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In memory of

Raymond A. Berg, Sr.

TWELVE LECTURES ADDRESSED TO THE ANGLICAN PARTY OF 1833.

ABERDEEN UNIVERSITY PRESS.

CERTAIN DIFFICULTIES

FELT UY ANGLICANS

IN CATHOLIC TEACHING

CONSIDERED :

1. In Twelve Lectures addressed in 1850 to the Party of t lie Religious Movement ^1833.

JOHN HENRY CARDINAL NEWMAN.

VOL. I.

NEW EDITION.

LONDON :

L O N G M A N S, G R E E N, A N D CO.

AND NEW YORK : 15 EAST i6th STREET.

i8o5-

Digitized by the Internet Archive

in 2010 with funding from

Lyrasis IVIembers and Sloan Foundation

http://www.archive.org/details/certaindifficult01john

TO THE RIGHT REVEREND

WILLIAM BERNARD ULLATHORNE,

D.D., O.S.B.,

BISHOP OF HETALONA,

AND VICAR-AVOSTOLIC OF THE CENTRAL DISTRICT.

My Dear Lord,

In gaining your Lordship's leave to place the following Volume under your patronage, I fear I may seem to the world to have asked what is more gracious in you to grant, than becoming or reasonable in me to have contemplated. For what assignable connection is there between your Lordship's name, and a work, not didactic, not pastoral, not ascetical, not devotional, but for the most part simply controversial, directed, moreover, against a mere transitory phase in an acci- dental school of opinion, and for that reason, both in its matter and its argument, only of local interest and ephemeral importance ?

Such a question may obviously be put to me ; noi can I answer it, except by referring to the well-known interest which your Lordship has so long taken in the religious party to which 1 have alluded, and the

vi Dedication.

joy and thankfulness with which you have welcomed the manifestations of God's grace, as often as first one and then another of their number has in his turn emerged from the mists of error into the light and peace of Catholic truth.

Whatever, then, your Lordship's sentiments may be of the character of the Work itself, I persuade myself that I may be able suitably to present it to you, m con- sideration of the object it has in view ; and that you, on your part, will not repent of countenancing; an Author, who, in the selection of his materials, would fain put the claims of charity above the praise oi critics, and feels it is a better deed to write for the present moment than for posterity.

Begging your Lordship's blessing,

I am, my dear Lord,

Your Lordship's faithful and grateful Servant,

JOHN H. NEWMAN,

OF THE Oratory. July 14, 1850.

PREFACE.

It may happen to some persons to feel surprise, that the Author of the following Lectures, instead of occupy- ing himself on the direct proof of Catholicism, should have professed no more than to remove difficulties from the path of those who have already admitted the argu- ments in its favour. But, in the first place, he really does not think that there is any call just now for an Apology in behalf of the divine origin of the Catholic Church. She bears her unearthly character on her brow, as her enemies confess, by imputing her miracles to Beelzebub. There is an instinctive feeling of curiosity, interest, anxiety, and awe, mingled together in various proportions, according to the tempers and opinions of individuals, when she makes her appear- ance in any neighbourhood, rich or poor, in the person of her missioners or her religious communities. Do what they will, denounce her as they may, her enemies cannot quench this emotion in the breasts of others, or in their own. It is their involuntary homage to the Notes of the Church ; it is their spontaneous recogni- tion of her royal descent and her imperial claim ; it is a specific feeling, which no other religion tends to excite. Judaism, Mahometanism, Anglicanism, Method-

viil Preface.

ism, old religions and young, romantic and common- place, have not this spell. The presence of the Church creates a discomposure and restlessness, or a thrill of exultation, wherever she comes. Meetings are held, denunciations launched, calumnies spread abroad, and hearts beat secretly the v/hile. The babe leaps in Elizabeth's womb, at the voice of her in whom is enshrined and lives the Incarnate Word. Her priests appeal freely to the consciences of all who encounter them, to say whether they have not a superhuman gift, and that multitude by silence gives consent. They look like other men ; they may have the failings of other men ; they may have as little worldly advantages as the preachers of dissent ; they may lack the popular talents, the oratorical power, the imposing presence, which are found elsewhere; but they inspire confi- dence, or at least reverence, by their very word. Those who come to jeer and scoff, remain to pray.

There needs no treatise, then, on the Notes of the Church, till this her mysterious influence is accounted for and destroyed ; still less is it necessary just at this time, when the writings and the proceedings of a school of divines in the Establishment have, against their will and intention, done this very work for her as regards a multitude of our countrymen. What treatise indeed can be so conclusive in this day as the history, carried out before their eyes, of the religious teaching of the school in question, a teaching simple and intelligible in its principles, persuasive in its views, gradually developed, adjusted, and enlarged, gradually imbibed and mastered, in a course of years ; and now converg- ing in many minds at once to one issue, and in some of them already reaching it, and that issue the divinity of

Preface. ix

tbe Catholic Eeligion ? Feeling, then, that an exhibi- tion of the direct Evidences in favour of Catholicism is not the want of the moment, the Author has had no thoughts of addressing himself to a work, which could not be executed by any one who undertook it, except at leisure and with great deliberation. At present the thinking portion of society is either very near the Catholic Church, or very far from her. The first duty of Catholics is to house those in, who are near their doors ; it will be tim.e afterwards, when this has been done, to ascertain how things lie on the extended field of philosophy and religion, and into what new position the controversy has fallen : as yet the old arguments suffice. To attempt a formal dissertation on the N"otes of the Church at this moment, would be running the risk of constructing what none would need to-day, and none could use to-morrow.

Those surely who are advancing towards the Church, Avould not have advanced so far as they have, had they not had sufficient arguments to bring them still further. What retards their progress is not any weakness in those arguments, but the force of opposite considera- tions, speculative or practical, which are urged, some- times against the Church, sometimes against their own submitting to her authority. They would have no doubt about their duty, but for the charges brought against her, or the remonstrances addressed to themselves ; charges and remonstrances which, whatever their logical cogency, are abundantly sufficient for their purpose, in a case where there are so many inducements, whether from wrong feeling, or infirmity, or even error of con- science, to listen to them. Such persons, then, have a claim on us to be fortified in their ricrht perceptions

Preface.

and their good resolutions, against the calumnies, pre- judices, mistakes, and ignorance of their friends and of the world, against the undue influence exerted on their minds by the real difficulties which unavoidably sur- round a religion so deep and manifold in philosophy, and occupying so vast a place in the history of nations It would be wonderful, indeed, if a teaching which embraces all spiritual and moral truth, from the highest to the least important, should present no mysteries or apparent inconsistencies ; wonderful if, in the lapse of eighteen hundred years, and in the range of three- fourths of the globe, and in the profession of thousands of miUions of souls, it had not afforded innumerable points of plausible attack ; wonderful, if it could assail the pride and sensuality which are common to our whole race, without rousing the hatred, malice, jealousy, and obstinate opposition, of the natural man ; wonder- ful, if it could be the object of the jealous and un- wearied scrutiny of ten thousand adversaries, of the coalition of wit and wisdom, of minds acute, far-seeing, comprehensive, original, and possessed of the deepest and most varied knowledge, yet without some sort of case being made out against it ; and wonderful, more- over, if the vast multitude of objections, great and small, resulting from its exposure to circumstances such as these, acting on the timidity, scrupulousness, inexperience, intellectual lastidiousness, love of the world, or self-dependence of individuals, had not been sufficient to keep many a one from the Church, who had, in spite of them, good and satisfactory reasons for joining her communion. Here is the plain reason why so many are brought near to the Church, and then go back, or are so slow in submitting to her.

Preface, xi

Now, as has been implied above, where there is de- tachment from the world, a keen apprehension of the Unseen, and a simple determination to do the Divine Will, such difficulties will not commonly avail, if men have had sufficient opportunity of acquainting them- selves with the Notes or Evidences of the Church. In matter of fact, as we see daily, they do not avail to deter those whose hearts are right, or whose minds are incapable of extended investigations, from recognizing the Church's Notes and acting upon them. They do not avail with the poor, the uneducated, the simple- minded, the resolute, and the fervent; but they are formidable, when there are motives in the backo-round amiable or unworthy, to bias the will. Every one is obliged, by the lav/ of his nature, to act by reason ; yet no one likes to make a great sacrifice unnecessarily; such difficulties, then, just avail to turn the scale, and to detain men in Protestantism, who are open to the influence of tenderness towards friends, reliance on superiors, regard for their position, dread of present inconvenience, indolence, love of independence, fear of the future, regard to reputation, desire of consistency, attachment to cherished notions, pride of reason, or reluctance to go to school again. No one likes to take an awful step, all by himself, without feeling sure he is right ; no one likes to remain long in doubt whether he should take it or not ; he wishes to be settled, and he readily catches at objections, or listens to dissuasives, which allow of his giving over the in- quiry, or postponing it sine die. Yet those very same persons who would willingly hide the truth from their eyes by objections and difficulties, nevertheless, if actually forced to look it in the face, and brought

xii Preface.

under the direct poorer of the Catholic arguments, would often have strength and courage enough to take the dreaded step, and would find themselves, almost before they knew what they had done, in the haven of peace.

These were some of the reasons for the particular line of argument which the Author has selected ; and in what he has been saying in explanation, he must not be supposed to forget that faith depends upon the will, not realty on any process of reasoning, and tliat conversion is a simple work of divine grace. He aims at nothing more than to give free play to the con- science, by removing those perplexities in the proof of Catholicity, which keep the intellect from being touched by its cogency, and give the heart an excuse for trifling with it. The absence of temptation or of other moral disadvantage, though not the direct cause of virtuous conduct, still is a great help towards it ; and, in like manner, to clear away from the path of an inquirer objections to Catholic truth, is to subserve his conver- sion by gi\dng room for the due and efficacious opera- tion of divine grace. Eeligious persons, indeed, do what is right in spite of temptation ; persons of sensi- tive and fervent minds go on to believe in spite of difficulty ; but where the desire of truth is languid, and the religious purpose weak, such impediments suffice to prevent conviction, and faith will not be created in the mind, though there are abundant reasons for its creation. In these circumstances, it is quite as much an act of charity to attempt the removal of objections to the truth, which, without excusing, are made the excuse for unbelief, as to remove the occasion of sin in any other department of duty.

Preface. xiii

It is plain that the Author is rather describing what his Lectures wei'e intended to he, than what they have turned out. He found it impossible to fulfil what he contemplated within the limits imposed upon him by the circumstances under which they were written. The very first objection wliich he took on starting, the alleged connection of the Movement of 1833 with the National Church, has afforded matter for the greater part of the course ; and, before he had well finished the discussion of it, it was getting time to think of concluding, and that, in any such way as would give a character of completeness to the whole. Else, after the seventh Lecture, it had been his intention to pro- ceed to the consideration of the alleged claim of the National Church on the allegiance of its members ; of the alleged duty of our remaining in the communion in which we were born ; of the alleged danger oi trustmg to reason ; of the alleged right of the National Church to forbid doubt about its own claims ; of the alleged uncertainty which necessarily attends the claims of any religion whatever ; of the tests of certainty ; of the relation of faith to reason ; of the legitimate force of objections ; and of the matter of Catholic evidence. He is ashamed to continue the list much further, lest he should seem to have been contemplating what was evidently impracticable ; all he can say in extenuation is, that he never aimed at going more fully into any of the subjects of which he was to treat, than he has done in the sketches which now he presents to the reader. Lastly, he had proposed to end his course with a notice of the objections made by Protestants to particular doctrines, as Purgatory, Intercession of the Saints, and the like.

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xiv Preface,

Incomplete, however, as the Lectures may be with reference to the idea with which they were commenced, or compared with what might be said upon each sub- ject which is successively treated, of course he makes no apology for the actual matter of them ; else he shou^ld not have delivered or published them. It has not been his practice to engage in controversy with those who. have felt it their duty to criticise what at any time he has written ; but that will not preclude him, under present circumstances, from elucidating what is deficient in them by further observations, should questions be asked, which, either from the quarter whence they proceed, or Irom their intrinsic weight, have, according to his judgment; a claim upon hipr attention.

Birmingham, July 14, 18 ;o.

CONTENTS.

PART I.

COMMUNION WITH THE ROMAN SEE THE LEGITIMATE ISSUE OF THE RELIGIOUS MOVEMENT OF 1S33.

LECTURE L

PAGE ON THR RELATION OF THE NATIONAL CHURCH TO THE NATION, . 1

LECTURE II. . .

THE MOVKilKNT OF 1833 FORKIGN TO THE NATIONAL CHURCH, . 33

LECTURE III.

THE LIFE OF THK MOVEMEXT OF 1S33 NOT DERIVED FROM THE

NATIONAL CHURCH, . . . . . ^1

LECTURE IV.

THK PROVIDKNTIAL COUIISE OF THK MOVEMENT OF 1833 NOT IN THE

DIRECTION OF THE NATIONAL CHURCH, . . ■ ^6

LECTURE V

THE PROVIDENTIAL COURSE OF THE MOVEMENT OF 1833 NOT IN THE

DIRECTION OF A PaRTT IN THE NATIONAL CHURCH, . 120

LECTURE VL

THE PROVIDENTIAL COURSE OF TRE MOVKMENT OF 1833 NOT IN THE

DIRECTION OF A BRANCH CHURCH, . ... . 164

LECTURE VIL

THE PROVTDTSNTIAL COURSE OF THE MOVEMENT OF 1833 NOT IN THE

DIRECTION OF A SECT, . . . . 1 97

xvi Contents.

PART IL

DIFFICULTIES IN ACCEPTING THE COMMUNION OF ROME AS ONE, HOLY, CATHOLIC, AND APOSTOLIC.

PAGE

LECTURE VIII.

THK SOCIAL STATE OP CATHOLIC COUNTRIES NO PREJUDICE TO THK

SANCTITY OF THE CHURCH, ..... 229

LECTURE IX.

THE RELIGIOUS STATE OF CATHOLIC COU>i TRIES NO PKEJUDICE TO

THE SANCTITY OF THE CHURCH, .... 26i

LECTURE X.

DIFFERENCES AMONG CATHOLICS No PREJUDICE TO THE UNITY OF

THE CHURCH, . . . . . = . 296

LECTURE XL

HERETICAL AND SCHISMATICAL BODIES NO PREJUDICE TO THE CATliO-

LICITT OF THE CHURCH, ..... 33O

LECTURE XII.

ECCLESTASTICAL HISTORY NO PREJUDICE TO THE ArOSTOLTCITY OF

THK CHURCH. . . . . . . . 36-'

PART I.

COMMUNION WITH THE EOMAN SEE THE LEGITIMATE ISSUE OF THE RELIGIOUS MOVEMENT OF 1833.

h

LECTURE I.

ON THE RELATION OF THE NATIONAL CHURCH TO THE NATION.

FTIHERE are those, my brethren, who may think it strange, and even shocking, that, at this moment, when the liberalism of the age, after many previous attempts, is apparently at length about to get posses- sion of the Church and Universities of the nation, any one like myself, who is a zealous upholder of the dog- matic principle in all its bearings, should be doing what little in him lies to weaken, even indirectly, Institutions which, with whatever shortcomings or errors, are the only political bulwarks of that principle left to us by the changes of the sixteenth century. Eor to help forward members of the Established Church towards the Catholic Religion, as I propose to do in these Lectures, what is this but, so far, to co-operate with a levelling party, who are the enemies of God, and truth.

2 071 the delation of the

and wtue ? The Institutions in question, it may be said, uphold what is right and ^Yhat is holy as far as they go, and, moreover, the duty of upholding it: they do not in their genuine workings harm the Church; they do but oppose themselves to sectarianism, free- thinking, infidelity, and lawlessness. They are her natural, though they may be her covert, aUies; they are the faitliful nurses and conservators of her spirit; they are glad, and proud, as far as they are aUowed to do so, to throw her mantle over themselves, and they do her homage by attempting a mimic Catholicism. They have preserved through bad times our old churches, our forms, our rites, our customs, in a measure, our Creed; they are taunted by our enemies for their Catholic or Papistical tendency ; and many of those who are submitted to their teaching, look wist- fully to us, in their forlorn struggle with those enemies of ours, for encouragement and sympathy. Certainly, reviewing the history of the last three centuries, we cannot deny that those Institutions have uniformly repressed the extravagance, and diluted the virulence, of Protestantism. To the divines, to whom they have given birth, our country is indebted for Apologies in behalf of various of the great doctrines of the faith: to Bull for a defence of the Creed of Nic^a, nay, m a measure, of the true doctrine of justification, which the most accomplished Cathohc theologians of this day, as well a. of his own, treat with great consideration ; to

National Church to the Nation. 3

Pearson for a powerful argument in behalf of the Apostolical origin of Episcopacy; to Wall for a. proof of the primitive use of Infant Baptism; to Hooker for a vindication of the great principle of religious order and worship; to Butler for a profound investigation into the connection of natural with revealed religion; to Paley and others for a series of elaborate evidences of the divinity of Christianity. It is cruel, it is impo- litic, to cast oft if not altogether friends, yet at least those who are not our worst foes; nor can we afford -.0 do so. If they usurp our name, yet they proclaim it in the ears of heretics all about; they have kept much error out of the country, if they have let much in; and if Neo-Platonism, though false, is more honourable than the philosophy of the academy or of the garden, by the same rule, surely, we ought, in comparison with other sects, to give our countenance to the Anglican Church to compassionate her in her hour of peril, "and spare the meek usurper's hoary head."

Well, and I do not know what natural inducement there is to urge me to be harsh with her in tliis her hour: I have only pleasant associations of those many years when I was within her pale; I have no theory to put forward, nor position to maintain; and I am come to a time of life, when men desire to be quiet and at peace ;-moreover, I am in a communion which satis- fies its members, and draws them into itself, and, by the objects which it presents to faith, and the influences

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4 On the Relation of the

which it exerts over the heart, leads them to forget the external world, and look forward more steadily to the future. No, my dear brethren, there is but one thing that forces me to speak,— and it is my intimate sense that the Catholic Church is the one ark of salvation, and my love for your souls ; it is my fear lest you ought to submit yourselves to her, and do not ; my feaj lest I may perchance be able to persuade you, and not use my talent. It will be a miserable thing for you and for me, if I had been instrumental in bringing you but half-way, if I have co-operated in removing your invin- cible ignorance, but am able to do no more. It is this keen feeling that my life is wearing away, which over- comes the lassitude which possesses me, and scatters the excuses which I might plausibly urge to myself for not meddUng with what I have left for ever, which subdues the recollection of past times, and which makes me do my best, with whatever success, to bring you to land from off your wreck, who have thrown yourselves from it upon the waves, or are clinging to its rigging, or are sitting in heaviness and despair upon its side. For this is the truth: the Establishment, wliatever it be in the eyes of men, whatever its tem- poral greatness and its secular prospects, in the eyes of faith is a mere week. We must not indulge our imagination, we must not dream: we must look at things as they are; we must not confound the past with the y.resent, or what is substantive with what is

National Church to the Nation. 5

the accident of a period. Eidding our minds of these illusions, we shall see that the Established Church has no claims whatever on us, whether in memory or in hope ; that they only have claims upon our commisera- tion and our charity whom she holds in bondage, separ- ated from that faith and that Church in which alone is salvation. If I can do aught towards breaking their chains, and bringing them into the Truth, it will be an act of love towards their souls, and of piety towards God.

I. ' '. . ■ ■

I have said, we must not indulge our imagination in the view we take of the National Establishment. If, indeed, we dress it up in an ideal form, as if it were something real, with an independent and a continuous existence, and a proper history, as if it were in deed and not only in name a Church, then indeed we may feel interest in it, and reverence towards it, and affec- tion for it, as men have fallen in love with pictures, or knights in romance do battle for high dames whom they have never seen. Thus it is that students of the Fathers, antiquaries, and poets, begin by assuming that the body to which they belong is that of which they read in times past, and then proceed to decorate it with that majesty and beauty of which history teUs, or which their genius creates. Nor is it by an easy pro- cess or a light effort that their minds are disabused of this error. It is an error for many reasons too dear to

6 On the Relation of the

them to be readily relinquished. But at length, either

the force of circumstances or some unexpected accident

dissipates it; and, as in fairy tales, the magic castle

vanishes when the spell is broken, and nothing is seen

but the wild heath, the barren rock, and the forlorn

sheep-walk, so is it with us as regards the Church of

England, when we look in amazement on that we

thought so unearthly, and find so commonplace or

worthless. Then we perceive, that aforetime w-e have

not been guided by reason, but biassed by education

and swayed by affection. We see in the English

Church, I will not merely say no descent from the first

ages, and no relationship to the Church in other lands,

but we see no body politic of any kind ; we see nothing

more or less than an Establishment, a department of

Government, or a function or operation of the State,

— without a substance, — a mere collection of officials,

depending on and living in the supreme civil power.

Its unity and personality are gone, and with them its

power of exciting feelings of any kind. It is easier to

love or hate an abstraction, than so commonplace a

framework or mechanism. We regard it neither with

anger, nor with aversion, nor with contempt, any more

than with respect or interest. It is but one aspect of

the State, or mode of civil governance ; it is responsible

for nothing; it can appropriate neither praise nor

blame ; but, whatever feeling it raises is to be referred

on. by the nature of the case, to the Supreme Power

NoMonal Church to the Nation. 7

whom it represents, and whose will is its breath. And hence it has no real identity of existence in distinct periods, unless the present Legislature or the present Court can affect to be the offspring and disciple of its predecessor. Nor can it in consequence be said to have any antecedents, or any future; or to live, except in the passing moment. As a thing without a soul, it does not contemplate itself, define its intrinsic constitution, or ascertain its position. It has no traditions; it cannot be said to think; it does not know what it holds, and what it does not ; ^ it is not even conscious of its own existence. It has no love for its members, or what are sometimes called its children, nor any instinct whatever, unless attachment to its master, or love of its place, may be so called. Its fruits, as far as they are good, are to be made much of, as long as they last, for they are transient, and without succession ; its former champions of orthodoxy are no earnest of ortho- doxy now; they died, and there was no reason why they should be reproduced. Bishop is not like bishop,

1 This fact is strikingly brought out in Archbishop Sumner's corre- spondence with Mr. Maskell. "You ask me," he says, "whether you are to conclude that you ought not to teach, and have not authority of the Church to teach any of the doctrines spoken of in your five former ques- tions, in the doc/matical terms there stated ? To which I reply. Are they contained in the word of God? St. Paul says, 'Preach the word.' . . . Now, whether the doctiines concerning which you inquire are contained in the Word of God, and can be proved thereby, you have the same means of discovering as myself, and I have no special authority to declare." The Archbisho}) at least would quite allow what I have said in the text, even though he might express himself differeutlj''.

8 On the Relation of the

more than king is like king, or ministry like ministry ; its Prayer-Book is an Act of Parliament of two centuries ago, and its cathedrals and its chapter-houses are the spoils of Catholicism.

I have said all this, my brethren, not in declamation, but to bring out clearly to you, why I cannot feel in- terest of any kind in the National Church, nor put any trust in it at all from its past history, as if it were, in however narrow a sense, a guardian of orthodoxy. It is as little bound by what it said or did formerly, as this morning's newspaper by its former numbers, except as it is bound by the Law ; and while it is upheld by the Law, it will not be weakened by the subtraction of individuals, nor fortified by their continuance. Its life is an Act of Parliament. It will not be able to resist the Arian, Sabellian, or Unitarian heresies now, because Bull or Waterland resisted them a century or two before ; nor on the other hand would it be unable to resist them, though its more orthodox theologians were presently to leave it. It will be able to resist them while the State gives the word ; it would be unable, when the State forbids it. Elizabeth boasted that she "tuned her pulpits;" Charles forbade discussions on predestination ; George on the Holy Trinity ; Victoria allows differences on Holy Baptism. AVhile the nation wishes an Establishment, it will remain, whatever in- dividuals are for it or against it ; and that which deter- mines its existence will determine its voice. Of course

National Church to the Nation, 9

the presence or departure of individuals will be one out of various disturbing causes, which may delay or accelerate by a certain number of years a change in its teaching : but, after all, the change itself depends on events broader and deeper than these; it depends on changes in the nation. As the nation changes its political, so may it change its religious views; the causes which carried the Eeform Bill and Free Trade may make short work with orthodoxy.

2.

The most simple proof of the truth of this assertion will be found in considering what and how much has been hitherto done by the ecclesiastical movement of 1833, towards heightening the tone of the Established Church — by a movement extending over seventeen years and more, and carried on with great energy, and (as far as concerns its influence over individuals) with surprising success. Opinions which, twenty years ago, were not held by any but Catholics, or at most only in fragmentary portions by isolated persons, are now the profession of thousands. Such success ought to have acted on the Establishment itself ; has it done so ? 01 rather, is not that success simply and only in ex- pectation and in hope, like the conversion of heathen nations by the various Evangelical societies ? The Fa- thers have catholicised the Protestant Church at home, pretty much as the Bible has evau'-elised the Mahome-

lo On the Relation of the

tan or Hindoo religions abroad. There have been recurring vaticinations and promises of good; but little or no actual fulfilment. Look back year aftei year, count up the exploits of the movement party, and consider whether it has had any effect at all on the religious judgment of the nation, as represented by the Establishment. The more certain and formidable is the growth of its adherents and well-wishers, so much the more pregnant a fact is it, that the Establishment has steadily gone on its own way, eating, drinking, sleeping, and working, fulfilling its nature and its des- tiny, as if that movement had not been; or at least with no greater consciousness of its presence, than any internal disarrangement or disorder creates in a man who has a work to do, and is busy at it.

The movement, I say, has formed but a party after all, and the Church of the nation has pursued the nation's objects, and executed the nation's will, in spite of it. The movement could not prevent the Ecclesias- tical Commission, nor the . Episcopal mismanagement of it. Its zeal, principle, and clearness of view, backed by a union of parties, did not prevent the royal appoint- ment of a theological Professor, whose sentiments were the expression of the national idea of religion. Nor did its protest even succeed in preventing his sub- sequent elevation to the Episcopal bench. Nor did it succeed in preventing the establishment of a sort of Anfrlo-Pruspian, half -Episcopal, half- Lutheran See at

National Church to the Nation. i r

Jerusalem; nor the selection of two individuals of heretical opinions to fill it in succession. Nor did it prevent the intrusion of the Establishment on the Maltese territory ; nor has it prevented the systematic promotion at home of men heterodox, or fiercely latitudinarian, in their religious views, or professedly ignorant of theology, and glorying in their ignorance. Nor did the movement prevent the promotion of Bishops and others who deny or explain away the grace of Baptism. Nor has it hindered the two Arch- bishops of England from concurring in the royal deci- sion, that within the national communion baptismal regeneration is an open question. It has not height- ened the theology of the Universities or of the Chris- tian Knowledge Society, nor afforded any defence in its hour of need to the National Society for Education. What has it done for the cause it undertook ? It has preserved the Universities to the Established Church for fifteen years ; perhaps it prevented certain alter- ations in the Prayer-Book; it has secured at Oxford the continuance of the Oath of Supremacy against Catholics for a like period; it has hindered the pro- motion of high-minded liberals, like the late Dr. Arnold, at the price of the advancement of second-rate men who have shared his opinions. It has built Churches and Colleges, and endowed Sees, of which its enemies in the Establishment have gladly taken or are taking possession; it has founded sisterhoods or enforced

12 On the Relation of the

confessions, the fruits of which, are yet to be seen. On the other hand, it has given a hundred educated men to the Catholic Church; yet the huge creature, from which they went forth, showed no consciousness of its loss, but shook itself, and went about its work as of old time — as all parties, even the associates they had left, united, and even glorified, in testifying. And lastly, the present momentous event, to which I have already alluded, bearing upon the doctrine of Baptism, which is creating such disturbance in the country, has happened altogether independent of the movement, and is unaffected by it. Those persons who went forward to Catholicism have not caused it ; those who have stayed neither could prevent it, nor can remedy it. It relates to a question previous to any of those doctrines which it has been the main object of the movement to maintain. It is caused, rather it is willed, by the national mind ; and, till the grace of God touches and converts that mind, it will remain a fact done and over. a precedent and a principle in the Establishment.

3.

This is the true explanation of what is going on before our eyes, as seen whether in the decision of the Privy Council, or in the respective conduct of the two parties in the Establishment with relation to it. It may seem strange, at first sight, that the Evangelical section should presume so boldly to contravene the

National Church to the Nation. 13

distinct and categorical teaching of the national for- mularies on the subject of Baptism ; strange, till it is understood that the interpreter of their sense is the Nation itself, and that that section in the Establishment speaks with the confidence of men who know that they have the Nation on their side. Let me here refer to the just and manly admissions on this subject, of a high- principled writer, which have lately been given to the public : —

" There is " a " consideration," he says, " which, for some time, has pressed heavily and painfully upon me. As a fact, the Evangelical party plainly, openly, and fully declare their opinions upon the doctrines which they contend the Church of England holds ; they tell their people continually, what they ought, as a matter of duty towards God and towards themselves, both to believe and practise. Can it be pretended that we, as a party, anxious to teach the truth, are equally open^ plain, and unreserved ? . . . And it is not to be alleged, that only the less important duties and doctrines are so reserved : as if it would be an easy thing to distinguish and draw a line of division between them. . . . We do reserve vital and essential truths ; we often hesitate and fear to teach our people many duties, not all necessary^ perhaps, in every case or to every person, but eminently practical, and sure to increase the growth of the inner,. spiritual life we differ, in short, as widely from the Evargelical part} in the manner and openness, as in the

14 ^^ ihe Relation of the

matter and details of our doctrine. . . . All this seems to me to be, day by day and hour by hour, more and more hard to be reconciled with the real spirit, mind, and purpose of the English Eeformation, and of the modern English Church, shown by the experience of three hundred years. . . . People often say it is wrong to use such terms as * the spirit of the Eeformed English Church;' or 'its intention,' * purpose,' and the like. And is it really so ? was the Eeformation nothing ? did it effect nothing, change nothing, remove nothing ? .... No doubt the Eeformed Church of England claims to be a portion of the Holy Catholic Church; and it has been common for many of our own opinions, to add also the assertion, that she rejects and condemns, as being out of the Church Catholic, the Eeformed Churches abroad, Lutheran, Genevan, and others, toge- ther with the Kirk of Scotland, or the Dissenters at home. Upon our principles, nay, on any consistent Church principle at all, such a corollary must follow. But there is a strangeness in it ; it commends itself perhaps to our intellect, but not to the eye or ear ; nor. It may be, to the heart or conscience."^

These remarks are as true as they are candid ; and it is^ I hope, no disrespect to the Author, if, taking them from their context, I use them for my own argument, which is not indeed divergent, though distinct from his own. Whether, then, they prove that thQ Evangelical

^ i\Iaskeirs Second Letter, pp. 57-69.

National Ckurch to the Nation. 15

party is as much at home in the National Prayer-Book as the Anglican, I will not pronounce; but at least they prove that that party is far more at home in the National EstaUisJiinent ; that it is in cordial and inti- mate sympathy with the sovereign Lord and Master of the Prayer-Book, its composer and interpreter, the Nation itself, — on the best terms with Queen and statesmen, and practical men, and country gentlemen, and respectable tradesmen, fathers and mothers, school- masters, churchwardens,, vestries, public societies, news- papers, and their readers in the lower classes. The Evangelical ministers of the Establishment have, in comparison with their Anglican rivals, the spirit of the age with them ; they are congenial with the age ; they glide forward rapidly and proudly down the stream ; and it is this fact, and their consciousness of it, which carries them over all difficulties. Jewell was triumph- ant over Harding, and Wake over Atterbury or Leslie, with the terrors or the bribes of a sovereign to back them ; and their successors in this day have, in like manner, the strength of public opinion on their side. The letter of enactments, pristine customs, ancient rights, is no match for the momentum with which they rush along upon the flood of public opinion, which rules that every conclusion is absurd, and every argument sophistical, and every maxim untrue, except such as it recoi^oises iLself.

16 On the Relation of the

4- How different has it been with the opposite party ? Confident, indeed, and with reason, of the truth of its great principles, having a perception and certainty of its main tenets, which is like the evidence of sense compared with the feeble, flitting, and unreal views of doctrine held by the Evangelical body, still, as to their application, their adaptation, their combination, their development, it has been miserably conscious that it has had nothing to guide it but its own private and unaided judgment. Dreading its own interpretation of Scripture and the Fathers, feeling its need of an infal- lible guide, yet having none; looking up to its own Mother, as it called her, and finding her silent, ambigu- ous, unsympathetic, sullen, and even hostile to it ; with ritual mutilated, sacraments defective, precedents incon- sistent, articles equivocal, canons obsolete, courts Pro- testant, and synods suspended ; scouted by the laity, scorned by men of the world, hated and blackened by its opponents; and moreover at variance with itself, hardly two of its members taking up the same position, nay, all of them, one by one, shifting their own ground as time went on, and obliged to confess that they were in pro,i,^ress ; is it wonderful, in the words of the Pamphlet already referred to, that these men have ex- hibited "a conduct and a rule of a religious life," "full of shifts, and compromises, and evasions, a rule of life, "based upon the acceptance of half one doctrine, all the-

National Church to the Nation, 1 7

next, and none of the third, upon the belief entirely of another, but not daring to say so ?" After all, they have not been nearly so guilty '' of shifts, and compromises, and evasions," as the national formularies themselves ; but they have had none to support them, or, if I may use a familiar word, to act the bully for them, under the imputation. There was no one, with confident air and loud voice, to retort upon their opponents the charges urged against them, and no public to applaud though there had been. Whether they looked above or below, behind or before, they found nothing, indeed, to shake or blunt their faith in Christ, in His establishment of a Church, in its visibility, continuance, catholicity, and gifts, and in the necessity of belonging to it: they despised the hollowness of their opponents, the incon- sequence of their arguments, the shallowness of their views, their disrelish of principle, and their carelessness about truth, but their heart sunk within them, under the impossibility, on the one hand, of their carrying out their faith into practice, there, where they found themselves, and of realising their ideas in fact, — and the duty on the other, as they were taught it, of making the best of the circumstances in which they were placed Such were tliey; I trust they are so still: I will not allow myself to fancy that secret doubts on the one hand, that self-wiU, disregard of authority, an unmanly, dis- ingenuous bearing, and the spirit of party on the other, have deformed a body of persons whom I have loved,

1 8 On the Relation of the

revered, and sympathised with. I speak of those many persons whom I admired; who, like the hero in the epic, did not want courage, but encouragement; who looked out in vain for the approbation of authority; who felt their own power, but shrank from the omen of evil, the hateful raven, which flapped its wings over them ; who seemed to say with the poet—

Non me tua fervida terrent

Dicta, ferox ; Dii me terrent, et Jupiter hostis.

But their very desire of realities, and their fear of deceiving themselves with dreams, was their insur- mountable difficulty here. They could not make the Establishment what it was not, and this was forced on them day after day. It is a principle, in some sense acknowledged by Catholic theologians, that the spirit of an age modifies its inherited professions. Moralists lay down, that a law loses its authority which the lawgiver knowingly allows to be infringed and put aside; whatever, then, be the abstract claims of the Anglican cause, the fact is that the Hving community to which they belong has for centuries ignored and annulled them. It was a principle parallel to this which furnished one of the reasons on which the judges of the Queen's Bench the other day acted, when they refused to prohibit the execution of the Eoyal decision, in the appeal made from the Bishop of Exeter. His counsel urged certain provisions in statutes of the reiga

National Church to the Nation \ 9

of Henry VIIL, which had not been discussed in the pleadings. ''Were the language of 25 Henry VIIT. c. 9, obscure instead of clear," observed the Chief Justice, " we should not be justified in differing from the con- struction put upon it by contemporaneous and long- continued usage. There would be no safety for property or liberty if it could be successfully contended, that all lawyers and statesmen have been mistaken for centu- ries as to the true meaning of the Act of Parliament/' Whatever becomes of the general question, this was at least the language of reason and common sense; as physical life assimilates to itself, or casts off, what- ever it encounters, allowing no interference with the supremacy of its own proper principles, so is it with life social and civil. When a body politic grows, takes definite shape, and matures, it slights, though it may endure, the vestiges and tokens of its rude beginnings. It may cherish them as curiosities, but it abjures them as precedents. They may hang about it, as the shrivelled blossom about the formed fruit; but they are dead, and will be sure to disappear as soon as they are felt to be troublesome. Common sense tells us these appendages do not apply to things as they are ; and, if individuals attempt to insist on them, they will but bring on themselves the just imputation of vexa- tiousiiess and extravagance. So it is with the Anglican fornmlaries ; they are but the expression of the national sentiment, and therefore are necessarily modified by it.

20 071 the Relation of the

Did the nation grow into Catholicity, they might easily be made to assume a Catholic demeanour ; but as it has matured in its Protestantism, they must take, day by day, a more Evangelical and liberal aspect. Of course I am not saying this by way of justifying individuals in professing and using doctrinal and devotional forms from which they dissent ; nor am I denying that words have, or at least ought to have, a definite meaning which must not be explained away ; I am merely stating what takes place in matter of fact, allowably in some cases, wrongly in others, according to the strength, on the one hand, of the wording of the formulary, and of the diverging opinion on the other.

I say, that a nation's laws are a nation's property, and have their life in the nation's life, and their inter- pretation in the nation's sentiment: and where that living intelligence does not shine through them, they become worthless and are put aside, whether formally or on an understanding. Now Protestantism is, as it has been for centuries, the Eeligion of England ; and since the semi-patristical Church, which was set up for the nation at the Eeformation, is the organ of that religion, it must live for the nation ; it must hide its Catholic aspirations in folios, or in college cloisters ; it must call itself Protestant, when it gets into the pulpit ; it must abjure Antiquity; for woe to it, if it attempt to thrust the wording of its own documents in its master's path.

National Church to the Nation. 2 1

if it rely on a passage in its Visitation for the Sick, or on an Article of the Creed, or on the tone of its Collects, or on a catena of its divines, when the age has determined on a theology more in keeping with the progress of knowledge ! The antiquary, the reader of history, the theologian, the philosopher, the Biblical student may make his protest; he may quote St. Austin, or appeal to the canons, or argue from the nature of the case ; but la Beine le veut ; the English people is sufficient for itself; it wills to be Protestant and progressive; and Fathers, Councils, Schoolmen, Scrip- tures, Saints, Angels, and what is above them, must give way. What are they to it ? It thinks, argues, and acts according to its own practical, intelligible, shallow religion ; and of that religion its Bishops and divines, will they or will they not, must be exponents.^

5.

In this way, I say, we are to explain, but in this way most naturally and satisfactorily, what otherwise would

^ "It is not the practice for Judges to take up points of their own, and, without argument, to decide a case upon them. Lord Eldon used to say, that oftentimes hearing an argument in support of an opinion he had so taken up, convinced him he had been wrong— a great authority iu favour of the good sense of the practice, which the Queen's Bench has disregarded in this case. In the Hampden case, the wliole practice of the Court for two hundred and fifty years was set at naught by Lord Denman. In this case a course has been taken which has never liitherto been followed in questions of a mandamus to a railway, or a criminal in- formation against a newspaper. And both are Church cases."— auardian. May I, 1850.

22 On the Relation of the

be startling, the late Eoyal decision to which I have several times referred. The great legal authorities, on whose report it was made, have not only pronounced, that, as a matter of fact, persons who have denied the grace of Baptism had held the highest preferments in the National Church, but they felt themselves autho- rised actuaUy to interpret its ritual and its doctrine, and to report to her Majesty that the dogma of baptismal regeneration is not part and parcel of the national religion. They felt themselves strong enough, in their position, to pronounce "that the doctrine held by" the Protestant clergyman, who brought the matter before them, "was not contrary or repugnant to the declared doctrine of the Church of England, as by law estab- lished." The question was not whether it was true or not,— as they most justly remarked,— whether from heaven or from hell; they were too sober to meddle with what they had no means of determining; they " abstained from expressing any opinion of their own upon the theological correctness or error of the doctrine " propounded : the question was, not what God had said, but what the English nation had willed and aUowed; and, though it must be granted that they aimed at a critical examination of the letter of the documents, yet it must be granted on the other hand too, that their criticism was of a very national cast, and that the national sentiment was of great use to them in helping them to their conclusions. AVhat was it to the nation

National Church to the Nation. 23

or its lawyers whether Hooker used the word " charity " or "piety" in the extract which they adduced from his works, and that " piety " gave one sense to the passage, and " charity " another ? Hooker must speak as the ex- isting nation speaks, if he is to be a national authority. What though the ritual categorically deposes to the regeneration of the infant baptized ? The Evangelical party, who, in former years, had had the nerve to fix the charge of dishonesty on the explanations of the Thirty-nine Articles, put forth by their opponents, could all the while be cherishing in their own breasts an interpretation of the Baptismal Service, simply con- tradictory to its most luminous declarations. Inexpli- cable proceeding, if they were professing to handle the document in its letter ; but not dishonourable, not dis- honest, not hypocritical, but natural and obvious, on the condition or understanding that the Nation, which imposes the document, imposes its sense, — that by the breath of its mouth it had, as a god, made Establish- ment, Articles, Prayer-Book, and all that is therein, and could by the breath of its mouth as easily and abso- lutely unmake them again, whenever it was disposed.

Counsel, then, and pamphleteers may put forth un- answerable arguments in behalf of the Catholic inter- pretation of the Baptismal service ; a long succession of Bishops, an unbroken tradition of writers, may have faithfully and anxiously guarded it. In vain has the Caroline school honoured it by ritual observance; in

24 On the Relation of the

vain has the Eestoration illustrated it by varied learn- ing ; in vain did the Eevolution retain it as the price for other concessions ; in vain did the eighteenth cen- tury use it as a sort of watchword against Wesley ; in vain has it been persuasively developed and fearlessly proclaimed by the movement of 1833; all this is foreign to the matter before us. We have not to enquire what is the dogma of a collegiate, antiquarian religion, but what, in the words of the Prime Minister, will give " general satisfaction ; " what is the religion of Britons. May not the free-born, self-dependent, animal mind of the Englishman, choose his religion for himself ? and have lawyers any more to do than to state, as a matter of fact and history, what that religion is, and for three centuries has been ? are we to obtrude the mysteries of an objective, of a dogmatic, of a revealed system, upon a nation which intimately feels and has established, that each individual is to be his own judge in truth and falsehood in matters of the unseen world ? How is it possible that the National Church, forsooth, should be allowed to dogmatize on a point which so immediately affects the Nation itself ? Why, half the country is unbaptized ; it is difficult to say for cer- tain who are baptized; shall the country uncluis- tianize itself ? it has not yet advanced to indifference on such a matter. Shall it, by a suicidal act, use its own Church against itself, as its instrument whereby to cut itself ofi' from the hope of another life ? Shall it

National Church to the Nation. 25

confine the Christian promise within limits, and put restrictions upon grace, when it has thrown open trade, removed disabilities, abolished monopolies, taken off agricultural protection, and enlarged the franchise ? — Such is the thought, such the language of the England of to-day. What a day for the defenders of the dogma in bygone times, if those times had anything to do with the present ! What a day for Bishop Lavington, who, gazing on Wesley preaching the new birth at Exeter, pronounced Methodism as bad as ''Popery"! What a portentous day for Bampton Lecturers and divinity Professors ! What a day for Bishop Mant and Arch- bishop Lawrence, and Bishop Van Mildert, and Arch- bishop Sutton, and, as we may trust, what a day had it been for Archbishop Howley, taken away on its very -dawning ! The giant ocean has suddenly swelled and heaved, and majestically yet masterfully snaps the cables of the smaller craft which lie upon its bosom, and strands them upon the beach. Hooker, Taylor, Bull, Pearson, Barrow, Tillotson, Warburton, and Home, names mighty in their generation, are broken and wrecked before the power of a nation's will. One vessel alone can ride those waves; it is the boat of Peter, the ark of God.

6. And now, my brethren, it is plain that this doctrine does not stand by itself :— if the grace of Baptism is not to be taught dogmatically in the :N'ational Church,

26 On the Relation of the

if it be not a heresy to deny it, if to hold it and not to hold it be but matters of opinion, what other doctrine which that Church professes stands on a firmer or more secure foundation ? The same popular voice which has explained away the wording of the Office for Baptism, may of course in a moment dispense with the Athan- asian Creed altogether. Who can doubt, that if that symbol be not similarly dealt with in course of law in years to come, it is because the present judgment will practically destroy its force as efficaciously, and with less trouble to the lawyers ? No individual will dare to act on views which he knows to a certainty would be overruled as soon as they are brought before a legal tribunal. As to the document itself, it will be obvious to allege that the details of the Athanasian Creed were never intended for reception by national believers; that all that was intended (as has before now been avowed) was to uphold a doctrine of a Trinity, and that, provided we hold this " scriptural fact," it matters not whether we be Athanasians, Sabellians, Tritheists, or Socinians, or rather we shall be neither one nor the other of them. Precedents on the other hand are easily adducible of Arian, Sabellian, and Unitarian Bishops and digni- taries, and of divines who professed that Trinitarianism was a mere matter of opinion, both in former times and now. Indeed it might with much reason be main- tained, were the question before a court, that, looking at the matter historically, Locke gave the death-blow

National Church to the Nation. 27

to the Catholic phraseology on that fundnmental doc- trine among the Anglican clergy; and it is surely undeniable, that such points as the Eternal Generation of the Son, the Homotision, and the Hypostatic Union, have been silently discarded by the many, and but anxiously and apologetically put forward by the few. With this existing disposition in the minds of English Churchmen towards a denial of the Catholic doctrine of the Trinity, I surely am not rash in saying, that the recent judgment has virtually removed it from their authoritative teaching altogether.

Nor can eternal punishment be received as an Anglican dogma, against the strong feeling of the age, mth so little in its favour in the national formularies ; nor original sin, considering that the national suspi- cion of it is countenanced and defended by no less an authority of past times than Bishop Jeremy Taylor. And much less the inspiration of Scripture, and the existence of the evil spirit, doctrines which are not mentioned in the Thirty-nine Articles at all. Yet, plain though this be, at this moment the Evangelical members of the Establishment are extolling the recent judgment, and are transported at the triumph it gives them, as if it might not, or would not, in time to come, be turned against themselves ; as if, while it directly affected the doctrine of baptismal grace, it had no bear- ing upon those of predestination, election, satisfaction, justification, and others, of which they consider them-

-28 On the Relation of the

selves so especially the champions. Poor victims 1 do you dream that the spirit of the age is working for you, or are you indeed secretly prepared to go further than you avow ? At least some of you are honest enough to be praising the recent judgment on its own account, and blind enough not to see what it involves ; and so you contentedly and trustfully throw yourselves into the arms of the age. But it is " to-day for me, to- morrow for thee ! " Do you really think the age is stripping Laud or Bull of his authority, in order to set up Whittaker or Baxter ? or with what expedient are you to elude a power, whose aid you have already invoked against your enemies ? ^

7.

For us, Catholics, my brethren, while we clearly recognise how things are going with our countrymen

^ The Oxford tutors are more sharp-sighted ; understanding the mental state of the junior portion of the University, they see that a decision like that of the Privy Council is fitted to destroy at once what little hold the old Anglican system has on them, and to give entrance among them to a scepticism on all points of religion. In a stiong and spirited protest, they quote against the Archbishop the very words he used on another occasion, eight or nine years since. Yet his evasive interpreta- tion of the Baptismal service is not the fault of the Archbishop, but of the Reformers. No member of the Establishment can believe in a system of theology of any kind, without doing violence to the formularies. Those only go easily along Articles and Prayer-book, who do not think. It is remarkable, the Archbishop's book on apostolical Preaching first brought the present writer to a belief in baptismal regeneration in 1824. He has the copy still, with his objections marked on the side, given him for the purpose of convincing him by a dignitary whom he has ever loved amid the gravest differences, Dr. Hawkins.

National Church to the Nation. 29

and while we would not accelerate the march of infidelity if we could help it, yet we are more desirous that you should leave a false church for the true, than that a false church should hold its ground. For if we are blessed in converting any of you, we are effecting a direct, unequivocal, and substantial benefit, which out- weighs all points of expedience — the salvation of your souls. I do not undervalue at all the advantage of institutions which, though not Catholic, keep out evils worse than themselves. Some restraint is better than none ; systems which do not simply inculcate divine truth, yet serve to keep men from being utterly hardened against it, when at length it addresses them ; they pre- serve a certain number of revealed doctrines in the popular mind ; they familiarize it to Christian ideas ; they create religious associations; and thus, remotely and negatively, they may even be said to prepare and dispose the soul in a certain sense for those inspirations of grace, which, through the merits of Christ, are freely given to all men for their salvation, all over the earth. It is a plain duty, then, not to be forward in destroying religious institutions, even though not Catholic, if we cannot replace them with what is better ; but, from fear of injuring them, to shrink from saving the souls of the individuals who live under them, would be worldly wisdom, treachery to Christ, and uncharitableness to His redeemed.

As to the Catholic Church herself, no vicissitude of

30 On the Relation of the

circumstances can hurt her which allows her fair play. If, indeed, from the ultimate resolution of all heresies and errors into some one form of infidelity or scepticism, the nation was strong enough to turn upon her in per- secution, then indeed she might be expelled from our land, as she has been expelled before now. Then perse- cution w^ould do its work, as it did three centuries ago. But this is an extreme case, which is not to be anti- cipated. Till the nation becomes thus unanimous in unbelief. Catholics are secured by the collision and balance of religious parties, and are sheltered under that claim of toleration which each sect prefers for itself. But give us as much as this, an open field, and we ask no favour ; every form of Protestantism turns to our advantage. Its establishments of religion remind the world of that archetypal Church of which it is a copyist ; its Creeds contain portions of our teaching ; its quarrels and divisions serve to break up its traditions, and rid its professors of their prejudices ; its scepticism makes them turn in admiration and in hope to her, who alone is clear in her teaching and consistent in its transmis- sion ; its very abuse of her makes them inquire about lier. She fears nothing from political parties; she shrinks from none of them ; she can coalesce with any. She is not jealous of progress nor impatient with con- servatism, if either be the national will. ISTor is there anything for us to fear (except for the moment and for the sake of individuals) in that movement towards

National Church to the Nat

ion.

Pantheism, in the Protestant woiid,i which excites the special anxiety of many ; for, in truth, there is some- thing so repugnant to the feelings of man, in systems which deprive God of His perfections, and reduce Him to a name, which remove the Creator to an indefinite distance from His creatures, under the pretence of bringing them near to Him, and refuse Him the liberty of sending mediators and ordaining instruments to con- nect them with Him, which deny the existence of sin, the need of pardon, and the fact of punishment, which maintain that man is happy here and sufficient for himself, when he feels so keenly his own ignorance and desolateness, — and on the other hand, the sects and parties round about us are so utterly helpless to remedy his evils, and to supply his need, — that the preachers of these new ideas from Germany and America are really, however much against their will, like Caiphas, pro- phesying for us. Surely they will find no resting-place anywhere for their feet, and the feet of their disciples, but will be tumbled down from one depth of blasphemy to another, till they arrive at sheer and naked athe- ism, the reductio ad ahsurdum of their initial principles. Logic is a stern master; they feel it, they protest against it ; they profess to hate it and would fain dis - pense with it ; but it is the law of their intellectual

^ I am aware that the name of Pantheism is repudiated by sevei-sil writers of the school I allude to, but I think it will be fouud to be the ultimate resolution of its princii^les.

^2 On the Relation, etc.

nature. StruggUng and shrieking, but in vain, will they make the inevitable descent into that pit from which there is no return, except through the almost miraculous grace of God, the grant of which in tHs life is never hopeless. And Israel, without a fight, will see their enemies dead upon the sea-shore.

I will but observe in conclusion, that, in thus ex- plaining the feeling under which I address myself to members of the Anglican communion in these Lectures, [ have advanced one step towards fulfilling the object with which I have undertaken them. For it is a very common difficulty which troubles men, when they contemplate submission to the Catholic Church, that perhaps they shall thus be weakening the communion they leave, which, with whatever defects, they see in matter of fact to be a defence of Christianity against its enemies. No, my brethren, you will not be harming it; if the National Church falls, it falls because it is national; because it left the centre of unity in the sixteenth century, not because you leave it in the nine- teenth. Cranmer, Parker, Jewell, will complete their own work; they who made it, will be its destruction.

LECTURE II.

THE MOVEMENT OF l8jj FOREIGN TO THE NATIONAL CHURCH.

lUT object in these Lectures, my brethren, is not to construct any argument in favour of Catholicism, for there is no need. Arguments exist in abundance, and of the highest cogency, and of the most wonderful variety, provided severally by the merciful wisdom of its Divine Author, for distinct casts of mind and cha- racter;—so much so, that it is often a mistake in con- troversy to cumulate reasons for what is on many con- siderations so plain already, and the evidence of which is only weakened to the individual inquirer, when he is distracted by fresh proofs, consistent indeed with those which have brought conviction to him, but to him less convincing than his own, and at least strange and unfamiliar. Every inquirer may have enough of positive proof to convince him that the Catholic Eeligion is divine ; it is owing to the force of counter- objections that his conviction remains in fact either defective or inoperative. I consider, then, that I shall

34 'J-'he Movement 0/1833

be ministering in my measure to the cause of truth, if I do ever so little towards removing the difficulties, or any of them, which beset the mind, when it is urged to accept Catholicism as true. It is with this view that I have insisted on the real character of the Estal.lished Church, and its relation to the nation ; for, if it be mainly as I have represented it, a department of go- vernment under the temporal sovereign, one at least is struck off from the catalogue of your objections You fear to leave it lest you should, by your secession, throw it into the hands of a latitudinarian party ; but it never has been in your hands, nor ever under your influence. It is in the hands of the nation ; it is mainly what the nation is : such is it, while you are in it; such would it be, if you left it. I do not deny you may by your presence somewhat retard its downward career, but you are not of the real importance to it, which

you fancy.

Kow, in the course of the argument I made a remark, wHch I shall to-day pursue. I spoke of the movement which began in the Establishment in 1833, or shortly before; and I dwelt on the remarkable fact, that in nearly twenty years that movement, though certainly it exerted great influence over the views of individuals nevertheless has created a mere party in the National Church, having had the least possible influence over tlie National Church itself ; and no wonder, if that Church be simply an organ or department of the State, for in

Foreign to thr National Church. 35

that case, all ecclesiastical acts really proceeding from the supreme civil government, to influence the Estab- lishment, is nothing else than to influence the Statue, or even the Constitution.

Now I shall pursue the argument. I shall, by means of one or two suggestions, try to bring home to you the extreme want of congeniality which has existed between the movement of 1833 and the nation at large; and then assuming that you, my brethren, owe your principles to that movement, and that your first duty is to your principles, I shall infer your own want of congeniality with the national reHgion, however you may wish it otherwise ; I shaU infer that you have no concern with that national religion, have no place in it, have no reason for belonging to it, and have no respon- sibilities towards it.

I am then to point out to you, that, what is sometimes called, or rather what caHs itself, the Anglo-Catholic teaching, is not only a novelty in this age (for to prove a thing new to the age, is not enough in order to prove it uncongenial), but that, while it is a system adven- titious and superadded to the national religion, it is, moreover, not supplemental, or complemental, or col- lateral, or correlative to it,— not implicitly involved in it, not developed from it,— nor combining with it,— nor capable of absorption into it: but, on the contrary, most uncongenial and heterogeneous, floating upon i^ a foreign substance, like oil upon the water. And my

36 The Movement of iZ^:^

proof shall consist, first, of wiiat was augured of it vvhen it commenced ; secondly, wliat has been fulfilled concerning it during its course.

2.

As to the auguries with which it started, we need not go beyond the first agents of the movement, in order to have a tolerably sufficient proof that it had no lot, noi portion, nor parentage in the Established Church ; foi w^hen those who first recommended to her its principles and doctrines are found themselves to have doubted how far these were congenial with her, when the very physi- cians were anxious as to what would come of their own medicines, who shall feel confidence in them ? Such, however, was the case : its originators confessed that they were forcing upon the Establishment doctrines from which it revolted, doctrines with which it never had given signs of coalescing, doctrines which tended they knew not whither. This is what they felt, this i& what with no uncertain sound they publicly proclaimed. For instance, one, who, if any, is the author of the movement altogether, and whose writings were published after his death, says in one of his letters, " It seems agreed amoni,^ the wise, that we must begin by laying a foundation." Again he writes to a friend, " I am getting more and more to feel, what you tell me, about the impracticability of making sensible people,' that is, the High Church party of the day, ''enter into oui

Foreign to the National Church. 2>7

ecclesiastical views; and, what is most discouraging, I hardly see how to set about leading them to us.""" Else- where he asks, " How is it we are so much in advance of our generation?" And again, -The age is out of joint." And again, " I shall write nothing on the sub- ject of Church grievances, till I have a tide to work with." Further he calls the Establishment "an in- cubus upon the country," and, "a upas tree:" and, lastly, within three or four months of his death, his theological views still expanding and diverging from the existing state of things, he exclaims, "How mis- taken we may ourselves be on many points, that are only gradually opening on us !" ^

Avowals of a like character are made with the utmost frankness in the very work which in 1837 professed formally to lay down and defend the new doctrines. The writer (that is, myself) begins by allowing that he is "discussing rather than teaching, what was meant to be simply an article of faith, " viz., belief in "the Catholic Church," alleging in excuse that "the teaching of the Apostles concerning it is, in a good measure, withdrawn," and that, "we are, so far, left to make the best of our way to the promised land by our natural resources." 2 The preaching of the doctrines of the movement is compared, in its strange- nesa, to the original preaching of Christianity, and this

^ Fronde's Remains, vol. i. 2 Prophetical Office of the Church. Vid. Via Media, vcl, i.. ed. 1877.

38 The Movement o/* 1833

only alleviation is suggested, if it be any, that they who are startled at those doctrines, could not be woore startled than "the outcasts to whom the Apostles preached in the beginning." Kay, it is categorically stated, that " these doctrines are in one sense as en- tirely new as Christianity when first preached." He continues, " Pre testantism and Popery" (by Popery he means the popular Catholic system) " are real religions ; no one can doubt about them ; they have furnished the mould in which nations have been cast ; but the Via Media, viewed as an integral system, has scarcely had existence except on paper." Presently he continues "It still remains to be tried, whether what is called Anglo-Catholicism, the religion of Andrewes, Laud, Hammond, Butler, and Wilson, is capable of being professed, acted on, and maintained in a large sphere of action, and through a sufficient period; or whether it be a mere modification or transition state, either of Komanism or of popular Protestantism, according as we view it." " It may be argued," he adds, and, as he does not deny, argued with plausibility, "that the Church of England, as established by law, and existing in fact, has never represented a certain doctrine, or been the development of a principle; that it has been but a name, or a department of the State, or a political party in which religious opinion was an accident, and there- fore has been various." And this prospectus, as it may be called, of a new system, ends by stating that, "it

Foreign to the ^\aional Church. 39

is proposed to offer helps towards the formation of a recognised Anglican theology in one of its departments." . . . "We require a recognised theology," he insists, " and, if the present work, instead of being what it is meant to be, a first approximation to the required so- lution, in one department of a complicated problem, contains, after all, but a series of illustrations demon- strating our need, and supplying hints for its removal ; such a result, it is evident, will be quite a sufficient return for whatever anxiety it has cost the writer to have employed his own judgment on so serious a subject."

I must add, in justice to this writer, and it is not much to say for him, that he did not entertain the presumptuous thought of creating, at this time of day, a new theology himself; he considered that a theology true in itself, and necessary for the position of the Anglican Church, was to be found in the writings of Andrewes, Laud, Bramhall, Stillingfleet, Butler, and other of its divines, but had never been put together, — as he expressly declares. Nor, in spite of his mis- givings, was he without a persuasion that the theological system contained in those writers, and derived, as he believed, from the primitive Fathers, not only ought to be, but might be, and, as he hoped, would be, acknow ledged and acted upon by the Establishment. On the other hand, I allow, of course, and am not loth to allow, that, had he seen clearly that Antiquity and the Estab-

4Q

The Movement 0/1833

lishment were incompatible with each other, he would promptly have given up the Establishment, rather than have rejected Antiquity. Moreover, let it be observed, in evidence of his misgivings on the point, that, when he gets to the end of his volume, instead of their being removed, they return in a more definite form, and he confesses that " the thought, with which we entered upon the subject, is apt to recur, when the excitement of the inquiry has subsided, and weariness has succeeded, that what has been said is but a dream, the wanton exercise, rather than the practical conclusions, of the intellect."

3-

These auguries speedily met with a response, though in a less tranquil tone, in every part of the Establish- ment, and by each of the schools of opinion within it, —the High Church section, the Evangelical, and the Latitudinarian. They condemned, not only the attempt, but the authors of it. The late Dr Arnold, a man who always spoke his mind, avowed that his feelings towards a Eoman Catholic were quite different from his f eeUngs to the author of the above work. '' I think the one," he continued, '' a fair enemy, the other a treacherous one. The one is the Frenchman in his own uniform, the other is the Frenchman disguised in a red coat. I should honour the first and hang the second." For the Evangelical party, it is scarcely necessary to make the following extracts from the work of even a cautious

Foreign to the National Church. 4 1

and careful writer: — "If," says the writer of "Essays ou the Churcii/' " tlie grievances and warfare of Dis- senters against it have greatly diminished in interest, a new and gigantic evil has arisen up in their room. . . Popery, not indeed of the days of Hildebrand or Leo the Tenth, but Popery as it first established itself in the seventh and eighth centuries, is already among us. . . . Popery has anew arisen up among uSj in youthful vigour and in her youthful attractions. Such is the chief, the greatly preponderating peril, which besets the Church of England at the present day. It has in it all the essential features of Popery ; but, apart from this, and were it never to proceed beyond the perils to which it has now reached, it is fraught with the fearful evil of a withering, parching, blighting ■operation, drying -up and banishing all spiritual life and influence from the Church."^

Lastly, a theological professor of the High Church section, in an attack which he delivered from the pulpit, viewed the movement from another point of view, yet in perfect accordance of judgment with the two writers who have been already cited : " Instead of quietly acquiescing," he says, "in what they cannot change, submitting in silence to their imagined privations, and patiently enduring this ' meagreness of Protestantism,' by a species of 'ecclesiastical agitation,' unexampled

1 Essaj's on the Church, by a Layman, 1838, pp. 270, 299, 30a Ditto. 1840, p. 401.

42 The Movement of iS2,3

in obtrusiveness and perseverance, they are unsettling the faith of the weak, blinding the judgment of the sober-minded, raising the hopes of the most inveterate advocates of our Eeformed and Protestant Church, and, as far as a small knot of malcontents can well be sup- posed capable, they are compromising her character and disturbing her peace." ^

Yet even at this date, in spite of the success which for five years had attended him, the author whom I have already quoted felt no greater confidence tliac before in his own congeniality with the National Church ; and, on occasion of the last-mentioned attack upon him, scrupled not to avow the fact. " Sure I am," said he, " that the more stir is made about those opinions which you censure, the wider they will spread. Whatever be the faults or mistakes of their advocates, they have that root of truth in them, which, as I do firmly believe, has a blessing with it. / do not ^pretend to say they will ever become widely ]po;pular, that is another matter : truth is never, or at least never long, popular ; nor do I say they will ever gain that powerful external influence over the many which truth, vested in the few, cherished, throned, energising in the few, often has possessed; nor that they are not destined, as truth has often been destined, to be cast away, and at length trodden nnder foot as an odious thing : but of this I am sure, that, at tliis juncture, in proportion .is

1 Faussett's Sermon, 1838, Preface to Third Edition.

Foreign to the National Church. 4-^

they are known, they will make their way through the community, picking out their own, seeking and obtain- ing refuge in the hearts of Christians, high and low, here and there, with this man and that, as the case may be ; doing their work in their day, and raising a memorial and a witness to this fallen generation of what once has been, of what God would ever have, of what one day shall be in perfection; and that, not from what they are in themselves, because, viewed in the concrete, they are mingled, as everything human must be, with error and infirmity, but by reason of the spirit, the truth, the old Catholic life and power which is in them." ^

4. What was it, then, which the originators of the movement of 1833 demanded or desiderated in its behalf, in the communion for whose benefit it was intended ? How came they to dread lest the principles of St. Athanasius and of St. Ambrose should fail to take root in the minds of their brethren, and to spread through the laity ? In truth, when they feared that the good seed would fall, not on a congenial soil, but on hard, or stony, or occupied ground, they were fear- ing that the E"ationai Church, though they did not use the word, had no life. Life consists or manifests itself in activity of principle. There are various kinds of life, and each kind is the influence or operation in a

' The author's "Letter to Dr. Faussett." Vid. Via Media, voi. ii.

44 The Movem.ent o/* 1833

body of those principles upon which the body is con- stituted. Each kind of life is to be referred, and is congenial, to its own principle. Principles, distinct from each other, will not take root and flourish in bodies to which respectively they are foreign. One principle has not the life of another. The life of a plant is not the same as the life of an animated being, and the life of the body is not the same as the life of the intellect ; nor is the life of the intellect the same in kind as the life of grace ; nor is the life of the Church the same as the life of the State. When, then, these writers doubted whether Apostolical principles, as they called them, would spread through the laity of England, they were doubting whether that laity lived, oreathed, energised, in Apostolical principles ; whether Apostolical principles were the just expression and the constituent element of the national sentiment ; whether the intellectual and moral life of the nation was not distinct from the life of the Apostolical age ; and, if the -Establishment professed to be built upon the principles and to partake of the life of the Apostolica] age, as they knew ought to be the case, then they were doubting whether it really had those principles and that life, in spite of its professions.

There was no doubt at all, there is no doubt at all, that the Establishment has some kind of life. No one ever doubted it; and one of its dignitaries trium- phantly proves it in a passage which I will quote:—

Foreign to tliv National Church.

45

Surely, my dear friend," says this accomplished writer,^ with a reference to the present controversy,. "it requires an inordinate faith in one's own logical dreams, an idolising worship of one's own opinions, ta believe that the Church of England, blest as she has been by God for so many generations, raised as she has been by Him to be the mother of so many Churches, with such a promise shining upon her, and brightening every year, that her daughters should spread round the earth, that she, who has been chosen by God to be the instrument of so many blessings, and the presence of the Lord and His Spirit with whom was never more manifest than at this day, should forfeit her office and authority, as a witness of the truth, should be cut off from the body of Christ's Church, and should no longer be able to dispense the grace of the sacraments, because her highest law court has not condemned a proposition asserted by one of her ministers, concerning a very obscure and perplex- ing question of dogmatical theology. Surely this would be an extraordinary delusion ; . . . for, whatever the dogmatical value of the opinion " in question '' may be, the error is not one which indicates any want of personal faith and holiness, or any decay of Christian life in the Church."

No, I grant it would be very difficult to the imagina- tion to receive it as a dogma, that there was no "life'*"

^ Archdeacon Hare, in Rtcord Newspaper.

4.6 The Movement o/' 1833

in the National Church, or indeed no "faith." The simple question is, What is meant by "life" and "faith"? Will the Archdeacon tell us whether he does not mean by faith a something very vague and comprehensive ? Does he mean, as he might say, the faith of Marcus Antoninus, St. Austin, and Peter the Hermit, of Luther, Eousseau, Washington, and Napo- leon Bonaparte ? Faith has one meaning to a Catholic, another to a Protestant. And life, — is it the religious "life" of England, or of Prussia, that he means, or is it Catholic life, that is, the life v/hich belongs to Catholic principles ? Else he will be arguing in a circle, if he is to prove that Protestants have that life, which mani- fests "the presence of the Spirit," on the ground of their having, as they are sure to have, a life congenial and in conformity to Protestant principles. If then " life " means strength, activity, energy, and well-being of any kind whatever, in that case doubtless the national religion is alive. It is a great power in the midst of us ; it wields an enormous influence ; it represses a hundred foes; it conducts a hundred undertakings. It attracts men to it, uses them, rewards them; it has thousands of beautiful homes up and down the country, where quiet men may do its work and benefit its people ; it collects vast sums in the shape of voluntary offerings, and with them it builds churches, prints and distributes innumerable Bibles, books, and tracts and sustains missionaries in all

Foreign to the National Church. 47

parts of the earth. In all parts of the earth it opposes the Catholic Church, denounces her as antichristian, bribes the world against her, obstructs her influence, apes her authority, and confuses her evidence. In all parts of the world it is the religion of gentlemen, of scholars, of men of substance, and men of no personal faith at all. If this be life, — ^if it be life to impart a tone to the court and houses of parliament, to ministers of state, to law and literature, to universities and schools, and to society, — if it be life to be a prin- €iple of order in the population, and an organ of benevolence and almsgiving towards the poor, — if it be life to make men decent, respectable, and sensible, to embellish and refine the family circle, to deprive vice of its grossness, and to shed a gloss over avarice and ambition, — if indeed it is the life of religion to be the first jewel in the Queen's crown, and the highest step of her throne, then doubtless the National Church is replete, it overflows with life; but the question has still to be answered. Life of what kind ? Heresy has its life, worldliness has its life. Is the Establishment's life merely national life, or is it something more ? Is it Catholic life as well ? Is it a supernatural life ? Is it congenial with, does it proceed from, does it belong to, the principles of Apostles, Martyrs, Evangelists, and Doctors, the principles which the movement of 1833 thought to impose or to graft upon it, or does it revolt irom them ? If it be Catholic and Apostolic, it will en~

48 The Movement of i^2>Z

dure Catholic and Apostolic principles ; no one doubts it can endure Erastian ; no one doubts it can be patient of Protestant ; this is the problem which was started by the movement in question, the problem for which, surely, there has been an abundance of tests in the course of

twenty years.

5. But the passage I have quoted suggests a second observation. I have spoken of the tests, which the last twenty years have furnished, of the real character of the Establishment; for I must not be supposed to be inquiring whether the Establishment has been unchurched during that period, but whether it has been proved to have been no Church from the first. The want of congeniality which now exists between the sentiments and ways, the moral life of the Anglican communion, and the principles, doctrines, traditions of Catholicism — this uncongeniality I am speaking of in order to prove something done and over long ago before the movement, in order to show that that movement of 1833 was from its very beginning engaged in propa- gating an unreality. The eloquent writer just quoted, in ridicule of the protest made by twelve very distin - guished men against the Queen's recent decision con- cerning the sacrament of baptism, contrasts "logical dreams" and "obscure and perplexing questions of dogmatic theology " with " the promise " in the Estab- lishment of a large family " of daughters, spread round

Foreign to the National Chirdi. 49

the earth, shining and brightening every year." Xow. I grant that it has a narrow and technical appearance to decide the Catholicity of a religious body by particular words, or deeds, or measures, resulting from the temper of a particular age, accidentally elicited, and accom- plished in minutes or in days. I allow it and feel it ; — that a particular vote of parliament, endured or tacitly accepted by bishops and clergy, or by the Metro- politans, or a particular appointment, or a particular omission, or a particular statement of doctrine, should at once change the spiritual character of the body, and ipso facto cut it off from the centre of unity and the source of grace, is almost incredible. In spite of such acts, surely the Anglican Church might be to-day what it was yesterday, with an internal power and a supernatural virtue, provided it had not already forfeited them, and would go about its work as of old time. It would be to-day pretty much what it was yesterday, though in the course of the night it had allowed an Anglo-Prussian See to be set up in Jerusalem, and had disavowed the Athanasian Creed.

This is the common sense of the matter, to which the mind recurs with satisfaction, after zeal and ingenuity have done their utmost to prove the contrary. Of course, I am not saying that individual acts do not tend towards, and a succession of acts does not issue in, the most serious spiritual consequences; but it is so

i^o The Movement c/ 1833

difficult to determine the worth of each ecclesiastical act, and what its position is relatively to acts before and after it, that I have no intention of urging any argument deduced from such acts in particular. A gene ration may not be long enough for the completion of an act of schism or heresy. Judgments admit of repeal or reversal ; enactments are liable to flaws and infor- malities ; laws require promulgation ; documents admit of explanation; words must be interpreted either by context or by circumstances; majorities may be ana- lysed; responsibilities may be shifted. I admit the remark of another writer in the present controversy, though I do not accept his conclusion : " The Church's motion," he says, '4s not that of a machine, to be calculated with accuracy, and predicted beforehand; where one serious injury will disturb all regularity, and finally put a stop to action. It is that of a living body, whose motions will be irregular, incapable of being exactly arranged and foretold, and where it is nearly impossible to say how much health may co-exist with how much disease." And he speaks of the line 01 reasoning which he is opposing, as being "too logical to be real. Men," he observes, " do not, in the prac- tical affairs of life, act on such clear, sharp, definite theories. Such reasoning can never be the cause of any one leaving the Church of England. But it looks well on paper, and therefore may, perhaps, be put forward as a theoretical argument by those who, from

Foreign to the National Church. 5 i

some other feeling, or fancy, or prejudice, or honest conviction, think fit to leave us." ^

Truly said, except in the imputation conveyed in the concluding words. I will grant that it is by life without us, by life within us, by the work of grace in our communion and in ourselves, that we are all of us accustomed practically to judge whether that com- munion be Catholic or not ; not by this or that formal act or historical event. I will grant it, though of course it requires some teaching, and some discernment, and some prayer, to understand what spiritual life is, and what is the working of grace. However, at any rate, let the proposition pass ; — I will here allow it, at least for argument's sake ; for, my brethren, I am not tiere going to look out, in the last twenty years, for dates vv^hen, and ways in which, the Establishment tell from Catholic unity, and lost its divine privileges. N'o; the question before us is nothing narrow or technical ; it has no cut-and-dried premisses, and per- smptory conclusions; it is not whether this or that statute or canon at the time of the Eeformation, this or that " further and further encroachment " of the State this or that "Act of William IV.," constituted the Establishment's formal separation from the Church: not whether the Queen's recent decision binds it to heresy ; but, whether these acts, and abundant others, are not one and all evidences, in one out of a hundred

^ Neal's Few Words of Hope, pp. 11, 12.

52 The Movement o/' 1833

heads of evidence, that, whatever were the acts which constituted, or the moment which completed the schism, or rather the utter disorganisation of the National Church, cut off and disorganised it is. is'o sober man I suppose, dreams of denying, that, if that Church be un- apostolical and impure now, it has had no claim to be called " pure and apostolical " last year, or twenty years back, or for any part of the period since the Reformation.

We have, then, this simple question before us: What evidence is there, that the doctrines and prin- ciples proclaimed to the world in 1833 had then, or have now, any congeniality with the Establishment in which they were propagated, and that they could or can live in that Establishment; whether they can move or work, whether they can breathe and live in it, better than a being with lungs in an exhausted receiver ? It was doubted, as we have seen, by their first preachers ; how has it been determined by the event? I^ow, then, to give one or two specimens and illustrations of a fact too certain, as I think, to need much dwell- ing on.

6.

We know that it is the property of life to be im- patient of any foreign substance in the body to which it belongs. It will be sovereign in its own domain, and It conflicts with what it cannot assimilate into itself, and is irritated and disordered till it has expelled it.

Foreign to the National Church, 53

Such expulsion, then, is, emphatically, a test of uncon- geniality, for it shows that the substance ejected, not only is not one with the body that rejects it, but cannot be made one with it ; that its introduction is not only useless, or superfluous, or adventitious, but that it is intolerable. For instance, it is usual for High Church- men to speak of the Establishment as patient, in matter of fact, both of Catholic and Protestant prin- ciples;— truly said as regards Protestant, and it will illustrate my point to give instances of it. ISTo one will deny, then, that neither Lutheranism nor Calvinism is the exact doctrine of the Church of England, and yet either heresy readily coalesces with it in matter of fact. Persons of Lutheran and Calvinistic, and Luthero-Calvinist bodies, are and have been chosen without scruple by the English people for husbands and wives, for sponsors, for missionaries, for deans and canons, without any formal transition from com- munion to communion. The Anglican Prelates write complimentary letters to what they call the foreign Protestant Churches, and they attend, with their clergy and laity, Protestant places of worship abroad. William III. was called to the throne, though a Cal- vinist, and George I., though a Lutheran, and that in order to exclude a family who adhered to the religion of Ptome. The national religion, then, has a congeniality with Lutheranism and Calvinism, which it has not, for instance, with the Greek religion, or the Jewish. Other

54 The Movement 0/1833

relio-ions, as they come, whatever they be, are not in* different to it; it takes up one, it precipitates another; it, as every religion, has a life, a spirit, a genius of its own, in which doctrines lie implicit, out of which they are developed, and by which they are attracted into it from without, and assimilated to it.

There is a passage in Moehler's celebrated work on Symbolism, so much to the point here, that I will quote it : '' Each nation," he says, '•' is endowed with a peculiar character, stamped on the deepest, most hidden parts of its being, which distinguishes it from all other nations, and manifests its peculiarity in public and domestic life, in art and science ; in short, in every relation. In every general act of a people, the national spirit is infallibly expressed ; and should contests, should selfish factions occur, the element destructive to the vital principle of the whole will most certainly be detected in them, and the commotion excited by an alien spirit either miscarries or is expelled; as long as the com- munity preserves its self-consciousness, as long as its peculiar genius yet lives and works within it. . . . Let us contemplate the religious sect founded by Luther himself. The developed doctrines of his Church, con- signed as they are in the symbolical books, retain, on the whole, so much of his spirit, that, at the first view, they must be recognised by the observer as genuine productions of Lutlier. With a sure vital instinct, the opinions of the Majorists, the Synergists, and others.

Foreign to flie National Church. 55

were rejected as deadly, and indeed (from Luther's point of view) as untrue, by that community whoso soul, whose living principle, he was." ^

We have the most vivid and impressive illurstrations of the truth of these remarks in the hi-tory of the Church. The religious life of a people is of a certain quality and in a certain direction, and this quality and this direction are tested by the mode in which it encounters the various opinions, customs, and institu- tions Y/hich are submitted to it. Drive a stake into a river's bed, and you will at once ascertain which way it is running, and at what speed ; throw up even a straw upon the air, and you will see which way the wind blows ; submit your heretical and your Catholic principle to the action of the multitude, and you will be able to pronounce at once wdiether that multitude is imbued with Catholic truth or with heretical falsehood.

7.

Take, for example, a passage in the history of the fourth century ; let the place be Milan ; the date the Lent of 384, 385 ; the reigning powers Justina and her son Valentinian, and St. Ambrose the Archbishop. The city is in an uproar ; there is a mob before the imperial residence ; the soldiery interferes in vain, and Ambrose is despatched by the court to disperse the people. A month elapses; Palm Sunday is come; the Aichbisnop

^ Robertson's Transl., vol. ii. pp. 36-39.

56 The Movement of 1833

is expounding the Creed to the catechumens, when he is told that the people are again in commotion. A second message comes, that they have seized one of the empress's priests. The court makes reprisals on the tradesmen, some of whom are fined, some thrown into prison, while men of higher rank are threatened. We are arrived at the middle of Holy Week, and we find soldiers posted before one of the churches, and Ambrose has menaced them with excommunication. His threat overcomes them, and they join the congregation to whom he is preaching. The court gives way, the guards are withdrawn to their quarters, and the fines are re- mitted. What does all this mean? There evidently has been a quarrel between the court and the Arch- bishop, and the Archbishop, aided by the populai enthusiasm, has conquered, A year passes, and there is a second and more serious disturbance. Soldiers have surrounded the same church; yet, dreading an excommunication, they let the people enter, but refuse to let them pass out. Still the people keep entering ; they fill the church, the courtyard, the priests' lodgings ; and there they remain with the Archbishop for two or three days, singing psalms, till tlio soldiers, overcome by the music, sing psalms too, and the blockade melts away, no one knows how. And now. what was the cause of so enthusiastic, so dogged an opposition to the court, on the part of the population of Milan ? The answer is plain ; it was because they

Foreign to the National Church. 57

loved Christ so well, and were so sensitive of the doctrine of His divinity, that they would not allow the reigning powers to take a church from them, and bestow it on the Arians. I conceive, then, that Catholicism was emphatically the religion of Milan, or that the life of the Milanese Church was a Catholic life.

And so, in like manner, when in St. Giles' Church, Edinburgh, in July 1635, the dean of the city opened the service-book, in the presence of Bishop and Privy Council, and " a multitude of the meanest sort, most of them women," clapped their hands, cursed him, cried out, " A pope ! a pope ! antichrist ! stone him ; " ^ and one flung a stool at the Bishop, and others threw stones at doors and windows, and at Privy-seal and Bishop on their return, and this became the beginning of a movement which ended in obtaining the objects at which it aimed, — this, I consider, shows clearly enough that the religious life at Edinburgh at that day was not Catholic, not Anglican, but Presbyterian and Puritan,

And, to take one more instance, when the seven Bishops were committed to the Tower, and were pro- ceeding " down the river to their place of confinement, the banks were covered with spectators, who, while they knelt and asked their blessing, prayed themselves for a blessing on them and their cause. The very soldiers who guarded them, and some even of the officers to

^ Hume. Charles the First.

58 The Movement of 18

00

whose charge they were committed, knelt in like manner before them, and besought their benediction." When they were brought before the Court of King's Bench, they "passed through a line of people who kissed their hands and their garments, and begged their blessing ; " and when they were admitted to bail, " bonfires were made in the streets, and healths drunk to the Seven Champions of the Church." Lastly, when they were acquitted, the verdict " was received with a shout which seemed to shake the hall. . . . All the churches were filled with people : the bells rang from every tower, every house was illuminated, and bonfires were kindled in every street. Medals M^ere struck in honour of the event, and portraits hastily published and eagerly purchased, of men who were compared to the seven golden candlesticks, and called the seven stars of the Protestant Church." 1 ISTow here again are signs of life, religious life, doubtless, but thev have nothingr to do with Catholicism ; thev are indubitable, unequivocable tokens what the national religion was and is, affording a clear illustration of the congeniality existing between the spirit and character of a system and its own principles, and not with their opposites.

8.

Let a people, then. Catholic or not, be little versed in doctrine — let them be a practical, busy people, full of

' Southev's Book of the Churcli.

Foreign to the National Church,

59

their secular matters — let tliein have no keen analvtical view of the principles which govern them, — yet they will be spontaneously attracted by those principles and irritated by their contraries, in such sort as thev can be attracted or irritated by no other. Their own principles or their contraries, when once sounded in their ears, thrill through them with a vibration, pleasant or pain- ful, with sweet harmony or with grating discord ; under which they cannot rest quiet, but relieve their feelings by gestures and cries, and startings to and fro, and expressions of sympathy or antipathy towards others, and at length by combination, and party manifestos, and vigorous action. When, then, the note of Catho- licism, as it may be called, was struck seventeen years since, and while it has sounded louder and louder on the national ear, what has been the response of the national sentiment ? It had many things surely in its favour; it sounded from a centre which commanded attention — it sounded strong and full; nor was it intermitted, or checked, or lowered by the opposition nor drowned by the clamour, which it occasioned while, at length, it was re-echoed and repeated from other centres with zeal, and energy, and sincerity, and effect, as great as any cause could even desire or could ask for. So far, no movement could have more advan- tages attendant on it than it had ; and, as it proceeded, it did not content itself with propagating an abstract theology, but it took a part in the public events of the

6o The Movement of i^2>Z

day ; it interfered with court, with ministers, with CJniversity matters, and with counter-movements of whatever kind.

And, moreover, which is much to the purpose, it appealed to the people, and that on the very ground that it was Apostolical in its nature. It made the experiment of this appeal the very test of its Aposto- licity. "I shall offend many men," said one of its organs, " when I say, we must look to the people ; but let them give me a hearing. Well can I understand their feelings. Who, at first sight, does not dislike the thoughts of gentlemen and clergymen depending for their maintenance and their reputation on their flocks ? of their strength, as a visible power, lying, not in their birth, the patronage of the great, or the endowments of the Church, as hitherto, but in the homage of a multitude ? But, in truth, the prospect is not so bad as it seems at first sight. The chief and obviou? objection to the clergy being thrown on the people lies in that probable lowering of Christian views, and that adulation of the vulgar, which would be its conse- quence ; and the state of dissenters is appealed to as an evidence of the danger. But let us recollect that we are an Apostolical body ; we were not made, nor can be unmade, by our flocks ; and, if our influence is to depend on them, yet the Sacraments are lodged with us. We have that with us which none but ourselves possess, the mantle of the Apostles ; and this, properly understood

Foreign to the National ChxtrcL

61

and cherished, will ever keep us from being the creatures of a population." 1

Here, then, was a challenge to the nation to decide between the movement and its opponents ; and how did the nation meet it ? When clergymen of Latitudin- arian theology v/ere promoted to dignities, did the faithful of the diocese, or of the episcopal city, rise in insurrection? Did parishioners blockade a church's doors to keep out a new incumbent, who refused to read the Athanasian Creed? Did vestries feel an instinctive reverence for the altar-table, as soon as that reverence was preached? Did the organs of public opinion pursue with their invectives those who became dissenters or Irvingites ? Was it a subject of popular indignation, discussed and denounced m rail- way trains and omnibuses and steamboats, m clubs and shops, in episcopal charges and at visitation dinners, if a clergyman explained away the baptismal service, or professed his intention to leave out portions of it in mmistration? Did it rouse the guards or the artillery to find that the Bishop, where they were stationed, was a Sabellian ? Was it a subject for public meetings if a recognition was attempted of foreign Protestant ordinations? Did animosity to heretics of the day go so far as to lead speakers to ridicule their persons and their features, amid the cheers of sympathetic hearers ? Did petitions load the

^ Church of the Fathers.

62 The Movement of 1833

tables of the Commons from the mothers of England or Young Men's Associations, because the Queen went to a Presbyteri-an service, or a high minister of state was an infidel ? Did the Bishops cry out and stop their ears on hearing that one of their body denied original sin or the grace of ordination ? Was there nothing in the course of the controversy to show what the nation thought of that controversy, and of the parties to it ?

9.

Yes, I hear a cry from an episcopal city ; I have before my eyes one scene, and it is a sample and an earnest of many others. Once in a w^ay, there were those among the authorities of the Establishment who made certain recommendations concerning the mode of conducting divine \Yorship : simple these in themselves, and perfectly innocuous, but they looked like the breath, the shadow of the movement; tliey seemed an omen of something more to come; tliey were the symptoms of some sort of ecclesiastical favour bestowed in one quarter on its adherents. The newspapers, the organs of the political, mammon-loving community, of tlios-:^ vast multitudes of all ranks who are allowed by the Anglican Church to do nearly what tliey will for six, if not seven days in the week, — who, in spite of the theological controversies rolling over their heads, could, if they would, buy, and sell, and manufacture, and trade at their pleasure, — who might be unconcerned.

Foreign to the National Cliurch. f>^

and go their own way, for no one would interfere with them, and might "live and let live,"— the organs, I say, of these multitudes kindle with indignation, and menace, and revile, and denounce, because the Bishops in question suffer their clergy to deliver their sermons, as well as the prayers, in a surplice. It becomes a matter of popular interest. There are mobs in the street, houses are threatened, life is in danger, because only a gleam of Apostolical principles, in their faintest, wannest expression, is cast inside a building which is ohe home of the national religion. The very moment tliat Catholicism ventures out of books, and cloisters, and studies, towards the national house of prayer, when it lifts its hand or its very eyebrow towards this people so tolerant of heresy, at once the dull and earthly mass is on fire. It would be little or nothing though the minister baptized without water, though he chucked away the consecrated wine, though he denounced fast- ing, though he laughed at virginity, though he inter- changed pulpits with a Wesleyan or a Baptist, though he defied his Bishop ; he might be blamed, he might be disliked, he might be remonstrated with; but he would not touch the feelings of men; he would not inflame their minds ;— but, bring home to them the very thought of Catholicism, hold up a surplice, and the religious building is as full of excitement and tumult as St. Victor's at Milan in the cause of ortho- doxy, or St. Giles\ Edinburgh, for the Xirk.

64 The Movement o/" 1 8 3 3

"The uproar commenced," says a contemporary account, " with a general coughing down; several per- sons then moved to the door making a great noise in their pTOgress; a young woman went off in a fit of hysterics, uttering loud shrieks, whilst a mob outside besieged the doors of the building. A cry of ' fire ' was raised, followed by an announcement that the church doors were closed, and a rush was made to burst them open. Some cried out, 'Turn him out,' 'Pull it ofi him.' In the galleries the uproar was at its height, whistling, cat-calls, hurrahing, and such cries as are heard in theatres, echoed throughout the edifice. The preacher still persisted to read his text, but was quite inaudible; and the row increased, some of the congregation waving their hats, standing on the seats, jumping over them, bawling, roaring, and gesticulat- incT like a mob at an election. The reverend gentle- man, in the midst of the confusion, despatched a message to the mayor, requesting his assistance, when one of the congregation addressed the people, and also requested the preacher to remove the cause of the ill- feeling which had been excited. Then another addressed him in no measured terms, and insisted on his leaving the pulpit. At length the mayor, the superintendent of the police, several constables, also the chancellor and the archdeacon, arrived. The mayor enforced silence, and, after admonishing the people, requested the clergy- man to leave the pulpit for a few minutes, which ha

Foreign to the National Church. 65

declined to do, — gave out his text, and proceeded with his discourse. The damage done to the interior of the church is said to be very considerable." I believe I am right in supposing that the surplice has vanished from that pulpit from that day forward. Here, at length, certainly are signs of life, but not the life of the Catholic Church.

And now to draw my conclusion from what I have been following out, if I have not sufficiently done so already. If, my brethren, your reason, your faith, your affections, are indissolubly bound up with the holy principles which you have been taught, if you know they are true, if you know their life and their power, if you know that nothing else is true ; surely you have no portion or sympathy with systems which reject them. Seek those principles in their true home. If your Church rejects your principles, it rejects you ; — nor dream of indoctrinating it with them by remaining ; everything has its own nature, and in that nature is its identity. You cannot change your Establishment into a Church without a miracle. It is what it is, and you have no means of acting upon it ; you have not what Archimedes looked for, when he would move the w^orld, — the fulcrum of his lever, — while you are one with it. It acts on you, while you act on it ; you cannot employ it against itself. If you would make England Catholic, you must go forth on your mission from the Catholic

6b The Movement 0/ 1S33, etc.

Cliurcli. You have duties towards the Establishment ^ it is the duty, not of owning its rule, but of converting its members. Oh, my brethren ! Ufe is short, waste it not in vanities; dream not; halt not between two opinions ; wake from a dream, in which you are not profiting your neighbour, but imperilling your own souls.

( 67 )

LECTURE III. .

THE LIFE OF THE MOVEMENT OF l8jj NOT DERIVED FROM THE NATIONAL CHURCH.

I.

T AM proposing, my brethren, in these Lectures, to answer several of the objections which are urged against quitting the National Communion for the Catholic Church. It has been a very conamon and natural idea of those who belong to the movement of 1833, as it was the idea of its originators, that, the Nation being on its way to give up revealed truth, all those who wish to receive that truth in its fulness, and to resist its enemies, are called on to make use of the National Church, to which they belong, whose formu- laries they receive, as their instrument for that purpose. I answer them, that their attempt is hopeless, because the National Church is strictly part of the Nation, in the same way that the Law or the Parliament is part of the Nation ; and therefore, as the Nation changes, so will the National Church change. That Church, then, cannot be used against the spirit of the age, except as a drag on a wheel ; for nothing can really resist the

68 The Life of the Movement of 1 833

Nation, except what stands on a basis independent of the Nation. It must say and will say just what the Nation says, though it may be some time in saying it. Next, having thus shown that the National Church is absolutely one with the Nation, I proceeded further to show that, on the other hand, the National Church is absolutely heterogeneous from the Apostolic or Anglo- Catholic party of 1833; so that, while the National Church is part of the Nation, the movement, on the contrary, has no part or place in the National Church. To aim, then, at making the Nation Catholic by means of the Church of England, was something like evan- rrelizing Turkey by means of Islamism; and, as the Turks would feel serious resentment at hearing th^ Gospel in the mouths of their Muftis and MoUahs, so was, and is, the English Nation provoked, not per- suaded, by Catholic preaching in the Establishment.

And I rest the proof of these two statements on incontrovertible facts going on during the last twenty years, and now before our eyes ; for, first, the National Church has changed and is changing with the Nation ; and secondly, the Nation and Church have been in- dignant, and are indignant, with the movement of 1833. I conceive that, except in imagination and in hope, there are no symptoms whatever of the National Church preventing those changes of Progress, as it is called, whether in the Nation or in itself, though it may retard them : nor- any symptoms whatever of its

not derived from the National Church. 69

welcoming those retrograde changes, to which it is invited under the name of primitive and Apostolical truth. The National Church is the slave of the Nation, and it is the opponent of the Movement ; vrhich, after all, has done no more than form a party in the one to the annoyance of the other.

And now I come to a second objection, which shall "be my subject to-day. An inquirer, then, may say, *'This is a very unfair and one-sided view of the matter. I grant — indeed I cannot deny— that the movement has but formed a party in the National Church. I grant it has no hold on the Church, that it does not coalesce with it, that it hangs loose of it : nay, I grant that this want of congeniality comes out clearer and clearer year by year, so that the Anglican party has never appeared more distinct from the Establish- ment, and foreign to it, than at this moment, when State and Bishops and people have cast it off, and its efforts, whether to alter the constitution of the Estab- lishment, or to preserve its doctrine, have failed and are failing. I grant all this ; I am forced in fairness to grant it;— or rather, whether I grant it or no, it will be taken for granted by all men without waiting foi my granting. But still, so far is undeniable, that that movement of 1833 issued forth fro7n the National Church; this, at least, is an incontrovertible fact: whatever light, life, or strength it has possessed, or possesses, from the National Church was it derived.

70 The Life of the Movement 0/1833

To the Sacraments, to the ordinances, to the teaching of the national Church, the movement owes its being and its continuance ; and, if it be its offspring, it belongs to it, it is cognate to it, and cannot be really alien from it; and great sin and undutifulness, ingratitude, pre- sumption, and cruelty, there must be committed by those who, belonging to the movement, abandon the Church." This is a consideration which is urged with great force against affectionate and dif&dent minds, and acts as an insurmountable difficulty in the way of their becoming Catholics. It is pressed upon them— " The National Church is the Church of your baptism, and therefore to leave it is to abandon your Mother." Now, then, let us examine what is the real state of

the case.

2.

We see then, certainly, a multitude of men all over the country, who, in the course of the last twenty years, have been roused to a religious life by the influence of certain principles professing to be those of the Primi- tive Church, and put forth by certain of the National Clergy. Every year has added to their number; nor has it been a mere profession of opinion which was their characteristic, or certain exercises of the intel- lect ; not a fashion or taste of the hour, but a rule of life. They have subjected their wills, they have chas- tened their hearts, they have subdued their affections^ they nave submitted their reason. Devotions, com-

not derived from the National Churcti. 7 1

munions, fastings, privations, almsgiving, pious mu- nificence, self-denying occupations, have marked the spread of the principles in question ; which have, more- over, been adorned and recommended in those who adopted them by a consistency, grace, and refinement of conduct nowhere else to be found in the National Church. Such are the characteristics of the party in question ; and, moreover, its members themselves ex- pressly attribute their advancement in the religious life to the use of the ordinances of that National Church.

They have found, they say, as a matter of fact, that as they attended those ordinances, they became more strong in obedience and dutifulness, had more power over their passions, and more love towards God and man. " If, then," they may urge, " you confront us with those external facts, which have formed the sub- jects of your first and second Lectures, here are our internal facts to meet them ; our own experience, serious, sober, practical, outweighs a hundredfold repre- sentations which may be logical, dazzling, irrefragable ; but which still, as we ourselves know better than any one, whatever be the real explanation of them, are, after all, fallacious and untrue."

Here, then, we are brought to the question of the internal evidence, which is alleged in favour of a real, however recondite, connection of the ( so-called ) Anglo- Catholic party with the National Church. It is said that, however you are to account for it, there is the

72 The Life of the Movement of i^2>Z

fact of a profound intimate relationship, a spiritual bond, between the one and the other ; that party has actually risen out of what seems so earthly, so incon- sistent, so feeble, and is sustained by it ; and, in fact does but illustrate the great maxim of the Gospel, that the weak shall be strong, and the despised shall be glorious. Taking their stand on this evangelical promise and principle, the persons of whom I speak are quite careless of argument, which silences them without touching them. "Their opponents may tri- umph, if they will ; but, after all, there certainly must be some satisfactory explanation of the difficulties of their own position, if they did but know what it was. The question is deeper than argument, while it is very easy to be captious and irreverent. It is not to be handled by intellect and talent, or decided by logic. They are undoubtedly in a very anomalous state of things, a state of transition; but they must submit for a time to be without a theory of the Church, without an intellectual basis on which to plant them- selves. It would be an utter absurdity for them to leave the Establishment, merely because they do not at the moment see how to defend their staying in it. Such accidents will from time to time happen in large and complicated questions ; they have light enough to guide them practically, — first, because even though they wished to move ever so much, they see no place to move into; and next, because, however it comes to

not derived from the National Church. 73

pass, however contrary it may seem to be to all the rules of theology and the maxims of polemics, to Apos- tles, Scripture, Fathers, Saints, common-sense, and the simplest principles of reason, — though it ought not to be so in the way of strict science,— -still, so it is, they are, in matter of fact, abundantly blest where they are. "Certainly it is vexatious that the Privy Council should have decided as it has done ; vexatious not to know what to say about the decision ; vexatious, incon- venient, perplexing, but nothing more. It is not a real difficulty, but only an annoyance, to be obliged to say something to quiet their people, and not to have a notion what. However, they must do their best ; and, Lhough it is true one of their friends uses one argument, another another, and these arguments are inconsistent with one another, still that is an accidental misery of their position, and it will not last for ever. Brighter times are coming ; meanwhile they must, with resigna- tion, suffer the shame, scorn of man, and distrust of friends, which is their present portion ; a little patience, and the night will be over ; their Athanasius will come at length, to defend and to explain the truth, and their present constancy will be their future reward.'

3.

Now, as truth is the object which I set before me in the inquiry which I am prosecuting, I will not follow their example in considering only one side of the ques

74 The Life of the Movement 0/1833

tion. I will not content myself, on my part, with in- sisting merely upon the external view of it, which is against them, leaving them in possession of that argu- ment from the inward evidences of grace, on which they especially rely. I have no intention at all of evading their position, — I mean to attack it. I feel intimately what is strong in it, and I feel where it halts ; so, to state their argument fairly, I will not extemporize words of my own, but I will express it in the language of a writer, who, when he so spoke, belonged to the Established Church.

" Surely," he says, " as the only true religion is that

which is seated within us, — a matter not of words, but

of things, so the only satisfactory test of religion is some-

thino- within us. If religion be a personal matter, its

reasons also should be personal. Wherever it is present

in the world or in the heart, it produces an effect, and

that effect is its evidence. When we view it as set up

in the world, it has its external proofs ; when as set up

in our hearts, it has its internal ; and that, whetiier we

are able to elicit them ourselves, and put them into

shape, or not. Nay, with some little limitation and

explanation, it might be said, that the very fact of a

religion taking root within us is a proof so far that it

is true. If it were not true, it would not take root.

Eeligious men have, in their own religiousness, an

evidence of the truth of their religion. That religion

is true which has power, and so far as it has power ;

not derived from the National Church.

/:>

nothing but what is divine can renew the heart. And this is the secret reason why religious men believe, — whether they are adequately conscious of it or no, — whether they can put it into words or no — viz., their past experience that the doctrine which they hold is a reality in their minds, not a mere opinion, and has come to them, ' not in word but in power.' And in this sense the presence of religion in us is its own evidence." ^

Again : —

*' If, then, we are asked for ' a reason of the hope that is in us,' why we are content, or rather thankful, to be in that Church in which God's providence has placed us, would not the reasons be some one or other of these, or rather all of them, and a number of others besides, which these may suggest, deeper than they?

" First, I suppose a religious man is conscious that God has been with him, and given him whatever he has of good within him. He knows quite enough of himself to know how fallen he is from original righteous- ness, and he has a conviction, which nothing can shake, that without the aid of his Lord and Saviour, he can do nothing aright. I do not say he need recollect any definite season when he turned to God, and gave up the service of sin and Satan ; but in one sense, every season, every year, is such a time of turning. I mean, he ever has experience, just as if he had hitherto been living in the world, of a continual conversion; he is

' The author's Sermons on Subjects of the Day, pji. 345, 346.

76 The Life of the Movement o/' 1833

ever taking advantage of holy seasons, and new provi- dences, and beginning again. The elements of sin are still alive within him ; they still tempt and influence him, and threaten when they do no more ; and it is only by a continual fight against them that he prevails ; and what shall persuade him that his power to fight is his own, and not from above ? And this conviction oi a divine presence with him is stronger, according to the length of time during which he has served God, and to his advance in holiness. The multitude of men, nay, a great number of those who think themselves reli- gious, do not aim at holiness, and do not advance in holiness ; but consider, what a great evidence it is that God is with us, so far as we have it ! Eeligious men, really such, cannot but recollect in the course of years that they have become very different from what they were. ... In the course of years a religious person finds that a mysterious unseen influence has been upon and changed him. He is indeed very different from what he was. His tastes, his views, his judg- ments are different. You will say that time changes a man as a matter of course ; advancing age, outward circumstances, trials, experience of life. It is true; and yet I think a religious man would feel it little less than sacrilege, and almost blasphemy, to impute the improvement of his heart and conduct, in his moral being, with which he has been favoured in a certain sufficient period, to outward or merely natural causes.

not derived from the National Chirch. yy

He will be unable to force himself to do so — that is to say, he has a conviction, which it is a point of religion with him not to doubt, which it is a sin to deny, that God has been wdth him. And this is, of course, a ground of hope to him that God will be with him still ; and if he, at any time, fall into religious perplexity, it may serve to comfort him to think of it." ^ And again : —

" I might go on to mention a still more solemn sub- ject, viz., the experience, which, at least, certain religi- ous persons have of the awful sacredness of our sacra- ments and other ordinances. If these are attended by the presence of Christ, surely we have all that a Church can have in the way of privilege and blessing. The promise runs, ' Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.' That is a Church where Christ is present ; this is the very definition of the Church. The question sometimes asked is. Whether our services, our holy seasons, our rites, our sacraments, our institu- tions, really have with them the presence of Him who thus promised ? If so, we are part of the Church ; if not, then we are but performers in a sort of scene or pageant, which may be religiously intended, and which God in His mercy may visit ; but if He visits, wiU in visiting go beyond His own promise. But observe, as if to answer to the challenge, and put herself on trial, and to give us a test of her Catholicity, our Church ^ Ibid., pp. 348-350.

78 The Life of the Movement of 1833

boldly declares of her most solemn ordinance, that lie

who profanes it incurs the danger of judgment. She

seems, like Moses, or the Prophet from Judah, or Elijah,

to put her claim to issue, not so openly, yet as really,

upon the fulfilment of a certain specified sign. Now

she does not speak to scare away the timid, but to

startle and subdue the unbelieving, and withal to

assure the wavering and perplexed; and I conceive

that in such measure as God wills, and as is known to

God, these effects follow. I mean, that we really have

proofs among us, though, for the most part, they will

be private and personal, from the nature of the case, of

clear punishment coming upon profanations of the holy

ordinance in question ; sometimes very fearful instances,

and such as serve, while they awe beholders, to comfort

them ; — to comfort them, for it is plain, if God be with

us for judgment, surely He is with us for mercy also ;

if He punishes, why is it but for profanation ? And

how can there be profanation if there is nothing to be

profaned ? Surely He does not manifest His wrath

except where He has first vouchsafed His grace ?"i

I might quote much more to the same purpose ; if I

do not, it is not that I fear the force of the argument.

but the length to which it runs.

4- Now in this preference of internal evidences to thoiie

' Ibid., pp. 353-355

not derived from the National Church, yc^

which are simply outward, there is a great princijjle of truth ; it requires much guarding, indeed, and explain- ing, but I suppose, in matter of fact, that the notes of the Church, as they are called, are cliiefly intended, as this writer says, as guides and directions into the truth, for those who are as yet external to it, and that those who are within it have prima facie evidences of another and more personal kind. I grant it, and I make use of my admission; for one inward evidence at least Catholics have, which this writer had not, — certainty. I do not say, of course, that what seems like certainty is a sufficient evidence to an individual that he has found the truth, for he may mistake obstinacy or blind- ness for certainty; but, at any rate, the alsence of certainty is a clear proof that a person has not yet found it, and at least a Catholic knows well, even if he can- not urge it in argument, that the Church is able to communicate to him that gift. No one can read the series of arguments from which I have quoted, without being struck by the author's clear avowal of douht, in spite of his own reasonings, on the serious subject which is engaging his attention. He longed to have faith in the National Church, and he could not. "What want we," he exclaims, ''hut faith in our Church ? With faith we can do everything ; without faith we can do nothing." i So all these inward notes which he enumerates, whatever their prima facie force,

^ Ibid., p. 380.

8o The Life of the Movement o/' 1833

did not reach so far as to implant conviction even m his own breast ; they did not, after all, prove to him that connection between the National Church and the spiritual gifts which he recognised in his party, which he fain would have established, and which they would fain establish to whom I am now addressing myself.

But to come to the gifts themselves. You tell me, my brethren, that you have the clear evidence of the influences of grace in your hearts, by its effects sensible at the moment or permanent in the event. You tell me, that you have been converted from sin to holiness, or that you have received great support and comfort under trial, or that you have been carried over very special temptations, though you have not submitted yourselves to the Catholic Church. More than this, you tell me of the peace, and joy, and strength which you have experienced in your own ordinances. You tell me, that when you began to go weekly to communion you found yourselves wonderfully advanced in purity. You tell me that you went to confession, and you nevei- will believe that the hand of God was not over you at the moment when you received absolution. You were ordained, and a fragrance breathed around you; you hung over the dead, and you all but saw the happj spirit of the departed. This is what you say, and the like of this ; and I am not the person, my dear brethren, to quarrel with the truth of what you say. I am not the person to be jealous of such facts, nor to wish yois

not Derived from the National Church. 8i

to contradict your own memory and your own nature; nor am I so ungrateful to God's former mercies to myself, to have the heart to deny them in you. As to miracles, indeed, if such you mean, that of course is a matter which might lead to dispute ; but if you merely mean to say that the supernatural grace of God, as shown either at the time or by consequent fruits, has overshadowed you at certain times, has been with you when you were taking part in the Anglican ordinances, I have no wish, and a Catholic has no anxiety, to deny it. Why should I deny to your memory what is so pleasant in mine ? Cannot I too look back on many years past, and many events, in which I myself expe- rienced what is now your confidence ? Can I forget the happy life I have led all my days, with no cares, no anxieties worth remembering ; without desolateness, or fever of thought, or gloom of mind, or doubt of God's love to me and providence over me ? Can I forget^ — 1 never can forget, — the day when in my youth I first bound myself to the ministry of God in that old church of St. Frideswide, the patroness of Oxford ? nor how I wept most abundant, and most sweet tears, when I thought what I then had become ; though I looked on ordination as no sacramental rite, nor even to baptism ascribed any supernatural virtue ? Can I wipe out from my memory, or wish to wipe out, those happy Sunday mornings, light or dark, year after year, when

82 The Life of tlie Movement of iS^;^

I celebrated your communion-rite, in my own church of St. Mary's ; and in the pleasantness and joy of it heard nothing of the strife of tongues which surrounded its walls ? When, too, shall I not feel the soothing recollection of those dear years which I spent in retire- ment, in preparation for my deliverance from Egypt, asking for light, and by degrees gaining it, with less of temptation in my heart, and sin on my conscience, than ever before ? 0 my dear brethren, my Anglican friends ! I easily give you credit for what I have ex- perienced myself. Provided you be in good faith, if you are not trilling with your conscience, if you are re- solved to follow whithersoever God shall lead, if the ray of conviction has not fallen on you, and you have shut your eyes to it ; then, anxious as I am about you for the future, and dread as I may till you are converted, that perhaps, when conviction comes, it will come in vain yet still, looking back at the past years of my own life, I recognise what you say, and bear witness to its truth. Yet what has this to do with the matter in hand ? I admit your fact ; do you, my brethren, admit, in turn, my explanation of it. It is the explanation ready pro- vided by the Catholic Church, provided in her general teaching, quite independentiy of your particular case, not made for the occasion, only applied when it has arisen; — listen to it, and see whether you admit it or not as trijii if it be not sufficiently probable, or possible if you

not Derived from the National C/oireh.

8i

will, to invalidate the argument on \\liicli you so con- fidently rely.

5. Surely you ought to know the Catholic teaching on the subject of grace, in its bearing on your argument, without my insisting on it iSpiritus Domini replevit m^hem terrarum. Grace is given for the merits of Christ aJl over the earth ; there is no corner, even of Paganism, where it is not present, present in each heart of man in real sufficiency for his ultimate salvation. Not that the grace presented to each is such as at once to bring him to heaven ; but it is sufficient for a beginning. It is sufficient to enable him to plead for other grace; and that second grace is such as to impetrate a third grace ; and thus the soul may be led from grace to grace, and from strength to strength, till at length it is, To to^ say, in very sight of heaven, if the gift of perseverance does' but complete the work. Now here observe, it i& not certain that a soul which has the first grace will have the second ; for the grant of the second at least depends on its use of the first. Again, it may have the first and second, and yet not the third; from the first on to the nineteenth, and not the twentieth. We mount up hy steps towards God, and alas ! it is possible that a soul may be courageous and bear up for nineteen steps, and stop and faint at the twentieth. Nay, further than this, It is possible to conceive a soul going forwai'd till it

84 The Life of the Movement of 1833

arrives at the very grace of contrition— a contrition so loving, so sm-renouncing, as to teng it at once into a state °of reconciliation, and clothe it in the vestment of justice ; and yet it may yield to the further trials which beset it, and fall away.

Now all this may take place even outside the Church ; and consider what at once follows from it. This follows, in the first place, that men there may be, not Catholics, yet really obeying God and rewarded by Him— nay, I might say (at least by way of argument), in His favour, with their sins forgiven, and in the enjoyment of a secret union with that heavenly kingdom to which they do not visibly belong— who are, through their subsequent failure, never to reach it. There may be those who are increasing in grace and knowledge, and approaching nearer to^the Catholic Church every year, who are not in the Church, and never will be. The highest gifts and graces are compatible with ultimate reprobation. As regards, then, the evidence of sanctity in members of the National Establishment, on which you insist, Catholics are not called on to deny them. We think such instances are few, nor so eminent as you are accustomed to fancy; but we do not wish to deny, nor have any difficulty in admitting such facts as you have to adduce, whatever they be. We do not think it necessary to carp at every instance of supernatural excellence among Protestants when it comes before us, or to explain it away; all we know is, that the grace'

not Derived from, the National Church. 85

given them is intended ultimately to bring them into the Church, and if it is not tending to do so, it will not ultimately profit them ; but we as little deny its pre- sence in their souls as they do themselves ; and as the fact is no perplexity to us, it is no triumph to them.

And, secondly, in like manner, whatever be the com- fort or the strength attendant upon the use of the national ordinances of religion, in the case of tliis or that person, a Catholic may admit it without scruple, for it is no evidence to him in behalf of those ordi- nances themselves. It is the teaching of the Catholic Church from time immemorial, and independently of the present controversy, that grace is given in a sacred ordinance in two ways, viz. — to use the scho- lastic distinction, ex ojpere operantis, and ex opere operato. Grace is given ex opere operato, when, the proper dis- positions being supposed in the recipient, it is given through the ordinance itself; it is given ex opere operantis, when, whether there be outward sign or no, the inward energetic act of the recipient is the instru- ment of it. Thus Protestants say that justification, for instance, is gained by faith as by an instrument— eo? opere operantis ; thus Catholics also commonly believe that the benefit arising from the use of holy water accrues, not ex opere operato, or by means of the element itself, but, ex opere operantis, through the devout mental act of the person using it, and the prayers of the Church. So again, the Sacrifice ot the Mass

86 The Life of the Movement 0/^1833

benefits the person for whom it is offered ex opere operato, whatever be the character of the celebrating priest; but it benefits him more or less, ex opere operantis, according to the degree of sanctity which the priest has attained, and the earnestness with which he offers it. Again, baptism, whether administered by man or woman, saint or sinner, heretic or Catholic, regenerates an infant ex opere operato ; on the other hand, in the case of the baptism of blood, as it was anciently called (that is, the martyrdom of unbaptized persons desiring the sacrament, but unable to obtain it), a discussion has arisen, whether the martyr was justified ex opere operato or ex opere operantis — that is, whether by the physical act of his dying for the faith, considered in itself, or by the mental act of supreme devotion to God, which caused and attended it. So again, contrition of a certain kind is sufficient as a disposition or condition, or what is called matter, for receiving absolution in Penance ex opere operato or by TOtue of the sacrament ; but it may be heightened and purified into so intense an act of divine love of hatred and sorrow for sin, and of renunciation of it, as to cleanse and justify the soul, without the sacra- ment at all, or ex opere operantis. It is plain from this distinction, that, if we would determine whether the Anglican ordinances are attended by divine grace, we must first determine whether the effects which accompany them arisp. ex opere operantis or ex

not Derived from the National Chureh. 87

02:)ere op&rato — whether out of the religious acts, the prayers, aspirations, resolves of the recipient, or by the direct power of the ceremonial act itself, — a nice and difficult question, not to be decided by means of those effects themselves, whatever they be.

Let me grant to you, then, that the reception of your ordinances brings peace and joy to the soul ; that it permanently influences or changes the character of the recipient. Let me grant, on the other hand, that their profanation, wdien men have been taught to believe in them, and in profaning are guilty of contempt of that God to whom they ascribe then], is attended by judo-- ments; this properly shows nothing more than that, by a general law, lying, deceit, presumption, or hypo- crisy are punished, and prayer, faith, contrition re- warded. There is nothing to show that the effects would not have been precisely the same on condition of the same inward dispositions, though another ordi- nance, a love-feast or a washing of the feet, with no pretence to the name of a Sacrament, had been in good faith adopted. And it is obvious to any one that, for a member of the Establishment to bring himself to confession, especially some years back, required dis- positions of a very special character, a special contrition and a special desire of the Sacrament, wdiich, as far as we may judge by outward signs, were a special effect of grace, and would fittingly receive from God's bounty a special reward, some further and higher grace and

88 The Life of the Movement 0/1833

even, at least I am not bound to deny it, remission of sins. And again, when a member of the Establish- ment, surrounded by those who scoffed at the doctrine, accepted God's word that He would make Bread His Body, and honoured Him by the fact that he accepted it, is it wonderful, is it not suitable to God's mercy, if He rewards such a special faith with a quasi sacramental grace, though the worshipper unintentionally offered to a material substance that adoration which he intended to pay to the present, but invisible, Lamb of God ?

6.

But this is not all, my dear brethren ; I must allow to others what I allow to you. If I let you plead the sensible effects of supernatural grace, as exemplified in yourselves, in proof that your religion is true, I must allow the plea to others to whom by your theory you are bound to deny it. Are you willing to place your- selves on the same footing with Wesleyans ? yet what is the difference ? or rather, have they not more re- markable phenomena in their history, symptomatic of the presence of grace among them, than you can show in yours ? Which, then, is the right explanation of your feelings and your experience,— mine, which I have extracted from received Catholic teaching; or yours, which is an expedient for the occasion, and can^ not be made to tell for your own Apostolical authorit}. without telling for those who are rebels a.ijainst it?

not Derived from tha National CIturch. 89

Survey the rise of Metliodisin, and say candidly, wliether those wlio made light of your ordinances abandoned them, or at least disbelieved their virtue, have not had among them evidences of that very same grace which you claim for yourselves, and which you consider a proof of your acceptance with God. Eeally I am obliged in candour to allow, whatever part the evil spirit had in the work, whatever gross admixture of earth polluted it, whatever extravagance there was to excite ridicule or disgust, whether it was Christian virtue or the excellence of unaided man, whatever was the spiritual state of the subjects of it, whatever their end and their final account, yet there were higher and nobler vestiges or semblances of grace and truth in Methodism than there have been among you. I give you credit for what you are, grave, serious, earnest, modest, steady, self-denying, consistent; you have the praise of such virtues ; and you have a clear perception of many of the truths, or of portions of the truths, of Revelation. In these points you surpass the "Wesley- ans ; but if I wished to find what was striking, extra- ordinary, suggestive of Catholic heroism — of St. Martin, St. Francis, or St. Ignatius — I should betake myself far sooner to them than to you. " In our own times," says a writer in a popular Review, speaking of the last-men- tioned Saint and his companions, ''in our own times much indignation and much alarm are thrown away on innovators of a very different stamp. From the ascetics

90 The Life of the Movement ^/ 1833

of the common room, from men whose courage rises high enough only to hint at their unpopular opinions, and whose belligerent passions soar at nothing more daring than to worry some unfortunate professor, it is almost ludicrous to fear any great movement on the theatre of human affairs. When we see these dainty gentlemen in rags, and hear of them from the snows of the Himalaya, we may begin to tremble." Now such a diversion from the course of his remarks upon St. Ignatius and his companions, I must say, was most uncalled for in this writer,^ and not a little ill-natured ; for we had never pretended to be heroes at all, and should have been the first to laugh at any one who fancied us such; but they will serve to suggest the fact, which is undeniable, that even when Anglicans approach in doctrine nearest to the Catholic Church, still heroism is not the line of their excellence. The Established Church may have preserved in the country the idea of sacramental grace, and the movement of 1833 may have spread it; but if you wish to find the shadow and the suggestion of the supernatural qualities which make up the notion of a Catholic Saint, to Wes- ley you must go, and such as him. Personally I do not like him, if it were merely for his deep self-reliance and self-conceit ; still I am bound, in justice to him, to ask, and you in consistency to answer, what historical per- in the Establishment, during its whole three

1 Sir James Stejjhen.

not Derived from the National Church.

91

centuries, has approximated in force and splendour of conduct and achievements to one who began by innov- ating on your rules, and ended by contemning your authorities ? He and his companions, starting amid ridicule at Oxford, with fasting and praying in the cold night air, then going about preaching, reviled by the rich and educated, and pelted and dragged to prison by the populace, and converting their thousands from sin to God's service — were it not for their pride and eccen- tricity, tlieir fanatical doctrine and untranquil devotion, they v^ould startle us, as if the times of St. Vincent Ferrer or St. Francis Xavier were come again in a Protestant land.

Or, to turn to other communions, whom have you with those capabilities of greatness in them, which show themselves in the benevolent zeal of Howard the phil- anthropist, or Elizabeth Fry ? Or consider the almost miraculous conversion and subsequent life of Colonel Gardiner. Why, even old Bunyan, with his vivid dreams when a child, his conversion, his conflicts with Satan, his preachings and imprisonments, however in- ferior to you in discipline of mind and knowledge of the truth, is, in the outline of his history, more Apos- tolical than you. *' Weep not for me," were his last words, as if he had been a Saint, '' but for yourselves. I go to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who doubt- less, through the mediation of His Son, will receive me, though a sinner, when we shall erelons^ meet, to

92 The Life of the Movement o/* 1833

sing the new song and be happy for ever ! " Consider the deathbeds of the thousands of those, in and out of the Establishment, who, with scarcely one ecclesiastical sentiment in common with you, die in confidence of the truth of their doctrine, and of their personal safety. Does the peace of their deaths testify to the divinity of their creed or of their communion ? Does the extreme earnestness and reality of religious feeling, exhibited in the sudden seizure and death of one who was as stern in his hatred of your opinions as admirable in his earnestness, who one evening protested against the sacramental principle, and next morning died nobly with the words of Holy Scripture in his mouth — does it give any sanction to that hatred and that protest ? ^ And there is another, a Calvinist, one of whose special and continual prayers in his last illness was for persever- ance in grace, who cried, '' 0 Lord, abhor me not, though I be abhorrible, and abhor myself ! " and who, five minutes before his death, by the expression of his countenance, changing from prayer to admiration and calm peace, impressed upon the bystanders that the veil had been removed from his eyes, and that, like Stephen, he saw things in^dsible to sense ; — did he, by the cir- cumstances of his death-bed, bear evidence to the truth of what you, as well as I, hold to be an odious heresy ? ^ " Mr. Harvey resigned his meek soul into the hands of his Redeemer, saying, ' Lord, now lettest Thou Thy ser

^ Dr Arnold. '^ Mr Scott of Ashton Saiulford.

not Derived from the National Cfmrdi. 93

vant depart in peace.' " " Mr. Walker, before he ex- pired, spoke nearly these words : ' I have been on the wings of the cherubim ; heaven has in a manner been opened to me ; I shall be there soon.' " "Mr. Whit- field rose at four o'clock on the Sabbath day, went to his closet, and was unusually long in private; laid himself on his bed for about ten minutes, then went on his knees and prayed most fervently he might that day finish his Master's work." Then he sent for a clergy- man, " and before he could reach him, closed his eyes on this world v/ithout a sigh or groan, and commenced a Sabbath of everlasting rest." ^ Alas ! there was ano- ther, who for three months " lingered," as he said, " in the face of death." " 0 my God," he cried, " I know Thou dost not overlook any of Thy creatures. Thou dost not overlook me. So much torture .... to kill a worm 1 have mercy on me 1 I cry to Tliee, knowing I cannot alter Thy ways. I cannot if I would, and I would not if I could. If a word would remove these sufferings, I would not utter it." " Just life enough to suffer," he- continued; "but I submit, and not only submit, but rejoice." One morning he woke up, "and with firm voice and great sobriety of manner, spoke only these words : ' Now I die ! ' He sat as one in the attitude of expectation; and about two hours afterwards, it was as he had said." And he was a professed infidel, and worse than an infidel — an apostate priest !

1 Sidney's Life of HiU. • "

94 ^'/^^ Life of the Jfovement 0/1833

7.

No, my dear brethren, these things are "beyond us, Nature can do so much, and go so far ; can form such rational notions of God and of duty, without grace, or merit, or a future hope ; good sense has such an instinc- tive apprehension of what is fitting; intellect, imagina- tion, and feeling can so take up, develop, and illuminate what nature has originated ; education and intercourse with others can so insinuate into the mind what really does not belong to it ; grace, not effectual, but inchoate, can so plead, and its pleadings look so like its fruits ; and its mere visitations may so easily be mistaken foi its in-dwelling presence, and its vestiges, when it has departed, may gleam so beautifully on the dead soul, that it is quite impossible for us to conclude, with any fairness of argument, that a certain opinion is true, or a religious position safe, simply on account of the confidence or apparent excellence of those who adopt it. Of course, we think as tenderly of them as we can ; and may fairly hope that what we see is, in particular instances, the work of grace, wrought in those who are not responsible for their ignorance; but the claim in their behalf is unreasonable and exorbitant, if it is to the effect that their state of mind is to be taken in evidence, not only of promise in the individual, but of truth in his creed.

And should this view of the subject unsettle and

not Derived fr 0171 the National Church. 95

depress you, as if it left you no means nt all of ascer- taining whether God loves you, or whether anything is true, or anything to be trusted, then let this feeling answer the purpose for which I have impressed it on you. I wisli to deprive you of your undue confidence in self ; I wish to dislodge you from that centre in which you sit so self-possessed and self-satisfied. Your fault has been to be satisfied with but a half evidence of your safety ; you have been too well contented with remaining where you found yourselves, not to catch at a line of argument, so indulgent, yet so plausible. You have thought that position impregnable ; and growing confident, as time went on, you have not only said it was a sin to ascribe your good thoughts, and purposes, and aspirations to any but God (which you were right in saying), but you have presumed to pronounce it blasphemy against the Holy Ghost to doubt that they came into your hearts by means of your Church and by virtue of its ordinances. Learn, my dear brethren, a more sober, a more cautious tone of thought. Learn to fear for your souls. It is something, indeed, to be peaceful within, but it is not everything. It may be the stillness of death. The Catholic, and he alone, has within him that union of external with internal notes of God's favour, which sheds the light of conviction over his soul, and makes him both fearless in his faith, and calm and thankful in his hope.

( go )

LECTURE IV.

THE PROVIDENTIAL COURSE OF THE MOVEMENT OF l8jj NOT IN THE DIRECTION OF THE NATIONAL CHURCH.

TT is scarcely possiV)le to fancy that an event so dis- tinctive in its character as the rise of the so-called Anglo-Catholic party in the course of the last twenty years, should have no scope in the designs of Divine Providence. From beginnings so small, from elements of thought so fortuitous, with prospects so unpromising, that in its germ it was looked upon with contempt, if it was ever thought of at all, it suddenly became a power in the National Church, and an object of alarm to her rulers and friends. Its originators would have found it difficult to say what they aimed at of a prac- tical kind ; rather they put fortli views and principles for their own sake, because they were true, as if tliey were obliged to say them; and though their object certainly was to strengthen the Establishment, yet it would have been very difficult for them to state precisely the intermediate process, or definite application, by

llie Movement not in the Direction, etc. 97

which, in matter of fact, tlieir preacliing was to arrive at that result. And, as they might be themselves sur- prised at their earnestness in proclaiming, they had as great cause to be surprised at their success in propagat- ing, the doctrines which have characterised their school. And, in fact, they had nothing else to say but that those doctrines were in the air ; that to assert w^as to prove, and that to explain was to persuade • and that the movement in which they were taking part, was the birth of a crisis rather than of a place. I do not mean to say, that they did not use arguments on the one hand, nor attempt to associate themselves with thino-s as they were on the other; but that, after all, their doctrine went forth rather than w^as delivered, and spoke rather than was spoken ; that it was a message rather than an argument ; that it w^as the master, not the creature of its proclaimers, and seemed to be said at random, because uttered with so indistinct an aim ; and so, with no advantage except that of position, which of course is not to be undervalued, it spread and w^as taken up no one knew how. In a very few years a school of opinion was formed, fixed in its principles, indefinite and progressive in their range; and it ex- tended into every part of the country. If, turning from the contemplation of it from within, w^e inquire what the world thought of it, we have still more to raise our wonder; for. not to mention the excitement it caused in England, the movement and its partv-

G

98 27^.6 Movement not in the Direction

nan-eB were known to the police of Italy and the bacK- woodsmen of America. So it proceeded, getting stronger and stronger every year, till it has come into collision with the Nation, and that Church of the Nation, which it betran by professing especially to serve : and now its upholders and disciples have to look about, and ask themselves where they are, and which way they are to go, and whither they are bound.

Providence does nothing in vain ; so much earnest- ness, zeal, toil, thought, religiousness, success, as has a place in the history of that movement, must surely have a place also in His scheme, and in His dealings towards His Church in this country, if we could discern what that place was. He has excited aspirations, matured good thoughts, and prospered pious under- takings arising out of them: not for nothing surely — then for what ? Wherefore ?

The movement certainly is one and the same to ail who have been influenced by it ; the principles and circumstances, which have made them what they are, are one and the same ; the history of one of you, my brethren, is pretty much the liistory of another— the •history of all. Is it meant that you should each of you end in his own way, if your beginnings have been the same ? The duty of one of you, is it not the duty of another ? Are you not to act together ? In other words, may I not look at the movement as integrally cue and thus investigate what is its bearing and its

of the National Church. 99

legitimate issue ? and may not, in consequence, that direction and scope of the movement, if such can be ascertained, be taken as a suggestion to you how you should act, distinct from, and in addition to, the inti- mations of God's will, which come home to you per- sonally and individually ? The movement has affected us in a certain way : at one time we have felt urged perhaps, with some of those who took part in it, to go forward ; at another, to remain where we are ; then to retire into lay-communion, if we were in the Established ministry ; then to collapse into a sect external to its pale. We have tried to have faith in the sacraments of the National Church; for a time we have succeeded, and then we have failed ; we have felt ourselves drawn, we have felt ourselves repelled by the Catholic Church; — we have felt difficulties in her faith, counter-diffi- culties in rejecting it, complications of difficulty on diffi- culty, concurrent or antagonist, till we could ascertain neither their mutual relation nor their combined issue, and could neither change nor remain where we were without scruple.

Under such a trial it would be some guidance, a :Sort of token or note of the course destined for us by Providence, if the movement itself, whose principles w^e have drunk in, with which we are so intimately one, had, from the nature of the case, its own natural and necessary termination. Before now, when a Protestant, I have said more or less to others wdio were in anxiety,

joo The Movement not in the Direction

*' Watch the movement ; it is made up of individuals, but it has an objective being, proceeds on principles, is governed by laws, and is swayed and directed by external facts. We are apt to be attracted or driven this way or that ; each thinks for himself and judges differently from others ; each fears to decide ; but may we not ascertain and follow the legitimate and divinely intended course of that, whose children we are ? " A great Saint was accustomed to command his sons, when they had to determine some point relatively tc themselves and their Society, to throw themselves in imagination out of themselves, and to look at the question externally, as if it were not personal to them, and they were deciding for a stranger. In like manner it has been sometimes recommended in the solution of public questions, to look at them as they will show in history, and as they will be judged of by posterity. Now in some such way should I wish, at this moment, to regard the movement of 1833, and to discover what is its proper, suitable, legitimate termi- nation. This, then, is the question I shall consider in the present Lecture ; — here is a great existing fact before our eyes — the movement and its party. What is to become of it ? What ought to become of it ? Is it to melt away as if it had not been ? Is it merely to subserve the purposes of Liberalism, in breaking up establishments by weakening them, and in making dogma ridiculous by multiplying sects ? or is it of too

of the National Churcli. joi

positive a character, both in its principles and its mem- bers, to anticipate for it so disappointing an issue .

I say, it has been definite in its principles, though vague in their application and their scope. It has been formed on one idea, which has developed into a body of teaching, logical in the arrangement of its portions, and consistent with the principles on which it originally started. That idea, or first principle, was ecclesiastical liberty ; the doctrine which it especially opposed was in ecclesiastical language, the heresy of Emstus, and in political, the Eoyal Supremacy. The object of its attack was the Establishment, considered simply as such.

When I thus represent the idea of the movement of which I am speaking, I must not be supposed to over- look or deny to it its theological, or its ritual, or its practical aspect ; but I am speaking of what may be called its form. If I said that the one doctrine of Luther was justification by faith only, or of Wesley the doctrine of the new birth, I should not be denying that those divines respectively taught many other doctrines but merely should mean that the one doctrine or the other gave a shape and character to its teaching. In like manner, the writers of the Apostolical party of 1833 were earnest and copious in their enforcement of the high doctrines of the faith, of dogmatism, of the sacra- mental principle, of the sacraments (as far as the

I02 The Movement not in the Direction

Anglican Prayer Book admitted them), of ceremonial observances, of practical duties, and of the counsels of perfection ; but, considering all those great articles of teaching to be protected and guaranteed by the inde- pendence of the Church, and in that way alone, they viewed sanctity, and sacramental grace, and dogmatic fidelity, merely as subordinate to the mystical body of Christ, and made them minister to her sovereignty, that she might in turn protect them in their pre- rogatives. Dogma would be maintained, sacraments would be administered, religious perfection would be venerated and attempted, if the Church were supreme in her spiritual power; dogma would be sacrificed to expedience, sacraments would be rationalized, perfec- tion would be ridiculed if she was made the slave of the State. Erastianism, then, was the one heresy which practically cut at the root of all revealed truth ; the man who held it would soon fraternise with Unitarians, mistake the bustle of life for religious obedience, and pronounce his butler to be as able to give communion as his priest. It destroyed the supernatural altoge- ther, by making most emphatically Christ's kingdom a kingdom of the world. Such was the teaching of the movement of 1833. The whole system of revealed truth was, according to it, to be carried out upon the anti-Erastian or Apostolical basis. The independence of the Church is almost the one subject of three out of four volumes of Mr, Froude's Remains ; it is, in one

of the National Church. 103

shape or other, the prevailing subject of the early num- bers of the " Tracts for the Times," as well as of other publications which might be named. It was for this that the writers of whom I speak had recourse to Anti- quity, insisted upon the Apostolical Succession, exalted the Episcopate, and appealed to the people, not only be- cause these things were true and right, but in order to shake off the State ; they introduced them, in the first instance, as means towards the inculcation of the idea of the Church, as constituent portions of that great idea, which, when it once should be received, was a match for the world.

" Our one tangible object," it w^as said, in a passage too long to be extracted at length, ''is to restore the connection, at present broken, between Bishops and people ; for in this everything is involved, directly or

indirectly, for which it is a duty to contend We

wish to maintain the faith, and bind men together iu love. We are aiming, with this view, at that command- ing moral influence which attended the early Church, which made it attractive and persuasive, which mani- fested itself in a fascination sufficient to elicit out of Paganism and draw into itself all that was noblest and best from the mass of mankind, and which created an internal system of such grace, beauty, and majesty, that believers were moulded thereby into martyrs and

evangelists If master-minds are ever granted to

us, they must be persevering in insisting on the Epis-

I04 The Movement not in the Direction

copal system, the Apostolical Succession, the ministerial commission, the power of the keys, the duty and desir- ableness of Church discipline, the sacredness of Church rites and ordinances. But, you will say, how is all this to be made interesting to the people ? I answer, that the topics themselves which they are to preach are of that attractive nature, which carries with it its own influence. The very notion that representatives of the Apostles are now on earth, from whose communion we may obtain grace, as the first Christians did from the Apostles, is surely, when admitted, of a most trans- porting and persuasive character. Clergymen are at present subject to the painful experience of losing the more religious portion of their flocks, whom they have tutored and moulded as children, but who, as they come into life, fall away to the Dissenters. "Why is this ? They desire to be stricter than the mass of Churchmen, and the Church gives them no means ; they desire to be governed by sanctions more constraining than those of mere argument, and the Church keeps back those doctrines, which, to the eye of faith, give reality and substance to religion. One who is told that the Church is the treasure-house of spiritual gifts, comes for a definite privilege Men know not of tlie legiti- mate priesthood, and, therefore, are condemned to hang upon the judgment of individuals and self-authorised preachers ; they put up with legends of private Christians, in the place of the men of God, the meek

of the National Church. 105

martyrs, the saintly pastors, the wise and winning teachers of the Catholic Church."^

3.

Passages such as this, which is but a portion ot a whole, show to me, my brethren, clearly enough, that these men understood the nature of the Church far better than they understood the nature of the religious com- munion which they sought to defend. They saw in that religion, indeed, a contrariety to their Apostolic prin- ciples, but they seem to have fancied that such con- trariety was an accident in its constitution, and wa3 capable of a cure. They did not understand that the Established Eeligion " was set up in Erastianism, that Erastianism was its essence, and that to destroy Eras- tianism was to destroy the religion. The movement, then, and the Establishment, were in simple anta- gonism from the first, although neither party knew it ; they were logical contradictories ; they could not be true together ; what was the life of the one was the death of the other. The sole ambition of the Establish- ment was to be the creature of Statesmen; the sole aspiration of the movement was to force it to act for itself. The movement went forth on the face of the country ; it read, it preached, it published ; it addressed

1 British Magazine, April 1836— [Discussions and Arguments, pp. 34-38.]

2 We must not forget, however, Mr. Froude's upas-tree.

io6 The Movement not in the Direction

itself to logic and to poetry; it was antiquary and architect ; only to do for the Establishment what the Establishment considered the most intt)lerable of dis- services. Every breath, every sigh, every aspiration, every effort of the movement was an affront or an offence to the Establishment. In its very first tract, it could wish nothing better for the Bishops of t-he Estab- lishment than martyrdom ; and, as the very easiest escape, it augured for them the loss of their temporal possessions. It was easy to foresee what response the Establishment would make to its officious defenders, as- soon as it could recover from its surprise; biit expe- rience was necessary to teach this to men who knew more of St. Athanasius than of the Privy Council or the Court of Arches.

"Why should any man in Britain," asks a Tract, " fear or hesitate boldly to assert the authority of the Bishops and pastors of the Church on grounds strictly evangelical and spiritual ? " " Reverend Sir," answered the Primate to a protest against a Bishop-elect, accused of heresy, " it is not within the bounds of any authority possessed by me to give you an opportunity of proving your objections; finding, therefore, nothing in which I could act in compliance with your remonstrance, I proceeded, in the execution of my office, to obey Her Majesty's mandate for Dr. Hampden's consecration m the usual form."

"Are we. contented," asks another Tract, "to be

of the National CliAivch.

07

accounted the mere creation of the vState, as school- masters and teachers may be, as soldiers, or magistrates. or other public officers ? Did the State make us ? Can it unmake us ? Can it send out missionaries ? Can it arrange dioceses?" "William the Fourth," answers the first magistrate of the State, " by the grace of God, of the united kingdom of Great Britain, and Ireland, King, Defender of the Faith, to all to whom tliese presents shall come, greeting : We, having great con- fidence in the learning, morals, and probity of our well- beloved and venerable William Grant Broughton, do name and appoint him to be Bishop and ordinary pastor of the see of Australia, so that he shall be, and shall be taken to be. Bishop of the Bishop's see, and may, by virtue of this our nomination and appoint- ment, enter into and possess the said Bishop's see as the Bishop thereof, without any let or impediment of us ; and we do hereby declare, that if we, our heirs and successors, shall think fit to recall or revoke the appoint- ment of the said Bishop of Australia, or his successors, that every such Bishop shall, to all intents and purposes, cease to be Bishop of Australia."

"Confirmation is an ordinance," says the Tract, "in which the Bishop witnesses for Christ. Our Lord and Saviour confirms us with the spirit of all goodness; the Bishop is His figure and likeness when he lays his hands on the heads of children. Then Christ comes to them, to confirm in them the grace of baptism.'

loS The Movement not in the Direction

''And we do hereby give and grant to the said Bishop of Australia," proceeds His Majesty, ''and his suc- cessors, Bishops of Australia, full power and authority to confirm those that are baptized and come to years of discretion, and to perform all other functions peculiar and appropriate to the office of Bishop within the limits of the said see of Australia."

^'Moreover," says the Tract, ''the Bishop rules the Church here below, as Christ rules it above; and is commissioned to make us clergymen God's ministers. He is Christ's instrument." "And we do by these presents give and grant to the said Bishop and his successors, Bishops of Australia, full power and authority to admit into the holy orders of deacon and priest respectively, any person whom he shall deem duly qualified, and to punish and correct chaplains, ministers, priests, and deacons, according to their demerits."

" The Bishop speaks in me," says the Tract, " as Christ wrought in him, and as God sent Christ ; thus the whole plan of salvation hangs together ;— Christ the true Mediator ; His servant the Bishop His earthly likeness ; mankind the subjects of His teaching ; God the author of salvation." And the Queen answers, " We do hereby signify to the Most Eeverend Father in God, William, Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, our nomination of the said Augustus, requiring, and, by the faith and love whereby he is bound unto us, com-

of the National Church. 109

manding the said Most Eeverend Father in God, to ordain and consecrate the said Augustus." And the consecrated prelate echoes from across the ocean, "Augustus, by the grace of God and the favour of Queen Victoria, Bishop."

" You will, in time to come," says the Tract, " honour us with a purer honour than men do now, as those who are intrusted with the keys of heaven and hell, as the heralds of mercy, as the denouncers of woe to wicked men, as intrusted with the awful and mysterious privilege of dispensing Christ's Body and Blood." And a first Episcopal Charge replies in the words of the Homily, "Let us diligently search the well of life, and not run after the stinking puddles of tradition, devised by man's imagination." A second, " It is a subject of deep concern that any of our body should prepare men of ardent feelings and warm imaginations for a return to the Eoman Mass-book.'' And a third, " Already are the foundations of apostasy laid ; if we once admit another Gospel, Antichrist is at the door. I am full of fear; everything is at stake; there seems to be something judicial in the rapid spread of these opinions." And a fourth, "It is im- possible not to remark upon the subtle wile of the Adversary ; it has been signally and unexpectedly exemplified in the present day by the revival of errors which might have been supposed buried for ever." And a fifth, Under the spurious pretence of deference

1 1 o The Movement not in the Direction

to antiquity and respect for primitive models, the foundations of our Protestant Church are undermined by men who dwell within her walls, and those who sit in the Reformer's seat are traducing the Reformation." "Our glory is in jeopardy," says a sixth. "Why all this tenderness for the very centre and core of cor- ruption ? " asks a seventh. " Among other marvels of the present day," says an eighth, " may be accounted the irreverent and unbecoming language applied to the chief promoters of the Reformation in this land. The quick and extensive propagation of opinions, tending to exalt the claims of the Church and of the Clergy, can be no proof of their soundness." " Reunion with Rome has been rendered impossible," says a ninth, " yet I am not without hope that more cordial union may, in time, be effected among all Protestant Churches." " Most of the Bishops," says a tenth, " have spoken in terms of disapproval of the ' Tracts for the Times, and I certainly believe the system to be most perni cious, and one which is calculated to produce the most lamentable schism in a Church already fearfully dis- united."

" Up to this moment," says an eleventh, " the move- ment is advancing under just the same })acific profes- sions, and the same imputations are still cast upon all who in any way impede its progress. Even the English Bishops, who have officially expressed any disappro- bation of the principles or proceedings of the party,

of the National Church.

Ill

have not escaped such animadversions." "Tractarian- ism is the masterpiece of Satan," says a twelfth.

But there was a judgment more cruel still, because it practically told in their favour ; but it was the infeli- city of the agents in the movement, that, the ^N'ational Church feeling both in its rulers and its people as it did, their teaching could not escape animadversion except at the expense of their principles. "A Bishop's lightest word, ex Cathedra, is heavy," said a writer of the "Tracts for the Times." "His judgment on a book cannot be light ; it is a rare occurrence." And an Archbishop answered from the other side of St. George's Channel, " j^lany persons look with consider- able interest to the declarations on such matters that from time to time are put forth by Bishops in their Charges, or on other occasions. But on most of the points to which I have been alluding, a Bishop's declarations have no more weight, except what they derive from his personal character, than any anonymous pamphlet would have The points are mostly such as he has no official power to decide, even in reference to his own diocese ; and as to legislation for the Church, or authoritative declarations on many of the most im- portant maiters, neither any one Bishop, nor all collec- tively, have any more right of this kind, than the

1 1 2 The Movement not in the Direction

ordinary magistrates have to take on themselves the functions of Parliament."

However, it is hardly necessary to prolong the exhibi- tion of the controversy, or to recall to your recollection the tone of invective in which each party relieved the keen and vehement feelings which its opponents excited ; — how the originators of the movement called Jewell " an irreverent Dissenter ;" were even " thinking worse and worse of the Eeformers ;" '' hated the Eefor- mation and the Eeformers more and more ; " thought them the false prophets of the Apocalypse ; described the National Church as having " blasphemed Tradition and the Sacraments ;" were " more and more indignant at the Protestant doctrine of the Eucharist ; " thought the principle on which it was founded " as proud, irreverent, and foolish, as that of any heresy, even Socinianism ; " and considered the Establishment their " upas-tree," " an incubus on the country ; " and its reformed condition, '' a limb badly set, which must be broken before it could be righted." And how they were called in turn, '' superstitious," "zealots," "mystical," "malignants," ''Oxford heretics," "Jesuits in disguise," 'tamperers with Popish idolatry," "agents of Satan,' « a synagogue of Satan," " snakes in the grass," " walk- ing about our beloved Church, polluting the sacred edifice, and leaving their slime about her altars : " "whose head," it was added, "may God crush 1 "

Is it not then abundantly plain, that, whatever be

of the National Church. 113

the destiny of the movement of 1833, there is no ten- dency in it towards a coalition with the Establishment ? It cannot strengthen it, it cannot serve it, it cannot obey it. The party may be dissolved, the movement may die — that is another matter ; but it and its idea cannot live, cannot energize, in the National Church. If St. Athanasius could agree with Arius, St. Cyril with Nes- torius, St. Dominic with the Albigenses, or St. Ignatius with Luther, then may two parties coalesce, in a cer- tain assignable time, or by certain felicitously gradual approximations, or with dexterous limitations and concessions, who mutually think light darkness and darkness light. " Delenda est Carthago ; " one or other must perish. Assuming, then, that there is a scope and limit to the movement, we certainly shall not find it in the dignities and offices of the National Church.

5. if, then, this be not the providential direction of the movement, let us ask, in the next place, is it intended to remain just what it is at present, not in power or authority, but as a sort of principle or view of religion, found here and there with greater or less distinctness, with more or fewer followers, scattered about or con- centrated, up and down the Establishment; with no exact agreement between man and man in matters of detail or in theoretical basis, but as an influence, sleep- ing or rousing, victorious or defeated, from time to

1 14 The Movement not in ike Direction

time, as the case may be? This state of things ig certainly supposable, at least for a time, for a genera- tion; and various arguments may be adduced in its behalf. It may be urged, " that if you cannot do any positive good to the nation, yet at least in this way you may prevent evil ; that to be a drag upon the career of unbelief, if you are nothing else, is a mission not to be despised ; moreover, if it be not a heroic course of action, or look well in history, still so much the more does such an office become those who are born in a fallen time, and who wish to be humble."

Again, though it is good to be humble, still, on the other hand, " there is a chance," it may be whispered by others, " of a nobler and higher function opening on you, if you are but patient and dutiful for a time." This is the suggestion of those who cannot, will not, look at things as they are ; who think objects feasible because they are desirable, and to be attempted because they are tempting. These persons go on dwelling upon the thought of the wonderful power of the British people, at this day, all over the world, till at length they begin to conjecture what may possibly be the design of Pro- vidence in raising it up. They feel that Great Britain would be a most powerful instrument of good, if it could be directed aright; and then they argue that if it is to be influenced, what else ought naturally and obviously to influence it but the National Church ? The National Church, then, is to be God's instrument for the conver-

of the. National Church. , i^

sion of the worlrl. But in order to this, of course it is indispensable that the National Church should have a clear and sufficient hold of Apostolical doctrine and usage; but then, who is to instruct the National Church m these necessary matters, but that Apostolical move- ment to which they themselves belong? And thus by a few intermediate steps, they have attained the' conclusion, that, because the nation is so powerful the movement must succeed. Accordingly, they bear'any degree of humiliation and discomforture ; nay, any arau- mentative exposure, any present stultification of thdr principles, any, however chronic, disorganization with an immovable resolve, as a matter of duty and merit because they are sanguine about the future Tliey seem to feel that the whole cause of truth, the reform of the Establishment, the catholicizing of the nation the conversion of the world, depends at this moment on their faithfulness to their position; on their own steadfastness the interests of humanity are at stake and where they now are, there they will live and die' They have taken their part, and to that part they will be true.

Moreover, there are those among them who have very little grasp of principle, even from the natural temper of their minds. They see that this thin, is beautiful, and that is in the Fathers, and a third is expedient, and a fourth pious; but of their connection one with another, their hidden essence and thnr life.

1 1 6 The Movement not in the Direction

and the bearing of external matters upon each and upon all, they have no perception or even suspicion. They do not look at things as parts of a whole, and often will sacrifice the most important and precious portions of their creed, or make irremediable concessions in word or in deed, from mere simplicity and want of apprehension.^ This was in one way singularly exem- plified in the beginning of the movement itself. I am not saying that every word that was used in the " Tracts for the Times " was matter of principle, or that the doctrines to be enforced were not sometimes unneces- Barily coloured by the vehemence of the writer; but still it not seldom happened that readers took state- ments which contained the very point of the argument, or the very heart of the principle, to be mere intem- perate expressions, and suggested to the authors their removal. They said "they went a great way with us, but they really could not go such lengths. Why speak of the Apostolic Succession, instead of Evan- gelical truth and Apostolical order ? It gave offence, it did no manner of good. Why use the word ' altar,' if it displeased weak brethren ? The word ' sacrifice ' was doubtless a misprint for ' sacrament ; ' and to talk with Bishop Bull of 'making the body of Christ,* was a most extravagant, unjustifiable way of describ- ing the administration of the Lord's Supper."

1 Since writing the above, the author finds it necessary to observe, that, in writing it, it had no reference to persons, and he would be pained if it seemed to refer to actual passages in the controversy now in progress.

of the National Church, 1 1 7

Things are changed now at the end of twenty years but characters and intellects are the same. Such persons, at the present moment, do not formally pro- fess any intention of giving up any of the doctrines of the movement; but they think it possible and expedient to divide portion from portion, and are rash and incon- sistent in their advice and their conduct, from mere ignorance of what they are doing. So, too, they think it a success, and are elated accordingly, if any measure whatever, which happens to have been contemplated by the movement, is in any shape conceded by the Establishment or by the State; heedless altogether whether such measure be capable or not of coalescing with a foreign principle, and whether, instead of modifying, it has not been changed into that against which, in the minds of the writers of the Tracts, it was directed. For instance, the movement succeeded in gaining an increase in the number of Episcopal sees at home and abroad ; well, a triumph this certainly is, if any how to succeed in a measure which one has advocated may be called by that name. But, be it recollected, measures derive their character and their worth from the principle which animates them ; they have little meaning in themselves; they are but material facts, unless they include in them their scope and enforce their object ; nay, they readily assume the animus and drift, and are taken up into the form, of the system by which they are adopted. If the Apos-

1 18 The Movement not in the Direction

tolical movenient desired to increase the Episcopate, it was with a view to its own Apostolical principles ; it had no wish merely to increase the staff of Govern- ment ofiicers in England or in the colonies, the patronage of a ministry, the erection of country palaces, or the Latitudinarian votes in Parliament. Has it, for instance, done a great achievement at Manchester, if it has planted there a chair of liberalism, and inaugurated an ant i- Catholic tradition ?

A policy, then, resting on such a temper of mind a? I have been describing, — viz., a determination to act as if the course of events itself would, in some way oi other, work for Apostolical truth, sooner or later, more or less ; to let things alone, to do nothing, to make light of every triumph of the enemy from within or without, to waive the question of ecclesiastical liberty, to rem air where you are, and go about your work in your own place, either contented to retard the course of events, or sanguine about an imaginary future, — this is simply to abandon the cause of the movement altogether. It is simply to say that tliere is no providential destmy or object connected with it at all. You may be right, my brethren ; this may be the case ; perhaps it is so. You have a right to this opinion, but understand what you are doing. Do not deceive yourselves by words ; it is not a biding your time, as you may fancy, if you sur-

of the National Church.

119

render the idea and the main principle of the move- ment; it is the abandonment of your cause. You remain, indeed, in your place, but it is no moral, no intellectual, but a mere secular, visible position which you occupy. Great commanders, when in war they are beaten back from the open country, retire to the moun- tains and fortify themselves in a territory which is their own. You have no place of refuge from the foe ; you have no place from which to issue in due season, no hope that your present concessions will bring about a future victory. Your retreat is an evacuation. You will remain in the Establishment in your own persons, but your principles will be gone,

I know how it will be— a course as undignified as it will be ineffectual. ^ sensation and talk whenever something atrocious is to be done by the State against the principles you profess ; a meeting of friends liere or there, an attempt to obtain an archidiaconal meeting; some spirited remarks in two or three provincial nev/s- papers ; an article in a review ; a letter to some Bishop; a protest signed respectably ; suddenly the news that the anticipated blow has fallen, and causa finita est. A pause, and then the discovery that things are not so bad as they seemed to be, and that after all your Apostolical Church has come forth from the trial even stronger and more beautiful than before. Still a secret dissatisfaction and restlessness ; a strong sermon at a visitation; and a protest after dinner, when his lord-

I20 The Movement not in the Direction

ship is asked to print his Charge ; a paragraph to your great satisfaction in a hostile newspaper, saying how that most offensive proceedings are taking place in such and such a Tractarian parish or chapel, how that there were flowers on the table, or that the curate has ton- sured himself, or has used oil and salt in "baptizing, or has got a cross upon his surplice, or that in a benefit sermon the bigoted Eector unchurched the Society of Friends, or that Popery is coming in amain upon our venerable Establishment, because a parsonage has been built in shape like a Trappist monastery. And then other signs of life; the consecration of anew church, with Clergy walking in gown and bands, two and two, and the Bishop preaching on decency and order, on the impressive performance of divine Service, and the due decoration of the house of God. Then a gathering in the Christian Knowledge Eooms about some new book put upon the Society's list, or some new liberalizing regulation ; a drawn battle, and a compromise. And every now and then a learned theological work, doctrinal or historical, justifying the ecclesiastical principles on which the Anglican Church is founded, and refuting the novelties of Eomanism. And lastly, on occasion of a contested election or other political struggle, theology mingled with politics; the liberal candidate rejected by the aid of the High-Church Clergy on some critical question of religious policy ; the Government annoyed or embarrassed ; and a sanguine hope entertained of a

of the Notional ChMvch. 1 2 1

ministry more favourable to Apostolical truth. My brethren, the National Church has had experience of this, mutatis mutandis, once before : I mean in the con- iuct of the Tory Clergy at the end of the seventeenth, and beginning of the following century. Their pro- ceedings in Convocation were a specimen of it ; their principles were far better than those of their Bishops ; yet the Bishops show to advantage and the Clergy look small and contemptible in the history of that contest. Public opinion judged, as it ever judges, by such broad and significant indications of right and wTong; the Government party triumphed, and the meetings of the Convocation were suspended.

It is impossible, in a sketch such as this, to complete the view of every point which comes into consideration ; yet I think I have said enough to suggest the truth of what I am urging to those who carefully turn the mat- ter in their minds. Is the influence of the movement to be maintained adequately to its beginnings and its promise ? Many, indeed, will say — certainly many of those who hated or disapproved of it — that it was a sudden ebullition of feeling, or burst of fanaticism, or reaction from opposite errors ; that it has had its day, and is over. It may be so ; but I am addressing those who, I consider, are of another opinion ; and to them I appeal, whether I have yet proposed anything plau- sible about the providential future of the movement. It is surely not intended, either to rise into the high

122 The Movement not in the Direction

places of the Establishment, or to sink into a vague, amorphous faction at the foot of it. It cannot rise and it ought not to sink.

7-

And now I am in danger of exceeding the limits which I have proposed to myself, though another more important head of consideration lies before me, could I hope to do justice to it. I have urged that you will be most inconsistent, my brethren, with your principles and views, if you remain in the Establishment ; I say with your principles and views, for you may give them up, and then you will not be inconsistent. You may say, " I do not hold them so strongly as to make them the basis and starting-point of any course of action whatever. I have believed in them, it is true ; but I have never contemplated the liabilities you are urging upon me. I cannot, under any supposition, contem- plate an abandonment of the National Church. I am not that knight-errant to give up my position, which surely is given me by Providence, on a theory. I am what I am. I am where I am. My reason has fol- lowed the teaching of the movement, and I have assented to it ; so far I grant. But it is a new idea to me quite, which I have never contemplated at starting, which I cannot contemplate now, that possibly it might

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123

involve the most awful, most utter of sacrifices. I have ten thousand claims upon me, urging me to remain where I am. They are real, tangible, habitual, immutable; nothing can shake or lessen them from within. A distinct call of God from without would, of course, overcome them, but nothing short of it. Am I as sure of those Apostolical principles which I have embraced as I am of these claims ? Moreover, I am doing good in my parish and in my place. The day passes as usual. Sunday comes round once a week; the bell rings, the congregation is met, and service is performed. There is the same round of paroeidal duties and charities ; sick people to be visited, the school to be inspected. The sun shines, and the rain falls, the garden smiles, as it used to do ; and can some one definite, external event have changed the position of this happy scene of which I am the centre ? Is not that position a self-dependent, is it a mere relative position ? What care I for the Pi ivy Council or the Archbishop, while I can preach and catechize just as before ? I have my daily service and my Saints' day sermons, and I can tell my people about the primitive Bishops and martyrs, and about the grace of the Sacra- ments, and the power of the Church, how that it is Catholic, and Apostolic, and Holy, and One, as if no- thing had happened ; and I can say my hours, or use my edition of Eoman Devotions, and observe the days

124 "^^^ Movement not in the Direction

of fasting, and take confessions, if they are offered, in spite of all gains ay ers."

It is true, my dear brethren, you may knowingly abandon altogether what you have once held, or you may profess to hold truths without being faithful to them. Well, then, you are of those who think that the movement has come to an end ; if in your conscience you think so — that it was a mere phantom, or deceit, or unreality, or dream, which has taken you in, and from which you have awakened, — I have not a word to say. If, however, as I trust is the case, God has not in vain unrolled the pages of antiquity before your eyes, but has stamped them upon your hearts; if He has put into your minds the perception of the truth which, once given, can scarcely be lost, once possessed, wiU ever be recognized; if you have by His grace been favoured in any measure with the supernatural gift of faith, then, my brethren, I think too well of you, I hope too much of you, to fancy that you can be untrue to convictions so special and so commanding. ISTo; you are under a destiny, the destiny of truth — truth is your master, not you the master of truth — you must go whither it leads. You can have no trust in the Estab- lishment or its Sacraments and ordinances. You must leave it, you must secede ; you must turn your back upon, you must renounce, what has — not suddenly be* come, but has now been proved to you to have ever

of the National Church. 1 2 5

been — an imposture. You must take up your cross, and you must go hence. But whither ? That is the ques- tion which it follows to ask, could I do justice to it. But you will rather do justice to it in your own thoughts. You must betake yourselves elsewhere — and "to whom shall you go ? " ~"

{ 126 )

LECTURE V.

THE PROVIDENTIAL COURSE OF THE MOVEMENT OF l8jj NOT IN THE DIRECTION OF A PARTY IN THE NATIONAL CHURCH.

I.

r KNOW how very difficult it is to persuade others of a point which to one's self may be so clear as to require no argument at all ; and, therefore, I am not at all sanguine, my brethren, that what I said in my last Lecture has done as much as I wished it to do. It is not an easy thing to prove to men that their duty lies just in the reverse direction to that in which the;v have hitherto placed it; that all they have hitherto learned and taught, that all their past labours, hopes, and successes, that their boyhood, youth, and manhood, that their position, their connections, and their influence, are, in a certain sense, to go for nothing ; and that life is to begin with them anew. It is not an easy thing to attain to the conviction, that, with the Apostle, their greatest gain must be counted loss; and that their glory and their peace must be found in what will make them for a while the wonder and the scorn of the world. It

The Movement not in the Direction, etc. 127

is true I may have shown you that you cannot coalesce with the National Church ; that you cannot wed your- selves to its principles and its routine, and that it, in turn, has no confidence at all in you ; — and, again, that you cannot consistently hang about what you neither love nor trust, cumbering with your presence what you are not allowed to serve; but still, nevertheless, you will cling to the past and present, and will hope for the future against hope ; and your forlorn hope is this, that it is, perhaps, possible to remain as an actual party in the Establishment, nay, an avowed party ; not, on the one hand, rising into ecclesiastical power, yet not, on the other, disorganized and contemptible ; but availing yourselves of your several positions in it individually, and developing, with more consistency and caution, the principles of 1833. You may say that I passed over this obvious course in my foregoing Lecture, and de- cided it in the negative without fair examination; and you may argue that such a party is surely allowable in a religious communion like the Establishment, which, as the Committee of Privy Council impKes, is based upon principles so comprehensive, exercises so large a tolera- tion, and is so patient of speculatists and innovators, ■who are even further removed from its professed prin- ciples than yourselves.

Thus I am led to take one more survey of your present position ; yet I own I cannot do so without an apology; Xo others, who may think that I am triflincr with a

128 The Movement not in the Direction

serious subject and a clear case, and imagining objec- tions in order to overthrow them. Such persons cer- tainly there may be ; but these I would have consider^ on the other hand, that my aim is to bring before those I am addressing, really and vividly, where they are standing; that this cannot be done, unless they are induced steadily to fix their minds upon it ; that the discussion of imaginary cases brings out principles which they cannot help recognizing, when they are pre- sented to them, and the relation, moreover, of those principles to their own circumstances and duty ; and that even where a view of a subject is imaginary, if taken as a whole and in its integral perfection, yet portions of it may linger in the mind, unknown ta itself, and influence its practical decisions.

With this apology for a proceeding which some persons may feel tedious, I shall suppose you, my brethren, to address me in the following strain : " The movement has been, for nearly twenty years, a party, and why should it not continue a party as before ? It has avowedly opposed a contrary party in the National Church ; it has had its principles, its leaders, its usages, its party signs, its publications : it may have them stilL It was once, indeed, a point of policy to deny our party character, or we tried to hide the truth from, ourselves ; but a party we were. The National Church admits of private judgment, and where there is private judgment^ there must be parties. We are, of course, under a dis-

of a Painty in tJie National Church. T2q

advantage now, which then did not lie upon us ; we have, at the present time, tlie highest ecclesiastical authorities in distinct and avowed opposition to our doctrines and our doings; but we knew their feelings before they expressed them. This misfortune is nothing new ; we always reckoned on an uphill game ; it is better that every one should speak out ; we now know the worst ; we know now where to find our spiritual rulers ; they are not more opposed to us than before, but they have been obliged openly to commit them- selves, which we always wished them to do, though, of course, we should have preferred their committing themselves on our side. But, anyhow, we cannot be said to be in a worse case than before ; and, if we were allowably and hopefully a party before, we surely have as ample allowance to agitate, and not less hope oi' success, now."

2.

You think, then, my brethren, tliat to-day can be as yesterday, that you were a party then and can remain a party now, that your present position is your old one, that you can be faithful to the movement, yet continue just what you were. My brethren, you do not bear in mind that a movement is a thing that moves; you can- not be true to it and remain still. The single question in. What is the limit or scope of that which once had a beginning and now has a progress ? Your principles,

1 30 The Movement not in the Direction

indeed, are fixed, but circumstances are not what they were. If you would be true to your principles, you must remove from a position in which it is not longer possible for you to fulfil them.

Observe : — your movement started on the ground ot maintaining ecclesiastical authority, as opposed to the Erastiauism of the State. It exhibited the Church as the one earthly object of religious loyalty and venera- tion, the source of all spiritual power and jurisdiction, and the channel of aU grace. It represented it to be the interest, as well as the duty, of Churchmen, the bond of peace and the secret of strength, to submit their judgment in all things to her decision. And it taught that this divinely founded Church was real- ised and brought into effect in our country in the Na- tional Establishment, which was the outward form or development of a continuous dynasty and hereditary power which descended from the Apostles. It gave, then, to that Establishment,, in its officers, its laws, its usa^res and its w^orship, that devotion and obedience which are correlative to the very idea of the Church. It set up on high the bench of Bishops and the Book of Common Prayer, as the authority to w^hich it was itself to bow, wdth which it was to cow and overpower an Erastian State.

It is hardly necessary to bring together passages from the early numbers of the " Tracts for the Times " in suDDort of this statement. Each Tract, I may say.

of a Party in the National Church. 1 3 1

is directed, in one way or other, to the defence of the i3xisting documents or regulations of the National Church. No abstract ground is taken in these com- positions ; conclusions are not worked out from philo- sophical premisses, nor conjectures recommended by poetical illustrations, nor a system put together out of eclectic materials ; but emphatically and strenuously it is maintained, that whatever is is right, and must be obeyed. If the Apostolic succession is true, it is not simply because St. Ignatius and St. Cyprian might affirm it, though Fathers are adduced also, but because it is implied in the Ordination Service. If the Church is independent of the State in things spiritual, it is not simply because Bishop Pearson has extoUed her powori3 in his Exposition of the Creed, though divines are brought forward as authorities too; but by reason of " the force of that article of our belief, the one Catholic and Apostolic Church." If the mysterious grace of the Episcopate is insisted on, it is not merely as contained in Holy Scripture, though Scripture is appealed to again and again ; but as implied in '' that ineffable mystery, called in the Creed, the Communion of Saints." Scrip- ture was copiously quoted, the Fathers were boldly in- voked, and Anglican divines were diligently consulted; but the immediate, present, and, as the leaders of the movement lioped, the living authority, on which they based their theological system, was what was called the '' Liturgy," or Book of Common Prayer.

132 The Movement not in the Direction

This " Liturgy," as the instrument of their teaching, was, on that account, regarded as practically infallible. "Attempts are making to get the Liturgy altered,"* says a Tract; "I beseech you consider with me, whe- ther vou ought not to resist the alteration of even one jot or tittle of it." Then as to the burial service : " I frankly own," says another Tract, " it is sometimes distressing to use it; but this must ever be in the nature of things, wherever you draw the line." Again, it was said that " there was a growing feeling that the Services were too long," and ought to be shortened but it was to be " arrested " by " certain considerations '* offered in a third. " There were persons who wished certain Sunday Lessons removed from the Service;" but, according to a fourth, there was reason the other way, in the very argument which was "brought in favour of the change." Another project afloat was that of leaving out "such and such chapters of the Old Testament," and "assigning proper Lessons to every Sunday from the New ; " but it was temperately and ingeniously argued in a fifth, that things were best just as they were. And as the Prayer Book, so too was the Episcopate invested with a sacred character, which it was a crime to affront or impair. " Exalt our Holy Fathers," said a sixth Tract, " as the representa- tives of the Apostles, and the Angels of the Churches." "They stand in the place of the Apostles," said a seventh, "as far as the office of ruling is con-

of a Party in the National Church. 133

ceriied; and he that despiseth them despiseth the Apostles."

3.

Now, why do I refer to these passages ? Kot for their own sake, but to show that the movement was based on submission to a definite existing authority, and that private judgment was practically excluded. I do not mean to say that its originators thought the Prayer Book inspired, any more than the Bishops infallible, as if they had nothing to do but accept and believe what was put into their hands. They had too much common sense to deny the necessary exercise of private judgment, in one sense or another. They knew that the Catholic Church herself admitted it, thoucrh she directed and limited it to a decision upon the question of the organ of revelation ; and they expressly recognized what they had no wish to deny. " So far," they said, "all parties must be agreed, that without private judgment there is no responsibility . . . even though an infallible guidance be accorded, a man must have a choice of resisting it or not." ^ But still, not denying this as an abstract truth, they determined that, as regards the teaching of the Liturgy, or the enuncia- tions of the Bishops — which is the point immediately under our consideration— all differences of opinion existing between members of the Establishment could

1 Proph. Off. p. 157.

134 The Movement not in the Direction

be but minor ones, which might profitably, and without effort, be suppressed ; that is, these were such as ought to be inwardly discredited and rejected, as less probable than the authoritative rule or statement, or at most must only be entertained at home, not published or defended. The matters in debate could not be more than matters of opinion, not of doctrine. Thus, with respect to alterations in the Prayer Book, the Tract says, ''Though most of you would wish some imma- terial points altered, yet not many of you agree in those pc»ints, and not many of you agree what is and what is not immaterial. If all your respective emendations are taken, the alterations in the Service will be exten- sive ; and, though each will gain something he wishes, he will lose more in consequence of those alterations which he did not wish. How few would be pleased by any given alterations, and how many pained ! " Though, then, the Prayer Book was not perfect, it had a sort of practical perfection ; and, though it was not unerring, it was a sure and sufficient safeguard against error. It was dangerous to question any part of it. "A taste for criticism grows upon the mind," said a Tract. " This unsettling of the mind is a frightful thing, both for ourselves, and more so for our flocks." The prin- ciple, then, of these writers was this : An infallible authority is necessary ; we have it not, for the Prayer Book is all we have got; but since we have nothing better, we must use it as if infallible. I am not justi-

of a Party in tlie National Church. 135

fying the logic of this proceeding; but if it be deficient, much more clearly does it, for that very reason, bring out the strength with which they held the princijjle of authority itself, when they would make so great an effort to find for it a place in the National Eeligion and would rather force a conclusion than give up their premiss.

The Prayer Book, then, according to the first agents in the movement, was the arbiter, and limit, and work- ing rule of the ten thousand varying private judgments of which the community was made up, which could not all be satisfied, which could not all be right, which were, every one of them, less likely to be right than it. It was the immediate instrument by means of which they professed to make their way, the fulcrum by which they were to hoist up the Establishment, and set it down securely on the basis of Apostolical Truth. And thus it was accepted by the party, not only as essen- tially and substantially true, but also as eminently expedient and necessary for the time.

"To do anything effectually," said a speaker in a dialogue of mine, who is expressing the philosophy (so to call it) of the movement in answer to a Eomanizino-

o

friend, "we must start from recognized principles and customs. Any other procedure stamps a person as wrong-headed, ill-judging, or eccentric, and brings upon him the contempt and ridicule of those sensible men by whose opinions society is necessarily governed. Put-

136 The Movement not in the Direction

ting aside the question of truth and falsehood (which, of course, is the main consideration), even as aiming at success, we must be aware of the great error of making changes on no more definite basis than their abstract fitness, alleged scripturalness, or adoption by the an- cients. Such changes are rightly called innovations; — those which spring from existing institutions, opin- ions, and feelings, are called developments, and may be recommended, without invidiousness, as improvements. I adopt then, and claim as my own, that position of yours, that ' we must take and use what is ready to our hands.' To do otherwise is to act the doctrinaire, and to provide for failure. For instance, if we would enforce observance of the Lord's Day, we must not, at the out- set, rest it on any theory, however just, of Chui'ch authority, but on the authority of Scripture. If we would oppose the State's interference with the distri- bution of Church property, we shall succeed, not by urging any doctrine of Church independence, or by citing decrees of general councils, but by showing the contrariety of that measure to existing constitutional and ecclesiastical precedents am.ong ourselves. Hilde- brand found the Church provided with certain existing means of power ; he vindicated them, and was rewarded with the success which attends, not on truth as such, but on this prudence and tact in conduct. St. Paul observed the same rule, whether in preaching at Athens or persuading his countrymen. It was the gracious

of a Party in the National Church

o/

condescension of our Lord Himself, not to substitute Christianity for Judaism by any violent revolution, but to develope Judaism into Christianity, as the Jews mioht bear it." ^

4.

Now all this was very well, if expedience was the end, and not merely a reason, of their extolling the Episco- pate and the Prayer Book ; but if it was a question of truth (and as such they certainly considered it), then it was undeniable, that Prayer Book and Episcopate could not support themselves, but required some in- tellectual basis ; and what was that to be ? Here again, as before (and this is the point to which all along I wish to direct your attention), these writers professed to go by authority, not by private judgment ; for they fell back upon the divines of the Anglican Church, as their channels for ascertaining both what Anglicanism taught and why. It is scarcely necessary to remind any one who has followed the movement in its course, how careful and anxious they were, as soon as they got (what may be called) under weigh, at once to collect and arrange Catenas of Anglican authorities, on v/honi their own teaching might be founded, and under whose name it might be protected. Accordingly the doctrines, especially of the Apostolical succession, of Baptismal Eegeneration, of tlie Euchar-

^ Britisli Mag., April 1836.

138 The Movement not in the Direction

istic sacrifice, and of the Eule of Faith, were made the subject of elaborate collections of extracts from the divines of the Establishment. And so in like manner, when a formal theory or idea was attempted of the Anglican system, the writer said, and believed, that " he had endeavoured, in all important points of doctrine, to guide himself by our standard divines ; and, had space admitted, would have selected passages from their writings, in evidence of it. Such a collection of testi- monies," he continued, ''is almost a duty on the part of every author, who professes, not to strike out new theories, but to build up and fortify what has been committed to us." ^

5-

But now a further question obviously arises : by what rule will you determine what divines are authori- tative, and what are not ? for it is obvious, unless you can adduce such, private judgment will come in at last upon your ecclesiastical structure, in spite of your success hitherto in keeping it out. This answer, too, was ready : — Scripture itself suggested to them the rule they should follow, and it was a rule external to them- selves. They professed, then, to take simply those as authorities whom '' all the people accounted prophets." 2"

1 Propb. Off. p. vi.

- Viz., the text prefixed to the Catenas, Tract 74. There was another obvious rule also, but still not a private one. They had recourse to those- Angliciui divines who alone contemplated, and professed to provide, au

of a Party in the National Church. ' 139

Ap it was no private judgment, but the spontaneous sentiment of a whole peoi3le, that canonized tlie Bap- tist, as the ancient saints are raised over our altars by the acclamation of a universal immemorial belief; so, according to these writers, the popular voice was to be consulted, and its decision simply recorded and obeyed, in the selection of the divines on whom their theology was to be founded. Ther professed to put aside in- dividual liking ; they might admire Hooker, or they might think him obscure : they might love Taylor, or they might feel a secret repugnance to him ; they might delight in the vigour of Bull, or they might be repelled by his homeliness and his want of the supernatural element; these various feelings they had, but they did not wish to select their authorities by any such private taste or reason, in which they would differ from each other, but by the voice of the community. For instance, Davenant is a far abler writer than Hammond, but how few have heard of him ? Home or Wilson is far in- ferior in learning, power, or originality to Warburton, yet their works have a popularity which Warburton's have not, and have, in consequence, a higher claim to the formal title of Anglican divinity. Such was the principle of selection on which the authors of the movement proceeded ; and if you say they were untrue to their principles in the Catenas they drew out, and,

idea, theory, or intellectual positioji for their Church, as Liiud and Stil- liiiLrfleet.

I40 * The Movement not in the Direction

after all, selected partially, and on private judgment, I repeat, so much the more for my purpose. How clearly must the principle of an ecclesiastical and authoritative, not a private judgment, have been the principle of the movement, when those who belonged to it were obliged to own that principle, at the very time that it was inconvenient to them, and when they were driven, whether consciously or not, to misuse or evade it !

Such, then, was the principle on which they professed to select the authorities they were to follow ; nor was their anxiety in consulting them less than their care- fulness in ascertaining them. Here again, I am not going into the question w^hether they deceived them- selves in consulting, as well as in ascertaining these divines ; whether they followed them where they agreed with themselves, and, where they stopped short, went forward without them : I am not aware that they did, but, whether they did or no, they tried not to do so; they wished to make the Anglican divines real vouchers and sanctions of their own teaching, and they used their words rather than their own. They shrank from seeming to speak without warrant, even on matters which in no sense were matters of faith, and T can adduce an instance of it, which is more to the point, tor the very reason it was singularly misunderstood ;

of a Party in the National Church. 1 4 1

and, though it may seem to require some apology that I should again refer to an author from whom I have made several extracts already, I mean myself, I have an excuse for doing so in the circumstance, that I naturally know his works better than those of others, and I can quote him without misrepresenting him or aurting his feelings. In a Eetractation, then, which he published in the year 1843, of some strong statements which he had made against the Catholic Church, these words occur : — " If you ask me how an individual could venture, not simply to hold hut to publish such views of a communion so ancient, so wide-spreading, so fruitful in Saints, I answer, that I said to myself, ' I am not speaking my own words, I am but following almost a consensus of the divines of my Church. They have ever used the strongest language against Eome, even the most able and learned of them. I wish to throw myself into their system. While I say what they say, I am safe. Such views, too, are necessary for our position.'" Now, this passage has been taken to mean, that the writer spoke from expediency what he did not believe; but this is false in fact, and inaccurate in criticism. He spoke what he felt, what he thought, what at the time he held, and nothing but what he held with an internal assent ; but still, though he internally thought it, he would not have dared to say it — he would have shrunk, as well he might, from standing up, on his own private judgment, an accuser

142 The Movement not in the Direction

against the great Eoman communion, and unless in doing so he felt he had been doing simply what his own Church required of him, and what was necessary for his Church's cause, and what all his Church's divines had ever done before him. This being the case, he '' could venture, not simply to hold but to publish ; " he was not " speaking his own words,'' though he was express- ing his own thoughts ; and, as using those words, he was behind '' a system " received by his Church, as w^ell as by himself. He felt " safe," because he spoke after, and "throwing himself into," he was sheltering himself according to its teaching and its teachers. It had, indeed, been one sin that he had thought ill of the Catholic Church ; it had been another and greater, that he had uttered what he thought ; and there was just this alleviation of his second siu, that he had not said it wantonly, and that he had said what others had said before him. There is nothing difficult or unnatural, surely, in this state of mind ; but it is not wonderful that to the mass of Protestants it was incomprehensible that any one should shrink from the display of that private judgment in which they themselves so luxu- riated, that any one should think of clearing himself from what in their eyes was simply a virtue, or should be shocked at having the credit given him of making use of a special privilege.

of a Party in the National Church. 14^

But I have not yet arrived at the ultimate resolu- tion of faith, in the judgment of the theological party of 1833: the Anglican divines, it seems, were to be followed, but, after all, were they inspired more than the Prayer Book ? else, on what are we to say that their authority in turn depended ? Again, the answer was ready : The Anglican divines are sanctioned by that authority, to which they themselves refer, the Fathers of the Church. Thus spoke the party : now at length, you will say, they are brought to a point, when private judgment must necessarily be admitted; for who shall ascertain what is in the Fathers and what is not, with- out a most special and singular application of his own powers of mind, and his own personal attainments, to the execution of so serious an undertaking ? But not even here did they allow themselves to be committed to the Protestant instrument of inquiry, though this point will require some little explanation. It must be observed, then, that they were accustomed to regard theology generally, much more upon its anti-Protestant side than upon its anti-Eoman ; and, from the circum- stances in which they found themselves, w^ere far more solicitous to refute Luther and Calvin than Suarez or Bellarmine. Protestantism was a present foe ; Catho- licism, or Romanism as they called it, was but a pos- sible adversary; 'it was not likely," they said, "that

144 The Movement not in the Direction

Romanism should ever again become formidable in England;" and they engaged with it accordingly, not from any desire to do so, but because they could not form an ecclesiastical theory without its coming in their way, and challenging their notice. It was '' neces- sary for their position" to dispose of CathoHcism, but it was not a task of which they acquitted themselves with the zeal or interest which was so evident in their assaults upon their Protestant brethren. "Those who feel the importance of that article of the Creed," the holy Catholic Church, says a work several times quoted, "and yet are not Romanists, are hound on several accounts to show why they are not Romanists, and how they differ from them. They are bound to do so, in order to remove the prejudice with which an article of the Creed is at present encompassed. From the cir- cumstances, then, of the moment, the following Lectures are chiefly engaged in examining and exposing certain tenets of Romanism." ^ The author's feeling, then, seems to have been,— I should have a perfect case against this

1 Proph Office, p. 7. I am not unmindful of the following " ground " for publishing the Translations of the Fathers, contained in the prospec- ts,, ._" IT The cxreat danger in which the Romanists are of lapsing into secr'et infidelity, not seeing how to escape from the palpable errors of their own Church, without falling into the opposite errors of ultra-Pro- testants It appeare.l an act of especial charity to point out to suca of hem !s'are diLatisfted with the state of their own Church, a body o ancient Catholic truth, free from the errors alike of -oderu Rome and of ultra-Protestantism." I have nothing to say in explanauon, but that this passac^e was not written by me, and that I do not consider it to have expressed my own feelings, or those of the movement.

of a Party in the National Church. 145

Protestantism but for these inconvenient " Eomanists/' whose claims I do not admit indeed, but who, contro- versially, stand in my way.

But now, with this explanation, to the point before us : — The consequence of this state of mind was, that the persons in question were not very solicitous (if I dare speak for others) how far the Fathers seemed to tell for the Church of Eome or not; on the w^hole, they were sure they did not tell materially for her; but it was no matter, though they partially seemed to do so ; for their great and deadly foe, their scorn, and their laughing-stock, was that imibecile, inconsistent thing called Protestantism ; and there could not be a more thorough refutation of its foundation and superstruc- ture than w^as to be found in the volumes of the Fathers. There was no mistaking that the principles professed, and doctrines taught by those holy men, were utterly anti- Protestant ; and, being satisfied of this, which was their principal consideration, it did not occur to them accurately to determine the range and bounds of the teaching of the early Church, or to reflect that, perhaps, they had as yet a clearer view of what it did not sanc- tion, than of what it did. They saw, then, that there simply was no opportunity at all for private judgment, if one wished to exercise it ever so much, as regards the question of the anti-Protestantism of the Fathers ; it was a patent fact, open to all, written on the face of their works, that they were anti-Protestaut; you might

146 The Movement not in the Direction

defer to them, you might reject them, but you could as little deny that they were essentiaUy anti- Protestant, as you could deny that " the Eomanists " were anti- Protestants. It was a matter of fact, a matter of sense, which Protestants themselves admitted or rather main- tained; and here, in this public and undeniable fact, we have arrived at what the movement considered the ultimate resolution of its faith. It argued, for instance, - A private Christian may put what meaning he pleases on many parts of Scripture, and no one can hinder him. If interfered with, he can promptly answer, that it is his own opinion, and may appeal to his right of private judgment. But he cannot so deal with Antiquity: hist°ory is a record of facts; and facts, according to the proverb, are stubborn things." ^ And accordingly, these writers represented the Church as they conceived of it, as having no power whatever over the faith; her Creed was simply a public matter of fact, which needed as little explanation, as little interpretation, as the fact of her own existence. Hence they said: "The humblest and meanest among Christians may defend the faith against the whole Church, if the need arise. He has as much stake in it, and as much right to it, as Bishop or Archbishop ; . . . . aU that learning has to do for him is to ascertain the fact, what is the meaning of the (Jreed in particular points, since matter of opinion it >

1 Proph. Office, p. 45- . .

of a Party in the National Church, ] ^y

not, an}^ more than the history of the rise and spread of Christianity itself." i

Accordingly, as their first act, when they were once set off, had been to publish Catenas of the Anglican divines, so their second was to publish translations of the Fathers — viz., in order to put the matter out of their own hands, and throw the decision upon the j9W- mz^e judgment of no one, but on the common judgment of the whole community, Anglicans and Protestants at once. They considered that the Fathers had hitherto been monopolised by controversialists, who treated them merely as magazines of passages which might be brought forward in argument, mutilated and garbled for the occasion ; and that the greatest service to their own cause was simply to publish them.^ " A main reason," it was said, "of the jealousy with which Christians of this age and country adhere to the notion that truth of doctrine can be gained from Scripture by individuals is this, that they are unwilling, as they say, to be led by others blindfold. They can possess and read the Scriptures ; whereas, of traditions they are not adequate judges, and they dread priestcraft. I am not here to enter into the discussion of this feeling, whether praiseworthy or the contrary. However this be, it does seem a reason for putting before them, if possible, the

1 p. 292.

2 See this brought out in an article on the Apostolical Fathers, in the British Critic of January 1839. [Vide the author's "Essays: Critical Aind Historical," Xo. 5.]

148 The Movement not in the Direction

principal works of the Fathers, translated as Scripture is; that they may have by them what, whether used or not, will at least act as a check upon the growth of an undue dependence on the word of individual teachers. and will be a something to consult, if they have reason to doubt the Catholic character of any tenet to which they are invited to accede." ^

By way, then, of rescuing the faith from private teaching on the one hand, and private judgment on the other, it was proposed to publish a Library of the Fathers translated into English. And let it be ob- served, in pursuance of this object, the Translations were to be presented to the general reader without note or comment. It was distinctly stated in the Prospectus, that " the notes shall be limited to the explanation of obscure passages, or the removal of any misapprehen- Bion which might not improbably arise." And this- was so strictly adhered to at first, that the translation of St. Cyril's Catechetical Lectures was criticised in a Catholic Keview on this very ground; 2 and it was asked why his account of the Holy Eucharist was not reconciled by the Editor with the Anglican formularies, when the very idea of the Editor had been to bring out,

1 Propli Office, p. 203. This pas.a^e, moreover, uegatives the charge,, sometimes advar.ce-l against the agents in the movement, that they wished every mdividaul Christian to gain his faith for himself by stuay of the Fathers. They have enough to bear without our imagimng absurdities. ,

2 Viz the "Dublin Keview." The rule of publishing without note or eminent was, in consequence of such objections, soon abandoned.

of a Party in the National Church. 149

fads, and leave the result to a judgment more authori- tative than his own, and favourable on the whole, as he hoped, in the event, to the Church to which he be- longed. "We can do no more," he had said in the Preface, " than have patience, and recommend patience to others; and with the racer in the Tragedy, look forward steadily and hopefully to the event, 'in the end relying,' when, as we trust, all that is inharmonious and anomalous in the details, will at length be practi- cally smoothed "1

8.

Such, then, was the clear, unvarying line of thought, as I believed it to be, on which the movement of 1833 commenced and proceeded, as regards the questions of Church authority and private judgment. It was fancied that no opportunity for the exercise of private judg- ment could arise in any public or important mat- ter. The Church declared, whether by Prayer Book or Episcopal authority, what w^as to be said or done ; and private judgment either had no objection which it could make good, or only on those minor matters where there was a propriety in its yielding to authority. And the present Church declared what her divines had declared ; and her divines had declared what the Fathers had declared ; and what the Fathers had declared was no matter of private judgment at all, but a matter of fact,

^ Page xi.

I^O

The Movement not in the Direciion

cognizable by all who chose to read their writings. Their testimony was as decisive and clear as Pope's Bull or Definition of Council, or catechisings or direc- tion of any individual parish priest. There was no room for two opinions on the subject ; and, as Catholics consider that the truth is brought home to the soul supernaturally, so that the soul sees it and no longer depends on reason, so in some parallel way it was sup- ppsed, in the theology of the movement, that that same truth, as contained in the Fathers, was a natural fact, recognised by the natural and ordinary intelligence of mankind, as soon as that intelligence was directed towards it.

The idea, then, of the divines of the movement was simply and absolutely submission to an external authority; to such an authority they appealed, to it they betook themselves ; there they found a haven of rest; thence they looked out upon the troubled surge of human opinion and upon the crazy vessels which were labouring, without chart or compass, upon it. Judge then of their dismay, when, according to the Arabian tale, on their striking their anchors into the supposed soil, lighting their fires on it, and fixing in it the poles of their tents, suddenly their island began to move, to heave, to splash, to frisk to and fro, to dive, and at last to swim away, spouting out inhospitable jets of water upon the credulous mariners who had made it their home. And such, I suppose, was the undeniable

of a Party in the National Church. r 5 1

fact : I mean, the time at length came, when first of all turning their minds (some of them, at least) more carefully to the doctrinal controversies of the earh' Church, thej^ saw distinctly that in the reasonings of the Fathers, elicited by means of them, and in the decisions of authority, in which they issued, were con- tained at least the rudiments, the anticipation, the justification of what they had been accustomed to con- sider the corruptions of Eome. And if only one, or a few of them, were visited with this conviction, still even one was sufficient, of course, to destroy that cardinal point of their whole system, the objective perspicuity and distinctness of the teaching of the Fathers. But time went on, and there was no mistaking or denying the misfortune which was impending over them. They had reared a goodly house, but their foundations were falling in. The soil and the masonry both were bad. The Fathers would protect " Eomanists " as well as extinguish Dissenters. The Anglican divines would misquote the Fathers, and shrink from the very doctors to whom they appealed. The Bishops of the seven- teenth century were shy of the Bishops of the fourth ; and the Bishops of the nineteenth were shy of the Bishops of the seventeenth. The ecclesiastical courts upheld the sixteenth century against the seventeenth, and, regardless of the flagrant irregularities of Protes- tant clergymen, chastised the mild misdemeanours of Anglo-Catholic. Soon the living rulers of the Establi-sh-

152 I'lie Movement not in the Direction

ment began to move. There are those who, reversing the Eoman s maxim,i are wont to shrink from the con- tumacious, and to be valiant towards the submissive; and the authorities in question gladly availed them- selves of the power conferred on them by the move- ment against the movement itself. They fearlessly handselled their Apostolic weapons upon the Aposto- lical party. One after another, in long succession, they took up their song and their parable against it. It was a solemn war-dance, which they executed round victims, who by their very principles were bound hand and foot, and could only eye with disgust and per- plexity this most unaccountable movement, on the part of their " holy Fathers, the representatives of the Apostles, and the Angels of the Churches." It was the beginning of the end.

My brethren, when it was at length plain that primi- tive Christianity ignored the National Church, and that the National Church cared little for primitive Christi- anity, or for those who appealed to it as her foundation ; when Bishops spoke against them, and Bishops' courts sentenced them, and Universities degraded them, and the people rose against them, from that day their "occupation was gone." Their initial principle, their

1 "Parcere subjectis, et debelkre superbos." It may be right here to say. thac nhe author never can forget the great kindness which Dr. Bagot, at"'uiat time Bishop of Oxford, showe.i him on several occasions. He also has to noti-e the courtesy of Dr. Thirwall's language, a prelate whom he has never had the honour of knowing.

of a Party in the National Church. 1 5 3

basis, external authority, was cat from under them; they had " set their fortunes on a cast ; " they had lost ; henceforward they had nothing left for them but to shut up their school, and retire into the country. iSTothing else was left for them, unless, indeed, they took up some other theory, unless they changed their ground, unless they ceased to be what they were, and became what they were not ; unless they belied their own prin- ciples, and strangely forgot their own luminous and most keen convictions ; unless they vindicated the right of private judgment, took up some fancy-religion, re- tailed the Fathers, and jobbed theology. They had but a choice between doing nothing at all, and looking out for truth and peace elsewuere,

9.

And now, at length, I am in a condition to answer the question which you have proposed for my considera- tion. You ask me whether you cannot now continue what you were. No, my brethren, it is impossible you cannot recall the past ; you cannot surround your selves with circumstances which have simply ceased to be. In the beginning of the movement you disowned private judgment, but now, if you would remain a party, you must, with whatever mconsisteucy, profess it; — then you were a party only externally, that is, not in your wishes and feelings, but merely because you were seen to differ from others in matter of fact, when the

154 The Movement not in the Direction

world looked at you, whether you would or no ; but now you will be a party knowingly and on principle, intrinsically, and will be erected on a party basis. You cannot be what you were. You will no longer be Anglo-Catholic, but Patristico-Protestants. You will be obliged to frame a religion for yourselves, and then to maintain that it is that very truth, pure and celestial, which the Apostles promulgated. You will be induced of necessity to put together some speculation of your own, and then to fancy it of importance enough to din it into the ears of your neighbours, to plague the world with it, and, if you have success, to convulse your own Communion with the imperious inculcation of doctrines which you can never engraft upon it.

For me, my dear brethren, did I know myself weU I should doubtless find I was open to the temptation, as well as others, to take a line of my own, or, what is called, to set up for myself ; but whatever might be my real infirmity in this matter, I should, from mere com- mon sense and common delicacy, hide it from myself, and give it some good name in order to make it palat- able. I never could get myself to say, '' Listen to me, for I have something great to tell you, which no one else knows, but of which there is no manner of doubt." I should be kept from such extravagance from an intense sense of the intellectual absurdity, which, in my feelings, such a claim would involve ; which would shame me as keenly, and humble me in my own sight as utterly, as

of a Party in the National CIturch. 155

Bonie moral impropriety or degradation. I should feel I was simply making a fool of myself, and taking on myself in figure that penance, of which we read in tlie Lives of the Saints, of playing antics and making faces in the market-place. Not religious principle, but even worldly pride, would keep me from so unworthy an exhibition. I can understand, my brethren, I can sym- pathise with those old-world thinkers, whose commen- tators are MantandD'Oyly, whose theologian is Tomline, whose ritualist is Wheatly, and whose canonist is Burns ; who are proud of their Jewels and their Chillingworths, whose works they have never opened, and toast Cranmer and Eidiey, and William of Orange, as the founders of their religion. In these times three hundred years is a respectable antiquity ; and traditions, recognized in law courts, and built into the structure of society, may well without violence be imagined to be immemorial. Those also I can understand, who take their stand upon the Prayer Book; or those who honestly profess to follow the consensus of Anglican divines, as the voice of authority and the standard of faith. Moreover, I can quite enter into the sentiment with which members of the liberal and infidel school investigate the history and the documents of the early Church. They profess a view of Christianity, truer than the world has ever had ; nor, on the assumption of their principles, is there anything shocking to good sense in this profession. They look upon the Christian Religion as somethinor

156 The Movement not in the Direction

simply human ; and there is no reason at all why a phenomenon of that kind should not be better under- stood, in its origin and nature, as years proceed. It is, indeed, an intolerable paradox to assert, that a revela- tion, given from God to man, should lie unknown or mistaken for eighteen centuries, and now at length should be suddenly deciphered by individuals ; but it is quite intelligible to assert, and plausible to argue, that a human fact should be more philosophically explained than it was eighteen hundred years ago, and more exactly ascertained than it was a thousand. His- tory is at this day undergoing a process of revolution ; the science of criticism, the disinterment of antiquities, the unrolling of manuscripts, the interpretation of inscriptions, have thrown us into a new world of thought ; characters and events come forth transformed in the process; romance, prejudice, local tradition, party bias, are no longer accepted as guarantees of truth; the order and mutual relation of events are readjusted; the springs and the scope of action are reversed. Were Christianity a mere work of man, it, too, might turn out something different from what it has hitherto been considered; its history might require re-writing, as the history of Rome, or of the earth's strata, or of languages, or of chemical action. A Catholic neither deprecates nor fears such inquiry, though he abhors the spirit in which it is too often conducted. He is willing that infidelity should do its

of a Party in the National Chuych. 1 5 7

work against the Church, knowing that she will be found just where she was, when the assault is over. It is nothing to him, though her enemies put themselves to the trouble of denying everything that has hitherto been taught, and begin with constructing her history all over again, for he is quite sure that they will end at length with a compulsory admission of what at first they so wantonly discarded. Free thinkers and broad thinkers, Laudians and Prayer-Book Christians, high- and-dry and Establishment-men, all these he would understand; but what he would feel so prodigious is this, — that such as you, my brethren, should con- sider Christianity given from heaven once for all, should protest against private judgment, should pro- fess to transmit what you have received, and yet from diligent study of the Fathers, from your thorough knowledge of St. Basil and St. Chrysostom, from living, as you say, in the atmosphere of Antiquity, that you should come forth into open day with your new edi- tion of the Catholic faith, different from that held in any existing body of Christians anywhere, which not half-a-dozen men all over the world would honour with their imprimatur ; and then, withal, should be as positive about its truth in every part, as if the voice of mankind were with you instead of being against you.

You are a body of yesterday ; you are a drop in the ocean of professing Christians ; yet you would give the

158 The Movement not in the Direction

law to priest and prophet ; and you fancy it an humble office, forsooth, suited to humble men, to testify the very truth of Kevelation to a fallen generation, or rather to almost a long bi-millenary, which has been in unallevi- ated traditionary error. You have a mission to teach the National Church, which is to teach the British em- pire, which is to teach the world ; you are more learned than Greece ; you are purer than Eome ; you know more than St. Bernard; you judge how far St. Ihomas was right, and where he is to be read with caution, or held up to blame. You can bring to light juster views of grace, or of penance, or of invoca- tion of saints, than St. Gregory or St. Augustine, —

" qualia viucunt Pj'thagoran, Anytiqne reum, doctumque Platona."

This is what you can do ; yes, and when you have done all, to what have you attained ? to do just what heretics have done before you, and, as doing, have incurred the anathema of Holy Church. Such was Jansenius ; for of him we are told, " From the com- mencement of his theological studies, when he began to read, with the schoolmen, the holy Fathers, and especially Augustine, he at once saw, as he confessed, that most of the schoolmen went far astray from that holy Doctor's view, in that capital article of grace and free will. He sometimes owned to his friends, that he had read over more than ten times the entire works of Augustine, with lively attention and diligent annota-

of a Party in the National Church. 1 5 9

tion, and Lis books against the Pelagians at least thirty times from beginning to end. He said that no mind, whether Aristotle or Archimedes, or any other under the heavens, was equal to Augustine. ... I have heard him say more than once, that life would be most delightful to him, though on some ocean-isle or rock, apart from all human society, had he but his Augustine with him. In a word, after God and Holy Scripture, Augustine was his all in all. However, for many years he had to struggle with his old opinions, before he put them all off, aud arrived at the intimate sense of St. Augustine. . . . Tor this work, he often said, he was specially born ; and that, when he had finished it, he should be most ready to die." ^ Such, too, was another nearer home, on whom Burnet bestows this panegyric : — " Cranmer," says he, '• was at great pains to collect the sense of ancient writers upon all the heads of religion, by which he might be directed in such an important matter. I have seen two volumes in folio, written with his own hand, containing, upon all the heads of religion, a vast heap of places of Scripture, and quotations out of ancient Fathers, and later doctors and schoolmen, by which he governed himself in that work."

And now, my brethren, will it not be so, as I have said, of simple necessity, if you attempt at this time to

' Syuops, Vit.. ap. Opp. 1643. •■ • ....

i6o The Movement not in the Direction

perpetuate in the National Church a form of opinion which the National Church disowns? You do not follow its Bishops ; you disown its existing traditions ; you are discontented with its divines ; you protest against its law courts ; you shrink from its laity ; you outstrip its Prayer Book. You have in all respects an eclectic or an original religion of out own. You dare not stand or fall by Andrewes, or by Laud, or by Ham- mond, or by BuU, or by Thorndike, or by all of them together. There is a consensus of divines, stronger than there is for Baptismal Regeneration or the Apostolical Succession, that Rome is, strictly and literally, an anti- Christian power :— Liberals and High Churchmen in your Communion in this agree with Evangelicals ; you put it aside. There is a consensus against Transub- stantiation, besides the declaration of the Article ; yet many of you hold it notwithstanding. Nearly all your divines, if not all, call themselves Protestants, and you anathematize the name. Who makes the concessions to Catholics which you do, yet remains separate from them ? Who, among Anglican authorities, would speak of Penance as a Sacrament, as you do ? Who of them encourages, much less insists upon, auricular confession, as you ? or makes fasting an obligation ? or uses the crucifix, and the rosary ? or reserves the consecrated bread ? or believes in miracles as existing in your com- munion ? or administers, as I believe you do, Extreme Unction ? In some points you prefer Rome, in others

of a Party in the National Church. i6i

Greece, in others England, in others Scotland ; and of that preference your own private judgment is the ultimate sanction.

What am I to say in answer to conduct so prepos- terous ? Say you go "by any authority whatever, and I shall know where to find you, and I shall respect you. Swear by any school of Eeligion, old or modern, by Eonge's Church, or the Evangelical Alliance, nay, by yourselves, and I shall know what you mean, and will listen to you. But do not come to me with the latest fashion of opinion which the world has seen, and pro- test to me that it is the oldest. Do not come to me at this time of day with views palpably new, isolated, original, sui generis, warranted old neither by Christian nor unbeliever, and challenge me to answer what I really have not the patience to read. Life is not long enough for such trifles. Go elsewhere, not to me, if you wish to make a proselyte. Your inconsistency, my dear brethren, is on your very front. Nor pretend that you are but executing the sacred duty of defending your own Communion : your Church does not thank you for a defence, which she has no dream of appropriat- ing. You innovate on her professions of doctrine, and then you bid us love her for your innovations. You cling to her for what she denounces ; and you almost anathematise us for taking a step which you would please her best by taking also. You call it restless,

impatient, undutiful in us, to do what she would have

L

1 62 TJie Movement not in the Direction

us do ; and you think it a loving and confiding course in her children to believe, not her, but you. She is to teach, and we are to hear, only according to your own private researches into St. Chrysostom and St. Augus- tine. '' I began myself with doubting and inquiring," you seem to say; "I departed from the teaching I received ; I was educated in some older type of Angli- canism ; in the school of Newton, Cecil, and Scott, or in the Bartlett's-Building School, or in the Liberal Whig School. I was a Dissenter, or a Wesleyan, and by study and thought I became an Anglo -Catholic. And then I read the Fathers, and I have determined what works are genuine, and what are not ; which of them apply to all times, which are occasional ; which historical, and which doctrinal; what opinions are private, wha<- authoritative ; what they only seem to hold, what they ought to hold ; what are fundamental, what ornamental. Having thus measured and cut and put together my creed by my own proper intellect, by my own lucubra- tions, and differing from the whole world in my results, I distinctly bid you, I solemnly warn you, not to do as I have done, but to accept what I have found, to revere that, to use that, to believe that, for it is the teaching of the old Fathers, and of your Mother the Church of England. Take my word for it, that this is the very truth of Christ ; deny your own reason, for I know better than you, and it is as clear as day that some moral fault in you is the cause of your differing from

of a Party in the National Church. 163

me. It is pride, or vanity, or self-reliance, or fulness of bread. You require some medicine for your soul • you must fast ; you must make a general confession ; and look very sharp to yourself, for you are already next door to a rationalist or an infidel."

Surely, I have not exaggerated, my brethren, what you will be obliged to say, if you take the course which you are projecting; but the point immediately before us is something short of this; it is, whether a party in the Establishment formed on such principles (and as things are now it can be formed on no other) can in any sense be called a genuine continuation of the Apostolical party of twenty years ago ? The basis of that party was the professed abnegation of private judgment ; your basis is the professed exercise of it. li you are really children of it as it was in 1833, jou must have nothing to say to it as it is in 1850.

( i64 )

T

LECTURE VI

THE PROVIDENTIAL COURSE OF THE MOVEMENT OF 18 S3 NOT IN THE DIRECTION OF A BRANCH CHURCH.

I.

HEEE are persons who may think that the line of thought which I pursued in my last two Lectures had somewhat of a secular and political cast, and was deficient in that simplicity which becomes an inquiry after religious truth. We are inquiring, you may say, whether the National Church is in possession of the Sacraments, whether we can obtain the grace of Christ, necessary for our salvation, at its hands ? On this great question depends our leaving its communion or not ; but you answer us by simply bidding us consider which course of action will look best, what the world expects of us, how posterity will judge of us, what termination is most logically consistent with our com- mencement, what are to be the historical fortunes in prospect of a large body of men, variously circum- stanced, and subject to a variety of influences from without and within. It is a personal, an individual

The Movement, etc. [65

question to each inquirer; but you ^\ould have us view it as a political game, in which each side makes moves, and just now it is our turn, not, as it really is, a matter of religious conviction, duty, and re- sponsibility.

But thus to speak is mistaking the argument alto- gether. First, I am not addressing those who have no doubt whatever about the divine origin of the Estab- lished Church. I am not attempting to rouse, or, as

some would call it, unsettle them. If there be such

for, to tell the truth, I almost doubt their existence

I pass them by. I am contemplating that not incon- siderable number, who are, in a true sense, though in various degrees, and in various modes, inquirers ; who, on the one hand, have no doubt at all of the great Apos- tolical principles which are stamped upon the face of the early Church, and were the life of the movement of 1833 ; and who, on the other hand, have certain doubts about those principles being the property and the life of the National Church— who have fears, grave anxieties or vague misgivings, as the case may be, lest that com- munion be not a treasure-house and fount of grace — and then all at once are afraid again, that, after all, perhaps it is, and that it is their own fault that they are blind to the fact, and that it is undutifulness in them to question it; — who, after even their most violent doubts, have seasons of relenting and com- punction; and who at length are so perplexed by

1 66 The Movement not in the Direction

reason of the clear light pouring in on them from above, yet by the secret whisper the while, that they ought to doubt their own perceptions, because (as they are told) they are impatient, or self-willed, or excited, or dreaming, and have lost the faculty of looking at things in a natural, straightforward way, that at length they do not know what they hold and what they do not hold, or where they stand, and are in conflict within, and almost in a state of anarchy and recklessness.

2.

j^ow, to persons in this cruel strife of thought, I offer the consideration on which I have been dwelling, as a sort of diversion to their harassed minds ; as an argu- ment of fact, external to themselves, and over which they have no power, which is of a nature to arbitrate and decide for them between their own antagonist judgments. You wish to know whether the Establish- ment is what you began by assuming it to be — the grace-giving Church of God. If it be, you and your principles will surely find your position there and your home. When you proclaim it to be Apostolical, it will smile on you ; when you kneel down and ask its bless- ing, it will stretch its hands over you ; when you would strike at heresy, it will arm you for the fight; when you wind your dangerous way with steady tread be- tween Sabellius, Nestorius, and Eutyches, between Pelagius and Calvin, it will follow you with anxious

of a Branch CJhurch. 167

eyes and a beating heart ; when you proclaim its relationship to Eome and Greece, it will in transport embrace you as its own dear children; you will sink happily into its arms, you will repose upon its breast, you will recognise your mother, and be at peace. If, however, on the contrary, you find that the more those great principles w^hich you have imbibed from St. Athauasius and St. Augustine, and which have become the life and the form of your moral and intellectual being, vegetate and expand within you, the moreaw^kward and unnatural you find your position in the Establish- ment, and the more difficult its explanation; if there is no lying, or standing, or sitting, or kneeling, or stoop- ing there, in any possible attitude ; if, as in the tyrant's cage, when you would rest your head, your legs are forced out between the Articles, and when you w^ould relieve your back, your head strikes against the Prayer Book ; when, place yourselves as you will, on the right side or the left, and try to keep as still as you can, your flesh is ever being punctured and probed by the stings of Bishops, laity, and nine-tenths of the Clergy buzzing about you ; is it not as plain as day that the Establishment is not your place, since it is no place for your principles ? Those principles are not there professed, they are not there realised. That mystical sacramental system on which your thoughts live, which was once among men, as you know well — and therefore must be always with them — is not the inheritance of

1 68 The Movement not in the Direction

Anglicanism, but must have been bequeathed to others , it must be sought elsewhere. You have doubts on the point already ; well, here is the confirmation of them. I have no wish, then, to substitute an external and political view for your personal serious inquiry. I am Uut assisting you in that inquiry; I am deciding exist- ing doubts, which belong to yourselves, by an external fact, which is as admissible, surely, in such a matter, as the allegation of miracles would be, or any other evi- dence of the kind ; for the same God who works in you individually, is working in the public and historical course of things also.

I think, then, that in my last Lectures I have proved, not adequately, for it would take many words to do justice to a proof so abundant in materials, but as far as time allowed, and as was necessary for those who would pursue the thought, that the movement to wliich you and I belong, looks away from the EstabHshment, that " Let us go hence " is its motto. I cannot doubt you would agree with me in this, did you not belong to it, did you disbelieve its principles, were you merely disinterested, dispassionate lookers-on ; in that case you would decide that you must join some other com- munion: judge then as disbelieving, act as believing. If the movement be a providential work, it has a pro- vidential scope; if that scope be not in the direction of the Establishment, as I have been proving, in what direction is it ? Does it look towards Greece, or toward s

of a Branch Church. 169

America, or towards Scotland, or towards Eome ? This IS the subject which has next to be considered, and to which, in part, I shall address myself to-day.

Here then, when you are investigating whither you shall go for your new succession and your new priest- hood, I am going to offer you a suggestion which, if it approves itself to you, will do away with the oppor- tunity, or the possibility, of choice altogether. It will reduce the claimants to one. Before entering, then, upon the inquiry, whither you shall betake yourselves, and what you shall be, bear with me while I give you one piece of advice ; it is this : — While you are looking about for a new Communion, have nothing to do with a " Branch Church." You have had enough experience of brancb churches already, and you know very well what they are. Depend upon it, such as is one, such is another. They may differ in accidents certainly ; but, after all, a branch is a branch, and no branch is a tree. Depend on it, my brethren, it is not worth while leaving one branch for another. While you are doing so great a work, do it thoroughly ; do it once for all ; change for the better. Eather than go to another brancb, remain where you are ; do not put yourselves to trouble for nothing ; do not sacrifice this world with- out gaining the next. Now let us consider this point attentively.

170 The Movement not in the Direction

3. By a Branch Churcli is meant, I suppose, if we interpret the metaphor, a Church which is separate from its stem ; and if we ask what is meant by the stem, I suppose it means the " Universal Church," as you are accustomed to call it. The Catholic Church, indeed, as understood by Catholics, is one kingdom or society, divisible into parts, each of which is in inter- communion with each other and with the whole, as the members of a human body. This Catholic Church, as I suppose you would maintain, has ceased to exist, or at least is in deliquium, for you will not give the name to us, nor do you take it yourselves, and scarcely ever use the phrase at all, except in the Creed; but a " Universal Church " you think there really is, and you mean by it the whole body of professing Christians all over the world, whatever their faith, origin, and tradi- tions, provided they lay claim to an Apostolical Suc- cession, and this whole is divisible into portions or branches, each of them independent of the whole, dis- cordant one with another in doctrine and in ritual, des- titute of mutual intercommunion, and more frequently in actual warfare, portion with portion, than in a state of neutrality. Such is pretty nearly what you mean by a Brancli, allowing for differences of opinion on the sub- ject ; such, for instance, is the Kussian Branch, which denounces the Pope as a usurper; such the Papal, which anathematises the Protestantism of the Anglican ;

of a Branch Church. 171

such the Anglican, which reprobates the devotions and scorns the rites of the Eussian ; such the Scotch, which has changed the Eucharistic service of the Ano-lican ; such the American, which has put aside its Athanasian Creed.

Sucli, I say, is a Branch Church, and, as you will see at once, it is virtually synonymous with a National; for though it may be in fact and at present but one out of many communions in a nation, it is intended, by its very mission, as preacher and evangelist, to spread through the nation ; nor has it done its duty till it has so spread, for it must be supposed to have the promise of success as w^ell as the mission. On the other hand, it cannot extravagate beyond the nation, for the very principle of demarcation between Branch and Branch is the distinction of Nation or State ; to the Nation, then, or State it is limited, and beyond the Nation's boun- daries it cannot properly pass. Thus it is the normal condition of a Branch Church to be a National Church ; it tends to nationality as its perfect idea; till it is national it is defective, and when it is national it is all it can be, or was meant to be. Since, then, to under- stand what any being is, we must contemplate it, not in its rudiments or commencements, any more than in its decline, but in its maturity and its perfection, it follows that, if we would know^ what a Branch Church is, we must view it as a National Church, and we shall form but an erroneous estimate of its nature and

172 The Movement not in the Direction

its characteristics, unless we investigate its national form.

EecoUect, then, that a Branch Church is a National Church, and the reason why I warn you against getting your orders from such a Church, or joining such a Church, as, for instance, the Greek, the Russian, or some Monophysite Church, is that you are in a National Church already, and that a National Church ever will be and must be what you have found your own to ]3e, — an Erastian body. You are going to start afresh. "Well, then, I assert, that if you do not get beyond the idea of Nationalism in this your new beginning, you are just where you were. Erastianism, the fruitful mother of all heresies, will be your first and your last. You will have left Erastianism to take Erastianism up again, — that heresy which is the very badge of Angli- canism, and the abomination of that theological move- ment from which you spring.

I here assert, then, that a Branch or National Church is necessarily Erastian, and cannot be other- wise, till the nature of man is other than it is ; and I shall prove this from the state of the case, and from the course of history, and from the confession, or rather avowal, of its defenders. The English Establishment is nothing extraordinary in this respect ; the Eussian Church is Erastian, so is the Greek ; such was the Nestorian ; such would be the Scotch Episcopal, such the Anulo- American, if ever the}' became commensurate

of a Branch Church. 173

with the nation. And now for my reasons for saying

60.

4.

You hold, and rightly hold, that the Church is a sovereign and self-sustaining power, in the same sense in which any temporal State is such. She is sufficient for herself ; she is absolutely independent in her own sphere ; she has irresponsible control over her subjects in religious matters ; she makes laws for them of her own authority, and enforces obedience on them as the tenure of their membership with her. And you know, in the next place, that the very people, who are her subjects, are in another relation the State's subjects, and that those very matters which in one aspect are spiritual, in another are secular. The very same per- sons and the very same things belong to two supreme jurisdictions at once, so that the Church cannot issue any order, but it affects the persons and the things of the State ; nor can the State issue any order, without its affecting the persons and the things of the Church.. Moreover, though there is a general coincidence be- tween the principles on which civil and ecclesiastical welfare respectively depend, as proceeding from one- and the same God, who has given power to the Magis- trate as well as to the Priest, still there is no necessary coincidenxje in their particular application and resulting details, in the one and in the other polity, just as the good of the soul is not always the good of the body ;

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and mucli more is this the case, considering there is no divine direction promised to the State, to preserve it from human passion and human selfishness. You will, T think, agree with me in judging, that under these circumstances it is morally impossible that there should not he continual collision, or chance of collision, be- tween the State and the Church; and, considering the State has the power of the sword, and the Church has no arms but such as are spiritual, the problem to be considered by us is, how the Church may be able to do her divinely appointed work without let or hindrance from the physical force of the State.

And a difficulty surely it is, and a difficulty which Christianity for the most part brought into the world. It can scarcely be said to have existed before ; for, if not altogether in Judaism, yet certainly in the heathen polities, the care of public w^orship, of morals, of educa- tion, was mainly committed, as well as secular matters, to the civil magistrate. There was once no independent jurisdiction in religion ; but, when our Lord came, it was with the express object of introducing a new king- dom, distinct and different from the kingdoms of the world, and He was sought after by Herod, and con- demned by Pilate, on the very apprehension that His claims to royalty were inconsistent with their preroga- tives. Such was the Church when first introduced into the world, and her subsequent history has been after the pattern of her commencement ; the State has ever

of a BrancJi Church, 175

"been jealous of her, and has persecuted her from with- out and bribed her from within.

I repeat, the great principles of the State are those of the Church, and, if the State would but keep within its own province, it would find the Church its truest ally and best benefactor. She upholds obedience to the magistrate ; she recognises his office as from God ; she is the preacher of peace, the sanction of law, the first element of order, and the safeguard of morality, and that without possible vacillation or failure : she may be fully trusted ; she is a sure friend, for she is in- defectible and undying. But it is not enough for the State that things should be done, unless it has the doing of them itself; it abhors a double jurisdiction, and what it calls a divided allegiance ; aut Ccesar aut 7iullus, is its motto, nor does it willingly accept of any com- promise. All power is founded, as it is often said, on public opinion ; for the State to allow the existence of a collateral and rival authority, is to weaken its own ; and, even though that authority never showed its presence by collision, but never concurred and co-ope- rated in the acts of the State, yet the divinity with which the State would fain hedge itself would, in the minds of men, be concentrated on that Ordinance of ■God which has the higher claim to it.

5.

Such being the difficulty which ever has attended,

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and ever will attend, the claims and the position of the Catholic Church in this proud and ambitious world, let us see how, as a matter of history, Providence has practically solved or alleviated it. He has done so by means of the very circumstance that the Church i» Catholic, that she is one organised body, expanded over the whole earth, and in active intercommunion part with part, so that no one part acts without acting on and acting with every other. He has broken the force of the collisions, which ever must be, between Church and State, by the circumstance that a large community, such as the Church, necessarily moves slowly ; and thia will particularly be the case when it is subject ta distinct temporal rulers, exposed to various political interests and prepossessions, and embarrassed by such impediments to communication (physical or moral, mountains and seas, languages and laws) as separation into nations involves. Added to this, the Church ia composed of a vast number of ranks and offices, so that there is scarcely any of her acts that belongs to one individual will, or is elaborated by one inteUect, or that is not rather the joint result of many co-operating- agents, each in his own place, and at his appointed, moment. And so fertile an idea as the Christian faith, so happy a mother as the Catholic Church, is necessa- rily developed and multiplied into a thousand various- powers and functions ; she has her Clergy and laity, lier seculars and regulars, her Episcopate and Prelacy,.

of a Branch Church. 177

her diversified orders, congregations, confraternities, communities, each indeed intimately one with the whole, yet with its own characteristics, its own work, its own traditions, its graceful rivalry, or its disgraceful jealousies, and sensitive, on its own ground and its own sphere, of whatever takes place anywhere else. And then again, there is the ever- varying action of the ten thousand influences, political, national, local, municipal, provincial, agrarian, scholastic, all hearing upon her; the clashing of temporal interests, the apprehension of danger to the whole or its parts, the necessity of con- ciliation, and the duty of temporising. Further, she has no material weapons of attack or defence, and is at any moment susceptible of apparent defeat from local misfortune or personal misadventure. Moreover, her centre is one, and, from this very circumstance, sheltered from secular inquisitiveness ; sheltered, moreover, in consequence of the antiquated character of its tradi- tions, the peculiarity of its modes of acting, the tran- quillity and deliberateness of its operations, as well as the mysteriousness thrown about it both from its pictu- resque and imposing ceremonial, and the popular opinion of its sanctity. And further still, she has the sacred obligation on her of long-suffering, patience, charity, of regard for the souls of her children, and of an anxious anticipation of the consequences of her measures. Hence, though her course is consistent, determinate, and simple, when viewed in history, yet to those who

178 The Movement not in the Direction

accompany the stages of its evolution from day to aay as they occur, it is confused and disappointing.

How different is the bearing of the temporal power upon the spiritual ! Its promptitude, decisiveness, keen- ness, and force are well represented in the military host which is its instrument. Punctual in its movements, precise in its operations, imposing in its equipments, with its spirits high and its step firm, with its haughty clarion and its black artillery, behold, the mighty world is gone forth to war, with what ? with an un- known something, which it feels but cannot see ? which ihts around it, which flaps against its cheek, with the an^ with the wind. It charges and it slashes, and it tires its volleys, and it bayonets, and it is mocked by a foe who dwells in another sphere, and is far beyond the force of its analysis, or the capacities of its calculus. The air gives way, and it returns again; it exerts a gentle but constant pressure on every side; moreover, it is of vital necessity to the very power which is attack- mg it. Whom have you gone out against ? a few old men, with red hats and stockings, or a hundred pale ' students, with eyes on the ground, and beads in their girdle; ihey are as stubble; destroy them;— then there wiU be other old men, and other pale students instead of them. But we will direct our rage against one ; he flees ; what is to be done with him ? Cast him out upon the wide world 1 but nothing can go on without bim. Then bring him back ! but he will give us no

of a Branch Church 179

guarantee for the future. Then leave him alone; his power is gone, he is at an end, or he will take a 'new course of himself: he will take part with tlie State or the people. Meanwhile the multitude of interests in active operation all over the great Catholic body rise up, as it were, all around, and encircle the combat, and hide the fortune of the day from the eyes of the world; and unreal judgments are hazarded, and rash predic- tions, till the mist clears away, and then the old man is found in his own place, as before, saying Mass over tlie tomb of the Apostles. Eesentment and animosity succeed in the minds of the many, when they find their worldly wisdom quite at fault, and that the weak has over-mastered the strong. They accuse the Church of craft. But, in truth, it is her very vastness, her manifold constituents, her complicated structure, which gives her this semblance, whenever she wears it, of feebleness, vacillation, subtleness, or dissimulation. She advances, retires, goes to and fro, passes to the right or left,, bides her time, by a spontaneous, not a dehberate action. It is the divmely-intended method of her coping with the world's power. Even in the brute creation, each animal which God has made has its own instincts for securing its subsistence, and guarding against its foes ; and, when He sent out His own into the world, as sheep among wolves, over and above the harmlessness and wisdom with which He gifted them, He lodged the security of His truth in the

i8o 'flie Movement not in the Direction

very fact of its Catholicity. The Church triumphs over the world's jurisdiction everywhere, because, though she is everywhere, for that very reason she is in" the fulness of her jurisdiction nowhere. Ten thousand subordinate authorities have been planted round, or have issued from, that venerable Chair where sits the plenitude of Apostolical power. Hence, when she would act, the blow is broken, and concussion avoided, by the innumerable springs, if I may use the word, on which the celestial machinery is hung. By an inevitable law of the system, and by the nature of the case, there are inquiries, and remonstrances, and threatenings, and first decisions, and appeals, and reversals, and conferences, and long delays, and arbitra- tions, before the final steps are taken in its battle with the State, if they cannot be avoided, and before the proper authority of the Church shows itself, whether in definition, or bull, or anathema, or interdict, or other spiritual instrument; and then, if, after all, persuasion has failed, and compromise with the civH power is impossible, the world is prepared for the event ; and even in that case the Sovereign Pontiff, as such, is spared any direct collision with it, for the reason that he is no subject in matters temporal of the State with which he is at variance, whatever it be, being temporal Sovereign in his own home, and treating with the States of the earth only through his secular represen- tatives and ministers.

of a Branch Church. r^r

6. The remarks I have been making are well illustrated by the history of our own great St. Thomas, in his contest with King Henry II. Deserted by his suffra- gans, and threatened with assassination, he is forced to escape, as he can, to the Continent. He puts his cause before the Pope, but with no immediate result, for the Pope is in contest with the Emperor, who has supported a pretender to the Apostolic See. Por two years nothing is done ; then the Pope begins to move, but mediates between Archbishop and King, instead of taking the part of the former. The King of Prance comes forward on the Saint's side, and his friends attempt to gain the Empress Matilda also. Strength- ened by these demonstrations, St. Thomas excommu- nicates some of the King's party, and threatens the King himself, not to say his realm, with an interdict. Then there are appeals to Piome on the part of the King's Bishops, alarmed at the prospect of such extremities, while the Pope on the other hand gives a more distinct countenance to the Saint's cause. Suddenly, the face of things is overcast ; the Pope has anathematised the Emperor, and has his hands fuU of his own matters ; Henry's agents at Eome obtain a Legatine Commission, under the presidency of a Car- dinal favourable to his cause.

The quarrel lingers on ; two years more have passed, and then the Commission fails. Then St. Thomas

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rouses himself again, and is proceeding with the inter diet, when news comes that the King has overreached the Pope, and the Archbishop's powers are altogether suspended for a set time. The artifice is detected by the good offices of the French Bishops, the Pope sends comminatorv letters to the King, but, then again, does not carry them out. There is a reconciliation between the Kings of England and Prance, at the expense of St. Thomas ; but, by this time, the suspension is over, and the Saint excommunicates the Bishop of London. In consequence, he receives a rebuke from the Pope, who, after absolving the Bishop, takes the matter into his own hands, himself excommunicates the Bishop, and himself threatens the kingdom with an interdict. Then St. Thomas returns, and is martyred, winning the day by suffering, not by striking.

Seven years are consumed in these transactions from first to last, and they aftbrd a sufficient illustration of the subject before us. If I add the remarks made on them by the editor of the Saint's letters, in Mr. Fronde's - Eemains," it is for the sake of his general statement, which is as just as it is apposite to my purpose, though I may not be able to approve of the tone or the drift of it. Speaking of St. Thomas, he says, '' His notions, both as regarded the justice and policy to be pursued in the treatment of Henry, had suggested this course [the interdict] to him from the first opening of the contest ; and he seems always to have had such a measure before

of a Branch Church. 183

him, only the interruptions occasioned by embassies from Eome, and appeals to Eome, and other temporary suspensions of his ecclesiastical powers, had prevented him from putting his purpose into effect ; these having, in fact, taken up almost the whole of the time. For an embassy, it must be observed, from the first day of its appointment, suspended the Archbishop's move- ments, who could do nothing while special and higher judges were in office. ... In this way, there being so much time, both before and after the actual holdincr of the conferences, during which the Archbishop's hands were tied, he may be said to have been almost under one sentence of suspension from the first, only rendered more harassing and vexatious from the promise afforded by his short intervals of liberty, and the alternations, in consequence, of expectation and disappointment. It was a state of confinement, which was always approach- ing its termination, and never realising it. With a clear line of action before him from the first, and with resolution and ability to carry it out, the Archbishop was compelled to keep pace, step by step, with a court that was absolutely deficient in both these respects ; and found himself reduced throughout to a state of simple passiveness and endurance." ^ Of course; — a Branch Church indeed, with the Catholic docmia and with Saints in it, cannot be; but, supposing the English Church had been such at the time of that contest, it

^ Fronde's Remains, vol. iv. p. 449.

1 84 The Movement riot in the Direction

would, humanly speaking, have heen inevitably shat- tered to pieces by its direct collision with the civil power; or else, its Saints got rid of, its Erastianising Bishops made its masters, and ultimately its dogma corrupted, and the times of Henry VIII. anticipated;— this would have been the case, but for its intercom- munion with the rest of Christendom and the supremacy

of Eome.

7.

This, however, is what has been going on, in one way or another, for the whole eighteen centuries of Christian history. For even in the ante-Nicene period, the heretic Patriarch of Antioch was protected by the local sovereign against the Catholics, and was dis- possessed by the authority and influence with the Imperial Government of the See of Eome. And since that time, again and again would the civil power, humanly speaking, have taken captive and corrupted each portion of Christendom in turn, but for its union with the rest, and the noble championship of the Supreme Pontiff. Our ears ring with the oft-told tale, how the temporal sovereign persecuted, or attempted, or gained, the local Episcopate, and how the many or the few faitliful fell back on Rome. So was it with the Avians in the East and St. Athanasius ; so with the Byzantine Empress and St. Chrysostom ; so with the Vandal Hunneric and the Africans; so with the 130 Monophysite Bishops at Ephesus and St. Flavian ; so

of a Branch Church 185

was it in the instance of the 500 Bishops, who, by the influence of Basilicus, signed a declaration against the Tome of St. Leo ; so in the instance of the Henoticon of Zeno ; and so in the controversies both of the Mono- thelites and of the Iconoclasts. Nay, in some of those few instances which are brought in controversy, as de- rogatory to the constancy of the Eoman See, the vacil- lation, whatever it was, was owing to what, as I have shown, is ordinarily avoided, — the immediate and direct pressure of the temporal power. As, among a hundred Martyr and Confessor Popes, St. Peter and St. Marcellinus for an hour or a day denied their Lord, so if Liberius and Vigilius gave a momentary scandal to the cause of orthodoxy, it was when they were no longer in their proper place, as the keystone of a great system, and as the correlative of a thousand minister- ing authorities, but mere individuals, torn from their see and prostrated before Csesar.

In later and modern times we see the same truth irresistibly brought out ; not only, for instance, in St- Thomas's history, but in St. Anselm's, nay, in the whole course of English ecclesiastical affairs, from the Conquest to the sixteenth century, and, not with least significancy, in the primacy of Cranmer. Moreover, we see it in the tendency of the Gallicanism of Louis XIV., and ilie Josephism of Austria. Such, too, is the lesson taught us in the recent policy of the Czar towards the United Greeks, and in the present bearing

1 86 The Movement not in the Direction

of the English Government towards the Church of Ire- land. In all these instances, it is a struggle between the Holy See and some local, perhaps distant, Govern- ment, the liberty and orthodoxy of its faithful people being the matter in dispute ; and while the temporal power is on the spot, and eager, and cogent, and per- suasive, and dangerous, the strength of the assailed party lies in its fidelity to the rest of Christendom and to the Holy See.

Well, this is intelligible ; we see why it should be so, and we see it in historical fact : but how is it pos- sible, and where are the instances in proof, that a Church can cast off Catholic intercommunion without falling under the power of the State? Could an isolated Church do now, what, humanly speaking, it could not have done in the twelfth century, though a Saint was its champion ? Do you hope to do, my brethren, what was beyond St. Thomas of Canterbury ? Truly is it then called a Branch Church; for, as a branch cannot live of itself, therefore, as soon as it is lopped off from the Body of Christ, it is straightway grafted of sheer necessity upon the civil constitution, if it is to preserve life of any kind. Indeed, who could ever entertain such a dream, as that a circumscribed reli- gious society, without the awfulness of a divine origin, the sacredness of immemorial custom, or the authority of many previous successes, while standing on its own f^round, and simply subordinate as reoards its constitu-

of a Branch Church.. 187

ent members to the civil power, should be able to assort ecclesiastical claims, which are to impede the free action of that same sovereign power, and to insult its majesty ? — a subject hierarchy, growing out of a nation's very soil, yet challenging it, standing breast to breast against it, breathing defiance into its very face, striking at it full and straight, — why, as men are constituted, such a nuisance, as they would call it, would be intoler able. The rigid, unelastic, wooden contrivance would be shivered into bits by the very recoil and jar of the first blow it was rash enough to venture. But matters would not go so far ; the blandishments, the alliances, the bribes, the strong arm of the world, would bring it to its senses, and humble it in its own sight, ere it had opportunity to be valiant. The world would simply over - master the presumptuous claimant to divine authority, and would use for its own purposes the slave whom it had dishonoured. It would set her to sweep its courts, or to keep the line of its march, who had thought to reign among the stars of heaven.

For, it is evident enough, a National or Branch Church can be of the highest service to the State, if properly under control. The State wishes to make its subjects peaceful and obedient; and there is nothing more fitted to effect this object than religion. It wishes them to have some teaching about the next world, but not too much : just as much as is important and bene-

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ficial to the interests of the present. Decency, order, industry, patience, sobriety, and as much of purity as can be expected from human nature, — this is its list of requisites ; not dogma, for it creates the odium theo- logicum ; not mystery, for it only serves to exalt the priesthood. Useful, sensible preaching, activity in bene- volent schemes, the care of schools, the superinten- dence of charities, good advice for the thoughtless and idle, and " spiritual consolation" for the dying— these are the duties of a National or Branch Church. The parochial clergy are to be a moral police; as to the Bishops, they are to be of&cers of a State-religion, not shepherds of a people ; not mixing and interfering in the crowd, but coming forward on solemn occasions to crown, or to marry, or to baptize royalty, or to read prayers to the House of Peers, or to consecrate churches, or Lo ordain and confirm, or to preach for charities, and to be but little seen in public in any other way. Synods are unnecessary and dangerous, for they convey the im- pression that the Establishment is a distinct body, and has rights of its own. So is discipline, or any practical separation of Churchmen and Dissenters ; for nation- ality is the real bond, and Churchmanship is but the accident, of Englishmen. Churches and churchyards are national property, and open to all, whatever their deno- mination, for marriage and for burial, when they will. Nov must the Establishment be in the eye of the law a corporation, even though its separate incumbents and

of a Bi 'an ch Ch u rch . 189

chapters be such, lest it be looked upon as politically more than a name, or a function of State.

8.

Now, in order to show that this is no exaggeration, I will, in conclusion, refer in evidence to the celebrated work of a celebrated man, in defence of the Establish- ment ; a work, too, which disowns Erastianism, and, in a certain sense, is written against it, and which, more- over, is, in breadth of doctrine, behind what would be maintained or taken for granted by statesmen now. For all these reasons, if I would illustrate what I have been saying of the certainty of a theoretical Branch Church becoming, in fact, and in the event, a Branch of the State, and of the liking of the State for Branch Churches and nothing else, I could not take a work fairer to the :N'atioiial Church, than " The Alliance of Churoh and State " of Bishop Warburton. A few extracts will be sufficient for my purpose.

In this Treatise he tells us, that the object of the State in this alliance is, not the propagation of the truth, but the wellbeing of society. " The true end," he says, "for which religion is established," by the State, " is not to provide for the true faith, but for civil utility." ^ This is " the key," he observes, " to open the whole mystery of this controversy, and to lead " a man "safe through all the intricacies, windings, andperplex-

' Bp. Warbunoii's "Alliance of Church aucl State," ]>. 148, ed. 1741.

I go The Movement not in the Direction

ities in which it has been involved." Next, religion is to be used for the benefit of that civil power, which, it seems, does not in any true sense provide for religion. " This use of religion to the State," he says, ' was seen by the learned, and felt by all men of every age and nation. The ancient world particularly was so firmly convinced of this truth, that the greatest secret of the sublime art of legislation consisted in this — how best religion might be applied to serve society." ^

Well, so far we might tolerate him ; such statements, if not simply true, are not absolutely unheard of or paradoxical ; but next he makes a startling step in ad- vance. " Public utility and truth coincide," - he says ; nay, further still, he distinctly calls public utility " a sure rule and measure of truth ;"3 so that he continues, by means of it the State " will be much better enabled to find out truth, than any speculative inquirer with all the aid of the philosophy of the schools."* ''From whence it appears," he continues, " that while a State, in union with the Church, hath so great an interest and concern with true religion, and so great a capacity for discovering what is true, religion is likely to thrive much better than when left to itself." The State, then, it would appear, out of compassion to Eeligion, takes it out of the schools, and adapts it to its own purposes to keep it pure and make it perfect.

1 Bp. Warburton's '^Alliance of Church and State." p. i8.

2 Ibid. p. 147. ^ Ibid. p. 135. * Ibid

of a Branch Church. i q j

He does not scruple to bring out this very sentiment in the most explicit statements, that there may be no mistake about his meaning. He considers conformity to objects of State, the sim])le rule of truth, of purity, of exaggeration, of excess, of perversity, and of danger- ousiiess in doctrinal teaching. " Of whatever use," he says, "an alliance may be thought for preserving the being of religion, the necessity of it for preserving its

purity is most evident Let us consider

the danger religion runs, when left in its natural state to itself, of deviating from truth. In those circum- stances, the men who have the greatest credit in the Church are such as are famed for greatest sanctity. :N^ow, Church sanctity has been generally undei stood to be then most perfect, when most estranged from the world and all its habitudes and relations. But this being only to be acquired by secession and retirement from human affairs, and that secession rendering man ignorant of civil society and its rights and interests, in place of which will succeed, according to his natural temper, all the follies of superstition or fanaticism, we must needs conclude, that religion, under such directors and reformers (and God knows these are generally its lot), will deviate from truth, and consequently from a capacity, in proportion, of serving civil society.

. Such societies w^e have seen, who.<e religious doctrines are so little serviceable to civil society, that they can prosper only on the ruin and destruction of it.

192 The Movement not in the Direction

sTicli are those who preach up the sanctity of celibacy, asceticism, the sinfulness of defensive war, of capital punishments, and even of civil magistracy itself. Ou the other hand, when Eeligion is in alliance with the State, as it then comes under the magistrate's direction (those holy leaders having now neither credit nor power to do mischief), its purity must needs be reasonably well supported and preserved. For, truth and public utilitv coinciding, the civil magistrate, as such, will see it for his interest to seek after and promote the truth in religion; and, by means of public utility, which his office enables him so well to understand, he will never be at a loss to know where such truth is to be found." 1

He takes delight in this view of the subject, and enf o]-ces it as follows :— " The means of attaining man's happiness here," he says, "is civil society; the means of his happiness hereafter is contemplation. If, then, opinions, the result of contemplation, obstruct the effects of civil society, it follows that they must be restrained. Accordingly, the ancient masters of wisdom, who, from these considerations, taught that man w^as born for action, not for contemplation, universally concurred to establish it as a maxim, founded on the nature of things, that opinions should always give way to civil peace." ^ And he proceeds to defend it as follows: "God so dis-

1 Bp. Warburton's "Alliance of Church and State," p. .^S. '^ ib^d. p. 12(3.

of a Branch Church. 193

posed things, that the means of attaining the happiness . of one state [of existence] should not cross or obstruct the means of attaining the happiness of the other. From whence we must conclude, that where the sup- posed means of each — viz., opinions and civil peace — do clash, there one of them is not the true means of happiness. But the means of attaining the happiness peculiar to that state in which the man at present exists, being 'perfectly and infallibly known by man, and the means of the happiness of his future existence, as far as relates to the discovery of truth, but very imperfectly known by him, it necessarily follows that, wherever opinions clash with civil peace, those opinions are no means of future happiness, or, in other words, are either no truths, or truths of no importance." Behold the principle of the reasonings of the Committee of Privy Council, and the philosophy of the Premier's satisfac- tion thereupon ! Baptismal regeneration is determined to be true or not true, not by the text of Scripture, the testimony of the Fathers, the tradition of the Church, nay, not by Prayer Book, Articles, Jewell, Usher, Carleton, or Bullinger, but by its tendency to minister to the peace and repose of the community, to the con- venience and comfort of Downing Street, Lambeth, and Exeter Hall.

If the Bishop makes doctrine depend upon political expedience, it is not wonderful that he should take the same measure of the Sacraments and Orders of his

N

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Church. "Hence," he says, "may be seen the foUy of those Christian sects, which, under pretence that Christianity is a spiritual religion, fancy it cannot have rites, ceremonies, public worship, a ministry or ecclesiastical policy. Mt reflecting that without these it could never have hecome national, and consequently, could not have done that service to the State that it, of all religions, is most capable of performing." ^ And then in a note, on occasion of Burnet's statement, that « Sidney's notion of Christianity was, that it was like a divine philosophy in the mind, without public worship or anything that looked like a Church," he adds, "that an ignorant monk, who had seen no further than hifi cell, or a mad fanatic, who had thrown aside his reason, should talk thus is nothing; but that the great Sidney, a man so superlatively skilled in the science of human nature and civil policy, and who so well knew what reli- gion was capable of doing for the State, should fall into this extravagant error, is, indeed, very surprising."

Accordingly, he mentions some of the details in which ecclesiastical ceremonies are serviceable to the State ; and in quoting his list and reasons of them, I shall conclude my extracts from his very instructive volume. "There are peculiar junctures," he says, "when the influence of religion is more than ordinarily serviceable to the State, and these the civil magistrate only knows. Now, while a Church is in its natural state of inde-

i Bp. "Warburton's "Alliance of Church and State," p 104.

of a Branch Church. i^^

pendency, it is not in his power to improve these con- junctures to the advantage of the State by a proper application of religion ; but when the alliance is made, and, consequently, the Church under his direction, he has the authority to prescribe such public exercises of religion, as days of humiliation, fasts, festivals, exhor- tations and dehortations, thanksgivings and deprecia- tions, and in such a manner as he finds the exigencies of State require." ^

9.

And now I think I have shown you, my brethren, as far as I could hope to do so in the course of a Lecture, that if your first principle be, as it was the first prin- ciple of the movement of 1833, that the Church should have absolute power over her faith, worship, and teach- ing, you must not be contemplating an ecclesiastical body, local and isolated, or what you have been ac- customed to call a Branch Church. The fable of the bundle of sticks especially applies to those who have no weapons of flesh and blood,— to an unarmed hier- archy, who have to contend with the pride of intellect and the power of the sword. Look abroad, my brethren, and see whether this union of many members, divided in place and circumstances, but one in heart, is not most visibly the very strength of the Catholic Church at this very time. Then only can you resist the world,

1 Bp. Warburton's "Alliance of Church and State," p. 63.

ig(y The Movement, etc.

when you belong to a communion which exists under many governments, not one; or should it ever be under some empire commensurate with itself (which is not conceivable), a communion which has, at least, an im- movable centre to fall back upon. But if this be the state of the case, if you must, on the one hand, leave the existing Establishment, yet, on the other, not seek or form a Branch Church instead of it, I have brought you by a short, but I hope, not an abrupt or unsafe path, to the conclusion that you must cease to be an Anglican by becoming a Catholic. Indeed, if the movement, of which you are the children, had any providential scope at aU, I do not see how you can disguise from yourselves that Catholicism is it. The Catholic Church, and she alone, from the nature of the case, is proof against Erastianism.

( 19:

LECTURE VII. "

THE PROVIDENTIAL COURSE OF THE MOVEMENT Oh 1833 ^OT IN THE DIRECTION OF A SECT,

TT was my object yesterday to show that such persons as are led by the principles of the anti-Erastian movement of 1833 to quit the Establishment, are neces- sarily called upon, as by one and the same act, to join the Catholic Church ; for the case is not supposable in reason, of their quitting the one without their joining the other. The ODly other course which lies open to them is either that of joining the communion of some other National or Branch Church, or, on the other hand, that of founding a Sect; but a Branch or N"ational Church is inevitably Erastian. This point I argued out at considerable length : and now I come to the second alternative, viz., that of founding a Sect, or as it is sometimes familiarly called, setting up for one's self. And I shall show to-day that, bad as it is for a man to take the State for his guide and master in religion, or to become an Erastian, it is worse still to become a Sectarian, that is, to be his own Doctor and his own Pope.

f

hi

198 TJie Movement not in the Direction

What is really meant by a " Church," is a religious body which has jurisdiction over its members, or which governs itself; whereas, according to the doctrine of Erastus, it has no such jurisdiction, really is not a body at aU, but is simply governed by the State, and is one department of the State's operations. This is one error, and a great one ; it is an error, my brethren, which you have from the first withstood ; but now I wish to show you that, if you will not accept of the Catholic Church, and submit yourselves to her authority, this said Erastianism is the least and the most tolerable error you can embrace ; that your best and most re- ligious of courses, which are all bad and irreligious, is to acquiesce in Erastianism at once ; to give up the principles on which you set out, and to tell the world that the movement of 1833 was a mistake, and that you have grown wiser.

I would have you recollect, then, that the civil power is a divine ordinance; no one doubts it. It is prior in history to ecclesiastical power. The Jewish lawgivers, judges, prophets, kings, had some sort of jurisdiction over the priesthood, though the priesthood had its dis- tinct powers and duties. The Jewish Church was not a body distinct from the State. In a certain sense, then, the civil magistrate is what divines caU, "in posses- sion;" the onus prohandi lies with those who would

of a Sect.

199

encroach upon his power. He was in possession in the age when Christ came; he is in possession now in the minds of men, and in the prima facie view of human society. He is in possession, because the bene- fits he confers on mankind are tangible, and obvious to the world at large. And he is recognised and sanc- tioned in Scripture in the most solemn way ; nay, the very instrument of his power, by which he is strong, the carnal weapon itself, is formally committed to him. "Let every soul," says St. Paul, ''be subject to the higher powers; for there is no power but from God; and those that are," the powers that be, " are ordained of God. Therefore he that resisteth the power, resis- teth the ordinance of God ; and they that resist, pur- chase to themselves damnation. For princes are not a terror to the good work, but to the evil. Wilt thou, then, not be afraid of the power ? Do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise from the same. For he is God's minister to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, fear, for he beareth not the sword in vain. For he is God's minister, an avenger to execute wrath upon him that doth evil."

It is difficult to find a passage in Scripture more solemn and distinct than this — distinct in the duty laid down, and in the sin of transgressing it, and solemn in the reasons on which the duty is enforced. The civil magistrate is a minister, or, in a certain sense, a priest of the Most High ; for, as is well known, the

J^^J&J^J

198 The Movement not in the Direction

What is really meant by a '' Church," is a religious body which has jurisdiction over its members, or which governs itself; whereas, according to the doctrine of Erastus, it has no such jurisdiction, really is not a body at all, but is simply governed by the State, and is one department of the State's operations. This is one error, and a great one ; it is an error, my brethren, which you have from the first withstood; but now I wish to show you that, if you will not accept of the Catholic Church, and submit yourselves to her authority, this said Erastianism is the least and the most tolerable error you can embrace ; that your best and most re- ligious of courses, which are all bad and irreligious, is to acquiesce in Erastianism at once ; to give up the principles on which you set out, and to teU the world that the movement of 1833 was a mistake, and that you have grown wiser.

I.

I would have you recollect, then, that the civil power is a divine ordinance ; no one doubts it. It is prior in history to ecclesiastical power. The Jewish lawgivers, judges, prophets, kings, had some sort of jurisdiction over the priesthood, though the priesthood had its dis- tinct powers and duties. The Jewish Church was not a body distinct from the State. In a certain sense, then, the civil magistrate is what divines call, "in posses- sion;" the onus prohandi lies with those who would

r)f a Sect.

199

encroach upon his power. He was in possession in the age when Christ came; he is in possession now in the minds of men, and in the prima facie view of human society. He is in possession, because the bene- fits he confers on mankind are tangible, and obvious to the world at large. And he is recognised and sanc- tioned in Scripture in the most solemn way ; nay, the very instrument of his power, by which he is strong, the carnal weapon itself, is formally committed to him. ''Let every soul," says St. Paul, "be subject to the higher powers; for there is no power but from God; and those that are," the powers that be, " are ordained of God. Therefore he that resisteth the power, resis- teth the ordinance of God ; and they that resist, pur- chase to themselves damnation. For princes are not a terror to the good work, but to the evil. Wilt thou, then, not be afraid of the power ? Do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise from the same. For he is God's minister to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, fear, for he beareth not the sword in vain. For he is God's minister, an avenger to execute wrath upon him that doth evil."

It is difficult to find a passage in Scripture more solemn and distinct than this — distinct in the duty laid down, and in the sin of transgressing it, and solemn in the reasons on which the duty is enforced. The civil magistrate is a minister, or, in a certain sense, a priest of the Most High ; for, as is well known, the

200 The Movement not in the Direction

word in the original Greek is one which commonly is appropriated to denote the sacerdotal office and func- tion. He is, moreover, " an avenger to execute wrath ; " he is the representative and image on earth of that awful attribute of God, His justice, as fathers are types and intimations of His tenderness and providence to- wards His creatures. Nor is this a solitary recognition of the divine origin and the dignity of the civil power :

when Divine Wisdom, in the book of Proverbs, would

enlarge upon her great works on the earth, she finds one principal and special instance of them to consist in her presence and operation in the rulers of the people. " By me," she says, " kings reign, and lawgivers decree just things : by me princes rule, and the mighty decree justice." And let it be observed, that the func- tion here ascribed to the civil magistrate, and requiring a peculiar gift, is one of those which especially enters into the idea of the times of the promised Messias. "Behold," says the Prophet, "a king shall reign in justice, and princes shall rule in judgment." Such is the civil power, the representative, and oracle, and in- strument, of the eternal law of God, with the power of life and death, the awful power of continuing or cutting short the probation of beings destined to live eternally. To it are committed all things under heaven ; it is the sovereign lord of the wide earth and its various fruits, and of men who till it or traverse it ; and it allots, and distributes, and maintains, the one for the benefit of the

of a Sect. 20 1

other. And as it is sacred in its origin, so may it be considered irresponsible in its acts, and treason against it, in some sort, rebellion against the Most High.

ISTow, such being the office of the temporal power, and considering the manifold temporal blessings of which it is the source and channel, and the cruelty of disturbing the settled order of society, and the madness of the attempt, surely a man has to think twice, and ought to be quite sure what he is doing, and to have a clear case to produce in his behalf, before he sets up any rival society to embarrass and endanger it. Pause before you decide on such a step, and make sure of your ground. Surely it is not likely that God should undo His own work for nothing. He does not revoke His ordinances except when they have failed of their mission. He does not supersede them or innovate on them, except when He is about to commence a higher work than He has already committed to them. Judaism was supplanted by Christianity, because its law was unprofitable, and because the Gospel was a definite revelation and doc- trine from above, which required a more perfect organ for its promulgation. An institution was formed upon a new idea, and to it was transferred a portion of that authority which hitherto had centred in the State, and independence was bestowed on it ; but surely only be- cause it was able to do something which aucient philo- sophy and statesmanship had not dreamed of. Unless the duties of the Church had been different, or if thev

202 The Movement not in the Direction

had been but partially different, from the duties of the State, it is obvious to ask, for what conceivable reason should two societies be set up to do the work of one ? Is it likely that Almighty Wisdom would have set up a second without recalling the first ? would have con- tinued the commission to the first, yet sent forth a second upon the same field ? Such a course would simply have been adapted to kindle perpetual strife, and, if we may judge by appearances, to defeat the very purposes for which the civil power was appointed, and therefore is, in the highest degree, improbable, prior to some very clear proof to the contrary. This surely approves itself to the common sense of mankind. Either no Church has been set up in the world, or it is not set up for no- thing ; it must have a mission and a message of its own. Everything is defined, or made specific by its object : if the duties of the Church, its functions, its teaching, its working, be not specially distinct from those of the State, why, it will be impossible to resist the conclusion, that it was meant to be amalgamated with the State, to join on to it, to be a part of it, to be subordinate to it. We do not form two guilds for the same trade. Either assign to the Church its own craft, or do not ask that it should be chartered. Its object is its claim.

This consideration is a sufficient exposure of the theory of Alliance between Church and State, of which I was led to speak yesterday. Warburton maintains that each power, the Church and the State, does sub-

of a Sect. 203

stantially just one and the same thing; the Church preaches truth, the State pursues expediency ; but Christian truth is identical with political expediency. There is no possible thesis which a preacher can put forth, or a synod could define as true, but is infallibly determined to be such (" infallible " is his word) by the political expedience and experience of ihe State. But if this be really so, what is the use of this second Society, which you put forth as naturally independent of the State, and as so high and mighty an ally of it ? I do not say that to preach is not a function different from speaking in Parliament, or reading prayers to a congregation from sitting in a police court ; the func- tions are different, and the functionaries will be differ- ent. But in like manner the function of a police magistrate is different from the function of a speaker in Parliament ; but you do not have a distinct society, divine in its origin, independent in its constitution, to exercise jurisdiction over members of Parliament or of the Police. I repeat, unless the Church has something to say and something to do, very different from what the State says and does, Erastianism is the doctrine of common sense, and must be very clearly negatived in Scripture if it is to be discarded.

2.

I will refer to another author in illustration. There was an anonymous work published, apparently in the

204 The Movement not in the Direction

character of a Scotch Episcopalian, some years befoie the movement of 1833 ; which, on supposed principles of Scripture, advocated a Branch or National Church, though the author would, I suppose, have preferred the words, " free," " independent," or " unestablished." Judg- ing from the internal evidence, the world identified him with a vigorous and original thinker, whom none could approach without being set thinking also, whether with him or contrary to him, and who has since risen to the very highest rank of the Anglican hierarchy.^ He wrote, partly in answer to Warburton, and partly to exhibit a counter-view of his own ; but, if he will pardon me in saying it, he is an instance of the same unreality and inconsistency which I have just been imputing to Warburton himself.

" The supreme head on earth," he says, " of each branch of Christ's Church should evidently be some spiritual officer or body. Wliether the governor of the English Church were the primate, or the convocation, or both conjointly, or any other man or body of men, holding ecclesiastical authority, not attached to any civil office, nor in the gift of any civil governor, in either case the non-secular character of Christ's king- dom would be preserved. The king, in conjunction with the other branches of the legislature, ought to have a distinctly defined temporal authority over every one of his subjects, of whatever persuasion; and, of

^ Dr. Whately.

of a Sect. 205

consequence, over the ministers and all other members, both of the Church of England and of every other religious community, Christian, Jewish, or Pagan, with- in his dominions ; but neither he, nor any other civil power, should interfere with articles of faith, liturgy. Church discipline, or any other spiritual matters. The kingdom of Heaven has no king but Christ ; and He delegated His authority to Apostles, and through them to Bishops and Presbyters ; not to any secular magis- trates. These, therefore, ought not, by virtue of their civil offices, to claim the appointment to any office in the Church." ^ You see, my brethren, what clear views this anonymous writer has of the jurisdiction of the Church; they are identical with your own, or rather they go beyond you.

In consequence he speaks of its " degrading " the- sacred character of Articles and Liturgy, ''that they should stand upon the foundation of Acts of Parlia- ment ; that the spiritual rulers cannot alter them when they may need it; and that the secular power can, whether they need it or not. And accordingly," he continues, "it is almost a proverbial reproach, that yours is a ' parliamentary religion ; ' that you worship the Almighty as the Act directs; and that you are bound to seek for salvation 'according to the law in that case made and provided' by kings, lords, and

1 Letters on the Church, p. 181. Dr. Whately never, I believe, owned to the authorship of this work.

2o6 The Movement not in the Direction

commons ; under the directions of the ministers of State; of persons," he adds, with a prophetic eye to- wards 1850, "who may be eminently well* fitted for their civil offices, and who may indeed chance to be not only exemplary Christians, but sound divines, but who certainly are not appointed to their respective offices with any sort of view to their spiritual functions, who cannot even pretend that any sort of qualification for the good regulation of the Church is implied by their holding such stations as they do. Can this possibly be agreeable to the designs and institutions of Christ and His Apostles ? If any one will seriously answer in the affirmative, he is beyond my powers of argumentation."^ Presently he observes, " The English Government seems to have a delight and a pride, in not only making the clergy do as much as possible in return for the pro- tection they enjoy, but in enforcing their services in the most harsh and mortifying way. Like the ancient Persian soldiers, they are brought into the field under the lash of perpetual penalties, which serve to keep your ministers in a state of degradation as well as of dependence on the State, which I defy you to parallel in any other Christian Church that ever existed." 2 He then compares certain of the clergy to the dog in the fable, who mistook the clog round his neck for a badge of honourable distinction. He continues, " Altogether, indeed, I cannot but say, if I must speak out, there is ^ p. 119- ^ p. 125.

of a Sect. 207

another fable respecting a dog, of which the conditiou of your Church strongly reminds me. Your American brethren, for instance, and some others, might say to you, as the lean and hungry wolf did to the well-fed mastiff, *you are fat and sleek, indeed, while I am gaunt and half-famished, but what means that mark round your neck ? ' You must do this, under a penalty ; and you must not do that under a penalty; you must ■comply with the rubric, and yet, at the same time, you must not comply with the rubric. ... In short, you ^re fettered and crippled and disabled in every joints by your alliance with a body of a different charactei; which could not, even with the best intentions, fail to weaken instead of aiding you; but which, in fact, aims chiefly at making a tool of you. But some oi you seem so habituated to this dependence of the Church on the State, and so fond of it, as to have even solicited interference in a case which could not concern the civil community, and which the secular magistrate was likely to care about as little as Gallio. An English bishop did not dare to ordain an American to officiate in a country not under British dominion, without ask- ing and obtaining permission of his government, which had just as much to do with the business as the ■government of Abyssinia." ^

Now all this is very ably put, and very true ; but the •question comes upon the reader, What is the meaning

'■ p. I2q,

2o8 The Movement not in the Direction

and object of the sweeping ecclesiastical changes which are advocated by this author ? We must not take to- pieces the constitution and re- write the law for nothing. What would be gained by his recommendations prac- tically ? And what are they intended to accomplish or secure ? Is it a gymnastical display or " agonism," as the heathen author calls it, from the Academy or the Garden, or a clever piece of irony which he presents to our perusal, or is it the grave and earnest sermon of one who would practise what he preaches, and would not partake of what he condemns ? Now I will do the writer the justice to confess, that he does not agi^eo: with Warburton in considering that truth is measured by political expediency. He is too honest, too generous,, too high-minded, too sensible, for so miserable a para- dox; but, considering the far higher views he takes of the position of the Church, how he frets under her humilia- tion, how nobly zealous he is for her liberty, certainly he will be guilty of a different, indeed, but a not less startling paradox himself, if he has such exalted notions of the Church, and yet gives her nothing to do. War- burton recognises the Church in order to destroy it ; he thinks it never has existed, or rather never ought to^ have existed in its proper nature, but, from its first mo- ment of creation, ought to have been dissolved into the constitution of the State. But our author makes much ado about ecclesiastical rights and privileges, which he- considers divinely bestowed, and, therefore, indefeasible,-

of a Sect. 209

He thinks the Church so pure and celestial, as to be

insulted, defiled, by any communion with things simply

secular. " My kingdom is not of this world," said our

Lord, and, therefore, it seems, no ecclesiastical person

must, as such, have a seat in Parliament, and, on the

other hand, neither King nor Parliament, as such, must

be able to appoint a fast day. '• It was," he says,

" Satan who first proposed an alliance between the

Christian Church and the State, by offering temporal

advantages in exchange for giving up some of the

'things that be God's/ and which we ought to 'render

unto God,'— for not ' serving Him only,' whom only we

ought to serve. The next, I am inclined to think, who

proposed to himself this scheme, and endeavoured to

bring it about, was Judas Iscariot." ^

Well, then, if the Church be a kingdom, or govern- ment, not of this world, I do trust' you have provided

for her a message, a function, not of this world,

something distinct, something special, something which the world cannot do, which "eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor heart of man conceived." It is not enough to give her morality to preach about; why a heaven-appointed Society for that ? With the Bible in his hands, if that be all, I do not see why one man, if properly educated, should not preach morality as well as another, without any disturbance of the fights of the magistrate or the order of civil society, ^ p- 97.

2IO The Moveinent not in the Directiou

It is sometimes said in bitterness that the Church's work is priestcraft ; I have already accepted the word ; it is a craft, a craft in the same sense that goldsmiths' work, or architecture, or legal science is a craft; it must have its teaching, its intellectual and moral habits, its long experience, its precedents, its tradi- tions; nay, it must have all these in a much higher sense than crafts of this world, if it is to claim to come from above. The more certainly the Church is a kino-dom of heaven, and, as the author is so fond of saying, "not of this world," the more certain is it that she must have simply a heavenly work also, which the world cannot do for itself.

3. Now, I fear, I must say, I see no symptoms at all of the writer in question intending to make his pattern- Church answer to this most reasonable ex- pectation. There is nothing in his book to show that he entrusts his Church with any special doctrine or work of any kind. Whatever he may say, there is nothing to show why a lawyer, or a physician, or a scientific professor, or a country gentleman, or any one who has his evenings to himself, and is of an active turn, should not do everything which he ascribes to his heaven-born society. If, for instance, religion has its mysteries, if it has its fertile dogmas and their varied ramifications, if it has its theology,

of a Sect. 2 1 T

If il has its long line of momentous controversions, its careful ventilation of questions, and its satisfactory and definite solutions; if, moreover, it has its special work, its substantial presence in the midst of us, its daily gifts from heaven, and its necessary ministries thence arising, then we shall see the meaning, we shall adore the wisdom, of the Divine Governor of all, in havmg done a new thing upon the earth when Christ came, in having withdrawn a jurisdiction He had once given to the State, and having bestowed it on a special ordinance created for a special pur- pose. But in proportion as this author fails in this just anticipation, and disappoints the common sense of mankind, if he has nothing better to tell us than that one man's opinion is as good as another's : that Fathei's and Schoolmen, and the greater number of Anglican divines, are puzzled- headed or dishonest; that heretics have at least this good about them, that they are in earnest, and do not take doctrines for granted; that religion is simple, and theologians have made it hard ; that controversy is on the whole a logomachy; that we must worship in spirit and in truth ; that we ought to love truth ; that few people love truth for its own sake; that %ve ought to be candid and dispassionate, to avoid extremes, to eschew party spirit, to take a rational satisfaction in contem- plating the works of nature, and not to speculate about " secret thincrs ; " that our Lord came to teach

2 12 The Movement not in the Direction

us all this, and to gain us immortality by His death, and the promise of spiritual assistance, and that this is pretty nearly the whole of theology; and that at least all is in the Bible, where every one may read it for himself — (and I see no evidence whatever of his going much beyond this round of teaching) — then, I say, if the work and mission of Christianity be so level in its exercise to the capacities of the State, surely its ministry also is within the State's jurisdic- tion. I cannot believe that Bishops, and clergymen, and councils, and convocations have been divinely sent into the world, simply or mainly to broach opinions, to discuss theories, to talk literature, to dis- play the results of their own speculations on the text of Scripture, to create a brilliant, ephemeral, ever- varying theology, to say in one generation what the next will unsay; else, why were not our debating clubs and our scientific societies ennobled with a divine charter also ? God surely did not create the visible Church for the protection of private judgment : private judgment is quite able to take care of itself. This is no day for what are popularly called '' shams.'* Many as are its errors, it is aiming at the destruction of shadows and the attainment of what is either sensibly or intellectually tangible. Why, then, should we have so much bustle and turmoil about "supre- macy," and " protection," and " alliance," and " autho- rity," and " indefeasible rights," and " encroachments,'*

of a Sect. 213

and " usurpations," after the manner of this writer, if all the effort and elaboration is to be in its result but a mountain in labour, bringing forth nothing ?

The State claims the allegiance of its subjects on the ground of the tangible benefits of which it is the instrument towards them. Its strength lies in this undeniable fact, and its subjects endure and maintain its coercion and its laws, because the certainty of this fact is ever present to their minds. What mean the array and the pomp which surround the Sovereign, — the strict ceremonial, the minute etiquette, the almost unsleeping watchfulness which eyes her every motion, which follows her into her garden and her chamber, which notes down every shade of her coun- tenance and every variation of her pulse ? Why do her soldiers hover about her, and officials line her ante-rooms, and cannon and illumination carry forward the tiding of her progresses among her people ? Is this all a mockery? Is it done for nothing? Surely not; in her is centred the order, the security, the happiness of a great people. And, in like manner, the Church must be the guardian of a fact ; she must have something to produce ; she must have something to do. It is not enough to be keeper of even an inspired book: for there is nothing to show that her protection of it is necessary at this day. The State might fairly commit its custody to the art of printing, and dissolve an institution whose occupation was no

2 1 4 The Movement not in tJie Direction

more. She must, in order to have a meaning, do that which otherwise cannot be done, which she alone can do. She must have a benefit to bestow, in order to be worth her existence; and the benefit must be a fact which no one can doubt about. It must not be an opinion, or matter of opinion, but a something which is like a first principle, which may be taken for granted, a foundation indubitable and irresistible. In other words, she must have a dogma and Sacra- ments;— it is a dogma and Sacraments, and nothing else, which can give meaning to a Church, or sustain her against the State; for by these are meant certain facts or acts which are special instruments of spiritual good to those who receive them. As we do not gain the benefits of civil society unless we submit to its laws and customs, so we do not gain the spiritual blessings which the Church has to bestow upon us, unless we receive her dogmas and her Sacraments.

This, yon know, is understood by every fanatic who would collect followers and form a sect. Who would ever dream of collecting a congregation, and having nothing to say to them ? No ! they think they have that to offer to the world which cannot otherwise be obtained. They do not bring forward mere opinions ; they do not preach a disputable doctrine ; but they assert, boldly and simply, that he who believes them will be saved. They announce, for instance, that every one must undergo the new binh, and for this they

of a Sect. 215

organise their society ; viz., in order to preach and to testify, to realise and to perpetuate in the world this great and necessary fact, — the new birth of the soul. Or, again, they have a commission to do miracles, or they can prophesy, or they are sent to declare the end of the world. Something or other they do, which the existing establishments of Church and State do not, and cannot do.

4.

This being the state of the case, consider how entirely the reasonable anticipation of our minds is fulfilled in the professions of the Catholic Church. A Protestant wanders into one of our chapels; he sees a priest kneel- ing and bowing and throwing up a thurible, and boys in cottas going in and out, and a whole choir and people sing- ing amain all the time, and he has nothing to suggest to him what it is all about; and he calls it mummery, and he walks out again. And would it not indeed be so, my brethren, if this were all ? But will he think it mummery when he learns and seriously apprehends the fact, that, according to the belief of a Catholic, the Word Incarnate, the Second Person of the Eternal Trinity, is there bodily present, — hidden, indeed, from our senses, but in no other way withheld from us ? He may reject what we believe ; he will not wonder at what we do. And so, again, open the Missal, read the minute directions given for the celebration of Mass, — what are the fit disposi-

2 1 6 The Movement not in the Direction

tions under which the Priest prepares for it, how he is to arrange his every action, movement, gesture, utterance, durincr the course of it, and what is to be done in case of a variety of supposable accidents. What a mockery would all this be, if the rite meant nothing ! But if it be a fact that God the Son is there offered up in human flesh and blood by the hands of man, why, it is plain that no rite whatever, however anxious and elaborate, is equal to the depth of the overwhelming thoughts which are borne in upon the mind by such an action Thus the usages and ordinances of the Church do not exist for their own sake ; they do not stand of them- selves : they are not sufficient for themselves ; they do not hght against the State their own battle ; they are not appointed as ultimate ends; but they are dependent on an inward substance ; they protect a mystery ; they defend a dogma ; they represent an idea ; they preach good tidings; they are the channels of grace. They are the outward shape of an inward reality or fact, which no Catholic doubts, which is assumed as a first principle, which is not an inference of reason, but the object of a spiritual sense.

Herein is the strength of the Church; herein she differs from all Protestant mockeries of her. She pro- fesses to be built upon facts, not opinions; on objective truths, not on variable sentiments ; on immemorial tes- timony, not on private judgment ; on convictions or perceptions, not on conclusions. iSTone else but she can

of a Sect. 2 1 7

make this profession. She makes high claims against the temporal power, but she has that within her which justifies her. She merely acts out what she says she is. She does no more than she reasonably should do. If God has given her a specific work, no wonder she is not under the superintendence of the civil magistrate in doing it. If her Clergy be Priests, if they can for- give sins, and bring the Son of God upon her altars, it is obvious they cannot, considered as such, hold of the State. If they were not Priests, the sooner they were put under a minister of public instruction, and the Episcopate abolished, the better. But she has not dis- turbed the world for nothing. Her precision and per- emptoriness, all that is laid to her charge as intolerance and exclusiveness, her claim entirely to understand and to be able to deal with her own deposit and her own functions; her claim to reveal the unknown and to communicate the invisible, is, in the eye of reason (so far from being an objection to her coming from above), the very tenure of her high mission, — ^just what w^ould be sure to characterise her if she had received such a mission. She cannot be conceived without her messasfe and her gifts. She is the organ and oracle, and nothing else, of a supernatural doctrine, which is independent of individuals, given to her once for all, coming down from the first ages, and so deeply and intimately embo_ somed in her, that it cannot be clean torn out of her, even if you should try; which gradually and majesti-

2t8 Tfie Movement not m the Direction

cally comes forth into dogmatic shape, as time goes on and need requires, still by no private judgment, but at the will of its Giver, and by the infallible elaboration of the whole body ; — and which is simply necessary for the salvation of every one of us. It is not a philosophy, or literature, cognisable and attainable at once by those who cast their eyes that way; but it is a sacred deposit and tradition, a mystery or secret, as Scripture calls it, sufficient to arrest and occupy the ^^•hole intellect, and unlike anything else; and hence requiring, from the nature of the case, organs special to itself, made for the purpose, whether for entering into it.-, fulness, or carry- ing it out in deed.

5-

And now, my brethren, you may have been some time asking yourselves how all this bears upon tb.e par- ticular subject on which these Lectures are engaged ; and yet I think it bears upon it very closely and signi- ficantly. For, perhaps, you may have said, in answer to my Lecture of yesterday, " We do not aim at forming a Branch Church ; we put before us a really humble work. We have no ambition, no expectation of spread- ing through the nation, or of spreading at all. We do but mean to preserve for future times what we hold to be the truth. As books are consigned to some large library, with a simple view to their security, not let out to the world, and apparently useless, but yet with a

of a SacJ. 219

definite object and benefit, — 'though for no other cause, yet for this/ as Hooker says, ' that posteriiy may know we have not loosely through silence permitted things to pass away as in a dream,' — so, we care not to be suc- cessful in our day ; we are willing to be despised ; we do but aim at transmitting Catholic doctrine in its purest and most primitive form to posterity. We are willing to look like a small sect at the gate of the National Church, when really we are the heirs of the Apostles. We do not boast of this ; we do not wish to inflict it upon the world ; leave us to ourselves quietly and un- ostentatiously to transmit our burden to posterity in our own way."

I say, in reply, my brethren, that so far you are right, that you at least profess to have something to transmit ; but be you sure withal that you have it, and know what it is. It will not do to have only a vague idea of it, if it is to form the basis of a communion ; you must be at home with it, and must have surveyed it in its various aspects, and must be clear about it, and be prepared to state decisively to all inquirers its ground, its details, and its consequences, and must be able to say, unequi- vocally, that it comes from heaven ; — or it will not serve your purpose. I am not sanguine that you will be able to do this even as regards the Sacrament of Baptism; differences have already risen among you as to the relative importance, at least under circumstances, of separate portions of the doctrine ; and when you come

2 20 The Movement not in the Direction

to define the consequences of sin after it, and the re- medies of that sin, your variations and uncertainties will be greater still. And much more of other doctrines ; there is hardly one of which you will be able to take a clear and complete view. I say, then, Do not set up a sect, till you are quite sure what is to be its creed.

In the commencement of the movement of 1833, much interest was felt in the Non- jurors. It was natural that inquirers who had drawn their principles from the primitive Church, should be attracted by the exhibition of any portion of those principles anywhere in, or about, an Establishment which was so emphatically opposed to them. Therefore, in their need, they fixed their eyes on a body of m.en who were not only sufferers for conscience' sake, but held, in connection with their political principles, a certain portion of Catholic truth. But, after all, what is, in a word, the history of the Non- jurors, for it does not take long to tell it ? A party composed of seven Bisiiops and some hundred Clergy, virtuous and learned, and, as regards their leaders, even popular, for political services lately rendered to the nation, is hardly formed but it begins to dissolve and come to nought, and that, simply because it had no sufficient object, represented no idea, and proclaimed no dogma. What should keep it together ? why should it exist ? To form an association is to go out of the way,

of a Sect. 221

and ever requires an excuse or an account of so preten- tious a proceeding. Such were the ancient apoloo-ies put forward for the Church in her first age ; such the Apologies of the Anglican Jewell, and the Quaker Barclay. What was the apology of the ISTon-jurors ? Now^ their secession, properly speaking, was based on no theological truth at all ; it arose simply because, as their name signifies, certain Bishops and Clergy could not take the oaths to a new King. There is something very venerable and winning in Bishop Ken ; but this arises in part from the very fact that he was so little disposed to defend any position, or oppose things as they were. He could not take the oaths, and was dispossessed • but he had nothing special to say for himself ; he had no message to deliver ; his difficulty was of a personal nature, and he was unwilling that the Non-jurin^^ Succession should be continued. It was against his judgment to perpetuate his own communion. But look at the body in its more theological aspect, and its nega- tive and external character is brought out even more strikingly. Its members had much more to say against the Catholic Church, like Protestants in general, than for themselves. They are considered especially high in their Doctrine of the Holy Eucharist ; yet, I do not know anything in Dr. Brett's whole Treatise on the Ancient Liturgies, which fixes itself so vividly on tlie reader's mind, as his assertion, that the rubrics of the Koman Missal are " corrupt, dangerous, superstitious,

2 22 The Movement not in the Dwection

abominably idolatrous, theatrical, and utterly unworthy the gravity of so sacred an institution."

The Non-jurors were far less certain what they did hold, than what they did not. They were great cham- pions of the Sacrifice, and wished to restore the ancient Liturgies ; yet, they could not raise their minds to any- thiuo- hio-her than the sacrifice of the material bread and wine, as representatives of One, who was not literally present but absent ; as symbols of His Body and Blood, not in truth and fact, but in virtue and effect. Yet, while they had such insulficient notions of the heavenly gift committed to the ordinance, they could, as 1 have said, be very jealous of its outward formalities, and laid the greatest stress on a point, important certainly in its place, but not when separated from that which gave it meaning and life, the mixing of the water with the wine; and ui.)on this, and other questions, of higher moment indeed, but not of a cliaracter specifically dif- ferent, they soon divided into two communions. They broke into pieces, not from external causes, not from the hostility or the allurements of a court, but simply because they had no common heart and life in them. They were safe from the civil sword, from their insig- nificancy ; they had no need of falling back on a distant centre for support; all they needed was an idea, an object, a work to make them one.

But I have another lemark to make on the N'on- jurors. You lecollect, my brethren, that they are the

of a Sect. 2 2''

coiitiimation and heirs of the traditions, so to call them, of the High-Church divines of the seventeenth century. Now, how high and imposing do the names sound of Andrewes, Laud, Taylor, Jackson, Pearson, Cosin, and their fellows ? I am not speaking against them as individuals, but viewing them as theological authorities. How great and mysterious are the doctrines which they teach ! and how proudly they appeal to primitive times, and claim the ancient Fathers ! Surely, as some one says, " in Laud is our Cyprian, and in Taylor is our Chrysostom, and all we want is our Athanasius." Look on, my brethren, to the history of the Non-jurors, and you will see what these Anglican divines were worth. There you will see that it was simply their position, their temporal possessions, their civil dignities, as stand- ing round a King's throne, or seated in his great council, and not their principles, which made ihem what they were. Their genius, learning, faith, whatever it was, would have had no power to stand by themselves ; these qualities had no substance, for, as we see, when the State abandoned them, they shrank at once and collapsed, and ceased to be. These qualities were not the stuff out of which a Church is made, though they looked well and bravely when fitted upon the Establish- ment. And, indeed, they did not, in the event, wear better in the Establishment than out of it ; for since the Establishment at the Eevolution had changed its make and altered its position, the old vestments would

oo

Tlie Movement not in the Direction

not fit it, and fell out of fashion. The Nation and the National Church had got new ideas, and the language of the ancient Fathers could not express them. There were those, who, at the era in question, took the oaths ; they could secure their positions, could they secure their creed ? The event answers the question. There is some story of BuU and Beveridge, who were two of the number, meeting together, I think in the House of Lords, and mourning together over the degeneracy of the times. The times certainly luere degenerate ; and if learning could have restored them, there was enough in those two heads to have done the work of Athanasius, Leo, and the seventh Gregory ; but learning never made a body live. The High Church party died out within the Establishment, as well as outside of it, for it had neither dogma to rest upon, nor object to pursue.

AU this is your warning, my brethren ; you too, when it comes to the point, will have nothing to profess, to teach, to transmit. At present you do not know your own weakness. You have the life of the Estab- lishment in you, and you fancy it is your own life; you fam;y that the accidental congeries of opinions, which forms your creed, has that unity, individuality, and consistency, which allows of its developing into a system, and perpetuating a school. Look into the mat- ter more steadily ; it is very pleasant to decorate your chapels, oratories, and studies now, but you cannot be doing this for ever. It is pleasant to adopt a habit or

of a Sect. 2 2-

a vestment. ; to use your office book or your beads ; but It is like feeding on flowers, unless you Lave that ob- jective vision in your faith, and that satisfaction in your reason, of which devotional exercises and ecclesi- astical regulations are the suitable expression. Such will not last, on the long run, as are not commanded and rewarded by divine authority ; they cannot be made to rest on the influence of individuals. It is well to have rich architecture, curious works of art, and splendid vestments, when you have a present God ; but oh ! what a mockery, if you have not ! If your externals surpass what is within, you are, so far, as hollow as your evangelical opponents who baptize, 'yet expect no grace; or, as the latitudinarian writer I have been reviewing, who would make Christ's kingdom not of this world, in order to do a little more than the world's work. Thus your Church becomes, not a home, but sepulchre; like those high cathedrals, once Catholic, which you do not know what to do with which you shut up and make monuments of, sacred to the memory of what has passed away.

7- Therefore, I saynow,-as I have said years a^o, when others have wished still to uphold their partv, after their arguments had broken under them— Find out first of all where you stand, take your position, write down your creed, draw up your catechism. Tell me

2 26 Tlie Movement not in the Direction

why you form your party, under what conditions, how long it is to last, what are your relations to the Estab- Ushment, and to the other branches (as you speak) of the Universal Church, how you stand relatively to Antiquity, what is Antiquity, whether you accept the Via Media, whether you are zealous for " Apostolical order," what is your rule of faith, how you prove it, and what are your doctrines. It is easy for a while to be doing merely what you do at present ; to remain where you Ire, till it is proved to you that you must go ; to refuse to say what you hold and what you do not, and to act only on the offensive ; but you cannot do this for ever. The time is coming, or is come, when you must act in some way or other for yourselves, unless you would drift to some form of infidelity, or give up principle altogether, or believe or not believe by acci- dent. The onus prohandi will be on your side then. Now you are content to be negative and fragmentary in doctrine; you aim at notHng higher than smart articles in newspapers and magazines, at clever hits, spirited attacks, raiUery, satire, skirmishing on posts of your own selecting; fastening on weak points, or what you think so, in Dissenters or Catholics; inventing ingeni- ous retorts, evading dangerous questions ; parading this or that isolated doctrine as essential, and praising this or that Catholic practice or Catholic saint, to make up tor abuse, and to show your impartiality ; and taking all along a high, eclectic, patronising, indifferent tone ;

of a Sect. 227

this has been for some time past your line, and it will not suffice ; it excites no respect, it creates no confidence, it inspires no hope.

And when, at length, you have one and all agreed upon your creed, and developed it doctrinally, morally, and polemically, then find for it some safe foundation, deeper and firm.er than private judgment, which may ensure its transmission and continuance to generations to come. And, when you have done all this, then, last of all, persuade others and yourselves, that the founda- tion you have formed is surer and more trustworthy than that of Erastianism, on the one hand, and of immemorial and uninterrupted tradition, that is, of (Catholicism, on the other.

PART II.

DIFFICULTIES IN ACCEPTING THE COMMUNION OF ROME AS ONE, HOLY, CATHOLIC, AND APOSTOLIC.

LECTURE VIII.

THE SOCIAL STATE OF CATHOLIC COUNTRIES NO PREJUDICE TO THE SANCTITY OF THE CHURCH.

I.

T HAVE been engaged in many Lectures in showing that your place, my brethren, if you own the prin- ciples of the movement of 1833, is nowhere else but the Cathohc Church. To this you may answer, that, even though I had been unanswerable, I should not have done much, for my argument has, on the whole, been a negative one ; that there are difficulties on both sides of the controversy; that I have been enlaro-ino

o o

on the Protestant difficulty, but there are not a few Catliolic difficulties also ; that, to be sure, you are not very happy in the Establishment, but you have serious misgivino;s whether you would be happier

230

Social State of Catholic Countries

with us. Moreover, you might mention the following objection, in particular, as prominent and very prac- tical, which weighs with you a great deal, and warns you off the ground whither I am trying to lead you. You are much offended, you would say, with the bad state of Catholics abroad, and their uninteresting char- acter everywhere, compared with Protestants. Those countries, you say, which have retained Catholicism, are notoriously behind the age; they have not kept up with the march of civilization ; they are ignorant, and, in a measure, barbarous; they have the faults of barbarians ; they have no self-command ; they can- not be trusted. They must be treated as slaves, or they rebel ; they emerge out of their superstitions in order to turn infidels. They cannot combine and coalesce in social institutions; they want the very faculty of citizenship. The sword, not the law, is their ruler. They are spectacles of idleness, sloven- liness, want of spirit, disorder, dirt, and dishonesty. There must, then, be something in their religion to account for this ; it keeps them children, and then, being children, they keep to it. No man in his senses, certainly no English gentleman, would abandon the high station which his country both occupies and bestows on him in the eyes of man, to make himself the co-religionist of such slaves, and the creature of such a Creed.

I propose to make a suggestion in answer to this

no Prejudice to the Sanctity of the Church. 231

objection ; and, in making it, I shall consider you, my brethren, not as unbelievers, who are careless whether this objection strikes at Christianity or no; nor as Protestants proper, who have no concern about so expressing themselves, as to compromise the first centuries of the Church ; but as those who feel that the Catholic Church was in the beginning founded by our Lord and His Apostles; again, that the Estab- lishment is not the Catholic Church; that nothing hut the Church of Eome can be ; that, if the Church of Eome is not, then the Catholic Church is not to be found in this age, or in this part of the world; for this is what I have been proving in my preceding Lectures. Wliat, then, you are saying comes, in fact, to this : We would rather deny our initial principles, than accept such a development of them as the com- munion of Eome, viewed as it is; we would rather believe Erastianism, and all its train of consequences, to be from God, than the religion of such countries as France and Belgium, Spain and Italy. This is what you must mean to say, and nothing short of

it.

2

I simply deny the justice of your argument, my brethren; and, to show you that I am not framing a view for the occasion, and, moreover, in order to start with a principle, which, perhaps, you yourselves have before now admitted. 1 will quote words which I used

232 Social State of Catliolic Countries

myself twelve years ago ; — " If we were asked what was the object of Christian preaching, teaching, and instruction ; what the office of the Church, considered as the dispenser of the Word of God, I suppose we should not all return the same answer. Perhaps we might say that the object of Eevelation was to en- lighten and enlarge the mind, to make us act by reason, and to expand and strengthen our powers : or to impart knowledge about religious truth, knowledge being power directly it is given, and enabling us forthwith to think, judge, and act for ourselves; or to make us good members of the community, loyal subjects, orderly and useful in our station, whatever it be ; or to secure, what otherwise would be hopeless, our leading a religious life, — the reason why persons go wrong, throw themselves away, follow bad courses, and lose their character, being, that they have had no education, that they are ignorant. These and other answers might be given ; some beside, and some short of, the mark. It may be useful, then, to consider with what end, with what expectation, we preach, teach, instruct, discuss, bear witness, praise, and blame; what fruit the Church is right in anticipating as the result of her ministerial labours. St. Paul gives us a reason . . . different from any of those which I have mentioned. He laboured more than all the Apostles. And why ? Xot to civilize the world, not to smooth the face of societv, not to facilitate the

no Prejudice to the Sanctity of the Church. 233

movements of civil government, not to spread abroad knowledge, not to cultivate the reason, not for any great worldly object, but 'for the elect's sake.' . . . And such is the office of the Church in every nation where she sojourns; she attempts much; she expects and promises little." ^

I do not, of course, deny that the Church does a great deal more than she promises: she fulfils a number of secondary ends, and is the means of numberless temporal blessings to any country which receives her. I only say, she is not to be estimated and measured by such effects; and if you think she is, my brethren, then I must rank you with such Eiastians as Warburton, who, as I have shown you in a former Lecture, considered political convenience to be the test and standard of truth.

I thus begin with a consideration which, you see, I fully recognised before I was a Catholic; and now I proceed to another, which has been forced ou me, as a matter of fact and experience, most powerfully ever since I was a Catholic, as it must be forced on every one who is in the communion of the Church; and which, therefore, like the former, has not at all originated in the need, nor is put forth for the occasion to meet your difficulty.

The Church, you know, is in warfare ; her life here below is one long battle. But with whom is she light-

' Parocli. Serni., vol. iv.

2 34 Social State of Catholic Countries

ing ? For till we know her enemy we shall not be able to estimate the skill of her tactics, the object of her evolutions, or the success of her movements. We shall be like civilians, contemplating a field of battle, and seeing much dust, and smoke, and motion, much defil- ing, charging, and manoeuvring, but quite at a loss to tell the meaning of all, or which party is getting the better. And, if we actually mistake the foe, we shall criticise when we should praise, and think that all is a defeat, when every blow is telling. In all under- takings we must ascertain the end proposed, before we can predicate their success or failure; and, therefore, before we so freely speak against the state of Catholic countries, and reflect upon the Church herself in con- sequence, we must have a clear view what it is that the Church has proposed to do with them and for them Vfe have, indeed, a right to blame and dissent from the end which she sets before her; we may quarrel with the mission she professes to have received from above ; we may dispense with Scripture, Fathers, and the con- tinuous tradition of 1 8oo years. That is another matter ; then, at least, we have nothing to do with the theological movement which has given occasion to these Lectures ; then we are not in the way to join the Catholic Church ; then we must be met on our own ground : but I am speaking to those who go a great way with me ; who admit my principles, who almost admit my conclusion ; who are all but ready to submit to the Church, but who

no Prejudice to the Sanctity of the Churc/i. 235

are frightened by the present state of Catholic countries ; — to such I say, Judge of her fruit by her principles and her object, which you yourselves also admit; not by those of her enemies, which you renounce.

The world believes in the world's ends as the greatest of goods ; it wishes society to be governed simply and entirely for the sake of this world. Provided it could gain one little islet in the ocean, one foot upon the coast, if it could cheapen tea by sixpence a pound, or make its flag respected among the Esquimaux or Otaheitans, at the cost of a hundred lives and a hundred souls, it would think it a very good bargain. What does it know of hell ? it disbelieves it ; it spits upon, it abomi- nates, it curses its very name and notion. IsText, as to the devil, it does not believe in him either. We next come to the flesh, and it is " free to confess " that it does not think there is any great harm in following the instincts of that nature which, perhaps it goes on to say, God has given. How could it be otherwise ? who ever heard of the world fighting against the flesh and the devil ? Well, then, what is its notion of evil ? Evil, says the world, is whatever is an offence to me, what- ever obscures my majesty, whatever disturbs my peace. Order, tranquillity, popular contentment, plenty, pros- perity, advance in arts and sciences, literature, refine- ment, splendour, this is my millennium, or rather my elysium, my swerga ; I acknowledge no whole, no in- dividuality, but my own ; the units which compose me

236 Social State of Catholic Countries

are but parts of me ; they have no perfection in them- selves ; no end but in me ; in my glory is their bliss, and in the hidings of my countenance they come to nous^ht.

3-

Such is the philosophy and practice of the world ; — now the Church looks and moves in a simply opposite direction. It contemplates, not the whole, but the parts ; not a nation, but the men who form it ; not society in the first place, but in the second place, and in the first place individuals; it looks beyond the outward act, on and into the thought, the motive, the intention, and the will ; it looks beyond the world, and detects and moves against the devil, who is sitting in ambush behind it. It has, then, a foe in view ; nay, it has a battle-field, to which the world is blind ; its proper battle-field is the heart of the individual, and its true foe is Satan.

My dear brethren, do not think I am declaiming in the air or translating the pages of some old worm-eaten homily ; as I have already said, I bear my own testi- mony to what has been brought home to me most closely and vividly as a matter of fact since I have been a Catholic ; viz., that that mighty world-wide Church, like her Divine Author, regards, consults for, labours for the individual soul ; she looks at the souls for whom Christ died, and who are made over to her; and her one object, for winch everything is sacrificed — appear-

no Prejudice to the Sanctity of the Church. 237

ances, reputation, worldly triumph — is to acquit herself well of this most awful responsibility. Her one duty is to bring forward the elect to SMlvation, and to make them as many as she can : — to take offences out of their path, to warn them of sin, to rescue them from evil, to convert them, to teach them, to feed them, to protect them, and to perfect them. Oh, most tender loving Mother, ill-judged by the world, which thinks she is, like itself, always minding the main chance ; on the contrary, it is her keen view of things spiritual, and her love for the soul, which hampers her in her negotia- tions and her measures, on this hard cold earth, which is her place of sojourning. How easy would her course be, at least for a while, could she give up this or that point of faith, or connive at some innovation or irregu- larity in the administration of the Sacraments ! How much would Gregory have gained from Eussia could he have abandoned the United Greeks! how secure had Pius been upon his throne, could he have allowed himself to fire on his people I

No, my dear brethren, it is this supernatural sight and supernatural aim, which is the folly and the feeble- ness of the Church in the eyes of the world, and would be failure but for the providence of God. The Church overlooks everything in comparison of the immortal soul.

Good and evil to her are not lights and shades passing over the surface of society, but living powers, springino- from the depths of the heart. Actions in her sight are

238 Social State of Catholic Countries

not mere outward deeds and words, committed by hand or tongue, and manifested in effects over a range of influence wider or narrower, as the case may be ; but they are the thoughts, the desires, the purposes of the solitary responsible spirit. She knows nothing of space or time, except as secondary to will ; she knows no evil but sin, and sin is a something personal, conscious, vol- untary ; she knows no good but grace, and grace again is something personal, private, special, lodged in the soul of the individual. She has one and one only aim —to purify the heart ; she recollects who it is who has turned our thoughts from the external crime to the inward imagination ; who said, that " unless our justice abounded more than that of Scribes and Pharisees, we should not enter into the kingdom of Heaven ; " and that " out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false testimonies, blas- phemies. These are the things that defile a man."

Now I would have you take up the sermons of any preacher, or any writer on moral theology, who has a name among Catholics, and see if what I have said is not strictly fulfilled, however little you fancied so be- fore you make trial. Protestants, I say, think that the Church aims at appearance and effect; she must be splendid, and majestic, and influential: tine services, music, lights, vestments, and then again, in her deal- ings with others, courtesy, smoothness, cunning, dex- terity, intrigue, management— these, it seems, are the

no Prejudice to ike Sanctity of ' the Church.

239

weapons of the Catholic Church. Well, my brethren, she cannot help succeeding, she cannot help be-in^ strong, she cannot help being beautiful ; it is her gift ; as she moves, the many wonder and adore ; — " Et vera incessu patuit Dea." It cannot be otherwise, certainly ; but it is not her aim ; she goes forth on the one errand, as I have said, of healing the diseases of the soul. Look, I say, into any book of moral theology you will ; there is much there which may startle you : you will find principles hard to digest; explanations which seem to you subtle ; details which distress you ; you will find abundance of what will make excellent matter of attack at Exeter Hall; but you will find from first to last this one idea — (nay, you will find that very matter 6i attack upon her is occasioned by her keeping it in view ; she would be saved the odium, she would not have thus bared her side to the sword, but for her fideKty to it) — the one idea, I say, that sin is the enemy of the soul ; and that sin especially consists, not in overt acts, but in the thoughts of the heart.

4.

This, then, is the point I insist upon, in answer to the objection which you have to-day urged against me. The Church aims, not at making a show, but at doing a work. She regards this world, and all that is in it, as a mere shadow, as dust and ashes, compared witli the value of one single souL She holds that, unless

240 Social State of Catholic Countries

she can, in her own way, do good to souls, it is no use her doing anything ; she holds that it were better for sun and moon to drop from heaven, for the earth to fail, and for all the many millions who are upon it to die of starvation in extremest agony, so far as temporal affliction goes, than that one soul, I w^ill not say, should be lost, but should commit one single venial sin, should tell one wilful untruth, though it harmed uo one, or steal one poor farthing without excuse. She considers the action of this world and the action of the soul simply incommensurate, viewed in their respective spheres; she would rather save the soul of one single wild bandit of Calabria, or whining beggar of Palermo, than draw a hundred lines of railroad through the length and breadth of Italy, or carry out a sanitary reform, in its fullest details, in every city of Sicily, except so far as these great national works tended to some spiritual good beyond them.

Such is the Church, 0 ye men of the world, and now vou know her. Such she is, such she will be ; and, though she aims at your good, it is in her own way,— and if you oppose her, she defies you. She has her mission, and do it she will, whether she be in rags, or in fine linen; whether with awkward or with refined carriage ; whether by means of uncultivated intellects, or with the grace of accomplishments. Not that, in fact, she is not the source of numberless temporal and moral blessings to you also ; the history of ages

no Prejudice to the Sanctity of the Church. 241

testifies it ; but she makes no promises ; she is sent to seek the lost ; that is her first object, and she will fulfil it, whatever comes of it.

And now, in saying this, I think I have gone a great way towards suggesting one main solution of the difficulty which I proposed to consider. The question was this:— How is it, that at this time Catholic countries happen to be behind Protestants in civiliza- tion ? In answer, I do not at all determine how far the fact is so, or what explanation there may be of the appearance of it; but anyhow the fact, granting it exists, is surely no objection to Catholicism, unless Catholicism has professed, or ought to have professed, directly to promote mere civilization; on the other hand, it has a work of its own, and this work is, first, different from that of the world; next, difficult of attainment, compared with that of the world; and, lastly, secret from the world in its details and con- sequences. If, then, Spain or Italy be deficient in secular progress, if the national mind in those countries be but partially formed, if it be unable to develope into civil institutions, if it have no moral instinct of deference to a policeman, if the national finances be in disorder, if the people be excitable, and open to decep- tion from political pretenders, if it know little or nothing of arts, sciences, and literature ; I repeat, of course, I do not admit all this, except hypotheticaUy, because it is difficult to draw the line between what is

Q

242 Social State of Catholic Countries

true in it and what is not :— then all I can say is, that it is not wonderful that civil governments, which profess certain objects, should succeed in them better than the Church, which does not. Not till the State is blamed for not making saints, may it fairly be laid to the fault of the Church that she cannot invent a steam-engine or construct a tariff. It is, in truth, merely because she has often done so much more than she professes, it is reaUy in consequence of her very exuberance of benefit to the world, that the world is disappointed that she does not display that exuberance always,— like some hangers-on of the great, who come at length to think they have a claim on their bounty.

5.

Now, let me try to bring out what I mean more in detail; and, in doing so, I hope to be pardoned, my brethren, if my language be now and then of a more directly religious cast than I willingly would admit into disquisitions such as the present ; though speak- ing, as I do, in a place set apart for religious purposes, I am not perhaps caHed upon to apologize. In religious language, then, the one object of the Church, to which every other object is second, is that of reconciling the soul to God. She cannot di?guise from herself, that, with whatever advantages her children commence their course, in spite of their baptism, in spite of their most careful education and training, still the great multi-

7^0 Prejudice to the Sanctity of the Church. 243

tude of them require her present and continual succour to keep them or rescue them from a state of mortal sin. Taking human nature as it is, she knows well, that, left to themselves, they would relapse into the state of those who are not Catholics, whatever latent principle of truth and goodness might remain in them, and wdiatever consequent hope there might be of a future revival. They may be full of ability and energy, they may be men of genius, men of literature and taste, poets and painters, musicians and arcliitects ; they may be statesmen or soldiers; they may be in professions or in trade; they may be skilled in tlie mechanical arts ; they may be a hard-working, money-making com- munity ; they may have great political influence ; they may pour out a flood of population on every side ; they may have a talent for colonization; or, on the other hand, they may be members of a country once glorious, whose day is past; where luxury, or civil discord, or want of mental force, or other more subtle cause, is the insuperable bar in the way of any national demonstration; or they may be half reclaimed from barbarism, or they may be a simple rural population ; they may be the cold north, or the beautiful south ; but, whatever and wherever tliey are, the Church knows well, that those vast masses of population, as viewed in the individual units of which they are composed, are iji a state of continual lapse from the Centre of sanctity and love, ever falling under His

244

Social State of Catholic Countries

displeasure, and tending to a state of habitual aliena- tion from Him. Her one work towards these many millions is, year after year, day after day, to be raising them out of the mire, and when they sink again to raise them again, and so to keep them afloat, as she best may, on the surface of tliat stream, which is carrying them down to eternity. Of course, through God's mercy, there are numbers who are exceptions to this statement, who are living in obedience and peace, or going on to perfection: but the word of Christ, '' T^fnny are called, few are chosen," is fulfilled in any extensive field of operation which the Church is called to superintend. Her one object, through her ten thousand organs, by preachers and by con- fessors, by parish priests and by religious communi- ties, in missions and in retreats, at Christmas and at Easter, by fasts and by feasts, by confraternities and by pilgrimages, by devotions and by indulgences, is- this unwearied, ever-patient reconciliation of the soul to God and obliteration of sin. Thus, in the w^ords of Scripture, most emphatically, she knows nought else but ''Jesus Christ and Him crucified." It is her ordinary toil, into which her other labours resolve themselves, or towards which they are directed. Does she send out her missionaries ? Does she summon her doctors ? Does she enlarge or diversify her worship ? Does she multiply her religious bodies ? It is all to gain souls to Christ. And if she encourages secular enterprises.

no Prejudice to the Sanctity of the Church. 245

studies, or pursuits, as she does, or the arts of civiliza- tion generally, it is either from their indirect hearing upon her great object, or from the spontaneous energy which great ideas, sucli as hers, exert, and the irre- sistible influence which they exercise, in matters and in provinces not really their own.

Moreover, as sins are of unequal gravity in God's judgment, though all of whatever kind are offensive to Him, and incur their measure of punishment, the Church's great object is to discriminate between sin and sin, and to secure in individuals that renunciation of evil, which is implied in the idea of a substantial and unfeigned conversion. She has no warrant, and she has no encouragement, to enforce upon men in general more than those habits of virtue, the absence of which would be tantamount to their separation from God ; and she thinks she has done a great deal, and exults in her success, does she proceed so far ; and she bears as she may, what remains still to be done, in the conviction that, did she attempt more, she might lose all. There are sins which are simply incompatible with contrition and absolution under any circum- stances; there are others which are disorders and disfigurements of the soul She exhorts men against the second, she directs her efforts against the first.

Now here at once the Church and the world part company ; for the world, too, as is necessary, has its scale of offences as well as the Church : but. referring

246 Social State of Catholic Countries

them to a contrary object, it classifies them on quite a contrary principle; so that what is heinous in the world is often regarded patiently by the Church, and what is horrible and ruinous in the judgment of the Church may fail to exclude a man from the best society of the world. And, this being so, when the world contemplates the training of the Church and its results, it cannot, from the nature of the case, if for no other reason, avoid thinking very coutemptuously of fruits, which are so different from those which it makes the standard and token of moral excellence in its own code of right and wrong.

I may say the Church aims at three special virtues, as reconciling and uniting the soul to its Maker: — faith, purity, and charity ; for two of which the world cares little or nothing. The world, on the other hand, puts in the foremost place, in some states of society, certain heroic qualities ; in others certain virtues of a political or mercantile character. In ruder ages, it is personal courage, strength of purpose, magnanimity; in more civilized, honesty, fairness, honour, truth, and benevolence :— virtues, all of which, of course, the teaching of the Church comprehends, all of which she expects in their degree in all her consistent children, and all of which she enacts in their fulness in her saints ; but which, after all. most beautiful as they are,

no Prejudice to the Sanctity of the Chitrcli. 247

admit of being the fruit of nature as well as of grace ; which do not necessarily imply grace at all : which do not reach so far as to sanctify, or unite the soul by any supernatural process to the source of supernatural perfection and supernatural blessedness. Again, as I have already said, the Church contemplates virtue and vice in their first elements, as conceived and existintr in thought, desire, and will, and holds that the one or the other may be as complete and mature, without passing forth from the home of the secret heart, as if it had ranged forth in profession and in deed all over the earth. Thus at first sight she seems to ignore bodies politic, and society, and temporal interests : wiiereas the world, on the contrary, talks of religion as being a matter of such private concern, so personal, so sacred, that it has no opinion at all about it ; it praises public men, if they are useful to itself, but simply ridicules inquiry into their motives, thinks it imper- tinent in others to attempt it, and out of taste in themselves to sanction it. All public men it considers to be pretty much the same at bottom; but what matter is that to it, if they do its work? It offers high pay, and it expects faithful service ; but, as to its agents, overseers, men of business, operatives, journey- men, figure-servants, and labourers, what they are personally, what are their principles and aims, what their creed, what their conversation ; where they live, how they spend their leisure time, whither they are

248 Social State of Catholic Countrieb

going, how they die — I am stating a simple matter of fact, I am not here praising or blaming, I am but con- trasting,—I say, all questions implying the existence of the soul, are as much beyond the circuit of the world's imagination, as they are intimately and pri- marily present to the apprehension of the Church.

The Church, then, considers the momentary, fleeting act of the will, in the three subject matters I have mentioned, to be capable of guiltiness of the deadliest character, or of the most efficacious and triumphant merit. Moreover, she holds that a soul laden with the most enormous offences, in deed as well as thought, a savage tyrant, who delighted in cruelty, an habitual adulterer, a murderer, a blasphemer, who has scoffed at religion through a long life, and corrupted every soul which he could bring within his influence, who has loathed the Sacred Name, and cursed his Saviour, — that such a man can under circumstances, in a moment, by one thought of the heart, by one true act of contrition, reconcile himself to Almighty God (through His secret grace), without Sacrament, with- out priest, and be as clean, and fair, and lovely, as if he had never sinned. Again, she considers that in a moment also, with eyes shut and arms folded, a man may cut himself off from the Almighty by a deliberate act of the will, and cast himself into perdition. With the world it is the reverse ; a member of society may go as near the line of evil, as the world draws it, as he

no Prejudice to the Sanctity of the Church. 249

Mill; but, till he has jjassed it, he is safe. A-ain, when he has once transgressed it, recovery is impos- sible ; let honour of man or woman be sullied, and to restore its splendour is simply to undo the past; it is impossible.

Such being the extreme difference between the Church and the world, both as to the measure and the scale of moral good and evil, we may be prepared for those vast differences in matters of detail, which I hardly like to mention, lest they should be out of keeping with the gravity of the subject, as contem- plated in its broad principle. For instance, the Church pronounces the momentary wish, if conscious and deliberate, that another should be struck down dead, or suffer any other grievous misfortune, as a blacker sin than a passionate, unpremeditated attempt on the life of the Sovereign. She considers direct unequivocal consent, though as quick as thought, to a single unchaste desire as indefinitely more heinous than any lie which can possibly be fancied, that is, when that lie is viewed, of course, in itself, and apart from its causes, motives, and consequences. Take a mere beggar-woman, lazy, ragged, and filthy, and not over-scrupulous of truth — (I do not say she had arrived at perfection) — but if she is chaste, and sober, and clieerful, and goes to her religious duties (and I am supposing not at all an impossible case), sl^e vrill, in the eyes of the Churcli, have a prospect of

2 50 Social State of Catholic Countries

heaven, which is quite closed and refused to the State's pattern-man, the just, the upright, the generous, the honourable, the conscientious, if he be all this, not from a supernatural power— (I do not determine whether this is likely to be the fact, but I am contrast- ing views and principles)— not from a supernatural power, but from mere natural virtue. Polished, delicate - minded ladies, with little of temptation around them, and no self-denial to practise, in spite of their refinement and taste, if they be nothing more, are objects of less interest to her, than many a poor outcast who sins, repents, and is with difficulty kept just within the territory of grace. Again, excess in drinking is one of the world's most disgraceful offences ; odious i"t ever is in the eyes of the Church, but if it does not proceed to the loss of reason, she thinks it a far less sin than one deliberate act of detraction, though the matter of it be truth. And again, not unfrequently does a priest hear a confession of thefts, ^vhich he knows would sentence the penitent to trans- portation, if brought into a court of justice, but which he knows, too, in the judgment of the Church, might be pardoned on the man's private contrition, without any confession at all. Once more, the State has the guardianship of property, as the Church is the guar- dian of the faith :— in the Middle Ages, as is often objected, the Church put to death for heresy; well but on the other hand, even in our own times, the

710 Prejudice to tJie Sanctity of the Church

51

State has put to death for forgery ; nay, I suppose for sheep-stealing. How distinct must be the measure of crime in Church and in State, when so heterogeneous is the rule of punishment in the one and in the other ! ■

My brethren, you may think it impolitic in me thus candidly to state what may be so strange in the eyes of the world ; — but not so, my dear brethren, just the contrary. The world already knows quite enough of our difference of judgment from it on the w^hole; it knows that difference also in its results ; but it does not know that it is based on principle; it taunts the Church with that difference, ns if nothing could be said for her, — as if it were not, as it is, a mere question of a balance of evils,— as if the Church had nothing to show for herself, were simply ashamed of her evident helplessness, and pleaded guilty to the charge of her inferiority to the world in the moral effects of her teaching. The world points to the children of the Church, and asks if she acknowledges them as her own. It dreams not that this contrast arises out of a differ- ence of principle, and that she claims to act upon a principle higher than the world's. Principle is always respectable; even a bad man is more respected, though he may be more hated, if he ow^ns and justifies his actions, than if he is wicked by accident; now the Church professes to judge after the judgment of the iilmighty; and it cannot be imprudent or impolitical

252 Social State of Catholic Countries

to bring this out clearly and boldly. His judgment is not as man's : " I judge not according to the look of man," He says, " for man seeth those things which appear, but the Lord beholdeth the heart." The Church aims at realities, the world at decencies; she dispenses with a complete work, so she can but make a thorough one. Provided she can do for the soul what is necessary, if she can but pull the brands out of the burning, if she can but extract the poisonous root which is the death of the soul, and expel the disease, she is content, though she leaves in it lesser maladies, little as she sympathises with them.

7.

Now, were it to my present purpose to attack the principles and proceedings of the world, of course it w^ould be obvious for me to retort upon the cold, cruel, selfish system, which this supreme worship of comfort, decency, and social order necessarily introduces : to show you how the many are sacrificed to the few, the poor to the wealthy, how an oligarchical monopoly of enjoyment is established far and wide, and the claims of want, and pain, and sorrow, and affliction, and guilt, and misery, are practically forgotten. But I will not have recourse to the common - places of controversy when I am on the defensive. All I w^ould say to the world is, — Keep your theories to yourselves, do not inflict them upon the sons of Adam

no Prejudice to the Sanctitij of the Church. 253

everywhere; do not measure heaven and earth by views which are in a great degree insular, and can never be philosophical and catholic. You do your work, perhaps, in a more business-like way, compared with ourselves, but we are immeasurably more tender, and gentle, and angelic than you. We come to poor human nature as the Angels of God, and you as police- men. Look at your poor-houses, hospitals, and prisons; how perfect are their externals ! what skill and ingenuity appear in their structure, economy, and administration! they are as decent, and bright, and calm, as what our Lord seems to name them, — dead men's sepulchres. Yes ! they have all the world can give, all but life ; all but a heart. Yes! you can hammer up a cof!in, you can plaster a tomb; you are nature's undertakers; you cannot build it a home. You cannot feed it or heal it ; it lies, like Lazarus, at your gate, full of sores. You see it gasping and panting with privations and penalties ; and you sing to it, you dance to it, you show it your picture-books, you let off your fireworks, you open your menageries. Shallow philosophers ! is this mode of going on so winning and persuasive that we should imitate it ?

Look at your conduct towards criminals, and honestly say, whether you expect a power which claims to be divine, to turn copyist of you ? You have the power of life and death committed to you by Heaven ; and some wretched being is sentenced to fall under it for

2 54 Social State of Catholic Countries

some deed of treachery and blood. It is a righteous sentence, re-echoed by a whole people; and you have a feeling that the criminal himself ought to concur in it, and sentence himself. There is an universal feeling that he ought to resign himself to your act, and, as it were, take part in it ; in other words, there is a sort of instinct among you that he should make confession, and you are not content without his doing so. So far the Church goes along with you, So far, but no further. To whom is he to confess ? To me, says the Priest, for he has injured the Almighty. To me, says the world, for he has injured me. Forgetting that the power to sentence is simply from God, and that the sentence, if just, is God's sentence, the world is peremptory that no confession shall be made by the criminal to God, without itself being in the secret. It is right, doubtless, that that criminal should make reparation to man as well as to God ; but it is not right that the world should insist on having precedence of its Maker, or should prescribe that its ]\Iaker should have no secrets apart from itself, or that no divine ministration should relieve a laden breast without its meddling in the act. Yet the world rules it, that whatever is said to a minister of religion in religious confideuce is its own property. It considers that a clergyman who attends upon the oulprit is its own servant, and by its boards of magis- trates, and by its literary organs, it insists on his re- vealing to its judgment-seat what was uttered before

no Prejudice to the Sanctity of the Church. 255

tlie judgment-seat of God. What wonder, then, if such forlorn wretches, when thus plainly told that the world is their only god, and knowing that they are quitting the presence of that high potentate for ever, steel themselves with obduracy, encounter it with defiance, baflfle its curiosity, and inflict on its impatience such poor revenge as is in its power ? They come forth into the liglit, and look up into the face of day for the last time, and, amid the jests and blasphemies of myriads, they pass from a world w^hich they hate into a world which they deny. Small mercies, indeed, has this world shown them, and they make no trial of the mercies of another !

»

8.

Oh, how contrary is the look, the bearing of the Catholic Church to these poor outcasts of mankind ! There was a time, when one who denied his Lord was brought to repentance by a glance ; and such is the method wdiich His Church teaches to those nations who acknowledge her authority and her sway. The civil magistrate, stern of necessity in his function, and inexorable in his resolve, at her bidding gladly puts on a paternal countenance, and takes on him an office of mercy towards the victim of his wrath. He infuses the ministry of life into the ministry of death; he afflicts the body for the good of tlie soul, and converts the penalty of human law into an instrument (A

'Ill k

256 Social State of Catholic Countries

everlasting bliss. It is good for human beings to die as infants, before they have known good or evil, if they have but received the baptism of the Church; but next to these, who are the happiest, who are the safest, for whose departure have we more cause to rejoice, and be thankful, than for theirs, who, if they live on, are so likely to relapse into old habits of sin, but who are taken out of this miserable world in the flower of their contrition and in the freshness of their preparation ;— just at the very moment w^hen they have perfected themselves in good dispositions, and from their heart have put off sin, and have come humbly for pardon, and have received the grace of absolution, and have been fed with the bread of Angels, and thus amid the prayers of all men have departed to their Maker and their Judge? I say, 'Hhe prayers of all:" for oh the difference, in this respect, in the execution of the extreme sentence of the law, between a Catholic State and another! We have all heard of the scene of im- piety and profaneness which attends on the execution of a criminal in England ; so much so, that benevolent and thoughtful men are perplexed between the evil of privacy and the outrages which publicity occasions. AVell, England surpasses Eome in ten thousand matters of this wwld, but never would the Holy City tolerate an enormity which powerful England cannot hinder. An arch-confraternity was instituted there at the close of the fifteenth century, under the invocation of San

11-

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tla::

I

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no Prejudice to the Sanctity of the Church 257

Giovanni Decollato, that Holy Baptist, who lost his head by a king's sentence, though an unjust one ; and it exercises its pious offices towards condemned criminals even now. When a culprit is to be executed, the night preceding the fatal day, two priests of the brotherhood, who sometimes happen to be Bishops or persons of high authority in the city, remain with him in prayer, attend him on the scaffold the next morn- ing, and assist him through every step of the terrible ceremonial of which he is the subject. The Blessed Sacrament is exposed in all the churches all over the city, that the faithful may assist a sinner about to make a compulsory appearance before his Judge. The crowd about the scaffold is occupied in but one thought, whether he has shown signs of contrition. Various reports are in circulation, that he is obdurate, that he has yielded, that he is obdurate still. The women cry out that it is impossible ; Jesus and Mary will see to it ; they will not believe that it is so ; they are sure that he will submit himself to his God before he enters into His presence. However, it is perhaps confirmed that the unhappy man is still wrestling with his pride and hardness of heart, and though he has that illumination of faith which a Catholic cannot but possess, yet he cannot bring himself to hate and abhor sins, which, except in their awful consequences, are, as far as their enjoyment, gone from him for ever. He cannot taste again the pleasure of revenge or of for-

^ ,€^.«j*Ji"i^,

256 Social State of Catholic Countries

everlasting bliss. It is good for human beings to die as infants, before they liave known good or evil, if thev have but received the baptism of the Church; but next to these, who are the happiest, who are the safest, for whose departure have we more cause to rejoice, and be thankful, than for theirs, who, if they live on, are so likely to relapse into old habits of sin, but who are taken out of this miserable world in the flower of their contrition and in the freshness of their preparation ; — just at the very moment w^hen they have perfected themselves in good dispositions, and from their heart have put off sin, and have come humbly for pardon, and have received the grace of absolution, and have been fed with the bread of Angels, and thus amid the prayers of all men have departed to their Maker and their Judge ? I say, '' the prayers of all :" for oh the difference, in this respect, in the execution of the extreme sentence of the law, between a Catholic State and another I We have all heard of the scene of im- piety and profaneness which attends on the execution of a criminal in England ; so much so, that benevolent and thoughtful men are perplexed between the evil of privacy and the outrages which publicity occasions. Well, England surpasses Eome in ten thousand matters of this w^orld, but never would the Holy City tolerate an enormity which powerful England cannot hinder. An arch-confraternity was instituted there at the close of the fifteenth century, under the invocation of San

no Prejudice to the Sanctity of the Church 257

Giovanni Decollato, that Holy Baptist, who lost his head by a king's sentence, though an unjust one ; and it exercises its pious offices towards condemned criminals even now. When a culprit is to be executed, the night preceding the fatal day, two priests of the brotherhood, who sometimes happen to be Bishops or persons of high authority in the city, remain with him in prayer, attend him on the scaffold the next morn- ing, and assist him through every step of the terrible ceremonial of which he is the subject. The Blessed Sacrament is exposed in all the churches all over the city, that the faithful may assist a sinner about to make a compulsory appearance before his Judge. The crowd about the scaffold is occupied in but one thought, whether he has shown signs of contrition. Various reports are in circulation, that he is obdurate, that he has yielded, that he is obdurate still. The women cry out that it is impossible ; Jesus and Mary will see to it ; they will not believe that it is so ; they are sure that he will submit himself to his God before he enters into His presence. However, it is perhaps confirmed that the unhappy man is still wrestling with his pride and hardness of heart, and though he has that illumination of faith which a Catholic cannot but possess, yet he cannot bring himself to hate and abhor sins, which, except in their awful consequences, are, as far as their enjoyment, gone from him for ever. He cannot taste again the pleasure of revenge or of for-

258 Social State of Catholic Countries

bidden indulgence, yet he cannot get himself to give it up, though the world is passing from him. The excitement of the crowd is at its height: an hour passes; the suspense is intolerable, when the news is brought of a change; that before the Crucifix, in the solitude of his cell, at length the— unhappy no longer —the happy criminal has subdued himself ; has prayed with real self-abasement; has expressed, has felt d, charitable, a tender thought, towards those he has hated; has resigned himself lovingly to his destiny; has blessed the hand that smites him; has supplicated pardon ; has confessed with aU his heart, and placed himself' at the disposal of his Priest, to make such amends as he can make in his last hour to God and man ; has even desired to submit here to indignity, to pain,' to which he is not sentenced; has taken on himself any length of purgatory hereafter, if thereby he may now, through God's mercy, show his smcerity, and his desire of pardon and of gaining the lowest place in the kingdom of Heaven. The news comes; it is communicated through the vast multitude all at once; and, I have heard from those who have been present, never shaU they forget the instantaneous shout of joy which burst forth from every tongue, and formed itself into one concordant act of thanksgiving in acknowledgment of the grace vouchsafed to one so near eternity.

It is not wonderful then to find the holy men, who.

TW Prejudice to the Sanctity of the Church. 259

from time to time, have done the pious office of pre- paring such criminals for death, so confident of their salvation, "So well convinced was Father Claver of the eternal happiness of almost all whom he assisted," says this saintly missionary's biographer, " that, speak- ing once of some persons who had in a bad spirit delivered a criminal into the hands of justice, he said, ' God forgive them ; but they have secured the salvation of this man at the probable risk of their own.' Most of the criminals considered it a grace to die in the hands of this holy man. As soon as he spoke to them the most savage and indomitable became gentle as lambs ; and, in place of their ordinary imprecations nothing was heard but sighs, and the sound of bloody disciplines, which they took before leaving the prison for execution."

But I must come to an end. I do not consider, my brethren, I have said all that might be said in answer to the difficulty which has come under our considera- tion; nor have I proposed to do so. Such an under- taking does not fall within the scope of these Lectures ; it would be an inquiry into facts. It is enough if I liave suggested to you one thought which may most materially invalidate the objection. You tell me, that the political and civil state of Catholic countries is below that of Protestant : I answer, that, even thousjh

26o Social State of Catholic Countries, etc.

you prove the fact, you have to prove something besides, if it is to be an argument for your purpose, viz., that the standard of civil prosperity and political aggrandisement is the truest test of grace and the largest measure of saivation.

( 26l )

LECTURE IX.

THE RELIGIOUS STATE OF CATHOLIC COUNTRIES NO PREJUDICE TO THE SANCTITY OF THE CHURCH.

T CONSIDERED, in the preceding Lecture, the objection brought in this day against the Catholic Church, from the state of the countries which belong to her. It is urged, that they are so far behind the rest of the world in the arts and comforts of life, in power of political combination, in civil economy, and the social virtues, in a word, in all that tends to make this world pleasant, and the loss of it painful, that their religion cannot come from above. I answered, that, before the argument could be made to tell against us, proof must be furnished, not only that the fact was as stated (and I think it should be very closely examined), but especially that there is that essential connection in the nature of things between true religion and temporal prosperity, which the objection took for granted. That there is a natural and ordinary connection between them no one would deny ; but it is one thing to say that prosperity ought to follow from religion, quite another to sav that it must follow from it. Thus, health.

262 Religious State of Catholic Countries

for instance, may be expected from a habit of regular exercise; but no one would positively deny the fact that exercise had been taken in a particular case, merely because the patient gave signs of an infirm and sickly state of the body. And, indeed, there may be particular and most wise reasons in the scheme of Divine Providence, whatever be the legitimate tend- ency of the Catholic faith, for its being left, from time "to time, without any striking manifestations of its beneficial action upon the temporal interests of man- kind, without the influence of wealth, learning, civil talent, or political sagacity; nay, as in the days of St. Cyprian and St. Augustine, with the actual reproach of impairing the material resources and the social great- ness of the nations which embrace it : viz., in order to remind the Church, and to teach the world, that she needs no temporal recommendations who has a heavenly Protector, but can make her way (as they say) against wind and tide.

This, then, was the subject I selected for my fore- going Lecture, and I said there were three reasons why the world is no fit judge of the work, or the kind of work, really done by the Church in any age: — first, because the world's measure of good and scope of action are so different from those of the Church, that it judges as unfairly and as narrowly of the fruits of Catholicism and their value, as the Caliph Omar might judge of the use and the influence of literature, or rather indefinitely

no Prejudice to the Sanctity of the Church. 263

more so. The Church, though she embraces all con- ceivable virtues in her teaching, and every kind of good, temporal as well as spiritual, in her exertions, does not survey them from the same point of view, or classify them in the same order as the world. She makes secondary what the world considers indispensable ; she places first what the world does not even recognise, or undervalues, or dislikes, or thinks impossible ; and not being able, taking mankind as it is found, to do every- thing, she is often obliged to give up altogether what she thinks of great indeed, but of only secondary moment, in a particular age or a particular country, instead of effecting at all risks that extirpation of social evils, which, in the world's eyes, is so necessary, that it thinks nothing really is done till it is secured. Her base of operations, from the difficulties of the season or the period, is sometimes not broad enough to enable her to advance against crime as well as against sin, and to destroy barbarism as well as irreligion. The world, in consequence, thinks, that because she has not done the world's work, she has not fulfilled her Master's purpose; and imputes to her the enormity of having put eternity before time.

And next, let it be observed that she has undertaken the more difficult work; it is difficult, certainly, to enlighten the savage, to make him peaceable, orderly, and self-denying; to persuade him to dress like a European, to make him prefer a feather-bed to the

264 Religious State of Catholic Countries

heather or the cave, and to appreciate the comforts of the fire-side and the tea-table : bnt it is indefinitely more difficult, even with the supernatural powers given to the Church, to make the most refined, accomplished, amiable of men, chaste or humble ; to bring, not only his outward actions, but his thoughts, imaginations, and aims, into conformity to a law which is naturally distasteful to him. It is not wonderful, then, if the Church does not do so much in the Church's way, as the world does in the world's way. The world has nature as an ally, and the Church, on the whole, and as things are, has nature as an enemy.

And lastly, as I have implied, her best fruit is necessarily secret : she tights with the heart of man ; her perpetual conflict is against the pride, the impurity, the covetousness, the envy, the cruelty, which never gets so far as to come to light ; which she succeeds in strangling in its birth. From the nature of the case, she ever will do more in repressing evil than in creating good ; moreover, virtue and sanctity, even when realised, are also in great measure secret gifts, known only to God and good Angels; for these, then, and other reasons, the powers and the triumphs of the Church must be hid from the world, unless the doors of the Confessional could be flung open, and its whispers carried abroad on the voices of the winds. Nor indeed would even such disclosures suffice for the due com- parison of the Church with religions which aim at no

no Prejudice to the Sanctity of the Church. 265

personal self-government, and disown on principle examination of conscience and confession of sin ; but in order to our being able to do justice to that com- parison, we must wait for the Day when the books shall be opened and the secrets of hearts shall be disclosed. For all these reasons, then, from the pecu- liarity, and the arduousness, and the secrecy of the mission entrusted to the Church, it comes to pass that the world is led, at particular periods, to think very slightly of the Church's influence on society, and vastly to prefer its own methods and its own achievements.

So much I have already suggested towards the consideration of a subject, to which justice could not really be done except in a very lengthened disquisition, and by an examination of matters which lie beyond the range of these Lectures. If then to-day I make a second remark upon it, I do so only with the object I have kept before me all along, of smoothing the way into the Catholic Church for those who are alreadv very near the gate ; who have reasons enough, taken by themselves, for believing her claims, but are per- plexed and stopped by the counter-arguments which are urged against her, or at least against their joining

her.

I.

To-day, then, I shall suppose an objector to reply to what I have said in the following manner: viz., I

266 Religious State of Catholic Countries

shaU suppose him to say, that "the reproach of Catholicism is, not what it does not do, so much as what it does; that its teaching and its training do produce a certain very definite character on a nation and on individuals; and that character, so far from being too religious or too spiritual, is just the reverse, very like the world's ; that religion is a sacred, awful, mysterious, solemn matter; that it should be ap- proached with fear, and named, as it were, sotto voce ; whereas Catholics, whether in the North or the South, in the Middle Ages or in modern times, exhibit the combined and contrary faults of prof aneness and super- stition. There is a bold, shallow, hard, indelicate way among them of speaking of even points of faith, which is, to use studiously mild language, utterly out of taste, and indescribably offensive to any person of ordinary refinement. They are rude where they should be reverent, jocose where they should be grave, and loquacious where they should be silent. The most sacred feeHngs, the most august doctrines, are glibly enunciated in the shape of some short and smart theo- logical formula; purgatory, hell, and the evil spirit, are a sort of household words upon their tongue ; the most solemn duties, such as confession, or saying office, whether as spoken of or as performed, have a business-like air and a mechanical action about them, quite inconsistent with their real nature. Eeligion is made both free and easy, and yet is formal. Supersti-

710 Prejudice to the Sanctity oftlte Church. 267

tions and false miracles are at once preached, assented to, and laughed at, till one really does not know what is believed and what is not, or whether anything is believed at all. The saints are lauded, yet affronted. Take medieval England or France, or modern Belgium or Italy, it is all the same ; you have your Boy-bishop at Salisbury, your Lord of Misrule at Piheims, and at Sens your Feast of Asses. Whether in the South now, or in the North formerly, you have the excesses of your Carnival. Legends, such as that of St. Dunstan's fight with the author of all evil at Glastonbury, are popular in Germany, in Spain, in Scotland, and in Italy ; while in Naples or in Seville your populations rise in periodical fury against the celestial patrons whom they ordinarily worship. These are but single instances of a widespread and momentous phenomenon, to which you ought not to shut your eyes, and to which we can never be reconciled ; — a phenomenon in which we see a plain providential indication, that, in spite of our certainty, — first, that there is a Catholic Church, next, that it is not the religious communion dominant in England, or Eussia, or Greece, or Prussia, or Holland ; in short, that it can be nothing else hut the communion of Rome, — still, that it is our bounden duty to have nothing to do with the Pope, the Holy See, or the Church of which it is the centre." Such is the charge, my brethren, brought against the Catholic

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268 Religious State of Catholic Countries

Church, both by the Evangelical section of the Estab- lishment, and by your own.

2.

Now I will, on the whole and in substance, admit the fact to be as you have stated it ; and next I will o-rant, that to no national differences can be attributed a character of religion so specific and peculiar. It is too uniform, too universal, to be ascribed to anything short of the genius of Catholicism itself ; that is, to its principles and influence acting upon human nature, such as human nature is everywhere found. I admit both your fact and your account of the fact ; I accept it, I repeat, in general terms what you have said ; but I would add to it, and turn a particular fact into a philosophical truth. I say, then, that such a hard, irreverent, extravagant tone in religion, as you con- sider it, is the very phenomenon which must neces- sarily result from a revelation of divine truth falling upon the human mind in its existing state of ignorance and moral feebleness.

The wonder and offence which Protestants feel arises, in no small measure, from the fact that they hold the opinions of Protestants. They have been taught a religion, and imbibed ideas and feelings, and are suf- fering under disadvantages, which create the difficulty of which they complain ; and, to remove it, I shall be oblit^ed, as on some formei occasions, against mv will

no Prejudice to the Sanctity of the Church. 269

to explain a point of doctrine : — Protestants, then, consider that faith and love are inseparable ; where there is faith, there, they think, are love and obedi- ence ; and in proportion to the strength and degree of the former, are the strength and degree of the latter They do not think the inconsistency possible of really believing without obeying; and, where they see dis- obedience, they cannot imagine there the existence of real faith. Catholics, on the other hand, hold that faith and love, faith and obedience, faith and works, are simply separable, and ordinarily separated, in fact; that faith does not imply love, obedience, or works ; that the firmest faith, so as to move mountains, may exist without love, — that is, real faith, as really faith in the strict sense of the word as the faith of a martyr or a doctor. In other words, when Catholics speak of faith they are contemplating the existence of a gift which Protestantism does not even imagine. Faith is a spiritual sight of the unseen ; and since in matter of fact Protestantism does not impart this sight, does not see the unseen, has no experience of this habit, this act of the mind — therefore, since it retains the word " faith," it is obliged to find some other meaning for it; and its common, perhaps its commonest, idea is, that faith is substantially the same as obedience ; at least, that it is the impulse, the motive of obedience, or the fervour and heartiness which attend good works. In a word, faith is hope or it is love, or it is a mixture

2 70 Religious State of Catholic Countries

of the two. Protestants define or determine faith, not by its nature or essence, but by its effects. When it succeeds in producing good ^Yorks, tliey call it real faith; when it does not, they call it counterfeit— as though we should say, a house is a house when it is inhabited; but that a house to let is not a house. If we so spoke, it would be plain that we confused between house and home, and had no correct image be- fore our minds of a house jjer se. And in like manner, when Protestants maintain that faith is not really faith, except it be fruitful, whether they are right or wrong in saying so, anyhow it is plain that the idea of faith, as a habit in itself, as a something substantive, is simply, from the nature of the case, foreign to their minds, and that is the particular point on which I am now insisting.

Now faith, in a Catholic's creed, is a certainty of things not seen but revealed; a certainty preceded indeed in many cases by particular exercises of the intellect, as conditions, by reflection, prayer, study, argument, or the like, and ordinarily, by the instru- mental sacrament of Baptism, but caused directly by a supernatural influence on the mind from above. Thus it is a spiritual sight; and the nearest parallel by which it can be illustrated is the moral sense. As nature has impressed upon our mind a faculty of re- cocrnisincT certain moral truths, when they are presented to US from without, so that we are quite sure tliat veracity, for instance, benevolence, and purity, are

no Prejudice to the Sanctity of the Church. 2 7 :

right and good, and that their contraries involve ^mih, in a somewhat similar way, grace impresses upon us inwardly that revelation which comes to us sensibly by the ear or eye; similarly, yet more vividly and dis- tinctly, because the moral perception consists in senti- ments, but the grace of faith carries the mind on to objects. This certainty, or spiritual sight, which is included in the idea of faith, is, according to Catholic teaching, perfectly distinct in its own nature from the desire, intention, and power of acting agreeably to it. As men may know perfectly well that they ought not to steal, and yet may deliberately take and appropriate what is not theirs ; so may they be gifted with a simple, undoubting, cloudless belief, that, for instance, Christ is in the Blessed Sacrament, and yet commit the sacrilege of breaking open the tabernacle, and carrying off the consecrated particles for the sake of the precious vessel containing them. It is said in Scripture, that the evil spirits "believe and tremble;" and reckless men, in like manner, may, in the very sight of hell, deliberately sin for the sake of some temporary gratifi- cation. Under these circumstances, even though I did not assume the Catholic teaching on the subject of faith to be true (which in the present state of the argument I fairly may do, considering whom I am addressing), though I took it merely as an hypothesis probable and philosophical, but not proved, still I would beg you to consider whether, as ;m hypothesis.

272 Religious State of Catholic Countries

it does not serve and suffice to solve the difficulty which is created in your minds by the aspect of Catholic countries. This, too, at least I may say: if it shall turn out that the aspect which Catholic countries present to the looker-on is accounted for by Catholic doctrine, at least that aspect wiU be no difficulty to you when once you have joined the Catholic Church, for, in joining the Church, you will be, of course, accepting the doctrine. Walk forward, then, into the Catholic Church, and the difficulty, like a phantom, will, as a matter of necessity, disappear. And now, assuming the doctrine as an hypothesis, I am going to show its bearing upon the aUeged difficulty.

3-

The case with most men is this : certainly it is the case of any such large and various masses of men as constitute a nation, that they grow up more or less in practical neglect of their Maker and their duties to Him. Nature tends to irreligion and vice, and in matter of fact that tendency is developed and fulfilled in any multitude of men, according to the saying of the old Greek, that "the many are bad," or according to the Scripture testimony, that the world is at enmity with its Creator. The state of the case is not altered, when a nation has been baptized; still, in matter of fact nature gets the better of grace, and the population falls into a^state of guilt and disadvantage, m one

no Prejudice to the Sanctity of the Church. 273

point of view worse than that from which it has been rescued. This is the matter of fact, as Scripture pro- phesied it should be: "Many are called, few are chosen;" "the kingdom of heaven is like unto a net gathering together of every kind." But still, this being granted, a Catholic people is far from being in the same state in all respects as one which is not Catholic, as theologians teach us. A soul which has received the grace of baptism receives with it the germ or faculty of all supernatural virtues whatever,— faith, hope, charity, meekness, patience, sobriety, and every other that can be named ; and if it commits mortal sin, it falls out of grace, and forfeits these supernatural powers. It is no longer what it was, and is, so far, in the feeble and frightful condition of those who were never baptized. But there are certain remarkable limitations and alleviations in its punishment, and one is this : that the faculty or power of faith remains to it. Of course the soul may go on to resist and destroy this supernatural faculty also; it may, by an act of the will, rid itself of its faith, as it has stripped itself of grace and love ; or it may gradually decay in its faith till it becomes simply injadel ; but this is not the common state of a Catholic people. What commonly happens is this, that they fall under the temptations to vice or covetousness, which naturally and urgently beset them, but that faith is left to them. Thus the many are in a condition which is absolutely novel and

s

lit

274 lieU^Qm State of €(tthoiiQ €cmtm$

^tmu^ m %U id^ ol a l^mimt ; they ^av^ a vivid pemptiott. likt? sense, of things unseeix> yet have m desire at ail or affeotioxi. towaords them; they have kaowledge without love. Suoh is the state ol the ma^xy; the Ch\irch at the same time is ever lahounag with all her might to bring them hack again to their Maker; and in fact is ever bringing back vast multitudes one l^y one. though one by one they are ever relapsing tern her. The necessity of yearly confession> the Easter commumoa> the stated seasons of indulgence, the high f estivals> Lent, days of obligatio«i> with their Masses and pteachM^>— these ordinary and routine observaixc^ m^ the extraordinary methods of retreats, missions. Jubilees, and the like, are the means by which the powers of the world unseen are ever acting upon the corrupt mass, of which a nation is composed, and breaking up and reversing the dreadful phenomenon which fact and Scripture conspire to place before us.

Kor is thk all: good and bad are mixed together.

and the good is ever intuencing and mitigating the

bad. In the same Maily one or two holy souls may

shed a light around and raise the religious tone of the

rest In large and protiigate towns there will be

planted here and there commxmities of reKgious men

and wonien. whose example, whose appearance, whose

churches, whose ceremonies, whose devotions.^to say

nothing of their sacerdotal functions, or their charitable

mimstxations.~will ever be counteracting the intensity

f

4

no Fnji/dice to tJve Sanctity cftht Church. 275

of the poison. Again, you will have vast muJtitudes neither good nor bad ; you will have many scandals ; you will have, it may be, particular monast^eries in a state of relaxation ; rich communities bieaking their rule, and living in comfort and refinement, and individuals among them lapsing into sin ; cathedrals sheltering a host of otiicials, many of whom are a dishonour to the sacred place ; and in country districts, priests who set a bail example to their Hock, and are the cause of anxiety and grief to their bishops. And besides, you will have all sorts of dispositions and intellects, as plentiful of course as in a Protestant land: there are the weak and the strong-minded, the sharp and the dull, the jtassionate and the phlegmatic, the generous and the selfish, the idle, the proud, the sceptical, the dry-minded, the scheming, tiie enthusiastic, the self -con- ceited, the strange, the eccentric ; all of whom grace leaves more or less in their respective natural cast or tendency of mind. Thus we have before us a confused and motley scene, such as the world presents generally ; good and e\dl mingled together in all conceivable measures of combination and varieties of result ; a perpetual vicissitude; the prospect brightening and tlien overcast again ; luminous spots, tracts of splendour, patches of darkness, twilight regions, and the glimmer of day ; but in spite of this moral confusion, in one and all a clear intellectual appreliension of the truth. Perhaps you will say that this conflict of good and

I * « «

2 74 Religious State of Catholic Countries

strange in the ideas of a Protestant; they have a vivid perception, Hke sense, of things unseen, yet have no desire at all, or affection, towards them; they have knowledge without love. Such is the state of the many; the Church at the same time is ever labouring with aU her might to bring them back again to their Maker; and in fact is ever bringing back vast multitudes one by one, though one by one they are ever relapsing from her. The necessity of yearly confession, the Easter communion, the stated seasons of indulgence, the high festivals. Lent, days of obligation, with their Masses and preaching,— these ordinary and routine observances and the extraordinary methods of retreats, missions, jubilees, and the like, are the means by which the powers of the world unseen are ever acting upon the corrupt mass, of which a nation is composed, and breaking up and reversing the dreadful phenomenon which fact and Scripture conspire to place before us.

Nor is this all: good and bad are mixed together,

and the good is ever influencing and mitigating the

bad. In the same family one or two holy souls may

shed a light around and raise the religious tone of the

rest. In large and profligate towns there will be

planted here and there communities of religious men

and women, whose example, whose appearance, whose

churches, whose ceremonies, whose devotions,— to say

nothing of tlieir sacerdotal functions, or tlieir charitable

ministrations,-will ever be counteracting the intensity

no Prejudice to the Sanctity of the Church. 275

of the poison. Again, you will have vast multitudes neither good nor bad ; you will have many scandals ; you will have, it may be, particular monasteries in a state of relaxation ; rich communities breaking their rule, and living in comfort and refinement, and individuals among them lapsmg into sin; cathedrals sheltering a host of officials, many of whom are a dishonour to the sacred place ; and in country districts, priests who set a bad example to their flock, and are the cause of anxiety and grief to their bishops. And besides, you will have all sorts of dispositions and intellects, as plentiful of course as in a Protestant land: there are the weak and the strong-minded, the sharp and the dull, the passionate and the phlegmatic, the generous and the selfish, the idle, the proud, the sceptical, the dry-minded, the scheming, the enthusiastic, the self-con- ceited, the strange, the eccentric; all of whom grace leaves more or less in their respective natural cast or tendency of mind. Thus we have before us a confused and motley scene, such as the world presents generally; good and evil mingled together in all conceivable measures of combination and varieties of result; a perpetual vicissitude; the prospect brightening and then overcast again ; luminous spots, tracts of splendour, patches of darkness, twilight regions, and the glimmer of day; but in spite of this moral confusion, in one and all a clear intellectual apprehension of the truth. Perhaps you will say that this conflict of good and

276 Religious State of Catholic Countries

evil is to be seen in a Protestant country in just the same way : that is not the point ; but. this —that, in a Catholic country, on the mixed multitude, and on each of them, good or bad, is written, is stamped deep, this same wonderful knowledge. Just as in England, the whole community, whatever the moral state of the individuals, knows about railroads and electric tele graphs ; and about the Court, and men in power, and proceedings in Parliament; and about religious con- troversies, and about foreign affairs, and about all that is going on around and beyond them : so, in a Catholic country, the ideas of heaven and heU, Christ and the evil spirit, saints, angels, souls in purgatory, grace, the Blessed Sacrament, the sacrifice of the Mass, absolution, indulgences, the virtue of relics, of holy images, of holy water, and of other holy things, are of the nature of facts, which all men, good and bad, young and old, rich and poor, take for granted. They are facts brought home to them by faith ; substantially the same to all, though coloured by their respective minds, according as they are religious or not, and accordmg to the degree of their religion. Eeligious men use them well, the irreligious use them ill, the inconsistent vary in their use of them, but all use them. As the idea of God is before the minds of all men in a community not Catholic, so, but more vividly, these revealed ideas confront the minds of a Catholic people, whatever be the moral state of that people, taken one by one. They are facts attested by

no Prejudice to the Sanctity of the Church. 277

each to all, and by all to each, common property, primary points of thought, and landmarks, as it were, upon the territory of knowledge.

4.

Now, it being considered, that a vast number of sacred truths are taken for granted as facts by a Catholic nation, in the same sense as the sun in the heavens is a fact, you will see how many things take place of necessity, which to Protestants seem shocking, and which could not be avoided, unless it had been promised that the Church should consist of none but the predestinate ; nay, unless it consisted of none but the educated and refined. It is the spectacle of super- natural faith acting upon the multitudinous mind of a people ; of a divine principle dwelling in that myriad of characters, good, bad, and intermediate, into which the old stock of Adam grafted into Christ has developed. If a man sins grossly in a Protestant country, he is at once exposed to the temptation of unbelief ; and he is irritated when he is threatened with judgment to come. He is threatened, not with what to him is a fact, but with what to him is at best an opinion. He has power over that opinion ; he holds it to-day, whether he shall hold it to-morrow he cannot exactly say ; it depends on circumstances. And, being an opinion, no one has a right to assume that it is anything more, or to thrust it upon him, and to threaten him with it. This is what is to him

278 Religious State of Catholic Countries

so provoking and irritating. Protestants hold that there is a hell, as the conclusion of a syUogism ; they prove it from Scripture ; it is from first to last a point of controversy, and an opinion, and must not be taken for granted as immntable. A vicious man is angry with those \Yho hold opinions condemnatory of himself, because those opinions are the creation of the holders, and seem to reflect personaUy upon him. Nothing is so irritating to others as my own private judgment. But men are not commonly irritated by facts ; it would be ir- rational to be so, as it is in children who beat the ground when they faU down. A bad Catholic does not deny hell, for it is to him an incontestable fact, brought home to him by that supernatural faith, with which he assents to the Divine Word speaking through Holy Church ; he is not angry with others for holding it, for it is no private decision of their own. He may indeed despair, and then he blasphemes ; but, generally speak- ing, he will retain hope as well as faith, when he has lost charity. Accordingly, he neither complains of God nor of man. His thoughts wHl take a different turn ; he seeks to evade the difficulty ; he looks up to our Blessed Lady ; he knows by supernatural faith her power and her goodness ; he turns the truth to his own purpose, his bad purpose ; and he makes her his patroness and protec- tress against the penalty of sins which he does not mean to abandon. Such, I say, is the natural effect of having faith and hope without the saving grace of divine love.

no Prejudice to the Sanctitfj of the Church. 279

Hence, the strange stories of highwaymen and brigands devout to the Madonna. And, their wishes leading to the belief, they begin to circulate stories of her much- coveted compassion towards impenitent offenders; and these stories, fostered by the circum- stances of the day, and confused with others similar but not impossible, for a time are in repute. Thus, the Blessed Virgin has been reported to deliver the repro- bate from hell, and to transfer them to purgatory ; and absolutely to secure from perdition all who are devout to her, repentance not being contemplated as the means. Or men have thought, by means of some sacred relic, to be secured from death in their perilous and guilty expeditions. So, in the middle ages, great men could not go out to hunt without hearing Mass, but were content that the priest should mutilate it and worse, to bring it within limits. Similar phenomena occur in the history of chivalry : the tournaments were held in defiance of the excommunications of the Church, yet were conducted with a show of devotion ; ordeals, again, were even religious rites, yet in like manner undergone in the face of the Church's prohibition. We know the dissolute character of the medieval knights and of the troubadours ; yet, that dissoluteness, which would lead Protestant poets and travellers to scoff at religion, led them, not to deny revealed truth, but to combine it with their own wild and extravagant profession. The knight awore before Almighty God. His Blessed Mother, and —

28o Religious State of Catholic Countries

the ladies ; the troubadour offered tapers, and paid for Masses, for his success in some lawless attachment ; and the object of it, in turn, painted her votary under the figure of some saint. Just as a heathen phraseology is now in esteem, and " the altar of hymen " is spoken of, and the trump of fame, and the trident of Britannia, and a royal cradle is ornamented with figures of Nox and Somnus ; so in a Catholic age or country, the Blessed Saints will be invoked by virtuous and vicious in every undertaking, and will have their place in every room, whether of palace or of cottage. Vice does not involve a neglect of the external duties of religion. The Crusaders had faith sufficient to bind them to a perilous pilgrimage and warfare ; they kept the Friday's abstinence, and planted the tents of their mistresses within the shadow of the pavilion of the glorious St. Louis. There are other pilgrimages besides military ones, and other religious journeys besides the march on Jerusalem ; but the character of all of them is pretty much the same, as St. Jerome and St. Gregory Nyssen bear witness in the first age of the Church. It is a mixed multitude, some members of it most holy, perhaps even saints ; others penitent sinners ; but others, again, a mixture of pilgrim and beggar, or pilgrim and robber, or half gipsy, or three-quarters boon companion, or at least, with notliing saintly, and little religious about them. They will let you wash their feet, and serve them at table, and the hosts have

no Prejudice to the Sanctity of the Church. 281

more merit for their ministry than the guests for their wayfaring. Yet, one and all, saints and sinners, have faith in things invisible, which each nses in his own way.

5.

Listen to their conversation; listen to the conversa- tion of any multitude of them or any private party : what strange oaths mingle with it ! God's heart, and Ood's eyes, and God's wounds, and God's blood: you cry out, " How profane ! " Doubtless ; but do you not see, that their special profaneness over Protestant oaths, lies, not in the words, but simply in the speaker, and is the necessary result of that insight into the invisible world, which you have not? You use the vague words *' Providence," or " the Deity," or " good- luck," or " nature :" you would use more sacred words did you believe in the things denoted by them : Catho- lics, on the contrary, whether now or of old, realise the Creator in His supernatural works and personal manifestations, and speak of the " Sacred Heart," or of " the Mother of mercies," or of " our Lady of Walsing- ham," or of " St. George, for merry England," or of loving " St. Francis," or of dear " St. Philip." Your people would be as varied and fertile in their adjura- tions and invocations as a Catholic populace, if they had as rich a creed. Again, listen how freely the name of the evil spirit issues from the mouth even of the better sort of men. What is meant by this very

282 Religious State of Catholic Countries

off-hand meDtion of the most horrihle object in creation, of one who, if aUowed, could reduce us to ashes by the very hideousness of his countenance, or the odour of his breath ? WeU, I suppose they act upon the advice of the great St. Anthony; he, in the lonely wilderness, had conflicts enough with the enemy, and he has given us the result of his long expe- rience. In the sermon which his far-famed biogra- pher puts into his mouth, he teaches his hearers that the devH and his host are not to be feared by those who are within the fold, for the Good Shepherd has put the wolf to flight. Henceforth, the evil spirit could do no more than frighten them with empty noises (except by some particular permission of God), and could only pretend to do what was now really beyond his power. The experience of a saint, I sup- pose, is imprudently acted on by sinners; not as if Satan's malice were not equal to any assault upon body or soul ; but faith accepts the word that his rule over the earth is now broken, and that any child or peasant may ordinarily make sport of him and put him to ridiculous flight by the use of the " Hail Mary !" or holy water, or the sign of the cross.

Once more, listen to the stories, songs, and ballads of the populace ; their rude and boisterous merriment still runs upon the great invisible subjects which possess their imagination. Their ideas, of whatever sort, cTood, bad, and indifferent, rise out of the next

no Prejudice to the Sanctity of the Chirrch. 283

world. Hence, if they would have x^lays, the subjects are sacred ; if they would have games and sports, these fail, as it were, into procession, and are formed upon the model of sacred rites and sacred persons. If they sing and jest, the Madonna and the Bambino, or St. Joseph, or St. Peter, or some other saint, is introduced, not for irreverence, but because these are the ideas that absorb them. There is a festival in the streets ; you look about : what is it you see ? What would be impossible here in London. Set up a large Crucifix at Charing Cross ; the police would think you simply insane. Insane, and truly : but w^hy ? why dare you not do it ? why must you not ? Because you are averse to the sacred sign ? Not so ; you have it in your chamber, yet a Catholic would not dare to do so, more than another. It is true that awful, touching, winning Form has before now converted the very savage who gazed upon it; he has wondered, has asked what it meant, has broken into tears, and been converted ere he knew that he believed. The mani- festation of love has been the incentive to faith. I cannot certainly predict what would take place, if a saint appealed to the guilty consciences of those thou- sand passers-by, through the instrumentality of the Divine Sign. But such occurrences are not of every day; what you would too securely and confidently foretell, my brethren, were such an exhibition made, would be, that it would but excite the scorn, the rac^e.

284 Religious State of Catholic Counties

the blasphemy, of the out-pouring flocking multitude, a multitude who in their hearts are unbelievers. Alas ! there is no idea in the national mind, supematur- ally implanted, which the Crucifix embodies. Let a Catholic mob be as profligate in conduct as an English, still it cannot withstand, it cannot disown, it can but worship the Crucifix ; it is the external representation of a fact, of which one and all are conscious to them- selves and to each other. And hence, I say, in their fairs and places of amusement, in the booths, upon the stalls, upon the doors of wine-shops, will be paintings of the Blessed Virgin, or St. Michael, or the souls in purgatory, or of some Scripture subject. Innocence, guilt, and what is between the two, all range them- selves under the same banners ; for even the resorts of sin will be made doubly frightful by the blasphemous introduction of some sainted patron.

6.

You enter into one of the churches close upon the scene of festivity, and you turn your eyes towards a confessional. The penitents are crowding for admis- sion, and they seem to have no shame, or solemnity, or reserve about the errand on which they are come ; till at length, on a penitent's turning from the grate, one tall woman, bolder than a score of men, darts forward from a distance into the place he has vacated, to the disappointment of the many who have waited

no Prejudice to the Sanctity of the Church. 285

longer than she. You almost groan under the weight of your imagination that such a soul, so selfish, so unrecollected, must surely he in very ill dispositions for so awful a sacrament. You look at the priest, and he has on his face a look almost of impatience, or of good-natured compassion, at the voluble and super- fluous matter which is the staple of her confession. The priests, you think, are no better than the people. My dear brethren, be not so uncharitable, so unphiloso- phical. Things we thoroughly believe, things we see, things which occur to us every day, we treat as things which do occur and are seen daily, be they of this world, or be they of the next. Even Bishop Butler should have taught you that "practical habits are strengthened by repeated acts, and passive impres- sions grow weaker by being repeated upon us." It is not by frames of mind, it is not by emotions, that we must judge of real religion ; it is the having a will and a heart set towards those things unseen ; and though impatience and rudeness are to be subdued, and are faulty even in their minutest exhibitions, yet do not argue from them the absence of faith, nor yet of love, or of contrition. You turn away half satisfied, and what do you see ? There is a feeble old woman, who first genuflects before the Blessed Sacrament, and then steals her neighbour's handkerchief, or prayer-book, who is intent on his devotions. Here at last, you say, is a thing absolutely indefensible and

286 Religious State of Catholic Countries

inexcusable. Doubtless; but what does it prove? Does England bear no thieves ? or do you think this poor creature an unbeliever ? or do you exclaim against Catholicism, which has made her so profane? but why ? Faith is illuminative, not operative ; it does not force obedience, though it increases responsibility ; it heightens guilt, it does not prevent sin ; the will is the source of action, not an influence, though divine, which Baptism has implanted, and which the devil has only not eradicated. She worships and she sins ; she kneels because she believes, she steals because she does not love ; she may be out of God's grace, she is not alto- gether out of His sight.

You come out again and mix in the idle and dis- sipated throng, and you fall in with a man in a palmer's dress, selling false relics, and a credulous circle of customers buying them as greedily as though they were the supposed French laces and India silks of a pedlar's basket. One simple soul has bought of him a cure for the rheumatism or ague, the use of which might form a case of conscience. It is said to be a relic of St. Cuthbert, but only has virtue at sun- rise, and when applied with three crosses to the head, arms, and feet. You pass on, and encounter a rude son of the Church, more like a showman than a religious, recounting to the gaping multitude some tale of a vision of the invisible world, seen by Brother Augustine of the Friars Minors, or by a holy Jesuit

no Prejudice to the Sanctity of the Church. 287

preacher who died in the odour of sanctity, and send- ing round his bag to collect pence for the souls in purgatory ; or of some appearance of our Lady (the like of which has really been before and since), but on no authority except popular report, and in no shape but that which popular caprice has given it. You go forward, and you find preparations in progress for a great pageant or mystery ; it is a high festival, and the incorporated trades have each undertaken their special religious celebration. The plumbers and glaziers are to play the Creation ; the barbers, the Call of Abraham ; and at night is to be the grandest performance of all, the Eesurrection and Last Judgment, played by the carpenters, masons, and blacksmiths. Heaven and hell are represented, — saints, devils, and living men; and the chef dJoeuvre of the exhibition is the display of fireworks to be let off as the finale. " How unutterably profane!" again you cry. Yes, profane to you, my dear brother — profane to a population which only half believes; not profane to those who, however coarse-minded, however sinful, believe wholly, who, one and all, have a vision within, which corresponds with what they see, which resolves itself into, or rather takes up into itself, the external pageant, what- ever be the moral condition of each individual com- posing the mass. They gaze, and, in drinking in the exhibition with their eyes, they are making one con- tinuous and intense act of faith.

aSS Religious State of Catholic Countries

You turn to go home, and, on your way, you pass through a retired quarter of the city. Look up at those sacred windows ; they belong to the convent of the Perpetual Adoration, or to the poor Clares, or to the CarmeUtes of the reform of St. Theresa, or to the nuns of the Yisitation. Seclusion, silence, watching, medi- tation, is their life day and night. The immaculate Lamb of God is ever before the eyes of the worshippers \ or at least the invisible mysteries of faith ever stand out, as if in bodily shape, before their mental gaze. Where will you find such a realised heaven upon earth ? Yet that very sight has acted otherwise on the mind of a weak sister; and the very keenness of hei faith and wild desire of approaching the Object of it, has led her to fancy or to feign that she has received that singular favour vouchsafed only to a few elect souls; and she points to God's wounds, as imprinted on her hands, and feet, and side, though she herself has been instrumental in their formation.

7.

In these and a thousand other ways it may be shown, that that special character of a Catholic country, which offends you, my brethren, so much, that mixture of seriousness and levity, that familiar handling of sacred things, in word and deed, by good and bad, that publication of religious thoughts and practices, so far as it is found, is the necessary con-

no Prejudice to the Sanctity of the Church. 289

sequence of its being Catholic. It is the consequence of mixed multitudes aU having faith; for faith im- presses the mind with supernatural truths, as if it were sight, and the faith of this man, and the faith of that, is one and the same, and creates one and the same impression. The truths of religion, then, stand in the place of facts, and public ones. Sin does not obli- terate the impression; and did it begin to do so in particular cases, the consistent testimony of all around would bring back the mind to itself, and prevent the incipient evil. Ordinarily speaking, once faith, always faith. Eyes once opened to good, as to evil, are not closed again; and, if men reject the truth, it is, in most cases, a question whether they have ever possessed it. It is just the reverse among a Protestant people; private judgment does but create opinions, and nothing more; and these opinions are peculiar to each individual, and different from those of any one else. Hence it leads men to keep their feelings to themselves, because the avowal of them only causes in others irritation or ridicule. Since, too, they have no certainty of the doctrines they profess, they do but feel that they ought to believe them, and they try to believe them, and they nurse the offspring of their reason, as a sickly child, bringing it out of doors only on line days. They feel very clear and quite satisfied, while they are very still; but if they turn about their head, or change their posture ever so little, the vision

290 Religious State of Catholic Countries

of the Unseen, like a mirage, is gone from them So they keep the exhibition of the. faith for high days J great occasions, when .t comes forth w.th suffi- cient pomp and gravity of language, and ceremomal of nianner Truths slowly totter out with Scripture te.ts at their elbow, as unable to walk alone. Moreover, Protestants know, if such and such things be true what ou,ht to be the voice, the tone, the gesture, and the carnage attendant upon them; thus reason, whrch is the substance of their faith, supplies also the rubrics as 1 may call them, of their behaviour. This some of you my brethren, call reverence ; though I am obliged to say it is as much a mannerism, and an unpleasant mannerism, as that of the Evangelical party, which they have hitherto condemned. They condemn Catho- lics, because, however religious they may be, they are natural, unaffected, easy, and cheerful, in their mention of sacred things; and they think themselves never so real as when they are especiaUy solemn.

8.

And now, my brethren, I will only observe, in con- clusion how merciful a providence it has been, that faith and love are separable, as the Catholic creed teaches. I suppose it might have been, as Luther said it is, had God so willed it-faith and love might have been so intimately one, that the abandonment of the

no Prejudice to the Sanctity of the Church. 2qi

latter was the forfeiture of the former. Now, did sin not only throw the soul out of God's favour, but at once empty it of every supernatural principle, we should see in Catholics, what is, alas ! so common among Protestants, souls brought back to a sense of guilt, frightened at their state, yet having no resource, and nothing to build upon. Again and again it hap- pens, that, after committing some offence greater than usual, or being roused after a course of sin, or fright- ened by sickness, a Protestant wishes to repent ; but what is he to fall back upon ? whither is he to go ? what is he to do ? He has to dig and plant his founda- tion. Every step is to be learned, and all is in the dark ; he is to search and labour, and after all for an opinion. And then, supposing him to have made some progress, perhaps he is overcome again by temptation ; he falls, and all is undone again. His doctrinal views vanish, and it can hardly be said that he believes any- thing. But the Catholic knows just where he is and what he has to do ; no time is lost when compunction comes upon him ; but, while his feelings are fresh and keen, he can betake himself to the appointed means of cure. He may be ever falling, but his faith is a con- tinual invitation and persuasive to repent. The poor Protestant adds sin to sin, and his best aspirations come to nothing ; the Catholic wipes off his guilt again and again ; and thus, even if his repentance does not endure, and he has not strength to persevere, in a

292 Religious State of Catholic Countries

certain sense lie is never getting worse, but ever be- ginning afresh. Nor does the apparent easiness of pardon operate as an encouragement to sin, unless, indeed, repentance be easy, and the grace of repentance to be expected, when it has already been quenched, or unless we come to consider past repentance to avail, when it is not persevered in.

And, above all, let death come suddenly upon him, and let him have the preparation of a poor hour; what is the Protestant to do ? He has nothing but sights of this world around him; wife, and children, and friends, and worldly interests ; the Catholic has these also, but the Protestant has nought but these. He may, indeed, in particular cases, have got firm hold of his party's view of justification or regeneration ; or it may be, he has a real apprehension of our Lord's divinity, which comes from divine grace. But I am speaking, not of the more serious portion of the community, but of the popular religion ; and I wish you to take a man at random in one of our vast towns, and tell me, has he any supernatural idea before his mind at all? The minutes hasten on; and, having to learn every- thing, supposing him desirous of learning, he can practise nothing. His thoughts rise up in some vague desire of mercy, which neither he nor the bystanders can analyze. He asks for some chapter of the Bible to be read to him, but rather as the expression of his horror and bewilderment, than as the token of his

no Prejudice to the Sanctity of the Church. 293

faith ; and then his intellect becomes clouded, and he dies.

How different is it with the Catholic ! He has with- in him almost a principle of recovery, certainly an instrument of it. He may have spoken lightly of the Almighty, but he has ever believed in Him ; he has sung jocose songs about the Blessed Virgin and Saints, and told good stories about the evil spirit, but in levity, not in contempt ; he has been angry with his heavenly Patrons when things went ill with him, but with the waywardness of a child who is cross with his parents. Those heavenly Patrons were ever before him, even when he was in the mire of mortal sin and in the wrath of the Almighty, as lights burning in the firmament of his intellect, though he had no part with them, as he perfectly knew. He has absented him- self from his Easter duties years out of number, but he never denied he was a Catholic. He has laughed at priests, and formed rash judgments of them, and slandered them to others, but not as doubting the divinity of their function and the virtue of their ministrations. He has attended Mass carelessly and heartlessly, but he was ever aware what really was before him, under the veil of material symbols, in that august and adorable action. So, when the news comes to him that he is to die, and he cannot get a priest, and the ray of God's grace pierces his heart, and he yearns after Him whom he has neglected, it is with no

294 Religious State of Catholic Countries

inarticulate, confused emotion, which does but oppress him, and which has no means of relief. His thoughts at once take shape and order; they mount up, each m its due place, to the great Objects of faith, which are as surely in Ms mind as they are in heaven. He addresses himself to his Crucifix; He invokes the Precious Blood or the Five Wounds of his Redeemer ; he interests the Blessed Virgin in his behalf; he hetakes himself to his patron Saints ; he calls his good Angel to his side; he professes his desire of that sacramental absolution, which from circumstances he cannot obtain; he exercises himself in acts of faith, hope, charity, contrition, resignation, and other virtues suitable to his extremity. True, he is going into the unseen world; but true also, that that unseen world has already been with him here. True, he is going to a foreign, but not to a strange place ; judgment and purgatory are famiUar ideas to him, more fully realised within him even than death. He has had a much deeper perception of purgatory, though it be a supernatural object, than of death, though a natural one. The enemy rushes on him, to overthrow the faith on which he is built; but the whole tenor of his past life, his very jesting, and his very oaths, have been overruled, to create in him a habit of faith, girding round and protecting the supernatural principle. And thus, even one who has been a bad Catholic may have a hope in

no Prejudice to the Sanctity of the Church. 295

his death, to which the most virtuous of Protestants, nay, my brethren, the most correct and most thought- ful among yourselves, however able, or learned, or sagacious — if you have lived not by faith but by private judgment — are necessarily strangers.

( 296 )

LECTURE X.

DIFFERENCES AMONG CATHOLICS NO PREJUDICE TO THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH.

I

AM going to-day to take notice of an objection to

the claims of that great Communion, into which,

my brethren, I am inviting you, which to me sounds so

feeble and unworthy, that I am loth to take it for my

subject ; for an answer, if corresponding to it, must be

trifling and uninteresting also, and if careful and exact,

will be but a waste of effort. I, therefore, do not know

what to do with it : treat it with respect I cannot ; yet

since it is frequently, nay, triumphantly, urged by

those who wish to make the most of such difficulties

as they can bring together against our claims, I do not

like to pass it over. Bear with me then, my brethren,

nay, I may say, sympathize with me, if you find that

the subject is not one which is very fertile in profitable

reflection.

I.

When, then, the variations of Protestantism, or the divisions in the Establishment, are urged as a reason for your distrusting the Communion in which they are

Differences among Catholics, etc. 297

found, it is answered, that divisions as serious and as decided are to be found in the Catholic Church. It is a well-known point in controversy, to say that the Catholic Church has not any real unity more than Protestantism ; for, if Lutherans are divided in creed from Calvinists, and both from Anglicans, and the various denominations of Dissenters each has its own doctrine and its own interpretation, yet Dominicans and Franciscans, Jesuits and Jansenists, have had their quarrels too. Nay, that at this moment the greatest alienation, rivalry, and difference of opinion exist among the members of the Catholic priesthood, so that the Church is but nominally one, and her pretended unity resolves itself into nothing more specious than an awkward and imperfect uniformity. This is what is said : and, I repeat, my answer to it cannot contain anything either new or important, or even satisfactory to myself. However, since I must enter upon the subject, I must make the best of it ; so let me begin with an extract from Jewel's Apology, in which the objection is to be found.

"Who are these," he says, "that find fault with dissensions among us ? Are they all agreed among themselves ? Hath every one of them determined, to his own satisfaction, what he should follow? Have there been no differences, no disputes among them? Then why do not the Scotists and the Thomists come to a more perfect agreement touching the merit of con-

298 Differences among Catholics

gruity and condignity, touching original sin in the Blessed Virgin, and the obligations of simple and solemn vows ? Why do the Canonists affirm auricular confession to be of human and positive, and the School- men, on the contrary, maintain that it is of divine right ? Why does Albertus Pighius differ from Caje- tan, Thomas Aquinas from Peter Lombard, Scotus from Thomas Aquinas, Occham from Scotus, Peter D'Ailly from Occham, the Nominalists from the Eealists? And, not to mention the infinite dissensions of the friars and monks (how some of them place their holiness in the eating of fish, others in herbs ; some in wearing of shoes, others in sandals; some in linen garments, others in woollen ; some go in white, some in black ; some are shaven broader, some narrower ; some shod, some barefoot; some girded, others ungirded), they should remember that some of their own ad- herents say, that the body of Christ is in the Lord's supper naturally ; that others again, of their own party, teach the very reverse : that there are some who affirm that the body of Christ in the Holy Communion is torn and ground with our teeth ; others again there are who deny it : that there are some who say that the body of Christ in the Eucharist hath quantity; and others again deny it: that there are some who say that Christ consecrated the bread and wine by the especial putting forth of His divine power; others, that He consecrated in the benediction : some, by the

no Prejudice to the Unity of the Church. 299

conceiving the five words in His mind ; otliers, Vjy His uttering them : others there are who, in these five words, refer the demonstrative pronoun 'this' to the wheaten bread ; others to what they call an individu- um vagum : some there are who affirm that dogs and mice can verily and truly eat the body of Christ; others there are who do not hesitate to deny it; some there are who say that the very accidents of the bread and wine give nourishment ; others, that the substance of bread and wine returns after consecration. And why should we bring forward more ? It would be only tedious and burdensome to enumerate them all ; so unsettled and disputed is yet the ivhole form of these men's religion and doctrine even among themselves, from whom it sprang and proceeded. For scarcely ever are they agreed together, unless, as of old, the Pharisees and Sadducees were, or Herod and Pilate, against Christ."

It is equally common to insist upon the breaches of charity which are to be found among the members of the Catholic Church. For instance, Leslie says, " If you have not unity in faith, nor in those principles and practices which are no less necessary to salvation, nor in that love and charity which Christ has made the characteristic of Christians, and without which no man can know who are His disciples ; but, instead of that, if you have envyings and strife among you, among your several religious orders, betwixt National

300 Differences among CcMolics

and iSTational Church, concerning the infallibility and supremacy of the Pope, and of his power to depose princes, upon which the peace and unity of the world and our eternal salvation does depend ; and, in short, if you have no unity concerning your rule of faith itself, or of your practice, what will the unity of communion do, upon which you lay the whole stress ?"i

Such is the retort, by which Protestants would divert our attack upon their own mutual differences and variations in matters of faith. They answer, that differences of religious opinion and that party dissen- sions are found within the Catholic Church.

Now, in beginning my remarks upon this objection, I would have you observe, my brethren, that the very idea of the Catholic Church, as an instrument of s uper- natural grace, is that of an institution which innovates upon, or rather superadds to nature. She does some- thing for nature above or beyond nature. When, then, it is said that she makes her members one, this implies that by nature they are not one, and would not become one. Viewed in themselves, the children of the Church are not of a different nature from the Protestants around them; they are of the very same nature. What Protestants are, such would they be, but for tlie

• Wnrks, 1832, vol. iii. p. 171.

no Prejudice to the Unity of the Church. 301

Church, which brings them together forcibly, though persuasively, "fortiter et suaviter," and binds them into one by her authority. Left to himself, each Catholic likes and would maintain his own opinion and his private judgment just as much as a Protes- tant ; and he has it, and he maintains it, just so far as the Church does not, by the authority of Eevelation, supersede it. The very moment the Church ceases to speak, at the very point at which she, that is, Cod who speaks by her, circumscribes her range of teaching, there private judgment of necessity starts up ; there is nothing to hinder it. The intellect of man is active and independent : he forms opinions about everything ; he feels no deference for another's opinion, except in proportion as he thinks that that other is more likely than he to be right ; and he never absolutely sacrifices- his own opinion, except when he is sure that that other knows for certain. He is sure that God knows ; therefore, if he is a Catholic, he sacrifices his opinion to the Word of God, speaking through His Church. But, from the nature of the case, there is nothing to hinder his having his own opinion, and expressing it, whenever, and so far as, the Church, the oracle of Eevelation, does not speak.

But again, human nature likes, not only its own opinion, but its own way, and will have it whenever it can, except when hindered by physical or moral restraint. So far forth, then, as the Church does not

302 Differences among Catholics

compel her childreu to do one and the same thing (as, for instance, to abstain from work on Sunday, and from flesh on Friday), they will do different things; and still more so, when she actually allows or com* missions them to act for themselves, gives to certain persons or bodies privileges and immunities, and recognizes them as centres of combination, under her authority, and within her pale.

And further still, in all subjects and respects what- ever, whether in that range of opinion and of action which the Church has claimed to herself, and where she has superseded what is private and individual, or, on the other hand, in those larger regions of thought and of conduct, as to which she has not spoken, though she might speak, the natural tendency of the children of the Church, as men, is to resist her autho- rity. Each mind naturally is self-willed, self-dependent, self-satisfied ; and except so far as grace has subdued it, its first impulse is to rebel. Now this tendency, through the influence of grace, is not often exhibited in matters of faith ; for it would be incipient heresy, and would be contrary, if knowingly indulged, to the first element of Catholic duty; but in matters of conduct, of ritual, of discipline, of politics, of social life, in the ten thousand questions which the Church has not formally answered, even though she may have intimated her judgment, there is a constant rising of the human mind against the authority of the Church,

no Prejudice to the Unity of the Church. 303

and of superiors, and that, in proportion as each individual is removed from perfection. For all these reasons, there ever has been, and ever will be, a vast exercise and a realized product, partly praiseworthy, partly barely lawful, of private judgment within the Catholic Church. The freedom of the human mind is " in possession " (as it is called), and it meddles with every question, and wanders over heaven and earth, except so far as the authority of the Divine Word, as a superincumbent weight, presses it down, and restrains

it within limits.

3.

The most obvious instance of this liberty or licence within the Church is that of nationality : and I do not understand why it has not been urged in the contro- versy more prominently than the mere rivalry and party- spirit of monastic bodies. What a vast assem- blage of private attachments and feelings, judgments, tastes, and traditions, goes to make up the idea of nationality ! yet, there it exists in the Church, because the Church has not been divinely instructed to forbid it, and it fights against the Church and the Church's objects, except where the Church authoritatively repels it. The Church is' a preacher of peace, and nationality is the fruitful cause of quarrels, far more sinful and destructive tlian the paper wars, and rivalry of customs or precedents, which alone can possibly exist between religious bodies. The Church grants to the magistrate

304 Differences among Catholics

the power of the sword, and the right of making war in a lawful quarrel, and nations abuse this prerogative to break up that unity of love which ought to exist in the baptized servants of a common Master, and to put to death by wholesale those whom they pray to live with for ever in heaven. This, I say, might be urged in controversy against Catholicism, as an extreme instance of the want of unity in the Church ; and yet, when properly considered, it is rather a special instance, I do not say of her unity, but of her uniting power. She fights the battle of unity against nationality, and she wins. Look through her history, and you cannot deny but she is the one great principle of unity and concord which the world has seen. In this day, I grant, scientific unions, free trade, railroads, and industrial exhibitions are put forward as a substitute for her influence, with what success posterity will be able to judge ; but, as far as the course of history has yet proceeded, the Church is the only power that has- wrestled, as with the concupiscence, so with the pride,, irritability, selfishness, and self-love of human nature. Her annals present a series of victories over that human nature, wliich is the subject-matter of her operations; and to object to her " that she has an enemy to overcome, surely would be a most perverse view of the case, and a most sophistical argument in controversy. The barbarian invaders of the empire were the enemies of the human race and of each other;

no Prejudice to tlie Unity of the Church. 305

an! to subdue and unite them, and to harness them, as it were, to her triumphal chariot by her look and by her voice, was an exploit of moral power, such as the world has never seen elsewhere. Such, too, was her continual arbitration between the fierce feudal mon- archs of the Middle Ages, which, though not always successful to the extent of her desire, exhibits her most signally in that her great and heavenly character of peacemaker, and vindicates for her the attribute, given her in the Creed, and envied her by her enemies, of being One.

And here I cannot but allude to the subject which employed our attention yesterday ; for, be it for good or for evil, it then seemed a truth beyond contradic- tion, that one and the same character was to be found in all Catholic nations, in north and south, in the middle age and in the present. I repeat, I am not assuming now, any more than then, that this common character is admirable and beautiful, or denying (as far as this argument goes) that it is despicable and offensive ; I only remind you that its identity every- where was in yesterday's Lecture taken for granted; and what was granted by me to our own prejudice then, must be conceded to me in our favour now. Considering the wide differences in nations and in times, it surely is very remarkable that the religious character, which the Catholic Church forms in her populations, is so identical as it is found to be. Can,

3o6 Differences among Catholics

indeed, there be a more marvellous, or even awful, instance of her real internal unity, than that a modern Naples should be like medieval England? and if we do not see the same character more than partially developed in Ireland at this moment, is not this the plain reason, that the Irish people has been worn down by oppression, not allowed to be joyous, not allowed to be natural, as little capable of exhibiting human nature in a Catholic medium, as primitive Christianity while it lived in the Catacombs?

4.

After considerations such as these, I own I can scarcely treat seriously the earnestness with which Protestant controversialists would call me back to contemplate the quarrels and jealousies of seculars and regulars, among themselves, or with each other; as if the human mind were not at all times, so far as it is left to itself, selfish and exclusive, and especially in the various circumstances under which it is found in a far-spreading polity or association. When Catho- lics in any country are poor or few, each religious body, each college, each priest, is tempted to do his utmost for himself, at the expense of every one else. I do not mean for his temporal interests, for he has not the temptation, but for the interests of his own mission and place, and of his own people. He has to build his chapel, to support his school, to feed his poor ; and if

no Prejudice to tlie Unity of the Church. 307

his next-door neighbour gets the start of him, no means will be left for himself. Or if he is of a mendicant order, he feels he has a claim on the sup- port of the faithful, prior to a religious body Avhich lives on endowments or has other property; but the latter has lately come to the country, and thinks it very fair, on its first start, once for all to make a general appeal, without which it never will be able to get afloat. All parties, then, are naturally led to look out for themselves in the first instance ; and this state of mind may easily degenerate into a jealousy of the good fortune or prosperity of others. And then again, some men, or races of men, are more sudden in their tempers than others, or individuals may be defi- cient in moral training or refinement, and strangers may mistake for a real dissension what is nothing more than momentary and transitory collision.

Or again, let the country be Catholic, and the Church rich; then, what so natural, so inevitable, taking men as they are, as that large, and widely-spread, and powerful congregations or orders, high in repute, com- manding in station, famous in historical memories, rich in saints, proud of tlieir doctors, and of schools founded on their tradition, should be exposed to the various infirmities of party spirit, adhere sensitively and obstinately to the privileges they possess, or to the doctrines which have been their watchwords, disparage others and wish to overbear them, and provoke the

3o8 Difference's among Catholics

interposition of authority to put an end to the disputes which they have excited ? I should be curious to know whether there ever was a case when two Protestant sects or parties found anv umpire at aU, in a question of opinion between them, except indeed the strong arm of the law. And, in saying all this, I am not deter- mining the fact of such quarrels among Catholics, nor the degree to which they proceed; for, as in former Lectures, I am not specially concerned with the inves- tigation of facts; I am taking for granted what is alleged by our opponents, and is antecedently probable, taking human nature as it is. But, in truth, you might far better refer to the esprit de corps of separate regiments in her Majesty's service, in order to prove that the tribes of Eed Indians may be fairly said to live in peace together,— or point to the rivalries and party poUtics of separate coUeges in the national seats of learning as a proof that those bodies are mutual beUigerents, and assert that the university is not one, and "does not act as one, because its colleges differ among themselves,— than assert the like of any of those ''religious bodies, established and sanctioned by the Catholic Church. The very same parties, who have their domestic feuds with one another, will defend, as Catholics, their common faith, or common Mother, against an external foe; but when did the Bishops of the Establishment ever stand by the Friends or by the Independents, or the Wesleyans by the Baptists, on

no Prejudice to the Unity of the Church. 309

any one point of doctrine, with a unity of opinion, intelligent, positive, and exact ?

You recollect the popular story, which is intended to exemplify the supremacy of the instinct of benevo- lence over religious opinion. It is supposed to be one o'clock on Sunday, and a number of congregations are pouring out, their devotions being over, from their respective chapels and meeting-houses, when a woman is taken ill in the street. The sight of this physical calamity is represented as sufficient to supersede all other considerations in the minds of the beholders, and to bind together for the moment the most bitter opponents in the common work of Christian charity. This argument of course is based uj^on the assumption, and a very reasonable one, that the differences which exist between man and man in religious matters, far from disproving, do but illustrate and confirm the fact of the participation of all men in the natural sentiment of compassion ; and surely the case is the same in the Catholic Church, as regards the differences and the unanimity of her religious bodies. Augustinians, Dominicans, Franciscans, Jesuits, and Carmelites have indeed their respective homes and schools; but they have, in spite of all that, a common school and a common home in their Mother's voice and their Mother's bosom ; " omnes omnium caritates patria una complexa est ; " but Protestants can but " agree to differ." Quarrels, stopping short of division, do but

3 TO Differences among Catholics

prove the strength of the principle of combination; they are a token not of the languor, but of the vigour, of its life. Surely this is what we see and say daily as regards the working of the British constitution.

5.

But we have not yet got to the real point of the question which lies between us: you allege these differences in the Catholic Church, my brethren, as a reason for your not submitting to her authority. Now, in order to ascertain their force in this point of view, let it be considered that the primary question, with every serious inquirer, is the question of salvation. I am speaking to those who feel this to be so; not to those who make religion a sort of literature or philo- sophy, but to those who desire, both in their creed and in their conduct, to approve themselves to their Maker, and to save their souls. This being taken for granted, it immediately follows to ask, " What must I do to be saved?" and "who is to teach me?" and next, can Protestantism, can the National Church, teach me? No, is the answer of common sense, for this simple reason, because of the variations and discordances in teaching of both the one and the other. The National Church is no guide into the truth, because no one knows what it holds, and what it commands : one party says this, and a second party says that, and a third party says neither this nor that. I must seek the truth

no Prejudice to the Unity of the Church. 31 1

then elsewhere; and then the question foHows, Shall I seek it in the Communion of Rome ? In answer, this objection is instantly made, " You cannot find the truth in Rome, for there are as many divisions there as in the national Communion." Who would not sup- pose the objection to mean, that these divisions were such as to make it difficult or impossible to ascertain what it was that the Roman Communion taught ? Who would not suppose it to mean that there was within the Communion of Rome a difference of creed and of dogmatic teaching; whereas the state of the case is just the reverse ? No one can pretend that the quarrels in the Catholic Church are questions of faith, or have tended in any way to obscure or impair what she declares to be such, and what is acknowledged to be such by the very parties in those quarrels. That Dominicans and Franciscans have been zealous respectively for certain doctrinal views, which they declare at the same time to be beyond and in advance of the promulgated faith of the Church, throws no doubt upon that faith itself; how does it follow that they differ in questions of faith, because they differ in questions not of faith ? Rather, I would say, if a number of parties distinct from each other give the same testimony on certain points, their differences on other points do but strengthen the evi- dence for the truth of those matters in which they all are agreed ; and the greater the difference, the more remarkable is the unanimity. The question is, " Where

3 1 2 Differences among Catholics

can I be taught, who cannot be taught by the national communion, because it does not teach ? " and the Protes- tant warning runs, " Not in the Catholic Church, be- . cause she, in spite of differences on subordinate points amongst her members, does teach."

In truth, she not only teaches in spite of those dif- ferences, but she has ever taught by means of them. Those very differences of Catholics on further points have themselves implied and brought out their absolute faith in the doctrines which are previous to them. The doctrines of faith are the common basis of the combat- ants, the ground on which they contend, their ultimate authority, and their arbitrating rule. They are assumed, and introduced, and commented on, and enforced, in every stage of the alternate disputation; and I will venture to say, that, if you wish to get a good view of the unity, consistency, solidity, and reality of Catholic teaching, your best way is to get up the controversy on grace, or on the Immaculate Conception. No one can do so without acquiring a mass of theological know- ledge, and sinking in his intellect a foundation of dogmatic truth, which is simply antecedent and com- mon to the rival schools, and which they do but exhibit and elucidate. To suppose that they perplex an in- quirer or a convert, is to fancy that litigation destroys the principles and the science of law, or that spelling out words of five syllables makes a child forget his alphabet. On the other hand, place your unfortunate

no Prejudice to the Unity of the Church. 313

inquirer between Luther and Calvin, if the Holy Eucharist is his subject; or, if he is determining the rule of faith, between Bramhall and Chilling worth, Bull and Hoadley, and what residuum will be left, when you have eliminated their contr^irieties ?

6.

It is imprudent in opponents of the Catholic Eeligion to choose for their attack the very point in which it is strong. As truth is tried by error, virtue by tempta- tion, courage by opposition, so is individuality and life tried by disturbance and disorder ; and its trial is its evidence. The long history of Catholicism is but a co- ordinate proof of its essential unity. I suppose, then, that Protestants must be considered as turning to bay upon their pursuers, when they would retort upon us the argument available against themselves from their religious variations. "The Eomanist must admit," it has been urged, " that the state, whether of the Church Catholic or of the Eoman Church, at periods before or during the Middle Ages, was such as to bear a very strong resemblance to the picture he draws of our own. I do not speak of corruptions in life and morals merely, or of errors of individuals, however highly exalted, but of the general disorganized and schismatical state of the Church, lier practical abandonment of her spiritual pretensions, the tyranny exercised over her by the civil power, and the intimate adherence of the worst pas-

314 Differences among Catholics

sions and of circumstantial irregularities to those acts which are vital portions of her system." ^ Such is the imputation ; but yet, to tell the truth, I do not know any passages in her history which supply so awful, an evidence of her unity and self-dependence, or so lumi- nous a contrast to Anglicanism or other Protestantism, as these very anomalies in the rule and tenor of her course as I have already observed, and shall presently show by examples.

Two years back, when European society was shaken to its basis, the question which came before us was, not whether this or that nation was great and power- ful, and able, in case of necessity, to go to war with vif^our and effect, but even whether it could hold to- gether, whether it possessed that internal consistency, reality, and life, which made it one. This was the question asked even about England ; it was a problem, debated before it could be tried, settled distinctly in the affirmative, when a trial was granted. Much as we mio-ht have confided in the steadiness of character, good sense, reverence for law, contentment and political discipline of our people, we shall, I suppose, admit that there was an evidence laid before the world of our national stability, after April 1848, to which no mere anticipation was equivalent. No one can deny, that, fully as we may be impressed with the security of Russia, still we have not, as regards Russia, such a

1 Proph Off., p. 408.

no Prejudice to the Unity of the Chui^ch. 3 1 5

vivid impression on our mind, almost on our senses, of the fact, as was created by the threat and the failure of a political rising in England at the date I have men- tioned. And sometimes the longer is the trial, and the more critical the contest (as in the instance of the civil discords of ancient Eome), the greater vigour and the more obstinate life is exhibited by the nation and state, when once it is undeniably victorious over its internal disorders. As external enemies do not prove a state to be weak till they prevail over it, so rebellions from within may but prove its strength, if they are smitten down and extinguished. Now, the disorders which have afBicted the Church have just had this office assigned them in the designs of Providence, and teach us this lesson. They have but assayed what may be called the unitive and integrating virtue of the See of St. Peter, in contrast to such counterfeits as the Anglican Church, which, set up in unconditional surrender to the nation, has never been able to resist the tyranny or caprice of the national will. The Establishment, having no in- ternal principle of individuality, except what it borrows from the nation, can neither expel what is foreign to itself, nor heal its own wounds ; the Church, a living body, when she becomes the seat of a malady or disorder, tends from the first to its eradication, which is but a matter of time. This great fact continually occurring in her history, I will briefly illustrate by two examples, which will be the fairest to take, from, the

1 6 Differences among Catholics

extraordinary obstinacy of the evil, and its occasional promise of victory : — the history of the heresies con- cerning the Incarnation, and the history of Jansenism. Each controversy had a reference to a great mystery of the faith ; in each every inch of the gronnd was con- tested, and the enemy retired step by step, or at least from post to post. The former of the two lasted for between four and five hundred years, and the latter nearly two hundi'ed.

7-

First, as to the doctrine of the Incarnation, the mind of man is naturally impatient of whatever it cannot reduce to the system of order and of causation to which it subjects all its knowledge ; that is, of whatever is mysterious and incomprehensible ; no wonder, then, that it was discontented with a doctrine so utterly im- possible to fathom as that of the Almighty and Eternal becoming man. As private judgment is ever rising up against Eevelation, as the irascible principle in our nature is ever insurgent against reason, so there was a most determined effort and (to use a familiar word) set against this capital and vital article of faith, age after age, on the part of various schools of opinion all over Christendom. They differed, and indeed were almost indifferent, how the mystery was to be disposed of ; they took up opposite theories against it ; they were antac^onists of each other ; but <^o it must. The attack

no

Prejudice to the Unity of the Church. 3 1 7

came upon the Church, not on this side or that, but from all quarters, at once or successively, whether in the wide field of speculation, or within the territory of the Church, and circled round the Holy See, rallying and forming again and again in very various positions, though beaten back for a time, and apparently Ijrought under. It was a very stubborn fight ; and till the end appeared, which was not till after many generations, it would have been easy to indulge misgivings whether it would ever have an ending. Let us fancy an erudite Nestorian of the day living in Seleucia, beyond the limits of the Eoman Empire, and looking out over the Euphrates upon the battle which was waging between the See of St. Peter and the subtle heresy of the Mono- physites, through so protracted a period ; and let him write a defence of his own Communion for the use of theological students. Doubtless he would have used that long contest as a decisive argument against the unity and purity of the Catholic Church, and might have adopted, by anticipation, the triumphant words of a learned Anglican divine, rashly uttered in 1838, and prudently recalled in 1842, with reference to that Jansenistic controversy, which I reserve for my second example. '' This very [Monophysite] heresy," he would have said, " has, in opposition to all these anathemas and condemnations, and in spite of the persecution of the temporal powers, continued to exist for nearly [300] years ; and, what is more, it has existed all along in the

3 1 8 Differences among Catholics

very heart of the Eoman Church itself. Yet, it has perpetuated itself in all parts of that Church, sometimes covertly, sometimes openly, exciting uneasiness, tumults, innovations, reforms, persecution, schisms, but always adhering to the Eoman communion with invincible tenacity. It is in vain that, sensible of so great an evil, the Eoman Church struggles and resorts to every expedient to free her from its presence; the loathed and abhorred heresy perpetuates itself in her vitals, and infects her bishops, her priests, her monks, her universities ; and, depressed for a time by the arm of civil power, gains the ascendancy at length, influences the councils of kings, . . . produces religious innova- tions of the most extraordinary character, and inflicts infinite and permanent injury and disgrace on the cause of the Eoman Church." ^

Such is the phenomenon which Monophysitism dis- tinctly presents to us more than a thousand years be- fore the rise of a heresy, which this author seems to have fancied the first instance of such an anomaly. The controversv besfan amid the flourisliins^ schools of Syria, the most learned quarter of Christendom; it extended along Asia Minor to Greece and Constan- tinople; and then there was a pause. Suddenly it broke out in an apparently dissimilar shape, and with a new beginning, in the imperial city ; summoned its adherents, confederates, and partisans from ISTorth to

1 Palmer's Essay on the Church, vol. i. p- 320.

no Prejudice to the Unity of the Church. 3 1 9

South, came into collision with the Holy See, and con- vulsed the Catholic world. Subdued for a while, it returned to what was very like its original form and features, and reared its head in Egypt with a far more plausible phraseology, and in a far more promising position. There, and in Syria, and thence through the whole of the East, supported by the emperors, and after- wards by the Mahometans, it sustained itself with great ingenuity, inventing evasion after evasion, and throwing itself into more and more subtle formulas, for the space of near three hundred years. Lastly, it suddenly appeared in a new shape, and in a final effort, four hundred years from the time of its first rise, in the extreme West of Europe, among the theologians of Spain ; and formed matter of controversy for our own Alcuin, the scholar of St. Bede, for the interposition of Charlemagne, and the labours of the great Council of Erankfort.

It is impossible, T am sure, for any one patiently to read the history of this series of controversies, what- ever may be his personal opinions, without being intimately convinced of the oneness or identity of the mind, which lived in the Catholic Church tlirouo-h

o

that long period; which baffled the artifices and sophistries of the subtlest intellects, was proof against human infirmity and secular expedience, and succeeded in establishing irrevocably and for ever those points of faith with which she started in the contest." " Any

320 Differences among Catholics

one false step would have thrown the whole theory of the doctrine into irretrievable confusion; but it was as if some individual and perspicacious intellect, to speak humanly, ruled the theological discussion from first to last. That in the long course of centuries, and in spite of the failure, in points of detail, of the most gifted fathers and saints, the Church thus wrought out the one and only consistent theory which can be formed on the great doctrine in dispute, proves how clear, simple, and exact her vision of that doctrine was." ^ Now I leave the retrospect of this long struggle with two remarks— first, that it was never doubtful to the world for any long time what was the decision of authority on each successive question as each came into consideration ; next, that the series of doctrinal errors which was evolved tended from the first to an utter overthrow of the heresy, each decision of autho- rity being a new and further victory over it, which was never undone. It was aU along in visible course of expulsion from the Catholic fold. Contrast this with the denial of baptismal grace, viewed as a heresy within the Anglican Church; has the sentiment of authority against it always been unquestionable ? Has there been a series of victories over it ? Is it in visible course of expulsion ? Is it ever tending to be expelled ? Are the infiuence and prospects of the heresy less formidable now than in the age of Wesley, or of

I Essay on Doctrinal Development, p. 438.

no Prejudice to the Unity of the Church. 321

Calamy, or of Baxter, or of Abbot, or of Cartwright, or ot the Eeformers ?

8.

The second controversy which I shall mention is one not so remarkable in itself, not so wide in its Held of conflict, nor so terrible in its events, but more interest- ing perhaps to us, as relating almost to our own times, and because it is used as an argument against the Church's unity and pov/er of enforcing her decisions, by such writers as the theologian, of whose words I just now availed myself. Eor the better part of two centuries Jansenism has troubled the greater part of Catholic Europe, has had great successes, and has expected greater still ; yet, somehow or other, such is the fact, as a looker-on would be obliged to say, what- ever be the internal reasons for it, of which he would not be a judge, at the end of the time you look for it and it is gone. As fire among the stubble threatens great things, but suddenly is quenched in the very fulness of its blaze, so has it been with the heresy in question. One might have thought that an age like this would have been especially favourable for the development of many of its peculiarities; one never should be surprised even now, if it developed them again. The heresy almost rose with Protestantism, and kept pace with it; it extended and flourished in those Catholic countries on which Protestantism had

X

322 Differences among Catholics

made its greatest inroads, and it grew by the side of Protestantism ; when now suddenly we find it dead in France, and it is receiving its death-blow in Austria, in the very generation, at the very hour, when Protes- tantism is at length getting acknowledged possession of the far-famed communion of Laud and Hammond.

There was a time when nearly all that was most gifted, learned, and earnest in France seemed corrupted by the heresy; which, though condemned again and again by the Holy See, discovered new subterfuges, and gained to itself fresh patrons and protectors, to shelter it from the Apostolic ban. What circle of names can be produced, comparable in their times for the combination of ability and virtue, of depth of thought, of controversial dexterity, of poetical talent, of extensive learning, and of religious reputation, with those of Launoy, Pascal, Nicole, Arnauld, Eacine, Tillemont, Quesnel, and their co-religionists, admirable in every point, but in their deficiency in the primary grace of a creature, humility ? What shall we say to the prospects of a school of opinion, which was influen- cing so many of the most distinguished Congregations of the day; and which, though nobly withstood by the Society of Jesus and the Sulpicians, yet at length found an entrance among the learned Benedictines of St. Maur, and had already sapped the faith of various members of another body, as erudite and as gifted as they ? For fifteen years a Cardinal Archbishop of

no Prejudice to the Unity of the Church. 323

Paris was its protector and leader, and this at a distance of sixty years after its formal condemnation. First, the book itself of Jansenius had been condemned; and then, in consequence of an evasion, the sense of the book; and then a controversy arose whether the Church could decide such a matter of fact as that a book had a particular sense. And then the further question came into discussion whether the sense of the book was to be condemned with tlie mere intention of an external obedience, or with an internal assent. Eleven bishops of France interposed with the Pope to prevent the condemnation; there were four who required nothing more of their clergy than a respectful silence on the subject in controversy; and nineteen wrote to the Pope in favour of these four. Before these difficulties had been settled, a fresh pr&acher of the same doctrines appeared in the person of Quesnel ; and on the Pope's condemning his opinions in the famous bull Unigenitus, six bishops i-^fused to publish it, and fourteen formally opposed it ; and then sixteen suspended the effects of it. Three universities took part with them, and the parliaments of various towns banished their Archbishops, Bishops, or Priests, and confiscated their goods, either for taking part against the Jansenists or for refusing them the Sacraments. 1

As time went on, the evil spread wider and grew

1 Vide Memoires pour sei-vir, kc, and Palmer on the Church.

324 Differences among Catholics

more intense, instead of being relieved. In the middle of last century, a hundred years after the condemnation of the heresy at Eome, it was embodied in the person of a far more efficacious disputant than Jansenius or Quesnel. The Emperor Joseph developed the apparently harmless theories of a theological school in the practical form of Erastianism. He prohibited the reception of the famous bull Unigenitus in his dominions ; subjected all bulls, rescripts, and briefs from Eome to an imperial supervision; forbade religious orders to obey foreign superiors; "suppressed confraternities, abolished the processions, retreuched festivals, prescribed the order of offices, regulated the ceremonies, the number of masses, the manner of giving benediction, nay the number of waxlights." 1 He seized the revenues of the Bishops, destroyed their sees, and even for a time forbade them to confer orders. He permitted divorce in certain cases, and removed images from the churches. The new Reformation reached as far as Belgium on the one hand, and down to Naples on the other. The whole of the Empire and its aUiances were apparently on the point of diso^vning their dependence on the Apostolic See. The worship of the saints, auricular confession, indulgences, and other Catholic doctrines, were openly written against or disputed by bishops and professors. The Archduke of Tuscany, imitating the Emperor, sent catechisms to the bishops, and instructed them by his

1 Memoires pour servir. &c.

no Prejudice to the Unity of the Church. 325

circulars or charges ; while a Neapolitan prelate, instead of his ordinary title of " Bishop by the grace of the Holy Apostolic See/' styled himself "Bishop by the grace of the King." Who would not have thought that Henry of England had risen from his place, and was at once in Vienna, Belgium, Tuscany, and Naples ? The reforming views had spread into Portugal; and, to complete the crisis, the great antagonist of Protestan- tism, which was born with it in one day, and had ever since been the best champion of the Holy See, the Society of Jesus itself, by the inscrutable fiat of Providence, was, in that hour of need, to avoid worse evils, by that very See suppressed. Surely the Holy Eoman Church is at length in the agonies of dis- solution. The Catholic powers, Germany, Prance, Portugal, and Naples, all have turned against her. Who is to defend her ? The mystery of Protestantism is unravelled ; the day of Luther is come ; the Catholics send up a cry, and their enemies a shout of joy.

9.

Noli cemulari. Is it not written in the book of truth, that the ungodly shall spread abroad like a green bay- tree, and then shall wither ? that the adversary reaches out his hand towards his prey, in order that he may be more emphatically smitten ? " Yet a little while, and the wicked shall not be : I passed by, and lo ! he was not ; I sought him, and his place was not found. Better is

326 Differences among Catholics

a little to the just than the great riches of the wicked ; for the arms of the wicked shall be broken, but the Lord strengtheneth the just/' So was it with the great Arian heresy, which the civil power would fain have forced upon the Church ; but it fell to pieces, and the Church remained One. So was it with Nestorius, with Eutyches, with the Image-breakers, with Manichees, with Lollards, with Protestants, into whom the State would put life, but who, one and all, refuse to live. So is it with the communion of Cranmer and Parker, which is kept together only by the heavy hand of the State, and cannot aspire to be free without ceasing to be one. One power alone oh earth has the gift and destiny of ever being one. It has been so of old time ; surely so will it be now. Man's necessity is God's opportunity. Noli cemulari, "Be not jealous of the evil-doers." ...

It is towards the end of the century : what shall be, ere that end arrive ? . . . Suddenly there is heard a rushing noise, borne north and south upon the wings of the wind. Is it a deluge to sweep over the earth, and to bear up the ark of God upon its bosom ? or is it the fire which is ravaging to and fro, to try every man's work what it is, and to discriminate between what is of earth and what is of heaven ? Now we shall see what can live and what must die ; now shall we have the proof of Jansenism; now shall we see whether the Catholic Church has that eternal individuality which is

710 Prejudice to the Unity of the Church. 327

of the essence of life, or whether it be an external thincr, a birth of the four elements, a being of chance and circumstance, made up of parts, but with no integrity or immaterial principle informing it. The breath of the Lord hath gone forth far and wide upon the face of the earth ; the very foundations of society are melt- ing in the fiery flood which it has kindled ; and we shall see whether the Three Children will be able to walk in the midst of the furnace, and will come forth with their hair unsinged, their garments whole, and their skin untainted by the smell of fire.

So closed the last century upon the wondering world ; and for years it wondered on ; wondered what should be the issue of the awful portant which it witnessed, and what new state of things was to rise out of the old. The Church disappeared before its eyes as by a yawning earthquake, and men said it was a fulfilment of the prophecies, and they sang a hymn, and went to their long sleep, content and with a Nunc Dimittis in their mouths ; for now at length had an old superstition been wiped off from the earth, and the Pope had gone his way. And other powers, kings, and the like, dis- appeared too, and nothing was to be seen.

Fifty years have passed away since the time of those wonders, and we, my brethren, behold in our degree the issue of what our fathers could but imagine. Great changes surely have been wrought, but not those which they anticipated. The German Emperor has ceased to

328 Differences among Catholics

"be ; he persecuted the Church, and he has lost his place of pre-eminence. The Galilean Church, too, with its much-prized liberties, and its fostered heresy, was also swept away, and its time-honoured establishment dis- solved. Jansenism is no more. The Church lives, the Apostolic See rules. That See has greater acknowledged power in Christendom than ever before, and that Church has a wider liberty than she has had since the days of the Apostles. The faith is extending in the great Anglo-Saxon race, its recent enemy, the lord of the world, with a steadiness and energy, which that proud people fears, yet cannot resist. Out of the ashes of the ancient Church of France has sprung a new hierarchy, worthy of the name and the history of that great nation, as fervent as their St. Bernard, as tender as their St. Francis, as enterprising as their St. Louis, as loyal to the Holy See as their Charlemagne. The Empire has rescinded the impious regulations of the Emperor Joseph, and has commenced the emancipation of the Church. The idea and the genius of Catholicism has triumphed within its own pale with a power and a completeness which the world has never seen before. Never was the whole body of the faithful so united to each other and to their head. Never was there a time when there was less of error, heresy, and schismatical perverseness among them. Of course the time will never be in this world, when trials and persecutions £hall be at an end : and doubtless such are to come.

no Prejudice to the Unity of the Church. 329

even though they be below the horizon. But we may be thankful and joyful for what is already granted us ; and nothing which ia to be can destroy the mercies which have been.

"So let all Thy enemies perish, 0 Lord; but let them that love Thee shine, as the sun shineth in his rising ! *'

LECTURE XL

HERETICAL AND SCHISMATICAL BODIES NO PREyU' DICE TO THE CATHOLICITY OF THE CHURCH,

I.

rpHEEE is no objection made at this time to the

-■- claims of the Catholic Church more imposing to

the imagination, yet less tenable in the judgment of

reason, than that which is grounded on there being at

present so many nations and races, which have kept

the name of Christian, yet given up Catholicism. It

fecundity has ever been considered one of the formal

notes or tokens of the Mother of souls, it is fair to look

out for it now ; and if it has told in favour of the

communion of Eome in former times, so now surely it

may be plausibly made to tell against it. It would

seem as if in this age of the world the whole numbei

of anti-Catholics were nearly equal to the number of

Catholics, at least so our opponents say; and I am

willing, for argument's sake, to grant it. Let it be so,

or, in other words, let it be assumed that scarcely more

than half of Christendom subjects itself to the Catholic

Church. '' Is it rot preposterous, then, " it is asked of

Heretical and Schismatical Bodies, etc. 331

us, "to claim to be the whole, when you are but a moiety ? And with what countenance can you demand that we should unhesitatingly and without delay leave our own Communion for yours, when there is so little to show at first sight that you have more pretensions to the Christian name than we have ?"

This is the argument, put in its broadest, simplest shape ; and you, my brethren, would like to avail your- selves of it just as I have stated it, if you could. But you cannot ; for it puts together all creeds and opinions, all communions, whatever their origin and history, and adds up the number of their members in rivalry of that of the Church's children. You would do so if you could, as your forefathers did before you ; two centuries ago Archbishop Bramhall did so, and you have every good wish to copy him, as in his other representations, so in this. " We hold communion," he says, speaking of the Church of England in contrast with those whom he would call Eomanists, " with thrice so many Catholic Christians as they do ; that is, the eastern, southern, and northern Christians, besides Protestants."! "Di- vide Christendom into five parts, and in four of them they have very little or nothing to do. Perhaps they have here a monastery, or there a small handful of proselytes ; but what are five or six persons to so many millions of Christian souls, that they should be Catholics, and not all the others ?"2 This being the case, as he

1 Vol. i. p. 628. Ed. 1842. 2 Ibid. p. 23S.

332 Heretical and Schismatical Bodies

views the matter, it of course follows that we are but successors of the ancient Donatists, a mere fraction of the Church excommunicating all the rest. '-'The Donatists," he says, "separat^^d the whole Church from their Communion, and substituted themselves, being but a small part of the Christian world, in the place of the Catholic Church, just as the Eomanists do at this

This, certainly, was turning the tables against his opponents, who had been accustomed to consider that the Church of England, granting it was a Church, was in the very position of the followers of Donatus, a fragment of Christendom claiming for itself immaculate purity ; but let us observe what he is forced to do to make his argument good. First, of course, he throws himself into communion, whether they will have him or not, not only with the Greek Church, but with the various heretical bodies all over the East; the ISTes- torians of Chaldsea, the Copts of Egypt, the Jacobites of Syria, and the Eutychians of Armenia, whose heresy in consequence he finds it most expedient to doubt. " Those Churches," he says, speaking of the East, " do aoree better, both amono; themselves and with other Churches, than the Eoman Church itself, both in pro- fession of faith (for they and we do generally acknow- ledge the same ancient Creeds, and no other) and in inferior questions, being free from the intricate and

1 Ibid p. io6.

no

Prejudice to Catholicity of the Church. 333

perplexed difficulties of the Eoman schools. . . . How are they 'heretical' Churches ? Some of them are called Nestorians, but most iDJuriously, who have no- thing of Nestorius but the name. Others have been suspected of Eutychianism, and yet in truth orthodox enough. ... It is no new thing for great quarrels to arise from mere mistakes."^ Elsewhere he says: ''It is true that some few Eastern Christians, in com- parison of those innumerable multitudes, are called Nestorians; and some others, by reason of some un- usual expression, suspected of Eutychianism, but both most wrongfully. Is this the requital that he," that is, his Catholic opponent, " makes to so many of these poor Christians, for maintaining their religion inviolated so many ages under Mahometan princes ?"2

Admitting, as he does, these ancient and distant sectaries to have a portion in the Catholic faith and communion, it is not surprising that he extends a like privilege to the recently formed Protestant communities in his own neighbourhood. " Because I esteem these Churches not completely formed," he says, " do I there- . fore exclude them from aU hope of salvation ? or esteem them aliens and strangers from the commonwealth of Israel ? or account them formal schismatics ? No such thing." 3 "I know no reason why we should not admit Greeks and Lutherans to our communion ; and,. if he" (that is, his opponent) "had added them, 1 Ibid. p. 260. 2 ibi(j_ p 328. 3 iijid. p. 70.

334 Heretical and Sckismatical Bodies

Armenians, Abyssenes, Muscovites.^ . . . For tliG Lntherans, he does them egregious wrong. Throughout the kingdoms of Denmark and Sweden they have their bishops, name and thing ; and throughout Germany they have their superintendents." ^

Such was the line of argument which the defenders of the ]^ational Church adopted two centuries back ; and, of course, it was much stronger in the way of argument than anything which is attempted now. ISTow, the Protestants are given up ; we hear little or nothing of " Churches not completely formed ; " not much account is taken of the "superintendents" of Germany; and as to the episcopacy of Denmark and Sweden, the thing, if not the name, is simply gone. Nor would any adherent of the theological party whom I am addressing, think with much respect either of the ISTestorians or of the Monophysites of Asia and Egypt. The anti-Catholic bodies, which are made the present basis of the argument against us, are mainly or solely the Greek and the Anglican communities ; and, as the antiquity, prescriptive authority, orders, and doctrine of Anglicanism, are the very subject in dispute, it is usual to simplify the argument by resting it upon

1 He adds : "And all those who do profess the Apostolical Creed, as it is expounded in the first four general councils under the primitive discipline." These words are not quoted above, because they are cer- tainly ambiguous. Bramhall does not say, "All those who do profess the decrees of the first four general councils."

2 Ibid. p. 564.

no Prejudice to Catholicity of the Church. 335

grounds which it is supposed we cannot deny ; viz., the pretensions of the Greek Church, whose apostolical descent is unquestionable, and whose faith almost unquestioned.

2.

The argument, then, which I have to consider, is an appeal to the imagination of the following kind : The Eussian Church, according to the statistical tables of 1835, includes 39,862,473 souls within its pale ;i the Byzantine, or what is commonly called the Greek Church, is said to number about three millions; 2 so that, excluding the heretical bodies of the East, we may place the whole Greek communion, from north to south, at about forty-three millions,^ with such increase of population as in the last fifteen years it has gained. On the other hand, the whole number of Catholics, which has been placed by some as low as one hundred and sixteen millions, is considered by Catholics at pre- sent to reach two hundred. But, whatever be the pro- portion between the Greeks and ourselves, anyhow so vast a communion as one of forty-three million souls is a difficulty, it is said, too positive for us to overcome. It seems incredible that we can have exclusive claims to be Christ's heritage, if those claims issue in the exclusion of such immense populations from it ; it is

1 Theiner, L'Eglise Kiisse, 1846. 2 Conder, View of Eeligions.

3 In controversial writings, the numbers of the Greek orthodox com- niunion are put at seventy or even ninety millions ; it does not appear on what data. Conder puts them at fifty millions.

33^ Heretical and Schismatical Bodies

incredible that we should be the Catholic Church, if we have not the power to take them up into our system, but let them lie in their own place. " If the Greeks are separate from the See of Eome/' it is argued, " as we see they are, we too may without hazard be separate also. They are too powerful, too numerous for you to consider them as the subjects of a schism ; they are too large a limb to admit of your amputation ; they enter into the Church's life and essence; in ejecting them from her bosom, she would be tearing out herself ; in excommuni- cating them, you rather excommunicate yourselves ; you are affording us a plain redicdio ad absurdum of your Catholicity. And there is a second consideration which urges us, and that is, the frightful cruelty of denying to such multitudes of men, and to so great an extent of territory, a place in the Church, claiming it as they do from generation to generation, and fully believing their own possession of it. Charity, still more than the necessities of controversy, obliges you to acknowledge them as a portion of the fold of Christ."

This is the objection which I am to examine, and you win observe that I am to examine it only as an objection ; that is to say, I am supposing that there is sufficient proof on other grounds that the Communion of Eome is the Catholic Church, for to this the move- ment of 1833 has already been supposed to lead; and then, with this fact sufficiently proved, an objection is brouo-ht as an obstacle to our surrendering ourselves to

no Prejudice to Catholicity of the CJturch. 337

the convicfcion which follows upon the proof of the fact. What I have to do, then, is to show that the proof already brought home to us of the Catholicity of the Eoman Communion, is not affected by the phenomenon in question ; or that there are ways of accounting for it, if we do but assume, which I claim to do, that the Church of Eome and Catholicism are synonymous terms.

3-

I observe, then, that this phenomenon is but one instance of a great and broad fact, which has ever been seen on the earth, viz., that truth is opposed not only by direct contradictions which are unequivocal, but also by such pretences as are of a character to deceive men at first sight, and to confuse the evidence of what alone is divine and trustworthy. Thus, if I must begin from the very beginning, the enemy of man did not over- come him in Paradise, except by pretending to be a prophet, and, as it were, preaching against his Maker. "Ye shall not die the death," he said; ''ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil." Again, when Moses displayed his miracles before Pharaoh, Jannes and Mambres were allowed to imitate them ; in order, so to speak, to give the king a pretext, if he was perverse enough to take it, for rejecting the divine message. When the same great prophet had led out the chosen people towards the promised land, their enemies made the attempt to set up a rival prophet in Balaam, though

338 Heretical and Schismatical Bodies

it was overruled, as in other cases, by their Almighty Protector. When a prophet denounced the schism of Jeroboam, there was an old deceiver who seduced him by the claim, "I also am a prophet like unto thee," The Temple had not long been built before a rival shrine arose on Mount Gerizim, as if with the very object of perplexing the inquirer. '« Our fathers adored m this mountain," says the Samaritan woman to our Lord, " and ye say that at Jerusalem is the place where men must adore." And He Himself warns us of false Christs and Antichrists, who were to mislead the many with the imitation of His claims; and His Apostles were resisted, and in a manner thwarted, by Simon Magus, and others who set up against them. They themselves distinctly prophesied that such delusions were to be after them, and apparently to endure till the end of ail things ; so much so, that were such imposing phenomena as the Greek Church taken out of the way, it would be difficult to say how the actual state of Christendom corresponded to the apostolic anticipations of it; nor should we have any cause to be surprised though the effect of such phenomena in time to come were°more practically urgent and visibly influential than it has been hitherto. " After my departure," says St. Paul, " ravenous wolves will enter in among you, not sparing the flock. And of your own selves will rise up men speaking perverse things to draw away disciples after them." And in his parting words he warns us

no Prejudice to Catholicity of the Church. 339

that " in the last days shall come dangerous times, for men shall be lovers of themselves . . . having an appearance indeed of piety," that is, of orthodoxy, '' but denying the power thereof." " Evil men and seducers shall grow worse and worse, erring, and driving into error." And "there shall be a time when they will not bear sound doctrine, but according to their own desires they will heap to themselves teachers having itching ears." I need not remind you that St. John and St. Jude bear a similar testimony, which the event in uo long time fulfilled.

If you would ask me for the most remarkable ful- filment of their warning, I should point to Mahome- tanism, which is a far more subtle contrivance of the enemy than we are apt to consider. In the first place, it perplexes the evidence of Christianity just in that point in which it is most original and striking : I mean, it professes the propagation of a religion through the world, which I suppose was quite a new idea when Christianity appeared. In the event, indeed, it did but illustrate the divinity of Christianity by the contrast ; for while the Catholic Church is a proselytizing power, as her enemies confess, even at the end of eighteen centuries, Maliometanism soon got tired of its own undertaking, and, when the novelty and excitement of conversion were over, it relapsed into a sort of conser- vative, local, national religion, such as the Greek and Latin polytheisms before it, and Protestantism since.

340 Heretical and Schismatical Bodies

And next, it acted over again, as if in mockery, the part which Christianity had taken towards Judaism, viz., it professed to be an improvement on the Gospel, as the Gospel had been upon the law; and just as Christianity dealt with Judaism, so it pointed to the Christian prophecies themselves in evidence of its claims, which it affected to interpret better than Christians themselves. Moreover, it swept away a considerable portion of the Christian heritage ; and there it remains to this day in the countries which it seized upon, lying over against us, and for this reason only not interfering with the arguments of our opponents for the divine origin of Christianity, that England lies north and Islamism is in the south.

Then again, I cannot help thinking that Judaism is somewhat of a difficulty of the same kind; not as if any one were likely to prefer it, any more than Mahometanism, to Christianity ; that is another matter altogether ; nor, in like manner, do I think that any of you, my brethren, would turn Greek rather than become Catholic : but I mean, that, as the fact of the Greek Church impairs the simplicity of the Catholic argument, by its rival pretensions, so does the existence of Judaism interfere with Christianity; for, compared with it, Christianity is a novelty ; and it may be said to Christians, Do not stand midway, but either go on to some newer novelty, such as first Montanus, then Manes, and then Mahomet introduced, and others since,

no Prejudice to Catholicity of the Church. 341

or else go back to the mother of all religions, the Jewish Law, which, as yourselves allow, once at least was a prophet of God. On the other hand, even if we became Jews, as considering Judaism to be the perma- nent religion which Grod had given, still this would not get rid of the difficulty I am describing, for the proper claims of Christianity would remain; then, as before, you would have two rival prophets, one true, and one not true, though you would have changed your mind, as to which was true and which was false. Looking, then, at the world as it is, taking facts as they are, you cannot rid yourselves of those difficulties in the evidence of religion, which arise from the existence of bold, plausible, imposing counter-claims on the part of error, such as the Greek communion makes against Catholi- cism ; and you must reconcile yourselves to them, unless you are content to believe nothing, and give up the pretension of faith altogether.

But we need not go to Judaism or Mahometanism for parallels to the Greek communion; look at the history of the Christian Church herself, and you will find precedents in former times of the present difficulty, more exact and apposite than those which can be adduced from the existence of Jew or Mussulman. It may be observed that the Apostle, in the passage already quoted, speaks of the sects and persuasions, which by implication he condemns, not merely as collateral and independent creations, but as born in

342 Heretical and Schismatical Bodies

the Catholic body, and going out from it. "Of your own selves shall men arise," he says ; and St. John says, " They went out from us, but they were not of us ; for, if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us." If this was not fulfilled in the very days of the Apostles on the extensive scale on which it was afterwards, this was simply because large national conversions and serious schisms are not the growth of a day ; but, as far as it could exist in the first ages, it has existed from the very first, though far more strikingly in the succeeding centuries of the Church. From the first, the Church was but one Communion among many which bore the name of Christian, some of them more learned, and others affecting a greater ^rictness than herself ; till at length her note of Catholicity was for a while gathered up and fulfilled simply in the name of Catholic, rather than was a property visibly peculiar to herself and none but her. Hence the famous advice of the Fathers, that if one of the faithful went to a strange city, he should not ask for the " Church," for there were so many churches belonging to different denominations that he would be sure to be perplexed and to mistake, but for the Catholic Church. " If ever thou art sojourning in any city," says St. Cyril, " inquire not simply where the Lord's House is, for the sects also make an attempt to call their own conventicles houses of the Lord, nor merely where the Church is, but where is the Catholic

no Frejudice to Catholicity of the Church. 343

Church." St. Cyril wrote in Palestine ; but St. Austin, in Africa, and St. Pacian in Spain say the same thing. The present Greek Church is at best but a local form of religion, and does not pretend to occupy the earth ; whereas some of the early heretical bodies might almost have disputed with the See of St. Peter the prerogative of Catholicity. The stern discipline of the Novatians extended from Eome to Scythia, to Asia Minor, to Alexandria, to Africa, and to Spain; while, at an earlier date, the families of Gnosticism had gone forth over the face of the world from Italy to Persia and Egypt on the east, to Africa on the south, to Spain on the west, and to Gaul on the north.

But you will say, there were, in those times, no national heresies or schism, and these alone can be considered parallel to the case of the Greek Church, supposing it schismatical ; — turn then to the history of the Gothic race. This great people, in all its separate tribes, received Christianity from Arian preachers; and, before it took possession of the Em- pire, Mtesogoths, Visigoths, Ostrogoths, Alani, Suevi, Vandals, and Burgundians, had all learned to deny the divinity of Christ. Suddenly France, Spain, Portugal, Africa, and Italy, found themselves buried under the weight of heretical establishments and populations. This state of things lasted for eighty years in Fiance,

344 Heretical and Schismatical Bodies

for a hundred in Italy and Africa, and for a hundred and eighty in Spain, extending through a space of two centuries. It should be added that these Gothic hordes, which took possession of the Empire, had little of the character of barbarism, except that they were cruel; they were chaste, temperate, just, and devout, and some of their princes were men of ability and patrons of learning. Did you live in that day, my brethren, you would, perhaps, be looking with admiration at these Arians, as now you look at the Greeks ; — not from love of their heresy, but, your imagination being affected by their number, power, and nobleness, you would try to make out that they really did hold the orthodox faith, or at least that it was not at all cer- tain that they did not, though they did deny, to be sure, the ^STicene Creed, against which they had been unhappily prejudiced, and anathematized Athanasius from defective knowledge of history. You would have used the words of Bramhall, quoted above, when speak- ing of later families of heretics : — " How are they heretical Churches ? some of them are called Arians ; but most injuriously, who have nothing of Arius, but the name; others have been suspected of Macedonianism, and yet in truth orthodox enough. It is no new thing for great quarrels to arise from mere mistakes." Bulk, not symmetry ; vastness, not order ; show, not principle — I fear I must say it, my dear brethren — these are your tests of truth. A century earlier than the Goths.

no Prejudice to Catholicity of the Church. 345

you would have been enlarging on the importance of the Donatists. " Four hundred sees ! " you would have said; "a whole four hundred! why, it is a fifth of the Episcopate of Christendom. Unchurch them! impossible; we shall excommunicate ourselves in the

attempt."

5.

Still, it may be said, I have produced nothing yet to match the venerable antiquity and the authoritative traditions of the Greek Church, which is coeval with the Apostles, and for near a thousand years has been in its present theological position, and which, since its separation from the Holy See, has been able, as is alleged, to expand itself in a vast heathen country, which it has converted to the faith. Such is the objec- tion ; and, as to the facts on which it is built, I will take them for granted, as before, for argument's sake, for anyhow they are not sufficient to make the objec- tion sound. For in truth, whether the facts be as represented or not, you will find them all, and more than them all, in the remarkable history of the Nestorians. The tenot on which these religionists separated from the See of Eome is traceable to Antioch, the very birthplace of the Christian name; and it was taken up and maintained by Churches which were among the oldest in Christendom. Driven by the Eoman power over the boundaries of the Empire, it placed itself, as early as the fifth centur}', under the

34^ Heretical and Schismatical Bodies

protection of Persia, and laid the foundations of a sr^hismatical communion, the most wonderful that the world has seen. It propagated itself, both among Chris- tians and pagans, from Cyprus to China; it was the Christianity of Bactrians, Huns, Medes, and Indians, of the coast of Malabar and Ceylon on the south, and of Tartary on the north. This ecclesiastical dominion lasted for eight centuries and more, into the depth of the middle ages— beyond the Pontificate of Innocent III. It was administered by as many as twenty-five archbishoprics ; and, though there is perhaps no record of the number of its people, yet it is said, that they and the opposite sect of the Monophysites, in Syria and Egypt, taken together, at one time surpassed in populousness the whole Catholic Church, in its Greek' and Latin divisions. And it is to be observed, which is much to the purpose, that it occupied a portion of the world, with which, as far as I am aware, the Catholic Church, during those many centuries, interfered very little. It had the further Asia aU to itself, from Mesopotamia to China ; far more so than the Greek Church has at this time possession of Eussia and Greece.

With this prominent example before onr eyes, during so large a portion of the history of Chris- tianity, I do not see how the present existence of the Greek Church can form any valid objection to the Catholicity which we claim for tlie Communion of Home. Nestorianism came from Antioch, the original

no Prejudice to Catholicity of the Church. 347

Apostolic see; Photianism, as it has been called, from Constantinople, a younger metropolis. Nestorianism had its Apostolical Succession, as Photianism has, and a formed hierarchy. If its principal seat was new and foreign, in Chaldsea, not at Antioch, so the principal seat of Photianism is foreign too, being Eussia; if from Eussia it has sent out missions and made con- versions, so, and much more so, did Nestorianism from Chaldaea. You will, perhaps, object that Nestorianism was a heresy ; — therein lies the force of my argument, viz., that large, organized, flourishing, imposing com- munions, which strike the imagination as necessary portions of the heritage of Christ, may, nevertheless' in fact be implicated in some heresy, which, in the judgment of reason, invalidates their claim. If the Nestorian communion, enormous as it was, was yet external to the Church, why must the Greek com- munion be within it, merely because, supposing the fact to be so, it has some portion of the activity and success which were so conspicuous in the Nestorian missioners ? Do not, then, think to overcome us with descriptions of the multitude, antiquity, and continuance of the Greek Churches; dismiss the vision of their rites, their processions, or their vest- ments ; spare yourselves the recital of the splendour of their churches, or the venerable aspect of their bishops ; Nestorianism had then all : — the question lies deeper.

34^ Heretical and Schismatical Bodies

6.

It lies, for what we know, and to all appearance, in the very constitution of the human mind ; corruptions of the Gospel being as necessary and ordinary a pheno- menon, taking men as they are, as its rejection. Why do you not bring against us the vast unreclaimed popu- lations of paganism, or the political power of the British Colonial Empire, in proof that we are not the Catholic Church ? Is misbelief a greater marvel than unbelief ? or do not the same intellectual and moral principles, which lead men to accept nothing, lead them also to accept half of revealed truth ? Both effects are simple manifestations of private judgment in the bad sense of the phrase, that is, of the use of one's own reason against the authority of God. If He has made it a duty to submit to the supreme authority of the Holy See (and of this I am aU along assuming there is fair proof), and if there is a constant rising of the human mind against authority, as such, however legitimate, the necessary consequence will be the very state of things we see before our eyes, — not merely individuals casting off the Eoman Supremacy (for individuals, as being of less account, have less temptation, or even opportunity, to rebel, than collections of men), but, much more, the powerful and the great, the wealthy and the flourishing, kings and states, cities and races^ falling back upon their own resources and their own

no

Prejudice to Catholicity of the Church. 349

connections, making their home their castlo, and refus- ing any longer to be dependent on a distant centre, or to regulate their internal affairs by a foreign tribunal. Assuming then that there is a supreme See, divinely appointed, in the midst of Christendom, to which all ought to submit and be united, such phenomena, as the Greek Church presents at this day, and the Nestorian in the middle ages, are its infallible correlatives, as human nature is constituted; it would require a miracle to make it otherwise. It is but an exemplification of the words of the Apostle, *' The law entered in, that sin might abound ; " and again, " There must be heresies,, that they also who are proved may be made manifest among yon." A command is both the occasion of transgression, and the test of obedience. All depends on the fact of the Supremacy of Eome ; I assume this fact ; I admit the contrary fact of the Arian, Nestorian, and the Greek Communions ; and strong in the one, I feel no difficulty in the other. Neither Arian, nor Nestorian, nor Greek insubordination is any true ob- jection to the fact of such supremacy, unless the divine foresight of such a necessary result can be supposed to have dissuaded the Divine Wisdom from giving occasion to it

7.

But another remark is in place here. ISTothing is more likely to characterize large populations of Chris- tians, if left to themselves, than a material instead of

350 Heretical and Schismatical Bodies

a formal faith. By a material faith, I mean that sort of habitual belief which persons possess in consequence of having heard things said in this or that wa}^ from their childhood, being thoroughly familiar with them, and never having had difficulty suggested to them from without or within. Such is the sort of belief which many Protestants have in the Bible; which they accept without a doubt, till objections occur to them. Such as this becomes the faith of nations in process of time, where a clergy is negligent ; it becomes simply national and hereditary, the truth being received, but not on the authority of God. That is, their faith is but material not formal, and really has neither the character nor the reward of that grace-implanted, grace-sustained principle, which believes, not merely because it was so taught in the nursery, but because God has spoken; not because there is no temptation to doubt, but because there is a duty to believe. And thus it may easily happen, in the case of individuals, that even the restless mind of a Protestant, who sets the Divine Will before him in his thoughts and actions, and wishes to be taught and wishes to believe, may have more of grace in it, and be more acceptable in the divine sight, than his, who only believes passively, and not as assenting to a divine oracle; just as one who is ever fighting successfully with temptations against purity has, so far, a claim of merit, which they do not share, who from natural temperament have not the trial. ISTow, the

no Prejudice to Catholicity of the Church. 351

faultiness of this passive state of mind is detected, whenever a new definition of doctrine is promulgated by the competent authority. Its immediate tendency, as exhibited in a population, will be to resist it, simph- because it is new, while they on the other hand are dis- posed to recognise nothing but what is familiar to them ; whereas a ready and easy acceptance of the apparent novelty, and a cordial acquiescence in its promulgation, may be the very evidence of a mind, which has lived, not merely in certain doctrines, but in those doctrines as revealed, — not simply in a Creed, but in its Giver, — or, in other words, which has lived by real faith.

As, then, heathens are tried by the original preaching of the Word, so are Christians tested by recurring declarations of it ; and the same habit of mind, which makes one man an infidel, when he was before merely a pagan, makes another a heretic, who before was but an hereditary or national Christian. And surely we can fancy without difficulty the circumstances, in which a people, and their priesthood, who ought to hinder it, may gradually fall into tliose heavy and sluggish habits of mind, in which faith is but material and obedience mechanical, and religion has become a superstition instead of a reasonable service ; and then it is as certain that they will become schismatics or heretics, should trial come, as that heathen cities, which have no heart for the truth, when it is for the first time preached to them, will harden into direct infidelity. It is much to

352

Heretical and Schismatical Bodies

be feared, from what travellers tell us of the Greek

priesthood and their flocks, that both in Eussia and in

Greece Proper, they are more or less in this state, —

which may be called the proper disposition towards

heresy and schism ; T mean, that they rely on things

more than on persons, and go through a round of duties

in one and the same way, because they are used to

them, and because in consequence they are attached to

them, not as having any intelligent faith in a divine

oracle which has ordered them; and that in consequence

they would start in irritation, as they have started,

from such indications of that oracle's existence as is

necessarily implied in the promulgation of a new

definition of faith.

8.

I am speaking of the mass of the population ; and, at first sight, it is a very serious question, whether the population can be said to be simply gifted with divine faith, any more than our own Protestant people ; yet I would as little dare to deny or to limit exceptions to this remark, as I would deny them or limit them among ourselves. Let there be as many exceptions, as there can be found tokens of their being ; and the more they are, to God the greater praise ! In this point of view it is, that we are able to take comfort even from the con- templation of a country which is given up whether to heresy or schism. Such a country is far from being in the miserable state of a heathen population : it has

no Prejudice to Catholicity of the Church. 353

portions of the truth remaining in it, it has some super- natural channels of grace ; and the results are such as can never be known till we have all passed out of this visible scene of things, and the accounts of the world are finally made up for the last tremendous day. While, then, I think it plain that the existence of large Anti-Catholic bodies professing Christianity are as in- evitable, from the nature of the case, as infidel races or states, except under some extraordinary dispensation of divine grace, while there must ever be in the world false prophets and Antichrists, standing over against the Catholic Church, yet it is consolatory to reflect how the schism, or heresy, which the self-will of a monarch or of a generation has caused, does not suffice altogether to destrov the work for which in some distant ao-e Evangelists have left their homes, and Martyrs have shed their blood. Thus, the blessing is inestimable to England, so far as among us the Sacrament of Baptism is validly administered to any portion of the population. In Greece, where a far greater attention is paid to ritual exactness, the whole population may be con- sidered regenerate ; half the children born into the world pass through baptism from a schismatical Church to heaven, and in many of the rest the same Sacrament may be the foundation of a supernatural life, which Ih gifted with perseverance in the hour of death. There may be many too, who, being in invincible ignorance on those particular points of religion on which their

354 Heretical and Schismatical Bodies

Communion is wrong, may still have the divine and unclouded illumination of faith on those numerous points on which it is right. And further, if we con- sider that there is a true priesthood in certain countries, and a trae sacrifice, the benefits of Mass to those who never had the means of knowing better, may be almost the same as they are in the Catholic Church. Humble souls who come in faith and love to the heavenly rite, under whatever disadvantages they lie, from the faulty discipline of their Communion, may obtain, as well as we, remission of such sins as the Sacrifice directly effects, and that supernatural charity which wipes out greater ones. Moreover, when the Blessed Sacrament is lifted up, they adore, as well as we, the true Imma- culate Lamb of God ; and when they communicate, it is the True Bread of Life, and nothing short of it, which they receive for the eternal health of their souls.

And in like manner, I suppose, as regards this country, as well as G-reece and Eussia, we may enter- tain most reasonable hopes, that vast multitudes are in a state of invincible ignorance; so that those among them who are living a life really religious and conscien- tious, may be looked upon with interest and even plea- sure, though a mournful pleasure, in the midst of the pain which a Catholic feels at their ignorant prejudices ao-ainst what he knows to be true. Amongst the most bitter railers against the Church in this country, may be found those who are influenced by divine grace, and

no Prejudice Co Catholicity of the Church, 355

are at present travelling towards heaven, whatt^ver be their ultimate destiny. Among the most irritable dis- putants against the Sacrifice of the Mass ur Transub- stantiation, or the most impatient listeners to the glories of Mary, there may be those for whom she is saying to her Son, what He said on the cross to His Father, "Forgive them, for they know not what they do." Kay, while such persons think as at present, they are bound to act accordingly, and only so far to connect themselves with us as their conscience allows. " When persons who have been brought up in heresy," says a Catholic theologian, "are persuaded from their child- hood that we are the enemies of God's word, are idol- aters, pestilent deceivers, and therefore, as pests, to be avoided, they cannot, while this persuasion lasts, hear us with a safe conscience, and they labour under invin- cible ignorance, inasmuch as they doubt not that they are in a good way." ^

Nor does it suffice, in order to throw them out of this irresponsible state, and to make them guilty of their ignorance, that there are means actually in their power of getting rid of it. For instance, say they have no conscientious feeling against frequenting Catholic chapels, conversing with Catholics, or reading their books; and say they are thrown into the neighbour- hood of the one or the company of the other, and do not avail them.selves of their opportunities; still these

^ Busemiiaum, vol. i. p. 54,

35 6 Heretical and Schismatical Bodies

persons do not become responsible for their present ignorance till such time as they actually feel it, till a doubt crosses them upon the subject, and the thought comes upon them, that inquiry is a duty. And thus Protestants may be living in the midst of Catholic light, and labouring under the densest and most stupid prejudices ; and yet we may be able to view them with hope, though with anxiety — with the hope that the question has never occurred to them, strange as it may seem, whether we are not right and they wrong. Nay, I will say something further still ; they may be so cir- cumstanced that it is quite certain that, in course of time, this ignorance will be removed, and doubt will be suggested to them, and the necessity of inquiry conse- quently imposed ; and according to our best judgment, fallible of course as it is, we may be quite certain too, that, when that time comes, they will refuse to inquire, and will quench the doubt; yet should it so happen that they are cut off by death before that time has arrived (I am putting an hypothetical case), we may have as much hope of their salvation as if we had had no such foreboding about them on our mind ; for there is nothing to show that they were not taken away on purpose, in order that their ignorance might be their

excuse.

As to the prospect of those countless multitudes of a country like this, who apparently have no supernatural vision of the next world at all, aad die without fear

no Pi-ejiidice to Catholicity of the Cliurch. 357

"because they die without thought, with these, alas 1 I am not here concerned. But the remarks I have been making suggest much of comfort, when we look out into what is called the religious world in all its varieties, whether it be the High Church section, or the Evan- gelical, whether it be in the Establishment, or in Methodism, or in Dissent, so far as there seems to be real earnestness and invincible prejudice. One cannot but hope that that written Word of God, for which they desire to be jealous, though exhibited to them in a mutilated form and in a translation unsanctioned by Holy Church, is of incalculable blessing to their souls, and may be, through God's grace, the divine instrument of bringing many to contrition and to a happy death who have received no sacrament since they were baptized in their infancy. One cannot hope but that the Anglican Prayer Book, with its Psalter and Catholic prayers, even though these, in the translation, have passed through heretical intellects, may retain so much of its old virtue as to co-operate with divine grace in the instruction and salvation of a large remnant. In these and many other ways, even in England, and much more in Greece, the difficulty is softened which is pre- sented to the imagination by the view of such large populations, who, though called Christian, are not Catholic or orthodox in creed.

35^ Heretical and Schismatical Bodies

9- There is but one set of persons, indeed, who inspire the Catholic with special anxiety, as much so as the open sinner, who is not peculiar to any Communion, Catholic or schismatic, and who does not come into the present question. There is one set of persons in whom every Catholic must feel intense interest, about whom he must feel the gravest apprehensions ; viz., those who have some rays of light vouchsafed to them as to their heresy or as to their schism, and who seem to be closing their eyes upon it ; or those who have actually gained a clear view of the nothingness of their own Communion, and the reality and divinity of the Catholic Church, yet delay to act upon their knowledge. You^ my dear brethren, if such are here present, are in a very different state from those around you. You are called by the inscrutable grace of God to the possession of a great benefit, and to refuse the benefit is to lose the grace. You cannot be as others: they pursue their own way, they walk over this wide earth, and see nothing wonderful or glorious in the sun, moon, and stars of the spiritual heavens; or they have an intellectual sense of their beauty, but no feeling of duty or of love towards them ; or they wish to love them, but think they ought not, lest they should get a distaste for that mire and foulness which is tlieir present portion. They have not yet had the call to inquire, and to seek, and to prav for further guidance, infused into their hearts

no Prejudice to Catholicity of the Church. 359

by the gracious Spirit of God ; and they will be judged according to what is given them, not by what is not. But on you the thought has dawned, that possibl;y Catholicism may be true ; you have doubted the safety of your present position, and the present pardon of your sins, and the completeness of your present faith. You, by means of that very system in which you find your- selves, have been led to doubt that system. If the Mosaic law, given from above, was a schoolmaster to lead souls to Christ, much more is it true that an heretical creed, when properly understood, warns us against itself, and frightens us from it, and is forced against its will to open for us with its own hands its prison gates, and to show us the way to a better country. So has it been with you. You set out in simplicity and earnestness intending to serve it, and your very serving taught you to serve another. You began to use its prayers and act upon its rules, and they did but witness against it, and made you love it, not more but less, and carried off your affections to one whom you had not loved. The more you gazed upon your own communion the more unlike it you grew ; the more you tried to be good Anglicans, the more you found your- selves drawn in heart and spirit to the Catholic Church. It was the destiny of the false prophetess that she could not keep the little ones who devoted themselves to her; and the more simply they gave up their private judgment to her, the more sure they were of being thrown off bv her, against their will, into the current

360 Heretical and Schismatical Bodies

of attraction which led straight to the true Mother of their souls. So month has gone on after month, and year after year ; and you have again and again vowed ohedience to your own Church, and you have protested against those who left her, and you have thought you found in them what you liked not, and you have pro- phesied evil about them and good about yourselves; and your plans seemed prospering and your influence extending, and great things were to be ; and yet, strange to say, at the end of the time you have found your- selves steadily advanced in the direction which you feared, and never were nearer to the promised land than you are now.

Oh, look well to your footing that you slip not ; be very much afraid lest the world should detain you; dare not in anything to fall short of God's grace, or to lag behind when that grace goes forward. Walk with it, co-operate with it, and I know how it will end. You are not the first persons who have trodden that path ; yet a little time, and, please God, the bitter shall be sweet, and the sweet bitter, and you will have under- gone the agony, and will be lodged safely in the true home of your souls and the valley of peace. Yet but a little while, and you will look out from your resting- place upon the wanderers outside; and will wonder why they do not see that way which is now so plain to you, and will be impatient with them that they do not come on faster. And, whereas you now are so per- plexed in mind that vou seem to yourselves to believe

no Frejudice to Catholicity of the Church. 361

nothing, then you will be so full of faith, that you will almost see invisible mysteries, and will touch the threshold of eternity. And you will be so full of joy that you will w4sh all around you to be partakers of it, as if for your own relief; and you will suddenly be filled with yearnings deep and passionate, for the salvation of those dear friends whom you have out- stripped; and you will not mind their coolness, or stiffness, or distance, or constrained gravity, for the love you bear to their souls. And, though they will not hear you, you will address yourselves to those who will; I mean, you will weary heaven with your novenas for them, and you will be ever getting Masses for their conversion, and you will go to communion for them, and you will not rest till the bright morning comes, and they are yours once again. Oh, is it possible that there is a resurrection even upon earth ! 0 wonderful grace, that there should be a joyful meeting, after part- ing, before we set to heaven ! It was a weary time, that long suspense, when with aching hearts we stood on the brink of a change, and it was like death both to witness and to undergo, when first one and then another disappeared from the eyes of their fellows. And then friends stood on different sides of a gulf, and for years knew nothing of each other or of their welfare. And then they fancied of each other what was not, and there w^ere misunderstandings and jealousies ; and each saw the other, as if his ghost, only in imagination and

362 Heretical and Schismatical Bodies, etc.

in memory ; and all was sickness and anxiety, and hope delayed, and ill-requited care. But now it is all over ; the morning is come ; the severed shall unite. 1 see them as if in sight of me. Look at us, my brethren, from our glorious land ; look on us radiant with the light cast upon us by the Saints and Angels who stand over us; gaze on us as you approach, and kindle as you gaze. We died, you thought us dead : we live ; we cannot return to you, you must come to us, — and you are coming. Do not your hearts beat as you approach us? Do you not long for the hour which makes us one ? Do not tears come into your eyes at the thought of the superabundant mercy of your God ?

" Sion is the city of our strength, a saviour ; a wall, and a bulwark shall be set therein. Open ye the gates, and let the just Nation that keepeth the truth enter in. The old error is passed away ; Thou wilt keep peace, peace because we have hoped in Thee. In the way of Thy judgments, 0 Lord, have we waited for Thee ; Thy Name and Thy remembrance are the desire of our souL 0 Lord, our God, other lords beside Thee have had possession of us ; but in Thee only may we have re- membrance of Thy Name. The dying, let them not hve; the giants let them not rise again; therefore Thou hast visited and crushed them, and hast destroyed aD their Tuemorv.'"'

( 363 )

LECTURE XII

ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY NO PREJUDICE TO THE AFOSTOLICITY OF THE CHURCH.

!•

T7EELING, my dear brethren, I should be encroach- ing on your patience, if I extended this course of Lectures beyond the length which it is now reaching, I have been obliged, in order to give a character of completeness to the whole, to omit the discussion of subjects which I would fain have introduced, and to anticipate others which I would rather have viewed in another connection. This must be my apology, if in their number and selection I shall in any respect dis- appoint those who have formed their expectations of what I was to do in these Lectures, upon the profession contained in their general title. I have done what my limits allowed me : if I have not done more, it is not, I assure you, from having nothing to say, — for there are many questions upon which I have been anxious to enter, — but because I could neither expect you, my brethren, to give me more of your tm^e, nor could command my own.

As, then, I have already considered certain popular

364 Ecclesiastical History no Prejudice

objections which are made respectively to the Sanctity, Unity, and Catholicity of the Church, now let me, as far as I can do it in a single Lecture, direct your atten- tion to a difficulty felt, not indeed by the world at large, but by many of you in particular, in admitting her Apostolical pretensions.

i say, " a difficulty not felt by the world at large ; " for the world at large has no such view of any con- trariety between the Catholic Church of to-day and the Catholic Church of fifteen hundred years ago, as to be disposed on that account to deny our Apostolical claims ; rather, it is the fashion of the mass of Protes- tants, whenever they think on the subject, to accuse the Church of the Fathers of what they call Popish superstition and intolerance ; and some have even gone so far as to say, that in these respects that early Church was more Popish than the Papists themselves. But when, leaving this first look of the subject, and the broad outline, and the general impression, we come to inspect matters more narrowly, and compare them exactly, point by point, together, certainly it is not difficult to find various instances of discrepancy, ap- parent or real, important or trivial, between the modern and the ancient Church ; and though no candid person who has fairly examined the state of the case can doubt, that, if we differ from the Fathers in some things, Protestants differ from them in all, and if we vary from them in accidentals, Protestants contradict them in

to the Ajpostolicity of the Churcli. 365

essentials, still, since attack is much easier and plea- santer than defence, it has been the way with certain disputants, especially with the Anglican school, instead of accounting for their own serious departure in so many respects from the primitive doctrine and ritual, to call upon us to show why we differ at all from our first Fathers, though partially and intelligibly, in matters of discipline and in the tone of our opinions. Thus it is that Jewel tries to throw dust in the eyes of the world and does his best to make an attack upon the Papacy and its claims pass for an Apology for the Church of England ; and more writers have followed his example than it is worth while, or indeed possible, to enumerate. And they have been answered again and again; and the so-called novelties of modern Catholicism have been explained, if not so as to silence all opponents (which could not be expected), yet at the very lowest so far as this (which is all that is incumbent on us in controversy), so far as to show that we have a case in our favour. I say, even though we have not done enough for our proof, we have done enough for' our argument, as the world will allow ; for on our assailants, not on us, lies- the ^' onus prolandi,'' and they have done nothing till they have actually made their charges good, and destroyed the very tenable- ness of our position and even the mere probability of our representations. However, into the consideration, whether of these objections or of their answers, I shall

366 Ecclesiastical History no Prejudice

not be expected to enter; and especially, because «ach would form a separate subject in itself, and fur- nish matter for a separate Lecture. How, for instance, would it be possible in the course of an hour, and wifch such an exercise of attention as might fairly be exacted of you, to embrace subjects as distinct from each other as the primitive faith concerning the Blessed Virgin, and the Apostolic See, and the Holy Eucharist, ' and the worship of images ? You would not expect such an effort of me, nor promise it for yourselves ; and the less so, because, as you know, my profession all alone has been to confine myself, as far as I can, to general considerations, and to appeal, in proof of what I assert, rather to common sense and truths before our eyes than to theology and history.

2.

In thus opening the subject, my brethren, I have been both explaining and apologizing for what 1 am proposing to do. For, if I am to say something, not directly in answer to the particular objections in detail, brought from Antiquity against the doctrine and dis- ciphne of the present Catholic Church, but by way of appeasing and allaying that general misgiving and perplexity which these objections excite, what can I do better than appeal to a fact, — though I cannot do so without some indulgence on the part of my hearers, — a fact connected with myself ? And it is the less unfair

to the Apostolicity of the Church 3^7

to do so, because, as regards the history of the early Church and the writings of the Fathers, so many must go by the testimony of others, and so few have oppor- tunity to use their own experience. I say, then, that the waitings of the Fathers, so far from prejudicing at least one man against the modern Catholic Church, have been simply and solely the one intellectual cause of his having renounced the religion in which he was born and submitted himself to her. What other causes there may be, not intellectual, unknown, unsuspected by himself, though freely imputed on mere conjecture by those who would invalidate his testimony, it would be unbecoming and impertinent to discuss; for himself, if he is asked why he became a Catholic, he can only give that answer which experience and consciousness bring home to him as the true one, viz., that he joined the Catholic Church simply because he believed it, and it only, to be the Church of the Fathers ; because he believed that there was a Church upon earth till the end of time, and one only ; and because, unless it was the Communion of Eome, and it only, there was none ; — because, to use language purposely guarded, because it was the language of controversy, " all parties will agree that, of all existing systems, the present Communion of Eome is the nearest approximation in fact to the Church of the Fathers ; possible though some may think it, to be still nearer to it on paper ; " — because, "did St. Athanasius or St. Ambrose come suddenly to

■2 68 Ecclesiastical History no Prejudice

life, it cannot be doubted what communion they would mistake," that is, would recognize, " for their own ; " ~ because " all will agree that these Fathers, with what- ever differences of opinion, whatever protests if you will, would find themselves more at home with such men as St. Bernard or St. Ignatius Loyola, or with tlie lonely priest in hie lodgings, or the holy sisterhood of charity, or the unlettered crowd before the altar, than with the rulers or the members of any other religious community." ^

This is the great, manifest, historical phenomenon which converted me, — to which all particular inquiries converged. Christianity is not a matter of opinion, but an external fact, entering into, carried out in, indivisible from, the history of the world. It has a bodily occupation of the world; it is one continuous fact or thing, the same from first to last, distinct from everything else : to be a Christian is to partake of, to submit to, this thmg; and the simple question was, ^Hiere, what is this thing in this age, which in the first age was the Catholic Church? The answer was un- deniable ; the Church called Catholic now, is that very same thing in hereditary descent, in organization, in principles, in position, in external relations, which was called the Catholic Church then; name and thing have ever gone together, by an uninterrupted connection and succession, from then till now. Whether it had

1 Essay on Doctriiial Development, p. 138.

to the Apostolicity of the CI aire] i. 369

been corrupted in its teaching was, at best, a matter of

opinion. It was indefinitely more evident a fact, that

it stood on the ground and in the place of the ancient

Church, as its heir and representative, than that certain

peculiarities in its teaching w^ere really innovations and

corruptions. Say there is no Church at all, if you will,

and at least I shall understand you ; but do not meddle

with a fact attested by mankind. I am almost ashamed

to insist upon so plain a point, which in many respects

is axiomatically true, except that there are persons

who wish to deny it. Of course, there are and have

been such persons, and men of deep learning ; but their

adverse opinion does not interfere with my present use

of what I think so plain. Observe, I am not insisting

on it as an axiom, though that is my own view of the

matter; nor proving it as a conclusion, nor forcing it on

your acceptance as your reason for joining the Catholic

Church, as it was mine. Let every one have his own

reason for becoming a Catholic: for reasons are m

plenty, and there are enough for you all, and moreover

all of them are good ones and consistent with each

other. I am not assigning reasons why you should be

Catholics ; you have them already : from first to last I

am doing nothing more than removing difficulties in

your path, which obstruct the legitimate effect of those

reasons which have, as I am assumincf, alreadv con-

vinced you. And to-day I am answering the objection,

so powerfully urged upon those who iiave no means of

2 A

370 Ecclesiastical History no Prejudice

examining it for themselves, that, as a matter of fact, the modern Church has departed from the teaching ot the ancient. Now even one man's contrary testimony obscures the certainty of this supposed matter of fact, though it is not sufficient to establish any opposite matter of fact of his own. I say, then, the Catholicism of to-day is not likely to be really very different from the Catholicism of Antiquity, if its agreement, or rather its identity, with Antiquity forms the very reason on which even one educated and reflecting person was induced, much against every natural inducement, to submit to its claims. Ancient Catholicity cannot supply a very conclusive argument against modern Catholicity, if the ancient has furnished even one such person with a conclusive argument in favour of the modern. Let us grant that the argument against the modern Church drawn from Antiquity, is not altogether destroyed by this antagonistic argument in her behalf, drawn from the same Antiquity ; yet surely that argument adverse to her will be too much damaged and enfeebled by the collision to do much towards resisting such direct inde- pendent reasons, personal to yourselves, as are already leading you to her.

J-

My testimony, then, is as follows. Even when I was a boy, my thoughts were turned to the early Church, and especially to the early Fathers, by the perusal of the Calvinist John Milner's Church History, and I have never lost, I never have suffered a suspension of

to the Apostoticity of the Church. 2)7^

the impression, deep and most pleasurable, wliich his sketches of St. Ambrose and St. Augustine left on my mind. From that time the vision of the Fathers was always, to my imagination, I may say, a paradise of delight to the contemplation of which I directed my thoughts from time to time, whenever I was free from the engagements proper to my time of life. When years afterwards (1828) I first began to read their works with attention and on system, I busied myself much in analysing them, and in cataloguing their doctrines and principles ; but, when I had thus pro- ceeded very carefully and minutely for some space of time, I found, on looking back on what I had done, that I had scarcely done anything at all ; I found 1:hat I. had gained very little from them, and I came to the conclusion that the Fathers I had been reading, which were exclusively those of the ante-Nicene period, had very little in them. At the time I did not discover the reason of this result, though, on the retrospect, it was plain enough : I had read them simply on Protes- tant ideas, analysed and catalogued them on Protestant principles of division, and hunted for Protestant doc- trines and usages in them. My headings ran, " Justifi- cation by faith only," " Sanctification," and the like. I knew not what to look for in them ; 1 sought what was not there, I missed what was there; I laboured through the night and caught nothing. But I should make one important exception : T rose from their per- usal with a vivid perception of the divine institution.

372 Ecclesiastical History no Prejmdire

the prerogatives, and the gifts of the Episcopate ; that is, with an implicit aversion to the Erastian principle.

Some years afterwards (1831) I took up the study of them again, when I had occasion to employ myself on the history of Arianism. I read them with Bull's Defensio, as their key, as far as his subject extended; but I am not aware that I made any other special doctrinal use of them at that time.

After this I set myself to the study of them, with the view of pursuing the series of controversies con-^ nected with our Lord's Person; and to the examination of these controversies I devoted two summers, witk the interval of several years between them (1835 and 1839). And now at length I was reading them for my-^ self ; for no Anglican writer had specially and minutely treated the subjects on which I was engaged. On my first introduction to them I had read them as- a Protestant ; and next, I had read them pretty much as an Anglican, though it is observable that, whatever- I gained on either reading, over and above the theory or system with which I started, was in a Catholic direction. In the former of the two summers above mentioned (1835), my reading was almost entirely confined to strictly doctrinal subjects, to the exclusion of history, and I believe it left me pretty much where I was on the question of the Catholic Church ; but m. the latter of them (1839) it was principally occupied with the history of the Monophysite controversy, and

to the ApostoUcity of the Church. 373

the circumstances and transactions of the Council of Chalcedon, in the fifth century, and at once and irre- vocably I found my faith in the tenableness of the fundamental principle of Anglicanism disappear, and a doubt of it implanted in my mind which never was eradicated. I thought I saw in the controversy I have named, and in the Ecumenical Council connected with it, a clear interpretation of the present state of Christen- dom, and a key to the different parties and personages who have figured on the Catholic or the Protestant side at and since the era of the Eeformation. During the autumn of the same year, a paper I fell in witl upon the schism of the Donatists,^ deepened the im- pression which the history of the Monophysites had made ; and I felt dazzled and excited by the new view of things which was thus opened upon me. Distrusting my judgment, and that I might be a better judge of the subject, I determined for a time to put it away from my mind ; nor did I return to it till I gave myself to the translation of the doctrinal Treatises of St. Athanasius, at the end of 1841. This occupation brought up again before me the whole question of the Arian controversy and the Nicene Council; and now I clearly saw in that history, what I had not perceived on the first study of it, the same phenomenon which had already startled me in the history of St. Leo and the Monophysites. From that time, what delayed my

^ By Dr. Wisemai).

374 Ecclesiastical History no Prejudice

conviction of the claims of the Catholic Church upon me, ^vas not any confidence in Anglicanism as a system of doctrine, but particular objections which as yet I saw no way of reducing, such as may at present weigh with you, and the fear that, since I found my friends strongly opposed to my view of the matter, I might, in some way or other, be involved in a delusion.

4- And now you will ask me, what it is I saw in the history of primitive controversies and Councils which was so fatal to the pretensions of the Anglican Church ? I saw that the general theory and position of Anglican- ism was no novelty in ancient history, but had a distinct place in it, and a series of prototypes, and that these prototypes had ever been heretics or the patrons of heresy. The very badge of Anglicanism, as a system, is that it is a Via Media ; this is its life ; it is this, or it is nothing ; deny this, and it forthwith dissolves into Catholicism or Protestantism. This constitutes its only claim to be recognized as a distinct form of Christianity ; it is its recommendation to the world at large, and its simple measuring-line for the whole field of theology. The Via Media appeals to the good sense of mankind ; it says that the human mind is naturally prone to excess, and that theological combatants in particular are certain to run into extremes. Truth, as virtue, lies in a mean ; whatever, then, is true, whatever is not true.

to the Apostolicity of the Chureh

3/ D

extremes certainly are false. And, whereas truth is in a mean, for that very reason it is very moderat'- and liberal; it can tolerate either extreme with great patience, because it views neither with that keenness of contrariety with which one extreme regards the other. For the same reason, it is comprehensive ; because, being in a certain sense in the centre of all errors, though having no part in any of them, it may be said to rule and to temper them, to bring them together, and to make them, as it were, converge and conspire together in one under its owm meek and gracious sway. Dispassionateness, forbearance, indulgence, toleration, and comprehension are thus all of them attributes of the Fia Media. It is obvious, moreover, that a doctrine like thiswillfind especial acceptance with the civil magistrate. Eeligion he needs as an instrument of government; yet in religious opinion he sees nothing else but the fertile cause of discord and confusion. Joyfully then does he welcome a form of theology, whose very mission it is to temper the violence of polemics, to soften and to accommodate differences, and to direct the energies of churchmen to the attainment of tangible good instead of the discussion of mysteries.

This sentiment I expressed in the following passage, in the year 1837, which I quote with shame and sorrow ; the more so, because it is certainly inconsistent with my own general teaching, from the very time I began to write, except for a short interval in 1825 ami 1826

27^ Ecclesiastical History no Prejudice

whicli need not be noticed here. However, it is an accurate exponent of the Anglican theory of religion. ''Though it is not likely," I said, "that Romanism should ever again become formidable in England, yet it may be in a position to make its voice heard ; and, in proportion as it is able to do so, the Via Media will do important service of the following kind. In the controversy which will ensue, Rome will not fail to preach, far and wide, the tenet which it never conceals, that there is no salvation external to its own com- munion. On the other hand, Protestantism, as it exists, will not be behind- hand in consigning to eternal ruin all who are adherents of Roman doctrine. What a prospect is this ! two widely-spread and powerful par- ties dealing forth solemn anathemas upon each other, in the Xame of the Lord ! Indifference and scepticism must be, in such a case, the ordinary refuge of men of mild and peaceable minds, who revolt from such pre- sumption, and are deficient in clear views of the truth. I cannot well exaggerate the misery of such a state of things. Here the English theology would come in with its characteristic calmness and caution, clear and de- cided in its view, giving no encouragement to luke- warmness and liberalism, but withholding all absolute anathemas on errors of opinion, except where the primitive Church sanctions the use of them." "^

Such, then, is the Anglican Church and its Via Media ^

' Proph. Off. p. 26.

to the Apostoliciti/ of the Church. 377

and such the practical application of it; it is an inter- position or arbitration between the extreme doctrines of Protestantism on the one hand, and the faith of Konie which Protestantism contradicts on the other. At tlie same time, though it may be unwilling to allow it, it is, from the nature of the case, but a particular form of Protestantism. I do not say that in secondary principles it may not agree with the Catholic Church ; V)ut, its essential idea being that she has gone into error, whereas the essential idea of Catholicism is the Church's infal- libility, the Via Media is really nothing else than Protestant. Not to submit to the Church is to oppose her, and to side with the heretical party ; for medium there is none. The Via Media assumes that Protestant- ism is right in its protest against Catholic doctrine, only that that protest needs correcting, limiting, perfecting. This surely is but a matter of fact ; for the Via Media has adopted all the great Protestant doctrines, as its most strenuous upholder and the highest of Anglo- Catholics will be obliged to allow ; the mutilated canon, the defective Eule of Faith, justification by faith only, putative righteousness, the infection of nature in the regenerate, the denial of the five Sacraments, the relation of faith to the Sacramental Presence, and the like ; its aim being nothing else than to moderate, with Melano- thon, the extreme statements of Luther, to keep them from shocking the feelings of human nature, to protect them from the criticism of common sense, and from the

^jS Ecclesiastical History no Prejudice

pi^ssure and urgency of controversial attack. Thus we have three parties on the historical stage ; the See and Communion of Eome; the original pure Protestant, violent, daring, offensive, fanatical in his doctrines ; and a cautious middle party, quite as heretical in principle and in doctrinal elements as Protestantism itself, but having an eye to the necessities of controversy, sensible in its ideas, sober in its tastes, safe in its statements, conservative in its aims, and practical in its measures. Such a Via Media has been represented by the line of Archbishops of Canterbury from Tillotson dov^n wards, as by Cranmer before them. Such in their theology, though not in their persons or their histories, were Laud and Bull, Taylor and Hammond, and I may say nearly all the great authorities of the Established Church. This distinctive clmracter has often been noticed, especially by Mr. Alexander Knox, and much might b& said upon it ; and, as I have already observed, it ever receives the special countenance of the civil magistrate, who, if he could, would take up with a religion without any doctrines whatever, as Warburton well understands, but who, in the case of a necessary evil, admires the sobriety of Tillotson, and the piety of Patrick, and the elegance of Jortin, and the biblical accomplishments of Lowth, and the shrewd sense of Paley.

5

Now this sketch of the relative positions ot the See-

to the Apostolicity of the C/i/arch. 379

of Eorae, Protestantism, the Vice Media, and tlie State, wiiich we see in the history of the last three centuries, is, I repeat, no novelty in history ; it is ahiiost its rule, certainly its rule during the long period when relations existed between the Byzantine Court and the Holy See ; and it is impossible to resist the conclusion, whicli the actual inspection of the history in detail forces upon us, that what the See of Eome was then such is it now : that what Arius, Nestorius, or Eutyches were then, such are Luther and Calvin now ; what the Eusebians or Monophysites then, such the Anglican hierarchy now; what the Byzantine Court then, such is now the Govern- ment of England, and such would have been many a Catholic Court, liad it had its way. That ancient history is not dead, it lives ; it prophesies of what passes before our eyes ; it is founded in the nature of things ; we see ourselves in it, as in a glass, and if the Via Media was heretical then, it is heretical now.

I do not know how to convey this to others in one or two paragraphs; it is the living picture which history presents to us, which is the evidence of the fact ; and to attempt a mere outline of it, or to detach one or two groups from the finished composition, is to do injustice to its luminousness. Take, for instance, the history of Arianism. Arius stood almost by himself; bold, keen, stern, and violent, he took his stand on two or three axiomatic statements, as he considered them, appealed to Scripture, despised authority and tradition,

3 So Ecclesiastical History no Prejudice

and carried out his heretical doctrine to its furthest limits. He absolutely maintained, without any reserve, that our Lord was a creature, and had a becrinnins:. Next, he was one of a number of able and distinguished men, scattered over the East, united together by the bond of a common master and a common school, who might have been expected to stand by him on his ap23ealing to them ; but who left him to his fate, or at least but circuitously and indirectly served his cause. High in station, ecclesiastical and civil, they found it more consistent with their duties towards themselves to fall back upon a more cautious phraseology than his, and upon less assailable principles, to evade inquiry, to explain away tests, and to profess a submission to the voice of their forefathers and of the Catholic world ; and they developed their formidable party in that form of heresy which is commonly called Semi-Arianism or Eusebianism. They preached peace, professed to agree with neither St. Athanasius nor Arius, excited the jealousies of the Eastern world against the West, were strong enough to insult the Pope, and dexterous enough to gain the favour of Const antine and the devoted attach- ment of his son Constantius. The name of Eusebians they received from their leader, the able and unscrupulous Bishop of Mcomedia, with whom was associated another Eusebius, better known to posterity as the learned his- torian of the Church, and one of the most accomplished and able of the Fathers. It will be to my purpose to

to the Apostolic I ty of the Chxiroh. 38 r

quote one ov two sentences in description of the cliarao.ter of this celebrated man, written by me at a tin 10 wlien the subject of the Via Media had not as yet been mooted in the controversy, nor the bearing of the Arian history upon it been suggested to my mind.

" He seems," I said, speaking of Eusebius of Caesarea, "to have had the faults and the virtues of the mere man of letters ; strongly excited neither to good noi to evil, and careless at once of the cause of truth and the prizes of secular greatness, in comparison of the comforts and decencies of literary ease. In his writings, numerous as they are, there is very little wliich fixes on Eusebius any charge, beyond that of an attachment to the Platonic phraseology. Had he not connected himself with the Arian party, it would have been unjust to have suspected him of heresy. But his acts are his confession. He openly sided with those whose blas- phemies a true Christian w^ould have abhorred; and he sanctioned and shared their deeds of violence and injustice perpetrated on the Catholics. . . . The grave accusation under which he lies is not that of Arian- ising,! but of corrupting the simplicity of the Gospel with an Eclectic spirit. While he held out the am- biguous language of the schools as a refuge, and the Alexandrian imitation of it as an argument, against the pursuit of the orthodox, his conduct gave coun-

1 The author has now still less favourable views of Eusebius" tiieology than he had when he wrote this in 1832.

382 Ecclesiastical History 710 Prejudice

tenance to the secular maxim, that difference in creeds is a matter of inferior moment, and that, provided we confess as far as tlie very terms of Scripture, we may- speculate as philosophers and live as the world. . . . The remark has been made, that throughout his Eccle- siastical History no instance occurs of his expressing abhorrence of the superstitions of paganism; and that his custom is either to praise, or not to blame, such heretical writers as fall under his notice." ^ Much more might be added in illustration of the resemblance of this eminent writer to the divines of the Anglican Via Media.

The Emperor Constantine has already been named; and looking at him in his ecclesiastical character we find him committed to two remarkable steps ; one that he frankly surrendered himself to the intimate friend- ship of this latitudinarian theologian ; the other, that, at the very first rumour of the Arian dissensions, he promptly, and with the precision of an instinct, inter- fered in the quarrel, and in a politician's way pro- nounced it to be a logomachy, or at least a matter of mere speculation, and bade bishops and heretics embrace and make it up with each other at once. This did he in a question no less solemn than that of the divinity of our Lord, which, if any question, could not be other than most influential, one would think, in a

1 Arians of the Fourth Century, p. 281. [p. 269 ed. 1871.I

to the Apostolicity of tic Church. 2^^^

Christian's creed. But Constantine was not a Christian as yet; and this, while it partly explains the extrava- o-ance of his conduct, illustrates the external and utili- tarian character of a statesman's religion.

I will present to you portions of the celebrated letter which he addressed to the Bishop of Alexandria and to Arius, as quoted in the history to which I have already referred. " He professes therein two motives as impelling him in his public conduct ; first, the desire of effecting the reception, throughout his dominions, of some one definite and complete form of religious wor- ship ; next, that of settling and invigorating the civil institutions of the empire. Desirous of securing a unity of sentiment among all the believers in the Deity, he first directed his attention to the religious dissensions of Africa, which he had hoped, with the aid of the Oriental Christians, to terminate. ' But glorious and Divine Providence I ' he continues, ' how fatally were my ears, or rather, was my heart wounded, by the report of a rising schism among you far more acrimonious than the African dissensions. ... On investigation, I find that the reasons for this quarrel are insignificant and worthless. ... As I understand it, you, Alexander, were asking the separate opinions of your clergy on &ome passage of your law, or rather were inquiring about some idle question, when you, Arius, inconsider- ately committed yourself to statements, which should either never have come into vour mind, or have been

384 Ec4:h'^iastical History no Prejudice

at once repressed. On this a difference ensued, Chris- tian intercourse was suspended, the sacred flock was divided into two, and the harmonious unity of the Church broken. . . . Listen to the advice of me your fellow-servant ; — neither ask nor answer questions which are not any injunction of your law, but are the altercation of barren leisure; at best, keep them to yourselves, and do not publish them. . . . Your con- tention is not about any capital commandment of your law, neither of you is introducing any novel scheme of divine worship, you are of one and the same way of thinking, so that it is in your power to unite in one communion. Even the philosophers can agree together one and all, though differing in particulars. ... Is it right for brothers to oppose brothers, for the sake of trifles ? . . . Such conduct might be expected from the multitude or from the recldessness of boyhood, but is little in keeping with your sacred profession and with your personal wisdom. . . . Give me back my days of calm, my nights of security ; that I may experience henceforth the comfort of the clear light and the cheer- fulness of tranquillity. Otherwise I shall sigh and be dissolved in tears. ... So great is my grief, that I put off my journey to the East on the news of your dissen- sion. . . . Open for me that path towards you, which your contentions have closed up. Let me see you and nil other cities in happiness, that I may offer due

to the Apostolicity of the Church. 385

thanksgivings to God above for the unanimity and free interconrse which is seen among you.' " ^

Such was the position which the Christian civil power assumed in the very first days of its nativity. The very moment the State enters into the Church, it shows its nature and its propensities, and takes up a position which it has never changed, and never will. Kings and statesmen may be, and have been, saints ; but, in being such, they have acted against the interests and traditions of kingcraft and statesmanship. Con- stantine died, but his line of policy continued. His son, Constantius, embraced the Via Media of Eusebi- anism on conviction as well as from expediency. He sternly set himself against both extremes, as he con- sidered them, banished the fanatical successors of Arius, and tortured and put to death the adherents to the Nicene Creed and the cause of St. Athanasius. Thus the Via Media party was in the ascendancy for about thirty years, till the death of the generation by whom it had been formed and protected ; — with quarrels and defections among themselves, restless attempts at stability in faith, violent efforts after a definite creed, fruitless projects of comprehension, — when, towards the end of their domination, a phenomenon showed itself, which claims our particular attention, as not without parallel in ecclesiastical history, and as re- minding us of what is going on, in an humbler way

1 Arians of the Fourth Century, p. 267. [p. 255.]

386 Ecclesiastical History no Prejudice

and on a narrower stage, before our eyes. In vari- ous districts, especially of Asia Minor, a considerable party had gradually been forming, and had exercised a considerable influence in the ecclesiastical transactions of the period, who, though called Semi-Arians and pro- fessing their symbols, had no sympathies with the Eusebians, and indeed were ultimately disowned by them. There seems to have been about a hundred bishops who belonged to this party, and their leaders were men of religious habits and unblemished repute, and approximated so nearly to orthodoxy in their language, that Saints appear among the number of their friends, or have issued from their school Things could not stand as they were : every year brought its event ; Constantius died; parties were broken up, — and this among the rest. It divided into two; as many as fifty-nine of its bishops subscribed the orthodox for- mula, and submitted themselves to the Holy See. A body of thirty-four persisted in their separation from it, and afterwards formed a new heresy of their own.

These are but a few of the main features of the history of Arianism : yet they may be sufficient to illustrate the line of argument which Antiquity furnishes against the theories, on which alone the movement of 1833 had claim on the attention of Protestants. Those theories claimed to represent the theological and the ecclesias- tical teaching of the Fathers ; and the Fathers, when interrogated, did but pronounce them to be the offspring of eclecticism, and the exponent of a State Church. It

to the Apostolicity of the Church. 387

could not maintain itself in its position without allying itself historically with that very Erastianism, as seen in Antiquity, of which it had so intense a hatred. What has been sketched from the Arian history might be shown still more strikingly in the Monophysite.^

6.

Nor was it solely the conspicuous parallel which I have been describing in outline, which, viewed in its details, was so fatal a note of error against the Anglican position. I soon found it to follow, that the grounds on which alone Anglicanism was defensible formed an impregnable stronghold for the primitive heresies, and that the justification of the Primitive Councils was as cogent an apology for the Council of Trent. It was difficult to make out how the Eutychians or Monophy- sites were heretics, unless Protestants and Anglicans were heretics also ; difficult to find arguments against the Tridentine Fathers which did not tell against the Fathers of Chalcedon; difficult to condemn the Popes of the sixteenth century, without condemning the Popes of the fifth. The drama of religion and the combat of truth and error were ever one and the same. The principles and proceedings of the Church now were those of the Church then ; the principles and proceedings of heretics then were those of Protestants now. I found it so — almost fearfully ; there was an awful simiKtude,

1 Vid. Essay on Doctrinal Development, chap. v. sec. 3.

388 Ecclesiastical History no Prejudice

more awful, becaus'e so silent and unimpassioned, between the dead records of the past and the feverish chronicle of the present. The shadow of the fifth cen- tury was on the sixteenth. It was like a spirit rising from the troubled waters of the Old World with the shape and lineaments of the new. The Church then, as now, might be called peremptory and stern, resolute, overbearing, and relentless ; and heretics were shifting, changeable, reserved, and deceitful, ever courting the civil power, and never agreeing together, except by its aid ; and the civil power was ever aiming at comprehen- sions, trying to put the invisible out of view, and to substitute expediency for faith. What was the use of continuing the controversy, or defending my position, if, after all, I was but forging arguments for Arius or Eutyches, and turning devil's advocate against the much- enduring Athanasius and the majestic Leo ? Be my soul with the Saints ! and shall I lift up my hand against them ? Sooner may my right hand forget her cunning, and wither outright, as his who once stretched it out against a prophet of God, — ^perish sooner a whole tribe of Cranmers, Eidleys, Latimers, and Jewels, — perish the names of Bramhall, Ussher, Taylor, Stilling- fleet, and Barrow, from the face of the earth, — ere I should do aught but fall at their feet in love and in worship, whose image was continually before my eyes, and whose musical words were ever in my ears and on my tongue I

to the Apostolicity of the Church. 389

This, too, is an observable fact, that the more learned Anglican writers seem aware of the state of the case, and are obliged, by the necessities of their position, to speak kindly of the heretical communities of ancient history, and at least obliquely to censure the Councils, which, nevertheless, they profess to receive. Thus Bramhall, as we saw yesterday, strives to fraternize with the sectaries now existing in the East ; nor could he consistently do otherwise, with the Council of Trent and the Protestants in the field of controversy ; it being difficult indeed to show that the Eastern Churches in question are to be accounted heretical on any principles which a Protestant is able to put forward. It is not wonderful, then, that other great authorities in the Established Church are of the same way of thinking. "Jewel, Ussher, and Laud," says an Anglican divine of this day, " are apparently of this opinion, and Field expressly maintains it." ^

Jeremy Taylor goes further still, that is, is still more consistent; for he not merely acquits of heresy the existing communities of the East who dissent from the third and fourth Councils, but he is bold enough to attack the first Council of all, the Nicene. He places the right of private judgment, or what he calls " the liberty of prophesying," above all Councils whatever. As to the Nicene, he says, " / am much pleased with the enlarging of the Creed which the Council of ISTice

1 Palmer (<n the Churoh, vol. i, p. 418.

390 Ecclesiastical History no Prejudice

made, because they enlarged it in my sense ; but I am not sure that others were satisfied with it."i '-'That faith is best which hath greatest simplicity ; and . . . it is better, in all cases, humbly to submit, than curiously to inquire, and pry into the mystery under the cloud, and to hazard our faith by improving our knowledge. If the Nicene Fathers had done so too, possibly the Church would never have repented it."^ " If the article had been with more simplicity and less nicety determined, charity would have gained more, and faith would have lost nothing." ^ And he not only calls Eusebius, whom it is hard to acquit of heresy, "the wisest of them all,"* but actually praises the letter of Constantino, which I have already cited, as most true in its view and most pertinent to the occasion. " The Epistle of Constantine to Alexander and Arius," he says, "tells the truth, and chides them both for com- mencing the question ; Alexander for broaching it, Arius for taking it up. And although this be true, that it had been better for the Church it never had begun, yet, being begun, what is to be done in it ? Of this also, in that admirable epistle, we have the Em- peror's judgment . . . for, first, he calls it a certain vain piece of a question, ill begun and more unadvisedly published, .... a fruitless contention, the product of idle brains, a matter so nice, so obscure, so intricate,

1 Vol. vii. p. 481, ed. 1828, 2 Jeremy Taylor, ibid. p. 485.

3 Ibid. ^ ibid.

to tiie Apostolicity of the Church. 391

that it was neither to be explicated by the clergy, nor

understood by the people; a dispute of words

It concerned not the substance of faith, or the worship of God, nor any chief commandment of Scripture . . . the matter being of no great importance, but vain, and a toy, in respect of the excellent blessings of peace and charity." ^ When we recollect that the question con- fessedly in dispute was whether our Lord is the Eternal God or a creature, and that the Nicene symbol against which Taylor writes was confessedly the sole test adequate to the definition of his divinity, it is scarcely conceivable that a writer should really believe that divinity and thus express himself.

Taylor is no accident in the history of the Via Media ; he does but speak plainer than Field and Bramhall; and soon others began to speak plainer than he. The school of Laud gave birth to the latitudinarians ; Hales and Chillingworth, their first masters, were personal friends of the Archbishop, whose indignation with them only proves his involuntary sense of the tottering state of his own theological position. Lord Falkland, again, who thinks that before the Nicene Council nhe gene- rality of Christians had not been always taught the contrary to Arius's doctrine, but some one way, others the other, most neither," ^ was the admired friend of Hammond; and Grotius, whose subsequent influence upon the national divines has been so serious, was

'1 V ,,\2. " Haiumond's Works, vol. ii. p. 655.

392 Ecclesiastical History no Prejudice

introduced to their notice by Hammond and Bram- haU.

Such has been the issue of the Via Media; its tendency in theory is towards latitudinarianism ; its position historically is one of heresy ; in the National Church it has fulfilled both its theoretical tendency and its historical position. As this simple truth was brought home to me, I felt that, if continuance in the ]^ational Church was defensible, it must be on other grounds than those of the Via Media.

7-

Yet this was but one head of argument, which the history of the early Church afforded against the E'ational Establishment, and in favour of the Eoman See. I have already alluded to the light w^hich the schism of the African Donatists casts on the question between the two parties in the controversy ; it is clear, strong, and decisive, but perfectly distinct from the proof derivable from the Arian, Nestorian, and Monophysite histories.^

Then again, after drawing out from Antiquity the outlines of the ecclesiastical structure, and its relations to bodies and powers external to it, when we go on, as it were, to colour it wdth the thousand tints which are to be found in the same ancient records, when we con- sider the ritual of the Church, the ceremonial of religion,

1 Vide Dublin Reviexi', August 1839, Ai-t. "'Anglican Claim."

to the Apostolicity of the ChMvch. 393

the devotions of private Christians, the opinions gene- rally received, and the popular modes of actin<^, what do we find but a third and most striking proof of the identity betvs^een primitive Christianity and modern Catholicism ? ^ No other form of Christianity but this present Catholic Communion, has a pretence to resemble, even in the faintest shadow, the Christianity of Antiquity, viewed as a living religion on the stage of the world. This has ever attached me to such works as Fleury's Church History; because, whatever may be its incidental defects or mistakes, it brings before the reader so vividly the Church of the Fathers, as a fact and a reality, instead of speculating, after the manner of most histories, on the principles, or of making views upon the facts, or cataloguing the heresies, rites, or writers, of those ancient times. You may make ten thousand extracts from the Fathers, and not get deeper into the state of their times than the paper you write upon; to imbibe into the intellect the Ancient Church as a fact, is either to be a Catholic or an infidel.

EecoUect, my brethren, I am going into these details, not as if I thought of convincing you on the spot by a view of history which convinced me after careful consideration, nor as if T called on you to be convinced by what convinced me at all (for the methods of conviction are numberless, and one man approaches

' Dublin Preview, Dec. 1843, Art. "A Voice from Eome "

394 Ecclesiastical History no Prejudice

the Church by this road, another by that), but merely in order to show you how it was that Antiquity, instead of leading me from the Holy See as it leads many, on the contrary drew me on to submit to its claims. But, even had I worked out for you these various arguments ever so fully, I should have brought before you but a secondary portion of the testimony which the Ancient Church seemed to me to supply to its own identity with the modern. "What was far more striking to me than the ecclesiastical phenomena which I have been drawing out, remarkable as they are, is a subject of investigation which is not of a nature to introduce into a popular lecture ; I mean the history of the doctrinal definitions of the Church. It is well known that, though the creed of the Church has been one and the same from the beginning, yet it has been so deeply lodged in her bosom as to be held by individuals more or less implicitly, instead of being delivered from the first in those special state- ments, or what are called definitions, under which it is now presented to us, and which preclude mistake or ignorance. These definitions, which are but the expression of portions of the one dogma which has ever been received by the Church, are the work of time; they have grown to their present shape and number in the course of eighteen centuries, under the exigency of successive events, such as heresies and the like, and they may of course receive still further addi-

to the Aj^ostolicity of the Church. y^^

tions as time goes on. Now this jjrocess of doctrinal development, as you might suppose, is not of an acci- dental or random character ; it is conducted upon law.<, as everything else which comes from God; and the study of its laws and of its exhibition, or, in other words, the science and history of the formation of theology, was a subject which had interested me more than anything else from the time I first began to read the Fathers, and ^vhich had engaged my attention in a special way. ISTow it was gradually brought home to me, in the course of my reading, so gradually, that I cannot trace the steps of my conviction, that the decrees of later Councils, or what Anglicans call the Eoman corruptions, were but instances of that very same doctrinal law which was to be found in the history of the early Church ; and that in the sense in which the dogmatic truth of the prerogatives of the Blessed Virgin may be said, in the lapse of centuries, to have grown upon the consciousness of the faithful, in that same sense did, in the first age, the mystery of the Blessed Trinity also gradually shine out and manifest itself more and more completely before their minds. Here was at once an answer to the objections urged by Anglicans against the present teaching of Eome; and not only an answer to objections, but a positive argument in its favour ; for the immutability and uninterrupted action of the laws in question through- out the course of Church history is a plain note of

39^ Ecclesiastical History no Prejudice

identity between the Catholic Church of the first ages and that which now goes by that name ; — just as the argument from the analogy of natural and revealed religion is at once an answer to difficulties in the latter, and a direct proof that Christianity has the same Author as the physical and moral world. But the force of this, to me ineffably cogent argument, I cannot hope to convey to another.

8.

And now, my dear brethren, what fit excuse can I make to you for the many words I have used about myself, and not in this Lecture only, but in others before it ? This alone I can say, that it was the apprehension, or rather the certainty that this would be the case, which, among other reasons, made me as unwilling as I was to begin this course of Lectures at all. I foresaw that I could not address you on the subjects which I proposed, without introducing myself into the discussion ; I could not refer to the past with- out alluding to matters in which I had a part ; I could not show tiiat interest in your state of mind and course of thought which I really feel, without showing that I therefore understood it, because I had before now expe- rienced it myself ; and I anticipated, what I fear has b<^en the case, that in putting before you the events of former years, and the motives of past transactions, and the operation of common principles, and the complexion

to the Ajjostolicity of the Church. 397

of old habits and opinions, I should be in no sli;,dit de- gree constructing, what I have ever avoided, a defence of myself.

But I have had another apprehension, both before and since beginning these Lectures, viz., lest it was (to say the least) an impolitic proceeding to contemplate them at all. Things were proceeding in that course in which I knew they must proceed; I could not foretell indeed that a decision would issue from the Committee of Privy Council on the subject of Baptism; I could not anticipate that this or that external event would suddenly undo men's confidence in the National Church; but it required no gift of prophecy to feel that false- hood, and pretence, and unreality could not for ever enslave honest minds sincerely seeking the truth. It needed no prophetical gift to be sure that others must take ultimately the course which I had taken, though I could not foretell the time or the occasion ; no gift to foresee, that those who did not choose to plunge into the gulf of scepticism must at length fall back upon the Catholic Church. Nor did it require in me much faith in you, my dear brethren, much love for you, to be sure that, though there were close around you men who look like you, but are not, that you, the children of the movement, were too conscientious, too much in earnest, not to be destined by that God, who made you what you are, to greater things. Others have scoffed at you, but I never; others may have made light of

398 Ecclesiastical History no Prejudice

your principles, or your sincerity, but never I ; others may have predicted evil of you, I have only felt vexed at the prediction. I have laughed, indeed, I have scorned, and scorn and laugh I must, when men set up an outside instead of the inside of religion— when they affect more than they can sustain — when they indulge in pomp or in minutiae, which only then are becoming when there is something to be proud of, something to be anxious for. If I have been excessive here, if I have confused what is defective with what is hollow, or have mistaken aspiration for pretence, or have been severe upon infirmities of which self-know- ledge would have made me tender, I wish it otherwise. Still, whatever my faults in this matter, I have ever been trustful in that true Catholic spirit which has lived in the movement of which you are partakers. I have been steady in my confidence in that supernatural influence among you, which made me what I am, — which, in its good time, shall make you what you shall be. You are born to be Catholics ; refuse not the unmerited grace of your bountiful God ; throw off' for good and all the illusions of your intellect, the bondage of your affections, and stand upright in that freedom which is your true inheritance.

And my confidence that you will do so at last, and that the sophistries of this world will not hold you for ever, is what has caused the hesitation to which I have referred, whether I have done wisely in deciding on

to the Apostolicity of the Church. 399

addressing you at all. I have in truth had anxious misgivings whether I should not do better to let you alone, my own experience teaching me, that even the most charitable attempts are apt to fail, when their end is the conviction of the intellect. It is no work of a day to convince the intellect of an Englishman that Catholicism is true. And even when the intellect is convinced, a thousand subtle influences interpose in arrest of what should follow, carrying, as it were, an appeal into a higher court, and claiming to have tlie matter settled before some tribunal more sacred, and by pleadings more recondite, than the operations and the decision of the reason. The Eternal God deals with us one by one, each in his own way; and by- standers may pity and compassionate the long throes of our travail, but they cannot aid us except by their prayers. If, then, I have erred in entering upon the subjects I have brought before you, pardon me; pardon me if I have rudely taken on myself to thrust you forward, and to anticipate by artificial means a di\dne growth. If it be so, I will only hope that, though I may have done you no good, yet my attempt may be blessed in some other way ; that I may have thrown light on the general subject which I have discussed, have contributed to map out the field of thought on which I have been engaged, and to ascertain its lie and its characteristics, and have furnished materials for what, in time to come, may be the science and received

400 Ecclesiastical History, etc.

principles of the whole controversy, though I have failed in that which was my immediate object.

At all events, my dear brethren, I hope I may be at least considered to be showing my good- will and kind- ness towards you, if nothing else, and my desire to be of use to you. All is vanity but what is done to the glory of God. It glitters and it fades away ; it makes a noise and is gone. If I shall not do you or others good, I have done nothing. Yet a little while and the end will come, and all will be made manifest, and error wiU fail, and truth will prevail. Yet a little while, and "the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is.'* May you and I live in this prospect; and may the Eternal God, Father, Son, and Spirit, Three in One, may His Ever-blessed Mother, may St. Philip, my dear father and master, the great Saints Athanasius and Ambrose, and St. Leo, pope and confessor, who have brought me thus far, be the hope, and help, and reward of you and me, all through this weary Hfe, and in the day of account, and in glory everlasting !

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