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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-
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in 2010 with funding from
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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.
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
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 ? 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, '' 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." " 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
of tJte National Church.
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 ;
f 74 The Movement not in the Direction
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,
176 The Movement not in the Direction
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
1 82 The Movement not in the Direction
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-
1 88 The Movement not in the Direction
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
1 94 Tlie Movement not in the Direction
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.
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, 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
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
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
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, 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 ! 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, Lord, have we waited for Thee ; Thy
Name and Thy remembrance are the desire of our souL
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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