plausible evidence of even any such design, we trust we may put aside all fear that we are in this dilemma, and still build up our doctrine upon the sure foundation of “that which hath been from the beginning.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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