Chapter II: Part 2

I cannot resist the temptation to add a few words more from the Bishop’s work, so aptly do they meet many of the popular prejudices and fallacies pervading the unreflecting or intolerant public mind at the present time. After some excellent remarks upon the symbolism of the ministerial garments, their adoption under Divine command in the old dispensation, and their naturally passing from the Jews to “the Gentiles on the strongest ground of Scriptural consistency,” he adds, “there are many good and respectable Christians in our day who regard this matter of distinctive ministerial garments with contempt, and sometimes even with positive aversion, because they look upon it as one of the corruptions of Romanism. But the ancient Church of God is not to be regarded with contempt by any man who professes to believe the Bible. That sacred institution was Divine, and was given by the Almighty Himself to His own chosen and peculiar people. None but a fool would say that the Church of the Jews had any connection with the system of Popery. Nor will any sensible man pretend that the Reformation of the 16th century was occasioned by the dress or ecclesiastical order of the Church of Rome; which are in no respect more splendid or imposing than the usages of the Oriental Churches.” {27b}

And, further on, after having examined various points of evidence as to the principles and law of the Church of England in the matter, he adds, “to my mind, therefore, the legal position of our English brethren in this matter of Ritualism is justifiable as to its main design, and stands on a far higher ground of Scripture, law, and reason, than that of their adversaries. So long as the great doctrines of the Reformation are faithfully preached by the clergy I can see no danger that a solemn, rich, and attractive ritual will ever lead any one to Popery. Is it not more reasonable to believe that the restoration of the old ceremonial which existed in the second year of Edward VI. would give our Church the advantage which now forms the most alluring characteristic of Rome? . . . Has not truth as good a right as falsehood to be adorned with beauty? And is it to be questioned that religion should favourably affect the senses, in order that it may better reach the soul?” {28a}

3. But, to return more directly to Bishop Ellicott; I must enter my protest against, and state my most absolute disbelief in, the correctness of his opinion as to the last danger indicated in the passage last quoted from his Charge, as to what would be the conduct of the ritualistic clergy under a legal settlement of points in dispute. {28b} It may be, indeed, that if judgment should go in favour of the Ritualists their opponents would be stirred up to any conceivable pitch of madness; but I must wholly disclaim all belief that the great mass of those who have adopted a high ritual would do other than accept the decision of the law courts, if duly arrived at. Even with our present most unsatisfactory Court of Final Appeal, I should expect this, though it might be under protest; but I do not believe they would refuse to submit to the decision, I mean as to ceremonial, or persist in usages declared to be not warranted by the present law of the Church. It would, of course, be another thing if any attempt were made to tie up their hands, or shut their mouth, as to doctrine; but in regard merely to ceremonial I do not believe they would justify the Bishop’s confident prediction, “force unwilling men to put the law in action against them, accept the issue, and leave the communion of the Reformed Church.” I do not believe this for a moment as the effect of a legal decision, duly given, or as duly as it can be at present, as to what the law really is; dealing only, I say, in its terms, with ceremonial, even though we should all perceive, it may be, that it had a connection with doctrine. Still this would not be the making a new doctrine, but only declaring that the law of ceremonies was less favourable to the expression by symbolism or otherwise of certain doctrines than it had been supposed to be. This, I think, they would endure. What might be their conduct, if you alter the law on purpose to catch them when they were not offenders under it; if you _change_ the Book of Common Prayer in an uncatholic direction, in a matter touching doctrine; if you do this for a party purpose, and to uncatholicize the Church of England, I do not pretend to say. I will venture no prophecy as to what some might be led to do under such an aggravated condition of injustice. I do not myself say, I do not myself think, that they ought, even then, to “accept the issue, and leave the communion of the Reformed Church.” But it needs no ghost to tell us that such action taken on the uncatholic side would be a step towards making catholic-minded men _despair_ of the Church of England; and if England’s Convocations and Legislature should do this, you may well judge, my friends, if they will not have gone near with many to sever the last strand of the rope which held them to her. No man, I will venture to say, leaves her till he despairs of her; and to alter the Prayer Book in a Puritan direction, and for a Puritan purpose, directly at the bidding and for the interest of Puritan innovators, is unquestionably the way to make men despair of her. And awful, indeed, must be the responsibility of any one who has any hand or takes any part in so doing!

But Bishop Ellicott comes next to the scheme of which he himself approves, not indeed as free from all difficulty, but as the best mode which he can think of to relieve the “Aggrieved Parishioner;” and as one which he imagines to be free from the imputation of repealing any part of the Prayer Book. We must give the proposal in his own words. Having, as we have seen, rejected all the former plans mentioned, he says:—“We are thus flung back on the difficult question: Is there any other course or measure that may still be suggested, and that can with any degree of hope be followed, in the present emergency? In attempting to answer the serious question, we must obviously base our answer on the sober and considerate Report of the Royal Commission, and test it by its degree of accordance with the two clearly defined principles of that Report. The two principles are—_First_, that it is expedient to _restrain_ all variations in respect of vesture from what has _long_ been the established usage, on account of the grave offence so given to many; _Secondly_, that aggrieved _parishioners_ ought to be provided with an easy and effectual process of complaint and redress.” Then noticing that the Report makes “an inferential but important recognition of the fact that the innovators are of two classes—the one regarding the vestments as symbolical of _doctrine_, the other as furthering a desire to do _honour_ to the highest act of Christian worship” (which after all seems to be a false division, for those who desire to do this honour to the highest act of Christian worship consider it, I apprehend, to be the highest act of Christian worship, and are anxious to pay it this honour _on account_ of the doctrine), the Bishop proceeds,—“The two parties do not agree in the view they take of the meaning and design of Eucharistic vestments, but they do agree in the admission that they are not essential to the Sacrament. As, then, that which is admitted to be not essential is certainly an innovation on prevailing custom, and being so certainly does give grave offence, it surely must be pronounced right, fair, and reasonable, calmly and considerately, but still firmly, to restrain the innovation, at any rate until further order be taken by authority, even though the innovation may be able to plead to the letter of a law long ago left in abeyance, and practically abrogated by custom.”

It is not unworthy here of remark how we have again cropping-up the old story of the vestments being “not essential to the Sacrament,” and “giving grave offence;” the fallacy and one-sidedness of which one argument of the Commissioners, I trust, I have already shewn in both its parts. After some words further on the doctrine symbolized, on the conduct of the clergy who use the vestments, and on the not unnatural “fears in some minds that the settlement of the English Church of two hundred years ago is about to be changed” (and truly here he has “harped our fear aright”), he goes on to express his desire for an effectual restraint. “But we must not less recognize the plain fact that there is a sad and pressing necessity now laid upon us by prevailing licence, anarchy, and I fear disloyalty, to restrain; and that now restraint _must_ be applied. We must, then, solemnly ask those true hearts who may deprecate, not for themselves, but for what they may deem the interests of the Church, any authoritative application of restraint, to suspend for a time even their own innocent longings and predilections, to acknowledge with us the overwhelming nature of the necessity, and to join cordially and hopefully, not the side of recklessness, scornfulness, and self-will, but the side of recognition of rightful authority, moderation, and order.”

“Brave words, indeed, as you shall see in a summer’s day,” but as it seems to me wholly misapplied, when it is remembered that the “recklessness, scornfulness, and self-will,” attributed to the Ritualistic clergy have never, so far as I am aware, or as I think is borne out by evidence, gone further than this, that they have temperately and respectfully objected to any “manipulators” being placed above the law, and asked to be allowed in quiet to obey what they believe the law to require; where, too, to speak generally, they have found such obedience to the law to be acceptable to the mass of their people, or even demanded by them; whilst, upon the other hand, the whole violence of opposition and clamour (again to speak generally) has been exhibited by those who have not belonged to the parishes or churches where such ceremonial has been in use, but who have chosen gratuitously to interfere in order to prevent others, with whom really they had nothing at all to do, having such a Ritual, believed to be within the four corners of the law, as by them was desired, and to them was edifying.

And now we come to the proposal itself—this remedy to meet so great an evil. “Lastly, then, if there is to be this restraint, what will seem to be the safest and most effectual mode of applying it? Certainly not, as I have already said, by merely arming bishops with a little more power, and then leaving the whole question in its present unsettled state to be adjusted by individual authority and individual bias; nor yet again, as I have already said, by the omission or authoritative repeal of a rubric that has held its place in our Prayer Book from the date of the last settlement; but _by a simple and positive enactment declaring what shall be_, _and be considered to be_, _the ministerial dress_—until further order be taken. This, of course, must be by direct legislation. We may shrink from it, but in my judgment it is now inevitable. The very appointment of the Commission seems to involve it, and the general temper of the country will demand it. There are many melancholy signs that we are fast drifting towards open violations of the public peace, and that some prompt interposition of law will not only be desirable but imperative.”

Observe here the course proposed, and the marvellous declaration concerning it, that it is “not a repeal of the rubric which has held its place in our Prayer Book from the date of the last settlement.” Yet the remedy is “a simple and positive enactment (by direct legislation) declaring what shall be, and shall be considered to be, the ministerial dress—until further order be taken.” This is the remedy; and after details as to what it would prohibit, or at least allow to be prohibited (which would include all now distinctly contended for under the rubric on ornaments), the Bishop says, “_the rubric would not be repealed_, _but placed in abeyance_.” This is the special point to which I desire to draw your attention! Such a plan to be adopted, such restraint to be put in force and imposed; and the rubric not to be repealed! the Prayer Book not to be altered! Imagine anyone after this “simple and positive enactment” acting upon the rubric, using the things “prescribed,” or “in use by the authority of Parliament in the second year of King Edward VI.,” and then being proceeded against under the new Act. Would he not soon learn whether the rubric were not repealed? What will lawyers say? What does common-sense say on the matter? What would those who believed the Bishop (ill-starred mortals), that the rubric was not repealed, find and feel to their cost, when his assurance had led them to believe the law of the Church remains as it is?

Take a case in illustration. Say you treated thus the Decalogue, or any part of it. Take the Sixth, Seventh, or Eighth Commandments: suppose you left them to be printed in the Prayer Book still; but by “a simple and positive enactment” set men free from obedience to them, or rather prohibited obedience to them, until further order be taken. Would they be thus repealed so far as human enactment goes, or would the Prayer Book still remain unchanged in respect to them? Or, still better, look to the Fourth Commandment—I say better, because the others are negative, and this is positive. “Remember that thou keep holy the Sabbath Day.” Grant that it were still permitted to be printed in the Prayer Book, and recited in church; but then that there were “a simple and positive enactment” restraining men from keeping it holy; prescribing and requiring a uniformity of work, according to custom widely prevailing, reminding us that a careful observance of the Lords Day had become obsolete; that long custom to the contrary had abrogated the usage, and now it was expedient to restrain it. Would this be no alteration? Would this be no repeal of the Decalogue, or change in the Prayer Book? Oh! but the Bishop says the restraint is only “until further order be taken.” Well, what is the force of this? Whatever hope it may hold out in the future, is it any _qualification_ even, for the present? Surely not. Whilst the “simple and positive enactment” lasts, the former law is repealed. Besides, how much hope does it hold out, even for the future? If the Bishop’s temper and counsel are to prevail, I must affirm _none_. For we have seen that not merely the more violent enemies of Ritual, but even the Bishop himself, whom we must assume to represent its more moderate opponents, I say he himself is _not for waiting_ to give those who are certainly more nearly maintaining and obeying the law than those who clamour against them, even the chance of making good their position in the eye and mind of England. He will not do this at present, when there is at least a fair presumption that in the main the law is in their favour, but he will hold them out a dim hope of something turning up propitiously for them in the future; when he has thrown all his weight and influence into the scale against them, and when, if he can have his way, he will pass a “simple and positive enactment” to condemn them, and alter adversely their _status_ in the Church! He will have them put down now with the strong hand, by legislation framed expressly and on purpose to catch them for their obedience to the existing law; but they may console themselves with the thought that “all contemplation of a future when further order might be taken concerning the questions now under consideration would not be authoritatively excluded.” Well, put the consolation at its best; make what you may of it; avoid, if you can, bitterly laughing at such a mockery of hope. But even then, turn to the state of things if such an enactment take place; “a simple and positive enactment,” forbidding such “ornaments of the Church and ministers thereof” to be used “as were in use by the authority of Parliament in the second year of King Edward VI.;” and I ask again (for this is our real and great question) What would be the condition of the Book of Common Prayer? Would it be what it is now, or would it be changed? Would the present rule be “in abeyance”—that is, much unused, but still the law—or would it be repealed? What is the difference between the proposed remedy and repeal? It would be as if you made “a simple and positive enactment” that, “until further order,” no man should be arrested for debt; no man taken up for theft or violence; no man prosecuted for treason; no man hanged for murder. You may call this, abeyance of the law in those cases, but it is a misuse of the term. A thing is _in abeyance_ which for any cause happens to be _disused_, not when it is by enactment _forbidden to be used_; as a title _is in abeyance_, not when there is no heir (in which case it is _extinct_), but when the heir is unknown, or the pretensions of two or more claimants undetermined; when the heir is not _forbidden_, as the heir, to take it if he _be_ the heir, but only whilst there may be doubt whether he be the heir or not. But here, it is assumed by the very act of legislation that something is known to be the law, so that you despair of getting rid of it but by altering the law; and therefore that, though it is known to be the law, and for the very reason that it is known to be the law, it is to be prohibited and excluded. Can any man in his senses be made to believe that this is not repeal?

I think, sir, I need go no further as to proving that all these schemes, and this last just as much as the rest (all except the letting the courts of law settle what is the law, and then abiding by it), agree fully in this one point that they tamper with and alter our Book of Common Prayer.

And all this, over and above the reason and common-sense of the matter, tells us what the next Report of the Ritual Commission will be, unless the Commissioners be duly impressed with the danger of the course which they are pursuing, and the enormous responsibility of trying to carry it out.

And this brings me to a further practical point, which it is very fitting that I should lay before you. I mean the resistance proposed to all alteration in the Prayer Book by means of the public meeting so lately held in London; and the action to be taken in connection with the resolutions then passed as to memorializing the Royal Commissioners upon the subject.

There appears to be a curious piece of evidence that the great meeting in St. James’s Hall has even already not been wholly unproductive of results. That meeting was held on Tuesday, the 19th of November. The _Times_ was singularly quiescent in relation to it for nearly a week: but yesterday, Nov. 26, in an article upon Lord Portman’s questions in the House of Lords touching the Bishop of Salisbury’s Charge—though not dealing directly with the meeting—it yet introduces the following apposite remarks:

“It is alike extremely difficult and extremely dangerous to alter our existing formularies, but it would be perfectly possible, and that, as the Bishop of London said, without any very sweeping alterations, to simplify the course of procedure in our Ecclesiastical Courts. It seems to be generally felt that all classes of the clergy should be more amenable to the public than they have been; and it will certainly be better, as well as more practicable, to attempt in the first place to effect this result, rather by an improvement in the administration of the law than in the law itself.” {36} Is it straining matters too much to think that we have in this no mean tribute to the justice of the objects and views of the meeting at St. James’s Hall?

And here it may not be amiss to say one word upon the principle of a Memorial to such a body as the Royal Commission. I believe there are some who think it improper to memorialize the Commissioners, as if it were like petitioning a judge to convict or acquit a prisoner placed upon his trial before him. Of course, if the cases were parallel, it would be most improper and indecent. But a moment’s reflection will shew the difference. The Commission is not a court of justice at all. It has no judicial functions at all. There is no more objection to memorializing it than there is to petitioning Parliament. It is a body of men appointed to collect evidence, and afterwards to give an opinion as to what is expedient. It is then in the very nature of things, of high moment and importance that these Commissioners should know and understand what large masses of earnest Churchmen are thinking and feeling, whilst they are finding their way to their recommendations. It is a duty upon us to let them know what these feelings are, and what consequences are likely to result to the Church, when we see their tendency, nay, _more than tendency_, to lead an assault upon the Prayer Book. It is not only not improper, but it is a part of high and holy duty, which we owe to ourselves, to our Book of Common Prayer, to our faith, to the Church of England, to Christendom at large—nay, to God, our Maker, Redeemer, and Sanctifier, to say openly and plainly, solemnly and earnestly, “We will have no tampering with our faith; we will have no altering our Prayer Book; we will have no legislation in this matter of Ritual;” and this all the more; all the more deeply felt, the more strongly urged, _became_ we see that this is a wholly one-sided movement. We hear of no restraint or restriction, no new Canons or new enactments, when men fall short of the requirements of the Church and the Church’s law; when churches are closed from Sunday to Sunday; when Christ’s people are starved and stinted of their spiritual food and sustenance by few and far-distant communions; when Services and Lessons are altered, and Services garbled and curtailed at the will of this or that priest. Nay, we hear of no “simple and positive enactments,” even when men within the Church’s pale deny the inspiration of the Holy Scriptures; impute absolute ignorance to Christ our Lord, the ever-blessed Son of God; as, that He did not know as much about the authorship of the Pentateuch, or the date of certain of the Psalms, or other facts concerning the Holy Scriptures, as modern doctors could tell Him; none, when we hear denied the possibility of miracles; none, when we find explained away and rejected the duration without end of Hell; none, when it is maintained that we ought not to pray to the Son of God. I say that upon these subjects we hear of no Royal commissions, no Bishop’s charges recommending new enactments; no impending legislation to place such teaching under the disability of “_abeyance_” even “until further order be taken;” but here, where the law of the Church as to ceremonies and vestments (things no doubt important, because no doubt representing doctrine and connected with it, but certainly not more important than those other subjects to which I have alluded), but here, where these ceremonies and vestments, are the objects of ignorant clamour and brutal violence, the Prayer Book is to be altered, and new law is to be made, actually to put a penalty on those who have been guilty only of the crime of obeying it as it is.

And here I must say a word as to such alteration of the law, if made, being what one of the resolutions passed at St. James’s Hall termed it, _ex post facto_ legislation. A good deal has been said upon this topic, and we are told that if you call such legislation _ex post facto_, then all legislation is such, when it forbids for the future what has been permitted in the past; and we are reminded that the true sense of _ex __post facto_ legislation is when a penalty is placed, by a new law, upon acts done before the law was altered. Now first let me remark that, even without coming exactly up to the definition, you yet draw very near to the substance of _ex post facto_ legislation if you make a one-sided change to catch only one side or one party whom you make offenders under the new law, and when it is a law framed expressly and on purpose to catch the men on one side and let the others go free. Whether this be technically _ex post facto_ or not, it comes exactly to that which, in a passage already quoted from the Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol’s Charge, is described by him as likely to cause “rankling bitterness, from the thus greatly increased conviction that the law is really in favour of those to be restrained; and being so, is overridden by an _unjust Act of Parliament_.” But, secondly, there is another way in which such an enactment would come very near indeed to _ex post facto_ legislation—I mean where it disturbs a great settlement of many years’ standing, which has induced men to enter into numerous and weighty engagements, from which you cannot free them if you would, when you change their _status_ in relation to their obligations. To take an illustration. The country has entered into such a kind of contract with the fundholder. Millions are embarked in the Funds upon the faith of a great settlement the principles of which shall never be departed from; and to depart from which would be _ex post facto_ legislation, practically putting a penalty upon those who had come under voluntary obligations upon the strength of those principles and that settlement. But it may be said, nevertheless, the country does sometimes vary the contracts and alter the rate of interest towards its creditors. Yes! but what would be thought of the minister who proposed to do this, without offering, as the alternative, to pay the lender off in full; to replace him in the position in which he stood originally? And if, without offering this, he proposed to alter his _status_, who would not feel there was an unjust _ex post facto_ alteration of the law? Now, upon such a great, just, and deliberate settlement, have men entered into relations with the established Church of this country. And here the State _cannot_ set them free, or replace them in the position in which they stood before they accepted the cure of souls within her pale. The Legislature _cannot_ give them the alternative offer: and therefore, again, such a change as alters the Catholic standing of the Church of England must come very near indeed to being _ex post facto_ legislation. But yet further, thirdly, there is another consideration which brings this case exactly within the strictest definition of _ex post facto_ legislation. I mean the affixing a penalty by new enactment upon acts done before the law was changed. Observe, all penalty is not material; not restricted to fine or suspension. There is the penalty of stigma and imputed dishonesty, as real and as hard to bear in many cases as other punishment. Now, it needs no great foresight or wisdom to perceive that if the law of Ritual shall be altered in the sense and mode proposed, this very thing will be used as a stigma and brand of disloyalty to the Church of England against those men who have been High Ritualists. It is true it might be, and in my judgment, ought to be, read the other way. It ought to be taken as a proof that the existing law being in their favour, those who could not endure the law got it altered. But, from the whole tone and temper of the objectors, it is clear this would not be their line. They tell us even now, over and over again, with the outstretched throat of clamour, and with the utmost violence of passion, that all such are false to the principles of the Reformation; are dishonest and disloyal to their Church; are not to be endured in a Protestant Establishment. It is clear, then, that they would proclaim the new legislation to be merely _declaratory of_ the existing law; not admit that it _changed_ it; and so the enactment would be used as a fresh ground of obloquy and reproach against those whom their opponents could not convict of any crime, but whom they would thus be allowed, nevertheless to condemn. Such a stigma, such a penalty placed by legislation upon acts done before the change of law, and upon the persons who had done them, would bring such change of law under the definition, in the strictest sense, of _ex post facto_ legislation.

But now to return. Let me explain the position which I am throughout maintaining. I have not been speaking as the advocate of high Ritual. I do not understand the aim of the great meeting held last week in St. James’s Hall to be this advocacy; nor do I so understand the Memorial to be laid before the Commissioners. It is not to defend high Ritual in itself, however incidentally Ritual may be affected; but it is to defend the Prayer Book. It is to preserve our present _status_. It is to allow no door to be shut upon the Catholic side, whilst all are left open on the Latitudinarian. It is to preserve an outwork which defends doctrine—dearer than life to many among us. It is to keep all which God’s providence has given us in our Reformation and subsequent Revisions. It is to preserve our character and place in the face of Christendom; it is to shew our loving memory and gratitude for all which our blessed Lord has done for us, and is still doing at the right hand of God, that we will not consent to have this our heritage mutilated or taken from us. And surely in this all Churchmen who believe the ancient Catholic Faith are interested with us, Ritualist or non-Ritualist. I am not myself a Ritualist in the sense of using any of the higher forms of ritual, ceremonial, or vesture. I believe indeed, and who that believes the doctrine so represented, but _must_ believe, that England would be in a higher, holier, and happier state, if, not neglecting one other point of holiness, humility, repentance, or faith, yet, I say, if all among us longed for and delighted in the higher and fuller expression of the faith. But I do not think this fuller expression is to be forced on those who are unprepared for it. I believe in many cases this would hinder rather than help the doctrine. And I have been accustomed to consider that the _abeyance_ of much of the usage (I take the term in its true sense of a practical discontinuance, not of a legal forbidding, which is the repeal or extinction of a thing), that such abeyance may well justify us in not harshly shocking prejudices or wounding feelings; and, therefore, certainly it is not as a mere movement in support of the higher forms of ritual that I am addressing you:—but I ask this;—What is the object of our opponents? Assuredly not merely to put down vestments, or put out candles, or extinguish incense; but to drive out of the Church of England the whole doctrine which those things represent; to expel every one, whether Ritualist or not, who holds and teaches it; to run riot in the destruction of every vestige of faith in the Real Presence, in the Priesthood, the Altar, and the Sacrifice. The papers of the Church Association (_passim_), the writings of the whole anti-Ritualistic world, who are also the anti-Sacerdotal party, from the well-known noisy and ignorant correspondents of the _Times_ to the miserable man who so lately has shocked every feeling of decency in his, at first, most impertinent, and, at last, most blasphemous, correspondence with and concerning the late revered Bishop of Lichfield; all such proclaim this as their aim and end, with open mouth and outstretched throat. If you ask for an example, take the following brief passage brought before the English Church Union at its anniversary meeting in June last, by Mr. Charles Wood in his excellent speech on that occasion. He said—“In an article that appeared in one of the periodicals, which is most conspicuous in its attacks upon Ritual—I mean _Frazer’s Magazine_—I found, in one of its last year’s numbers, this, ‘There is no use in taking half-measures. As long as the Ordination Service remains as it is, Ritualism will always be cropping up. The real remedy is to alter a single rubric. Forbid the imposition of hands, and then we shall get rid of Ritualism once and for all.’” {41} Surely such language as this, and it is the very staple of the fierce opponents of Ritual, should open the eyes of all Churchmen as to what it is, (that it is really vital doctrine,) for which we have to contend. I say, then, that the present contest and crisis touches every Churchman, Ritualist or not, who believes the higher doctrine. Nay, it touches every one, Ritualist or not, who does not desire to see the comprehensive character of the Church of England narrowed, in a party sense, and for a party purpose. It touches all who agree with what the Dean of Norwich lately said at Wolverhampton, that it would be an immense and incalculable evil if one great school of thought in the Church of England were to drive the other out of her (though, by the way, I think he did not note what surely in justice he should have noted, that it is only on the one side that this desire for expulsion has been expressed). It touches in short all who desire to let law and reason have fair play against clamour and violence; all who will stand _by_ and _for_ the Prayer Book as it is. Let us all join hand and heart in averting the present danger, and in defending our heritage. Oh! if I may say it, believe me, friends, there has been no such crisis as now is in our Church, in our day at least.

Bear with me a few moments longer whilst I confirm what I have said by a better warrant than any word of mine. In the year 1865, he whose name is perhaps more revered among us than any name of at least this century—he whose memory is “as galbanum, and onyx, and sweet storax, and as the fume of frankincense in the tabernacle,” the “sweet singer” of our Israel—wrote and published some thoughts upon Ritual, and the doctrine represented by it, and the growing opposition to it. In almost, as it seems, a spirit of prophecy, speaking of the very matter now in question—a proposal for legislation, touching thereby the integrity of the Prayer Book—he said:—“It professes, indeed, to meddle with one rubric only, but it involves the same prerogative over all, and that which it specifies is one of the most important and comprehensive, bearing directly on one vital doctrine, and through that, as theologians know, upon the whole Creed of the Church. And what is more, those who promote the movement openly avow that their object is thus comprehensive . . . They frankly own their purpose to be, not simple reformation of that one rubric, but the discomfiture at all points of a rival section in the Church.” He adds:—“It is well perhaps that they have declared themselves so openly. It may put many on their guard who might otherwise have supported them at least passively, as not liking the special usages complained of, or as fearful of their being revived where they would cause disturbance. Whoever after this their plain speaking shall join in their movement must be aware that he is committing himself to a one-sided policy, which ultimately displacing those who are called Tractarians or the like, will quite overthrow the sort of equilibrium which for many years has providentially subsisted among us.” {43a}

So clearly did John Keble see that the attempt to alter that one rubric on ornaments was a matter of most vital importance to Sacramental doctrine. And if he spoke thus when the plan referred to was but in its infancy, and the danger more remote, need anyone be told what he would advise now? Truly, “he being dead yet speaketh.” Who is there that will not hear? {43b}

He adds this yet further, well worthy of our most heartfelt contemplation:—“And if we look beyond our own country, as surely we are bound to do, certain it is that such a decree” (_i.e._, an Act of Parliament altering the rubric), “not only submitted to but promoted and solicited by the Convocation of the Province of Canterbury, would effectually quench, for the time at least, all the fond hopes of reunion among Christians which just now appear to be dawning on us in various quarters. For, undoubtedly of all doctrines, that of the Eucharistic Sacrifice is the one on which in the eyes both of East and West our Catholicity would appear most questionable. A _hair’s-breadth_ more of wavering on that point would seem to them, I fear, an entire forfeiture of our position.” Oh, how noble and catholic an aspiration after a reunion with East and West, and how just an appreciation of what would vitally affect, adversely, the hope and prospect of it! How different from the narrow sectarianism which would boast of our isolation, and, cavilling at everything, can see only an overture to Rome in an “Eirenicon” to Christendom. O that our Convocations may hear and heed such warning words, and stand firm, whatever trial comes! Let me hope, let me pray, that all true Churchmen, Ritualists or not, will here throw themselves into the gap, and raise a bulwark against tampering with our Prayer Book. The outwork may be the rubric on ornaments, but, “as theologians know,” it is the Creed which is really at stake, through an altered Book of Common Prayer. We must defend the outwork to defend the citadel. We must one and all make our voice heard against change here, either directly or indirectly, either explicitly or implicitly, either by Convocation or by Parliament, or by both together. Better our Convocations were silenced again for a hundred years, if any minister of the Crown would venture to silence them (which I shall not believe until I see it), than that they should lend themselves to alter our Prayer Book and impair its catholicity. But to strengthen the hands of all who have power or influence herein, we must be prompt, energetic, valiant, wise. Believe me it is not a question of shapes or colours. It is not a question of supporting the Ritualists, though incidentally their position may be supported. But it is the question of not losing one jot or tittle of what God’s providence has given us. And to preserve what we have is essential to our work at home and to our place in Christendom. We cannot afford to give away our birthright. We cannot afford to be diverted by any _bye_ enquiries or cavils. The real question is the preservation intact in its integrity of our Book of Common Prayer, and with it of Catholic doctrine and truth among us.

I have used the term—our place in Christendom. Let me add a word or two more upon this. English Churchmen, I fear, are too apt to overlook that we are but a small part of the Church Universal, and that our aspirations should ever be that “the unhappy divisions” which now prevail in it may be healed, and the Church again be _one_ (according to our Blessed Lord’s Prayer), that indeed “the world may believe that God hath sent Him.”

Now, with this feeling and this hope in our hearts, we must never allow ourselves to forget that there is such a thing as an Œcumenical Council of Christendom, and whatever the difficulties may be in the way of its assembling, I believe to it all true hearts should turn. Certainly, for myself, I can say that this, as the great remedy for all our troubles and distractions, and “not for ours only,” but for those of Christendom at large, has been constantly present to my mind for many years. That God in His mercy, and in His own good time, would grant us a true General Council to ease and compose our differences, and to restore the unity of Christendom,—and, if it come, grant us all the due mind of submission to it,—has been for nearly or quite a quarter of a century, a portion of my daily prayer; and I think there is no ground to decry the petition as either fanciful or wrong. At least we have the warrant of some of great name among us who have not thought so. “That I might live to see the reunion of Christendom,” says Archbishop Bramhall, “is a thing for which I shall always bow the knees of my heart to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ . . . Howsoever it be,” he adds, “I submit myself and my poor endeavours first to the judgment of the Catholic Œcumenical essential Church, which, if some of late days have endeavoured to hiss out of the schools, as a fancy, I cannot help it. From the beginning it was not so. . . . Likewise I submit myself to the representative Church—that is, a free General Council, or so general as can be procured; and until then to the Church of England, wherein I was baptized, or to a National English Synod.” {45}

It may be supposed, indeed, that a general or Œcumenical Council is at present hopeless, and therefore that all mention or thought of an appeal to it is out of place; but I do not think this, for two reasons—first, that there are certain points of doctrine which have been so definitely ruled by General Councils and consent of Christendom that we know upon them there could be no diverse judgment; and, secondly, that I see no cause to despair of another such Council in God’s good time being called together. Even in the meanwhile the thought of, and habitual mental reference to, such a Council is neither impertinent nor unpractical; for the remembrance and sense of its authority, and the even mental submission of the will to its rule, has the strongest tendency to keep a man wholly catholic in heart and act. An English Churchman should _live_ in the thought and in the hope of the voice of Christendom being again uttered with no uncertain sound as to matters of perplexity and doubt. Even “though it tarry, he will wait for it,” and in the meanwhile the thought of it will bear its fruit. Thus, whatever he does, and is obliged to do, without the actual presence of such a guide, will be done, not on the mere impulse of his own will, or the bent of his own mind, but always in relation to what Christendom has definitely ruled, and in implicit submission to what she will again say when she may meet once more in a free and General Council. Anyone so living, trusting, believing, acting, will never be a schismatic, and cannot be a heretic. But I do believe we shall never, till we get to look out of ourselves to Christendom at large; never, till we remember our due place in it; never, till we are ready to accept its decrees (when God sees Christendom fit to give them); never till then, shall we be in that right mind and heart which is waiting duly for the Bridegroom’s call.

I am quite prepared to have such remarks called visionary and unreal, and all dependance upon, nay, all reference to, the Universal Church, unpractical and absurd. But none of these things move me, and I am (though, I trust, no fanatic) yet hopeful of the help of God for those who will try to help themselves. As I have said, I cannot think the expectation of a General Council is chimerical. I cannot believe, if it come, it will be useless. We have no right, of course, to expect any supernatural interposition or handwriting visibly on the wall to direct us in our difficulties. But I have faith enough in miracles, if that be one, to believe that God may grant us the miracle of Christendom again in Council, and make it the means to heal all our distempers and bind up all our wounds. Of this faith and this hope no man shall deprive me by the mere calculations of human policy, or by the perverse promptings of an uncatholic despair. But let us all watch and pray, and work with the help of God, to preserve our true catholic heritage and place, lest, when it meet, it should meet to condemn us. But this we will never believe can come upon us until we see, which God forbid, our Church faithless to God and to herself in the face of Christendom.

Our immediate work, our present duty, is indeed on a narrower scale and in a smaller sphere, yet not without an eye to these further consequences. It is to maintain our catholic _status_; and in order to this, to make it plain to all, friends and foes alike, that we will stand by our Prayer Book, and never consent to alter in an uncatholic direction one jot or tittle of that which it contains.

* * * * *

FINIS.

* * * * *

Printed by the Church Press Company, 13, Burleigh-street, Strand.

FOOTNOTES.

{6} _Charge_, p. 75.

{7} _Report_, p. vii.

{13} See _History of Savoy Conference_: Collier, Vol. ii. pp. 876–886.

{15} _Report_, p. vii.

{16} If the Commissioners should justify their thus reporting on things not essential, in the face of the very letter of their instructions, by saying that they understand the term essential to be _relative_; essential, not necessarily to the _Being_, but to the _well-being_ of the Church, and that the repression of the vestments is, in their mind, thus relatively essential; it occurs immediately to ask, why, if they were thus so quickwitted to perceive this sense of relative essentiality on their own side, were they so obtuse in seeing that the same construction should equally be allowed to the witnesses examined, in their use of the word essential on the other side?

Or, further, if they should plead that although the things themselves were _unessential_, yet the _liberty_ to deal with them was _essential_, (and in their mind essential on the side of repression,) and that thus their recommendation to restrain ceremonial is brought within the terms of their Commission; it must again be asked, why did they not award the same latitude of construction to the witnesses upon whose evidence they ground their sole recommendation; when it would be seen immediately that their inference and conclusion are wholly illogical and absurd. For their reasoning fully stated would then run thus:—“We find the vestments are by none regarded as essential to the _Being_, though we are aware that by many they are considered essential to the _well-being_ of the Church; and _therefore_ we come to the opinion that all variations in respect of vesture be restrained and abolished.” Or, (on the other view,) “We find the vestments are by none regarded as in themselves essential, though by many the liberty to use them is regarded as essential, and _therefore_ we recommend that they be repressed and disallowed.” What must be said of a Report the compilers of which can only present even the semblance of avoiding direct collision with the terms of their appointment by such treatment of the word _essential_; who claim this latitude of interpretation on their own side, whilst they wholly overlook or deny the same to the witnesses whose evidence they desire to make responsible for their illogical conclusion? Truly if the Commissioners have taken such interpretations for themselves, and in the same breath deny them to the witnesses whom they quote, what words can be too strong to describe their blindness if they did not see this incongruity, or their unfairness if they did; whilst, if to escape such a dilemma, they repudiate both the above pleas, what defence can they make against the just rebuke of the trenchant Archdeacon of Taunton, when he said at Wolverhampton that “they had been appointed to report only upon things _essential_, and had reported only upon things _non-essential_”?

{19} For this and the following quotations see _Charge of Bp. of Gloucester and Bristol_, p. 57; also pp. 66–77.

{26} _Report_, p. 131.

{27a} Opinions will no doubt be different as to the accuracy of this account of what is Romanism. The passage is not cited to bind anyone’s judgment in this respect, but rather for its negative weighty shewing at least what in the judgment of such a man (one as it is evident with _no_ bearings which _anyone_ can call Popish) is _not_ Romanism.

{27b} Appendix to Report on Ritual, pp. 130–131.

{28a} Appendix, p. 130.

{28b} See p. 24.

{36} _Times_, Nov. 26, 1867.

{41} Speech of Hon. C. L. Wood, _English Church Union Circular_, July, 1867, p. 241.

{43a} Letter on “Ritual,” by Rev. John Keble, 1865.

{43b} The following, very recently published by the Dean of Norwich, is worthy of insertion as a note to Mr. Keble’s remarks:—“From the alteration of the Lectionary to that of the rubrics there is but one step; and from an alteration of the rubrics we shall pass by an easy transition to the rearrangement of prayers—the cancelling (or bracketing) of some and the insertion of others. Questions of this kind being once opened, the Prayer Book would become an arena of fierce and furious controversy, and the reconstruction of it in what would be called an improved form would be the dismemberment of the Church of England”—Preface to Two Sermons: A Word for the Old Lectionary. By E. M. Goulburn, D.D., Dean of Norwich. 1867.

{45} Bramhall’s Works, p. 141.