presented to
Gbe library
of tbe
Tllmvereit^ of Toronto
bs
3obn Castell Ibopfcine
HANDBOUND
AT THE
UNIVERSITY OF
TORONTO PRESS
f fSf
HEcd
LIGHTS AND SHADOWS
tf|ur4-|Tife in ^tralia
INCLUDING
THOUGHTS ON SOME THINGS
BY T.
TO WHICH IS ADDED,
TWO HUNMED YEARS AGO
THEN AND NOW.
SECOND EDITION
fonto:
JACKSON & WALFORD, 18, ST. PAUL'S CHURCHYARD.
MDCCCLX.
LONDON : GEORGE TNWIN, GRESHAM STEAM PRESS, BUCKI.F.RSBURY.
CONTENTS.
^wlimiwarg Chapter.
PAGB
I. The Break-down The Voyage Inter-colonial travel Mate-
rials for a book on Australia Never intended " Stop."
II. A Word to the Reader Accidental authorship
Adelaide Tasmania " The Charge" Perplexing Ques-
tions. III. Special Services Co-operative action
Theatres -The Bishop of Melbourne Sunday morning on
board a Ship Present movements What may come of
them An Earnest Laity The Two Pictures Convocation
and the House of Lords. IV. Liturgical revision Reli-
gious Nonconformity Historical Relative Clerical sub-
scription Going to Church The beam and the mote.
V. Church publications Taylor and Gell Dr. Robinson's
scheme Not much hope Why so warlike ? " A more
excellent way." VI. Conclusion ix xlv
NOTES.
A. Dr. S on Church-rates xlvi
B. Silence not always " golden" xlvii
ON THE UNION OF PROTESTANT EVANGELICAL
CHURCHES.
better of llje light $tb. iht oro $isjjop of ^belaibe 119
VI CONTENTS.
THE CHURCH OP THE FUTURE,
AS PORTRAYED IN THE FORE GOING LETTER, EXAMINED.
fart grot
THE "IDEA" OF THE CHURCH.
Introduction. Limited responsibility The two questions
The one to be examined Spirit and form Principles of
Union Indispensable preliminary conditions The "idea"
seen in the distance. Remarks. I. Disappointment.
The first of two tones The second tone Discord. II.
Denominations. Ministerial orders A dissolving view
Mutual " dichostasy" The sunk Fence Too late Restore
the Heptarchy. III. Doctrine. Moral subscription to
Creeds The special testimony of Anglicanism Self-judg-
ment Recapitulation 21 66
|jart Stottfc.
HINTS AND OBSERVATIONS ON SEVERAL SUGGESTED ECCLESIASTICAL
QUESTIONS.
I. Episcopacy. Bishops differ: not in Word but in Power.
II. The spirit of different Church-systems
Catholic communion A depressing thought. III. Systems
and Men. An important caution Actings of the imper-
sonal A fraternal admonition An alarm quieted. TV. The
Official and the Personal further Illustrated
Ecclesiastical Parenthood The Bishop of Melbourne
Something almost incredible. V. Admonitory Con-
scientious Convictions The other side Home Hope. . . . 67
CONTENTS. Vll
PERSONAL AND OLD-WORLD MATTERS.
PAGE
I. Nonconformity. An alternative Episcopal Justification
of Nonconformity The two Witnesses The Sydney
Conference Clerical Parties The Gorham Judgment. \
II. Establishments. Church. Liturgical Reform.
Religious Controversy Opposite Extremes Another
" Dream" The ultimate object of Dissenting agitation
Edward Miall The Laity and the Church Robert Southey
In essentials, unity New Zealand Liturgical Revision
State-aid An open field III. Last Words. Humiliating
mysteries Ecclesiastical claims The Protestant platform
Colonial requirements Closing counsels 100 150
Additional Note 150 152
illustrative memoranda, letters, notes, etc.
Explanatory Statement 3
No. I. The Right Rev. the Bishop of Adelaide to the Rev.
T. Binney 5
No. II. The Two Memorials, with the replies to each 8
No. III. The Rev. T. Binney to the Right Rev. the Bishop of
Adelaide 15
The Right Rev. the Bishop of Adelaide in reply. . , 28
No. IV. The Rev. T. Binney to the Editor of the South
Australian Register 40
No. V. Correspondence published with the sanction of the
Bishop of Adelaide 47
Extracts from two Letters of the Rev. T. Binney and the
Bishop of Adelaide 49
No. VI. State- Aid. The Bishop of Melbourne The Bishop
of Victoria, Hong Kong The Wesleyans 52
No. VII. Part of a Conversation between Judges and Members
of the Bar, on Colonial Ecclesiastical Law 54
No. VIII. The Three Bishops 56
Vlll CONTENTS.
ADDITIONAL.
PAGE
No. I. Sir R. G. Macdonnell to the Rev. T. Binney 63
No. II. The Rev. Canon Russell to the Rev. T. Binney 70
No. III. The Diocesan Synod of South Australia on Church
Union
TWO HUNDRED YEARS AGO :
THEN AND NOW.
A new Act of Uniformity Parliamentary Church-legislation
Australian reminiscences The Note and the Letter The
two Points The Rev. Isaac Taylob THEN Spirit
and object of the revision of the Prayer-Book in 1662
Specific changes Apocryphal lessons Saints' days-
Sponsors Priests Orders Communion Service Sanctifi-
cation of water. The whole re-actionary The intended
alternative. NOW Rev. P. Gell Fourleadingheresies
Their ground and origin Absolution The young Deacon
Consecration An Australian ruin Sacraments The
hypothetical Theory Confirmation The administration of
the rite in Australia The Church and the World Why
and for whom Mr. Gell speaks Sect-life and Church-life
Denominational and general relations Ecclesiastical exclu-
siveness The Bishop of London Matins and Evensong
Conclusion P.S 83124
POSTSCRIPT TO THE SECOND EDITION.
I. The Rev. F. D. Maurice and Liturgical Reform 126
II. The Rev. F. D. Maurice to the Rev. T. Binney 136
LIGHTS AND SHADOWS
CHUECH-LIFE IN ADSTEALIA.
Preliminary Chapter.
/. The Break-down The Voyage Inter-colonial travel Materials
for a book on Australia Never intended " Stop" II. A word
to the Header Accidental authorship Adelaide Tasmania-^
The " Charge" Perplexing questions. III. Special Services
Co-operative action Theatres The Bishop of Melbourne
Sunday morning on board a Ship Present movements What
may come of them An earnest Laity The two Pictures Con-
vocation and the House of Lords. IV. Liturgical revision
Religious nonconformity Historical Relative Clerical sub-
scription Going to Church The beam and the mote. V. Church
publications Taylor and Gell Dr. Robinsons scheme Not
much hope Why so Warlike? "J. more excellent way."
VI. Conclusion.
I.
In the spring of 1857, when out on a journey,
preaching and lecturing in different places, I was
suddenly prostrated, as by a blow ; utterly deprived of
power to think or write, to contemplate or to undertake
any public service. It was as if a bolt had been
withdrawn, or a wheel broken, in some whirling piece
B
X LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
of machinery, and the entire apparatus had at once
come to a dead stop ! After trying in vain home and
continental travel, a long voyage was recommended;
circumstances and interests connected with Australia led
to the determination to proceed thither.
We left Liverpool on Christmas Eve, 1857, and
arrived at Melbourne on the 31st of March, 1858.
We never saw land of any sort, island or continent,
from the time we lost sight of the English coast till we
neared Australia ; nor had we any great changes of
wind or weather. A voyage of three months, without
a break, is usually a somewhat monotonous affair. I
amused myself by keeping a journal. By making a
daily entry of any occurrence, no matter how minute,
which caused a ripple on the surface of our ocean-life, a
manuscript volume, I may say, was produced, which, on
its being looked through as a whole, I was surprised to
observe was really by no means devoid of variety of
incident. If, after getting on shore, I had continued
to keep such a daily record of what I saw, heard, and
thought, I might have been able to listen to one or other
of the London or Edinburgh booksellers, who have
expressed their wish to negotiate with me for any work
on Australia I might be intending to publish.
Melbourne was the centre to which I returned, again
and again, from the other colonies ; but Sydney was the
place where I remained the longest, and where, after a
time, I was first conscious of improved health, and felt
the return of ability for labour. I saw something of the
four colonies now five ; New South Wales, Victoria,
South Australia, Tasmania, Queensland. In New South
INTER-COLOXIAL TRAVEL. Xl
Wales I went up to the north as far as Brisbane and
Ipswich. The people were then [June 1858] full of
the idea of becoming independent. The question of
" separation " was constantly coming up, as was that,
also, of what town ought to be the capital of the new
colony. We went southwards in New South Wales
only as far as Camden. On the east coast we enjoyed a
visit to the beautiful localities of Woolingong and
Kiama. In Victoria there was Melbourne, with its sur-
rounding suburbs, Collingwood, Richmond, South Yarra,
Prahran, and three or four others, each in itself a consi-
derable town ; Geelong, a city noteworthy for many
things ; the diggings of Castlemaine, Forest Creek,
Bendigo, Ballarat, all of which we explored. In South
Australia, settling in the neighbourhood of Adelaide, we
took journeys, more or less extended, in almost every
direction: to the north, by Gawler to Angaston and
Kapunda; south, to Port Elliott the one-half of the
way through valleys and over hills singularly beautiful,
the other through sand and bush, wild but interesting ;
east, across the Murray the finest river in Australia,
and to the Lakes Alexandrina and Albert. In Tasmania,
we visited Launceston and Hobart Town, passing through
the places on the splendid road between them, crossing,
by the bye, the Jordan, twice or thrice, and catching a
sight of Jericho, Jerusalem, and Bagdad ! From Hobart
(as it is often familiarly called) I took a trip up the
Huon river as far as Franklin. It was in July, the
Tasmanian winter ; magnificent hills, or rather moun-
tains, rose on all sides, their tops white with snow.
Franklin, it may be observed, is a settlement which
b2
Xll LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
takes its name from the distinguished navigator (once
the Governor of Tasmania), whose recently ascertained
fate has stirred so many hearts with tender regret, and
filled them with a mournful satisfaction, the felt relief
which flows from certainty.
If I had thought it my vocation, I dare say I could
have written a book about Australia. In the course of
my journeys, and during my residence in various places,
there was much to observe ; much which it would have
been a pleasure to describe. Many things occurred highly
worthy of record and remembrance; not a few were
noticed that might have been discussed with some hope
of interesting, perhaps of benefiting, parties on both sides
of the world. Like others, I might haveN written about
is People I have met with." I could have noticed the
leading men, and have attempted sketches of the
Governors of the different colonies ! I might have
referred to the experiments which our friends are making
in political matters, entering into " the Land Question,"
and other peculiar Australian problems ; it would have
been natural to have described, possible to have become
eloquent in describing, Sydney harbour, with its innu-
merable bays and marvellous beauty; Melbourne, with
its crowded waters, noble streets, public buildings, and
a hundred other things, on all of which one looks with
perfect amazement, when reflecting that a very few
years ago the site of the city was uncleared bush, and
that on the very spot on which now stands some superb
erection, in which thousands can congregate for instruc-
tion or song, there might have been witnessed a battle or
a Corrobory ot naked barbarians. Then, the gold fields
A BOOK, AND NO BOOK. Xlll
might have furnished matter for remark ; or the Chinese,
and the questions and controversies respecting them ; or
a comparison of the colonies, their special character-
istics and common properties; prospects of literature,
colonial authors, the newspaper press ; educational sys-
tems ; material resources ; railways ; telegraphs sur-
face and sub-marine ; English habits how far preserved,
lowered, exaggerated, or likely to be modified by foreign
admixtures; all these, and a thousand-and-one other
things, of which I could not be unobservant, and which
were constantly coming up in my intercourse with men
of different ranks, views, and parties, might have been
turned into the topics of a book, which might possibly
have breathed its little day, of which Mr. Mudie
might have taken so many copies, and for which the
author might have received so many pounds.
But I never for a moment entertained the thought. I
left England w T ith no expectation of accomplishing any-
thing. I might possibly attempt to minister, to some
limited extent, among the Churches of my own denomi-
nation beyond that I had no hope ; as to publishing an
account of my voyage and visit, with observations on
the men and things of Australia, I no more thought
of that than of my finding a manuscript among the
aborigines, the relic and proof of former civilization,
learning the language, doing the work into English,
and sending it forth to interest the public and employ
the reviewers ! From the applications which have been
made to me by publishers, I am very much afraid that I
am expected to produce a book of Australian travel,
perhaps of adventure ! and that somewhere disappoint-
XIV LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
ment will be the consequence of my not doing so. I can
only say, that never, on one side of the world or the other,
have I myself done or said a single thing to encourage
any such expectation. Why should I ? I could have
said nothing, given no information, expressed no opinion,
indulged in no comments, uttered no prophecy, but what
has been better said, more fully and more accurately
given, by others ; persons, whose opinions or strictures
especially on general, commercial, and political
matters from their position, habits, period of residence,
and so on, are far more entitled to confidence and con-
sideration than anything I could advance would be.
But the simple truth is, a book on Australia was never
in my intention. I had no thought of that in going
thither at first ; and, when health returned to me there,
I still thought of nothing but of using my recovered
strength in such work as properly belonged to me, in
preaching as much as I could whencesoever the call
came, and in giving in the central cities occasional
lectures to young men. If any one has taken up this
book under the unauthorized and gratuitous expectation
to which I have referred, hoping for entertainment, or
looking for information respecting Australian matters in
general, I trust that as soon as he gets to this page, he
will at once lay it down. It will not interest him ; it
was not meant for him. I regret that he should be dis-
appointed, but for that disappointment I am not to blame.
Let him not avenge himself on the innocent. There is
great danger of this ; that is, of his being severe and
unjust towards this unoffending volume, because it does
not happen to be what he wished for, but what its author
ACCIDENTAL AUTHORSHIP. XV
never intended. There is no necessity in such a case
for deciding on one of " three courses," or even between
two ; the obvious and only course is a matter of intuition
" stop ;" " dorit go on?
II.
To those who advance further, venturing, from
interest or curiosity into this second section, the author
has a word or two to say, that a proper understanding
may be established between himself and them. It so
happened, then, that although I never contemplated
writing anything about Australia on my return home, I
was yet led, unexpectedly to myself, to write a good
deal while there, which, in one form or another, came
before the public. My visit, too, still more unexpectedly,
called into exercise the pens of others. Out of these
two things springs, as by accident, the present volume.
In South Australia, all denominations are more com-
pletely on a level than in the other colonies, in conse-
quence of State-aid having entirely ceased for some
years. This religious equality has not been without its
influence on the thinkings and sentiments of several
in the Episcopal Church ; on the Bishop himself,
some of the clergy, many of the members. Singu-
larly enough very much to my surprise at first,
somewhat afterwards to my annoyance the cogitations
of others found utterance in what connected my name
with two subjects of public discussion. They were
started the one by the Bishop, the other by laymen. I
have reason to know that, in both cases, my presence
was merely the occasion of bringing out what had long
XVI LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
been revolving in the minds of the respective parties. It
called into articulate utterance (and by no intentional or
conscious agency on my part) thoughts and feelings
which, for some considerable period, had been rising and
simmering, and slowly taking definite shape, or trying to
do so, in his Lordship on the one hand, and the Laymen
on the other.
In respect to both questions, my position was somewhat
difficult. The laymen only wanted, they said, the recog-
nition of a principle ; but they sought for this in my
person. It was not easy, so circumstanced, to engage in
the discussion of the question ; nor was it comfortable to
witness its discussion by others. It necessarily provoked
allusions and remarks, more or less personal, which
unnecessarily encumbered the argument, or conveniently
confused it, by obscuring the distinction between a prin-
ciple and a man. The Bishop's question, on the other
hand, though directly proposed to me with a request to
examine it, was set forth in a letter so carefully written
and of such length, that it could not be treated with
becoming respect, or receive adequate attention, without
more quiet than my constant removals from place to
place allowed me to secure. At length, while enjoying
something like rest in Tasmania, the annual meeting of
the Congregational Union of the colony occurred; and
by the courtesy of the Committee I was invited to
preside over it. I availed myself of the occasion to
discuss the subject submitted to me by the Bishop of
Adelaide. This was the origin of the " Address" which
constitutes the substance of the present volume; an
Address which the newspapers persisted in calling a
HOW THE WORK GREW. XV11
" Charge !" They had, perhaps, some ground for that ;
for it not only took two hours in the delivery (a frequent
Episcopal requirement of time), but I sat while I read it
to the members of the Assembly, the presbyter-bishops
and lay delegates of the Churches, to use high-sound-
ing terms, which may be quite as appropriate when so
applied as in some other cases.
The Address was requested to be published, and a
promise given that the request should be complied with.
A sudden call, however, from Tasmania to Sydney, and
many subsequent interruptions and migrations, prevented
the immediate fulfilment of the promise. While the
work was being thus necessarily intermitted or delayed,
things were constantly occurring and coming to my
notice things spoken, written, done, touching, more
or less, myself, my brethren, or the principles and insti-
tutions with which we are identified. I was drawn on
to advert to matters which all this suggested, (perhaps
in some instances provoked,) and thus, in more ways
than one, something came to be aimed at in the publica-
tion beyond the first projected reply to the Bishop of
Adelaide. This explanation was given in the preface to
the colonial edition of the Address ; which preface, after
a reference to some other points, concluded thus : " The
movements to which this volume refers may, it is
believed, turn out to be the beginning of events which
will furnish matter for a chapter in the Ecclesiastical
History of the Australian colonies. Whenever that
chapter is composed, these pages, it is hoped, will con-
tribute something towards its being fully and correctly
written." In this way I looked upon the book as pub-
XV111 LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
lished in Australia ; a spade-full of rubble thrown in
among the first rude layers of the Colonial Ecclesiastical
structure, which might not be without its use. This,
not so much from anything it contained of mine, as from
its being a memorial of the facts on which it was based,
and a repository of letters and documents to which they
had given rise, and which were included in it under the
title of " The Adelaide Correspondence."
But why re-publish such a book in England ? Espe-
cially why, when it will only disappoint, perhaps vex
and annoy, those who are looking for something else ;
many of whom are not interested in the topics discussed ;
or who are tired of them ; or who will not be bored with
what, in their opinion, can only seem important when
viewed through the peculiar medium of " the clerical
mind," or as exaggerated by the action of sectarian
prejudice ? I have put these questions to myself once
and again, and have as often thought only of the
obvious practical answer doing nothing. For many
weeks past nothing has been done, from this and other
obstructing causes. Nevertheless, I have at length
decided to send forth a home-edition of the work. Many
considerations, spontaneous or suggested, have led to
this. The reader does not wish to be troubled with
these ; the fact in which they have terminated is, of
course, sufficient for him. I have strong reasons, how-
ever, for wishing to refer to two of the considerations
which have weighed with me in deciding as I have
done. The exposition of these will not be a mere matter
of personal interest, of defence or apology, but will
consist of something far more important, involving
CATHEDRALS AND THEATRES. XIX
allusions to facts and occurrences of some moment in
themselves, and which will not probably be without
results.
III.
The first consideration arises from the singular forms
of religious action which have been going on during the
last two years, and which, within the last three months,
have rapidly developed into something still more re-
markable. Just as I was leaving for Australia, one of
the Metropolitan Cathedrals was about to be opened for
evening service. Preaching to the masses went on at an
increasing ratio, till there has come to be the extra-
ordinary forms which it has now taken, not only in the
fact of the use of Theatres for the purpose, but in that of
the Episcopal clergy uniting with the ministers of other
bodies in instruction and worship. In addition to this,
both in the Metropolis and in other places, special
services of various kinds have been extensively multi-
plied, in which clergymen have often been prominent ;
services for prayer, addresses, communion, sometimes on
neutral, sometimes on denominational, ground. The
result of this has been, if not the springing up of a
large-hearted catholic sentiment, at least the practical
oblivion of sectional differences. Now, without, of
course, knowing that any such thing was about to
occur, I referred, in the following Address, to the opinion
which, in common with many Dissenters, I had long
held, that far more might be expected from something
of this sort, men and ministers being brought together
in friendly and co-operative religious action, than from
XX LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
anything else. Better this, than either an attempt to
bring others to " join with us " on certain defined
" indispensable conditions," or to argue, from a distance,
on their deficiencies or faults. Something, of course,
must be wrong somewhere, as the root of the religious
divisions which distract the Church. No wise or candid
man can think that the sin is all on one side. I have
intimated my belief that much is not to be expected
from parties merely attempting to prove each other in
the wrong, but that perhaps something might come, of
change and benefit to all, if there was more of united
action in Church-life. Love and sympathy, practically
manifested, might do more to open the eye to perceive,
to dispose the tongue to acknowledge, and the hand to
rectify, denominational evils, than any controversial
logic, however demonstrative. We cannot preach in
one another's pulpits ; well, be it so ; in one aspect of
the matter this is a singular and startling fact. Singular,
as the Bishop of Adelaide puts it, " that a mid-wall of par- '
tition should so have separated kindred souls ; pledged
to the same cause, rejoicing in the same hope, and
devoted to the same duty of preaching Christ and Him
crucified to a dark and fallen world." But whatever
may be our respective idealisms, it so happens that we
are all living among very imperfect and rude realities ;
old, hard, complicated systems, intolerant of innovation,
which cannot easily be touched or handled, and which
must be accepted and worked with all their conditions.
If, however, we cannot do one thing, we may do
another. If there are forms of religious recognition and
action, by which the representatives of different Churches
SUNDAY MORNINa ON SHIP-BOARD. XXI
come before the world, a world which, while
understanding nothing of their ecclesiastical niceties,
needs to be saved, and may be won to wisdom by the very
sight of men who differ among themselves uniting in
their solicitude to serve and bless it, let us hope
that this will be beneficial to both parties. To those
without, who are to be acted upon ; and to those within,
the different sections of the visible Church, whose
members and ministers are agents in the work, and who
" strive together" with cordial sympathy and mutual
good-will.
Some of our friends are not at liberty to go into any
place of worship different from those of their own com-
munion ; to take part there in religious services ; t
appear to unite with the Society, or Church, assembling
in it, as such, though they may feel no difficulty in
devotional engagements with the ministers and members
of various bodies, as individual Christians, and on some
neutral platform. On all hands the question seems to
be, how to express brotherly love, and to manifest
spiritual union in Christ, without appearing to counte-
nance or sanction the supposed defects of one or other
ecclesiastical system ? There are those who think that they
can interchange pulpits without meaning more by that
act than to express their oneness in respect to the central
truth or truths whence emanates " the common salva-
tion." Hut if this cannot be done in Church or Chapel,
it may be well to do it in Music Halls, or Theatres, or
anywhere else. My friend, the Bishop of Melbourne,
when applied to on the subject, withheld his sanction
from clergymen attending special religious services, or
XX11 LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
social meetings in Non-episcopal places of worship ;
their uniting with the ministers and congregations of
other bodies, as such. But when he and I were
passengers together from Sydney to Melbourne, his
lordship himself proposed, on the Sunday morning
when a service was to be held, that he should read
prayers, and that I should preach. I would much
rather have listened to him ; but I gave in. After his
lordship had gone through the English service, I took
his place, and addressed the congregation. After I had
offered, at the close of the sermon, a short prayer, the
Bishop pronounced the benediction. This need not have
been, but I preferred it, and paused on purpose that it
might be, deeming it becoming as an act, if I may so
speak, of ministerial courtesy. But a service like this
could not have taken place on shore ; in an Episcopal
Church, or a Congregational; or with the congrega-
tion of either, as such, or with both united. But in the
cabin of a ship, and with a promiscuous collection of
individuals, it did not involve what it would have seemed
to do in an ecclesiastical edifice, with its customary
attendants. Since I left Australia, I observe that special
religious services have been held in different places,
over one of which the Bishop of Melbourne presided.
It was held in the Athenaeum, or Mechanics' Institute, at
Geelong, and was conducted by ministers of different
denominations.
Any thing that leads to united religious action, to
co-operative effort, aggressive, missionary, or whatever
form it may take, any thing that leads to this, among
men who, while adhering to different forms of Church
WHAT MAT COME OF IT. XX111
organization, are one in faith, must be good. The
present extraordinary movement may not do much, or
not at first, or not all that its originators anticipate ; and
care may even be taken by some engaged in it that it
# shall not appear to say too much. Still, something may be
expected to come out of it in the way of re-action, as well
as of direct result. Preaching in Theatres, special services,
denominational or united, cannot be expected to become
fixed and permanent. From the very nature of the
case, the extraordinary is exceptional, and must give way
to or grow into something else. Popular preachers
addressing the masses will cease to be a novelty ; the
movement may probably lose its power when it has lost
its freshness ; it will need to be intermitted, and may
then be resumed again with new vigour ; and thus it may
perhaps take something of the form of the great preach-
ing seasons in the Romish Church. In the mean time, it
may be casting light on the problem which has never
been met by either Church or Chapel, the Establishment
or the Sects, namely, the accommodation of the masses in
places of worship. That the Churches, as buildings,
belong to the poor, is as much a myth, as their flowing
into and taking possession of the pews of the Conventicle
would be a practical difficulty. When either Churches
or Meeting-houses have offered sermons to working men,
they have been specially set apart for them at particular
times. If all the Non-church-going population, respect-
ing the classes and numbers of which we often hear such
startling statistics, was to rise en masse and pour like an
inundation into all the places of metropolitan worship, it
would very much embarrass many a respectable congre-
XXIV LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
gation, and perhaps rather annoy a fashionable audience.
The idea of a number of persons meeting together,
sitting in something like private boxes, listening
Sunday after Sunday to the same individual, who for
years and years, with little variation, goes through the
customary service, this is not, I should think, very
much like what a Christian assembly was in apostolic
times ! It may be all very proper and right as things
are, and according to modern notions and habits. But it
is no matter for lamentation if, now and then, some-
thing occurs to break in upon our stereotyped traditions
and pharisaic respectabilities. It is well when unwonted
audiences can be collected together, assembled under
exciting circumstances, and spoken to without conven-
tional formalities. If in Cathedral, Church, Chapel,
well ; if not, anywhere. The present singular spectacle
of turning Theatres to account, looks at first very start-
ling ; almost as if it betrayed that the cause of religion
was becoming desperate. I confess I shrank from the
idea myself, when it was first mooted, shrank, with a
sort of instinctive recoil, the revulsion of the sense of
professional decorum ! The same thing was felt by
many ; but the palpable and manifest success of the
measure, success in the highest and best sense, has
greatly modified or altogether removed this. Of course,
the procedure in question is not itself an end ; but it may
be used as something towards higher results and ultimate
objects. It is a sort of sudden development of the
missionary character of the Church, its actual and
designed relation to the world. It will give freedom,
coldness, glow, power, to its speech and action. While it
w
FURTHER RESULTS. XXV
will operate spiritually in many ways, leading to simpler
and more forcible forms of preaching the Gospel, properly
speaking; promoting the conversion of the rude and
godless, " delivering them from the power of darkness
and translating them into the kingdom of God's dear Son;"
it may operate ecclesiastically so as to help to the
solution of vexed questions, or to break up traditionary
abuses. Men, saved by their being gathered together
where there is the free proclamation of the truth, may
be changed from being the gratuitous recipients of the
Gospel to being its eager and willing supporters ; and
instead of refusing to go into a Church because of its
supposed expense or exactions, may esteem it their
privilege to have a place there, and to help to sustain
it for themselves and others. Settled congregations
may receive benefit; ministers and people may get
new views of their respective duties. On the one hand,
there may be the ready abandonment, for frequent or
occasional special service, of what many would seem
to think it their right to monopolise ; and, on the other,
a more efficient fulfilment of " the work of the ministry,"
by the energetic "doing of that of the Evangelist."
Different denominations, engaged together in the same
high service, because, with all their diversities of order,
they stand together round what is central and therefore
catholic truth, will learn, in the discharge of such combined
action, better than in making complimentary speeches at
public meetings, the true meaning of Church, Churches.
Ministry, Sacraments, u One Lord," u One baptism,"
" Diversities of Administration," " The same Spirit," and a
hundred other things, which, in time, will operate bene-
c
XXVI LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
ficially on all sides. Having long entertained such
thoughts, and having been led to give utterance to some of
them in the following Address, I am willing to hope that,
though the circle to which its interest must necessarily
be confined here will be very limited, its publication
may not be altogether inopportune or useless. As the
new movements to which I have referred, originated
with, and have principally been sustained by, earnest
laymen, as high ecclesiastics have looked on, neither
blessing nor cursing, approving or disapproving, willing
to let things take their course since they have begun
to move, but acknowledging that they must have
forbidden action had they been consulted, I shall be
pardoned, I hope, if, on this account, I yield to the
temptation of troubling the reader with the following
extract. It is taken from a paper which I had occasion
to publish in Adelaide, but which it did not appear
necessary to include in the present volume.
" The probability is, that any general agreement
among Christians, any new order of things, will spring
out of our acting together as far as we can, and not
from the discussions of ecclesiastics. The inward life of
the Church itself, the spiritual longings of the flock
of Christ, may become so strong, active, and irresistible,
that, without breaking down the form of the folds peculiar
to particular portions of the whole, they shall yet one
day so overpass them as to reach and realise, through an
accomplished fact, what never would have been secured
by ecclesiastical negotiations. As women, by a quick
unreasoning instinct, often arrive at the best and wisest
practical decisions, while men are thinking and hesitating
THE TWO PICTURES. XXV11
perplexed, so a religious, zealous, and active laity will
often be found ready for an advance, and will be pre-
pared to settle some knotty question by positive acts,
before the clerical mind can see its way. We divines,
especially in relation to ecclesiastical matters, are apt to
forge strong iron bolts with which to bar our doors
against each other ; the laity have not skill to draw
these bolts, and we dare not or will not ; but every now
and then a time comes when the force of the confined
and crowded mass presses against the limits which
enclose it the doors suddenly open the bolts are
broken or fly off, being found, after all, to have no
better fastening than tin-tacks. Thus will it be, most
likely, with practical measures of Christian co-operation
between different Churches. Instead of everything being
settled and arranged first, by our all agreeing in certain
specified ecclesiastical traditions, something will be done
somebody will act arguments will afterwards be
found to justify it ; and then out of this may emerge at
length " the Church of the Future."
The correctness of what I have been saying, and of
what was said before in the above extract, has, while I
write, been illustrated by facts singularly significant.
I refer to two pictures worthy of being painted and
preserved which have recently been placed before the
wondering eyes of the English people. On the one
hand, the scene in Convocation, where the clergy met
to talk, and to do nothing ; where they protested against
the slightest symptom of progress, proclaimed that no
step could be taken for fifty years to come, would not
c 2
XXV111 LIGHTS AXD SHADOWS.
recognize the propriety of altering, in the least, old
forms, and professed their utter inability to make a new
prayer ! On the other, the scene in the House of Lords,
when Lord Dungannon introduced his motion against
preaching in Theatres, where the sole manifestation of
thorough earnestness appeared in Lord Shaftesbury, as
the representative of the active Laity of the Church.
I try all I can not to use strong language, but it is
difficult to avoid it when looking on the contrast between
words and work, sham and reality, fettered tradi-
tionalism and free zeal, muttering shadows, the ghosts
of the past, and living men of flesh and blood, with arms
and hands to do something !
) to
IV.
The second consideration which has induced me
consent to the present issue of this book, arises from the
advance which seems to have been made, during the
last two years, in the matter of Liturgical Revision.
On this subject I have always felt a deep interest, not
only although I am a Dissenter, but because I am one.
The question necessarily came before me in the follow-
ing Address. One or two of the things referred to in
connexion with it will be new to some. I shall be glad
if any thing I have said comes to be of service. My
reasons for being interested in the subject are manifold ;
two or three of them I should like to mention. They
are such as these :
In the first place ; because the religious grounds of
Nonconformity to the Church of the Prayer-Book are,
as I think, far more intelligible and convincing to the
LITURGICAL REVISION. XXIX
common mind, and, perhaps I might say, far more
serious in themselves, than the grounds, theoretic or prac-
tical, of Dissent properly so called ; that is, Dissent regarded
simply as a protest against an Establishment, irrespective
of the tenets of the Church established, although these
are by no means inconsiderable, especially in an advanced
state of society, and in a nation like our own, in which
liberty of thought and action is secured.
Secondly ; because of the effects of the exacted sub-
scription of the Church of England on personal character,
private feeling, and public morality. I go by what I
have read of the acknowledgments of clergymen, by
what I have seen and heard in my intercourse with the
world, and by the very nature of the case.
Thirdly; because, whatever may be the right or
wrong in theories of Church Government and systems
of doctrine ; however we may profess to take our
stand on Scripture itself, as if we were living on an
island/and the Book had dropped down upon us from
the clouds, and we had to do the best we could with it
for ourselves ; however this may be, the fact is, that
the historical position of Nonconformity is a relative
one. It is that of protest against the system which
caused and created it. It has a message, therefore, to
deliver, a mission to fulfil, in respect to those whose
former conduct compelled it to part company with them ;
who, by what they then retained, adopted, or enforced,
in spite of representation, remonstrance, and appeal,
occasioned the disruption. Cast out, reluctantly de-
parting, obliged by conscience to submit to be reduced
to so many separate units, our fathers had to do the
XXX LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
best they could to recover anything like a corporate
existence. If we have found reasons for preferring the
form which their societies assumed, and being satisfied
with it, that does not forbid (perhaps it demands) that
we should utter our protest against those things from
which they fled, and which, being still retained, are
not without a palpable relation to ourselves. We
have not only a right to complain of what wronged
us ; it is our privilege to seek the improvement of an
institution which, with all its imperfections, has mighty
capabilities for good; an institution, whose moral
power would be incalculably enhanced, if, listening to
entreaty within and accusation without, it put away
what cripples and defiles it ; a result this, which Non-
conformity ought to rejoice in as the attainment of one
of the ends for which it lives and speaks, whether
or not it led to the termination of a long and originally
an enforced estrangement.
Fourthly, and as the other side of this same thought ;
because, in England, and as an Englishman, I regard
the Church as a national institution. In the colonies, the
Episcopal community is one denomination among many
I heard a Catholic priest, in a large assembly at
Melbourne, employ the term in speaking of his own
Church but in England it professes to be national, to
belong to and to exist for the nation at large. It does so.
We endow it with property and give it the use of
edifices which belong to us; property and buildings
in which we cannot cease to retain an interest ; for the
proper employment of which we hold the Church to be
responsible, and to be liable, therefore, to be called
CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS. XXXI
to account. Many of the clergy complain that, in
their opinion, the Church, from its need of and its
resistance to improvement, either operates injuriously
to a large extent on spiritual religion, or is not so bene-
ficial as it ought to be, and might be. It is not for us
(the people) to suffer such a state of things to continue.
It is our duty to prevent this, to exercise our un-
doubted constitutional privilege of advancing the
interests of the community, serving our own generation
and the generations that are to come, by seeking to
render a great power in the midst of us which
belongs to us, which is ours, and ours to influence
and affect efficient for good rather than evil. As
an Englishman, I claim it as my privilege to interfere
with evervthinp* that is national, and therefore with
the Church. And in respect to it, not merely to
touch, alter, modify its external and money-relations
to the State, but, by all fair and legitimate means,
to seek to influence it as a religious institution, to pro-
mote reformation, revision, improvement, or any thing
else, by which it may more fully discharge that spiritual
service which, so long as it professes to be national, the
nation is not only justified in expecting, but in seeing that
it is rendered, and rendered in the best possible form.*
Fifthly ; because, in consequence of the known terms
of subscription, and the popularly-understood meaning
of the Prayer-Book, there springs up between the
clergy and the laity a state of things injurious to
both. This is touched upon in the following Address,
and is illustrated by a fact, just brought to light, which
* Note A, at the end of the Chapter.
XXX11 LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
will surprise some, and which, in itself, is singularly
suggestive. I may here add, that the state of things
to which I allude the disbelief in the pew of what
has been solemnly accepted by the pulpit, and has on
certain occasions to be vocally declared especially affects
many Dissenters who, from various causes, become
attendants on Anglican worship. I do not speak of
those who practically conform from low motives ; who
take up with the Church in the hope that the world will
take up them ; who become ashamed of the Conventicle
when they rise in circumstances, and leave it for the
sake of the countenance of society or the opinion of a
neighbourhood. Such people are neither loss nor gain
to any Church. I refer, rather, to thoughtful, intelli-
gent, good men ; Nonconformists, who fully understand
the religious grounds and reasons of Nonconformity,
and who personally believe that the Offices of the Church
are designedly built upon, and consecutively evolve,
serious error. I am perfectly aware of the many
inducements which may lead such men to give up
practical Dissent ; to prefer going quietly to Church, and
sitting down in the enjoyment of what they find there.
They may like the ordinary public service, in which
there is little to offend ; comparatively unobserved, with-
out remark, they can obey or not, as they feel disposed at
the time, their inward impulses in respect to communion ;
they can be religious without saying, or appearing to say,
any thing about it; they make less profession; have
more freedom ; and are less in danger, or think they
are, of mistaking sectional reputation for ascertained
safety, and of putting the feeling called forth by deno-
PERSONAL INCONSISTENCIES, AND ECCLESIASTICAL. XXX111
minational interests in the place of a wide and compre-
hensive catholic sentiment. I can understand all that.
Nevertheless, with the known views and serious convic-
tions of the men referred to, it is a question whether
what they do, considered in its influence, is not a great
price to pay for what they avoid or what they enjoy.
By regular, acquiescent, silent conformity, they give
their support to the whole of a system, a system which,
they think, tempts numbers to say what makes their
public position intolerable and false. They perpetuate
this. They help to rivet on the necks of many a heavy
burden which they should rather endeavour to lessen or
remove. In these remarks I am neither calling men
from the Church, nor back to Dissent. I am only illus-
trating the duty, which is that of Churchman and Dis-
senter alike, of a man's not " condemning himself in the
thing which he alloweth." The hope of seeing less of
this, in particular directions, is a reason with me for being
interested in the progress of liturgical reform.*
Lastly ; I am interested in the subject, because the
evil combated is only a part, in my opinion, of a
general one, one which, more or less, is to be met
with everywhere. The agitation of it, and reference
to it, therefore, where it is most patent, and is con-
tinually obtruding itself on public attention, may, it is
hoped, re-act on other spheres and other communities
where it is less obvious but as real. With all their
professions, and in spite of their repudiation of human
authority, there are modes of virtual subscription among
the sects, and of legally uniting income and office to
* Note B, at the end of the Chapter.
XXXIV LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
questionable opinions, which are not without results on
the mental uprightness, the freedom, happiness, and
self-respect of Nonconformists themselves. In some
other bodies, the demand on the young candidate for
the ministry of solemn signature and expressed ad-
herence to all and every thing in a volume or volumes
of Church standards, is enough to burden both mind
and heart, ever after to repress thought or to make
it a torment. I do not say there should be no minis-
terial confession of faith, or acceptance of order and
ceremony, on taking office in a Church ; but I do say,
that every thing should be as general as possible to
avoid its becoming a snare, and that men should rather
look to spiritual life than to mechanical appliances. I
should like to see, on all sides, more simplicity, less
exaction. Many can see the mote in their brother's eye,
and taunt him with it, who need to be told that " a beam
is in their own." Or, we may reverse the case, and, for
the sake of argument, assume that to be the right way
of putting it. My point would then stand thus : the
sacramental and sacerdotal elements in the Offices of the
Church, are, to some people, as obvious and offensive as
a beam in the eye in the sense of " rafter ! " It is well,
therefore, to keep their attention awake to such an
enormity, since that, by a reflex action, may benefit
themselves. In some thoughtful hour, they may be led
to the discovery of what they little suspect, they may
find out that a mote is unconsciously interfering with
their own vision ! and that, too, with disastrous effect
as any small object close to the eye will darken the earth
and hide the sun.
RECENT CLERICAL PUBLICATIONS. XXXV
V.
Such are some of the thoughts which have overcome
mv repugnance to publish here what necessity com-
pelled me to write when abroad, to write, after I had
hoped that I was done for ever with ecclesiastical
questions. Not that I deem such matters insignificant ;
quite the contrary ; only one gets tired of " doubtful
disputations," especially when we can be silent without
sin, and may leave speech and writing to younger men.
I may have mistaken my own motives in past times,
but so far as I know them, I never put pen to paper in
the way of controversy, but with the hope and desire
of promoting ultimately unity and love, through the
establishment or discovery of the right and true. Since
I came home, several publications have been sent to me
by their respective authors, or by unknown friends,
bearing upon the questions which are handled in this
work. These publications show that Church Union,
Liturgical Revision, Historical Nonconformity, and
kindred subjects, are occupying the minds and moving
the pens of clergymen in a way worthy of note. It
seemed, therefore, not inappropriate to show how the
state of things on this side of the world gets transferred
to, and reproduced in the other. I see no help for it ;
because I see no prospect of Presbyterians, Wesleyans,
Independents, and other Non-episcopal bodies, becoming
convinced that they are all schismatics, acknowledging
their sin, giving up their practical freedom of action,
and submitting themselves to the control of the English
Bishops. This is what is required, both in England
XXXVI LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
and Australia, as necessary to Christian union. It may
be very proper ; but it is not a likely thing in itself,
nor likely to be of speedy attainment. Our friends,
however, begin with that demand; and it becomes
necessary to state to them the difficulties in the way of
its being complied with.
Among the pamphlets which have been recently
published, there are two which I think specially remark-
able. The one is entitled, "The Liturgy and the
Dissenters." By the Rev. Isaac Taylor, M.A. The
other, " Thoughts on the Liturgy. The difficulties of
an honest and conscientious use of the Book of Common
Prayer considered, as a loud and reasonable call for the
only remedy, Revision." By the Rev. Philip Gell, M.A.
Some of the points on which, in self-defence, I had to
insist in Australia, are handled in these two works with
a fulness and power which far exceeds any thing we
Dissenters have ever said for ourselves. In the first,
Mr. Taylor shows, by historical facts, what a repelling
and schismatical spirit animated the Church in 1661-2 ;
how it not only resisted every approach to conciliation
in revising the Prayer-Book, but designedly increased
and multiplied difficulties by the introduction of new
and objectionable matter ; how it culminated at last in
the Act of Uniformity, and inevitably, and of purpose,
compelled the secession of the ejected ministers. In the
second, Mr. Gell enters into the consideration of those
expressions and statements in the Offices of the Church,
which, in their natural and obvious sense, constitute the
ground of our enforced " dichostasy ;" which sense he
demonstrates to be that in which alone they can be
DR. ROBINSON S " CHURCH QUESTIONS. XXXV11
understood. This he does, in opposition to all attempts,
by charitable hope theories, hypothetical senses, under-
stood conditions, to make them mean what they do not
say. As some of my readers will attach more import-
ance to what comes from within the Chnrch itself, than
to what is said by us that are without, I shall give, at
the end of this volume, a few extracts from these two
pamphlets. As the second centenary of 1661-2 is close
at hand, when it will not be improper for Dissenters to
commemorate what their fathers did, and to explain to
their children why they did it, the proposed extracts may
be of use to some in directing or stimulating inquiry.
I may possibly also connect with them a glance at one
or two illustrative Australian facts.
To the appearance, in England, sometime last year, of
portions of " The Adelaide Correspondence," I suppose
I am indebted for some of the publications which have
recently been sent to me. Among these may be
reckoned one on " Church Questions," by the Rev. C.
Robinson, LL.D. The "questions" discussed are many,
but the two in winch personally I feel most interest are
those on " a revision of the Liturgy," and on the " res-
toration of Dissenters to the Church." I cannot afford
either time or space for a minute exposition of Dr.
Robinson's views. As, however, he makes " an earnest
appeal to all pious Dissenters, to examine deliberately
and dispassionately the terms which he proposes for
their restoration to the communion of the National
Church," it may not be improper to offer one or two
brief remarks upon his scheme. I do not feel that I
need attempt more than this, because his terms and
XXXV111 LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
conditions so coincide, in many respects, with those sug-
gested by the Bishop of Adelaide, that they are met by
anticipation in the following pages. I don't at all pre-
tend that either his views or Dr. Short's are adequately
met, and bv no means so in the sense of being answered:
but only that I have explained, as far as I am able, how
it appears to me that some in the Non-episcopal bodies
will regard them. These men may be right or wrong,
moderate or unreasonable, that is matter of opinion ; I
can only take the fact and say, that, thinking thus and
thus, the probability is, that such and such would be
their reply.
As to the question of " revision," Dr. Robinson gives
up the form of absolution in the " Visitation of the Sick."
He adheres, indeed, to an explanation of it which makes
it simply declaratory, not sacerdotal, but he is willing,
nevertheless, to let it go. He says, "No alteration, I
am sure, would be hailed with greater delight by thou-
sands and tens of thousands of earnest Churchmen than
the complete expunging of this objectionable form from
our Book of Common Prayer." Looking, however, at
his alterations in the Baptismal Service, it may be
enough to say, that Dissenters would not> I suspect,
regard them as sufficient. I speak more especially for
Independents. If I understand their theory, they
occupy a middle point between Episcopalians and Bap-
tists. Both these bodies connect baptism with a fact ;
the one uses the rite as the instrument of effecting it,
the other as recognizing that it is effected. Indepen-
dents associate the rite with truth a profession of
belief in what is exhibited in symbol, with the recogni-
DR. ROBINSON ON " REVISION " AND " UNION." XXxix
tion of consequent relative duty. Dr. Robinson is
liberal to the Baptists, telling them that the Church
admits of immersion, and, that as she fixes no time for
children to be baptized, they might delay the ordinance
as long as they pleased. Still, I think both Baptists
and Independents would object to his Baptismal Service,
and to the words he proposes to insert in the Catechism.
He omits the term "regeneration," but he teaches that
" in baptism we are made members of Christ, children
of God, and inheritors of the kingdom of heaven."
Now, while one class of Dissenters regards the ordinance
as a solemn and significant exhibition of spiritual truth,
and another regards it, in addition to that, as a pro-
fession that the objective has become subjective, (to use
a modern, or rather revived, dialect,) I doubt whether
either would say that in baptism the thing was done.
I am not advocating either the one theory or the other.
I merely say that, Independents and Baptists thinking
thus, (even though both may be wrong,) I doubt
whether they could accept what Dr. Robinson wishes
them to receive.
With respect to the union of all other denominations
with the Episcopal, or rather the restoration of the
sects to the Church, I have little to say, Dr. Robinson's
views being, as I have intimated, substantially the same
as Dr. Short's. Neither of our clerical friends can be
satisfied with anything in the shape of union that shall
not bring all the existing religious bodies into organic
confederation under one recognized ecclesiastical "Rule."
Dr. Robinson, indeed, goes so far as to say, that if any
Church system, other than his own, can establish a fair
xl LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
claim to become predominant, lie would be disposed to
say, let it be so ; but, as that, he thinks, is quite out of
question, the only alternative remains that Episcopacy
must be universally accepted. He submits this, therefore,
to the Church of Scotland, the Wesleyan Methodists,
and other bodies. How far " Moderators" in Scotland,
and "Presidents" in England, are likely to agree to be
consecrated Bishops, and all the ministers and all the
congregations of the two bodies represented by them, to
become identified with the English Church, I must leave
it for some of themselves to say. It will be enough,
so far as I am concerned, to put before the reader a few
passages from Dr. Robinson's work, the favourable
acceptance of which, by the body of Dissenters to which
I belong, appears to me to be at least doubtful.
The passages, which thus strike me, are of two kinds ;
the one class consists of what Dr. Robinson says to
Dissenters, as to what he thinks they might do ; the
other of what he says of them, if they won't do it. An
example or two of each must suffice. The following
belong to the first class :
" 1. Let each denomination prepare a service for themselves
out of the Book of Common Prayer, omitting such prayers, can-
ticles, &c, as they object to, and arranging the rest in any order
they please ; with this exception only, that they alter not a single
clause or word in the formularies themselves. This I conceive to
be absolutely necessary to prevent unpleasant disputes, and to
preserve unity.
" 2. When aDy such service is approved by their own body,
then let it be submitted to the Bishops of the Church, that so it
may be authoritatively licensed for the use of the particular society
in question.
" 3. Such services to be used in the Chapels of the society at a
.
WARLIKE. xli
different hour from the Church service, except where the Bishop
may see fit to sanction otherwise." (P. 43.)
" If a Dissenting minister be willing to place himself and con-
gregation under Episcopal control, but object to re-ordination, the
Bishop shall then license him to offer up, prayers and preach to
that congregation, on condition that he and his people receive the
sacraments in the Church, and a pledge be given that, after his
death or removal, tbe Bishop shall ordain a minister to such con-
gregation." (P. 44.)
" If [Non-episcopal] ordinations be only of do u b tful validity, and
possibly schismatical, it will be wise in Dissenting ministers to
leave the conferring of orders to the Bishops for the future, whilst
their renunciation of the office will, in time, absorb Dissent in the
unity of the Apostolic Church." " Without the
sacrifice of scarcely a scruple, they would be at once relieved from
the odium of schism, and enjoy the inestimable privilege of full
communion with the Apostolic Church." (Pp. 45, 47.)
Of the second class, the following may be given :
" Let us make every allowable concession, and then, if the
Dissenters prefer division, and continue in unjustifiable separation
from the Church, when she earnestly entreats their return, and is
willing to receive them almost on their own terms, upon them-
selves be the sin of schism, and its inevitable consequences."
(P. 38.)
" Of course I contemplate the possibility that, after all, the
Dissenters may not be willing to accept the concessions which the
Church shall make ; that, in spite of every overture, they may
prefer open hostility to peaceful communion ; whence the question
immediately occurs, What then? Shall we establish Defence
Societies, and Church-rate Associations, and institutions for
protecting the Church from the assaults of her enemies, which
some have recommended ? Certainly not. I am disposed to
say that, if she be not able, in virtue of her inherent powers
and Divine authority, to repel with majestic dignity the clamorous
agitation of wilful and irreconcileable schismatics, without the
lath-and-plaster props of any such temporary expedients, it is
time for her to suffer persecution, it is time for her indolent
shepherds to be aroused from an inglorious truce with her foes
by the trumpet-call to battle, and the sooner the conflict begins
the better." (P. 69.)
D
xlii LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
" Supposing, however, that they [the Dissenters] still refuse to
meet us in a conciliatory spirit, and are determined to continue an
agitation which is disastrous to the highest interests of the
nation, ' then,' as said Napoleon, * it is a maxim in military art
that the army which remains in its entrenchments is heaten.'
However painful the duty, there must be no more fraternization
with Dissent ; we must proclaim from every pulpit the sin of
unnecessary divisions, and wage a vigorous and aggressive warfare
against sectarianism in all its forms, and make terrible havoc
with the strongholds of schism, &c." (P. 72.)
I do not think it necessary to comment upon these
extracts; I merely give them as containing matter to
which I think Dissenters will object ; which is not cal-
culated to meet their views, to alter their convictions, to
justify to themselves conformity to the Church, or to
conciliate and persuade them to listen to the proposed
overtures. Besides, something will be met with in the
following pages which will be found to bear on many of
the points which are here raised. Dr. Robinson is evi-
dently a zealous, warm-hearted, good man, but I am
disposed to think that he is unacquainted with the prin-
ciples and spirit of religious Dissent, at least if I con-
ceive of it rightly. For myself, I admire and accede to
the views which he expresses, in common with the
Bishop of Adelaide, of what should be the comprehensive
constitution of the Church ; that it might include great
variety of association and action, be characterized by a
noble breadth, admit of all sorts of societies, lay-preaching,
out-of-door services, private meetings for the edification
of a few, sober splendour and choral pomp for the im-
pression of the many, if kept in subordination to the
exhibition of the Truth ; but it is not possible now to make
it a condition for this that all must be connected with a
"A MORE EXCELLENT WAT." xliii
universal subjection to one * Rule." It might have been
well, if what is called the Church had been loving
and wise, and had kept within herself all varieties of
action, by allowing free scope to the different manifesta-
tions of her own inward life, instead of alienating and
driving away whatever overpassed her prescriptions and
traditions ; but the Church, now, is all God's people in
the nation at large (to speak only of our own country),
whether united together under one form of discipline or
another ; and the only way by which it can be felt to
be one, is by the culture everywhere of a Catholic senti-
ment, and a readiness among Christians and Christian
communities to recognize and rejoice in their mutual
brotherhood, and as far as possible to co-operate in
action. It is too late for any particular Church to seek
to "absorb" all others into itself. Distinct organizations
are not necessarily schismatical, separation in form, if
the spirit be right, is not schism. It is beginning at the
wrong end to demand of others conformity to us, and
then, if they should prefer to retain what Christ has
blessed to their spiritual sustenance, their solace and
their joy, to give them bad names, to deny their brother-
hood, to determine to wage with them aggressive warfare,
to make terrible havoc upon their strongholds, perhaps
u silencing their ministers " and " breaking up their
establishments against their will." Religious Noncon-
formity has " not so learned Christ." It can recognize
His Church under all forms ; rejoices in the truth for
the truth's sake, m herever it is found in its purity and
power ; and is ready to fraternize in any way and to any
extent with those who hold it, leaving secondary agree*
d2
xliv LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
ments, as to order and rule, to come as a result out of
such and so brotherly a beginning. " As far as ye have
attained walk by the same rule, mind the same thing ;
and [then] if in anything ye be differently minded, God
will reveal even that unto you."
I had once intended to advert to several other things
in this chapter, but I have, already, not only made the
porch too large for the building, but have placed in
it, I fear, some of the furniture of the inner rooms. I
shall here close, therefore, these preliminary explanations.
In doing so, I must just allow myself two words more.
The first is, to request the reader distinctly to under-
stand, that " Lights and Shadows of Church-Life in
Australia,"means,notaZZ of either, but only some of each,
those, which I have occasion to describe. It would be a
large book indeed, and might be a deeply suggestive one,
which should take up the whole subject, and depict the
rise and progress, the condition and action of all the
religious bodies in all the colonies, with their excellences
and defects, their relations to each other, their prosperity
or decline, their degrees of adaption to the state of society,
their future prospects, and a hundred other things. I aim
at nothing of the sort, and have therefore to request the
recollection and application of the rule of the poet " In
every work regard the writer's end."
The second word is, that I cannot present to the
English reader what was originated in Australia,
without expressing my lively and grateful remembrance
of the unlooked-for kindnesses I met with there. No
on
CONCLUSION. xlv
one was half so surprised as myself by the attention
I received from all classes of the community; from
the different Governors of the several colonies ; from
men of all parties of politics and religion ; from the
inhabitants of cities and dwellers in the bush ! Welcome,
hospitality, outstretched hands and warm hearts met us
everywhere. Green spots live in the memory ; forms
and friendships, pleasant to recall, fill the mind with
felicitous recollections. It was good to see crowded
assemblies eagerly listening to the word of life ; better
to know that to some souls the message was not without
spiritual results. To the masses of young men who
crowded to lectures especially addressed to them, and
looked and listened with far more than average intelli-
gence, I owe much for their hearty sympathy, and am
willing to hope that some of the seeds, literary or
religious, which I endeavoured to sow, will not be with-
out fruit some future day. For leading men in all
departments, for those who are the rising hope of the
land, especially for the ministers of every Church, I
offer my constant supplications to God. With the glow
and earnestness of an undying interest in a country
whose very infancy has about it the prophetic intimations
of future greatness, I utter the wish of its favourite motto
" Advance Australia ! "
xlvi
NOTES.
A.
An unexpected blank space offers room here for
note or two. The following observations of my frienc
Dr. S , may interest some. Taking up, in my study,
the proof of p. xxxi., and reading it, he sat for some time
afterwards looking at the fire, and then said :
" The ground you take justifies, in my view, agitation on a sub-
ject, which it was not, perhaps, within your province to notice,
but winch is at present occupying public attention; I mean
Church-rates. The strong, obvious, and felt objection to Church-
rates is a religious one ; the injustice of men being compelled to
contribute to the current expenses of the worship of a Church
from which they conscientiously dissent, they themselves pro-
viding, in every respect, for the support of their own forms, and
even giving largely to many benevolent agencies for promoting
the spiritual good of the masses at home, and of the world at
large. The right of the aggrieved to seek, through Parliament,
such a change in the relations of the Episcopal Church to the
State as shall relieve them from the felt injustice, is constitutional.
" But it may be supposed that if Dissenters are exempted from
the payment of Church-rates, it will involve their surrender of
the right to interfere with the Church. Not so, as I think. The
removal of the religious grievance will not affect the political
privilege. Dissenters, as Christians, may cease to pay for the
religion of others, but, by that, they would not, as Englishmen,
make over the property of the nation to a portion of the people,
to become the private and absolute possession of that portion,
irrespective of the rest. National property would still remain
the property of the nation, including Dissenters. They, as thus
included, would have the same right as ever to see after their
notes. xlvii
own, and to interfere with it. The Episcopal Church, like any
other religious community, may possess much which privately
and denominationally belongs to it ; but there is far more, in the
form both of edifices and income, which is the property of the
nation, with which, through its Parliament, the nation can deal.
With the Church, in its present numerical relation to the people,
the matter might fairly be put thus : those who use the eccle-
siastical edifices of the country are its tenants, tenants-at-will, it
may be said, for the nation might determine to have none at all,
or might prefer a different class. By the ceasing of Church-rates,
the terms of occupation would be altered, but the ownership of the
property would not change hands. Those who used the Churches
would do so on a new and more equitable condition, the condi-
tion of keeping them in repair, and paying the expenses of their
own worship, instead of, as heretofore, compelling the landlord to
do tins in addition to his letting them have the buildings without
rent. It is not necessary to pay rates, for us to retain, as EDglish-
men, our interest in the property. If it were, we should do this,
so far as keeping up the buildings is concerned, rather than
relinquish them, for the time may come, I trust it will, when, by
some new and just arrangement, the nation, as a whole, may have
the use and benefit of what, as a whole, it possesses.
" Parliament may settle the pecuniary matter by force of law, in
spite of the Church; religious reform should be the Church's own
act, but it may be urged upon it by remonstrance and argument
from without. If the demands of the people come to be such, and
to be so seconded by legislative interference, that the conscience of
the Church must of necessity withstand them, it could protect
itself, preserve its integrity, and retain whatever doctrines, claims,
and ceremonies it pleased, by ceasing to be an endowed and
established nationality."
B.
Page xxxiii.
All that is meant is, that Evangelical Churchmen and Dissenting
Conformists should not content themselves with ^rirate??/ objecting
to the Church formularies. Many a time, in the parlour, I have
heard some of both classes condemn the clergy who preached con-
sistently with the meaning of the Prayer-Book, and at the same time
wonder how others who did not, and whose preaching they approved,
xlviii LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
managed to reconcile their position with their opinions. Now,
such people, it is thought, instead of so acting as to give the
impression that they regard every thing as quite right, should,
occasionally at least, in some public way, speak and act with
those who are honestly and openly seeking liturgical reform.
They would thus he preserved from merely doing what misrepre-
sents themselves and misleads others.
It may be said, that the observations in the text and those just
made might, in spirit, be quite fairly used in an opposite direction
to that in which I employ them. Admitted. I have no objection.
In all Churches there are things felt by some to be erroneous or
wrong. Without deeming it necessary, in any given case, to
separate, such persons not only may speak, but, if the things be
serious, they ought to speak, express their convictions, and seek
improvement. " Christian men shrink from independent investi-
gation, chiefly because they think it inexpedient. Certain forms of
thought, right or wrong, have, it is said, for generations been
regarded as ' worthy of all acceptation ;' under these forms men
have received spiritual blessings of the highest value ; in the belief
of them they have lived well and died happily. Why unsettle
such landmarks? . . . [Answer:] The forms of thought [in
question] are either true or false. ... If suspicion has
arisen that they are, after all, only partially true, at the best,
one-sided exhibitions of the truth ; that they involve fallacies,
produce exaggerated, and therefore inaccurate, impressions, they
must on no account be shielded from examination, for, whatever
may be the supposed value of any form of thought, if it involve
error, the support of it, or, which is the same thing, the determina-
tion not to undeceive those who hold it, is in the eye of God an
immoral procedure. " *
* " The Interpreter." No. I., pp. 5, 6. This is too strongly ex-
pressed, unless the above-mentioned condition " if the things be
serious " is understood ; for there really are matters, which it would
be " inexpedient " to do anything with, but quietly to leave to time,
the great innovator and rectifier.
LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
ON THE UNION
OF
PROTESTANT EVANGELICAL CHURCHES,
AND A POSSIBLE
EIGHT EEV. THE BISHOP OF ADELAIDE,
SOUTH AUSTRALIA.
IN A LETTER TO
THE EEV. T. BINNEY.
INTBODUCTOBY NOTE.
Bishop's Court, October 4, 1858.
Dear Sir,
I send you some thoughts which have occurred
to me on a subject which has often occupied my mind, but more
especially since I had the pleasure of forming your acquaintance.
Such as they are, and expressed in the words pretty nearly that
first came to hand, I lay them before you in the hope that they
will not widen, if they do not bridge, the gap that separates us
ecclesiastically, though I trust not spiritually, nor for ever.
I remain, Reverend Sir, yours faithfully,
Augustus Adelaide.
Rev. T. Binney.
r
P.S. I leave Adelaide to-morrow morning on a five weeks'
tour, and fear that I shall not have an opportunity of bidding
you farewell.
ON THE UNION
OF
PROTESTANT EVANGELICAL CHURCHES,
Sec, ft;
Bishop's Court, September 23, 1858.
1. Ret. Sie, During our social intercourse yester-
day, at the house of a common friend, you were pleased
to take notice of a remark which fell from me to this
effect that we in this colony had the advantage of
occupying " an historic stand-point," so to speak, from
which we might look back upon our past social, political,
and Church-life in England, and, removed from the
smoke and noise of the great mother-city, might discern
through all its greatness somewhat of folly and mean-
ness, of defect and vice, in its habits and institutions.
The survey would not be unprofitable if it should lead us
to perceive how we had been blinded by its attractions,
so as to become unconscious of its faults ; and so hurried
away by its feelings and associations as to be insensible
4 ON THE UNION OF
of the conventional bondage in which we then lived and
moved.
2. It must, I think, be admitted that the clerical mind
is peculiarly swayed by party principles and sectarian
prejudices. Withdrawn very much from practical into
contemplative life, and valuing abstract truth as the
basis of all moral obligation and excellence, clergymen
are too apt to exaggerate the importance of certain
truths which they conscientiously hold, and to treat as
essential principles of the doctrines of Christ matters of
inferential or traditional authority. I do not suppose
that Nonconformist ministers are exempt from this
failing, though it may be fostered in the Establishment
at home by the alliance of Church and State.
3. Be this, however, as it may, both clergymen an
ministers may look back with some degree of regret that
a mid-wall of partition should so have separated kindred
souls ; pledged to the same cause, rejoicing in the same
hope, and devoted to the same duty of preaching Christ
and Him crucified to a dark and fallen world. By the
very discomfort, however, of thus " standing apart," we
are thrust rudely back upon the principles in which we
have been brought up, and are constrained to put the
question to our consciences, " Are you as sure of your
ground as true to your convictions ? Are your views so
authoritatively scriptural as to put you exclusively in the
right?" And if, after careful review and earnest
prayer, we still feel unable to quit the " old paths," yet
does not this very inquiry dispose us to place a more
liberal construction on the conduct of others, and to respect
their equally stiff adherence to their conscientious con-
a
PROTESTANT EVANGELICAL CHURCHES. O
victions ? A candid mind will not fail to see that much
is to be urged on the other side of the question ; and if
with our present lights we had lived in the time of our
fathers, we should not perhaps have been disposed to
break up the fellowship of the Keformed Evangelical
Catholic Church for non-essential points, or narrow its
communion on matters of Christian expediency rather
than Christian obligation.
4. I have thrown these remarks together by way of
preface, in order to show the course of thought into
which an Episcopate of ten years in this colony has
gradually led me. You yourself have given a fresh
impetus to such reflections. Your fame as a preacher
had preceded you. I knew that you would be welcomed
by all who in your own immediate section of the Evan-
gelical Church take an interest in religion, and by all in
our own who are admirers of genius and piety, even
though the echoes of your King's Weigh-house sermon
had not quite died away. Hundreds I knew would ask
themselves, " Why should I not go and listen to the
powerful preaching of Mr. Binney ?" And when they
hafl. heard you reason of righteousness, temperance, and
judgment to come; of Christ, who He was, and what
He did ; how He died for our sins, and rose again for
our justification, I felt assured that they would ask
again, " Why is he not invited to preach to us in our
Churches ? What is the barrier which prevents him
and other ministers from joining with our clergy at the
Lord's table, and interchanging the ministry of the
Word in their respective pulpits ? Was it any real
difference with respect to the person, office, and work
"
b ON THE UNION OF
of the Redeemer, the power of the Spirit of God, or
the lost condition of ,man without Christ and the
Comforter?"
5. I am truly glad that so considerable a person as
yourself should by your presence in this colony have
forced me to consider again the question, " Why I
could not invite you to preach to our congregations ?" to
review my position, principles, beliefs, and preposses-
sions; more especially as the absence of sectarian
prejudice on your part, and the presence of all that
in social life can conciliate esteem and admiration,
reduced the question to its simple ecclesiastical dimen
sions.
6. Again and again the thought recurred to me, Talis
cum sis utinam noster esses ! Still I felt that neither the
power of your intellect, nor vigour of your reasoning,
nor mighty eloquence, nor purity of life, nor suavity of
manners, nor soundness in the faith, would justify me in
departing from the rule of the Church of England ; a
tradition of eighteen centuries which declares your
orders irregular, your mission the offspring of division,
and your Church system I will not say schism but
dichostasy*
7. But while adhering \p this conclusion, I am free to
confess that my feelings k&k against my judgment ; and
I am compelled to ask myself, Is this " standing apart "
to continue for ever ? Is division to pass from functional
disease into the structural type of Church organization?
Are the Lutheran and Reformed, the Presbyterian and
* Gal. v. 20, " seditions," literally " standing apart."
PROTESTANT EVANGELICAL CHUKCHES. 7
Congregationalism the Baptist and Wesleyan bodies, to
continue separate from the Episcopal communion so long
as the world endureth ? Is there no possibility of accom-
modation, no hope of sympathy, no yearning for union ?
Will no one even ask the question ? None make the first
move ? Must we be content with that poor substitute
for apostolic fellowship in the Gospel, " Let us agree to
differ ;" or an evangelical alliance, which, transient and
incomplete, betrays a sense of want without satisfying
the craving ? Or are we reduced to the sad conclusion
that as there can be no peace with Rome so long as she
obscures the truth in Jesus and lords it over God's
heritage, so there are no common terms on which the
Evangelical Protestant Churches can agree after elinii-
nating errors and evils against which each has felt itself
constrained to protest ? Are not Churchmen, for example,
at this day, just as ready as you, Rev. Sir, can be, to
condemn the treatment of Baxter, Bunyan, and Defoe,
by a High Church Government ? And do not Indepen-
dents and Presbyterians readily allow that a Leighton or
Ken relieves Episcopacy from the odium brought upon
it by the severities of a Laud or a Sharp ?
8. It appears to me that in this colony we are placed
in a peculiarly favourable position for considering our
Church relations, because one great rock of offence has
been taken out of the way I mean the connexion
between Church and State. We can approach the
matters in dispute simp 1 -.- as questions of Evangelical
truth and Christian expediency. Neither social, nor
civil, nor ecclesiastical distinctions, interfere to distract
our view or irritate our feelings. There is no Church-
8 ON THE UNION OF
rate conflict here ! I have accordingly seized the oppor-
tunity of laying before you a few thoughts on the
possibility of an outward fellowship as well as inward
union of the Evangelical Churches, with the hope that
they may suggest inquiry, if they lead to no immediat
practical results.
9. The questions I would propose for consideration
are
First. Whether an outward union, supposing n
essential truth of the Gospel to be compromised, is
desirable amongst the Protestant Evangelical Churches ?
Secondly. What are the principles and conditions on
which such union should be effected ?
I submit my ideas to you with great diffidence, but
from the desire to show that there is no unwillingness on
my part to consider how we might possibly serve at one
and the same altar, walk by the same rule, and preach
from the same pulpits the words of this salvation.
10. With regard to the first point, I conceive outward
union to be desirable, because it appears to me to be
scriptural and apostolic. That all the congregations of
the Universal Church were subject^under Christ, to the
Twelve Apostles, and that the decree directed by the
Holy Ghost, but framed by James and Simon Peter,
Paul and Barnabas, and assented to by the elders and
brethren, was delivered to the Churches to keep, is
recorded in the Acts of the Apostles. That the whole
Church was viewed as one visible body by St. Paul is
evident, when he bids the Corinthians give offence to
neither Jews nor Gentiles, nor the Church of God : and
whatever be the figure under which the Holy Spirit
n
I
PEOTESTANT EVANGELICAL CHURCHES. 9
characterises the body of true believers in Christ, unity
of organized life is the substratum of the idea ; be it vine
or olive-tree, family or household, city or kingdom, the
body or spouse of Christ, the thought is still the same.
What, then, should we think of a family, whose several
members inhabiting the same house kept each to his own
chamber, and though continually jostling on the common
stairs, rarely exchanged a friendly salute, and never a
visit. Is this family life ? And is it true Church life
to say, I am of Peter, and I of Paul, and I of Luther,
and I of Knox, and I of Wesley, and I of Whitfield, and
I of the Fathers ? Are we not carnal, and speak as men ?
In the apostolic age there must have been outward union
of the Churches, so far at least as the general order of a
common worship, the celebration of common sacraments,
the profession of a common creed, and preaching in
common the Word of Life ! The spirit of Diotrephes
we may hope was rare.
11. If the odium theologicum be indeed the worst type
of that disease, it might be expected that a real union of
the Churches, and their publicly acknowledged fellow-
ship in the Gospel, might arrest the progress of that
malady. It is the effect of party feeling, jealousy, and
suspicion, fostered by rivalry and contention. Thus,
Christian sympathy, which is meant for mankind, is
too often restricted to a system or a sect. On the other
hand:
12. In what an attitude of strength would such union
Ylace the Gospel of Christ before Jew and Gentile ;
before Brahmin and Mahommedan ! No subtle Pundit
would then point to the differences of Christian teachers
10 ON THE UNION OF
as indicating error at least in some, and uncertainty in
all. No Bossuet could enumerate, and perhaps exag-
gerate, the variations of Protestants, and, unmindful of
the like in his own communion, claim for the Church of
Rome the symbol of Unity as the mark of its being the
True Church. But now, instead of fighting the Lord's
battle as one great army, our resistance to the Powers of
Evil is like the death-struggle of Inkermann ; a series of
hand-to-hand combats, broken regiments fighting in
detached parties, never receding indeed, but incapable
of combined effort or mutual support.
13. It may, however, be urged on the other side, that
the divisions of the Christian Church are helps to its
vitality, even as the troubled sea which cannot rest is
thereby preserved from stagnancy and corruption ; that
rivalry promotes exertion, and exertion results in expan-
sion. Yet has not the Bible Society attained its present
strength by acting on the opposite principle ? Is it not
because all Protestants can unite in furthering its object,
truly catholic, and because catholic, triumphant ?
14. The union I contemplate is not a yoke of sub-
jection an iron rule suppressive of individual or sectional
thought, aspiration, energy, and action ; far otherwise.
If the great Apostle of the Gentiles would provoke his
brethren after the flesh to jealousy, in order to save
some if he stirred up the Churches of Macedonia by
the forwardness of Achaia, and reciprocally urged the
Achaian Churches to be ready with their contributions
lest he should be ashamed of his boasting concerning
them certainly a loving zeal, striving for the mastery,
is not to be cast out as unmeet for the Christian com-
PROTESTANT EVANGELICAL CHURCHES. 11
monwealth. Unity is compatible with variety, and
variety is pregnant of competition. God has created but
one vertebrate type of animal organisms ; but how
infinitely diversified are the specific forms ! I know no
reason why, in our reformed branch of the Catholic
Church, there might not be particular congregations of
the Wesleyan rule, or some other method of internal
discipline, or usage, or form of worship, even as the
Society of Ignatius Loyola, or Dominic, or Francis,
exists in the bosom of the Roman obedience. The seam-
less coat of the Redeemer was woven from the top
throughout. The Roman soldiers said, " Let us not
rend it !" Why should chronic disunion be the symbol
of Evangelical Christianity? I cannot call alliance
union: nay, it is founded on stereotyped separations.
I pass to the second question :
Secondly. What are the principles and conditions
on which a union of the Protestant Evangelical Churches
should be effected ?
15. It must be evident, I should suppose, after an
experience of 300 years, that neither the Episcopalian,
nor Presbyterian, nor Congregationalist can reasonably
hope to force upon the Christian world his own particular
system. Is either one or the other entitled by the Word
of God to exclude from salvation those believers who do
not follow the same rule of Church government ? If,
however, submission may not be demanded on the
ground of its necessity to salvation, then any negotiation
for outward union may and must proceed on grounds of
what is best and wisest, most likely to unite, as being
most in accordance with Scripture and apostolic tradition.
E 2
12 ON THE UNION OF
We must lay aside hard words schism, Church
authority, sectarianism. In the comity of nations, de facto
Governments are recognised and treated with ; the ques-
tion whether they are de jure is left in abeyance. So
must it be with respect to any union of the Churches.
They must meet together like brethren who have been
long estranged, yet retaining the strong affection of early
youth : resolve to forget the subject of their dispute,
and walk together in the house of God as friends. It
will be unnecessary to ask, " Which man did sin, this
man or his parents ?" or to say, " Thou wast altogether
born in sin, and dost thou teach us ?" or, " We forbade
him, because he followeth not us." No ; we must meet
in the spirit of godly fear, of mutual respect, with the
earnest desire by all right concession to promote God's
truth, and advance Christ's kingdom. We must receive
one another, but not to doubtful disputations.
16. A second principle is, " Whereto we have
attained," or shall attain ; that some rule must be publicly
acknowledged, in that rule we must walk, and by it
steadfastly abide. I firmly believe with Mr. Maurice,
in his U Kingdom of Christ," that the Church of the
apostolic age embraced every principle for which in later
times each section of the Christian world has felt it
necessary to contend, even to separation from the main
body of the brethren. But the Church of the apostolic
age, the true visible model Church, does more. It
harmonises them all ; giving to each its due place, its
real proportion. Each portion of the truth, obscured,
distorted, or denied in the mediaeval Church, each detail
of the outward building of God, has been jealously rescued
PROTESTANT EVANGELICAL CHURCHES. 13
from corruption or decay by sects or individuals. It
remains, perhaps, for this or the coming generation to
restore the original fabric, and take away whatever is
inappropriate, unsightly, or inconvenient. But is the
spirit as yet willing ? Alas, I know not. It is certain
that the flesh is weak.
17. Let me endeavour to state, as accurately as I
can, what seems to be the leading idea, the characteristic
principle, of each section of the Christian Church :
The Church of Rome, then, contends for external
unity, founded on one objective creed, in subjection to
one visible head of the Church on earth.
The Lutheran for justification by faith, antecedent to
and irrespective of works.
The Reformed Calvinistic Church upholds the free
and sovereign grace of God.
The Anglican witnesses for a scriptural creed, apostolic
orders, and a settled liturgy.
The Presbyterian asserts the authority of the Presby-
tery, as derived immediately from the Holy Ghost.
The Congregationalist claims unlimited right of private
judgment, and the independent authority of each con-
gregation, as a perfect Church, over its own members.
The Wesleyan preaches spiritual awakening, sensible
conversion, and social religious exercises.
The Baptist contends for personal religious experience
previous to admission to the Church.
Every one of these principles is substantially, though
not exclusively, true. When their mutual relations are
forgotten, each becomes exaggerated ; the beauty of pro-
portion is lost, and a faulty extreme is made the Shib-
14 ON THE UNION OF
boleth of schism. Is there no analytical process possible,
no law of affinity, by which the spiritual mind could
precipitate the error, and leave pure and limpid the
Gospel stream ? or remove from the much fine gold of
the Temple the dross with which it is alloyed ? Would
there not still remain a scriptural truth, a godly disci-
pline, a settled order, a common altar, a united ministry,
a visible union as well as fellowship in the Spirit?
Might there not still be variety in unity, partial diversity
of usage, and a regulated latitude of Divine worship ?
The Episcopalian, the Presbyterian, and the Congre-
gation alist might consent to harmonise what they cannot
exclusively enforce ; they might surely " in under-
standing be men," and exercise the great privilege of
spiritual men that is, combine freedom with submission
to law, and general order with specific distinctions.
18. But it is time to draw these general remarks to a
close, and define, with somewhat more of precision, that
Church of the future which is to conciliate all affections,
and unite all diversities. I scarcely know which to
admire most, the pleasantness of the dream, or the fond
imagination of the dreamer. Still, let me speak, though
it be " as a fool." My object is not to dictate proceedings,
but to suggest consideration; to provoke inquiry, but
not force conclusions. And since concession in matters
not absolutely essential to salvation, or positively enjoined,
must be the basis of the system adopted by the various
Evangelical Churches, it may be fairly put to me in the
language of the proverb * Physician, heal thyself." I
will begin, then, with the Church of England, and will
state what it appears to me can be given up for the sake
PROTESTANT EVANGELICAL CHURCHES. 15
of union. 1. A State-nominated Episcopate. 2. Com-
pulsory uniformity of Divine worship. Already the
former has given place in Canada and New Zealand to
an Episcopate freely elected by the Church itself. The
latter, it appears, even in England, is only required from
the clergy in parish churches, but not when preaching
in the fields, or streets and lanes of the city. In addition,
then, to the separation of Church and State in this colony,
and the absence of the legal machinery connected with
that union, greater freedom and diversity in the modes
of worship seem attainable ; and an Episcopate, moderate
in its pretensions, as well as constitutional in its pro-
ceedings, associated with, and not lording it over the
Presbyters ; above all, chosen by the free suffrages of
the united clergy and laity.
I believe the doctrinal articles of the Church of Eng-
land and many others among the Thirty-Nine are allowed
on all sides to be scriptural. I conceive, then, that a
settled form of sound words, a deposit of objective faith,
would not be deemed a yoke of bondage, but a guide to
truth. I conceive, also, in order that all might worship
with the understanding as well as the spirit, that certain
liturgical offices, such for instance as the litany, might
form part of the stated services, but not to the exclusion
of extempore prayer in connexion with the sermon at
the discretion of the preacher. So, also, in the adminis-
tration of the Sacraments and conferring Holy Orders,
a portion of the office might be fixed and invariable, and
a portion left to ministering pastors.
19. These points being settled, the trial, nomination,
institution, or designation of pastors, the dissolution of
16 ON THE UNION OF
their connexion with their flock, or removal, their mode
of payment, the internal discipline of the congregation
over their members and officers, are details which may
well be left for after regulation; if, indeed, there is
really much or any injurious difference at present
existing in these matters. A spirit of mutual forbearance
and real affection must be largely shed abroad before
such a system as here spoken of can possibly be
inaugurated. Even if thought feasible for the future,
how can it be made to take retrospective effect ? How
can we, who are de facto ministers, and think ourselves
to be de jure so, besides being pledged to our respective
systems, throw ourselves out of the one to enter upon
the other ?
Let us search the Scriptures for guidance. The
beloved disciple was instructed to write by the Holy
Spirit to the seven angels of the seven Churches of
Asia, and Titus was left by St. Paul in Crete to ordain
elders in every city, as he had appointed him. But
besides these later exertions of apostolic authority, we
find Barnabas and Saul separated by the Holy Ghost to
a special mission, through the laying on of hands and
prayers of the prophets and teachers of the Church at
Antioch, Simeon Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, and Manaen.
Assuming the existing ministers of the several denomi-
nations to be recognized as de jure by their congregations,
and de facto as such by the Anglican Church, might not
the bishops of the latter, supposing the before-mentioned
terms of union were agreed upon to take effect prospec-
tively, give the right hand of fellowship to them, that
they should go to their own flocks, and mission also as
PROTESTANT EVANGELICAL CHURCHES. 17
preachers to the Anglican congregations, when invited
by the pastors of the several Chnrches ? If the license
of the Bishop can authorise even lay readers and
preachers, how much more men like yourself, separated
to the work of God, eloquent and mighty in the Scrip-
tures ? Indeed, I do not feel sure that I should have
violated any ecclesiastical law in force in this diocese or
province, by inviting you to give a word of exhortation
to each of our congregations.* In this way, then, of
mission without compromise, but on declared assent to
certain fixed principles and truths, existing ministers
might co-operate with us hi the preaching of the
Gospel, and under the benign influence of this brotherly
love a Reformed Catholic Church might grow up,
and, like the rod of Aaron, swallow up our sectarian
differences.
20. I have said nothing about hypothetical ordination,
which has been suggested (like conditional baptism where
irregularity in the administration may be suspected),
because it savours of evasion or collusion, neither of which
is agreeable to Christian simplicity and due reverence for
God's ordinances. Neither have I suggested the conse-
cration as Bishops of existing Wesleyan Superintendents
and Presbyterian Moderators, or those who, like yourself,
seemed sealed alike by nature and the Spirit to be special
* Canon 54 of the Province of Canterbury, A.D. 1603-4,
requires " conformity as a sine qua non to preaching in the parish
churches of England." I do not know that it is binding in
colonial dioceses. It shows that persons were licensed to preach
who were not disposed to take upon themselves all the obligations
of the parish priest under the Establishment.
18 ON THE UNION OF
overseers in the Church of God. Missions, as preachers
to our congregations, without imposing the obligations
incident to the incumbents and curates of Churches, but
not until full evidence had been given before license of
soundness in the faith, would seem to meet the exigencies
of the case so far as regards the present generation of
ministers who have received Presbyterian orders.
Having attained to this step, perhaps God would reveal
to us a yet more excellent way. Old systems have, in
fact, been found wanting. Which of the Churches now
existing is so perfect, so scriptural, so apostolic, as to
ensure instant acquiescence from the inquirer to the
exclusion and condemnation of all others ? If there be
none, will all the learning, and eloquence, and traditional
authority devoted to the support of each, persuade the
present or future generations to substitute another for
that in which they have been brought up ? A few may,
perhaps, be convinced or converted, but the masses
never. A fresh combination must therefore be sought ;
traditional prejudices must be set aside ; cherished asso-
ciations laid upon the altar of love, to rise like angel
messengers, in the flame of sacrifice, to purer and loftier
spirituality ! Oh, for that millennial reign of peace,
when a Chalmers or a Cumming, a Binney or a Watson,
might serve at one altar, and plead from one pulpit with
the bishops and clergy of the Church of England ! It is
the cause of God and Christ, of truth and holiness, of
righteousness and peace, of faith and duty, of grace and
salvation, of man delivered and Satan bound, of God
alone exalted on that day, and reigning on Mount
Zion gloriously. Then might the fulness of the Gentiles
PROTESTANT EVANGELICAL CHURCHES. 19
come in, then Israel be restored, then Babylon over-
thrown, and that regenerated state of this fallen world
be made manifest, for which Jehovah reserved the last
great display of His providential love the union in the
God-Man of the Manhood with Himself.
I remain, dear Sir, respectfully yours,
Augustus Adelaide.
Bishop's Court, September 23, 1858.
THE CHURCH OF THE FUTURE,
AS POBTBAYED Ilf THE PBECEDITfG LETTEB,
EXAMINED.
AN ADDKESS,
DELITEBED TO THB
MINISTERS AND DELEGATES OF THE TASMANIAN
CONGREGATIONAL UNION.
PART FIRST.
THE "IDEA" OF THE CHURCH,
TEKEL.
AN ADDRESS,
Honoured and Beloyed Brethren,
Although but a visitor amongst you, I have been
placed, by your kindness and your suffrages, in this
chair. I accept the distinction, believing it to be con-
ferred not so much on personal grounds, as from the
circumstance of my having long occupied a position of
some importance in the Metropolis of our fatherland, and
from my having frequently used the influence which that
ive me, to excite hi the Churches at home an interest
those of the colonies. You have been pleased to
request me to preside over this meeting, and to inaugu-
rate its proceedings by an address. In acceding to your
request, I need hardly say that I assume and affect no
powers but such as would belong to the president of any
deliberative body. For the time being, the Chairman
of our Assemblies is constituted by the ministers present
(so far as they are concerned) a "Primus," but a
U Primus inter pares" a brother presiding over brethren.
F
26 LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
In the ministry and the Church he stands where he did
before. There he has no faculty, function, or rights,
but what belongs to every pastor. With us there is
no superiority of office, no difference or distinction in
that, in kind or degree. What is said, on occasions like
the present, comes to us only with such force as it may
possess from approving itself to our understanding and
judgment, our consciences and hearts, from what it may
derive from its truth, its wisdom, or its love, from its
agreement with what we believe to be the teaching of
Scripture, and from the opinion we may entertain, in
any given case, of the qualifications for his duty which
the speaker brings to it. I have no very great qualifica-
tions for any thing ; but you will put down something
to the experience and observation of a public life of more
than thirty years ; and you will exercise confidence in
the fraternal regard of one who esteems you as " brethren
beloved," and who addresses you under the influence of
feelings and recollections inspired by the thought of our
common relation, as men and Englishmen, to the grand
old land, and our joint participation, as Christians and
ministers, in the privileges, the hopes, and the service of
Christ's holy Church.
In anticipating the duty which I was aware I should
this day be requested to discharge, and in thinking of
what I could bring before you, it occurred to me that it
would neither be unbecoming nor inappropriate if I
called your attention to a subject which has recently
been brought before the Christian public in these lands.
I refer, as you will conjecture, to the " idea " of " A
Union of Protestant Evangelical Churches," contained in
LIMITED RESPONSIBILITY. 27
a letter addressed to myself, during my .recent visit to
South Australia, by the Right Rev. the Lord Bishop of
, Adelaide. The scheme or plan for the realisation of the
proposed object, set forth in the letter in question, the
Bishop submitted to my consideration, and requested my
judgment upon it. He did not, I think, in doing this,
regard me merely in my personal character, but as one
who, for the time, and with a view to his object, might
be taken to represent a particular religious body. I
cannot, indeed, lay claim to any representative function,
and must not. I have no authority to do so. I have no
public mission in these parts, having visited Australia
from personal considerations only, and simply as an
individual. Besides, I should always hesitate to speak
for others ; or, so to speak as, by implication, to involve
others. While, throughout our Denomination there is
on all great points substantial agreement, there yet may
be, and there are, many shades and varieties of indivi-
dual opinion. This being the case, there are occasions
(and this is one of them) when we are anxious to have it
understood that none but ourselves are to be held
answerable for any views or statements we may put
forth. Let this distinct and exclusive personal responsi-
bility be kept in mind. I address you, but I speak
only for myself; I respond to the request of the Bishop
of Adelaide, but I give only an individual opinion ; the
Denomination is not committed to my utterances, nor
even this meeting. It is possible, indeed, that you may
accept and adopt wmat you hear, and, so far, approve
and endorse it as substantially expressing your own
views.
f2
:
28 LIGHTS ASD SHADOWS.
Although the Bishop of Adelaide communicated with
me by letter, and, up to the time of my coming to this
colony, it was my intention and my publicly declared
intention to write in the same way in reply, the circum-
stances in which I find myself placed will, I think, both
account for and justify my change of purpose. Unex-
pectedly called upon to address a number of my brethre
in the ministry? with the lay delegates of certain asso-
ciated Churches, an assembly representing the Congre-
gational Body of a specified district, it is natural that
I should take the opportunity thus afforded of looking at
a subject in which all of you are as much interested as
myself; one, too, on which it is expected that I should
say something, sometime or other ; a subject, moreover,
which, though submitted to me in the first instance, was
confessedly thus submitted with an ultimate view to its
presentation to the public, to " the Protestant Evan-
gelical Denominations " of this, and even of other lands.
Unexpected circumstances, which were fully explained
at the time, led to the premature publication of the
Bishop's letter, a thing to be lamented, but one that
had become, on his lordship's account, necessary and
unavoidable. Referring, however, to this, on the receipt
of a printed copy of his letter, the Bishop says, " I was
fully prepared to see it in print." And he adds, in relation
to his purpose in writing, " The object of my letter has
been answered. I have drawn attention to the possible
future union of Evangelical Churches." " I am content
to bide the time and allow the leaven to ferment." In
taking up the subject, then, at this time and in this way,
and in submitting my views in relation to it, not only to
THE TWO QUESTIONS. 29
the primary pastor of one of the diocesan divisions of
the Episcopal Church in these lands, but also to the
assembled pastors of a portion of the Body with which
I am personally connected, I am not only not conscious
of violating any rule or principle of propriety or honour,
but feel myself justified by the circumstances of the
case, the nature of the subject, and the aim and
object of my Right Rev. friend in submitting it to my
consideration.
In entering on the matters to which I have just
referred, I must remind you that two questions were
started in what has been called " The Adelaide Corres-
pondence," questions which ought to be carefully
separated from each other, as they were different in their
origin, and are distinct in themselves. The one referred
to the possibility of an occasional Exchange of Pulpits
between Episcopal clergymen and those of other denomi-
nations, things remaining as they are. The other had
respect to The Union of all the Different Protes-
tant Evangelical Bodies in one great whole. These
two questions sprang from opposite quarters, were the
suggestions of different minds, and, though brought
simultaneously, or nearly so, before the public, were not
exactly simultaneous in their origin. I had nothing to
do with either, except as being the innocent and uncon-
scious occasion of both. The last of the two questions
was the first that came before me. Its origin was
Episcopal. It was contained in the letter of the Bishop,
I addressed to myself expressly on the subject. The
other question had a humbler parentage. It was
started by certain lay -members of the Episcopal
30 LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
Church. It first came to my knowledge through
the public prints. I hardly know which surprised me
most. I had no reason to expect such a communication
as that with which I was honoured by the Bishop ; and
so little cognizant was I of the lay-movement that, on
the Sunday preceding the reference to it in the papers,
I had spoken from the pulpit of my intended departure
in a few days, and had thus taken leave of my co-reli-
gionists in Adelaide.
The two questions, then, came before the public.
They were both included in the first series of letters
which appeared in print. But I wish it to be clearly
understood that they are quite distinct, and that it
is with one of them only that we have at present
to deal. That one is the question which was first
in the order of time, which was suggested by the
Bishop, but which came to be very much lost sight of,
in consequence of what was thought to be the more
definite and tangible character of the other, and the
supposed possibility of its admitting of more immediate
action. The two questions got confounded, by the lay-
originators of the second referring to it, in their memorial
to the Bishop, as if it were something which was in
harmony with, and might help the ripening into action
of, certain thoughts and feelings which he had expressed
in his letter containing the first. In this they w T ere
mistaken. The two parties, in fact, not only started
from directly opposite points, but they did not contemplate,
perhaps, the ultimate realisation of the same thing.
That the laymen, however, should have fallen into the
error they did, was, I think, not to be wondered at, from
THE ONE TO BE EXAMINED. 31
several expressions in his lordship's letter. These ex-
pressions, indeed, are modified by others, but this might
not be obvious on a cursory perusal of his lordship's com-
munication, nor deeply felt while the mind was excited
by the first impression of its words.
But, however this might be, the laymen's question is
not the one we have to examine. It may be dismissed
altogether, or at least it must be put aside for the
present, as something with which we have no immediate
concern. It may be referred to hereafter : but our first
and main business is to consider that proposed to us by
the Bishop.
His lordship's letter cannot be read without deep
interest. It is distinguished by a felicity of diction, an
earnestness and glow, which at once win the ear and
w~arm the heart, and which awaken towards the writer
sentiments of admiration, respect, and love. Its first
paragraphs sparkle with sentences which are bright and
luminous from the spirit of candour and liberality which
pervades them. Even after certain ideas are introduced
which tend to lower or modify our feelings, fervid and
eloquent expressions occur, so pregnant with all that is
comprehensive and catholic, that we are unable to resist
their fascinating influence. The u pleasant dream,"
indeed, is so pleasantly told, and so beautifully depicted,
that we do not, at first, very distinctly see what it really
is, what it includes, or how far what at present exists
would be affected or altered if " the words of the vision "
should come to be fulfilled and embodied in facts. I
shall first endeavour to ascertain what his lordship's
ultimate "idea" would seem to be; and, having done this,
32 LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
I shall offer some remarks upon it; on the reception it
will probably meet with from others, and on the likeli-
hood, or the contrary, of its realisation.
The "Idea" Eliminated.
In proceeding to fulfil my first purpose, attempting to
ascertain what the Bishop's idea really is, the union
proposed, and the Church which is ultimately to evolve
out of it, I must refer, with some minuteness, to his
lordship's letter of September 23rd, in which his scheme
is set forth.
After several introductory paragraphs, the Bishop
proposes for consideration, the two following ques-
tions :
" First, Whether an outward union, supposing no
essential truth of the Gospel be compromised, is desirable
amongst the Protestant Evangelical Churches ?
" Secondly, What are the principles and conditions on
which such union should be effected?"*
He then proceeds to take up each of these in order.
I do not deem it necessary to enter into the first, or to
examine the several reasons by which his lordship sus-
tains an affirmative reply to it. That some more distinct
and open manifestation of the essential oneness of the
different Protestant bodies which alike hold the Evan-
gelical faith, and are thus, by profession, spiritually
united, however they may differ on secondary points of
* See preceding Letter, page 8. In future references the
reader will be so good as to bear in mind, that " Let." will stand
for Letter, as above; " p." for page; and " par." for paragraph.
" App." will refer to the Appendix at the end of the volume.
SPIRIT AND FORM. 33
doctrine, or in ' relation to ceremony and order, " is
desirable" I suppose we should all admit. Yet, it is
fairly questionable how far this should be sought, or
should proceed, in the way of making an approach to
actual coalition or visible uniformity. There is a moral
argument in support of the truths in which numbers
agree, who differ among themselves in almost everything
else, which has great force in it, and which it would be
unwise to weaken without some very obvious correspond-
ing advantage. An external change in the aspect of the
Church, while a gain in one direction, might involve
loss in another, loss without adequate compensation.
Without dwelling on this, however, at present, we will
admit that it would be well if some more visible proof
were given to the world that the different Protestant
bodies are substantially one. Such proof might be
given without having recourse to a compulsory uni-
formity, or to anything destructive of those different
developments of thought and action which there will
always be where there is life. My Right Rev.
Correspondent alludes to this, as, in passing from the
first question to the second, he glances at the nature of
the union which he contemplates. He justly remarks
that " unity is compatible with variety ;" and he thus
beautifully illustrates their combination and harmony
as manifested In Nature " God has created but one
vertebrate type of animal organisms; but how infi-
nitely diversified are the specific forms ! " . . .
" The union I contemplate," he observes, " is not a yoke
of subjection an iron rule suppressive of individual
or sectional thought, aspiration, energy, and action : far
34 LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
other wise." . . . "I know no reason why, in our
reformed branch of the Catholic Church, there might
not be particular congregations of the Wesley an rule,
or some other method of internal discipline, or usage, or
form of worship, even as the Society of Ignatius Loyola,
or Dominic, or Francis, exists in the bosom of the
Roman obedience."* With this passing hint as to the
union he contemplates, the Bishop advances to the dis-
cussion of the second question, that with which we are
are at present more immediately concerned, namely,
" What are the principles and conditions on which such
union should be effected f n
The first principle specified would seem to be (for it is
not distinctly numbered, but what is next introduced is
called the second), the first principle would seem to be
this, that, as " it must be evident, after an experience of
three hundred years, that neither the Episcopalian, the
Presbyterian, nor Congregationalist can reasonably hope
to force on the Christian world his own peculiar system,"
therefore, " any negotiation for outward union must pro-
ceed on grounds of what is best and wisest, most likely
to unite," &c. The principle is one which demands and
inculcates, as an essential preliminary, the culture of
charity, the oblivion of differences, the recognition of a
judicious expediency as the rule of procedure. " We
must lay aside hard words, schism, Church authority,
sectarianism." ..." We must meet in the spirit
of godly fear, of mutual respect, with the earnest desire
by all right concession to promote God's truth, and
advance Christ's kingdom." f
* Let., p. 10, par. 14. f Let., p. 11, par. 15.
PRINCIPLES OF UNION. 35
" The second principle," his lordship proceeds to say,
" is, ( whereto we have attained,' or shall attain ; that
same rule must be publicly acknowledged ; in that rule
we must walk, and by it steadfastly abide." Under this
particular, the Bishop states it to be his " firm belief,"
that " the Church of the apostolic age embraced every
principle for which in later times each section of the
Christian world has felt it necessary to contend, even to
separation from the main body of the brethren." These
separate fragments of the truth, " obscured, distorted, or
denied in the mediaeval Church," out "jealously rescued
from corruption or decay by sects or individuals," it may
perhaps remain, " for this or the coming generation" to
re-unite, and thus to restore the original fabric.
The Bishop then proceeds to state what he conceives
to be u the leading idea," " the characteristic principle "
of " each section of the Christian Church." In this
sketch he includes the Church, of Rome, the Lutheran,
the Reformed Calvinistic, the Anglican, the Presbyterian,
the Congregationalist, the Wesleyan, and the Baptist.
I must refer you to the letter itself for his lorcfship's
definition of " the characteristic principle " of each of
these bodies. He may be clear and correct, more or
less, in relation to each ; but it is not incumbent on me
to go over all his propositions to ascertain this. We
shall have to refer, by-and-by, to that one with which at
present we have most to do ; and, with the intimation of
this, I pass on.
The statement referred to is succeeded by the follow-
ing paragraph :
" Every one of these principles is substantially, though
70-
36 LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
not exclusively, true. When their mutual relations ar
forgotten, each becomes exaggerated ; the beauty of pre
portion is lost, and a faulty extreme is made the shib-
boleth of schism. Is there no analytical process possible,
no law of affinity, by which The Spiritual Mind could
precipitate the error, and leave pure and limpid the
Gospel stream ? Or remove from the much fine gold of
the Temple, the dross with which it is alloyed? Would
there not still remain a scriptural truth, a godly discipline,
a settled order, a common altar, a united ministry? a
visible union as well as fellowship in the Spirit ? Might
there not still be variety in unity, partial diversity of
usage, and a regulated latitude of Divine worship? The
Episcopalian, the Presbyterian, and the Congregationali
might consent to harmonise what they cannot exclusivel t
enforce ; they might surely in c understanding be men
and exercise the great privilege of spiritual men that is,
combine freedom with submission to law, and general
order with specific distinctions."*
His lordship then proceeds : " But it is time to draw
these several remarks to a close, and define, with somewhat
more of precision, That Church of the Future ichich
is To Conciliate all Affections, and Unite all
Diversities." Great and beautiful words ! Descriptive
of an august mission, the work to be accomplished, the
consummation achieved, by that which is now to be
"defined!"
As this projected " Church of the Future," is to origi-
nate in mutual " concession," the Bishop deems it
becoming to begin by stating what he himself is willing
* Let., p. 13, par. 17.
le
INDISPENSABLE PRELIMINARY CONDITIONS. 37
to concede. He specifies two things, " 1. A State-
nominated Episcopate. 2. Compulsory uniformity of
Divine worship." These being given up, and there
having come in their place " an Episcopate chosen by the
free suffrages of the clergy and laity," and " greater
freedom and diversity in the modes of worship," (based,
however, upon a uniform substratum, agreed upon and
accepted by all concerned,) the next suggestion is, " a
settled form of sound words," as " a deposit of objective
faith." A foundation is thus laid, for the projected
edifice, in these three things. They are more distinctly
and definitely stated in a subsequent letter, in which
they are put forth as "indispensable" "preliminary
conditions" to subsequent action.
" A. The acceptance in common by the Evangelical
Churches of the orthodox creed.
" B. The use in common of a settled Liturgy,
though not to the exclusion of free prayer, as
provided for in the Assembly of Divines at
Westminster.
" C. An Episcopate freely elected by the united
Evangelical Churches." *
Such is the "idea," in basis and outline, of a combined
Protestant Catholic Church, which the different denomi-
nations interested in the scheme are to agree to constitute,
to which they are to give in their adhesion, and which,
as we shall see, is to attain solidity and completeness by
the toleration, for the present, of certain ecclesiastical
shortcomings, with a view to their being suppressed and
superseded by the more perfect order which is gradually
* Let., p. 15, par. 18; and App., p. C.
38 LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
to evolve, and which will eventually distinguish a care-
fully trained and moulded coming generation.
The necessity for, and the nature of, the process thus
intimated, are stated and foreshadowed in the following
passages :
" A spirit of mutual forbearance and real affection
must be largely shed abroad before such a system as is here
spoken of can possibly be inaugurated. Even if thought
feasible for the future, how can it be made to take
retrospective effect? How can we who are de facto
ministers, and think ourselves to be de jure so, besides
being pledged to our respective systems, throw ourselves
out of the one to enter into the other ? " The difficulty
involved in these questions, it is proposed to meet in this
way : " Assuming the existing ministers of the several
denominations to be recognized as de jure by their con-
gregations, and de facto as such by the Anglican Church,
might not the Bishops of the latter, supposing the before-
mentioned terms of union were agreed upon to take effect
prospectively, give the right hand of fellowship to them,
that they should go to their own flocks, and 7nission also as
preachers to the Anglican congregations when invited ? "
..." Missions, as preachers to our congregations,
without imposing the obligations incident to incumbents
and curates of Churches, but not until full evidence had
been given before License of soundness in the faith,
would seem to meet the exigencies of the case so far as
REGARDS THE PRESENT GENERATION OF MINISTERS WHO
HAVE ONLY RECEIVED PRESBYTERIAN ORDERS." . . . "In
this way, then, of mission without compromise, but on
declared assent to certain fixed principles and truths,
THE "IDEA" SEEN IN THE DISTANCE. 39
existing Ministers might co-operate with us in the preach-
ing of the Gospel ; and, under the benign influence of
this brotherly love, a Reformed Catholic Church
might grow UP, and, like the rod of Aaron, swallow up
our sectarian differences." #
Such are the Bishop of Adelaide's views in relation to
the union of the Protestant Evangelical denominations,
the conditions on which it is to rest, and the issue in
which it is to terminate, its preliminaries, progress, and
consummation. Such would seem to be his idea of the
process by which the present characteristics of some of
these denominations are to be absorbed and to dis-
appear, and such his conception of the all-comprehend-
ing and overshadowing "rule," which is to give a
substantial oneness to the whole, while tolerating, for a
time, certain differences in some of the parts. Looking
forwards, through and beyond the preliminary arrange-
ments described by his lordship, we can perceive
gradually coming into view, that " Church of the
Future," which is to conciliate all affections, and unite all
diversities. I now propose to state to you, and through
you to its author and the public, my views and impres-
sions of the subject thus submitted to our consideration.
I have endeavoured to ascertain and to set forth what
the Bishop's " idea " really is. I will now look at and
endeavour to estimate it. To do this fully and successfully,
we must notice, as far as necessary or practicable, what-
ever there may be in his lordship's original communication,
or in any subsequent one, which shall seem to throw light
on the ideal structure which is now standing before us.
* Let., p. 1618, pars. 19, 20, 19.
40 LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
REMARKS.
I.
Disappointment.
The first remark I would submit is this: On at-
tentively listening to his lordship's letter, there is felt,
every now and then, a sort of jar. Somehow, there is
a discord. Two opposing tones seem to run through
the document which destroy .its effect, leaving us with
confused and contradictory impressions. On the first
perusal, we are struck by a number of notes of most
musical sweetness, which fall pleasantly on the ear, as
paragraph after paragraph utters what is in it ; notes,
eloquently expressive of what is considerate, candid,
liberal, and just. Detain, for a moment, as they floa
past, and notice, a few of these.
In referring to the fact that English Christians in
these colonies had the advantage of occupying "an
historic stand-point, whence they can look back on
their social, political, and Church-life hi the old land,"
his lordship observes, among other things equally
striking, "the survey would not be unprofitable if
it should lead us to perceive how we had been
blinded by its attractions so as to become unconscious
of its faults ; and so hurried away by its feelings
and associations as to be insensible to the conventional
bondage in which we then lived and moved." . . . He
goes on to say, that " clergymen are too apt to ex-
aggerate the importance of certain truths which they
conscientiously hold, and to treat as the essential prin-
'
THE FIBST OF TWO TONES. 41
ciples of the doctrine of Christ, matters of inferential or
traditional authority" . . . Looking with regret at
the fact that " a middle wall of partition should have
separated kindred souls, pledged to the same cause, &c. ;
by the very discomfort of thus * standing apart,' being
thrust rudely back upon the principles in which we
have been brought up," f; we are constrained," his lord-
ship remarks, " to put the question to our own conscience,
'Are you as sure of your ground as true to your
convictions ? Are your views so authoritatively scriptural
as to put you exclusively in the right ?' " . . . Then,
after other wise and weighty words, he speaks, as with
pain, of " the fellowship of the Reformed Evangelical
Catholic Church," having been broken up "for non-
essential points," and its communion narrowed " on
matters of Christian expediency rather than Christian
obligation." . . . Harmonising with these utterances,
we find subsequent expressions of large and compre-
hensive meaning, used to enforce denominational modesty
in respect to exclusive ecclesiastical pretensions, and to
remove sectarian obstacles to the union of the various
Evangelical bodies in one great confederation : neither
" the Episcopalian, the Presbyterian, nor the Congre-
gationalist " is permitted to hope that he can " force his
own particular system on the Christian world;" they
must " lay aside," says the Bishop, " hard words
schism, Church authority, sectarianism ;" " they must
meet together as brethren who have long been estranged
.... resolve to forget the subject of their dispute, and
walk together in the house of God as friends ....
It will be unnecessary to ask 'which man did sin this
42 LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
man or his parents ?' or to say c thou wast altogether
born in sin, and dost thou teach us ? ' or c we forbade
him, because he followeth not us.'" . . . Towards the
close of the letter we read, " Old systems have been
found wanting. Which of the Churches now existing
is so perfect, so apostolic, as to insure instant ac-
quiescence from the inquirer to the exclusion and
condemnation of all others ? If there be none, will all
the learning, and eloquence, and traditional authority
devoted to the support of each, persuade the present or
future generations to substitute another for that in which
they have been brought up ? A few may perhaps be
convinced or converted, but the masses never. A fresh
combination must therefore be sought : traditional pre-
judices must be set aside ; cherished associations laid
upon the altar of love, to rise, like angel messengers, in
the flame of sacrifice to purer and loftier spirituality !"*
Such are some of the first class of notes to which we
referred. In other words, such are some of the glit-
tering wavelets of the golden thread which runs through
portions of his lordship's letter ; bright jets of feeling
and thought, which appear to rise out of irrepressible
longings after a Protestant Catholic communion, and
which, thrown out tinted and modified by the action of
a candid and liberal judgment, and " a course of thought
into which an Episcopate of ten years in Australia has
gradually led,"f seem to shine and sparkle as in the sun-
light of love ! It is hardly possible not to be dazzled,
quite impossible not to be surprised, for surprise will
come when we recollect that this is the language, these
* Let., pars. 1, 2, 3, 15, 20. 4 Let., par. 5.
tl
THE SECOND TONE. 43
the utterances, of a Churchman and a Bishop ! I do not
mean to insinuate, by this last remark, that, in such an
one, warm and loving words, earnest sympathies, and
liberal sentiments are, simply as such, things to be
wondered at Among Churchmen and Bishops there
have been men of the most enlarged charity, the purest
zeal, the holiest aspirations, the most Evangelical
Catholicism. What I mean to imply, and what does
surprise me, is this: that one in the position of the
Bishop of Adelaide, with what must have been his
educational training, with his unavoidable preposses-
sions and his professional antecedents, that he should
thus volunteer statements and make admissions which
have no meaning if they do not involve the abandon-
ment of those exclusive claims and pretensions on
behalf of his own Church its undoubted apostolicity,
its jure divino constitution and form based on anti-
quity and buttressed by tradition, adherence to
which has always been characteristic of his class and
order.
But the impression and effect of what you have just
heard are greatly lessened, if not almost entirely de-
stroyed, by a jarring note that keeps ever and anon
obtruding its dissonance and marring the music. In
spite of the soft and soothing intonations which affect us
as we have seen, there come forth from the same
instrument or are struck off from others by the same
hand sounds like these : " The rule of the Church of
England, A tradition of eighteen centuries, declares your
orders irregular, your mission the offspring of division,
and your Church system I will not say schism, but
G2
44 LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
dichostasy."* " Hard words," these, after all ! Some-
thing like not " forgetting the original subject of dispute."
We were warned against treating as " principles," mat-
ters of " inferential or traditional authority ;" told that
" traditional prejudices must be laid aside ;" and informed
that in the colony of South Australia, men " are placed
in so peculiarly favourable a position," that no " eccle-
siastical distinctions interfere to distract their view, or
irritate their feelings ;" and yet, a purely ecclesiastical
matter, and one, too, whose modern form is confessedly
very different from the primitive arrangements out of
which [or, as some would say, out of the perversion of
which] it rose, is based on " the inspired authority of
an apostolical tradition /"f In spite, too, of the " who
did sin " inquiry, " this man or his parents ?" being
put aside, we are reminded of it thus: "the Con-
gregations to which these teachers belong have separated
in time past from the Church of England" % Still
further ; in spite of " the experience of 300 years
making it manifest that no one can hope to force on the
Christian world his own particular system ;" hints and
suggestions are constantly occurring, which seem to
indicate (as we shall see presently) that the scheme of
the Bishop is to terminate in this that his system, in
effect, is ultimately to become universal and predominant.
And finally ; in opposition to all having to give up
something all having " been found wanting " and " a
fresh combination sought ;" that no Church now existing
can be considered " so perfect, so scriptural, so apostolic,
as to insure instant acquiescence to the exclusion and
* Let., p. 6, par. 6. + App., p. 6. \ App., p. 48.
DISCORD. 45
condemnation of others ; " we are told that the writer is
not to be imagined to be " willing or able to compromise
one single principle or time-honoured characteristic of
his own Reformed Branch of the Catholic and Apostolic
Church;"* and that, as to us Nonconformists especially,
" the hope is cherished" that the best of us "the wise
and good" amongst us, " may eventually find a spiritual
home within her pale !"f
There seems to me, then, to be a discord, " an uncer-
tain sound," or an opposition of sounds, in the Bishop's
letter. There is one vibrating chord, distinct and telling,
which at first captivates the ear, making itself heard as
if it lay on the surface ; but there is an undertone, harsh
and rugged, which keeps constantly interposing an
implied or murmured contradiction to the first. Now,
I beg to say, that I don't at all find fault with my
Right Reverend friend for his employment of this second
note. I think it natural to the instrument over which
he presides, and that it cannot but come in answer to
his touch. What I venture to call in question is, the
employment by the Bishop of the other note, or, in
plain words, his use of language which must to others
seem to imply more than he means, or which means
more than he can adhere to; language, which would
" deceive the unwary" if they understood it in its " plain
and grammatical sense." The fact is, that his lordship
sat down to write under the influence of feelings most
honourable to himself. His heart uttered, when glowing
and excited, what, half unconsciously, he had to modify
or reduce. The impulses of the man got the better for
* App., p. 14. f App., p. 52.
46 LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
a time of the spirit of the ecclesiastic. But the vision
which rose before him, when giving way to the luxury
of sentiment, collapsed and vanished, when touched by
the fettered finger of the traditionist. The candid
admissions and liberal allusions of the Bishop's letter,
which please so much when first heard, come at length
to affect us painfully. We discover that, with him,
they can never have an embodiment in corresponding
action. Conscientious attachments, fixed ideas, deter-
mined adherence to the " time honoured " and the
" traditional" all perfectly consistent with his prin-
ciples and position prevent their ever being to us any
thing but words. With the best intentions, on his part,
he can give us little else. We feel that we have been
tantalized, by having had held to our lips an elaborately
moulded but empty chalice, and we can hardly help
thinking that we have a right to complain, though, if we
did, it would be much more from grief than resentment.
II.
Denominations.
The next remark I submit to you is this : The
Bishop's scheme, while apparently beginning with the
recognition of the different Protestant Evangelical
denominations as equal parties to the proposed union,
does yet practically give authority and pre-eminence to
the English Episcopate, is to be worked through the
exercise of its peculiar functions, and to be consummated,
it would seem, by the Episcopal " Rule " becoming
universal and predominant. The " orders" of all Non-
episcopal Churches are assumed to be defective ; they
MINISTERIAL "ORDERS." 47
are ultimately, therefore, to be suppressed or superseded ;
in the meantime, those who have only received such,
are to be treated with tolerance, tenderness, and con-
descension.
I do not myself attach much importance to " orders,"
as they are termed. I look more to the prophetic im-
pulse, to that gift and call which the Church of England
recognizes in requiring every candidate for ordination to
express his belief that he is " moved by the Holy Ghost,"
to take upon himself the ministry of the word. A
solemn and wonderful declaration that ! One which,
when a reality, indicates something impressive and
sublime. It stamps a man with the Divine seal; sets
him before us as inwardly impelled by God to do a
Divine thing. Office in the Church is not to him a
<{ profession," but a vocation ; it is not something which
he chooses for himself, but for which he is chosen ;
which he does not advance to because he will, but
because he must. The man is not at liberty to decline
the call of God ! Such men, are the men to do some-
thing for the world. The words quoted from the Prayer-
Book present to us, I repeat, what is grand and
impressive, that which, in the language of heaven,
constitutes being " duly called" to the office and work
of the ministry considered as a spiritual service ; without
which, however much mere ecclesiastical regularity may
have been secured, a man is not " duly " or divinely
" called" at all. Now, although I should shrink from
personally appropriating the words in question, and
think it highly inexpedient that they should be forced
as a formula into the lips of numbers, I yet hold to them
48 LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
as exhibiting a great truth. In proportion as that truth
becomes, in the spiritual guides of any Church, an em-
bodied fact, just in that proportion, and in no other, will
such Church have a really " called " and adequately
qualified ministry. Attaching, then, as I do, far more
importance to what God imparts than to what man can
confer, I care comparatively little for " orders " of any
kind, simply as such, with whatever rites, or by what-
soever hands they may be given, although I think that
admission to the ministerial office ought, in all Churches,
to be jealously watched, and solemnly conducted.
But the Bishop of Adelaide's scheme for creating a
" Church of the Future," which is not only to u unite
all diversities," but to " conciliate all affections," (?)
starts, as it seems to me, by proposing the most humi-
liating terms to the clergy of every community but his
own. It is not merely we Independents to whom the
Bishop offers a temporary tolerance we, whose schism,
or " dichostasy," we can easily understand, must, in the
estimation of the Anglican clergy, deprive us of all claim
to anything like legitimate or available ordination all
ministers, in every Church, the world over, " who have
only received Presbyterian orders," are contemplated by
his lordship in what he proposes. Not only is there the
comprehensive phrase, just quoted, in his first letter, but,
in a subsequent one, he expressly refers to and enume-
rates " the Lutherans, and Reformed Churches of
Europe, with the various sections of the Presbyterian
communion in Scotland,"* as included among and con-
stituting a part of those ecclesiastical bodies to whom
* App., p. 50.
A DISSOLVING VIEW. 49
his " Church of the Future" is presented. To " the
present generation of ministers," in all these Evangelical
denominations, who have only been ordained, according
to their own customs and laws, " by the laying on of the
hands of the Presbytery," his proposition is that, with
a view to a visible unity of action, The Anglican Bishops
might begin by recognizing them as de facto ministers
(waiving, so far as they are concerned, the de jure ques-
tion) ; that they might give them " the right hand of fel-
lowship," and thus countenance their going to their own
flocks as ministers ; and that they might also " License "
them to "mission" "as preachers" to "Anglican con-
gregations." This, however, it is carefully provided,
should not be without " full evidence being given before
license of soundness in the faith." " In this way," says
the Bishop, " existing ministers might co-operate with us
in the preaching of the Gospel ; " they might thus, as
missionary preachers, be admissible to our pulpits; pro-
vided the " before-mentioned terms of union were agreed
upon to take effect prospectively." These arrange-
ments, it is concluded, " would seem to meet the exigen-
cies of the case as far as regards the present generation of
ministers, who have received Presbyterian orders." And
as to the future? you ask ; Why, as "the terms to be
agreed upon to take effect prospectively," include an
Episcopate elected by the whole of the associated bodies,
then, whatever minor varieties of rule may be permitted,
like those of Loyola or Dominic, all, for some general
purposes, will be under that of their elected primary
pastors, who, of course, will exercise their peculiar func-
tion in respect to ordination, so that, by hypothesis, there
50 LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
would, in another generation, be no ministers at all who
had only received " Presbyterian orders." Just as by
the gradual, and at first almost imperceptible, change of
colour and object, one picture is replaced by another in
a series of dissolving views, so is it to come to pass,
through the working of an arranged and adapted ma-
chinery, that the present existing ministerial orders of
the greater number of Protestant Evangelical denomi-
nations shall " vanish away," and one alone remain,
universal and permanent.*
If I have not misinterpreted the documents before me,
if I have succeeded in discovering their real meaning,
that is the ultimate object of the suggestions they con-
tain. Of the probable acceptance of the scheme, by the
Non-episcopal Churches of Europe and the world, I am
requested to give my opinion. In doing this, I am not
called upon to defend or justify the views of any man, or
of any denomination. I only give my impressions, such
as they are, arising from any knowledge I may possess
of the way in which ecclesiastical matters are looked at
or under certain supposed circumstances are likely to
be looked at by those who stand on different ground
from that occupied by the Bishop. So far, then, as
that knowledge extends, I fear I must say that my
impression is, that little would be required beyond
the bare statement or exposition of the scheme itself
to insure its almost universal rejection. Different
parties would take exception to different parts of it,
or different aspects. What I should myself say, I will
mention last; what others would say, I can imagine
* Let., pp. 16-18, pars. 19, 20.
MUTUAL " DICHOSTASY." 51
might come forth in separate and successive utterances
like these.
A. " Looking only at the first letter, I think there is
a discrepancy in it something like the discord you spoke
of before perhaps a part of it. Again and again the
Bishop uses language which places all the different de-
nominations on a level : the Episcopalian, the Presby-
terian, the Congregationalist are alike to be content with
harmonising what they cannot enforce ; neither can hope
to prevail with those brought up in a different school.
Certain phrases, indeed, are employed which have no
meaning, or no force, if they do not involve the admis-
sion that * dichostasy ' belongs to the Bishop and his
brethren as well as others, for e standing apart ' is repre-
sented as a sin common to all; one Church or Denomi-
nation stands as much away from others, as others do
from it ;* yet, the remedy, it seems, is to consist in the
Officers and the Regimen of One gradually attaining
universal ascendency, all the rest becoming subject to it,
or being absorbed by it ! When this process is complete,
outoyard and visible union will be perfected ! Such is
the inevitable ultimatum of your friend's scheme, though
it may not seem so to himself from the concessions he
thinks he has made, or may be hidden from others on
the first perusal of the letter containing it, by the
glowing and beautiful words in which it is put forth.
The Bishop did not know, did not suspect, while
he was indulging the fond imagination, and inditing
his mellifluous sentences what is nevertheless true
that, in the document referred to, ( the voice is
* Let., p. 4, par. 3.
52 LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
the voice of Jacob, but the hands are the hands of
Esau.'"
B. " But there are other documents, letters explana-
tory of the first, in which what you [A.] regard as the
inevitable result, is admitted to be designed, and the
design itself excused or justified. In allusion to one of
these, I should say, that it may be perfectly true that
' Luther and Calvin admitted Episcopacy to be lawful ;
that Independents deny the Divine right of Presbyterian-
ism ; and that the Free Kirk would hardly insist upon
it as a dogma of the faith ;' * nevertheless, there are
those who actually believe that Presbyterianism or
Independency is more scriptural than Episcopacy ; and
others who, though deeming all three as alike authorita-
tively indifferent, yet prefer the one or other of the
former on the ground of what is wisest and best, and who
would deprecate the extinction of either as a calamity to
the world. Besides, the admission of the lawfulness of
a thing, and that as such it may be allowed and used, is
something far short of recognizing its Divine claim to
exclusive rule, or quietly acquiescing in the persuasion
of those who, so regarding it, make it a ( dogma ' of
their system, or being willing to accede to their request
to allow it the ascendency because they believe it to be
Divine and apostolic."
C. " It is proposed, however, let it be observed, that
we should consent to this ascendency as a means to an
end. It is put to us, whether, for the sake of securing
a formal and visible union, which would impress the
world and render access to the Church easy on all
* App., p. 13.
THE SUNK FENCE. 53
sides, we mio-ht not throw all our distinctive views into
the gap between us and Episcopacy, and thus make com-
mon cause with its adherents who occupy a fortress
( they camiot abandon ;' and it is suggested that we
mio-ht do this, because, while we do not claim exclusive
apostolicity, they do.* I, however, for one, do not admit
the propriety of the appeal. The gap, or sunk fence, we
believe to have been dug by human hands. The sacri-
fice asked, is not therefore required by God ; it is too
great to be made at the suggestion of man, on any sup-
posed calculations of expediency, or any appeal to
modesty or love. It is not necessary to the end propo-
sed ; that might be reached better by other means, if
good sense and good feeling really prevailed on all sides.
However little we may boast of ( Divine right,' or e ex-
clusive authority,' in respect to our denominational
characteristics, we think it is asking of us too much that
we should consent to shoot them, as so much rubbish,
into a great hole, seeing that, in doing so, we should feel
that we were parting with much that is great and
valuable, accordant with the Scriptures, conservative of
the spirit of apostolic times, and which the Church, as
we believe, could ill spare. I am willing to admit that
f a goodly number of the traditions and customs of past
ages ' might be used for the purpose of filling up the gulf
referred to. But they should be contributed by both
parties. The Bishop's suggestion has too much the look
of ' a one-sided reciprocity.' "
D. "I should add to that a consideration which, I
think, is sometimes overlooked. In adhering to what
* App., pp. 31, 30.
54 LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
we ourselves regard as wisest and best, it does not
follow that we require others to conform to us, or even
wish them to submit to a s fraternal curtailment.'* They
are perfectly welcome to tail, mane, hoof or horn, or
anything else, which they think becoming, or esteem
and value as a gift of the gods, so long as they do thus
regard it, and do not use it offensively against others.
We accord to all the liberty we exercise ourselves,
liberty to form, to cling to, and to carry out personal
convictions. We have no quarrel with those who see in
the New Testament a diocesan Episcopacy fully developed,
or who prefer it as a rational and wise induction from
what is there, and who conscientiously adopt and
zealously adhere to it. We have no desire to interfere
with them, or to ask them to do anything merely to
please us. All we say is, that, for ourselves, as we
not only do not see their system in the Record, but
seriously believe that, in its modern form, it violates or
ignores important rights both of presbyters and people,
we could not consent to admit its pretensions or forward
its ascendency."
E. " Besides, think of men being ' licensed ' to preach
in the manner proposed ! Licensed, in some instances,
by those who should rather be licensed by them ; and in
others by some whom they would not license !"
But enough of this, and more than enough. Suf-
fice it to say, that I can imagine individuals in the
different Protestant Non-episcopal bodies expressing
themselves thus, in relation to the scheme before us.
These utterances of theirs may be right or wrong, wise
* App., p. 31.
TOO LATE. 55
or foolish ; into that question I do not enter. I content
myself with saying that, for my own part, I don't think
it of the slightest nse to go into such questions with a
view to any united action. They may be important and
interesting, and not without results, as matters of argu-
ment and of individual research ; but as to the whole
Protestant world coming to an agreement to act as the
Bishop proposes in "the present generation," or any
other it is so utterly out of the question, that it is no
use, as it seems to me, to canvass the scheme. It comes
several generations too late. There was a time when
many of the nice questions it involves influenced the
world, and affected the destinies of nations ; they have
comparatively little interest now, except to us ministers,
who, living in our own spheres of speculative thought,
fall into the habit of attaching importance to matters of
a theoretic or traditional character, regardless of the fact
that the great machine of actual life is moving on and
whirling away, not only without submitting to be con-
trolled by them, but as to some, grinding them to
powder. Schemes of " comprehension," plans for the
coalition of different bodies, the " reduction " of some
to the bosom of another, or their subjection to its " do-
minion," these once had their day ; they were talked of,
suggested, proposed, and died; died, as it was thought,
never to live again. And they never will. Any
attempt to revive and resuscitate them will be vain.
The divisions into sections of the Christian Church, the
existence of distinct Protestant Evangelical denomina-
tions, must be accepted as a great fact. It must be dealt
with as such. It is no matter who was right or who
56 LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
wrong, at the time of the original dispute, unless,
indeed, the subject of dispute still exists, and is on either
side regarded as vital. As to sectional divisions on the
ground of forms and modes of administration and dis-
cipline, these are most likely inseparable from the con-
dition of the Church in the present world. It is by no
means certain that great ceremonial differences did not
exist among the first Christians in apostolic times ; it is
certain that, in proportion as the Church got consoli-
dated into a vast association, compact, uniform, domi-
nant, it became a merciless and intolerable tyranny.
If it were possible for all Protestant Evangelical deno-
minations to be fused together into one Church to-
day, and as such to have a fresh start, it would be split
into innumerable divisions to-morrow; or, if not, it
would become a power inimical to freedom in all its
forms, and that, too, even though it commenced on the
principle, and with the profession, of securing and
recognizing the rights of individuals, and " the liberty of
sectional aspiration and action." But, whether these
views are correct or not, in relation either to the past or
the future as to primitive facts or anticipated probabi-
lities the one great fact stands there sternly confront-
ing us ; divisions and subdivisions exist ; they are to be
found even within communities ostensibly and formally
one : the fact must be accepted and made the best of,
whatever that may be ; but, as to supposing that thou-
sands and tens of thousands of professedly free men,
composing numerous and influential religious denomina-
tions, with principles, organizations, and customs esta-
blished and in action, mighty living powers, to
RESTORE THE HEPTARCHY. 57
suppose that these could all be brought to coalesce and
amalgamate, to give up, in some measure, their separate
existence, and to agree and consent to some species or
other of uniform rule ; still more, to suppose that the
vast majority of those composing these great masses
could be brought to concede, and to see the propriety of
conceding, what is suggested in respect to the ministers
of one communion, why, even if all this were right and
proper and most desirable in itself, to suppose that it
could be, in the present state of the world, or under any
probable future condition of things, is simply to dream
of an utter impossibility. Whether right or wrong,
theoretically speaking, it is practically naught ; for any
vse, it cannot be seriously entertained ; to discuss it
would be a waste of words, you might as well discuss
the restoration of the Heptarchy.
III.
Doctrine.
The third remark I submit is, that the sort of union
proposed by the Bishop would so closely connect the
different denominations with each other, that each would
feel itself responsible for what was retained and professed
by any. This, I apprehend, would have results in
respect to his own community which his lordship has
not thought of, (and could hardly be expected to have
thought of,) and for which he is not prepared.
In proposing to throw into the furnace all existing
Churches, and to construct a new one out of the mass,
in desiderating some " analytical process," some " law of
affinity," that might aid this result the Bishop uses
H
58 LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
language which goes far beyond matters of discipline
and ceremony, and such formal and secondary things,
touching, as it does, the sphere of inward and vital
truth. The " analytical process " sought, is to be one
" by which the spiritual mind may precipitate the error,
and leave pure and limpid the Gospel stream."*
If such a process as this was to be set in action, what-
ever might be its effect on other bodies which might
doubtless be considerable, but which is not at present
the question before us its bearing on the Anglican
section of the Church would be such as the Bishop does
not conjecture. In it, some important changes would be
required : changes which would be called for by the
deep convictions of "the spiritual mind" in other com-
munities, and called for in proportion as the mind of
such communities was spiritual, and spiritually en-
lightened, alive, and active ; changes which would be
demanded on the very ground of such a union being aimed
at as the scheme proposes, such an identity of the parts
with the whole and with each other as could not but be
felt to have serious results. There may be much in
many Churches which the adherents of others disapprove ;
but friendly relations may be maintained amongst them
without their becoming mutually responsible for each
other's errors. The ministers of several communions, as
alike holding great primary truths, though mixed up in
all with something of alloy, may have kindly intercourse,
exercise fraternal recognition, and even exchange pulpits,
without their being involved in, or accountable for, all
that the different Churches maintain, or with the things
* Let., p. 14, par. 17.
MORAL SUBSCRIPTION TO CREEDS. 59
Bishop of Adelaide to be mistaken in stating that I
" morally subscribed " to the whole of the Wesleyan
creed "before I preached in their Chapel;" a creed
"tolerably long," as he says, consisting of "what is
contained in Wesley's Notes on the New Testament and
his four volumes of Sermons !"* I did no such thing. I
was by no means so committed to all the peculiarities of
the Methodist confession by the mere act of preaching in
one of their Chapels, and that, too, to a mixed general
audience gathered from the public at large, in a place
eligible from its size, and selected on that account, and
for a collection on behalf of the Bible Society ! The
Bishop would hardly apply this canon to himself for
preaching in the Nonconformist Chapel at Angaston, or,
if he prefers it, accepting its use as a place appropriated
for worship, and using it accordingly. If, however, the
Bishop thinks that subscription to the entire creed of
a denomination is involved in the mere act of preaching
in one of its Chapels, how much more must that be involved
when each denomination constitutes an integral part of a
great united visible body, and all are so intimately asso-
ciated that there is the recognition and display of this
identity ! Reponsibility for, participation in, other men's
beliefs would follow from belonging to such a confedera-
tion as the Bishop contemplates, and would be felt by
some of the constituent parts to be very serious, if what
they deemed "the error" of others was not "precipi-
tated" in the process of formation. I can easily under-
stand that great changes might be effected in any
* App., p. 35.
h2
60 LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
supposed union of Churches, so far as matters of form,
or order, or governmental construction and action are
concerned, changes, which might be accepted by some
without hurting the conscience, acquiesced in by others
without resistance and without inconsistency. But there
are other changes that may be thought of: things might
have to be touched, handled, modified, removed, which
belong to a higher sphere, and connect themselves, in
the " spiritual mind," with the deepest feelings and
most momentous results. To enter this sphere, and
"precipitate" these things, (equivocal term !) would, in
the case submitted to us, if it ever came to anything, be
conscientiously demanded by some of the " Evangelical
Protestant denominations ;" while, by a portion, at least,
of the adherents of one the Anglican Church that
demand would be as conscientiously and resolutely
resisted.
Let us take the Bishop's statement of the " ruling
idea," the * characteristic principle," of the Anglican
Church. She " witnesses," he says, " for a Scriptural
creed, Apostolic orders, and a settled Liturgy."* We
may pass over the liturgical point without remark.
When we look, however, at the other two, ideas rise out
of them and force themselves upon us which are not to
be so easily dismissed. " Orders ?" " Creed ?" What
do these comprehend ? What do the words imply in the
lips of an Anglican prelate ? The first, not simply
admission to the ministry, but, as we think, ordination to
the priesthood : the second, this profession among others,
"I believe in one baptism for the remission of sins."f
* Let., p. 13, par. 17. f Nicene Creed.
THE SPECIAL TESTIMONY OF ANGLICANISM. 61
The Bishop says to me, " before you could preach in our
pulpits," " I ask of you and other Non-episcopalian
ministers," " subscription" to " a creed in accordance with
the Nicene Confession." * Now, whether right or wrong
in their interpretation of the Prayer-Book, the meaning
of the term " orders," as looked at in the light of the
Ordination Service, the import of the article just quoted
from the Nicene Creed, viewed in connexion with the
baptismal formularies ; whether, I say, right or wrong
in their judgment touching these matters, there are those
who believe the protestation of many of the Clergy
notwithstanding that the " creed " and " orders "
of the Anglican Church include in them together a
sacramental and a sacerdotal element at variance with
the teaching of Scripture, and likely to be spiritually
injurious just in proportion as they are believed and
confided in. Spiritual regeneration " in and by baptism,"
the giving of the Holy Ghost in conferring " orders,"
the consequent power of priestly absolution, [" by Christ's
authority committed to me I absolve thee from all thy
sins ;"f ] these and other things which come out of what
we understand the Anglican Church to hold and teach,
are all suggested to us by what the Bishop describes as
her "testimony" that to which she "witnesses." The
rest of the Evangelical Protestant denominations, how-
ever, would, more or less, protest against these things,
require them not only to be " jre-considered " but
removed, and would refuse all such union with those
who adhered to them, as would involve them in a " moral
subscription" to their truth, or make them in any way
* App., p. 35. f " Visitation of the Sick." Prayer-Booh.
62 LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
responsible for them. We, who here represent the
English Nonconformists, have an especial right to refer
to the matters in question as now set forth, because the
points mentioned were among those which led to our
ejection from the English Church, or prevented our
adhesion to it, " in times past." Some of us had no
great or insuperable objection either to Episcopacy or to
Liturgies. We could have fallen in with arrangements
which might have included both these ; but we could
not conscientiously use services and forms which, in our
view, obviously involved the sacerdotal element, and ex-
plicitly affirmed sacramental efficacy. Many of our party,
while agreeing with us in this, went much further, and
could hardly have been retained by any modification of
ecclesiastical arrangements; but many stood simply
where I have described, and though some have since
advanced, there are those who stand there still. Our
objections were over-ruled, our scruples disregarded ; we
were obliged by the dictates of conscience and honour to
submit to be cast out. The Bishop himself recognizes
the propriety of our thus speaking, for he says, in words
already quoted, that we " separated in times past on
some not unimportant points of doctrine and discipline ;"
and that we "still differ in our views and teaching
respecting the Sacraments and Ministry ;" that is, as
to the "creed" and "orders" on behalf of which the
Anglican Church " witnesses." We do. And not only
so, but we deem our differences to be so great and
serious, that we could not consent to be comprehended
in " the Church of the Future," over which, as we saw,
the Anglican discipline is to wave, if, along with that
SELF-JUDGMENT. 63
discipline, it continued to adhere (as of course it would)
to some of those things which it regards as constituting
its special testimony; things, however, which we
reject ; which are not, as we believe, in accordance with
the Scriptures, but which, flowing from no higher source
than the teaching of that Church which once enthralled
and corrupted every other, we regard as errors, errors
which, in the Anglican Church, are more or less the
marks and monuments of its imperfect reformation.
The priestly and sacramental elements which, in our
view, pervade the "offices" of the Anglican Church, are
the principal grounds of our "standing apart;"
grounds which justify such " dichostasy" to our own
consciences and before God, and make it a duty and an
obligation. With such convictions, we could not belong
to any union, confederacy, church (present or " future"),
adhesion to which would involve the sanction, recog-
nition, and maintenance of these things. We judge no
man ; but we think that we should be permitted to judge
ourselves. Others, to the best of their judgment, in
good faith and with a good conscience, may so interpret
the Anglican formularies as not to see in them what we
see, and to be able to use them with inward satisfaction ;
while others, again, because of the very things which
are obstacles to us, and which they see in the book just
as we do, rejoice in it for their sake, and would cling to
and contend for them to the death. Be it so. " Let
every man be fully persuaded in his own mind." " To
his own Master he standeth or falleth." So long as
they are distinct in their Church organizations, the
ministers of different communions, who think and feel
64 LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
alike, though with their respective lights and convic-
tions they could not conscientiously change places, may
yet honour and esteem each other, meet and fraternize,
join in such services as are at any time possible (as they
might in others if permitted), without being involved in
all that the Churches may respectively hold, or be sup-
posed to hold ; but the case would be altogether altered
if a number of denominations were to be consolidated
into one united body, and to constitute in any sense a
Church, however there might be permitted in different
congregations " a diversity of rule." All would be
responsible for whatever touched vital truth, and u the
spiritual mind " would feel compromised by any thing
that, in its estimation, did not leave " pure and limpid
the Gospel stream" Since, therefore, it appears to me
that, in respect to several of the " Protestant Evangelical
denominations" on the one side, and the " Anglican" on
the other, there is so great a difference in their " views
and teaching respecting the sacraments and ministry,"
that what those regard as impurities in the stream, this
values as giving to it richness and flavour, and as being
the source of its medicinal virtue, I do not see much
likelihood of such a coalition between them as the
Adelaide " idea" of the " Church of the Future" appears
to involve, certainly not, on the hypothesis of the
Anglican Confession and Rule occupying so predominant
and regal a position that, in the person of its bishops,
it is to preside over the subscriptions to articles of faith
of all other ministers, to allow and license them (" the
present generation"), and to secure to their successors
something more than " Presbyterian orders." The
RECAPITULATION. 65
Bishop's proposed creed " in accordance with the Nicene
Confession," might consist of a few simple articles, and
his service for " the conferring of orders," might omit
what to other Protestants is objectionable (though, who,
conscious of the power of creating a priest, would consent
to that ?) but, even if such were the case, the Anglican
teaching, its creed, orders, offices, ordinations, would
remain for itself the same, and the point is, that " the
spiritual mind," in other communions, would, as I think,
revolt from any such identity or confederation as would
make them " morally " responsible for these.
On these several grounds, then, it appears to me, that
the scheme of the Bishop of Adelaide for the formal
" union of all the Protestant Evangelical denominations,"
with a view to the formation of a " Church of the
Future," can never be any thing but an ideal sketch.
As a speculation, or theory, it is not likely to find
general approval; as to its being realized in fact, that
would seem to be utterly hopeless. It aims at far too
much. What it seeks is not possible, if it were ex-
pedient ; and many will think would not be expedient,
if it were possible. In liturgical and other matters,
it has been thought to offer, in the name of his own
communion, concessions and changes which many of its
members would deprecate and resist. It asks of others
what it is not to be supposed they would be willing to
grant, and suggests their acceptance of, and submission
to, that whose claims to pre-eminence they have learnt
to deny. But worst of all, the project is impeded, as we
think, by the nature of the proposed union being such,
OO LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
that if attempted, it would involve serious responsibility
in respect to doctrine, which could not but have cor-
responding serious results ; results on all ' sides, cer-
tainly some for which his lordship is not prepared.
The soundness of the conclusion at which I have arrived,
and have thus stated, does not depend on the Tightness
and trueness of the creed and confession either of the
Bishop and the Bishop's Church on the one hand, or of
those of the Non-episcopal communions on the other;
but simply on the fact, that such and such are their
views respectively, and that the present condition of the
Protestant world is what it is. I have gone more
minutely into the matters before us, than, perhaps, was
at all necessary ; but the nature of the document first
submitted to me, and the quarter from which it came,
have very naturally led to this. In one of his latest com-
munications, the Bishop still expresses his anxiety to
know " whether such a union as that proposed would be
deemed by Non-episcopal bodies unnecessary or inex-
pedient, or whether there are any such difficulties or
objections in the way, as, if not removable, would form
an insuperable barrier to a complete fellowship of the
Churches."* I have tried to answer these inquiries ; or,
at least, I have tried to contribute something towards an
answer. Having done what I could in that respect, I
shall now add a few further remarks on some things
which have been obtruded on our attention by the recent
correspondence, or by events arising out of it.
* App., p. 50.
PART SECOND.
HINTS AND OBSERVATIONS
SEVERAL SUGGESTED ECCLESIASTICAL QUESTIONS.
I.
Episcopacy.
The Bishop, throughout his communications, seems to
confound Episcopacy as it at present exists, with that
of the apostolic age, to assume the identity of the two
^and to claim for the one what he thinks was due to
the other. This is not the time or place to argue the
question ; it may not, however, be improper to state that
whether right or wrong in our convictions and belief,
we do so apprehend things as to be obliged to disallow
his lordship's assumption. The bishops of the New
Testament were presbyters, and presbyters only ;* and
although the office of Timothy and Titus, and the
direction of the pastoral epistles, would seem to coun-
tenance something like official ecclesiastical presidency
in a district, there is no proof that Timothy or Titus
was ever fixed as a stationary " overseer " in any defined
sphere, extended or limited like a modern diocese. The
presumption is rather on the other side ; it would seem
to be, that, " having set in order the things that were
wanting, and ordained elders in every city," the Churches
were then complete (each with its presbytery, or elder-
* Acts xx. ver. 17, compared with ver. 28. The identity of the
" presbyters" of the one verse, wiih the " bishops" of the other, is
concealed by the U3e of the word "overseers," which is at once
equivalent and equivocal. Phil. i. 1 ; 1 Tim. iii. 1 7 ; Titus
i. 5 7, compared; 1 Peter v. 1, 2.
70 LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
ship), and, thus constituted, were henceforth competent
to govern themselves. The Christian congregations in
any region, were the Churches* of that region, not " the
Church ;" each was independent of the others as to rule
or responsibility, though all were united by love and
reciprocal recognition. Even in the second century, it
is on all hands admitted, that many of those who are
designated bishops in certain ecclesiastical gatherings,
were simply the pastors of separate congregations, not a
few of them of small country churches. This fact should
not be forgotten in estimating Chillingworth's celebrated
argument. But, however these things may be, or a
hundred others that might be suggested, springing out
of certain expressions in the New Testament, or certain
facts in Church history, I should be quite willing to
allow, for my part, that the customs and usages of the
apostolic age were such, that something like an Episco-
pacy was a very natural result from them. Just as I
have a leaning towards a liturgical service, so have I con-
victions and preferences which would render an Episco-
pal rule no objection and no burden to me. If it were
possible for the different religious bodies to come to an
agreement to unite and act together, something of the
kind would most likely evolve, and take form and move-
ment, by way of natural consequence, as the result of
necessity or expediency, and the action of great general
laws. In this way Episcopacy arose at first, though it
was sometime before it acquired many of its modern
attributes. Hence, however it may be preferred, and
lawfully used, by any portion of the Church, it is not
* Gal. i. 22 ; Acts ix. 31 ; 1 Cor. xvi., verses 1st and 19th.
BISHOPS DIFFER. 71
right for its adherents to employ in respect to it words
and terms which meant one thing in the first century and
mean another in this, as if, in each case, they weighed
exactly alike, and stood precisely for the same thing.
I do not wonder at the Bishop of Adelaide's regarding
Episcopacy, with its three orders, as a Divine institute,
as that would seem to be the " dogma " of his Church.
It believes that there have been, " in Christ's Church,
from the apostles' time, bishops, priests, and deacons."
The Bishop accepts this ; and, as one " diligently read-
ing the holy Scripture and ancient authors," is honestly
persuaded that the thing is " evident to all men " doing
the same. At any rate, for himself, he feels " bound in
conscience " to adhere to it, as of u apostolic origin and
scriptural authority." I am not surprised at this. At
the same time, it should be remembered that there are
those men of like ecclesiastical rank, and even higher
who think that the very statements he quotes* admit
of an interpretation which would authenticate as " duly
called " those who have " only received Presbyterian
orders ;" while others, again, treat Church Government
as altogether a matter of expediency, without anything
about it to make it of permanent or universal obligation.
The present Bishop of Melbourne thus expressed himself
in his Primary Charge: " The order of bishops, although
we believe it upon most conclusive evidence to have
been derived from the apostles, is not anywhere in
the Scriptures expressly commanded to be retained;
and therefore is not in any of our formularies, or in the
writings of any of our earliest and best divines, affirmed
* App., p. 30.
72 LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
to be essential to the constitution of a true Church."
In a note to this statement of his own opinion, he refers
to that of the Archbishop of Canterbury as being coinci-
dent with it; and quotes the following historical state-
ment : " It appears to be a well-established fact, that
during a considerable period after the Reformation,
many English benefices were held by divines, who had
been admitted to the ministry in the Calvinistic form
used on the Continent; nor was re-ordination by a
bishop in such cases then thought necessary, or even
lawful." Dr. Arnold says, that " Episcopacy was never
commanded, the reason being that all forms of govern-
ment and ritual are in the Christian Church indifferent ;"
he speaks of uniformity as " that phantom which has
been our curse ever since the Reformation."
While it may be admitted that some ecclesiastical modes
and forms may approach nearer than others to those of
the apostolic age, there is no doubt that if the apostles
themselves were to rise from the dead they would rather
recognize the " others " than the " some," if they found
in them more of apostolic life, simplicity arid power.
Society understands this, in spite of all modern attempts
of cloister or college to invest certain pet formulas with
awful and authoritative attributes. The time is past for
governing the world by names, however powerful they
may have been once, when they stood for that which
really ruled. In these new lands especially, the days of
prescription and formula are numbered. Things are
real here, or tending to reality. If on the other side of
the world, much more on this is he the true Bishop who
actually influences thought and life, and who thus really
NOT IN WORD BUT IN POWER. 73
governs and guides, by whatever title lie may be dis-
tinguished, or wherever he may be found. It would be
far better, if all of us who profess to be pre-eminently
the " light " and " leaven " of the world, its " prophets "
and " priests," were seeking to serve it by the power of
truth, holiness and love, instead of spending our time in
putting forth questionable claims, or in discussions about
" endless " ecclesiastical " genealogies," which " minister
strife rather than godly edifying." We but impose upon
ourselves by trying to conjure with words, which have
lost their power to divine ; seeking to revive, and to give
range and permanence to imbecile externalisms, which
might be made to cover the whole earth without an inch
of it being brought nearer to the kingdom of heaven !
That kingdom " is not meat and drink ; but righteous-
ness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost." It is not
form, but substance ; not order, or rule, or symbol, or
ceremony, but " the life of God in the soul of man ;"
and, though it may be true tha^t certain ecclesiastical
customs and arrangements may, more than others, be
promotive" or conservative of that life, it may exist and
grow, and be a reality and a power, vigorous and
fruitful, under any. All may exist without sin. They
might act without rivalry, dissonance, or disorder.
By each, men may spiritually live ; some best by
one, some by others. It is wrong to think that the
adherents of this or that Ecclesiastical "Rule," must,
simply as such, necessarily wish to supplant or destroy
all the rest ; or that attachment to their own, implies a
desire to reduce others to their standard ; or that an
approach to friendly relations, means covert invasion and
74 LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
attempted conquest. The Adelaide memorialists had no
intention of " blowing up the counterscarp of the ditch,
and planting their banners on the breach of a ruined
Episcopacy !"* They no more thought of such a thing,
or that what they asked would be that, than I in
stating that some of the Non-episcopalian bodies would be
hard to persuade to give up their te idiosyncrasies "
meant to imply, that the " Greek, Roman, Syrian, or
Russian, Churches " would, to meet their demands, have
to be " reformed down to the platform of John Knox !"
But they who confound, under one name, primitive
customs and modern, and who think that the present
age, to be in harmony with the first, should accept their
traditions in respect to them, would seem to suppose
(perhaps very naturally) that the members of every
other communion must necessarily do the same, have
the same theory and the same thought, must believe
in the exact and the exclusive identity of their customs
with what in the beginning had apostolic sanction and
inspired authority, and must wish for and seek their
adoption in the place of, or their ascendency over,
others.
II.
The Spirit of different Church Systems.
It may be proper also to remark or to explain that
the spirit of our Church system does not limit or narrow
communion by non-essential points ; and that it does not
interfere with or repress an enlarged Christian sympathy
by interposing checks and hindrances to its manifestation.
* App., p. 31.
CATHOLIC COMMUNION. 75
Whatever other Church systems may do, ours, we think,
is free from this sin. One of the grounds of our " stand-
ing apart " from the Episcopal communion rises out of
the very opposite spirit. We cannot bring ourselves to
consent, by belonging to that, to be practically separated
and cut off from all other Protestant Churches. Once
within the sacred enclosure of the Episcopal "Rule,"
there is no longer intercourse or reciprocity possible
between us and other ministers in any public acts of
Church-life. If we believe this to be the ordination of
Christ and the will of God, as the Bishop does, we should
of course submit, though our feelings, like his, might
" kick against our judgment.'' But distinguishing, as
we do, between the secondary and the essential, external
forms and spiritual life, we are happy in the thought
that we need not, on the ground of mere outward order,
decline to approach those " who have received the Holy
Ghost as well as we," and, by such " standing apart,"
to obstruct Christian fellowship u for non-essential
points," and "narrow communion through matters of
Christian expediency rather than Christian obligation ?"
We neither think such u dichostasy " enjoined, nor covet
the isolation it leads to, however partially concealed
under fine names. With our views and feelings, im-
passable limits, not imposed or required by loyalty to
fundamental doctrinal truth, would be " bonds " " a
wall of separation " not of God's building, things un-
lovely, however gilded and ornamented, not to be
endured, though covered over and made to look imposing
by the tapestry of faded traditionary emblazonments.
We not only do not wish to forbid others to cast out
12
76 LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
devils, " because they follow not us ;" but we do not
think it is "following them," if we join with them occa-
sionally, on equal terms, in helping to deliver distracted
humanity from the thraldom of the Evil One.
The Bishop is mistaken in thinking that we have only
just now come to see why it is that the Episcopal clergy
cannot unite with us in ministerial acts ; that this pro-
ceeds not from the " mere pride of social position, or the
domineering spirit of a State-favoured Church and a
Baronial Episcopate," but because, " they cannot recog-
nize our orders." * We have long been aware of that.
We have long been familiar with the distinction between
an Establishment and a Church, and have known how
the latter might come out of the environment of the
former, and be delivered from all legal disability of
intercourse with others, and yet retain, in all their
force perhaps guard with greater vigilance than before,
and obtrude with increased iteration and emphasis
those claims and pretensions which, far more than any
thing else, separate it from the rest of the " Evangelical
denominations." My Right Rev. friend cannot, of
course, forego his conscientious convictions. He is
bound to adhere to them, though they compel him to
" stand apart " from all the Evangelical communities of
Protestant Christendom, as if his Church stood alone in
the midst of the earth, or was the only Divine thing on
the face of it. We do not ask him to " follow us ; " nor
to give up, on the ground of expediency, and as a matter
of compromise, the smallest atom of what he believes to
be of Divine obligation ; nor would we wish him, or any
* App., pp. 28, 29.
A DEPRESSING THOUGHT. 77
one else, to break through what he regards as a Divine
barrier ; but we may be permitted to rejoice that his
convictions are not ours ; that " we have not so learned
Christ ;" that we are free, without compunction or
inconsistency, and as " of faith," to hold intercourse with
those who also belong to the Christian "household;"
that we can not only meet them on the common stair,
and talk with them on the landing, or over the rail, but
that we are able to look in, occasionally, into their
apartments, in a friendly way, for a morning call or an
evening visit, without feeling bound to take up our
abode in them, or to adopt their peculiarities of accom-
modation or ornament, coming home to cut and fashion
our own furniture to look like theirs. It does seem to
us rather a depressing and melancholy thing, and one
that argues that something is seriously wrong somewhere,
that " kindred souls, professedly pledged to the same
cause, rejoicing in the same hope, and devoted to the
same duty of preaching Christ and Him crucified to a
dark and fallen world," are yet forbidden, not only to
exchange pulpits with each other, but even to " co-operate
in the distribution of religious tracts, missions to the bush,
or Sunday School Teachers' Unions." The views of
one class, in respect to " orders " and " the prophetical
office of the ministry," interfere. The u cause," the
" hope," the " duty " preaching " Christ and Him
crucified," are, by hypothesis, " the same." There
are those who think that a great, common object might
be unitedly aided and advanced by some forms of co-
operative action, and that it would be well if it were so ;
and they further think, that it is not they their
78 LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
principles or spirit that prevents it. They respect the
convictions and admit the conscientiousness of those with
whom the obstacle lies. All that they ask for them-
selves is, that it should not be attributed to them ; and
that they may be permitted to rejoice in " that liberty,"
with which, as they believe, " Christ has made them
free."
III.
Systems and Men.
Unconscious Revelations.
.
The Queen, it has been said, is not a person but an
Institution. Her official acts are not to be regarded as
the acts of an individual, but as the actings of a system.
They do not indicate, therefore, personal character, but
are merely illustrative of the spirit and working of the
Constitution. The same may be said of ruling ecclesi-
astics. In officially carrying out their policy, and thus
showing (unconsciously, it may be,) " what manner of
spirit it is of," they are not to be judged as persons, but
to be regarded as institutions. Their personal, qualities,
their individual dispositions and character, are separable,
and should be separated, not only from their official acts,
but even from many others, not strictly official, which
they may either feel bound to do, or be induced to do, as
entrusted with the working, or being themselves a part,
of the machinery of a Church system. This principle I
hope you will keep in mind in going through the "Adelaide
Correspondence." All who were engaged in it, will be
discovered to stand in need, more or less, of its charitable
application, or of those charitable allowances which spring
AN IMPORTANT CAUTION. 79
out of it. I am not myself a " ruling " ecclesiastic, (nor
perhaps, in reality, or as some think, an ecclesiastic at
all,) yet, as having long been accustomed to look at
ecclesiastical matters from a particular point of view, and
being necessarily, therefore, subject to the influence
of one-sided habits of thought in respect to them,
though I have all my life struggled against that, I
frankly confess that I often found myself very quietly
using expressions, which, though natural to me, and
seemingly innocent, I saw, on reflection, could not but
be offensive to others. Many of these merely breathed
and died ; but some of them, doubtless, escaped death
and still live. When they cross your path, be so good
as remember what I have just been saying. They will
tell their tale, betraying the secret unconsciously con-
fided to them ; but you can give me the benefit of the
distinction to which I have referred. In no sphere of
thought is it so necessary as in the ecclesiastical, to keep
in mind the distinction between things and men,
official acts and personal character, moral disposition
and mental habitudes, the spirit of a system, and the
spirit of those who advocate or belong to it. I insist
upon this, because, in connexion with the point at present
before us, I deem it right to refer to some particulars
which singularly illustrate the spirit of the system in
which the Bishop of Adelaide, his official colleagues, and
special friends, live and move, the system as distinct
from the men ; and what I have asked for myself, I ask
for them.
1. You have already seen how, when under the influ-
ence of his own genial nature, his glowing and gushing
80 LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
sympathies, Dr. Short was pouring out his soul in his
first letter, the hand of the Bishop kept infusing into his
utterances what virtually nullified them. In what sub-
sequently occurred, in writing or act, little appeared but
the Bishop. Receiving information, when at a distance
from Adelaide, of what had occurred there, he became
alarmed, "doubting of himself whereunto this would
grow." He either misapprehended the movement, exag-
gerated minor circumstances, or saw what those on the
spot did not see. He therefore suddenly stopped at the
first step, yet with the manner of one who had long been
engaged in severe and somewhat disheartening labour.
He finds, " when he speaks of peace, some make them-
selves ready to battle ;" and, discovering that the
u Evangelical watches do not seem at present disposed to
go together" retires, feeling like Charles the Fifth, who
after " his life-long endeavours " to get men " to walk
by the same rule," was taught, by a sort of parable,
" the folly " of the attempt* Now, I am really not aware
that anything had occurred to warrant either of these
statements, or at least to justify so sudden and precipi-
tate a withdrawal from the world. The laymen had
mistaken the import of his words, and had mixed up that
mistake with their own object ; but a friendly and
immediate explanation might have been given, and was
certainly due. But the system was surprised. The
man appeared to have raised a spirit which the institution
did not mean to call, was not prepared for, and could
not welcome. Its only thought, therefore, was at once
to avoid or lay the apparition.
* App., p. 7.
ACTINGS OF THE IMPERSONAL. 81
November. (He wrote to me, from Bishop's Court, on
the evening of that day, forwarding his note of the 5th.)
The first memorial had been waiting for him from the
18th of October in the custody of his official friends. It
seems neither to have been asked for, nor presented, up
to the 15th November, as, on that day, the Bishop states
that "he had been informed" of something respecting it,
but had " not yet received it," a singular fact, con-
sidering that the Dean and the Archdeacon had recom-
mended the publication of the Governor's letter contain-
ing a distinct reference to it. On that same day, however,
the Bishop wrote a long reply to a second memorial, got
up after, and in opposition to, the first; it was not
till the 19th that the first was acknowledged, having
only been received on the 17th " at 2 p.m."* All this is
deeply significant. But justly and candidly to estimate
its import, you must distinguish between the system and
the men, and between the men in their personal and
their official character. Things which, without explanation,
seem to imply something like discourtesy to a number
of respectable persons, of good social position, members of
their own Church, are not to be regarded as the acts of
Dr. Short, and the Rev. Messrs. Farrell and Woodcock,
in their personal character as gentlemen, but should be
reckoned as the actings of an impersonal polity through
the almost unconscious movements of its official institu-
tions.
3. The difference between the "note" and "letter,"
respectively acknowledging the two memorials, is, you
* App., pp. 8, 9.
82 LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
will observe, somewhat remarkable, the off-hand, curt
brevity of the one, contrasted with the extended and
minute particularity of the other. Nor are the contents
of the documents without significance. In the " note,"
the Bishop states that "the obstacles in the way of giving
effect to the principle involved in the request of the
memorialists, are in his opinion little likely, under the
present circumstances and views entertained in the various
sections of the Protestant Church, to be overcome." I
submit that so far as the Non-episcopal " sections " of the
Protestant Church are concerned, their " circumstances
and views" will hardly sustain this statement in respect
to the laymen's object in itself considered. The " circum-
stances and views," however, of the Anglican " section,"
as felt and held by the Bishop, would not only sustain it,
but, as watched over and carried out by him, do now, as
we have seen, frown upon and forbid the slightest ap-
proach to ministerial co-operative recognition.*
4. I do not like referring you to a passage in the reply
to the second memorial, it is of so personal a nature, yet
I believe I must do so though it will be at some cost of
feeling to myself it is so singularly demonstrative of
what it is that " interposes a mid-wall of partition
between kindred souls, pledged to the same cause,
rejoicing in the same hope, and devoted to the same duty
of preaching Christ and Him crucified." The emphatic
words, in the extract, are the Bishop's. " For my
views," he says, " I have only to repeat that portion of
my letter to the Rev. T. Binney, in which I said,
' neither the power of your intellect, nor the vigour of
* Ante, p. 77 ; and App., p. 29.
A FRATERNAL ADMONITION. 83
Erour reasoning, nor mighty eloquence, nor purity of life.
lor suavity of manners, nor soundness in the faith, ivould
ustify me in departing from the rule of the Church of
England, a tradition of eighteen centuries, which declares
your orders irregular, your mission the offspring of
division, and your Church system, I will not say
schism, but dichostasy that is, standing apart.'"
[Hush ! don't manifest any feeling. When you have
lived as long in the world as I have, and have learnt to
discriminate, as constantly and carefully, between things
and men, you will be able to take from the One, with
perfect equanimity, what you might not be willing to
accept from the Other. It is the " Church," or its
" Rule," that speaks ; and it is with it only that we have
to do.] " Neither your purity of life, nor soundness in the
faith, icould justify me in departing from the Rule of the
Church of England, a tradition of eighteen centuries, which
declares your orders irregular, your mission the offspring
of division, and your Church system, I will not say schism,
but dichostasy that is, standing opart? Very well. Be
it so, I reply. So far as I am personally concerned, I
am quite content. Let rules and traditions go for what
they are worth. The Bishop repeats his words in allu-
sion to the laymen's request. But the laymen's request
was not mine. My name appearing in their memorial,
was an accident. I had nothing to do with it. But
I have something to do with my own " mission " as
a servant of Christ, and the spirit of the u Church
system " within which I live ; and, in consequence of
the Bishop's own voluntary act, I have a right also
to speak of his " Church system," especially as to
84 LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
its "standing apart," not (he himself being witness)
on the ground of what is essential, in respect to
" doctrinal soundness," or u Christian character," but on
matters of mere " traditional authority." I have no
claim to any thing like what Dr. Short, in the kindness
of his heart, attributes to me in the extract just read,
and would rather avoid looking at the question as a
personal one. This can be easily done by transferring
our friend's word-portrait from myself to Apollos. It
is a very good likeness of him. [Acts xviii. 24 28.]
Now, without going into argument or proof, (of which,
however, I think there is abundance,) I will only say,
that from all that appears in the apostolic history
respecting Apollos, and from other scriptural facts and
statements, I cannot but concur with those who believe
that he was exactly in that condition in regard to
" orders," that, if he were now to rise from the dead, and
appear in Adelaide, the spirit and principle of the
Bishop's system would oblige it to "stand apart" from
him; "neither the power of his intellect, nor his
mighty eloquence, nor the vigour of his reasoning, nor
the purity of his life, nor his soundness in the faith," nor
any thing else, would be of the least avail against the
authority of " a tradition ;" or, if the system yielded,
and the man who had never been ordained by a Bishop,
was admitted within its sacred and guarded precincts,
the agents of the irregularity would be in danger of
being " contended with," as Peter was by the Jerusalem
traditionists,* for consenting to eat with one uncircum-
cised. I hardly know of any thing more unlike the spirit
* Acts xi. 1, 2.
AN ALAKM QUIETED. 85
age, than the Bishop's own representation of the " circum-
stances and views" of the Anglican section of the
Protestant Church.
5. Still further; in consequence of his first letter
having been misunderstood, its glowing language and
catholic yearnings leaving the impression that he was
prepared for something practical, he publishes a pre-
vious correspondence, " in self-defence, and to re-assure
the Counter-memorialists." * I find no fault with this.
I think it was quite right, seeing that he had been
" misunderstood." But observe how it illustrates the
nature of the system. The Genius Loci, the Spirit of
the place in which the Bishop officially dwells, was
affronted, one might say, certainly affrighted, by the
tone and tenor of his speech. In spite of himself, and
of all his lowering and modifying phraseology, the flash-
ing of the burning words which his personal feelings
impelled him to utter, was thought to mean something.
Those who were prepared to sympathize with that,
welcomed the lustre, but in doing so mistook its nature
and " object," and, misled by the mistake, sought at
once to increase and to prolong it. This excited the
alarm of others, who dwelt in the darker recesses of the
temple. They thought the light was lightning, and
that the whole fabric was about to be dissolved ! They
made known their apprehensions in a manner hardly
intelligible, by a sort of incoherent, confused cry,| but
the more, on that account, indicative of terror; and
they could only be " re-assured" and put to rest again,
* App., No. V. f App., p. 11.
86 LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
by being told that they had nothing to fear, that, so
far as the inside light was concerned, the coruscations
were as harmless as gala fireworks ! Now I do solemnly
protest and avow that it is to me, and I know that I
may speak for you also, and for all our co-religionists,
and say that it is to us the source of joy and thankful-
ness that our " Church system" does not condemn us
thus to "stand apart" from all other denominations of
Christian men ; that it does not teach us to live in such
jealous and sectional isolation ; and above all, that we
have not learnt so to like to live in it, as not only to
have no desire to go beyond it, but to be ready to take
alarm at the slightest hint or symptom of the approach
of others to us, or of us to them. We have no wish to
persuade other bodies to adopt our forms, traditions, or
customs, nor should we care to achieve this by scheme
or effort. It is enough that we are free both to cherish
and to manifest the spirit of brotherhood ; that we are
able to unite in public acts of fraternal recognition, and
thus to exhibit the substantial oneness in faith of those
who may be distinguished by circumstantial differences.
If there are those who cannot do this, or do not wish it,
that is their concern, not ours. We have no desire to
interfere with their principles or predilections. They
have as much right so far as man is concerned to
" stand apart" from all, as we have to hold intercourse
with many ; the same liberty to be a " dichostasy," as
others have to repress and get rid of the spirit that
would make them that. Only, we think it right to say
that, for ourselves, we could not consent to be one with
them at the expense of being " divided" and cut off from
ECCLESIASTICAL PARENTHOOD. 87
all other sections of the Protestant Church. The spirit
of our system forbids this, however far we may ourselves
be beneath it, or however it and we may be misunder-
stood.
IV.
The Official and the Personal
Further illustrated.
In the course of this last line of remark, I have had
to make allusion to persons, and even to mention names ;
but I should feel it to be a great injustice (as I should
certainly deem it an infelicity) if I was to be thought,
on that account, to have indulged in personalities. Not
only do I mean nothing offensive towards individuals,
but the very object of my statements or of my illus-
trative argument, if I may so call it is, to bring out
and make manifest the charitable distinction between
things and men. You may as well confound the personal
feelings of a judge with the law which he administers,
as lose sight of the distinction, in the case of many other
functionaries, between their personal and official character.
But this is not all ; the influence of any system in which
men live, will be apt to show itself in acts not strictly
official, and in feelings and expressions, or occasional
behaviour, not natural to them as men, things into
which they will fall, or which they may give way to,
with a perfect unconsciousness of what they imply. We
have all need that this should be remembered and allowed
for. Children of different ecclesiastical parents, we
imbibe their humours as well as milk, and these will
now and then break out, and be obvious to others though
88 LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
not perceived by ourselves. He must know little of his
own hereditary " sectional" tendencies and temperament,
who is not aware that, after discussion or controversy
with one of a different ecclesiastical lineage from him-
self, he has need, on some account or other, for the
appeal
" Bear with me,
When that rash humour which my mother gave me,
Makes me forgetful."
And he must be a poor specimen of Christian manhooc
who not only does not instantly respond to the appeal
I will ; " and henceforth,
When you are over-earnest,
I'll think your Mother chides " not you ;
fnr-
but w T ho has not wisdom to see the duty of such for
bearance, even before it is sought, or "love enough"
to exercise it, whether it be sought or not, or not felt
or admitted to be required. The Bishop of Adelaide, in
his letter of November 28th, refers to and illustrates the
distinction on which I have insisted. After mentioning
the " real cause " of the " isolation " of the Episcopal
clergy, " not so much personally as ministerially"
from Non-episcopal, (the non-recognition of the " orders"
of the latter by the former,) he says, " I was not sorry
to seize the opportunity presented by your arrival in
South Australia of making it quite clear, why, and why
only, we hold ourselves ministerially aloof from Non-
episcopalian ministers^ though as with myself, so with
my brethren, our private and personal feelings often
6 kick against' our solemn convictions and pledges."*
* App., p. 29.
THE BISHOP OF MELBOUKNE. 89
Nothing could be clearer or more candid than this.
or more strongly expressed. Indeed, the terms are
such as I should not myself have ventured to employ.
There is not a more radiant, genial soul in all Australia
than the Bishop of Adelaide ; and I have always felt
that any thing, in word or act, in the recent proceedings,
to which exception was taken by one or another, was to
be attributed to the system, not the man. He has
extended towards myself a like consideration. When
my form of denominational thought has found for itself
utterance in somewhat strong language, he has not only
not been offended, but has accepted it for what it was,
and allowed for it accordingly.
And here, in passing, I may advert to an illustration
of the point before us in the case of one, whom, when
in Victoria, I learnt, as I have publicly stated, very
greatly to esteem and love ; I refer to Dr. Perry, the
Bishop of Melbourne. I may say first, however, that
I was indebted also to him for applying the rule, and
judging according to the distinction, which I have been
laying down. The "echoes of the King's Weigh-House
sermon," referred to by the Bishop of Adelaide as having
" not yet died away," were, after nearly a quarter of a
century, still reverberating, I found, and making them-
selves heard even on this side of the world. The first
time I called on the Bishop of Melbourne, there was a
volume on the table, which he took up, and, directing
my attention to a certain page, I found it to contain the
offending paragraph. We had some conversation about
it ; and I believe he saw that there was nothing so very
terrible in it, considered as the words of one system about
1
90 LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
another. I accidentally found in the house of a friend a
copy of my " Conscientious Clerical Nonconformity,"
which I asked his lordship to look through, as our con-
versation had turned on such matters. Again he did
me the justice to say, that he saw nothing in it offensive,
though the language was sometimes strong, as it was
only the utterance of what was consistent with the
ecclesiastical stand-point I occupied. I apply the same
principle to him. No one, as an individual Christian,
is more catholic in spirit, more " a lover of good men,"
delighting in intimate devotional intercourse with the
members and ministers of different Churches, than the
Bishop of Melbourne. He recognises and pleads for the
recognition of the official standing and Church-state of
the ministers and congregations of other bodies ; and
he is zealous and forward as a promoter of the Evan-
gelical Alliance. Nevertheless, as identified with a
certain ecclesiastical system, he feels it right to meet and
mingle with other Christians exclusively as individuals,
and to discountenance in his clergy every thing approach-
ing to union, or co-operative action, with other ministers
and Churches in any public way. In his Primary
Charge, too, I was struck by a passage startlingly illus-
trative of the distinction between things and men, the
constant and thoughtful remembrance of which we all
so much need. In giving directions to his clergy
"in respect to their intercourse with ministers of the
various Protestant denominations," he has to speak
to them, as he expresses it, " with reference to those
bodies which have separated themselves from the
communion of the Episcopal Church." " Denying
SOMETHING ALMOST INCREDIBLE. 91
that their original secession was justifiable," which
he thinks could only have been " on the ground
that it had, as a Church, apostatised from the faith,
and become incurably corrupt ;" but, " confessing
that there was much in the state of the Church,
at that time, to palliate their conduct;" he is yet of
opinion that " the founders of the different dissenting
bodies did commit a great error in their secession."
After adding to this the statement, " we are likewise of
opinion that all dissenting bodies have erred in their
ecclesiastical systems, and many also in subordinate
points of doctrine ; and that their ministration of the Word
and Sacraments is irregular ; he then proceeds thus :
" Hence, while we may hope that the labours of faithful
ministers among them have been, through the mercy of
God, productive of much good, we cannot but consider
dissent itself to have been upon the whole prejudicial to
the progress of pure religion and piety. Nevertheless,
inasmuch as they are sound in all the fundamental doc-
trines of the Gospel, we ought to recognize individual
Dissenters as Christian brethren, and to make due allow-
ance for the circumstances in which they have been
placed. It does not become us to judge them harshly.
It would be wrong for us to break up against their will
ANY OE THEIR ESTABLISHMENTS, (my Lord !) Or TO IMPOSE
SILENCE UPON THEIR MINISTERS."* (/ should think SO.)
The high respect, however, the affectionate regard, I
may say that I entertain and cherish towards the Bishop
of Melbourne, prevents my making any remark on these
words. They are not the words of Dr. Perry, as a
* Charge, pp. 37, 38.
k2
02 LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
loving, godlike, Christian man ; but those of a system,
an unwise Impersonality, which he permitted to speak
through him, and to speak, too, under an utter forget"
fulness of the age in which it lived, and the country to
which it had come.
V.
Admonitory.
to
Throughout the whole of this address, I have kept in
view the one question which I undertook to examine
the possible " union of all the Protestant Evangelical
denominations," as a step towards " a Church of the
Future " to spring out of it. I have not entertained, as
not being within my province, the question of the first
memorialists at Adelaide respecting the opening of
Episcopal pulpits to the ministers of other bodies. Even
my recent remarks, apparently bearing upon this, have
been intended to illustrate only what we value as our
own liberty, not in any way to persuade others to adopt
it. In the Bishop's proposition, you, and I, and all
other Non-episcopal ministers and bodies are alike
directly and deeply interested, and on the w T hole scheme,
in all its relations and aspects, I had a right to speak,
not only as denominationally involved in it, but as per-
sonally solicited to " show my opinion." The laymen's
question is one which peculiarly concerns the members
of their own Church. It is a matter they must arrange
and settle for themselves. I do not know that I am
called to enter into it, beyond what I have already
incidentally done in portions of the " Adelaide Corres-
pondence." The promoters or originators of the move-
CONSCIENTIOUS CONVICTIONS. 93
merit are well and fully qualified to conduct their own
cause. They have drawn up and exhibited their brief,
in a clear, calm, and dignified manner, and have brought
forth points which cannot but ultimately have results.*
On the general subject something will incidentally come
up before I conclude ; I will only here interpose a word
or two bearing upon it, that may be admonitory or sug-
gestive to ourselves or others.
In thinking of the matter in question, and of kindred
matters, we should guard against supposing that there
are not large and loving souls, men of catholic spirit and
expansive sympathies, within the confines of the Episcopal
communion, though they seek not the liberty to manifest
themselves by official, or semi-official, acts. You may
think them mistaken, and they may be mistaken, in
attaching equal sacredness, or something like it, to the
external form of the Church as to fundamental and
saving truth. But if they are so, it should be remem-
bered that this is based, in the case of some, on their
belief that Episcopal government is not merely an
allowable mode of Church order and action, but one of
positive appointment and enforced obligation, and that
within it as the consequence of Divine arrangement and
apostolic succession there are preserved and conveyed
supernatural gifts gifts exclusively so preserved and
conveyed which are essential to the validity and
efficiency of ministerial acts, and to the power and
* See " Thoughts and Facts connected with a movement in
1858, to promote a closer Alliance of Evangelical Christians in
South Australia." By a Lay Member of the United Church of
England and Ireland.
94 LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
authority of ministerial utterances. Right or wrong,
that is their belief. Or, others may be thought of who
take lower ground than this. Without claiming for
Episcopacy so high a character, or altogether confining
to it Divine gifts, this second class of persons will content
themselves with saying, that it is to be regarded as
necessary to the completeness, though not to the being of
a Church; and that it is of such great, though not
paramount, obligation, that a Church can never lose it
without injury, or deliberately cast it off without sin.
So long as these parties thus think and feel, it is obvious
that, for themselves, they would not be at liberty to
interchange ministerial services with Non-episcopal clergy-
men. In the one case, the thing would not be right, but
something actually and in itself sinful; in the other
case, it might be felt to be inexpedient, as not in its
results likely to be harmless. You may say that
conscience is to be enlightened as well as obeyed. Every
one can say that in respect to his neighbour, and it is no
doubt true. So long, however, as the men in question
have their convictions, so long, both by us and by others,
are their convictions to be respected. They are not to
be urged to violate them or to allow their violation.
Obliged to act according to their own views of what God
has enjoined, they are no more to be regarded as per-
sonally chargeable with illiberality of spirit, or narrow-
ness of heart, than those should be so regarded, who,
because of their convictions and views in respect to
Evangelical truth, can have no visible communion or
interchange of services with those who deny it. True,
to us the difference in the two things (Church Govern-
THE OTHER SIDE. 95
ment and Evangelical truth) may be immense ; so
palpable, too, that submission to the supremacy of the
one may seem to stand out like constructive disloyalty or
treason to the other. But every man must walk by his
own light. No man is entitled to demand that others
shall walk by his. There is such a thing as the
intolerance of toleration, the illiberalism of liberality.
In everything we may argue, reason, controvert, per-
suade, endeavouring legitimately to effect a change in
opinion and conviction ; but in nothing is it either wise
or right to urge to action, before the inward man, in him
who has to act, himself sees the lawfulness and propriety
of what is to be done, and is prepared to do it with
cheerful spontaneity.
On the other hand, it should be remembered, that the
men for whom we plead are not entitled to require that
all should walk by their light, or be bound to yield
submission to that which is a rule to them. Especiallv
in a Church in which there is such diversity of interpre-
tation with respect to almost every thing belonging to it,
that there are schools and sections of every sort, one
might surely be permitted to arise that should embody
in action those principles and feelings of Evangelical
catholicity, which many of its adherents profess to
cherish. That the project is not without possible incon-
venience, is obvious enough ; and that it ought not to be
adventured upon without serious consideration, is only
the dictate of common sense. But that it might issue
in blessed results in action and re-action in many ways
to the advantage of pure and undehled religion on all
sides, "the spiritual mind," intent on general rather
96 LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
than sectional objects, may be disposed to hope. For
the laymen's question, however, to find safe solution, or
lor their scheme to get practically " inaugurated," may
be very difficult, though not so difficult, I think, as for
those to do so which it has been our duty to discuss.
In England, the Church is fettered by legal disabilities ;
hemmed in on all sides, by barriers and obstructions
not easily to be broken. Whatever may be the theory
of individual clergymen, as to the recognition of other
ministers as " duly called " when orderly inducted into
office according to the laws and customs of their own
body; however, from the preference of substance to
form, the essential to the secondary, and from the belief
that modes of action, traditional forms and ceremonies,
are of imperfect obligation, " have at all times been
divers, and may be changed according to the diversities
of countries, times, and men's manners, so that nothing
be ordained against God's word;"* however, on these
or kindred grounds, certain minds may speculatively
recognize other ministers as Christ's servants, and other
Churches as God's priesthood, still, the law lies against
and forbids any thing like a practical manifestation of
the conviction. For a clergyman even to enter a con-
venticle, as a private worshipper, is, I believe, an offence;
to cleanse and purify the minister of one, that he may be
tit to enter the Anglican pulpit, requires a purgation of
three years ; silence is imposed for that period, separa-
tion from all persons and places whose stain and taint
are so deadly ! In these colonies I am by no means sure
that there is any law at all touching such things, except
* Thirty-fourth Article.
HOME. 97
what the clergy make for themselves. They bring with
them and who does not ? or who would not ? the asso-
ciations and traditions of the old land. With a feeling
with which every man who has a heart can sympathize,
they and their flocks cling to the idea of being component
parts of the Parent Church. The most of them have an
underthought, especially the younger of them, that " this
is not their rest ; " they cherish the hope of one day
returning and settling at "home" the fond and
favourite term, I find, universally employed in speaking
of the mother-country, even by the native born who
have never seen it and they cannot be blamed for
being slow to contemplate and reluctant to do here
any thing which, if done in England, would be a bar
there to professional service. This, from statements
personally made to myself, I know to be a strong point
with some. To the " tradition of eighteen centuries,"
to the felt superiority arising from the thought of their
" succession" and " orders," there comes to be added
the fear of damaging their ministerial prospects ; the
possibility I would not say of their advancement and pre-
ferment being impeded, but of their being cut off from
ministerial duty altogether; or for some time, hereafter,
in consequence of their doing something uncanonical
now. No one can wonder at this ; no one ought to
blame; the feeling may have its roots in deep and
genuine ministerial earnestness. The difficulty really is,
as far as I can gather, that no one seems to know what
ecclesiastical or canonical laws are in force in the colonies,
or whether any of them have existence or authority
beyond the limits of England. It is the opinion of some,
98 LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
I know not whether it be correct, that although a clergy-
man, who, on his return home might have to take a
curacy, and who would be thus dependent on the mere
will of a bishop who can refuse license without assigning
a reason, although such a one might be prejudiced by
having done something irregular here, one who received
an appointment to a living could not be legally called to
account on such a ground, or refused institution because
of it. The ministers of a colonial Church, it is believed,
might, as such, do many things abroad which they could
not do in England, without at all ceasing to be spiritually
related to the Parent Church as a Church.* The things
in question might be illegal in them at home as clergy of
an Establishment, but would not be illegal where the laws
of the Establishment do not reach, (" where there is no
law, there is no transgression") while, as ministers of the
Church, considered apart, they (the things supposed)
would not interfere with their position in, or their con-
nexion with, it. On this very ground, ministers of the
Established Church of Scotland, who, in their own land,
could not have gone into the pulpits of any other
denomination without committing an ecclesiastical
offence and exposing themselves to censure, have preached
in my pulpit, feeling that they could so act without
either doing wrong or incurring blame. When the
colonial Churches are really such, when they are com-
posed of the native born, and their ministers belong
rather to the new, than to the old land, they may come
better to understand their position, their liberties and
their rights, and, without ceasing either to be dutiful
* App., No. VII., p. 56.
HOPE. 99
and loving children of the Parent Church, or to be proud
of their privilege, or to be earnestly anxious to preserve
their connexion with it, dreading the severing of the
bond that binds them without anything of all this
coming to pass, they may yet find that they can venture
on new forms of thought and action, not only without
falling into filial disobedience, or incurring personal loss,
but with the maintenance of sincere loyalty of heart to
their spiritual Mother, and with great and manifest
advantage to themselves.
PART THIRD
PERSONAL AND OLD-WORLD MATTERS.
Before closing this already too protracted Address,
and dismissing you from attending to it and me
proceeding with you to the business of the Session and
the Assembly, I think it right to advert to at least two
other matters ; matters which bear, indeed, on what is
personal to myself, but which cannot be referred to
without glances at higher objects, at things involving
questions of principle, and the advancement of the cause
of Truth and Love.
I
I.
Nonconformity.
Suffer me to say then, in the first place, that I greatly
regret that circumstances have obliged me to come
forward in these colonies in the way of an apologist for our
Nonconformity (as we call it in the old land), involving
as it does the exposition of the errors, as we deem them,
of the Anglican Church. I had no idea of such a thing
on leaving home. I came away broken in health
incapable of contemplating public duty without dread.
I declined arrangements which friends here would have
made for me in the prospect of an expensive tour,
because I felt that I must be free from all sense of con-
straint from the slightest approach to any sort of
prospective obligation to open my mouth. It was more
than within the limits of possibility it approached the
probable when I first contemplated my voyage and
visit, that I should go from colony to colony in
weakness and silence. As to writing any thing
publishing letters in the newspapers even why the
very sight of my name in the journals of the day gave
pain ; every paragraph that appeared was like the inflic-
tion of a wound. And as to Church questions, or any
thing of the nature of controversy, I had long been tired
of all that. Just before I left England, I remember, I
expressed to a friend my great regret, on looking back on
104 LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
thirty years of ministerial and metropolitan life, that I
had so often, bestowed time and thought on ecclesiastical
questions and controversial pamphlets, that might have
been given to higher and better themes, and been pro-
ductive of something of more lasting utility. When I
came to these Australian colonies, I had no idea beyond
moving quietly " among mine own people," and no wish
but to " live peaceably with all men." So far back as
July last, when a deputation wished to wait upon me to
solicit my services at the opening of a Free Episcopal
Church, I declined to accede to the request, or to under-
take the service, because I would not, as a visitor and a
stranger, mix myself up with misunderstandings in
a religious body to which I did not belong, and,
by sanctioning the dissidents, seem to judge the
cause, and to give a verdict against their Diocesan :
The Bishop of Melbourne, with whom I had not
then become personally acquainted. I did not know,
and I did not care to inquire, who was right or
who wrong. That with me was not the question. The
point I felt was, that I did not come here to have any
thing to do with quarrels or controversies ; and that I
wished to be permitted to stand clear of these, and
quietly to cherish and cultivate feelings of kindness
towards all good men. In Adelaide, when things took
so unexpected a turn, I said and did nothing till cir-
cumstances appeared to make it imperative, and then
I can appeal to all men cognizant of the facts, or
careful to understand them the tone and tenor of my
speech and writing were (I am sure they were intended
to be) on the side of whatever was conciliatory and
AX ALTERNATIVE. 105
fraternal. Hard and offensive words, however, came to
be used used in communications of high pretensions,
some of them of undoubted clerical origin ; " Unordained
minister," " Heretical," " Schism," " Schismatical lay-
man," and such like ; with observations and arguments
akin to the phraseology. Altogether irrespective, there-
fore, of the Bishop, and without reference to his com-
munications, I thought it right to ask to be heard not
in the way of controversy or attack, but of explanation
and defence ; to be heard in reply to the expressed or
implied charges against my own and your ecclesiastical
position ; to be permitted to state and set forth some of
the grounds on which, in spite of many attractions, from
preference, taste, judgment, expediency, which drew us
towards the Anglican Church, we were obliged to
remain without and to " stand apart." Why, many a
time, in speech and writing, have I had it said to myself,
" I wish you were with us," and that, too, at times, by
individuals of no mean ecclesiastical rank ; and it really
did seem to me but fair, that when charged with high
ecclesiastical crimes and misdemeanors for occupying a
position actually forced upon us, we should be allowed
to state how it comes to pass that we are conscientiously
compelled to stand where we do, preferring to be called
te schismatical laymen," to actually being dishonest eccle-
siastics.* Meeting, by chance, in Melbourne, with a
* From the claims and pretensions of the Episcopal Church,
combined with its position as professedly Protestant, it comes to
pass that it employs the weapons of the Romanist against the
Dissenter, and the weapons of the Dissenter against the Romanist.
The words of Chillingworth, in meeting the charge of schism
which the Church of Rome brings against that of Enyland, might
L
106 LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
copy of a pamphlet I published several years ago,
entitled " Conscientious Clerical Nonconformity," I sent
it to Adelaide, and had it published for the information
of those of our Anglican friends there, who might not
have looked at the subject from our point of view. I
can honestly say that I would much rather have been
spared the inroad on my leisure and enjoyment, and
the distractions which have been occasioned by the
" Adelaide Correspondence," if I could. But an un-
expected call has seemed to come to me a duty and an
obligation to be laid upon me which I could not escape ;
a duty to myself, to Truth (or what I deem Truth), to
the ministers of my own denomination in these lands, and
to those who wrote respecting us as they did some of
whom I am sure are ignorant (not, I hope, willingly
ignorant) of our feelings and convictions, and did " not
understand what they said, or whereof they affirmed."
That with the " views" we hold of " the Sacraments
and Ministry," and the difference between these views
and what we understand to be the teaching of the An-
glican Church (matters, which are set forth in the tract
just referred to), that we are justified, on the ground
of them, in refusing " orders " and declining " con-
formity," is a thing which must be obvious to every
have been used by those referred to by the Bishops of Adelaide and
Melbourne as " having separated" rather, " who were separated "
from the Church of England. Addressing the Romanist, he
makes the Protestant defendants say, " that they left not your
external communion voluntarily, being not fugitivi but fugati, as
being willing to join with you in any act of piety; but they were,
by you, necessitated and constrained to separate, because you will
not suffer them to do well with you, unless they would do ill with
you."
EPISCOPAL JUSTIFICATION OF NONCONFORMITY. 107
individual possessed of common candour or common sense.
Doubtless, the fault may be with us. We may mistake
the u teaching" of the Church, it may not be what we
think it is. Or, the " teaching" of the Church, being
what we think it is, may be Divine and true, and
" worthy of all acceptation." Still, if, with all our
endeavours, and with strong inducements from within
and from without to lead to an opposite conviction, we
can yet neither see that our interpretation of the Prayer-
Book is erroneous, nor the teaching we attribute to it
right, as honest men, what are we to do ? Our posi-
tion, indeed, is not perplexing to ourselves, though it
may be infelicitous. It may result from want of learning,
or want of training, or " partly," as Blackstone says,
u from weakness of intellect ; " but our duty is clear
enough. Our wrong views, are right to us. Carefully
arrived at and conscientiously held, they are to our own
minds a law which we dare not break. We do not
break it ; and hence we are exposed to bad names and
hard accusations, and we are willing to be so, rather
than to incur what would be far worse. If we needed
justification, however, beyond this appeal to common-
sense principles, we are amply furnished with it by the
Bishop of the diocese in which we are met. I will
illustrate this statement.
We cannot accept and subscribe to the Prayer-Book,
because we take it " to mean what it says." It teaches,
as we think (taking, as an instance, one doctrine),
"spiritual regeneration, in and by baptism;" in, through
the power of the Holy Ghost ; by, by the rite as the
instrumental cause. We think the book says this,
L 2
108 LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
1
plainly, uniformly, and in various ways, and that other
things are harmonised with it. We disbelieve the doc-
trine ; we refuse therefore to subscribe to the book,
not only on this broad and palpable ground, but as not
being able to accept any of the . theories by which,
through some underlying, always unexplained, but pos-
sible-to-be-understood condition or hypothesis, the book
is made to mean what it does not say, or to us, at least,
does not seem to say, if language is really to be used
to express thought and not to conceal it.* To justify
and vindicate our Nonconformity in this matter, I call
before you, then, the Right Rev. the Lord Bishop of
Tasmania, accompanied by a friend whom he wishes to
be heard in vindication of himself. Some few of the
Bishop's pieces have fallen into my hands, and in one of
them [" Substance of a Reply, &c," p. 38 J I find him
refusing to admit, " that the compilers of the Liturgy
were so double-minded in their dishonesty, as to say
what they did not intend; to assert categorically, what
they meant hypothetic ally." In support of this state-
ment, he calls forward Dr. Wordsworth, whom he
introduces as " one of the soundest theologians of the
present day." The witness thus speaks: " If the
words of the English Church in the English Prayer-
Book are not to be understood in their plain, simple,
literal English sense ; if, when she says, ( seeing, dearly
* An exposition of the various theories of baptismal regenera-
tion, and the different modes in which different clergymen interpret
the Praver-Book, so far as the author could make these things out
at the time, may be found in a small work with a large title,
published anonymously, called " The Great Gorham Case : A
History, in Five Books."
THE TWO WITNESSES. 109
beloved, this child is now regenerate/ she is not to be
understood to mean that the child is regenerate ; * then,
doubt, suspicion, and scepticism will lurk beneath her
altars, and steal into the most solemn mysteries of
religion. Then, faith in subscriptions to articles will be
no more; and all confidence in her teaching and in that
of her ministers will be destroyed. And so a grievous
penalty will be inflicted on her and them ; a heavy injury
will be sustained by her people, and the English name
and nation will sink low in the scale of honesty, sincerity,
and truth" So far then as we are concerned, we claim,
on this testimony, honour and thanks for our " dichos-
tasy," and do not deserve, we think, ridicule or abuse.
We, at any rate, do what is in us to save the national
character. We will not perpetrate, what, in us, according
to Dr. Wordsworth, would be to lift a disloyal and
parricidal hand against the reputation of our country,
against British virtue and the English name !
But this is not all. In the Bishop of Tasmania's
"Charge," delivered in 1851, I find, at p. 61, the fol-
lowing passage: u It is perfectly incomprehensible to
me," he says, " how the denier of baptismal regeneration
can make up his mind to use the services, in which the
fact is so positively insisted upon. He must, as it seems
to me, speak with doubting lips and a misgiving heart.
He must surely use the Church's words, not in that
literal and grammatical meaning, which she so evidently
enjoins ; but rather in that non-natural sense, through
the application of which, an attempt was made, some
years ago, so to explain away the articles as to render
* The italics, so far, are Dr. Wordsworth's, or the Bishop's.
110 LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
it possible for a man to hold any doctrine of Rome, and
yet to subscribe to them. The principles of Tract 90
(for it is to that which I allude), are, in my judgment, so
essentially dishonest, that I have no mind to wink at
the adoption of their system of interpretation in this
diocese, whether they lean or lead to Rome or to Geneva"
These are terrible words. They involve a fearful moral
charge, a charge of adopting and acting on what is
" essentially dishonest ; " and that, too, against the
" Ministers of the Altar," of whom it is emphatically to
be required that their " yea be yea, and their nay,
nay." But this charge would lie against us (that is our
own feeling), if, with our views of the nature of Chris-
tianity and the meaning of the Prayer-Book, we con-
sented to use the words of the latter. We should, by
doing so, place ourselves in a position, where, to one
listening to the words that came from our lips, and
knowing at the same time our inward thought, the
"making up of our mind" to be there, and to say and
do what was seen and heard, would be a thing " per-
fectly incomprehensible." However weak, then, or
erring, or ill-taught we may be, since we cannot see
things in any other light all that we can do, but are
obliged to stand with the Bible under our arm, saying *
" This forbids, as we read it; we dare not say that;
God help us !" I again claim that the Bishop of Tas-
mania be heard as a witness for our justification.
Still further, we believe that the Bishops who assem-
bled in Sydney, in 1850, and put forth their views on a
variety of subjects, gave, on the baptismal question, the
right interpretation of the meaning of the Prayer-Book.
THE SYDNEY CONFERENCE. Ill
After describing " regeneration " to be " the work of
God," by which those who are its subjects " die unto sin,
and rise again unto righteousness, and are made mem-
bers of Christ, children of God, and inheritors of the
kingdom of heaven ; " after thus separating from the
word every thing like a mere outward or relative
change, and restricting it to an actual, subjective operation
of the Holy Spirit on the soul ; they add the following
solemn declaration : " We believe that it is the doctrine
of our Church that all infants do, by baptism, receive this
grace of regeneration." Among the names of the Bishops
attached to this declaration, is that of Augustus Adelaide.
I did no injustice, therefore, to my Right Rev. friend
himself, in my previous remarks, nor imputed to his
Church any doctrine which he would repudiate, when
I interpreted the words " creed," " orders," as including
a sacramental and priestly element. Of the first, there
can be no doubt ; the Bishop himself asserts and main-
tains it. As to the second, though that is not at present
immediately before us, it may be observed, in passing,
that it does not depend on the mere occurrence of
a word, the word " priest," which some insist is a
contraction of " presbyter ; " it depends far more on
what the man says and does, and on the way in which
he is invested with a character sacred and indelible.
The words of the Ordination Service, the form of abso-
lution in the Office for the Sick, the " pronouncing" of
absolution being forbidden to the deacon as one not yet
qualified by a Divine gift, these things, in our view,
decide this. We may be mistaken ; but so long as we
cannot help seeing things in this light, we feel not only
112 LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
bound to walk accordingly, but we feel also that we are
entitled to say to some who are ready to smite us on the
face, "strike, but hear." The Bishop of Adelaide
very properly makes the appeal " Could I, as an honest
man, do so and so, having accepted and subscribed such
and such declarations?" It is competent in us to make
a like appeal, " Could we, as honest men, subscribe and
accept such and such declarations, believing as we do?"
But in the old country, the continued imposition of
certain oaths and subscriptions, in spite of changes of
time and circumstance, law and opinion, has, in many
cases, reduced the standard both of professional and
personal morality. Hence we have been recently taught
from Oxford, that, " cas^ often occur in which we must
do as other men do, and act upon a general understanding,
even though unable to reconcile a particular practice to
the letter of truthfulness, or even to our individual con-
science." . . . . " Numberless questions relating to the
professions of an advocate, a soldier, or a clergyman,
have been pursued into endless consequences. In all
these cases there is a point at which necessity comes in,
and compels us to adopt the rule of the apostle, which
may be paraphrased * Do as other men do in a Christian
Country.' "* We must be excused if we cannot accept
this rather suspicious-looking " paraphrase," and if we
decline to act in the spirit of this somewhat questionable
Oxford Morality.
It would be a great injustice, however, to my own
convictions, and to the character of many upright and
good men, if I left you with the impression that I regard
* Professor Jowett.
CLERICAL PARTIES. 113
the severe words of the Bishop of Tasmania as justly
applicable to those of the clergy whose opinions he con-
demns. They would be applicable to us, if, with our
views of the meaning of the Anglican " Offices," we
subscribed to and used them ; as they would to the
Bishop himself, if, in connexion with his views of the
teaching of the Church, he held a different system of
doctrine, and yet consented to accept and employ lan-
guage which would then express what was contrary to
his convictions. But if other men say, that for them-
selves they do really think that the Book not only admits,
but was intended to receive, a " hypothetical" interpreta-
tion, candour and justice alike require that they should
have full credit for their honesty and integrity. Others
may not be able to see what they see, to concur in or
to act upon their views ; but that is not the question.
It is enough that they can do so. Men are to be judged
not by what others feel and think, or by what others
regard as legitimate and logical inferences from their
opinions, but by what they themselves understand and
hold, profess or deny. But this is not all. The men in
question, however once those of a different school might
regard them as merely tolerated in the Church, are now
fully authenticated and endorsed, and have their eccle-
siastical position legally secured to them. The principles
judicially laid down in the decision on Mr. Gorham's
case, may be fairly supposed to sanction, not only his
views, but forms of thought similar to, though not
exactly identical with them. That decision may be
denounced and rejected by individuals, as, in their
opinion, repugnant and contradictory to the mind of the
114 LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
Church ; but it is an authoritative utterance, never-
theless, a judgment arrived at and given forth according
to established legal arrangements, and from which there
is at present no appeal. Those, therefore, who hold
certain well-known theological views, have not only a
claim to be believed (which they always had) when
asserting that they think them consistent with the " for-
mularies," but they are now legally entitled to hold
them, and, as holding them, to be reputed and accepted
as consistent members of the Church of England,
although, as members of the Church of the Prayer-
Book, their position, words, and acts may be regarded
by Dr. Nixon, as, to him, " perfectly incomprehensible."
His severe and terrible language, which I quite accept
and have willingly quoted in explanation and defence of
our "standing apart," ought not to be employed, without
very serious cause indeed, by Anglican clergymen against
each other. It would point to and brand as acting upon
principles " essentially dishonest," men like the Bishop
of Melbourne and the Bishop of Sydney, the one his
brother in the Episcopate, the other his Metropolitan !
Dr. Nixon denounces the idea " that the compilers of
the Liturgy were so double-minded in their dishonesty
as to assert categorically, what they meant hypotheti-
cally ;" but both of the Right Rev. Prelates whom I have
mentioned, and to whom, as public men, it is not
improper to refer, interpret the language of the " Offices"
on the principle of an underlying or conditional " hypo-
thesis." The question is not whether Dr. Nixon could
do this, or whether we could do it ; others can, and that,
too, with the mental persuasion that they are logically
THE GOEHAM JUDGMENT. 115
right, and in all good conscience before God. I really
do think, therefore, that such men should have their
convictions respected by their brethren, as they have a
right, also, to be regarded as recognized members of the
Church of England. I say this in perfect consistency
with two things, which I merely name in passing : in
the first place, with the full knowledge of the fact that
the advocates of an extreme section of the Low Church
School have often spoken in such a manner as might
have destroyed all faith in the mental and moral honesty
of their clients ; and in the second place, with the admis-
sion that I do not wonder at the way in which the Bishop
of Tasmania regards, theologically, that deliverance of the
Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, which he is
determined to repudiate and resist " till his dying day." *
II.
Establishments. Church. Liturgical Reform.
I shall now take the liberty of explaining how, for
many years past, the matters involved in both the ques-
tions started at Adelaide have shaped themselves to my
mind. This is the second thing I proposed to glance at
in my concluding remarks. Here, in an especial manner,
I must be considered as speaking exclusively for myself:
neither for you, nor for others of our own body,
either here or at home ; and certainly not for the gentle-
men in South Australia, the lay -members of the Church
of England, who originated the movement with respect
to the " exchange of pulpits." They knew nothing,
and know nothing, of the personal views or opinions
* App., No. VIII., pp. 56-60.
116 LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
which I am going to express, and I should deem it an in-
justice, both to them and to myself, if, on account of
what I may say, they should be regarded as mixed up
with sentiments, aims, and anticipations of which they
may have never thought, and with which they may have
no sympathy.
It is pretty well known that some five-and-twenty
years ago, and onwards, I occasionally took part in the
public discussion of the Establishment question, the
Anti- State- Aid Controversy, as you would call it here.
In consequence of doing so, or of the manner in which
I was supposed to have done it, I have been long popu-
larly regarded as a bitter enemy to the Episcopal Church.
There never was a greater mistake. My error, per-
haps, has rather been certainly by many of my
brethren it has been thought to be that my sympathies
with the Church, both as to its organic structure and
mode of worship, have gone too far, been too ardent, and
a little indiscriminating. I was an avowed " enemy "
to Establishments, national political institutions, the
"principle and operation" of which, I thought bad; and
in England to the Establishment, or, (as an equivalent
term, observe,) to the " Established Church," meaning,
not the Episcopal community itself, and as such, but the
secular environment in which it dwelt, or it, as identified
with that, as acting through it, and acted on by it. In
speaking of this, I once expressed myself in language
almost as bad as that which some Churchmen were,
about the time, in the habit of using, both High Church
and Evangelical. One of the former, I remember,
described the Establishment, in its relation to the Church,
RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSY. 117
as a " Upas tree," which poisoned and blasted everything
beneath it, withering the spiritual and Divine thing
which it professed to aid and to protect, but which it
only disastrously overshadowed; while one of the
latter, referring to lay patronage and to the working of
this part of the Establishment, properly so called, said,
that he had no doubt that it had been " most ruinous to
the souls of men" In times of controversy, men will fall
into expressions which their after judgment will not
approve. Neither in myself, nor in any one else, do I
think language approaching the above in good taste. We
ought to be very careful in making allusions to the dread
secrets which- the coming eternity is to reveal. But a
strong, religious conviction, in certain moods of mind,
may find fitting utterance in nothing else. It happens,
however, that so far as the particular expression is con-
cerned which made my name so notorious, the echoes of
which are reverberating here after a quarter of a century,
which created a painful anticipative alarm in the minds
of some good men in the prospect of my visit, and which
has been again and again referred to in communications
called forth by the " Adelaide Correspondence," it so
happens that, looked at in connexion with all the
surrounding explanations of the context, with the spirit
of the remarks which follow, and with the previously
published sentiments of its author, it may be seen not
only to have no bitter or malignant feeling in it towards
the Episcopal Church, as such, but actually to have its
roots deeply fixed in the most sincere love to every
member of God's holy Church throughout all the world,
whether in the Episcopal "section" of it or any other,
118 LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
and in earnest longings for the removal and " end " of
whatever interfered with the health and purity of any
particular Church, or with the harmony and intercourse
of all.
I have felt constrained to make this reference, from
what I have heard and seen while travelling in these
colonies, and in consequence of what has been done by
some Churchmen, because others, without my knowledge,
connected my name with a movement of their own,
which movement, however, they explained was for the
sake of the principle involved in it, not on account of the
person by accident referred to. I do not regret, however,
the necessity for the reference, as it naturally introduces
the subject w^hich I am called upon to touch, the way
in which I have been in the habit of viewing various
matters involved in both the Adelaide questions; the
Episcopal idea of the fusion, union, or amalgamation of
the Churches, to be preceded by settling terms and agree-
ing on arrangements ; and the Lay idea of beginning
with ministerial recognition and interchange of services
between those of the Episcopal and other clergy who are
one in faith, according to well-understood Evangelical
verities, without previously entering into the formal dis-
cussion and nice adjustment of secondary matters,
depending more on the instincts and sympathies of the
spiritual life than on written regulations, taking one step,
only one, and leaving every thing else, if any thing else
is ever to come, to time, to the action of general laws, to
the controlling and developing influence of nature and
grace, to experience, to circumstances, and to God.
1 have had my " dream," then, as my Right Reverend
OPPOSITE EXTREMES. 119
friend, the Bishop of Adelaide, has had his. Our visions
came to us from opposite points ; he and 1 looked at them,
as we who are on this side of the world look at the sun
and moon, and other heavenly bodies, in contrast to our
friends in England. The central figures, or last phase,
of both our "dreams" might have something in common,
but the opening scenes, the imagined beginning and pro-
gressive development of each, were altogether different.
Both may have been alike " pleasant" to the dreamer,
but neither, I fear, will turn out to be prophetic. A
church, and even a cathedral, may be built in the air,
and " of such stuff as dreams are made of," as well as
castles, and it is quite as difficult to get the one as the
other embodied in solid and permanent masonry.
The Bishop of Adelaide, I expect, when a young man,
began life as a high Episcopalian ; I did so as a high In-
dependent. I believed that a modern Independent
Church was fashioned after the form of the Primitive
Model, and was in exact adjustment, as far as circum-
stances would permit, with that A few years served to
modify these views. The same mistake seemed to be
committed on both sides by extreme men, the use of
scriptural words and terms as if they stood for the same
thing in relation to what existed in the apostolic age and
to what exists amongst us now. True, the apostolic
Churches might be independent of each other, but that
did not make each an independent Church according to the
modern type. The large numbers constituting some, the
plurality of presbyter-bishops presiding over all, were
against that. Doubtless, there was competency and pro-
vision for self-government in each, and each used the
120 LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
liberty it had, (sometimes with rather a high hand,) and
there could be no interference in the affairs of the Church
of one city by the authoritative utterances or actions of
the bishops or presbyters of that of another ; but there
was a supervision over many, by those who founded
them, as we see in Paul ; * and there was something like
the temporary (at least) delegation of his powers to
others ; and it is a singular circumstance that w T e have
three inspired epistles addressed to individuals, which, on
some theories, were never to find a person, after the first
age, to whom they could directly and specially speak !
I did not on these grounds feel obliged to accept modern
Episcopacy as if that was exactly the Divine thing, and
all New Testament terms found their ideas in it. I saw
they did no such thing. But I also saw, that there was
more of every great system of Church Government in the
apostolic records and customs than the thorough-going
advocate of any would confess ; that the New Testament
was not the exclusive property of any ; that each had
some portion of truth in it, which the others had not ;
that all had something both to learn and unlearn ; that
" Gospel" was far more important than " Church ;" that
the substance of the one was Divine and imperative, any
particular form of the other not so ; that different com-
munions might exist without the Church universal being
really divided ; that Union in the Head, spiritual syin-
* But even the apostle's superintendence of the Churches was
hardly a part of their constitution. Each had to act for itself. He
did not visit some of them for years together; and we have not a
letter to any that can be referred to the two years which he spent, in
not very severe imprisonment, at Caesarea. Did he write none ?
Or were they not inspired ? At any rate, none are preserved.
ANOTHER "DREAM." 121
patliy and fraternal affection between the parts, were the
great things to be sought, not Uniformity; that the
getting rid of hindrances and obstructions to the
union of Christians, whether arising from without or
within, from the World encumbering some " sections "
of the Church with help, and hedging them round
by law, or from the high thoughts which others or
the same had of themselves, and the encouragement
and promotion of co-operative action, in public services,
on broad principles, without regard to much beyond
Truth and Life, that this should be the beginning of
things, and that out of this might ultimately come reform
and improvement on all sides, every Church both doing
good and getting it, and that in the end, perhaps, there
might further arise " a new thing in the earth " alto-
gether, the springing up (" men not knowing how ")
the quiet growth and gradual development of " a
Church of the Future," a Church which "should
conciliate all affections, and harmonise all diversities."
Such are the outlines of the " dream," under the
influence of which it was that I and others engaged in
the Anti-State-aid controversy. Despairing of anything
like a visible uniformity, to be arrived at by the " reduc-
tion into the bosom of one communion " (whatever that
may mean) of " all the different professions of Chris-
tianity," * or by diplomatic conference and arrangement
between them, on equal terms; yet, longing for the
manifestation of visible oneness in faith and affection,
if that were possible, we really aimed, in our simplicity,
only at that. This was the religious side of the question,
* App., p. 11.
M
122 LIGHTS AXD SHADOWS.
as distinct from its relation to social rights and politica
justice. Among the unendowed Evangelical denomina
tions, there was, on the whole, harmony and intercourse,
mutual recognition, sympathy and help ; there were
defects in all, " things that were wanting " both in truth
and love ; but with respect to the Episcopal Church
what ought to be and might be the great central power
in the land its distance and " isolation " from all others
were imperatively enforced by the legal net-work in
which it was bound by the secular power, that which
constituted the " Establishment" and which covered and
clung to it like a poisoned robe. Knowing this, and
knowing besides, that while, in its articles, it had, on the
whole, a pure creed, and in its Liturgy a beautiful and
affecting service, it yet retained in its " Offices " serious
errors, and put forth in its claims as to " succession "
and * orders," what, under any circumstances, would
separate it (among Protestants) from the rest of the
faithful ; but, also knowing that there was within itself,
in the throbbing hearts of many of its members, a deep,
strong, inward protest against these things, a wish and
longing for their modification or removal, we thought
that, if the secular part of the mixed institution was
separated from the ecclesiastical, if that which by the
force of law gave, permanence to error and imposed
restrictions on action, was to come to an "end," that
then spiritual life would both be emancipated and mani-
fested, that contact and intercourse with other bodies
becoming possible would be desired, that the Church,
free to take independent action, would ultimately reform
itself, that what, according to some Church writers,
!
THE ULTIMATE OBJECT OF DISSENTING AGITATION. 123
" had been retained by her to meet the tastes and senti-
ments of a half-Protestantized people," would be made to
slough off, that other Churches, which had much in
them also to alter or reform, being brought into friendly
and sympathetic relations with the greatest of all, would
be influenced for the better, and improve both in spirit and
power, while their influence, too, would be felt by it, and
that thus results might be anticipated which might lead
to, or be, the fulfilment of the prayer of pur adorable and
loving Lord, " that they all may be one ; as thou, Father,
art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us ;
t/iat the world may believe that thou hast sent me."
Such were my views, formed, advanced, and advocated
n early a generation ago. They are, perhaps, as visionary
as those of the Bishop of Adelaide, who looks through
the opposite end of the instrument by which we alike
attempt to discern the future. I do not advert to them
for the purpose of discussing their practicability ; I can
myself see many things, which, on both sides, might be
urged as obstacles to action. I only wish, like my Right
Rev. correspondent, so to explain matters, that the
<( object " of myself and others, our spirit and opinions,
may not be " misunderstood," nor continue to be " mis-
represented." Personally, I should deem this a very
small matter, as I cannot say that I now care much for
mistakes or attacks of any kind, especially such as pro-
bably proceed from unavoidable ignorance, in young
men, it is likely, who could know nothing experimentally
of times which passed when they were in the cradle or
at school, and who have not the means of fully under-
standing the character of the persons or the real nature
M 2
124 LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
of the controversies to which they sometimes rather
flippantly refer. But, there are reasons, in the ecclesi-
astical condition and circumstances of these colonies,
and in certain public questions which are in the course
of discussion and settlement in some of them, which may
excuse or justify my entering into statements with respect
to these old-world matters, especially as such statements
are only explanatory, not controversial.
The " dream," then, of which I have given the out-
lines, was what influenced myself and others in our
contests with the State-aid principle, as it is acted upon
and carried out in England. This was our " idea " of
what was necessary to bring about " a Union of the
Protestant Evangelical Denominations," if such a thing
was ever to be realized ; and of making " a Protestant
Evangelical Catholic Church " possible. Rightly under-
stood, it demonstrates that our opposition to Establish-
ments was based on religious groimds far more than on
political ; and that such opposition not only may exist
in the minds of devout men, (however, as such, they may
be deemed ignorant, pharisaic, or Evangelically fanatical,)
but that it must exist in them, under certain ecclesiastical
circumstances, in proportion as they are devout, and are
anxious for every Christian community to be at once free,
pure, and practically catholic. In England, many of the
men who are most decided in their opposition to the
" Establishment," properly so called, are at the same
time admirers of much in " the Church " as a Church,
and have no wish but to see her what, with her age,
prestige, learning, prescriptive position, and varied and
vast resources, she is capable of being in the high service
EDWARD MIALL. 125
of God and man. The Leader of the Anti- State-aid
agitation in England, a man whose personal character
has been much misapprehended, and often, in ignorance,
denounced, has recently said of himself what is equally
true of many others. In the last of a series of letters
recently addressed to the Earl of Shaftesbury, Mr.
Miall thus speaks : " I am reputed, as your lordship
probably knows, by men whom prejudice or passion
hinders from ascertaining my real sentiments, to be a
bitter and even a malignant enemy of that Church of
which you are one of the brightest living ornaments.
i" am, in truth, no such thing. 1 am, it is true, with the
whole force of conscientious conviction, opposed to that
worldly basis upon which, as an endowed Church, and as
a national Establishment, that institution has been made
to rest, and for that opposition I have assigned to your
lordship certain reasons growing out of my understanding
of Christ's Gospel. But, my lord, I believe that my
desire to see your Church fulfil her mission with in-
creased and ever-increasing success is quite as deep and
as ardent as can be that of any of those who denounce
me as her foe. I could wish to see the Christianity that
is in her liberated from the shackles of a worldly policy.
I could rejoice to give full scope to the faith, the liberality,
the zeal, the love, the self-sacrificing energy of her
children. I believe that if her faith were in due exer-
cise she would remove mountains, I am sure she could
open up to herself resources richer and more permanent
than she has yet dreamt of. I am persuaded she could
win back the sympathies of the greater part of our popu-
lation. Within her reach, as it seems to me, lies a truly
126 LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
glorious destiny."* Men who, when maligned, can face
the world and so speak, who, calm and undisturbed,
can listen to the sound of their solemn asseverations as
they echo through the conscience, and ascend up to
heaven to be recorded there, are not men whose cha-
racter or spirit is to be lightly impugned, or whose
opposition is to be little accounted of. They have some-
thing on their side far more powerful than their own
arguments. Mistaken as they may be in their visions of
the future, yet seeking, as they do, not the dominancy of
a sect, or the triumph of a party, not " thinking that
they do God service," by " haling to prison," or " casting
out of the synagogue," but praying and pleading for
the freedom, purification, and spiritual advancement of
all the " sections " of God's true Church, their union in
spirit, unfeigned love to and brotherly bearing towards
each other, such men are seeking that which cannot
but be acceptable to " Him," " of whom the whole family
in heaven and earth is named" " I speak as a fool;" but
conscious as I am, of the deep religious earnestness, the
unsectarian and unselfish aims, which actuated many
who took part in the argumentative agitation against
State-aid in England, I am not ashamed of " this confi-
dence of boasting."
With our knowledge, indeed, of the exclusive spirit
which lurks in the pretensions of the Episcopal Church,
and of the zeal with which many of her sons contend for
her errors as catholic truth, some of us perhaps went too
far in our expectations, both as to the Church drawing
* " The Fixed and Voluntary Principles : Eight Letters to the
Eight Hon. the Earl of Shaftesbury." By Edward Miall. P. 41.
THE LAITY AXD THE CHURCH. 127
towards other bodies, and of its readiness to reform itself,
supposing it was separated from the thraldom of the
State. But these things must come. " We bate not a
jot of heart or hope " in relation to that result. The
different schools and parties in the Church some of
them the very antipodes of each other are One only
legally and by force, not in spirit, or by spiritual sym-
pathy. If they were competent freely to discuss and
act, movements would commence which, though dis-
turbing at first, would ultimately advance both truth
and love ; while, if the body of the people (who are the
Church), the pious, the intelligent, the wise and good
if they had power, and could make it felt, there is no
question as to what would be the issue. There are
those among the clergy, and even in the episcopate (and
that not only in the old land), who, by their high
doctrinal and ecclesiastical tendencies, combined with
their contempt for constituted authorities and their re-
sistance to legal decisions, seem to many to place them-
selves in this position, that, while sound members, it
may be, of the Church of the Prayer-Book, they are
virtually dissenters from the Church of England. The
great majority, however, of the lay attendants at Epis-
copal places of worship are just the contrary. For many
reasons, easy to understand, and with which it is
impossible not to have sympathy, reasons from asso-
ciation, preference, taste, habit, they remain members of
the Church of England, though they do not hesitate, on
many occasions and in many ways, to avow that they
differ from the Church of the Prayer-Book; not
observe, in respect to its Liturgy, or its ordinary form
128 LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
of worship, but in respect to the apparent meaning of its
" Offices." The more decidedly evangelical portions of
its people reject that meaning, on what they deem scrip-
tural ground, and sometimes with Episcopal sanction.
The educated and accomplished of general society, men
of sound sense and virtuous lives, but making no preten-
sions to spiritual religion, will mostly be found, in con-
versation on such matters, not only to dissent from the
apparent doctrine of the Church " Offices," but unhesi-
tatingly to admit that they could not themselves " enter
the Church " on the condition of using them. Men with
much of devout and good feeliug in them, but having no
sympathy with Evangelical sentiment, have occupied the
position to which I am referring, inside the Church of
England, outside the Church of the Prayer-Book. Southey
himself, the author of" The Book of the Church," one who
wrote in defence and deprecated the fall of the National
Institution as such, was not a believer in or a religious
conformist to that spiritual entity or doctrinal system
which it enclosed, or not entirely. We have the proof
of this under his own hand. In the " Life " of my late
esteemed friend, Josiah Conder, Esq., whose poetical
genius Southey was one of the first to recognize, and
who, for some years, occasionally corresponded with
him, there are included, among letters from several dis-
tinguished persons, some of the poet laureat's, in which
statements occur to the effect named. In one he says :
" I do not subscribe to the Church ; if I could do it,
I should be in orders an office to which my inclination
would always strongly have led me. My mind has
undergone many changes, and is in many points nearer
ROBERT SOUTHEY. 129
to the Church, than when I forbore to enter it as a
minister. Still, I am far from being in communion with
it, or from ever expecting to be so." Again, " Our
Church Establishment has its evils ; you and I would not
agree as to what those evils are ; my conception of them
is such as to exclude me from the clerical profession.
But I am fully convinced of the utility of an Establish-
ment ; though, if I were to form one for a colony, it would
differ materially from our own." " My attachment to the
Established Church, in preference to any other existing
form of Christianity, is not founded in bigotry or in preju-
dice ; for, though I conform to it, I do not subscribe to its
articles, and am thereby precluded from being (what
otherwise I should most desire to be) one of its ministers."
In connexion with the second of these passages, the
writer, in spite of his dissent, and of the changes he
would introduce in a Church " for a colony," yet shrinks
from even " wishing" to touch, or to obtain " alterations"
in, the Establishment at home, dreading that the attempt
might " bring upon us ages of religious anarchy, and
perhaps of civil war." Perhaps. But that does not in
the slightest degree alter the fact that Southey belonged
to the Church " of England," but not to the Church " of
the Prayer-Booh"*
* " Life of Josiah Conder, Esq." By his Son, the Rev. Eustace
Conder, B.A. Pp. 163, 177, 173.
This reference to the opinions of Southey, and to his idea of " a
Church for a colony" as being that of one materially differing
from the English system, reminds me that a friend mentioned
to me lately the following words of Dr. Arnold : " 1 am disposed
to cling, not from choice but necessity, to the Protestant tendency
of laying the whole stress on Christian Religion, and adjourning
the notion of Church sine die. Thus I can take no part in aiding
130 LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
So far as my acquaintance extends among Episcopa-
lians, I know this state of things to be quite common.
No Church can be in a healthy or enviable state, whose
clergy occupy a position which many of the most thought-
ful and intelligent of their hearers feel that they could not
conscientiously occupy. A standing like that may be
regarded with something like wonder or dread, but it
cannot be looked up to with intelligent veneration. The
laity may be mistaken from their unacquaintedness with
the subject, their ignorance of the niceties of theology,
and of the light in which things can be viewed by " the
clerical mind ; " but the condition of things neither here
nor at home is at all calculated to correct their mistake.
The four colonies in which I have principally been, do
not seem to be doctrinally at one. I have already
adverted to Episcopal language, the implications of
which I think very serious. In one diocese, views are
in the ascendant with which numbers have no sym-
pathy ; which, indeed, wherever they prevail in the old
land, and in proportion to the distinctness and frequency
of their inculcation, are productive of much which men
of earnest Evangelical religion deeply lament. In
another, congregations are increased in proportion as
the peculiarities of the Anglican system are virtually
ignored, and the broad principles of the Gospel preached
as held in common by the Evangelical denominations,
but then I have known its Bishop described, by some
who are under him, " as no better than a Dissenter." In
one, from some cause or other, the Church is gradually
the new Colonial Bishoprics, because they seem to me to be likely
to propagate to the end of the earth the Popery of Canterbury."
IN ESSENTIALS, UNITY. 131
decreasing in numbers, in spite of the fact that the
majority of immigrants are officially described as be-
longing to its communion ; and in all I find uneasiness,
indicated by speech, writing, or act, under some exercise,
some misconception of, or some insubordination to " the
Episcopal rule."
I am well aware of the many unseemly and disorderly
things to be found in other bodies, our own not
excepted. But I am justified, I think, in speaking as
I do, because of the peculiar position I have personally
occupied, and the remarks with which in some quarters
I have been met. In spite of the difference in doctrine
and ritual between us and the Presbyterians, Methodists,
Baptists, and other bodies, I have had ministerial inter-
course with all, have had access to their pulpits, and
felt at one with them, in respect to the great funda-
mentals of the faith, and the preaching of " the common
salvation." With the vast majority of the Evangelical
members of God's Church throughout these lands I have
thus had visible communion. I hold it to be the same in
the old country ; as it would be in America with the
large and influential Non-episcopal bodies there, together
with that of the wonderfully advanced and advancing
Methodist Episcopal Church. And yet, with the strange
antagonism of things within, and the co-operative union
(in spite of diversity) of things without, my friend, the
Bishop of Adelaide, dwells on the idea of being " asso-
ciated with multitudes of fellow Churchmen" " through
the same rule and order of worship" and wishes that
" the wise and good and able of all Evangelical denomi-
nations may find it possible, by the adoption of common
132 LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
principles, to join the great confederacy of the Gospel
We think that there may be, in spirit and design, such a
" confederacy," without a formal union in " the same
rule and order of worship ; " as we have reason to fear
that there may be a visible union in " the same rule and
order of worship," without a "confederacy" either "of"
or in " the Gospel."
Returning to the subject from which we have in
appearance, though only in appearance, a little diverged,
and referring again to that state of things of which
Southey's position gives us the type, it seems pertinent
to remark, that some changes and alterations, of one sort
or another, must surely come, and should certainly be
sought, by which such an anomaly might at length be
removed. We, of course, think, in consistency with our
own theological views, that the changes ought to be in a
certain direction; but not only so, we also think, in
consistency with our belief of what is the feeling in the
devout and intelligent lay mind of the Church, that if it
had the power to make the changes, they would be in the
direction indicated. Let the piety and intelligence of
the Church as a whole be free to influence it, and such
alterations would most assuredly be effected, as while
some might regard them as awful departures from
catholic truth would in fact be an approach to what is
Scriptural and Apostolic. Such alterations would give
new life and power to the Church ; making her strong
" to do exploits," bringing her also nearer in feeling and
action to other bodies, and conciliating the affection of
others to her. But these things, though certain and
* App., p. 14.
NEW ZEALAND. 133
inevitable, will be of slow growth and tardy accomplish-
ment. In England, if the Church were to become per-
fectly free, and as such to discuss and act, it would
divide at once into separate " sections," as certainly as it-
is a forced combination of positively antagonist elements
now, not at all a unity in itself. In the colonies, from
the feebleness of the Church in some, the want in
others, of hearty interest in it, from various causes, of
the more vigorous and influential of the laity, from the
fear in all of diverging in any thing from the Parent
type, and from the principle on which the different
synods are carefully constituted, being bound not to
touch ceremony or doctrine, " to alter the Liturgy or
tamper with the Prayer-Book," any great change is
perhaps only to be looked for from political separation,
a thing which we, at least, would devoutly deprecate,
but which would seem to be necessary to give to our
friends ecclesiastical independence.
In New Zealand, this is provided for. The Conference
that was called together to form a " General Synod,"
resolved, that, although " unwilling to take any step
that might appear to interfere with the supremacy of the
Crown, or to weaken the union with the Mother Church,
yet, as the property of the Church in New Zealand might
be placed in jeopardy, unless provision were made for
the contingency of the separation of the colony from
the Mother Country, and for that of an alteration in the
existing relations between the Church and the State, it is
declared that the Synod may, in the event of such con-
tingency, make such alterations in the Articles, Services,
asd Ceremonies of the Church in New Zealand, as the
134 LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
altered circumstances may then require."* By this proviso
being connected with securing the " property " of the
Church, there seems to be indicated a sort of conscious-
ness, or unacknowledged apprehension, that emancipated
men, having got their liberty would use it, demanding
certain alterations and changes, and therefore, prospec-
* " New Zealand and its Colonization," by William Swainson,
pp. 410, 411. In immediate connexion with what is quoted in the
text, the reader is requested to look at the following statement,
which is that of one of the Church-writers whom the " Adelaide
Correspondence" called forth. Speaking of the Church of Eng-
land, he said :
" The whole machinery of effective government must be em-
ployed before the most trifling change can take place in her
external existence. Her doctrine is above her discipline ; it is in
appearance infallible, and from experience unchangeable : it has
once been determined, right or wrong, and it can never expect to be
altered, Jwuever desirable, however convenient."
Without testing the accuracy of this by the past, as to whether
"experience" testifies to the " unchangeableness" of the doctrine
of the Church of England, or questioning the statement that it
is " in appearance infallible," it is obvious to remark that, in
respect to the future, the writer is evidently ignorant of the real
state of the case. The Church may not have the liberty, or may
not be disposed, to alter any thing on the mere ground of an
inquiry as to its being " right or wrong,'' or because of its
" desirableness;" its desirableness, for instance, to heal divisions
and effect some loving and catholic object, consistent with the
retention of Evangelical and Protestant truth. But it has the
liberty, and is disposed to exercise it, to anticipate, and to prepare
and provide for its exercise, if it should be "desirable" and
" convenient "for the sake of preserving its "properly." Then not
only may the " Services and Ceremonies" be " tampered with," but
even the "Articles;" these, by emphasis the strong hold of the
" infallible " and " unchangeable " doctrine, may be made to
undergo " such alterations as altered circumstances may require,"
require, that is to say, for the securing of the object specified. I
can attach no meaning but this to the New Zealand declaration.
LITURGICAL REVISION. 135
tively to meet what it is felt would be inevitable, the
concession is granted for the sake of securing what might
otherwise be lost. So the thing shapes itself to me. But
whether that be the true explanation or not, the fact is
the same : On a certain " contingency," power is con-
ferred " to make alterations in the Articles, Services, and
Ceremonies of the Church? and, in the exercise of that
power, we may be quite certain that not only would the
"Offices" not escape, but that they would be the first,
if not indeed the principal or only things, that would be
materially modified. There is no fear of the beautiful
Liturgy of the Church of England being " tampered
with" by her true and loving children, a service which,
for myself, I have once and again acknowledged, that
I seldom hear devoutly and appropriately conducted
without tears. But that the " Offices " should be reformed,
and thus brought into harmony with the mind of the
living and personal Church, the men and women who
really constitute the congregation of the faithful, who
have scriptural light in their purified reason, and the
life of God hi their holy souls, that this should be done,
is only what is panted and prayed for now, by a majority
of the members of the Episcopal communion, who are
alive to its interests, distinguished by intelligence, or
piety, or both.
Movements are on foot in England, which are
intended to accomplish this very thing. Societies are
organizing to seek and agitate for " liturgical reform."
The laity are foremost in these advances. But others
are writing on the same side, a series of letters having
recently appeared, from the pen of a clergyman,
136 LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
" advocating the revision of the Liturgy." " At present,"
he says, " he confines himself to five points: the doing
away with the Apocryphal lessons, the damnatory
clauses of the Athanasian creed, the regeneration state-
ments in the Baptismal Service, the absolution clauses,
and portions of the Burial Service." Such is the account
as it has been brought to us. The omen is auspicious.
I don't believe that much will ever be done, in the way
of liturgical reform in the Church, by the fault-finding
of those that are without ; that only provokes resistance
to aggression, the clinging to and retention of felt defects.
The ground of hope is in the spontaneous action of the
attached members of the Church itself. In the same
way, I expect nothing effective towards " Church
Union" from attempts at negotiation, preparatory
proceedings to lay down certain principles, or to fix and
agree upon common forms, each party giving up, or
insisting upon, something. But, if without any such
questionable attempts at arrangement, the good and wise,
the energetic and earnest on all sides, could be brought
into frequent or occasional contact, by loving intercourse
in some mode or other of Church-life, I cannot but hope
that by mutual action and re-action, improvements
and reforms would gradually grow out of this, by
way of natural consequence, not, in any case, by the
force of argument or appeal from without, but, in all
cases, by the growth and the development of life from
within.
This, at any rate, has been the way in which things
have shaped themselves to my mind for many years past.
If some few men were bold enough, there is scope and
STATE-AID. 137
opportunity (the representatives of the law so judging)*
for what is tentative, at least, in these colonies. It is
certainly worthy of notice, that in that colony where
State-aid is entirely done away with, and all the
Churches are on a perfect level, the first step has been
practically attempted of a movement that might be the
beginning of good to the Protestant denominations, and
to the general interests of Protestant truth. In all the
Australian colonies the days of State-aid are numbered.
The majority of the candidates for senatorial honours in
New South Wales take the negative side, the present
premier heading the advance. The advocates of the
system are everywhere folding its mantle about it, that
it may decently die without open struggle or convul-
sion for die it must. The Wesleyans, though yet
recipients of the bounty, are beginning to speak with un-
faltering tongue. Bishops themselves are pronouncing
against it. The masses of the people have long done so :
Some on the principle of political justice ; some on
purely religious grounds, protesting against the support
and sanction of error ; and some, where extreme ecclesi-
astical influences are injuriously affecting Evangelical
truth, earnestness, and power, on the principle of simple
common sense and ordinary pecuniary calculation.
Their thought is, " What is it we actually receive
for our money? When we get what is paid for,
what is its value? Is the thing tendered worth
the picking up?" With such cogitations stirring
within them, it cannot but be, that, one day, intelli-
gent, good, and free men will determine to ascertain
* App., p. 56.
N
138 LIGHTS AXD SHADOWS.
Whether what they disapprove must be suffered to be
eternal.
Every denomination, in a new country, may come to
discover that it has something to learn and to unlearn.
All might feel that their circumstances call them to
draw fraternally towards each other. For myself, I am
ready to justify Independency as an exceptional system,
as a becoming assertion in favour of the indi-
vidual, a protest for personal conviction and action,
against the error of an Age or the tyranny of a " Rule."
The Ancients used to say, "where there are three
there is a Church;" but one may be a Church
as well as three, as " one, with God, is a ma-
jority." Athanasius contra mundum : The Church,
so to speak, was once reduced to, or embodied in, him.
But, only to recognize the principle of individualism, is
not to lay the basis of a Church fitted to achieve the con-
version of the world. Episcopacy, on the other hand,
(and not only it,) makes the " Rule" every thing* and the
individual nothing. But on both sides, there is within the
different systems, a sort of practical protest against them.
Independent Churches combine and act, especially in the
way of missionary effort, beyond what is strictly provided
for by the theory ; many within them have views and
wishes unfavourable to the idea of every congregation
constituting a little ecclesiastical republic; while not
only is it understood that something of personal liberty
must be given up, for union in a Society to be possible,
but, as the abuse of this, there may be seen at times the
tyranny of opinion, restraints upon and suspicion of
individual thought. Episcopalians, again, exercise indi-
AN OPEN FIELD. 139
vidual independence in the most extraordinary variety of
forms, while they ostensibly unite as if essentially one !
Interchange of services and co-operative action might
possibly bring benefit to both. A new country needs
ecclesiastical arrangements which might put to flight
some of our own hereditary traditions. The adoption of
these might become more easy, if we mingled more, and
more heartily and earnestly, with others. They, again,
might receive advantage from our distinguishing peculi-
arity of attaching more importance to the preaching of
the Truth than to any thing else ; our boast being
and we have a right to make it that we think far more
of "the common salvation," than we do of our own dis-
tinctive polity, and are more anxious to make sinners
into saints, than saints into sectarians. All Churches, if
more broad and cordial in their intercourse, might be
spontaneously impelled to seek advancement and growth,
without any one urging reforms on the rest. The
highest and most blessed results might then evolve out
of the mere fact that there was an open field
cleared from all secular and ecclesiastical impediments
for the exercise, by the Churches, of the independent
action of each on itself, and the mutual influence of all
upon each other.
III.
Last Words.
It may not be amiss, perhaps, to state, that I am no
advocate for rigidly insisting on an exact identity of
sentiment and feeling, or in modes of thought and forms
of expression, in the ministers of a religious body. I
N 2
140 LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
have great sympathy with the freedom which is enjoyed
and exercised by the clergy of the Church of England.
i>\ many of them, "the liberty of private judgment" is
far more used than by some in denominations professedly
based on that very principle. In itself considered, the
sight of this freedom is somewhat refreshing. It is
pleasant to notice how much men in the same Church
may differ from one another, and speak out their differ-
ences, without forfeiting their position, injuring their
influence, or damaging their character. The difficulty
is, that the privilege seems to be bought too dear. There
are those who cannot consent to give the price, and to
whom, in spite of every effort to the contrary, it is
"perfectly incomprehensible" how some bring them-
selves to consent to give it, or, having given it, how they
can comfortably enjoy and use the purchase. The
anomaly no doubt arises from the extent and stringency
of the exacted subscription. It is felt that it must be
understood in some conditional sense; that it cannot
be supposed to be taken in the strict way in which men
of the world have to transact matters of business ; or that
a literal mental conformity is either intended or likely
to be enforced.
This necessity, from the nature of the case, of assuming
an allowed latitude of interpretation, has led to so much
laxity (or indulgence) that with many the transaction
would seem as if it had jiever been taken to mean
anything. Hence, that extreme sort of "diversity in
unity," (contrarieties in union,) which is seen to exist in
the English Church. Within certain limits for there
are limits, which, under an authoritative and dogmatic
HUMILIATING MYSTERIES. 141
revelation of truth, cannot be passed by the individual
without insubordination to God, or allowed in a Church
without its forgetting one, at least, of the ends for which
it exists, within certain limits, I repeat, one likes to see
the practical liberty, the assertion and use of it, to which
I have referred. I think it suspicious, when all the
members of a particular body are so perfectly and in
everything one, that they seem but the copies or echoes
of each other. To a certain extent, differences of view,
in opinion and modes of thought, are the signs of health ;
of mental activity ; of vigour and maturity in the inward
spiritual life of a denomination. I have sympathy with
and complacency in such phenomena, looked upon simply
as facts. The difficulty, as I have said, is to understand,
in some cases, how men manage to get, or how they can
comfortably take possession of that liberty, which they
so largely and habitually exercise. It would be surely
better, if it could be openly declared to be theirs at the
beginning. But one hardly knows which is the most
confounding or most humiliating mystery the fact of
men appearing to abjure, what they afterwards claim
and use (and sometimes with a vengeance) ; or that of
others, first claiming the thing and boasting that they
have it, and then hardly afterwards ever using it at all.
Throughout this Address, in referring to our ecclesias-
tical position and to the Protestant Episcopal denomina-
tion in these lands, I have used, for the most part, apolo-
getical forms of speech, language somewhat deprecatory,
certainly defensive. I have done this, because, in my
position, it is the most appropriate. It would have been
quite out of keeping, both with my circumstances and
142 LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
feelings, for me to have obtruded myself on public atten-
tion by voluntarily coming forward to canvass contested
ecclesiastical matters ; directly to impugn the constitution
or forms of any " Church system ; " to speak disparag-
ingly of its (e mission" or its "orders;" or to object to
its teaching respecting the " ministry and sacraments."
I have only spoken, as to one matter, because I was
asked to do so ; and on others, because things were said,
feelings indulged in and sentiments expressed respecting
them, which seemed to justify an appeal to men's candour
and common sense. Statements respecting our standing as
ministers, and our relations to the Episcopal communion,
partly on the ground of what that communion assumes
to be, partly on that of the separation of our ancestors
from it, statements, made generally and comprehen-
sively in relation to you all, or specially in respect to
myself, appeared to call upon some one to breathe into
the ear of impartial and conscientious Reason as it exists
in the English mind, such an appeal as I have made:
" apprehending things, as, unfortunately for ourselves,
we do, judge whether, even if altogether wrong in our
Nonconformity, that Nonconformity itself may not, in
our circumstances, and with our convictions, be honour-
able, praiseworthy, virtuous?"
I beg now to say, however, that, in one aspect of the
matter, I think the Episcopal Church, in these colonies,
should no more refer to our ancestors' separation from it,
or raise the question as to who was right or who wrong
then, than that the Englishman and American of to-day
should refer to the disputes of a former age, before they
would have friendly relations or dealings with each
ECCLESIASTICAL CLAIMS. 143
other. Even in England, the things which issued in
ejectment and secession from the Church, may be argued
now, not as between the Episcopal body and Dissenters
from it, but on the broad ground whether the parties,
respectively, as they exist in fact, and without regard to
past relationships, are right or wrong, their creed or
customs scriptural or the contrary. In a colony, where
all denominations are professedly on a level, whither
many laws of the parent land, creating or perpetuating
class distinctions,, do not reach, much might be lost sight
of which impedes action or prolongs strife. Unless a
particular denomination regards itself as exclusively the
Church, the Church with claims on the obedience of
universal humanity equal to those of the Gospel message,
(which, whosoever believeth not, shall be damned,) it
seems to me absurdly arrogant for it to set up the claim,
embodied in the title of a book I met with in New South
Wales, " Separation from the Church of England in
this Colony, a Duty or A Sin." * If it be the only Church,
the Church of Christ, be it so. If the question be
* The analogy here suggested may be thought inaccurate, since
disobedience to the Gospel message can in no case be anything but
sin; and it may he further objected, that Nonconformists them-
selves say that separation is with them a duty. In reply, I may
observe, that the remarks in the text took their form from the
impression the hook alluded to left on the mind, namely, that the
author of it looked upon separation as sin only, and could not
conceive it to he duty ; and that, in his hands, the word referred
not merely to the act of separation under particular circumstances,
but to the fact, under all circumstances, of being separate, or
" standing apart." Lest my recollection, however, of the views of
the writer alluded to should be imperfect, let my remarks be taken
as bearing only on those who look at the subject in the way
explained for there are many such.
144 LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
ists;
restricted to the conduct of the original Nonconformists
again, be it so : That can be met and argued by their
successors. But, to put forth such a thesis as of general
application, as including all in these lands who do not
belong to the Church of England, as if, by the mere
circumstance of standing separate from it, they were
necessarily in a state of schism, is as ridiculous as it is
assuming. Even with respect to'the present position of
the descendants of those who, in their act of separation,
might have committed sin, the proposition may be met
by a negative ; while, as between Protestants, who
have all alike access to the Book, and, individually or
collectively, as persons or as communities, must recognise
the law of standing or falling to the Master alone, the
claim or pretension is most inconsistent. (e Separation
from the Church of England, in these colonies," simply
in itself, is neither duty nor sin ; what it is, in any par-
ticular case, must depend on previous circumstances, or
on individual, personal convictions. In some, it can
have no moral character at all ; the men have their own
national or ecclesiastical standing, and bear no relation
to the Church of England that can affect them for better
or worse. In others, it may be either duty or sin, as
the case may be ; that will depend on their views of its
character and claims, and whether their position is in
harmony with their views ; just as, according to the
personal convictions of some within the Episcopal Church,
it may happen that their conformity to it, and their
separation from some other Church, are neither of them
duties, but both sins.
These things cannot be said with respect to the Gospel
THE PROTESTANT PLATFORM. 145
itself, the acceptance or rejection of the Evangelical
message, which comes with a distinct demand on the
conscience and obliges to " the obedience of faith ; " but
. w
they may be said with respect to any system or all
systems of Church Government. These are of the nature
of " the meat and the drink," which are not " the king-
d6m of God," and respecting which it is enough, in one
case or another, for men " to be fully persuaded in their
own minds." True, they should be " fully persuaded ; "
the grounds on which they accept one system, and stand
apart from others, are to be examined and understood.
The claims of the Church of England have in this way a
right to demand a hearing ; but they have that right, just
as those of other Churches have it, and no more. On
the principle of Protestantism, and, constitutionally, in
these colonies, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Wes-
leyans, have as much ground for calling on the Episco-
palian to account for and justify his "separation" from
them, as he has to require that they should examine
whether theirs from him is " a duty or a sin."
Unless, then, the Episcopal community claims to be
exclusively the true and only Church, other Protestant
bodies may be Churches as well as it ; hold their position
and take action with equal propriety; as they, too 3
might put forth books with similar titles to the one I
have referred to, if it can do so. It would have been
most unbecoming in me, however, to have voluntarily
originated a controversial discussion with any Church or
denomination whatever. But events and circumstances,
over which I had no control, seemed to render unavoid-
able an exposition of, or apology for, our views and stand-
146 LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
ing. As resident colonial ministers, and as ministers of a
known Christian community, your action might be dif-
ferent, more spontaneous, less apologetic. If there is
anything around you in any community, operating inju-
riously on the interests of religion, by the tacit sanction
or the positive inculcation of error, you are free to utter
your protest against it, and to confront it with your
testimony. It may happen that the error or errors may
be such as your fathers had to face, and for resisting
which they forfeited position and income, accepted impri-
sonment, and took the spoiling of their goods. That is
an accident; you are not bound, either to begin by
defending them, or to speak as if pleading for a tolerated
existence ; or to argue any point on the ground of its
being the matter of an old feud. You have your own
independent position, authorized by the maxim of " the
Bible, and the Bible only, being the religion of Protes-
tants," and you can stand upon that and act. In the
same way, as the representatives of a Christian body
professedly on a level w T ith every other, you have a
right to resist the efforts of any to obtain Establishment,
authority, rights, preference, or privileges, in such a way,
and in such a sense, as w^ould destroy the equality that
ought to be maintained here, and to introduce into
colonial life that which has been the source of so many
evils, and the cause of such social separation, and of so
much bitterness and estrangement in the old land.
The tendency of the colonial mind is manifestly demo-
cratic. It is supposed by some that our Church system
is in harmony with that, and adapted to attract it.
There are those, again, who doubt this. In new colonies,
.
COLONIAL REQUIREMENTS. 14'
a denomination is to take an effective missionary cha-
racter, it would seem to be necessary for it to act on
some form of the connexional principle. It is thought
that congregations might yield a portion of their liberty,
for the sake of effective combination, in the same way as
individuals yield a portion of theirs in uniting with
them. Some bodies have the central power exclusively
in their ministers. Others have the laity associated with
them, but so fettered, it is thought, by pre-arranged
limitations, or by prerogative or authority, that many
things can neither be discussed nor decreed. For our-
selves, though we meet for united conference, we are
almost confined to the passing of resolutions which have
no binding force, which can go forth only as the expres-
sion of opinion, or as so much advice, and which some
who pass them forget and disregard. Power, placed in
and exerted by freely elected deliberative assemblies,
might actually, it is supposed, be more in accordance
with democratic tendencies, and more acceptable to a
democratic people, than the existence and action of a
number of distinct independent republics ; while, on the
other hand, it might really be more conservative ; pro-
tective of rights and liberties sometimes endangered ;
more efficient in the just settlement of disputes and mis-
understandings, and more adapted than anything else to
direct and sustain vigorous and aggressive missionary
action, especially if that was understood and declared to
be its principal business. It would seem, too, in the
condition and circumstances of colonial life, that laymen
of piety, education, and influence, should be recom-
mended to undertake many services from which they
148 LIGHTS ASD SHADOWS.
might be excused, or may excusably shrink, in the old
land. In certain localities into which ministers seldom
penetrate, where they cannot be sustained, or anything
like a competent congregation formed, persons might be
found who could gather together the scattered inhabi-
tants, and encourage them to keep up the forms and
habits of Church-life. In this way, many might not only
be preserved from sinking down into practical heathenism,
but the way would be prepared for the settled pastor,
and for the customary administration of Church ordi-
nances. Some of the things just adverted to, may be of
questionable utility, some of difficult attainment ; but I
have given to them these passing words, as I have
heard them stated, more than once, by thoughtful men
in these lands.
Finally, to you, my ministerial brethren, I would espe-
cially and earnestly say : As scripturally authorized
messengers of Truth and Peace, " Preach the Word ; be
instant in season, out of season ; do the work of Evange-
lists ; make full proof of your ministry ; take heed unto
yourselves as well as to your doctrine ; for by doing so, you
will save yourselves and them that hear you." Combine
and work, seeking to do your part in diffusing the light
and spreading the leaven of Divine Truth throughout
this great Southern world. Sustain the character of the
body to which you belong for all that is earnest and
evangelical as more intent on winning souls and preach-
ing the Gospel, than on parading and magnifying its
own peculiarities. Regard all good and true men as
fellow-labourers, " co-workers of God," to whom you
sustain, " in the Gospel of His Son," a fraternal relation-
;.
CLOSING COUNSELS. 149
ip. Rejoice to recognize them as brethren ; to hold
ministerial intercourse with them ; to advance your
common object by occasionally aiding theirs ; to pray for
their enlargement, and to rejoice in their success. Adopt
anything new, in Church arrangements or modes of
action, which approves itself to your judgment, and is
not inconsistent with the general principles embodied in
or suggested by the customs and procedure of apostolic
times ; arrangements or procedure by which you may
more effectually fulfil your mission and your ministry,
and adapt your efforts to the circumstances of new com-
munities in which everything in some sort starts afresh,
where the future can receive benefit, not only from
the teaching of the wisdom of the past, but from the
admonitions furnished by its folly or its failures.
There is a grand future before Australia ; and it can-
not but be the desire of every denomination to exert the
greatest possible amount of power to give to that future,
in the character of its people, what will ever be the fruit
of an earnest and active religious faith. It is a greater
thing to be a maker of men, than to be a man ; to be
the ancestors and moulders of an illustrious progeny,
than to be the offspring of illustrious ancestors. It is as
inspiriting to be at the beginning of things, as to be
related to a splendid past ; to make history, as to read
l t ; to sow that others may reap, as to enter into the
labours of those who have sown. " Righteousness
exalteth a nation." Pure religion is the parent of
righteousness. The reflex or secondary influence of the
Church, on laws and institutions, on the habits, the tone?
the morals of society, is far greater than society itself
150 LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
may be willing to acknowledge. Where directly spiritual
and Divine results are not attained, religious influence
may be sensibly felt in a lower sphere, and be at once
counteractive of much evil, conservative and promotive
of much good. May it be yours and that, too, of the
ministers of all other Churches to be a perpetually
operating and pregnant power in the midst of the land !
May your influence be as the light and the dew felt
everywhere, touching everything, beneficent, genial,
gentle, mighty, yet flowing only from what is moral
and legitimate, the torch of Truth in the hand of Love !
May all Christian churches, as well as Christian men,
" look not every one on its own things, but every one
also on the things of others." " Doing all things with-
out murmurings and disputings, may they be blameless
and harmless, the sons of God without rebuke ; shining
as lights in the world, and holding forth the word of
life." Ceremonies and forms that may separate in ap-
pearance, are of no account in comparison with the
truths of "the common salvation." "In Christ Jesus
neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision,
but a new creature. And as many as walk according
to this kule, peace be on them, and mercy, and on
the Israel of God."
* # * As this volume owes its existence to external circumstances,
it is of course confined to those topics, and those aspects of them,
which drew it forth, and to such matters as they suggested. Had
I spontaneously entertained the project and formed the purpose of
writing a hook on Australia, on all the lights and shadows of
Church-life there, it would hare heen incumbent upon me to
NOTE. 151
enter into numerous subjects which I do not touch, but whi^h it
must not therefore be supposed I did not in some degree notice.
The position of Romanism in the colonies ; its relations to the
State ; its political influence ; the feelings, so to speak, consciously-
indulged between it and the English Church, sometimes openly
manifested, with other kindred matters, constitute subjects of
deep interest and of vast importance too. Universities, Colleges,
Cathedrals, Church and Chapel architecture, generally, Presbyterian
Church-Union, Bush missions, missions to the Chinese, Educational
systems, tlie Colonial Press in its relations to religion, with
various other things, might all be looked at as, in one way or
another, illustrative of Church-life. Then, there is the adaptation
of Church-systems to the circumstances of a people, some of
whom are in small skeleton settlements, or on solitary stations,
all more or less widely apart, and spreading over an immense
space ; others of whom are in towns and cities which have sprung
up with different degrees of suddenness, and into which a mixed
multitude from all quarters, of all religions and no religion, has
suddenly flowed. Though I don't mean to be tempted into what
I never purposed, writing a book about these or any other Austra-
lian questions, I may yet, perhaps, occasionally furnish a short
paper on one or other of them to some periodical.
In the concluding pages of the preceding Address, I have thrown
out a hint or two as to some things which might be looked at by Con-
gregationalists in relation to their own polity. As to Colonial Mis-
sionary action, the Episcopal and Presbyterian bodies might, I
think, as Churches, adapt themselves to it more efficiently than they
do. They are each a unity, a whole, a body properly so called ; but
they are this for government, discussion, discipline, and so en,
rather than for diffusive effort. The clergyman in both systems
becomes, in fact, very much an isolated minister, fixed to a par-
ticular spot, to be supported by his own parish, or congregation,
permanently stationed there, unless circumstances, not Church-
arrangements, prevent. This is practical Independency; In-
dependency in its worst aspect as a system of isolation, with its
evils but without its compensations. In spite of Episcopacy
and Presbyterianism being each professedly a great whole, the
particular parts become so separated and distinct, that many
questions as to ministerial adaptation, missionary agency, and
pecuniary support, get entangled in such a way as to become
delicate, perplexed, and difficult of solution. As a practical Inde-
152 LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
pendent and theoretic or doctrinal Voluntary, I do not hesitate
to acknowledge that I think " the work of the Evangelist " cannot
be fully carried out, nor " the voluntary principle " evince its
power, on a system of ministerial and congregational isolation.
I am well aware how the one half of the thing is attempted to be
met by Church Societies which provide Bishops with supplemen-
tary funds ; Presbyterian sustentation funds ; Congregational
Colonial Mission Committees, with their grants-in-aid ; all good and
right as far as they go, but they are not everything. As to the
other half of the thing missionary action each Church, or deno-
mination, being, as such, an advancing and aggressive institution,
and for this purpose furnished with power to use its agents as
necessity might require, wisdom suggest, or fields open, there is
nothing like what there might be in some quarters, where the
whole if a body, and not merely so many separate legs and arms.
The Wesleyan system has great adaptations for a Missionary
Church, and is free also from some of the hindrances to success
arising from every distinct ecclesiastical " rood of earth" having
to " maintain its man," its own individual man, and that, by hypo-
thesis, permanently. There are many things about Wesleyanism
which we that are without wonder at. Its government is so ex-
clusively clerical, the laity having neither liberty nor opportunity,
independently or by representation, of free speech and firm action.
But I must say this, that the different varieties of the Wesleyan
type in Australia, appeared to me to be all successful and pros-
perous. They are very numerous, and, in many places, the
largest and most commodious places of worship are theirs.
All the different denominations, Episcopacy, Presbyterianism,
Wesleyanism, Independency, have their mission, their sphere,
their work. They have all their excellences as well as their defects.
Each has some prominent, better point, where it touches some
phase or some portion of society more efficiently than the others.
All have principles to testify to, or to maintain, the repression or
extinction of which would be a loss to the world, though each
might be improved by condescending to borrow something from
the rest.
LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
APPENDIX.
Illasiratife Hemorpk, fttiers, Softs,
ETC., ETC.
APPENDIX.
EXPLANATORY STATEMENT.
In the Australian edition of this book, there were added,
in this place, in full, a number of the letters and papers
which had appeared on both the questions started at
Adelaide. It is not thought necessary to encumber the
present publication with the whole of these documents.
Instead of troubling the reader to wade through them, to
gather facts and dates, or to detect and put aside certain
colonial misapprehensions, I propose to condense into a
brief statement what may enable him to understand the
allusions of the preceding Address ; and merely to give such
letters, or extracts of letters, as may be necessary to his
seeing the bearing of the argument.
The letter of the Bishop of Adelaide on " The Union of
Protestant Evangelical Churches," was received by me on
the 4th of October [1858], on the eve of his lordship's
starting "on a five weeks' tour." I was staying at the time
at Government House. The fact of my having received
such a communication was, therefore, naturally mentioned
to our common friend, Sir K. G. MacDonnell, who ex-
pressed a wish to be permitted to see it. I felt that there
could be no impropriety in acceding to this request, and, in
doing so, coupled compliance with a wish, on my part, that
he would give me his thoughts on the subject started, as I
felt curious to know how the matter would shape itself to
an intelligent layman. Just at that time, certain members
of the Episcopal Church, on their own impulse, originated
a memorial to the Bishop, soliciting the opening of the
pulpits of the body to which they belonged (in my person)
to the ministers of other " Evangelical denominations." To
o 2
4 LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
this memorial, the Governor and other influential gentle-
men affixed their signatures.* They did so, simply as
members of the Episcopal communion, not in their official
capacity ; but in sending the memorial to the papers for
publication, their official designation was added by the
gentleman who forwarded it, and hence a very natural
mistake.
The memorial was forwarded, in the absence of the
Bishop, to the Dean and Chapter, who, of course, felt them-
selves incompetent to act; but they took charge of the
document, for presentation to his lordship on his return.
So early as October 7th, the Archdeacon made an allusion
in a public meeting, (in general terms, but which I per-
fectly understood,) to the letter which had been sent to me
by the Bishop. More distinct allusions were made to it,
on a subsequent occasion, by the Governor and others.
The Governor had written to me a letter commenting on
the Bishop's, which, before I received it, he submitted to
the Dean and the Archdeacon. These gentlemen recom-
mended the publication of both. I began to feel, too, that it
had become " due to the Bishop" that * what he had really
written should be seen, as it might be supposed that he
had gone further than he had, or meant to do, or than his
words implied." Circumstances, which it was impossible
to control, thus led to the publication of the letters of the
Bishop and His Excellency (in the absence of the former)
* The Governor stated, in one of his published communications, that
when he was applied to for his signature, he declined to give it until he
could peruse the letter of the Bishop, which was then in his hands, but
had not been read ; and that he was so impressed with the spirit and
tenor of the letter when he had gone through it, that he said he felt free
to sign the memorial, but yet only on the condition that it should contain
a clause stating that those signing it " believed his lordship was most
desirous of adopting all measures calculated to extend and establish the
common catholic principles of faith held by the Protestant Church of
Christ, into whatever sections that Church might be divided, and earnestly
desired to assist his lordship's efforts in that behalf."
APPENDIX.
in the Adelaide newspapers. I sent them to the press,
accompanied by a full explanatory statement, and I for-
warded a copy to his lordship's residence, with a private
note, to be despatched to him if there was any likelihood of
its reaching him in the course of his Episcopal migrations.
On the 10th of November the Bishop returned from his
visitation, and sent to me, the same evening, just in time,
happily, for me to receive it, as I was to sail the next day,
the following letter, which had been written a few days
before.
No. L
The Right Reverend the Bishop of Adelaide to the
Rev. T. Binney.
Anama, November 5th, 1858.
Dear and Reverend Sir, On my arrival yesterday at
this place, I received your note, accompanied by a printed
copy of our correspondence. I was fully prepared to see
it in print ; but I forbore to suggest that course, being
satisfied that you would choose the proper time and place
for so doing. It was, however, rendered necessary by
public allusion having been made to my letter, and a corre-
spondent, on no better grounds than his own surmise,
having thought fit falsely to disparage an eminent lady,
with whom I was not personally acquainted until after I
had been consecrated Bishop of Adelaide. I should have
preferred to have received from you at your leisure the
matured conclusions of your judgment on the interesting
topic to which I have drawn attention. The discussion,
however, has been precipitated, I would fain hope, without
prejudice to the cause.
I must now beg to say a few words explanatory of my
impressions on the proceedings which have taken place
during my absence.
1. I think it "untoward" that His Excellency the
Governor should have been mixed up with the correspon-
O LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
dence between you and myself. Church and State have
been separated in this colony, and I know not why an
official character should have been given to a memorial
concerning the administration of this diocese, by the signa-
ture of the Governor-in-Chief and Ministers of State.
'2. If I have doubts how far the letter of this ecclesi-
astical statute law r of the Established Church of England
is applicable to this or other colonial dioceses, I have
none as respects its spirit, nor of the inspired authority of
the apostolic " tradition of eighteen centuries " on which
that law is founded. The evidence even of Jerome, and
the argument of Chillingworth, are to my mind conclusive
on that head. I could not, therefore, nor can I feel justi-
fied in departing from that traditionary rule, even in your
case. Had I felt sure that no statute law would have been
violated, I should not have transgressed the " custom " of
our Church without first consulting the Metropolitan and
other Bishops of the province of Australasia, as well as the
Archbishop of Canterbury. Consequently, I think that I
ought not to have been invited by those high in authority
in this colony to take a step on my own responsibility,
which though possibly not an actual, would have been at
least a virtual transgression of the law of our Church.
You, Sir, well enforced the duty of obedience to existing
laws in your farewell speech.
X. Having stated why I was unable to invite you to
preach to our congregations, I took occasion from thence
to urge a consideration of the terms on which at some
future time possibly that inability might be removed. The
indispensable conditions appeared to me to be three.
a. The acceptance in common by the Evangelical
Churches of the orthodox creed.
b. The use in common of a settled Liturgy, though not
to the exclusion of free prayer, as provided for in the
Directory of the Assembly of Divines at Westminster.
c. An Episcopate freely elected by the United Evan-
APPENDIX. i
gelical Churches, not (as I have heen misapprehended)
exclusively by our own.
No notice, however, of these preliminary conditions was
taken in the memorial addressed to me. Without them
there would be no security against the intrusion even of
heretical preachers into our pulpits.
I have now done. The object of my letter to you has
been answered. I have drawn attention to the possible
future union of Evangelical Churches ; but I have found,
like another before me, that there are those who " when I
speak unto them of peace, make themselves ready to battle."
Charles Y., after his abdication, amused himself with
trying to make some watches keep time together. Finding
his hopes disappointed, he wondered at the folly of his
own life-long endeavours to make men " to be of the same
judgment and walk by the same rule."
My letter certainly has not bridged the ecclesiastical gap
which separates us. On the other hand, I do not think it
has widened the breach. I am content to bide the time,
and allow the leaven to ferment. If the counsel be of God
it cannot be overthrown. Meanwhile, as the Evangelical
watches, though all professing to be set by the sun, do not
seem at present inclined professedly to go together, I must
continue to set mine by the " old church clock," which,
after all, is probably the surest going time-piece in the
world, and as near, perhaps, as any other, to the true time
of the Sun of Eighteousness.
I remain, &c,
Augustus Adelaide,
statement continued.
This letter the Bishop forwarded to the papers. It
appeared the next morning, November 11th. Its allusion
to " the official character given to the memorial, by the sig-
nature of the Governor-in-Chief and Ministers of State,"
occasioned a rather unpleasant correspondence, as the
original was only signed by these gentlemen in their private
8 LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
capacity. The Bishop was misled by the newspaper state-
ment already mentioned. A reference to the memorial itself,
would have at once removed the mistake. Ultimately, it
was removed. The memorial had been waiting his lord-
ship's return ; but a second or counter-memorial had been
prepared; so that there were now two to be acknowledged
and replied to. The following papers are connected with
these statements.
No. II.
THE TWO MEMOKIALS.
PRELIMINARY NOTE.
The Eight Rev. the Bishop of Adelaide to Sir Richard
Graves MacDonnell, C.B.
Bishop's Court, November 15th, 1858.
My dear Sir, I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your
letter on the subject of my reply to Mr. Binney, containing
a paragraph arguing on the supposition that you had signed
a memorial to me in your official character. I think it due
to your Excellency at once to state that I was misled by the
signatures as printed in the Register.
I have been informed (for I have not received the me-
morial), that the signatures in the original were without any
official designation. When or how, or by whose instrumen-
tality this untoward addition was made, I cannot say, nor is
it my business to inquire. I can only say I regret that it
compelled me to write the paragraph in question.
I remain, yours very faithfully,
Augustus Adelaide.
THE FIRST MEMORIAL.
To the Lord Bishop of Adelaide.
We, the undersigned members of the United Church
of England and Ireland, attached to her ritual and Church
Government, yet desiring to promote union and Christian
fellowship between the Churches agreeing in our common
APPENDIX. 9
Protestant faith ; believing also that your lordship is most
desirous of adopting all measures calculated to extend and
establish the common catholic principles of faith held by
the Protestant Church of Christ, into whatever sections
that Church may be divided, and earnestly desiring to
assist your lordship's efforts in that behalf, seize the
opportunity now afforded by the presence in Adelaide of a
distinguished member and minister of the Church of Christ,
to offer a sign of good-will towards our brethren of the
Evangelical Churches, by requesting your lordship to invite
the Rev. Thomas Binney, previous to his departure from
Adelaide, to fill one of our pulpits in this city: in the
belief that Christian union and Christian love will be
thereby promoted and diffused in the hearts of those who,
holding like faith in the great saving doctrines of our
common religion, have been hitherto kept asunder by
differences in matters of form and discipline.
Adelaide, October 16th, 1858.
The Right Rev. the Bishop of Adelaide to Sir R. G.
MacDonnell, C.B.
Bishop's Court, November 19, 1858.
My dear Sir, To you, in your private capacity as a
member of the united Church of England and Ireland,
whose name stands at the head of a memorial (forwarded to
and received by me soon after 2 p.m., on Wednesday,
November 17), requesting me " to take steps to invite the
Rev. T. Binney to occupy one of our pulpits in this city,"
I beg to transmit the enclosed reply, and remain,
Yours very faithfully,
Augustus Adelaide.
To His Excellency Sir R. G. MacDonnell.
THE BISHOPS REPLY.
May it please your Excellency and Gentlemen,
The immediate object of your memorial, requesting me
10
LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
" to take steps to invite the Rev. T. Binney, previous to his
departure from Adelaide, to fill one of the pulpits of this
city," being impracticable, permit me to remark that the
spirit out of which that request proceeded, appears to me
worthy of all respect ; but the obstacles in the way of
giving effect to the principle involved in such an invitation
are, in my opinion, little likely, under the present circum-
stances and views entertained " in the various sections of
the Protestant Church," to be overcome.
I have the honour to remain,
Your faithful Servant,
Augustus Adelaide.
To Sir Richard Graves MacDonnell, and the Gentlemen
who signed the Memorial.
Bishop's Court, November 19, 1858.
THE SECOND MEMORIAL.
To the Right Reverend the Lord Bishop of Adelaide.
My Lord, We, the undersigned members of the United
Church of England and Ireland, feel that we should be
wanting in respect to your lordship's high office, and in
faithfulness to the Church of which it is our privilege to
be members, were we to withhold the expression of our
deep regret, that a memorial, urging the invitation of an
unordained minister, and of a denomination in separation
from our Church, to teach from her pulpits, should have
been addressed to your lordship by certain of her members,
professing, at the same time, attachment to her ritual and
government, and to be animated with a desire to promote
Christian union on catholic grounds, and of aiding your
lordship's personal exertions in that great object.
Relying on the forecast and wisdom of your lordship
to maintain our Church in its integrity in this our adopted
land, and to preserve her alike from all unauthorised
APPENDIX. 11
measures within, as well as every intrusion from without,
which may tend to obliterate even the least of her time-
honoured and distinctive characteristics, we await with
every confidence your lordship's determination.
Well aware that the fallacies of the positions assumed
in the introduction of that memorial will not escape your
lordship's notice, it would be out of place were we longer
to dwell upon them to add, that while we earnestly desire
and await the reduction of every profession of Christianity
into the bosom of one communion, we are not at liberty,
as reasoning and reflecting men, to forget that the name
of Christianity affords no security whatever for substantial
unity ; and that Christianity in any form, without the proof
of its being a revelation, is but a human opinion reasons
which lead to the inevitable conclusion that any such anti-
cipated union as that which the memorialists so indefinitely
and vaguely describe, must be considered as purely ideal.
We are prepared with abundant reason why it is not
possible for us to consent, on the present, or any occasion,
that our Church should unite or ally herself, or make any
conditions of mutual assistance with any man, or body of
men, involving the slightest compromise of principle, but
aware that your lordship will anticipate us in all these
respects, it seems only to remain for us to express the
unfeigned satisfaction with which we have received the
decision of the Dean and Chapter in your lordship's
absence.
We remain, your lordship's faithful Servants.
THE BISHOP S REPLY.
Bishop's Court, November 15th, 1858.
Dear Brethren, I should be "presumptuous aad self-
willed" if I did not give due weight to a memorial signed
12 LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
by no less than 164 members of our Church, who address
me on a subject of grave importance, from the conviction
that not to do so would " show a want of respect to the
high office" which I hold, and unfaithfulness to that
Church of which they feel it a privilege to be members,
as well as in " confident reliance upon my forecast to
maintain the Church in its integrity," to preserve it from
unauthorised innovations from within, and " intrusion from
without, which might obliterate even the least of her time-
honoured and distinctive characteristics."
The memorial refers specifically to the admission of
persons to the office of preaching in our pulpits, who
have not been ordained by the laying on of hands of the
Bishop with the Presbytery.
For my views on this subject, I have only to repeat that
portion of my letter to the Kev. T. Binney, in which I said,
" Neither the power of your intellect, nor vigour of your
reasoning, nor mighty eloquence, nor purity of life, nor
suavity of manners, nor soundness in the faith, would justify
me In departing from the rule of the Church of England, a
tradition of eighteen centuries, which declares your orders
irregular, your mission the offspring of division, and your
Church system, I will not say schism, but ' dichostasy'
that is, standing apart."
It is true I added " that my feelings kicked against my
judgment," but not I trust to its overthrow.
It is true that "I did not feel sure how far" I was
restrained by force of law from breaking through that
tradition, but I never supposed it would be imagined that
I could, on my own authority, settle that intricate and
extensive question.
Grieving, however, at what I cannot but believe to be
unscriptural " divisions" of the Orthodox Protestant Deno-
minations and Churches, I cast about to see in what way
union might be restored, and the work of God carried on
in common, by the co-operation of all Evangelical ministers
APPENDIX. 13
heart fervently." I did not, however, natter myself with
the delusive expectation that my suggestions would be
adopted. It was enough if they should be considered ; and
I was not unwilling to show that the intolerant spirit
which once silenced Baxter, and failed to employ Wesley,
no longer animated our Church.
By recurring to the scriptural principles and usages of
primitive Christianity, the mid-wall of partition which now
separates men of God in preaching the Gospel, I thought
might be removed.
I, for example, have ever understood that the Orthodox
Dissenters of England did not object to what are called the
doctrinal articles of our Church.
I knew that a " stated form of prayer" (to say nothing of
the hymnology of Watts or Wesley) was used by many
Wesley an and by some Independent congregations. I
remembered that Richard Baxter had composed a Liturgy
for our Church.
I had read that both Luther and Calvin esteemed Epis-
copacy lawful, and would have retained it, had circum-
stances permitted, in their respective Churches.
I knew that the old Independents, while they denied
" the divine right" of Presbyterianism, did not claim it for
their own system.
I imagined that the founders of the Free Kirk would
hardly insist upon it as a dogma of the faith.
It seemed therefore to me possible, that with the growth
of brotherly love among the various portions of the reformed
Orthodox Church, a longing for closer union on the basis
of the Primitive Church might arise, to which, in the
language of Bishop Jewel, the Church of England had
acceded when she seceded from Rome. If this is a dream,
it is at least as harmless as it is pleasant ; but if it be the
counsel of God, it will yet be accomplished. Be that as it
may, it cannot be brought about by rudely breaking in
14 LTGHTS AND SHADOWS.
upon cherished associations, deep-rooted convictions, or
even reverend prejudices.
From the relations of colonial dioceses to each other
and the Mother Church, it is plainly the duty as it is the
wisdom of each Bishop, after he has ascertained the general
feeling on any given question of the clergy and laity of his
own diocese, to communicate their views to their brother
Churchmen in the metropolitan province, through the
Metropolitan and their respective Bishops, so that in all
matters affecting discipline and worship we may act in
common, neither disregarding the supremacy of the Crown,
nor the legitimate authority of the Mother Church at home.
It is a pleasing thought that the same rule and order
of worship which link us with the earliest ages of the
Gospel those generations of martyrs and confessors which
by patient suffering overcame the rulers 'of the darkness of
this world also associate us with multitudes of fellow
Churchmen in more than thirty, colonial dioceses, as well
as in the vast territories of the United States.
I heartily wish that the wise and good, and able, of all
Evangelical denominations, may find it possible hereafter,
by the adoption of common principles, to join the great
confederacy in the Gospel. I desire no prominence for
myself; I claim no dominion for my Church ; but if by
the manifestation of kindly feelings, and a just estimate of
a really great man, I can in the slightest degree further
that object, I do not think I shall have done amiss in
writing to Mr. Binney, nor yet have given just ground for
imagining that I am willing or able to compromise one
single principle or time-honoured characteristic of our
reformed branch of the Catholic and Apostolic Church.
I remain, dear brethren,
Your faithful servant in the Lord,
Augustus Adelaide.
To the Hon. J. H. Fisher, President of the Legislative
Council, and the other Memorialists.
APPENDIX. 15
STATEMENT CONTINUED.
After leaving South Australia, I was so much occupied in
travelling and preaching in Victoria, that it was impossible
for me to enter upon such a full consideration of the
Bishop of Adelaide's first letter, as it appeared to me to
demand. While moving about, however, among the
diggings, I availed myself of an occasional spare hour to
submit to his lordship some thoughts suggested by his
second communication. These extended much beyond the
limits to which I had meant to confine them, and drew from
my respected correspondent a similarly extended reply.
That reply cannot well be omitted here, as it is more than
once referred to in the " Address," and its insertion would
seem to require that the greater part of my letter should be
also given. I omit, however, some introductory paragraphs
referring to my satisfaction in finding that the publication
of his lordship's letter was admitted to have become
"necessary ;" to the non-official character of the signatures
to the memorial ; and to the fact that that document had
an origin altogether independent of his lordship's having
written to me. The letter then proceeded as follows :
No. III.
The Rev. T. Binney to the Right Rev, the Bishop
of Adelaide, in reply to his Lordship's Letter of
November 5.
Sandhurst, Bendigo, November 29th, 1858.
Dismissing, however, these preliminary topics, I will
now beg permission to submit to your lordship some
thoughts which your last letter has suggested. I look at
it, of course, in connexion with your previous communi-
cation ; but I begin with it for a reason which will after-
wards be explained. I think it not unlikely that some of
16 LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
my observations may surprise you; none, I hope, will
offend. It is impossible, I should suppose, that your lord-
ship can be so acquainted with the modes of thought and
feeling prevalent in the Non-episcopal denominations, or
with the way in which they look at certain ecclesiastical
subjects, as those are who belong to them. However,
therefore, you may be surprised by some of our idiosyn-
crasies, or may lament them, it may yet be interesting to
you if I explain to your lordship which I shall do in
the most friendly spirit how some of the statements and
expressions of your letter would, as I think, appear or shape
themselves to the minds of ministers of other Churches.
Beginning with the section marked 3, I beg respectfully
to submit to your lordship whether there may not appear
to some to be more implied or assumed, in the first para-
graph, than perhaps your words were meant to convey.
" Having stated that I was unable to invite you to preach to
our congregations, I took occasion from thence to urge a con-
sideration of the terms on which at some future time possibly
that inability might be removed. The indispensable conditions
appeared to me to be three.'" Such are your lordship's
words. At present you are " unable" to do a certain thing ;
but you suggest certain " terms," " indispensable con-
ditions," on which " possibly" " at some future time" that
" inability" of yours " might be removed." Now, my lord,
although I understand you to mean that your own Church
would have to be one of the parties to these terms, in com-
mon with all the rest, I greatly fear that to others the lan-
guage will seem to be pervaded by assumptions, which
they not only cannot admit, but which, according to the
temperaments of individuals, would be smiled at as harm-
less or resented as offensive. It looks like one party to a
friendly arrangement beginning the conference, I will not
say by dictating but by offering terms to all the rest, terms
on which alone it can be brought to consent to anything.
Of these terms some would regard the first as unnecessary,
APPENDIX. 17
seeing that "Evangelical Churches" must, as such, have
already accepted, and" be known to hold, the orthodox
creed; others would think the second inexpedient to be
insisted upon as a first step, and without preparation, with
the present fixed habits of different parties ; while the
third (to say nothing of its requiring in some the aban-
donment of what they hold as principles) would appear to
many to demand what it would require the interposition
of a miracle to secure. But the point that would be most
felt, I think, would be this : that all is asked for, appa-
rently, on the ground that it is required in order to relieve
one party only from a certain " inability," an inability, the
removal of which might be something to it, but which would
be nothing to the rest worth the price they would have to
pay for it, for there are those who think, that what your
lordship could grant if you had the ability to do so, is not
a favour to be received, much less bought, but a fraternal
courtesy which they have it already in their power to exer-
cise if others were only able to accept it. How the matter
thus put will appear to your lordship, I feel quite at a loss
to determine. I do not know whether, on the one hand,
you will be shocked by the thought that your words should
be imagined to imply so much more than you meant ; or,
on the other, whether you will be surprised that any one
should hesitate to accept language which, with all that it
implies, and because it implies it, may seem to you the most
natural and proper imaginable. Persons like you and me,
my lord, trained in different schools, accustomed to look
at things from opposite points, to see them under lights
and aspects altogether different, and to speak of them in
language based on conclusions, assumptions, habits of
association, accepted traditions, unquestioned assertions
widely apart, of which, as existing in the other, each may
have little knowledge, and can have no sympathy, why,
we, at times, must of necessity use words and convey
implications without the consciousness on our part that
p
18 LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
there is anything in them to surprise other people any-
thing to be objected to in what is said, or questionable or
offensive in the opinions or feelings of him that says it.
The different light in which the same thing appears to
different persons, from being looked at from opposite stand-
points, and under the influence of different church-systems
and religious associations, may be illustrated by what your
lordship says of the practical efficiency of your proposed
scheme. The " terms" on which the " inability" at present
felt by your lordship, might " possibly" " at some future
time be removed," are described as " indispensable con-
ditions," and, on that account, are thus spoken of: " With
out them there could be no security against the intrusion of even
heretical preachers into our pulpits."
Now, to us who stand on the outside of the Episcopal
Church, and who are accustomed to look not so much to
mechanism as to life not so much to what men subscribe
as to what they believe not to the letter and articles only
of an orthodox creed, but to what living men actually teach,
and what they are to us the language of your lordship
comes with but little force, especially in its bearing on
the subject in relation to which it is used, namely, the
security of the pulpit against the teachers of error. The
stringent and solemn subscriptions of your Church are no
security against doctrinal differences' in the clergy of the
most serious description. " Heretical preachers," is a
phrase that may mislead. A Church may have the thing
without the name. " There are many antichrists," we are
told by St. John ; and there are many heresies, or forms
of error, alike deadly though not marked by the same
brand. In the Angelican Church, you have, on the one
side, men who are Romanists in everything but the name
who preach the Church, the priesthood, sacramental
efficacy, anything but Christ, in the New Testament import
of the term ; on the other side, you have men far more
than tinctured with Rationalism men who deny, or
APPENDIX. 19
explain away, all the essential verities of the Gospel every-
thing distinctive of Christianity as a redemptive system.
You have no security against these " heretical preachers''
in your "orthodox creed." Some of them, when pur-
posely tested hy being required to re-sign your articles,
sign without hesitation, and then 'just go on teaching
as before. The mere fact of being a clergyman of the
Church of England is no security to us that the man
would bring with him into ours, if we received him, " the
doctrine of Christ;" it is not, therefore, of itself a pass-
port to any of our pulpits. Your lordship will permit
me to observe, that I am not objecting, in the abstract,
to Church standards ; I am not denying the propriety
and importance of professed adherence in ministers
to an orthodox creed; I am not one, either, who has
no sympathy with the toleration in the clergy of great
diversity of opinion ; nor am I questioning, on the other
hand, the necessity of "terms" and "conditions," as the
basis of such an amalgamation of Churches as your lord-
ship proposes. All that I wish to insist upon is, that the
terms and conditions mentioned not only ask too much to
secure a small result (the removal of a certain inability),
but that df themselves they would not necessarily secure the
purity of the pulpit in the exercise of the liberty sought.
Setting aside, for the present, the idea of such a union
of Churches as would combine all in one great confederacy
on certain specified terms and conditions, and which would
thus secure a community of labour in pulpit services among
the ministers of the different united bodies, suffer me to
offer a word or two on the interchange of pulpits, as
distinct from everything else, Churches and Denominations
continuing as they are. This is a subject which may be
looked at from a ground different from that taken by your
lordship. It ought to be contemplated, too, in connexion
with the principles and convictions of all parties concerned.
Instead of looking to new ecclesiastical arrangements,
p2
20 LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
either for liberty to act or security in acting, I believe
that an interchange of pulpit services between ministers
of different Churches, is a thing that should rather spring
from and be regulated by their mutual knowledge of and
confidence in each other. If, indeed, the ministers of any
Church are under an interdict, unable to act, their inability
will need to be removed by some ecclesiastical change in
their own body ; but this being done, liberty to act secured
to them, then, I submit, the exercise of that liberty might
safely be left to the men themselves. There is no difficulty
in knowing what bodies of Christians, as such, agree
together substantially in the essential principles of the
evangelical faith. Within these, again, individuals or
classes have affinities and attractions which, without law,
draw them towards each other, and which are far more to
be depended on than any that law could originate or pre-
scribe. Presbyterians, Wesleyans, Baptists, Independents,
thus, as bodies, know each other, and their ministers, as
such, have the ability to interchange pulpits if they please,
and when they please, without their previously adopting,
with a view to that, a common formula of belief. Now, for
the sake of illustration, let us suppose that in each of
these bodies there are schools and sections of *" heretical
preachers," Romanists and Eationalists in everything but
the name the sound and orthodox portions in any one of
them have already far more security against the introduc-
tion into its pulpits of the im-sound ministers of the others
than could be conferred by their all agreeing to your lord-
ship's conditions. They have it in spiritual sympathy ;
in instincts and feelings belonging to a common inward
life, in addition to their adherence to a common faith,
for there is this amongst them though they have not signed
a common formula. By these it is that interchanges are
regulated, public acts which involve fraternal recognition,
and indicate substantial doctrinal agreement, without
leading to any misapprehension in observers without, or
APPENDIX. 21
any clashing of the heterogeneous elements which (by
supposition) there may be within.
In this way, and only in this way, does it appear to me
that the liberty enjoyed by some denominations might be
extended to and participated in by others. The principle
hinted at in your lordship's first letter, that ministers of
different Churches, waiving all de jure discussions, might
agree to recognise and regard each other as de facto minis-
ters of Christ this being understood, admitted, and
acted upon on both sides, all might have the liberty of giving
andreceiving ministerial service, so far as to preach for one
another ; and then, this being secured, everything else
might be left, with perfect safety, to the operation of laws
far more potent and certain than any verbal agreement in
terms and conditions. They only would use the liberty
who felt they could, and only with those with whom they
could. But this, it might be objected, would have the
appearance of the action of Churches within Churches ; to
which it would be sufficient to reply, " You have that now
everywhere in a degree, but nowhere to such an extent,
among professedly Protestant bodies, as in that Church,
which, in the person of your lordship, insists on laying
down certain ' indispensable conditions ' as a security
against it !"
The last paragraph but two of your lordship's letter is
this : " I have now done. The object of my letter to
you has been answered. I have drawn attention to the
possible future union of Evangelical Churches, but I have
found, like another before me, that there are those who,
when I speak unto them of peace, make themselves ready
to battle." In the last paragraph of all are these words :
" I am content to bide the time, and allow the leaven to
ferment." On these statements permit me to say, that I
hope your lordship is mistaken in supposing that any,
because you have spoken to them of peace, have deliberately
made " themselves ready to battle." With the exception
22
LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
of the offensive letter to which you allude, I hardly remem-
ber to have seen anything written in an improper spirit.
Your words obviously refer to the members of your own
Church. But it should be considered that neither your
lordship's novel and somewhat startling idea of the "Church
of the Future," nor the memorialists' more limited sugges-
tion in respect to the present, could possibly have been put
forth without occasioning difference of opinion, and being
met by opposition somewhere, especially among the mem-
bers of a' Church so comprehensive, and, therefore, in its
communion so mixed, as yours. " The object of your
letter," it appears, was " to draw attention to the possible
future union of Evangelical Churches." But this " union,"
in your lordship's scheme becomes (or, at first sight, at least
seems to be) fusion, amalgamation not a fraternization
only of existing Churches, but a new " Church of the
Future" altogether, involving organic changes in some,
and the giving up and altering of much by all ; and it is
not surprising that the unexpected launching of such an
idea should produce something like a ripple in the quiet
tide of South Australian life. I really do not think, how-
ever, that there was anything like a " making ready to
battle." Your lordship feels that your scheme is not likely
to be realised at once ; that you must " bide your time,"
and that progress' in the public mind with respect to it will
not take place without some " fermentation." The fact is,
that what your lordship contemplates as an ultimate result
what you require in order to secure it what you cannot
do to meet the wish of the memorialists the ground on
which you rest this " inability," and a variety of other
matters involved in the questions started by your lordship
in the suggestions of your first letter, or implied in the
language of the second, all these things are at once so
grave and so exciting, coming as they do into close contact,
if not into collision, with the habits, principles, prejudices,
traditions, of all Churches, your own and ours alike, that
APPENDIX. 23
it is not wonderful if the first effect should be somewhat
startling. In respect to your lordship's scheme, your own
mind has probably become so familiar with it from long
and frequent thought, that you cannot realise the impres-
sion it produces on those who have it submitted to them
for the first time; and in the same way, the principles
which underlie your lordship's words in referring to the
request of the memorialists, are so essential a part of your-
self, have no doubt always appeared to you as so settled
and certain, have been so unquestioned in fact, and have
seemed so perfectly unquestionable in theory, that it is not
possible for your lordship to understand how they appear
to those who listen to and look at them from an opposite
stand-point. I will not enter into controversy, and I beg
that your lordship will do me the justice to believe that,
in the remarks which I am about to make, I am neither
engaging in battle, nor " getting ready " for it. Your
lordship does me the honour to submit to me certain
views on the union of Evangelical Churches, and to ask my
judgment. To realise these views, or to take the very first
step towards them, will involve modifications of opinion
and habit on all sides. But it comes out, that your lord-
ship is entrenched in a position, which, so long as it is
maintained, will frown upon and forbid the slightest ap-
proach to united action between yourself and other Evan-
gelical Churches. Now, it is not my intention to attack
that position. I will not, as I have said, have any " battle"
about it ; but I desire to explain to your lordship how it
looks to us on the outside, and how completely it inter-
poses a preliminary obstacle to approach, conference, union,
confraternity, and everything of the sort.
" My letter" says your lordship, " has certainly not bridged
the ecclesiastical gap that separates us ; on the other hand, I do
not think it has widened the breach." So far as the " gap"
may be said to be personal, something interposed between
you and me as Christian men, I can truly say that I care
24 LIGHTS AND SHADOW'S.
little about it ; I don't look at it, or won't see it ; it does
not affect my feelings of affection or my sentiments of
respect. But, ecclesiastically speaking, regarded as a barrier,
a sunk fence, between different " Evangelical Churches"
as such, that is another matter. In this respect I do not
think your lordship has widened the " gap/' but I think
you have thrown light upon it you have brought it fully
into view you have reminded us of its width and depth
you have shown it to be of such a nature that it never can
be " bridged" by any human skill or contrivance.
Disguise the matter as we may lose sight of it, as we often
do amid the courtesies of private life, from personal regard, in
social intercourse, or on the platform of religious or philan-
thropic societies hide it from ourselves, keep silent about
it, do what we like to cover or conceal it, the fact is, and it
is better at once honestly to look at it, that the Episcopalian
clergyman cannot recognise the " orders" of the ministers
of other Evangelical Churches he cannot regard the men
as ministers of Christ, in the full and proper meaning of
the words he cannot admit their official standing, or
recognise their official acts. He may respect them as
men, love them as Christian men, admire and esteem
them as earnest and eloquent advocates of the truth ; but
to him they are not ministers they have not been Epis-
copally ordained, and are therefore not ordained at all ;
their sacramental acts are invalid; their preaching is
without authority properly speaking, indeed, they cannot
"preach," though they may give a " word of exhortation ;"
whatever they may be thought by themselves or others, the
ministers of Non-episcopal Churches are, in the view of
the Anglican clergy, laymen and nothing else. All this
necessarily follows from the M tradition of eighteen centu-
ries," when, as in the case of your lordship, a man has no
doubt of its being an " apostolic' tradition, and of " inspired
authority." The gist of the whole thing lies here. This
principle touches and colours all thought it interposes a
APPENDIX. 25
bar to all action. Every scheme, plan, proposal for union
or co-operation will be wrecked upon this rock, shattered
to atoms by the breakers which play around the position
your lordship occupies, and from which you look out with
such a calm consciousness of perfect security. Or, to take
your lordship's own figure, you stand on one side of the
" gap" or gulf, and all Non-episcopal Churches and minis-
ters on the other ; and that gulf, guarded, watched over,
kept open by the divine powers that reside in the words
" apostolic," " inspired," and such like, how in the world is
it ever to be " bridged" by mortal man ? It never can be ;
nor will it ever close to admit the separated parties to come
together, till there shall be thrown into it, sent down to
the bottom and buried there, a goodly number of the
" customs " and " traditions " of past ages. Though I
speak thus, I am by no means insensible to the good that
there may be in traditions and customs ; I am not ignorant,
either, how far some Churches may surpass others as to
the degree in which they approach the customs and order
of apostolic times. I am not indifferent to the questions
and consequences involved in or flowing from this ; but
sure I am, that with the mere hints and germs of things
which we have in the New Testament; with the uncer-
tainty which belongs to the first age, the evidence of Jerome
and the argument of Chillingworth notwithstanding ; with
the fact facing us that your orders are as invalid as mine
in the view of that Church which, in one sense, is the
Mother of us all. On these, and other grounds that might
be mentioned, I feel that it is not wise for any Protestant
Church whatever, either to assert that it is modelled exactly
after an apostolic pattern, or to assume for itself, in relation
to its ordinations and orders, such an exclusive validity as,
in effect, to unminister all other Protestant ministers. But
to this, my lord, your tradition leads a tradition, with you,
*' apostolic" as to its age, and of " inspired authority" as
toats character and source. Consistently with this, it is
26 LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
impossible for you to recognise the ministerial acts, standing,
or office of the clergy of the Non-episcopal " Evangelical
Churches ;" and so long as that is the case, you can never
co-operate with them, or they with you, on equal terms.
I had intended to notice how this principle runs through
the whole of your lordship's first letter, tinging its thoughts,
modifying its phraseology, hiding from you what lurks in
many of its suggestions and proposals, and so reducing the
entire fabric to a piece of idealism. But I must defer this
to a future opportunity. I had not thought of writing so
much in acknowledgment of your second letter, but having
done so it precludes my making any reference to the first.
I shall still feel it due to your lordship to give that letter
my best consideration, but I do not regret that I have
been accidentally led to give precedence to the second,
since in it the principle on which the other must be inter-
preted is more distinctly advanced and more explicitly
avowed.
Your lordship's concluding allusion to the "watches'
and the " clock " reminds me of an illustration of Dr.
M'Neil's which I once heard him use with admirable effect.
" God," he said, " had, in the Scriptures, set up a sun-dial,
by which, as by a Divine standard, the Universal Church
was to note and measure the time. In front of this, over,
and round about it, Popery had gradually erected a mass
of masonry which completely concealed the dial from the
public view, and at the same time had set up its own
central clock, commanding all men to go by it. The
reformers, however, detected and denounced the change ;
they rose up against it; they pulled down the stone
structure that covered the dial, brought it forth to the sun-
light, set it up in the sight of all men, made it again what
it was intended from the first to be, the inheritance of the
people, and thus put it in the power of the church, as a
whole, to test the Pope's clock by the true time." Of
course every public clock, whether belonging to a parish or
:
APPENDIX. 27
a private company, needs to be tested in the same way.
The " old church clock," to which your lordship refers, is
no exception to this rule. It is very necessary, indeed, to
see that it is submitted to it, for it is well known that
former rectors, with the mayor and the town-council for the
time being, often tampered with it, altering the works and
putting the hands backwards and forwards, and back again,
as they thought best, a very small change occasionally
involving an immense difference.* I do not deny that a
clock may tell us the true time, and that it may be very
expedient to set our watches by it. While, however, we
may use things that are " expedient," we are not to be
" brought under their power." " Blessed is the man that
condemneth not himself in the thing that he alloweth."
Your lordship, I am persuaded, acts conscientiously in
going by the " old church clock." You will, I am sure,
accord to me like credit in treating all clocks as pieces of
man's workmanship using them where I think they may
be used with safety ; but as none of them are of any worth
except as they are in harmony with the shadow on the dial,
preferring, rather, to go by that ; testing and trying by it,
as far as I can, whatever sounds from either Church or
Conventicle. May we all do this honestly and earnestly,
with humility and prayer, and be guided in doing it, that
" in God's light we may see light !"
I remain, &c,
T. Binney.
* Once, for example, the band of the clock pointed to tins : " Children
having been baptized, if they die, are undoubtedly saved, else not"
The pointer was put back two seconds, and "else not" disappearing,
ceased to rule. But what a mighty difference was made by that little
change ! Instead of being obliged to hold the positive destruction of all
unbaptized infants, the clergy and members of the English Church are
allowed to believe in their possible salvation. This is all, indeed, for
the Church simply affirms nothing, it does not decide, or rule, either
way; but even that is a great relief, the possibility of the one thing
against the certainty of the other !
28 LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
The Right Reverend the Bishop of Adelaide, to the .
T. Binney, in reply to the foregoing.
Dear and Eeverend Sir, When men differ in religion
or politics, the sooner they get to understand the principle
or supposed principle which divides them, the sooner are
they likely either to agree or differ irreconcilably. So far,
therefore, from being " offended by the observations" which
you have made on my second letter, I am thankful to leam
from so competent an authority, " the modes of thought
and feeling prevalent in the Non-episcopal Denominations ;"
and " the way in which they look at certain ecclesiastical
subjects."
In England it always seemed to me impossible to dis-
engage those subjects from the surrounding medium ; to
separate them from extraneous matter, so as to look at
them simply in the light of God's Word, interpreted by
spiritual understanding. In this colony, on the contrary,
where the great offence to your co-religionists of a State
Church does not exist, I thought religious questions, and
among them that of Church union, might be approached
from all sides clear of that " mirage" which deceives the
explorer by exaggerating or distorting objects. Never-
theless, I have observed from time to time invidious refer-
ences made to past abuses or present difficulties of the
National Established Church of England, as if they were
of the essence of Episcopal discipline, and not the accidents
of an establishment interwoven with the State for more
than one thousand years ; while, on the other hand, the
isolation of our clergy from Non-episcopalian ministers,
not so much personally as ministerially, has not been
referred (as you now truly do) to its real cause, viz., their
conscientious holding fast that which they believe to have
apostolic and scriptural authority, but to the mere pride of
APPENDIX. 29
social position, or the domineering spirit of a State -favoured
Church, or a Baronial Episcopate.
Had it been all along seen, as you now clearly see, that
we cannot recognise your orders (though we do not take
upon ourselves to reject as ineffectuous your ministerial acts
of baptizing in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy
Ghost), I should not have been asked, as I have frequently
been, to admit Non-episcopalian ministers to officiate in
our churches, burial-grounds, school-rooms, and to co-
operate with them in works essential to the prophetical
office of the ministry, such as distribution of religious
Tracts, missions to the Bush, Sunday-school Teachers'
Union, and lately to open our pulpits unconditionally for
their use. The rule, however, on which we act has been
plainly laid down for us. We do not forbid Non-episco-
palian ministers " to cast out devils " by preaching Christ's
name and Gospel, because they follow not us ; but neither
on the other hand, do we find any warrant for "following"
them.
Compelled, then, from time to time to refuse such appli-
cations, I was not sorry to seize the opportunity presented
by your arrival in South Australia of making it quite clear,
" why" and " why only" we hold ourselves ministerially aloof
from Non-episcopalian ministers, though as with myself, so
with my brethren, our private and personal " feelings often
kick against" our solemn convictions and pledges. I would
simply ask you to read the following extracts from the
Preface to our Ordination Service, and the twenty-third
Article, in order to judge fairly of our position :
" It is evident unto all men diligently reading the Holy
Scripture and ancient authors that from the Ajwstles' time
there have been these orders of ministers in Christ's
Church Bishops, Priests, and Deacons ; which offices
were evermore had in such reverend estimation, that no
man might presume to execute any of them except he were
first called, tried, examined, and known to have such
30 LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
qualities as are requisite for the same ; and also by public
prayer, with imposition of hands, were approved and
admitted thereunto by lawful authority. And, therefore,
to the intent that these orders may be continued, and reverently
used and esteemed in the United Church of England and
Ireland, no man shall be accounted or taken to be a lawful
Bishop, Priest, or Deacon in the United Church of England
and Ireland, or suffered to execute any of the said functions,
except he be called, tried, examined, and admitted there-
unto according to the form hereafter following, or hath
had formerly Episcopal consecration or ordination."
" Article XXIII. Of Ministering in the Congregation.
" It is not lawful for any man to take upon him the office
of public preaching or ministering the sacraments in the
congregation, before he be lawfully called and sent to execute
the same ; and those we ought to judge lawfully called and
sent which be chosen and called to this work by men who
have public authority given unto them in the congregation
to call and send ministers into the Lord's vineyard."
As a matter of history, it stands recorded that Whit-
tingham was deprived, in 1579, of the deanery of Durham,
and Travers of the lectureship of the Temple, because they
had received only Presbyterian ordination at the hands of
certain ministers on the continent of Europe.
Could I, then, as an honest man, invite you to preach in
our pulpits ? But as I could not do so, I felt " pressed in
spirit" to show you how I, and multitudes of others in
the Church of England, valued piety, eloquence, and
ability in Non-episcopalian ministers ; and how much we
wished that tliey would re-consider those points of discipline
which they number with " things indifferent, >, but which we
are bound in conscience to hold fast, as being of apostolic
origin and possessing scriptural authority. Neither Lu-
therans, nor Calvinists, nor Wesleyans, nor even " Inde-
pendent" Independents, like yourself, assert Episcopacy
or creeds to be unscriptural or unlawful, though they
APPENDIX. 31
maintain that they are "not of obligation." Non-episco-
palians, then, would violate no rule of conscience by
adopting either one or the other; either a freely-elected
Episcopate in its primitive form, or a form of sound words,
whereby il the sunk fence' of which you speak, between
the Episcopal and more recent denominational Presby-
terian Churches, would so far be filled up and disappear.
If it savours of " assumed superiority" on my part in
venturing to point out for consideration this condition of
union, it is a superiority forced upon me, and not of my
creating emanating from former acts of Non-episcopalian
bodies. I cannot reverse the history of the Church for
eighteen centuries ; but I neither" dictated" nor " offered"
terms of union ; I simply stated what we believe to be our
" scriptural and apostolic" rule ; and asked Non-episco-
palian ministers, in these days of free thought and " inde-
pendent" Independency, to consider whether future union
of " Evangelical Churches " on certain principles were
possible.
I am not sorry that some few eager spirits, who attempted
to clear the " sunk fence" at a bound, should have stumbled
and fallen therein ; or, to adopt your military metaphor,
they have not blown in the counterscarp of the ditch, and
planted their banners on the breach of a ruined Episco-
pacy. That fortress we cannot abandon, because we believe
its bulwarks to be of apostolic origin, and to have the sanc-
tion of Scripture. And if our Non-episcopalian friends
cannot join it and form part of the garrison, let them
believe and give us credit for acting " conscientiously" in
maintaining our ministerial reserve. Let them cease to
talk of " dominant Church," " intolerant hierarchy," &c, as
the cause of disunion. We have as much right to remain
Episcopalians, as they had to become Non-episcopalians.
The foxes in the fable were justified in declining to reform
themselves by a " fraternal curtailment."
Nor was it merely with a view to remove " the mid- wall of
sa
LIliHTS AXD SHADOWS.
partition" between the Church of England and those bodies
which have dissented from it that I thought the re-adoption
of the Episcopate an indispensable preliminary to Church
union. If oneness, outward as well as inward, formal as
well as spiritual, be the normal state of Christ's Church
militant as well as triumphant; if we may hope "the
Gospel and true Church of God " will finally emerge from
Tridentine, Mediaeval, or Patristic error, then the " idiosyn-
cracy" also of the Eastern and Greek mind, as well as of
Southern Christian Europe, must be taken into some
account : and it certainly would be a greater " miracle" to
reform those Churches Greek, Koman, Syrian, Russian
down to the platform of John Kuox than that you and
other evangelical ministers should be willing to sit side by
side with Bishops in some Council like that of Jerusalem,
when Paul and Barnabas, and Simon Peter, with James
presiding, gave forth the decree assented to by the elders
and the brethren, condemnatory of a Judaizing Christianity.
Whether a more extended " fraternization " might not thus
result, not only between the clergy of our Church and Non-
episcopalian Dissenting ministers, but Lutheran, Swiss,
and French divines ; whether an unscriptural " denomi-
nationalism" " I am of Paul, and I of Apollos, and I of
Cephas" would not thus help to fill up the " sunk fence "
between us, and render access to a Church, catholic inform
as well as spirit, easy on all sides ; whether Heathen or
Mahometan Antichrists, or those within the Church itself,
viz., the unbelief which denies the Lord that bought us
the Father and the Son ; or that which exalts the creature
sacraments, priest, or saint ; so as to keep less in view
the Saviour himself (a will-worship which He ordained not] ;
whether, I say, such enemies of God and Christ will give
way more readily if union were rendered possible by the
spirit of love leading us " to walk by the same rule, and
in honour to prefer one another," I do not presume to decide.
I have simply proposed the question for consideration.
APPENDIX. s 33
But I am reminded by you that something more than
identity of Church government, or subscription to the
orthodox creed, would be necessary to open your pulpits to
che Anglican clergy. I return, then, to this second pre-
liminary condition, viz., subscription to a creed, which
you pronounce to be ineffectual to procure doctrinal
purity in pulpit ministrations. You describe some clergy-
men of our Church as Roman in all but name, and others
as Rationalists, neither of whom, on any account, would you
suffer to preach in your pulpit. Neither would I suffer
them to preach in mine.
But I proposed nothing of the sort. That preliminary
condition of subscription to a creed might remove an
existing barrier, but would compel no exchange of pulpits.
Liberty might have been gained, but no compulsion intro-
duced. Certain conditions being pre-supposed, it seemed
possible that like Peter Martyr andBucer in the 16th century,
so in thesedays, D'Aubigne orNeander, Chalmers, Cumming,
or yourself, might be heard (perhaps to advantage) in St. Paul's
or Westminster Abbey a position for Christian influence
which the pastor of the Weigh-House might not altogether
despise, though he might think it beneath him to covet.
From the fact, however, that in spite of our Articles
there are Romanizing and Rationalist clergymen in our
Church, you draw the conclusion that formularies of the
faith are useless. You also state, as a matter of fact, that
the exchange of pulpits between Non-episcopalian ministers,
Congregationalists, Wesleyan, Free Kirk, and Baptist, is
far more carefully guarded than is access to those of our
Church. Now is it not owing in great measure to the
Thirty-nine Articles themselves that these Romanizing and
Rationalizing clergymen are tested and found out ? Your
argument, from the abuse of creeds, proves too much ; for
there are Unitarians and Papists, despite of the authorised
version of the Scriptures and the Latin Vulgate, which led
Luther to justification by faith.
Q
34 LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
If creeds and articles cannot prevent error, neither can
the Scriptures ! Are the latter, therefore, needless and
useless ? " The unlearned and unstable wrest St. Paul's
Epistles and other Scriptures to their destruction." I do
not know that the blame rests with St. Paul for writing his
letters to the Churches.
Besides, who commanded the Baptismal creed belief in
the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, as neces-
sary to salvation? " He that believeth and is baptized shall
be saved !" Who required belief in himself as the Son of
God before the Eunuch could be baptized ? Why did St.
Paul deliver first of all to the Corinthians that which he
also had received, that " Christ died for our sins according
to the Scriptures ; that He was buried and rose again
according to the Scriptures ?" Why did he tell Timothy
to " hold fast the form of sound words ;" and " to commit
the same to faithful men who should be able to teach
others ?"
Look at the history of Protestantism itself ! What Pro-
testant Church did not, at the Keformation, put forth its
Confession? Is that of Augsburg a dead letter? Not
until the Helvetic Confession of Calvin's Church had been
abrogated by the Rationalistic Government of Geneva as a
test for its State Clergy did a new evangelical reformation,
inaugurated by D'Aubigne and Malan, become necessary
there. Let me further ask, what has become of the ortho-
doxy of the old Presbyterian Churches in England ? What
is the faith of the Presbyterian Synod of Antrim ? Was it
not from the absence of a creed that the Lady Hewly Charity
came to be dragged into a court of law ? Did the absence
of articles prevent the " Rivulet" controversy, and preserve
the fountain of Gospel truth pure and undented ? Not long
ago I had the pleasure of receiving from you a sermon,
entitled " The Apostles' Creed." Now, if the Apostles had
a creed, that is, certain truths indispensable to the Gospel
of Salvation, and if you have endeavoured to define those
APPENDIX. < 35
truths, surely a creed in itself is neither useless nor needless.
"yourself being judge." I might refer also to your friends
the Wesleyans, whom you once offended, by plainly telling
them "that they must be either Dissenters or Schismatics;"'
yet they have a creed, and a tolerably long one too one, also,
of purely uninspired composition, which nevertheless you
yourself have morally subscribed before you preached in
their Chapel ! I know not whether you are an Arminian
or Calvinist, or neither. But every Wesleyan Minister is
bound by Wesley's model trust-deed to preach no " doctrine
or practice contrary to what is contained in certain Notes
on the New Testament, commonly reputed to be the notes
of the said John Wesley, and in the first four volumes of
Sermons, commonly reputed to be written and published
by him." Talk of Popery and the Council of Trent, and
the infallibility of the Pope! Those are "motes" not more
huge than this Wesleyan beam.
I did not ask you, or other Non-episcopalian ministers, to
subscribe to the Thirty-nine Articles and the Book of Homilies
before you could preach in our pulpits, but simply to a
creed in accordance with the Nicene Confession. If this
will not secure absolute immunity from doctrinal error, it
may do something towards it. I believe in charts and light-
houses, although in spite of them some master-mariners
contrive to run their ships on shore.
I believe also, as much as you do, that watches, clocks,
and even dials must be adjusted to the sun; but the
example of adjustment which you have selected, and which
you describe as giving " great relief to the clergy and
members of the English Church,' no more affects them than
it does you and other Non-episcopalians. You state that
the hand of the clock (that is, from the context, the
English Church clock) pointed to this : " Children having
been baptized, if they die, are undoubtedly saved ; else not.
The pointer was put back two seconds, and else not' dis-
appearing, ceased to rule. But what a mighty difference
Q2
36 LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
was made by that little change ! Instead of being obliged to
hold the positive destruction of all unbaptized infants, the
clergy and members of the English Church are allowed to
believe in their jwssible salvation." I am sure it will be a
great " relief" to you to learn that this statement, however
designed to comfort us, is (so far as the Church of England
is concerned) quite unnecessary.
The first Liturgy of Edward VI., a.d. 1549, has this
rubric in the " Office for Confirmation:"
" And that no man shall think that any detriment shall
come to children by deferring of their confirmation, he shall
know for truth that it is certain by God's word that chil-
dren being baptized (if they depart out of this life in their
infancy) are undoubtedly saved."
The words " else not " do not appear in our firs
reformed Liturgy, and therefore could not have been omitted.
But to make it quite clear that the doctrine you incor-
rectly fasten upon the English Church was not held by
her leading reformers, take this declaration from the
chapter " Concerning Baptism" from the " Eeformation of
Ecclesiastical Laws ;" a treatise drawn up by commissioners
appointed in the reigns of Henry VIII. and Edward, of
whom Cranmer was the first in rank :
" Theirs also ought to be considered a scrupulous super-
stition who so completely tie down the grace of God and
the Holy Spirit to the sacramental elements, as explicitly
to affirm that no infant of Christian parents can obtain
eternal salvation who dies before it can be brought to
baptism an opinion far different from ours. Quod longe
secus habire judicamus.' "
An expression, indeed, which had found its way into the
baptismal service of the first Liturgy of Edward VI., 1549,
from that of Luther, through the Latin reformed service of
the Archbishop Herman, of Cologne (1543), was omitted
in the second Liturgy of Edward VI., in 1552. It is in the
prayer before baptism, which ran thus : " That by this
L
APPENDIX. 37
wholesome laver of regeneration, whatsoever sin is in them
may be washed clean away : that they, being delivered from
Thy wrath, may be received into the ark of Christ's Church,
and so saved from perishing."
This prayer is not to be found in the ancient offices of
the Church of Home, but seems to have been originally
composed by Luther, though it is not in accordance with
his sentiments expressed elsewhere.
" Although infants," he remarks, " bring into the world
with them the depravity of their origin, yet it is an im-
portant consideration that they have never transgressed
the Divine commandments ; and since God is merciful, He
will not, we may be assured, suffer them to fare the worse
because, without their own fault, they have been deprived of
baptism"
So that this chance expression of Luther's contrary
to his own sentiments, and which escaped notice in the
baptismal service of our Liturgy from 1549 to 1552, but
was then omitted, and which never existed in the ancient
offices of the Church is small ground enough on which to
express your compassion " for the ministers and clergy of
the English Church," in the "great relief" they must
have experienced.
In conclusion, let me observe, that while minds capacious
and independent as yours labour under such misappre-
hensions in regard to the Church of England and its
doctrines, the hope of Church union will remain " ideal."
But if Episcopalians and Non-episcopalians will honestly,
and in the fear of God, try to leam with accuracy wherein
they do essentially differ, and why, then possibly both may
be able eventually, through the grace of God, to adjust
their clocks and watches by the sun-dial of His revealed
will.
I am, Rev. Sir, yours faithfully and respectfully,
Augustus Adelaide.
38 LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
NOTE ON THE FOEEGOING.
Of the force and relevancy of the above, as a reply to the
letter to which it refers, the competent reader will judge.
Leaving to his own consideration what is said about Epis-
copacy and creeds, I notice only the closing paragraphs,
as they refer to a matter of fact. The Bishop is at fault
both in fact and argument ; he ignores the one, and mis-
apprehends the other. In referring to certain words as
having been once in the Prayer-Book and afterwards left
out, I went on the authority of the Judicial Committee of
the Privy Council. I knew that in their Judgment on
the Gorham case there was this statement: "In 1536,
the doctrine of the articles is full and positive in respect
to spiritual regeneration in and by baptism. Everything
is asserted that could be possibly claimed for it insomuch
that infants and children dying in their infancy are declared
to be saved thereby and else not" So far as the fact, then,
is concerned, of such words having once been in the Prayer-
Book, this judicial statement is sufficiently demonstrative.
But the Bishop misapprehends the argument. The point
was simply this : " The Church clock" itself requires to
be tested, because its hands have been put backwards and
forwards. Here is an illustration of that here, in these
two words, which appeared at one time and disappeared
at another. It was a natural passing observation the
greatness of the change of thought involved in so small a
phrase ; but the gist of the matter was, not the doctrine
itself that was advanced or withdrawn, but the fact of
successive alterations. His lordship's observations, instead
of disposing of this (the real argument), only confirms it,
for he proves that things " found their way" into the book
at one time, and disappeared at another. That " the hands
of the clock" were thus moved and altered was my point ;
APPENDIX. 39
and that in the illustration I gave, I was not only correct
as to a fact, but " fastened no doctrine" on the Church of
England but what she once avowed herself, the following
words of the Judges already referred to will prove :
"In respect to the articles, it appears they underwent
successive alterations, and expressed on the subject of
baptism different shades of opinion, as different opinions as
to the sacrament itself were held by successive reformers."
11 It is apparent that once, in 1536, two things had
been decided, namely, that baptized infants dying before
actual sin, were undoubtedly saved thereby, and that unbap-
tized infants were not saved."
"In 1543, 'The King's Book' expresses itself in a
manner indicative of a change or modification of opinion."
" The articles of 1552 and 1562 differ greatly from those
of 1536."
" More especially those of 1562 instead of saying that
children obtain remission of their sins, &c, by baptism, and
dying in their infancy, are saved thereby, else not, they merely
approve infant baptism as a right thing, but they say nothing
distinctly as to the salvation of either baptized or unbaptized."
All that was either said or suggested by the letter to which
the Bishop refers, is thus fully sustained by the highest
authority.
But, so far as the doctrine referred to is concerned, the
following evidence may be put in, and will, perhaps, be felt
to be weighty. It has been furnished to me by a friend.
u The parties into which the Church was now divided
were led by the two Archbishops, and may be ranged in
the following order." (Here follows a list of Cranmer and
his party, viz : Goodrick, Shaxton, Latimer, Fox, Hilsey,
and Barlow; and of Lee and his party, viz.: Stokesby,
Tonstal, Gardiner, Longland, Sherburn, and Kite.)
" After much discussion, certain articles, which had been
40 LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
submitted to them by the King, were agreed upon, and
published by the Eoyal authority ; and as they may be
deemed the first document of the faith of the Church of
England, they cannot be esteemed unworthy of peculiar
notice. Their general outline is as follows : The Bible
and the three Creeds are laid down as the basis of our
faith. Baptism is declared to be absolutely necessary that
is, that children dying unbaptized, cannot be saved," &c.
The above is an account of the articles of 1536, as
given in " Sketch of the History of the Church of England
to the Kevolution of 1688, by Thomas Vowler Short, D.D.,
Lord Bishop of St. Asaph." 5th Edit. Parker, 1847.
STATEMENT RESUMED.
The following letter, occasioned by circumstances referre
to in it, would have been omitted here, but for the thought
rred
ight
that it may possibly have an interest to some, from what is
now occurring amongst us. I refer to facts elsewhere,
noticed such as the admission by clergymen of the schis-
matical spirit in which the last revision of the Prayer-Book
was conceived and carried out; the singular spectacle of
ministers of the Episcopal Church uniting with those of
Nonconforming Bodies in preaching to the masses, and in
carrying on special religious services ; and the manifest
tendency of union and co-operation so far to abate sec-
tional animosities and promote catholic sentiment.
No. IV.
Rev. T. Binney to the Editor of the ? South Australian
Register."
CHURCH UNION.
Sir, Only now and then since I left Adelaide has a
Register reached me. In those I have seen, there have
been occasionally notes and letters on " Church Union," or
APPENDIX. 41
more properly on the " Pulpit Question." The phrase
" Church Union," though signifying less than the Church
amalgamation, which seemed to be the ultimate object of
the Bishop's scheme, implies much more than was con-
templated by the first memorialists when asking for an
exchange of pulpits. In the first note I sent to you, when
it had become necessary to publish the letter addressed to
me by the Bishop, I felt it important to point out what
such exchange was not to involve. Both the clergy and
myself, by no act of our own, were called upon to look at a
subject which had been started by others. I thought it
right, to avoid misconception, to lay down the distinction
between simply preaching in a place, or to a congregation,
and approving or recognising all that the Church which
both might belong to, hold. The Episcopalian, for instance,
if he preached for me, was not to be supposed to recognise
or sanction the peculiarities of opinion or discipline cha-
racteristic of Congregationalists ; and I, on the other hand,
in preaching for him, was not to be understood, by that
act, to approve or accept the offices of the English Church,
which to me admit of only one construction a construction
involving matters which I do not believe.
Many men, besides the memorialists, have indulged the
dream that it might be possible to begin advances towards union
by a simple exchange of pulpits. They have thought that
those ministers of the Church, and those out of it, who are
more one in faith and feeling than different schools actually
within the Church ever can be they have thought that
such, at least, might interchange service ; that while thus
mutually recognising each other as preachers of the same
truth and servants of the same Lord, the act need imply
nothing more thus leaving untouched, as to recognition
or approval, many things that might belong to the Churches
or denominations of each, as such. I confess I have
myself participated in this feeling, but I have done so with
another feeling underlying it. Believing, as I do, that all
42
LIGHTS AXD SHADOWS.
parties, Churches, denominations, have something to learn
from each other, and something in themselves to unlearn, I have
been willing to hope that, if some at present separated from
each other were brought together in the way proposed,
light might be got, and love excited, and reforms and im-
provements, on both sides, facilitated and secured, till,
perhaps, something might be developed that should give
promise of a pure and united Church of the Future.
The words of the Bishop of London, in his recent
charge, reports of which have just reached us in the last
arrivals of English news, are words which embody the
deep feelings of many, and are such as can be adopted and
echoed by those of other communions : " Is it not true,"
he says, " that there is scarcely one of us who does not feel
that it is an evil to be separated so much as we are even
from those good and earnest Christians who are not mem-
bers of our own Church ?" It is an evil ; and there are
those on both sides who feel and lament it. How that gulf
of separation is to be bridged, however, is the question.
The impression produced on my own mind by observing
the course of your Adelaide controversy or that seems
likely to be produced is this, that nothing can be sug-
gested, no step taken, to bring together those " separated"
from one another, without its leading to something which
will bring up the original grounds of the separation throw
the mind of the thoughtful back on these and compel their
being looked at, re-stated, and re-examined. It is very
obvious that while some men, under the influence of kind
and catholic feeling, imagine that they can forget original
differences, and, by drawing a little closer together in God's
house, be prepared for looking at these by-and-by in such a
spirit and under such influences as may make both parties
willing to yield something it is very obvious that at present
this is almost as much a dream as the more splendid vision
in which my friend, the Bishop of Adelaide, indulged, and
which he felt to be so " pleasant" to himself. I cannot
APPENDIX.
43
I have in my mind's eye letters, I mean, which have
appeared in the Register. I have either mislaid or destroyed
the papers, hut I may indicate sufficiently what I refer to
by saying that one writer advanced something to this effect,
that the question was, u whether Dissenters had ceased to
be the schismatics they were when they separated from the
Church ; whether time had so altered things that they could
be viewed in a more favourable light ?" Another found a
difficulty in the " absolution ;" if Non-episcopal ministers
* were not allowed to pronounce it, that might offend them;
and if they were, that would offend the Church." A third
entered largely into the proof that the Anglican Church
regarded the ministers of other denominations as no ministers at
all, and concluded by remarking, with respect to myself,
" that though it might be painful to say so, yet so it was,
that the Church of England regarded me not only as a lay-
man, but as a schismatical layman," and so on.
Now, I find no fault with all this ; I am not offended by
it ; nor do I blame others who are determined to adhere to
everything in their supposed "primitive and apostolic
Church," and who betray something like terror at the
thought that anything in its constitution, utterances, or
offices should be asserted to be unscripturaL Whatever
men honestly think and deeply feel, it becomes them to say,
and to say with such strength of language as is equal to
their convictions. Men, however, who look at things from
opposite sides must allow to each other the same liberty of
thought and speech. If, therefore, the writers referred to
say "The proposed exchange of pulpits is impossible;
such exchange should be a recognition of the ministers
admitted to them and the Churches they represent in all
respects. But this recognition we cannot give, because we,
the Episcopal clergy, regard Nonconformist ministers as no
ministers at all, and their Societies not as Churches, but as
sinful, because schismatical, confederates." If, I say, gen-
44 LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
tlemen take this ground, they necessarily drive others to
the opposite, and hence the reply of the conscientious Non-
conformist will he, " If by preaching in an Episcopal
pulpit, I am to be supposed to recognise the Episcopal
Church in all respects not merely to see in the minister of
the place a brother in the Lord, with whom I am one in
respect to the Gospel, but also to admit everything that is
involved in clerical subscription and in the Church as a
whole I cannot do it. Exchange of pulpits, if it implies
that, is impossible ; for, in my opinion, the Church was the
original schismatic, while certain principles that pervade
its formularies are, as I think, unscriptural ; though others
may so coincide with, or so understand them, as heartily to
avow or conscientiously to accept what I am obliged to
repudiate and deny."
It strikes me that the way in which the question started
by the memorialists has been met must, necessarily, throw
the mind of the " dichostasy" back, in this manner, on the
original grounds of separation. I shall, probably, have to
advert to this in my next letter to the Bishop, though when
that will be written I know not, since every hour of my
time is so constantly consumed, and likely to be so, by the
pressure of other duties. Without referring, then, to his
lordship, or to anything he has written, I think it may be
permitted to me to request the attention of the devout, the
conscientious, and the thoughtful among Churchmen, to
some of those things which prevent many from joining the
Episcopal Church, who, on various grounds, would willingly do
so if they could. Very few among your readers have ever,
perhaps, investigated this subject; and even to some who
may have written in your pages, it may not, in its more
serious aspects, be familiar. I think it may be worth their
while to look at things for a moment from the Noncon-
formist stand-point, and to try to understand how they
must necessarily appear to us. At the present stage of the
Adelaide controversy if controversy it is to be called
APPENDIX. 45
I think this favour may fairly be asked of our friends.
In 1839, twenty years ago, I had occasion to re-examine
the terms on which myself, or any other man, might be
admitted to the ministry of the Church of England. I had
particular reasons for looking more fully and minutely into
the subject than perhaps many clergymen have ever done,
or ever felt that they were called upon to do. I threw my
thoughts into a written form, and read them at the opening
of a place of worship in which a friend of mine, a converted
Jew, was to officiate. They were published at the time.
I have accidentally met in Melbourne with a copy of the
pamphlet, and I should be glad if you could give it to your
readers in four or five successive sections. Your doing so
will put some of my Episcopalian friends (for I will not
regard any man, however he differs from me, as anything
else) in possession of points which may possibly be new to
them ; while it will shorten my labour in what I may yet
have to write to their worthy diocesan. There are some
passages in which the language is rather strong ; but the
Bishop of Melbourne, with whom I have had much frank
and friendly intercourse, and whom I have learnt greatly
to respect and love, tells me that there is nothing in the piece
to give just offence ; at least, he says, it gives no offence to
him, though, not feeling my scruples, he is of course un-
affected by the argument. To show, however, that the
judgment and conscience of others continue to be affected
by what influences mine, and in the same way, I will con-
clude this long introductory letter (which I have not time
to make shorter) by the following extract from an English
newspaper which has just come to hand :
" Secession of an Evangelical Clergyman. The Eev.
K. M. Milne, B.A. (following the steps of the late Vicar of
Aylesbury), has resigned the vicarage of Youlgreave, Der-
byshire, in consequence of having arrived at the conviction
that various portions of the contents of the Prayer-Book
are not in harmony with the Scriptures; and that it is
46 LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
wrong to hold a position which involves the continuance of
that ' assent' which he gave on entering the ministry, but
cannot now give. By this obedience to the voice of con-
science and to what he regards as the requirements of
truth, Mr. Milne has nobly sacrificed an income of 230
a-year. Mr. Milne's sympathies are still with the Established
Church, so far as it favours Evangelical religion ; and, like
the great bulk of the Evangelical clergy, he holds what are
called moderately Calvinistic opinions."
I am, Sir, &c,
T. Binney.
St. Kilda, Melbourne, February 11, 1859.
P.S. The Bishop of Melbourne, in a letter now lying
before me, arising out of the Adelaide question, very justly
says : " Certain Congregations, or Churches, upon con-
scientious objections to its doctrine or constitution,
separated themselves from the communion of the Church
of England. If these objections are well founded, then
the matters to which they relate are the real barriers to a
union. If they are groundless, then the mistaken views
of the separatists are the barrier." This is well put ; and
it would seem to follow from it, that, if any movement
towards union is made (not merely exchange of pulpits), it
must begin by the sifting of the objections referred to, in
order to determine whether the "barrier" lie in the
" matters" themselves, or in the " mistaken views" enter-
tained about them. The sections, or chapters, which are
to follow this letter* touch on some of these " matters"
and on certain " views" respecting them. It is for the
reader to say which he thinks wrong the "matters" or
the " views. If all could only come to see alike as to this
question one way or the other that would be the beginning
of the end. The subject is one of great interest, especially
* Instead of the piece thus referred to being given in sections in the
newspaper, it was published as a whole in a pamphlet, under its original
title, "Conscientious Clerical Nonconformity."
APPENDIX. 47
to those who, in the words of the second memorial, " earnestly
desire and await the reduction of every profession of Christianity
into the bosom of one communion."
The following letters and extracts are given, as they bear
on the above, and are elsewhere referred to.
No. V.
Correspondence published, with the Sanction of the Bishop
of Adelaide, in a pamphlet issued by some of the
leading Counter-memorialists.
l.
Gilbert-street, Adelaide, 9th September, 1858.
My Lord, I have the honour, by the direction of the
Committee of the South Australian Sunday-school Teachers'
Union, to inquire if your lordship is willing to receive a
deputation from the Committee, and if so, to request an
appointment for that purpose of a time and place conve-
nient to your lordship.
The deputation named, consists of Mr. Samuel Bakewell,
one of the Vice-presidents of the Union ; Mr. Martin, and
myself. Its object, is to obtain the consent of your lord-
ship to preside at a Lecture to be delivered on behalf of this
Institution, by the Eev. Thomas Binney of London.
If agreeable to your lordship, the deputation would be
glad to fulfil its duty on Saturday next, the 11th instant, at
3 p.m.
Kequesting the favour of an early reply, I have the
honour to be,
My lord,
Your most obedient Servant,
(Signed) J. S. Way, Hon. Sec.
The Right Rev. the Lord Bishop of Adelaide.
48 LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
2.
Bishop's Court, September 10th, 1858.
Sir, I am sensible of the compliment paid me, whether
personally or officially, by the Committee of the South
Australian Sunday-school Teachers' Union, in offering to
depute some of its members to request me to preside at a
Lecture about to be delivered by the Kev. Thomas Binney,
on behalf of this Institution.
Allow me to assure the Committee, that as a powerful
advocate of Orthodox Evangelical Christianity, I respect
Mr. Binney ; a respect which a slight personal acquaint-
ance has tended to increase.
Had it in my view been consistent with the acknow-
ledged principles of the Church of England, and an honest
adherence to them, I should have hastened to invite Mr.
Binney to preach to our congregations ; but such is not the
case, and I can only wish that the work to which he and
others believe him to be duly called, may prosper in his hands.
For a like reason I have felt it to be beyond my power to
join the Sunday-school Teachers' Union. The congrega-
tions to which those teachers belong, have separated in
times past from the Church of England, on some not unim-
portant points of doctrine and discipline. They still differ
in their views and teaching respecting the Sacraments and
Ministry ; I can only make " common" ground with them,
by abandoning or ignoring the practice and principles of the
Church over which I have been called to be an overseer.
It would be inconsistent and not of " faith" in me to do so ; nor
can I sanction in others what I disapprove in regard to myself.
For these reasons, I regret to be obliged to decline
receiving a deputation from the Committee, not being pre-
pared to join the Union, for the special benefit of which
Mr. Binney has been invited to lecture.
I remain, Sir, yours very faithfully,
Augustus Adelaide.
J. S. Way, Esq.
APPENDIX. 40
Extracts from Two Letters : the one from the Rev. T.
Binney to the Right Reverend the Bishop of
Adelaide ; the other from his Lordship in reply.
1.
St. Kilda, February 11th, 1859.
######
I have this week received from a friend a pamphlet.
In glancing through it, I observe there is a correspondence
given between your lordship and Mr. J. S. Way, in which
I am referred to. This correspondence was, I presume,
furnished by your lordship. # # * *
I send some MS. to Adelaide by this mail, which may or
may not see the light. It does not refer to your lordship's
letter, nor is it addressed to you. It bears on that aspect
of things which the Adelaide question, as it seems to me,
has now assumed, namely, the nature, the sufficiency or in-
sufficiency, of the reasons which compel some of us to occupy
such an ecclesiastical position that, in the language of a
writer in the Register, the Church of England feels autho-
rized to regard me as " not only a layman, but a schisma-
tic AL LAYMAN."
To the Right Rev. the Lord Bishop of Adelaide.
2.
Bishop's Court, Adelaide, February 22, 1859.
My letter to Mr. Way was shown to Mr. , and made
public at his request, because it placed my intentions
unmistakeably before the Church at large. The meaning
of my letter to you had been misrepresented, my object
misunderstood, and finally my sincerity called in question.
That letter, if published at the time, would have cleared up
the whole matter. Somewhat unaccountably to me it was
K
50 LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
never adverted to, and never saw the light. In self-defence,
therefore, and to re-assure the Counter-memorialists, it was
inserted by the Editors in the pamphlet. I do not hold
myself pledged on that account to sanction all that pamph-
let may contain.
######
I accept the Bishop of Melbourne's statement of the
question. " Certain Congregations or Churches, upon con-
scientious objections to its doctrine, or constitution, separa-
ted themselves from the communion of the Church of
England. If these objections are well founded, then the
matters to which they relate are the real barriers to a union.
If they are groundless, then the mistaken views of the
separatists are the barrier." This is precisely the point of
discussion which I desired to raise in my letter to you,
except that it is unnecessarily narrowed to the differences
between the Church of England and those denominations
which have dissented from it. I would include the Lu-
theran and Reformed Churches of Europe, together with
the various sections of the Presbyterian communion in
Scotland, in the description. The re-unions of individuals
holding in common Evangelical views, called " Evangelical
Unions," seem to make no nearer approach to a Catholic
Unity of Reformed Evangelical Churches ; but a step will have
been gained, if they or other seriously disposed Christians
will prayerfully consider what are the Evangelical truths,
apostolic constitution of Churches, and ecclesiastical
practices, which would once more unite the Evangelical
communions. The basis of such union appeared to me to
be a Common Creed, a Common Liturgy, and a Common
Church Government. I wait to learn whether such union
is deemed by Non-episcopalian bodies unnecessary or
inexpedient; or, if not, what are the difficulties and objec-
tions, which, if not removable, would form an insuperable
barrier to a complete fellowship of the Churches in the
Gospel of Christ.
APPENDIX. 51
Whatever be the result, a dispassionate consideration
of the question cannot be unprofitable or uninteresting,
either as regards the evangelization of the heathen world,
now thrown entirely open to Christian missionaries, or the
maintenance and diffusion in Christendom of the faith once
delivered to the saints. Meanwhile, I cordially subscribe
to the following words of the present Bishop of London,
in a sermon preached before the University of Oxford,
February 2nd, 1845, "The most ardent attachment to our
holy forms, the most full appreciation of their efficiency in
guiding our own souls in the way of life ; nay, a conviction
that under Providence our own Church seems more likely
than any other to be our Lord's instrument in spreading a
pure and enlightened and orderly Christianity throughout
the world our conviction of all this can have no natural
connexion with any uncharitable feelings towards those who
are not able to agree with us."
I am, my dear Sir,
Yours truly,
Augustus Adelaide.
Rev. T. Binney.
P.S. It occurs to me that Mr. Way, the Honorary
Secretary of the South Australian Sunday-school Teachers'
Union, may possibly not have preserved my answer to the
application of the Committee. Nor do I assent to the
statement of a writer in the Register that the Church of
England feels authorized to regard you, " as not only a
layman, but a schismatical layman." It is a different
thing to pronounce, with the Church of Rome, your orders
nidi and void, and your ministrations schismatical and
invalid ; and to say, as the Church of England appears to
me to say, that they lack that apostolic traditionary autho-
rity which, not being at variance with Scripture, she
..
52 LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
retained at the Reformation, for those who should minister
in her congregations. I am not aware that she would un-
church the Lutheran or other Protestant Evangelical
Churches in Europe. She may lament their loss of that
primitive Church Government, which she was providen-
tially permitted to preserve. With regard to the Noncon-
formist bodies in England, while she stands in the old
paths, and condemns the spirit which seems to perpetuate
and sanction endless division ; rejecting for herself as being
irregular the ministrations which result from it ; the hope
is still cherished, that past mutual injuries may be put out
of ' remembrance ; and existing defects or blemishes
removed, so that the wise and good among those bodies
may be able eventually to find a spiritual home within her
pale.
lark.
The three following notes require no special remar
They illustrate certain references in the " Address."
No. VI.
STATE-AID.
The Bishop of Melbourne The Bishop of Victoria, Hong
Kong The Wesley cms.
The following are illustrations of the statements in the
text. A public breakfast was given in Sydney to the
above-named prelates, a report of which appeared in the
Sydney Morning Herald, of June 27th. The report states
that " the Chairman, Sir W. Burton, alluded in condem-
natory terms to the proposed withdrawal of State-aid."
Referring, in the course of his speech, to that subject,
the Bishop of Melbourne's words were : " State-support
had, undoubtedly, been very useful, but he could not advo-
cate a system which equally favoured truth and error."
APPENDIX. 53
The Bishop of Victoria, Hong Kong, spoke more at
length in alluding to the topic, and in a tone which must
rather have taken the Chairman by surprise. Addressing
the company he said, " God grant that your metropolitan
diocese of Sydney the eldest Australian daughter of
Britain's Colonial Church may long hold forth the lamp
of pure unadulterated Christian truth in these lands ; that
the holy zeal of her Bishops, the self-denying labours of
her parochial clergy, the liberal and disinterested munifi-
cence of her laity, may ever render her independent of the
uncertain and insecure props of State-aid and political
support, and also prove her to possess within herself
the power of self-extension, and the inherent elements of
life and strength ; that at a distance from the traditionary
helps and prescriptive influences of our fatherland, Austra-
lia's Church may remember her chosen national motto,
' Advance,' and go forward hopefully on her errand of
mercy and mission of love, adorned and beautified with
the presence of her great Divine Head, free, unimpeded,
and unfettered by the disabilities and restraints of the
Church at home, and endued with the power of self-adapta-
tion to the varying circumstances, anomalies, and wants of
a new country. Thus lengthening her cords and strengthen-
ing her stakes, may she enlarge her sphere of evangelistic
work over the isles of the sea, and become to generations
of Britain's emigrant children yet unborn, a resting-place
and a bulwark of truth amid the vicissitudes, the shocks,
and the storms, which may imperil the ark of Christ, and
agitate the Church of the living God."
A Meeting of the " Wesleyan Church Extension and Sm-
tentation Society," Sydney, was held on Monday evening,
June 4th, 1859, from the printed report of which the fol-
lowing passage is extracted :
" The Rev. G. Hurst referred to the probable speedy
termination of the present system of State-aid, and amid
considerable applause exclaimed, * The sooner the better.
54 LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
Methodism wants no State-aid. It has had none in our
fatherland, where it has obtained so high and honourable a
position ; it has had no State-aid in America, and yet it is
the largest Protestant Church in that country ; and, I verily
believe, that when State-aid shall cease in this country,
Methodism and true religion will advance with far more
rapid strides than they hitherto have.' "
No. VII.
Part of a Conversation between Judges and Members of
the Bar, on Colonial Ecclesiastical Law.
The following extract is taken from Swainson's " New
Zealand and its Colonization." It is described by him as
" an amusing illustration of the ignorance of the highest
legal authorities as to the power and status of a Colonial
Bishop." It is, however, more than that; it is deeply
suggestive ; especially by the admission it contains, that
an unlicensed clergyman " may preach wherever he can
find hearers," without, I presume, affecting his position
in England beyond what is supposed in those passages of
the preceding Address to which this note refers. A
clergyman in a neighbouring colony has offered to preach
for one of our ministers ; but the offer has hitherto been
declined from a reluctance to accept what, however well
and kindly meant, might possibly damage him who rendered
it. It might here, but it is at least questionable whether
it would affect, in the slightest degree, his position in or
relation to the Church at home. The subjoined colloquy
took place in the Queen's Bench The Attorney-General v.
the Provost and College of Eton (May, 1857).
Lord Campbell said it was difficult to know what a Colonial
Bishop was; he has not the ordinary status of a Bishop of
,
APPENDIX. 55
the English Church. What could such a Bishop do in
invitos ? He might have the title of Bishop.
The Attorney-General. He might excommunicate.
Lord Campbell. What would follow from that ?
The Attorney-General. That would depend on the mind
of the object of the excommunication.
Mr. Justice Coleridge. Such a power had been exer-
cised.
The Attorney-General. He might degrade a clergyman,
and he would not be entitled to hold a benefice.
Lord Campbell said that not the smallest effect could be
given to such a degradation. Like the Scottish Bishops,
his authority would be merely voluntary to those who
chose to submit to it.
Mr. Justice Coleridge thought it would be more than that.
When the Crown created a diocese in the colony, it could
not divide it without the consent of the Bishop. A Colo-
nial Bishop had power to exercise episcopal authority in
the district.
Lord Campbell. What power has such a Bishop more
than a Koman Catholic Bishop in the same place ? What
iurisdiction has he? He might give his advice to those
who chose to submit to him : but those who were unwilling
would not be bound.
The Attorney-General said that a Bishop of the English
Church received direct authority over the clergy in his
diocese ; he instituted, ordained, visited, and revoked.
Lord Campbell. Is not that all voluntary ? The Roman
Catholic does the same.
Sir F. Thesiger said, a Colonial Bishop could not hold
Courts ; he could only exercise his influence as Bishop :
and that Colonial Bishops were titular Bishops.
LIGHTS AXD SHADOWS.
Lord Campbell said that they were true successors of the
Apostles. *
The Attorney -General said they had the power of or-
daining.
Lord Campbell. A Bishop in partibus could do that.
The Attorney-General said, though the ecclesiastical juris-
diction was not aided hy the temporal sword, the ecclesias-
tical jurisdiction was complete.
Lord Campbell said it was good for all those who chose to
respect it : but who was to enforce it ?
The Attorney -General. The Bishop might revoke his
licence.
Lord Campbell. But suppose he preaches : quid turn ?
The Attorney-General. He may preach wherever he can find
hearers.
Lord Campbell. But in England he cannot, as was shown
in Shore's case.
No. VIII.
The Three Bishops.
The statement, in the Address, respecting the principle of
interpretation adopted by the Bishops of Melbourne and
Sydney, is made by me on the following grounds. In rela-
tion to the first, on the authority of his printed declaration
of opinion; and in relation to the second, from having
myself heard his lordship, at a confirmation, address the
candidates, in relation to the service, on the principle
referred to, namely, that "the compilers of the Liturgy"
meant their words to be understood " not categorically, but
* Does this mean that Colonial Bishops are " true successors of the
Apostles," because they can only exert official " influence," not being
able to hold " Courts," and not having their " Ecclesiastical jurisdiction
aided by the temporal sword ? "
APPENDIX.
57
hypothetically." In opposition to the judgment of the
Bishop of Tasmania, it appears to me, that clergymen are
legally warranted so to interpret the Prayer-Book, although
I do not feel that I could so interpret it myself. I could
admit that the haptismal service for adults, might be so in-
terpreted and used ; we are all in the habit of using hypo-
thetical language, with or without conditional explanatory
terms, in respect to those who make a personal profession
of their faith. I feel a great difficulty in interpreting the
service for infants on this hypothetical principle, as I cer-
tainly could not use it as if it was so meant. I know it is
said, that as the. service for adults must be used with the
implication referred to, the other service ought, in confor-
mity with that, to be regarded in the same light. It so
happens, however, that the Prayer-Book did not, at first,
contain any service for adults, so that the interpretation of
the other in conformity with that could then have no place.
Whatever principle of interpretation may be possible, or
may be admitted now, I fear that when " the compilers
of the Liturgy" adopted, or arranged, the baptismal ser-
vice for infants, they intended the words to be understood
to mean, " categorically," what they said.
In respect to the judgment of the Judicial Committee of
the Privy Council on. the Gorham Case, to which reference
is made also in the Address, I had once intended to give,
pretty fully, my reasons for coinciding with the Bishop of
Tasmania in my views of it, theologically considered. I
find, however, that I cannot do this now. The following
very rapid and imperfect enumeration of particular points
must suffice.
The Judges interpret the Prayer-Book as they would an
Act of Parliament, which of itself is repugnant to reli-
gious feeling, though the proper and only course which
men in their position could pursue. They state that the
Book is "to have applied to it the same rules of interpre-
tation which are by law applicable to all written instru-
58 LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
la W "
ments." As no "rules of interpretation" are "by
made applicable to biblical exegesis or theological contro-
versy, the statement must, be understood as referring to
such "written instruments" as Acts of Parliament. Ad-
vancing to their task, they begin by uttering several com-
plaints, expressive of the difficulties with which they are
surrounded. They complain of the Bishop of Exeter,
and of Mr. Gorham, and even of the Prayer-Book itself !
The accusation is not clear, the defence is not clear,
the Prayer-Book is not clear. The Bishop's " questions " to
Mr. Gorham, are described as "perplexing," "entangling,"
" many of them not admitting of distinct and explicit
answers." The " answers" are described, as " not given
plainly and directly," but " with the apparent view of
escaping from some apprehended consequence of plain and
direct answers." Of the " articles" in the Prayer-Book, it
is said, " they do not determine what is signified by right
reception" [of baptism] ; and " they do not particularly
declare what is the distinct meaning and effect of the grace
of regeneration." In attempting to interpret the baptismal
service, they intimate that, in consequence of the circum-
stances surrounding the administration of the rite, the
mind of the officiating minister is raised into a high state of
feeling and faith, and that, as it is " during the continuance of
the same persuasion, and the same undoubting confidence"
that he has to speak, " he is directed" to express himself
in the most positive and unqualified terms ; forge tting }
apparently, that the catechism, cannot be so interpreted, and
that children, in repeating it, are the farthest possible from
a state of excitement or enthusiasm !
Then again, their lordships greatly understate Mr. Gor-
ham's doctrine, while Mr. Gorham himself overstates it.
They say, that Mr. Gorham believes that "in no case is
regeneration in baptism unconditional," and Mr. Gorham
says, that " he does not deny that infants are made in bap-
tism members of Christ, and the children of God, and inheri-
APPENDIX. 59
rs of the kingdom of heaven ;" but Mr. Gorham's system
is, that children must first be regenerated "by an act
of grace, prevenient to baptism, to make them worthy reci-
pients of that sacrament ; " Mr. Gorham's doctrine is,
that regeneration is unconditional, but that it is the
condition for the reception of baptismal grace, which,
with him, is not the grace of regeneration at all. It is
absurd to say that the same thing is at once the condition
for baptism, and the blessing or grace which in baptism is
conferred on some other condition, and yet this is what Mr.
Gorham and their lordships make out between them ! The
fact is, that his Judges fail to distinguish between Mr-
Gorham's regenerating prevenient grace, and his grace of
baptism, which is something else ; and Mr. Gorham him-
self, by his contradictory affirmations and denials, contri-
butes to the confusion and mystification. Finally : their
lordships appear to admit that, or at least they decline
saying whether or not, " other opinions opposite to Mr.
Gorham's may not be held with equal or even greater reason
by learned and pious ministers of the Church ;" they speak
of Mr. Gorham's views, as not being repugnant to the " de-
clared doctrine" of the Church of England, and yet, on
their own " principles of interpretation," they might easily
construct another argument to prove that teaching the very
contrary to his, was not only not repugnant to that " declared
doctrine," but might even be held with " greater reason ;"
while, all the time, they really cannot themselves tell what
the doctrine of the Church actually is, although they speak
of it as "declared!" The whole thing is a "mull." It
would seem, that two opposite things are neither of them
repugnant to a third thing standing between them, and yet
what that third thing itself is, nobody can tell ! at any
rate, I defy any one to make it out from the elaborate
argument of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.
I do not wonder, then, at the Bishop of Tasmania
holding the judgment of their lordships very cheap. If
60 LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
I at all understand the matter, (and I tried very hard
to do so at the time the judgment was delivered,) it
would have no more effect on my individual conscience,
than if they had declared that servants, in asserting
" categorically" that their masters or mistresses were " not
at home," were to he understood as only saying so
" hypothetically," or on an implied " condition." Never-
theless, apart from the reasoning of their lordships' argu-
ment, their judgment itself is a legal decision. It is that
of the Queen as the Head of the Church, for the Queen is
only the representative of the Majesty of the Law. Through
her Judges, She and the Law speak ; in whatever way it is
at any time constitutionally determined, that a supreme
authoritative decision shall be arrived at and uttered, that
is final. In the case before us, the judgment at once con-
fers a legal liberty on those who can receive it, and binds
those who, by continuing in the Church, continue and
repeat their clerical subscription to the three articles of the
36th canon. The first may be thought by the second bad
members of " the Church of the Prayer-Book ;" but, most
assuredly, the second may be 'regarded by the first, as very
questionable members of " the Church of England."*
* If any one cares about verifying the statements of the above note,
they may do so by referring to the volume before-mentioned, entitled
"The Great Gorham Case." The view of the Queen's Ecclesiastical
Supremacy as at present understood, with which the note concludes, is
rather more than countenanced by the following words of a high legal
authority :
" Let them," (the Parliament,) said the Attorney-General, Sir Richard
Bethel, " discuss the law if they would ; but when they had arrived at
the conclusion that it ought to be the law of the land, let them require,
without a moment's hesitation, on the part of the clergy, obedience to
that law." Swainson's New Zealand.
* # * When an English edition of this Work was acceded
to, it was decided to omit in the " Appendix," everything
but what was more or less referred to in the " Address."
It is thought, however, that " The Lights and Shadows"
furnished by the following matter ought not to be
excluded.
No. I.
Sir R. G. MacDonnell to the Rev. T. Binney.
Glenelg, October 16, 1858.
My dear Sir, I herewith return the Bishop's letter
of the 22nd ult., on the " Union of Protestant Evangelical
Churches." I have long felt deep interest in this subject,
and as a more than usually healthy feeling in connexion
therewith seems to prevail here at present, I am well
pleased that it has been thus prominently brought forward
by the Bishop. Moreover, whilst the moment for this step
seems well chosen, the truly catholic spirit in which the
subject is treated by his lordship is, in my judgment, matter
of congratulation to us all.
2. As, however, you have asked what I think of the
suggestions in his lordship's letter, I shall give you my
opinion, but only in such imperfect manner as the little
time at my disposal permits.
3. I have no doubt we both admire the eloquent and
forcible manner in which his lordship dwells on the nume-
rous fundamental principles of agreement in doctrine
between the various Protestant Evangelical sections of the
Church of Christ. We must both also deplore with his
lordship the great injury sustained by that Church in the
inherent and inevitable weakness engendered therein by
the absence of any systematized and united action available
for the expansion of its limits, and the diffusion of the
really vital principles of faith and doctrine common to all
its sections.
4. Nevertheless, I do not find that the Bishop, when he
64 LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
treats of " the principles and conditions on which a union
of the Protestant Evangelical Churches should he effected"
either professes to devise a remedy in presenti for that
deficiency, or speaks hopefully of accomplishing such union
hereafter. His suggestions seem to be aimed too high in
pointing to a " Church for the Future, which is to con-
ciliate all affections and unite all diversities." Nevertheless,
the willingness of the Bishop as representing the Angli-
can Church here to recognise for certain mission purposes,
the de facto ministers of Evangelical congregations to give
up a State Episcopacy to modify the compulsory unifor-
mity of Divine worship, and to omit portions of the offices
for the administration of sacraments and conferring of holy
orders evinces the tolerance of an enlightened Christian,
and breathes a spirit, in which, if we were all to meet one
another, there would soon be but one section of the Ke-
formed Church of Christ.
5. Looking, however, to the practical expediency of his
suggestions, and having regard to human nature as it is, I
do not see even here, where the ground is comparatively
cleared for the erection of such a structure by the abolition
of all State-aid that there is much immediate prospect of
establishing a general Protestant Church holding by one
set of articles, however few, or by any fixed form of Liturgy,
however curtailed especially if its bishops be not elected
by all denominations, placed for that purpose on terms of
equality.
6. I admit that such a Church, with its affairs adminis-
tered by bishops or overseers elected by the general body
of the Church (which, however, does not appear to be alto-
gether his lordship's meaning), and with its bishops, aided
by representatives of the whole Church assembled in synod,
would be a Church well adapted to the spiritual wants of
mankind, and eminently apostolical in its constitution.
Yet, although, as the Bishop truly says, we " might thus
exercise the great privilege of spiritual men that is, com-
APPENDIX. 65
bine freedom with submission to law, and general order
with specific distinctions" the main difficulty would still
exist, and the real question would only be begged, not
solved ; for there would still be a law a rule, in which, as
the Bishop says " we should walk, and by it steadfastly
abide." Now, whatever be the rule, it would be difficult
to induce the various Protestant sections of Christ's Church
simultaneously to adopt it, or afterwards abide by it. Men
had, in the first century, the teaching of Christ Himself ;
they had the apostles for their ministers and bishops ; they
had the recent evidence of Christ's miracles, and yet schism
even then arose. It would do so again, even if a United
Protestant Church were for a space to gather within its
fold all the evangelical denominations of the Keformed
Church in this province, and in Great Britain also.
7. It may be, however indeed it is our belief and hope
that such a consummation will yet be witnessed in the
fulness of time ; but meanwhile I sincerely hope that what
the Bishop himself calls " the pleasantness of this dream"
will not divert us from more immediate and practicable
exertions, which, without disturbing the existing internal
organization of the various sections of the Keformed
Church, may yet eliminate, if they do not find ready to our
hand, some, if not all, the elements for united action, when
pursuing the main objects of all Christian Protestant action,
viz., the diffusion and application of the broad vital doc-
trines of the Protestant faith.
8. And herein I do not see why we might not at least
prepare for such united action, without waiting to break and
fuse all varieties of Protestant worship and organization for
the purpose of recasting them in a uniform shape from one
mould. For my part, though I much prefer the forms of
my own Church, I do not object to the organization or
practice of the Baptists, the Independents, the Wesleyans,
or many other denominations of Protestant Christians. It
might perhaps be better if they were all to form one deno-
s
66 LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
ruination ; but I have doubts on that point ; whilst it would
come nearly to the same thing, if we could but fully regard
one another truly as brethren ; and if we felt bound to
help one another in all that might develope the pure
principles of our common faith, whilst we illustrated
them in our practice by works of mutual charity and
help.
9. I would, therefore, suggest that we should test the
sincerity of our mutual advances either towards union or
alliance, by at once commencing a more intimate and bro-
therly intercourse with one another in our schools, our
pulpits, and our missions ; and that we should thus prepare
the way for such a further mutual understanding as may,
with God's blessing, fit us hereafter to discuss the question
of fusing into one denomination all the various evangelical
sections of Christ's Reformed Church.
10. I would ask, are we to have for ever merely a community
of faith, and not a community of labour in all good works ; a
brotherhood of doctrine, but not of action? If the Bible be
the foundation of our faith, why should any intelligent, pure-
minded, and approved Protestant expounder of that Bible be
excluded by an ecclesiastical rule or tradition from preaching
the doctrines of any Church in one of its places of worship,
if invited to do so by the special minister of the building? Is
such a union of Christians impossible in carrying on Chris-
tian duties ? Whenever such interchange of pulpits is per-
mitted, under no restrictions but those which are desirable
to ensure fitness of education and character, as well as
soundness of doctrine (and I trust a high standard in all
those respects will ever be maintained), it will be time
enough to meditate on a still more general fusion, in
approved ecclesiastical form, of the Protestantism of this
and other lands.
11. I do not, however, perceive that the Bishop suggests
any immediate step in this direction, although his lordship
thinks he might have invited you to exhort the Church of
APPENDIX. 67
England congregations here " without violating any eccle-
siastical law in force in this diocese or province." I am
only surprised that he did not use this power, when he
gives so many reasons why it might have been wisely and
usefully exerted in your favour. Those reasons, however,
are so well stated by the Bishop, that he cannot long resist
the conclusion to which they point. Indeed, I consider it
fortunate on the whole that you did not arrive here till men's
minds, having become reconciled to the abolition of State-
aid to religion, had begun to feel the necessity and probable
advantage of a very different aid, viz., that which might be
derived from greater unity of action amongst themselves.
It is no small sign of progress that the Bishop should have
stated the case so forcibly, even though he has not yet
availed himself of his own argument.
12. I also think it fortunate that neither in public
opinion, nor perhaps in his own, is any clergyman of the
Anglican Church in this province regarded as more power-
ful or truthful in expounding the faith held by that Church
than yourself. It makes the fact all the more remarkable,
that a large portion of this community, as belonging to the
Anglican Church, should agree in your doctrines and be
anxious to benefit by your teaching, and yet be deprived of
the opportunity of hearing you in any pulpit of their
Church, simply because you hold no licence from their
Bishop, and are not officially, therefore, regarded in this
diocese as a de jure minister of the Gospel, the preaching
and illustration of which form, nevertheless, at once the
labour and glory of your life.
13. I rejoice, therefore, that your visit has made people
ponder on such a pernicious I would almost say un-
christian distinction of man's device without a spiritual
difference. I sincerely hope the application of such a rule
to yourself may produce results useful to us all, and end in
throwing open God's work to all who may be worthy of
the labour.
s 2
68 LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
14. It is, I hope, unnecessary that I should here guard
against the possibility of being supposed to imply that the
occasional interchange of pulpits which I advocate should
be allowed to prejudice the usages or internal discipline of
any denomination. Thus, if a Wesleyan minister were to
exchange services for a day with our Dean, he could not
expect to conduct the service at Trinity Church as he would
at Pirie-street Chapel ; nor could the Dean conduct the
service at Pirie-street Chapel otherwise than according to
the usage of the congregation there. Therefore I do not
contemplate any such interchange of pulpits as possible,
except where there might be a previously existing common
belief in the great and vital truths of the Protestant faith,
and a comparative indifference to the details of ritual service
and discipline in use amongst the various congregations of
that faith.
15. I would add that, whilst this first step seems to dis-
turb no Church organization now existing, my own feelings
convince me that an advance in this direction must be far
more agreeable to many thousand others than an attempt
to form a common Church by the sacrifice of services and
customs to which I and they are personally attached.
More especially would I protest against a sacrifice of the
greater portion of the Liturgy, as suggested by the Bishop.
I have reverently listened in my childhood to those prayers
and words of solemn beauty. They have often been the
consolation of manhood. They are fraught to me with a
thousand hallowed memories and aspirations ; and I would
fain hope they will be amongst the latest sounds which
may soothe my ear. With such feelings I not merely pro-
test against such a concession to the prejudice of others ;
but, my own reluctance to accede to this teaches me to deal
gently with all who may refuse similar concessions to my
prejudices.
16. I therefore own that I am not much troubled at
present to give a theoretical uniformity of outward structure
69
to the Reformed Church. I would rather look to the
foundation before roofing the Temple. The details of dis-
cipline and practice if there be no wilful or marked viola-
tion of any scriptural command or leading truth necessary
to our spiritual welfare may be left safely to the various
congregations who are most affected by them. Such things
need not, and ought not, to be any bar to the most unre-
served spiritual intercourse and community of labour
amongst Christians of Christ's Church.
17. My life has been hitherto so much more one of
action than of theorising, that, hoping to be more useful by
practically doing something to effect what I recommend
than by writing about it, immediately on reading the
Bishop's letter, which I did not peruse till this day, I took
the first step towards realizing my suggestion. As a com-
municant of the Anglican Church, I have signed a memo-
rial to the Bishop requesting his lordship to invite you to
preach at one of our Churches. It is clear that some one
must take this first step, and that the objections thereto are
no more forcible now than they would be if I were to defer
that step for years. The right hand of fellowship, more-
aver, ought, in my opinion, to be offered first by the
Anglican Church, as that which has hitherto been the most
exclusive and exacting in such matters. I have, however,
taken care that the memorial should express the conviction
of those signing it, that they are thereby assisting to de-
velope his lordship's own views a point which it is
difficult to doubt, after perusing his very interesting and
eloquent letter.
18. I know not how far these views, which are entirely
my own, and as yet communicated to none but yourself,
may coincide with your own opinion. I am, however,
certain that if you think you can usefully exert yourself in
removing prejudices which narrow the sphere of usefulness
of Christ's ministers you will not fail to do so.
19. To assist in establishing a greater unity of action
70 LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
amongst the ministers and congregations and various
tions of the Eeformed Church would be indeed a noble
vocation. I earnestly desire that your exertions in that
respect here, where the field is more open than elsewhere,
may yet produce results to which you will gladly recur
hereafter as amongst the happiest mementoes of your trip
to Australia.
Believe me to be, my dear Sir,
Most sincerely yours,
Kichard Graves MacDonnell.
sec-
No. II.
The Rev. Canon Russell to the Rev, T. JBinney.
St. John's Parsonage, Adelaide, October 21, 1858.
Eev. and dbar Sir, Forgive the liberty I take in
troubling you with a few lines in reference to the most im-
portant part of your speech of yesterday. I felt thankful
that, in reference to a subject surrounded with difficulties,
you were enabled to speak such calm and wise words. On
the part of many who listened to you, there would have
been a great dread of any amalgamation of Churches : there
would be, in our own Church, the strongest feeling against
any tampering with the Prayer-Book; there would have
ensued a convulsion which could have ended in nothing
short of dissolution, from any general attempt to accommo-
date our ecclesiastical polity to that of other Christian
communities.
Let me explain my own position. Not born and bred
in the Church of England ; not fettered by any early pre-
judices on the subject ; but having heartily embraced the
doctrine and order of the Church of England, as soon as
APPENDIX. 71
I was old enough to think and choose on such a subject
I confess that I should yet have strongly shared in the
above apprehensions. When a man born in the midst of
Scotch Presbyterianism, thrown during early youth into
close association with the adherents of English Congrega-
tionalism, and brought in various ways into friendly contact
with men of the widest variety of view in reference to
theology and ecclesiastical polity when a man who has
had a history of this kind embraces the Church of England
system, he does it with his whole heart. Its distinctive
peculiarities he cannot bear to part with ; for they are
among the things which attracted his love. The chances are
that if he be a man of ordinary generosity of mind, he will be
able to think of the men of other communions, in a spirit at
once more intelligent and just, with a fuller understanding
both of the strength and weakness of their position, than if
he had been trained in the midst of Church of England
traditions ; but the very fact that he has, on unworldly
principles, chosen his place in the Church of England, would
lead one to expect that he will embrace all her peculiari-
ties (if I may so express myself) with that sort of romantic
reverence and depth of attachment with which a man falls
in love for the first and last time in his life. I was thank-
ful, therefore, beyond expression, to hear you distinctly
declare your own feeling, that any mutual recognition of
Protestant Churches should be one in which the respective
polity and constitution of the said Churches would be pre-
served in their integrity. Will you, then, suffer me to
point out what, in my opinion, must not be attempted in
order to the desired recognition ?
It seems to me that you must keep clear of the two points
around which most of the controversies of Christendom
have been found to turn. 1. What constitutes fitness for
the position of a member of the Church ? 2. What con-
stitutes fitness to minister in the congregation ?
1. The Anglican and Congregationalist theories of Church
LIGHTS AXD SHADOWS.
membership are not only in fact widely different, but
essentially irreconcilable. Mr. Stow, in an address before
the Melbourne Conference in 1855, has explicitly declared
this. He says : " Our principle of admission to the
Church is personal piety, avowed and evidenced to the
satisfaction of the Church There are other
Churches, containing vast numbers of truly pious persons ;
but that they should be such is not the condition of admis-
sion A certificate, then, from such a Church is
not a certificate of spiritual character ; it is simply a certifi-
cate of membership. It is not, then, a certificate which
meets our rule." Here, then, is a preliminary difficulty
with respect to fitness for communion, and terms of com-
munion, which, when adequately discussed, must raise very
important questions on which different individuals and
Churches will arrive at very different conclusions, and the
preliminary discussion of which would b exceedingly
likely to set us permanently by the ears. I am, on the
contrary, in the habit of speaking of baptism as verily and
truly membership of the Church, and of protesting against
the bad life of some of our people on that express ground.
We may discuss for ever what constitutes membership, and
what should lawfully admit to full communion, without
arriving at a common point of agreement.
I am strongly of opinion, then, that you must not make
common communion at the same table of the Lord beau-
tiful and desirable as the idea is a condition of the Chris-
tian union to be attempted.
2. It is not only, however, that there is difficulty as to
terms of communion. There are difficulties as to the
officiating persons. It may appear to some an evil thing,
but it is the fact, that even in our own Church all ministers
are not allowed to administer the Sacrament of the Lord's
Supper. A duly ordained minister, if only in the order of
a deacon, may preach ; he cannot minister the Holy Com-
munion. If, then, even a minister of our Church may not,
DUt
APPENDIX. 73
until he has attained to the position of a presbyter, it is
quite hopeless to expect the adherents to our system to con-
sent to any arrangement by which ministers of other
Churches may perform an act from which certain of our
own ministers are excluded. You, who do not propose to
amalgamate Churches, would not attempt to force us from
a position which we have deliberately taken, and which
belongs properly and logically to the constitution of the
Church, and the relative position in it of bishop, priest, or
deacon. I ask you, then, not to aim, in the name of Chris-
tian union, at what will render the likelihood of any visible
union among the Protestant Churches more remote than
ever.
That union must clearly respect all that is essential to
the integrity of our polity. Now, according to that polity,
there are within our Church three orders of ministers to
whom, respectively, peculiar functions are assigned. In so
far as certain of these functions are restricted to these
several orders, they must prove undoubtedly, however un-
avoidably, obstacles to visible union obstacles, however,
not arising out of illiberality of sentiment, but out of the
necessities of our Church-life. But on the other hand, is
there any function of the Christian ministry common to all
these orders, and exercised by the ministers of other Pro-
testant Churches ? I think there is one. It is in some
sense the greatest, the most responsible, and the most in-
fluential of all : that which most stirs the heart to great
actions, arouses the soul out of sensual slumbers, and arms
the spirit of man for the battle of life, and in the exercise
of which the minister of God finds the freest scope for all
his faculties. It is the preaching of the Word of God. In
the Church of Borne, even, there were preaching orders
with their peculiar discipline, and not restricted to the
general rule of the Church. I, for one, would not be with-
out hope that the general Church of England might be led
to adopt a system by which, the Liturgy being left un-
74 LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
touched, and the ecclesiastical polity heing left untouched,
the great body of preachers in all Protestant Churches
might at least be empowered to exercise their gift for the
edification of all.
In order to the adoption of such a system, however,
there must necessarily be a doctrinal basis, but it should
be one containing as few dogmatical statements as possible,
and limited to the great central facts of Christianity. I
should be content with these three : The Bible, the Kule
of Faith; the Trinity in Unity; the Incarnation and
Sacrifice of Jesus Christ our Lord.
Allow me, however, to say most unequivocally that, after
careful inquiry, I am satisfied that the laws of our Church
would not at present admit of the preaching, in any of our
Churches, of any minister but a bishop, priest, or deacon,
in our understanding of these words. I am sure we ought
not to break existing laws. If they appear to need altera-
tion, the alteration must be attempted in a constitutional
manner.
Now we, in these colonies, happily enjoy the norma
action of the Church. There are Diocesan Synods : there
must, ere long, be a Provincial Synod. The change can
be arrived at only in this way: 1st. Until a Provincial
Synod exists, by declaratory resolutions in the several
Diocesan Synods, which would declare the mind of the
Church on the question. 2nd. By ecclesiastical legisla-
tion on the basis of such resolutions, so soon as there is a
Provincial Synod.
There can be no question that it must add greatly to the
strength and dignity of every Church, to be able from time
to time to call into action the services of the great apolo-
gists of Christianity, wherever they may be found ; provi-
ded all reasonable securities have been taken for soundness
in the old catholic faith of Scripture and the Primitive
Church.
In this hasty letter, I have endeavoured to fix upon the
,
APPENDIX. 75
one function of the Christian ministry, in the exercise of
which I see the only hope of successfully aiming at visible
union. I do not see that the question of liturgical forms
need embarrass the inquiry. Public preaching, apart from
public devotion, ought not to be a new thing to a Church
in which the memory of Latimer and Paul's Cross are still
revered.
Begging you to accept this letter in the spirit in which
it is intended,
I am, Bev. and dear Sir,
Your faithful Servant,
Alex. E. Eussell,
Minister of St. John's, and Rural Dean.
P.S. You may make what use of this letter, either here
or in England, you may think desirable.
[This letter very much expresses my own views ; for,
though I have been in the habit of uniting in my aspira-
tions after Christian union, the mutual recognition of
Churches and their meeting in sacramental fellowship, as
well as ministerial recognition and exchange of pulpits, I
am sensible of so many difficulties in respect to the for-
mer of these, that I feel the latter is the only thing that is
at all possible as a first step. Personally, I have no diffi-
culty when visiting with Episcopalian friends, attendants
on an Evangelical ministry, in communing with them. I
have done so ; though I am well aware that both among my
Dissenting brethren and the clergy of the Church there are
those who would wonder at the act. But I have also had
clergymen remain and commune in the Lord's Supper in
my own place of worship, which is something, I suppose,
more extraordinary still. These, however, were individual
76 LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
and personal acts, and involved nothing more ; and I don't
know that my views, however strongly put in the form of
popular writing or speech, have really gone much beyond
this, as a beginning. Certainly, I never thought of the
Nonconformist and the Episcopal minister exchanging
places as the officiating persons, at the table or the altar,
but only of the one being free and willing to unite with the
otlier in the act of communion, as in the cases first men-
tioned. There are many points in Mr. Kussell's letter,
which might invite a word or two of remark, but I must
not allow myself to go on, lest I should write a disserta-
tion. The clear and well-defined way in which Mr. Kussell
puts the one point on which he insists is worthy of notice :
so also is his view of the freedom to act which he attributes
to colonial Churches. I differ from him as to any special
" doctrinal basis," being required for such action as is con-
templated, since I assume the interchange to take place on
the ground of personal knowledge and public reputation,
between ministers who already have their standing in the
general Church on the ground of their Evangelical
faith.]
No. III.
The Diocesan Synod of South Australia on Church Union.
(Abridged from tlie South Australian Advertiser of June 3rd.)
On Thursday, 2nd June, a meeting of the Synod was
held at White's Rooms. There was an unusually large
attendance, great interest being felt in some resolutions
of which His Excellency the Governor had. given notice.
APPENDTX. 77
These resolutions, which, after he had " tabled," His
Excellency received permission to amend, were submitted
to the Synod in the following form :
"1. That in the opinion of this Synod the time has
arrived for promoting Christianity and the spread of Evan-
gelical truth in South Australia, by a closer alliance
between the branch of Christ's Church which this Synod
represents, and the other Protestant Evangelical denomi-
nations in this colony.
" 2. That the most expedient course for usefully effect-
ing such alliance appears to be a prompt and hearty recog-
nition on terms of equality of our Protestant Christian
Evangelical brethren, whether originally sprung from the
Anglican Church or not, as being all members of the
General Reformed Church of Christ with whom, there-
fore, we may safely and usefully ally ourselves in all good
works."
His Excellency, in rising to propose the resolutions of
which he had given notice, but which were amended, as he
had stated, said, "that although he had not had much
time to devote to the subject of these resolutions, he
could see and gather from the tone of that assembly, and
from circumstances which had occurred, both inside and
outside, that a very strong interest existed upon the subject.
He felt, therefore, that he had taken upon himself a great
responsibility in bringing the resolutions forward ; but had
that responsibility been ten times as great, or had he stood
alone in supporting the resolutions, he should have felt it
his duty to do so, a great Christian principle being involved.
He felt very much interested in the resolutions, and was
the more sorry that circumstances over which he could
exercise no control, had prevented him from giving them
that amount of attention which would have enabled him
to treat them in a more complete manner. He should
have liked to have laid before the Synod a greater amount
of information bearing upon the questions, and have sup-
78 LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
ported the resolutions with a greater amount of well-con-
sidered arguments than he felt he would be enabled to do.
It was his belief, however, that so clear a principle was
laid down in the resolutions, that when these resolutions
were clearly understood, he did not despair of finding the
support which they would receive much greater than had
been supposed. He thought it better to state at once what
was the gist of the resolutions, which was not, as some
persons imagined, to attack any fundamental principle of
the Church, or ecclesiastical discipline, but simply to re-
quire the brethren of the Church to look beyond the pale
of their own, and see the large Churches outside holding
on every essential point of belief the same doctrine as our
own; and to consider whether, where there was notori-
ously a common field for religious exertion, a greater
amount of religious life could not be obtained by uniting
than by standing aloof. The alliance proposed might be,
in fact, nothing more than an alliance of good works, such,
for instance, as the Bible Society, Sunday-school teaching,
bush missions, missionary efforts, &c. ; still it appeared to
him there was little doubt that by united efforts they would
be enabled to accomplish very much more, even in those
matters, than by the separate and divided efforts of those
whom it was proposed to unite. Suppose there were two
separate states, with races speaking different languages and
of different descent, still alliances could be made between
them without compromising their independence, or sacri-
ficing their institutions, and even so means might be found
by which alliances could be made with Protestant brethren
without sacrificing ecclesiastical discipline, or that subordi-
nation w r hich was due to the Church at home. He should
be sorry to propose a resolution which he believed could
possibly bring about such a disastrous result. On reading
the resolutions, he thought any one would be sadly puzzled
to determine how, if carried into effect, they could possibly
produce, such a result, merely expressing, as they did, an
APPENDIX. 79
opinion that the time had arrived for promoting Chris-
tianity and the spread of Evangelical truth in South Aus-
tralia, by a closer alliance between the branch of Christ's
Church which the Synod represented, and the other Pro-
testant Evangelical denominations in the colony. How
such a course could militate against the interests of the
Church he was at a loss to make out. The second propo-
sition was, that the most expedient course for effecting
such alliance was to give a prompt and hearty recognition
to our Protestant Christian Evangelical brethren, no
matter what was the origin of such bodies, if in the essen-
tial doctrines of salvation they held the same belief as
ourselves. He would ask the Synod to determine whether
the time had or had not arrived for promoting Chris-
tianity and the spread of Evangelical truth in South Aus-
tralia. Those who opposed the resolution would declare
that the time had not arrived. It should be remembered
that we had in some instances driven those parties with
whom he now proposed an alliance out of our Church ; and
in those cases, at least, it became our duty to offer
alliance. A motion had been carried with the view of con-
stituting a General Synod, and it had been suggested that
they should wait until this General Synod had been con-
stituted ; but if they were to wait till that were constituted,
they might wait for twenty years, and he would rather that
they who were disposed to vote for such delay, should vote
against the resolution. It appeared to him that to wait
till the constitution of that Synod would be an adjourn-
ment of the question sine die. He believed that the time
had arrived for such alliance, and that the question might
be argued upon broad grounds, without reference to recent
events here. When he gave notice of the resolutions, he
believed that on the part of the clergy and the laity there
was a strong desire to give some sign of goodwill to the
various Protestant bodies throughout the colony ; and if
the result of that day's proceedings showed that he had
80 LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
been mistaken, he could only regret it. In attempting to
lift the question from the point at which it had been left, he
only hoped that they would give credit to him for the same
desire to do his duty that he was willing to accord to others.
The opposition generally likely to be made to such alliance
exhibited great disregard of facts, and a forgetfulness that
certain Christian bodies had not been separated from the
Church of their own free-will ; they had been driven out,
in fact, and then we asked them why they left us. Those
who had left had thriven, and God's Word had been pro-
mulgated over the world in consequence. It was impos-
sible to ignore the existence of other great Protestant
bodies ; and to show that the time had arrived when such
alliances as those which he proposed should be made, he
had only to read an abstract of the Ecclesiastical return for
1858, in connexion with this colony, by which it would be
seen that of the Protestant denominations, for the Church
of England there was church accommodation for 6,333,
whilst the attendance was 4,500 ; for the Congregationalists
the accommodations amounted to 6,000 ; for the Metho-
dists the accommodations were 16,261, and the attendances
17,300 ; the whole average of congregations were 34,816,
the Church of England being one-eighth, the Congrega-
tionalists one-tenth, and the Methodists one-half. Those
returns were, he thought, sufficient to convince them of a
fact which no one a hundred years ago would have ven-
tured to prophesy. The Church of England, with all its
old associations and prestige, only numbered as its mem-
bers one-eighth, whilst the Congregationalists were a tenth,
and the Methodists one-half. He trusted that friends of
other denominations w r ould not be offended when he said
that though he moved these resolutions with a catholic
feeling, he did so more especially in the interests of his
own Church ; because he felt that the comparatively slow
and diminishing progress of the Church arose from the
position which had been assumed in reference to Pro-
APPENDIX. 81
testant brethren of other denominations. He believed that
if the Church had been freed from some few usages and
traditions which isolated her here, her progress would have
been far greater. It was impossible that any person, by-
standing in the middle of a landscape and shutting his
eyes, could remove the mountains and other objects which
presented themselves ; they would be there, though he did
not see them ; and it would be well with us if, instead of
shutting our eyes, we observed the progress made by-
other denominations. That progress would continue,
though we shut our eyes to it. He referred particularly to
the Methodists, having had particular means of ascertaining
the progress which they had made, and which had been
greater than that of any other Evangelical Christians. Upon
looking to a return published in England in 1851, he
found that on ' Census Sunday,' the congregations of their
Church numbered 2,300,000, and the Wesleyans, 1,000,000.
According to a rule in the Wesleyan Church, every mem-
ber called a full member was a communicant, so that
there were more such in proportion in the 1,000,000 than
in the 2,300,000, the number at that time being computed
at 400,000. Here the Bishop had informed him that
only one in ten was a communicant. Looking to America,
we found the Wesleyan communicants, whose quality we
refused to recognize, numbering 2,500*000, with Church
accommodation for 4,500,000, and Church property valued
at 3,000,000. It was with great satisfaction he found
such great Churches springing from the loins of the
English Church. He did so with the pride which a great
empire looked upon her prosperous and numerous colonies.
There was nothing to regret in the advances which had
been made, but much to rejoice at. When they looked at
the present position of the Church, and their decrease of
numbers, compared with the spread of other denominations,
some ideas must present themselves suggestive of what the
future might be. If it were thought better that they should
r
82 APPENDIX.
remain in statu quo, of course it would be better that they
should take no steps in the matter ; but he must confess,
he did not envy the feeling or the reasoning by which such
a conclusion was arrived at. He could not conceive any
opposition to the resolution which he had proposed, unless
from an unfounded fear that it struck at some fundamental
rale in our discipline. The resolution merely affirmed that
in all good works there should be alliance, but did not dog-
matically assert that this or that course should be adopted.
It would be left to the Committee to determine and report
whether such alliance was desirable or not, and then it
would be for the Synod to consider that report."
After a debate in which both clergy and laity joined, in
the course of which the " previous question" was moved as
an amendment, his lordship put the question " Shall the
resolutions now be put ?" which was negatived, the votes
on a division being, Ayes, 13 ; Noes, 17. The clergy were
equally divided, nine to nine. The Archdeacon did not
vote, but handed in. a Protest. His lordship did not vote
on the occasion.
TWO HUNDRED YEARS AGO;
THEN AND NOW.
$lfastrati&t kmti Cestimtmg.
* See Preliminary Chapter, pp. xxxvi., xxxvii.
T 2
TWO HUNDRED YEARS AGO.
11 After an interval of exactly two centuries, the country is pre-
sented with a new Act of Uniformity. Mr. Henry Seymour and
Lord Fermoy have prepared a Bill ' to enforce uniformity in the
use of ecclesiastical vestments by Priests and Deacons of the
United Church of England and Ireland.' .... But would
the words of the Act be sufficient to secure the uniformity desired ?
We think not The Bill would confine clergymen to
black and white." But "the dimensions or cut of the robe might
be made to symbolize opinions with as much ease as the colour.
To be effectual, it ought to prescribe the minutest
particulars of costume Even then, there would be
room for difference, and difference would infallibly show itself.
These varieties of costume are but symbols of deeper divergencies,
and the shadows could never be suppressed while the substance
remained To cut the matter short, the subject is not one
for Parliamentary legislation."
Such are some of the sentences of a leader in the Times
of the day on which I sit down to put together the materials
of this tract (March 7th). The last words express what
will probably turn out to be the opinion of Parliament, so
that the matters in question will still be allowed to take their
own course. In a large community like the Church of
England, there must inevitably be comprehended men of
great variety of sentiment ; this will show itself in some way
or other ; minute enactments as to external manifestations
of it, will only produce either a bitterness of feeling from
the sense of constraint, or contumacy and disobedience to
assert liberty. All Church-legislation if legislation there
must be, and every thing national must be subject to that
should be distinguished by tolerance. By avoiding minute
86 TWO HUNDRED YEARS AGO ;
and vexatious prescription, it should allow as much scope as
possible to the exercise and expression of free thought.
But Parliament has always dealt, and will always deal,
with the National Church. Convocations may resolve, and
royal commissioners recommend, but the suggestions, I
suppose, of either one or the other must be ratified by Par-
liament. Or Parliament may originate, discuss, and pass,
what the Church, as an Establishment, must accept. The
Prayer-Book itself was treated by the Judicial Committee of
the Privy Council, in deciding on the Gorham case, as an
Act of Parliament. The Church of England is not the
Church of Christ. The national institution may have a
true Church within it, but, in itself, it is the creature of
law, and bylaw has often been subjected to modification. If
Parliament were to enact what conscientious men within
the Establishment could not submit to, which demanded
either professions or acts which violated their convictions,
they might say, in the words of the Eev. Walter Blunt, " It
is time for us to divest ourselves of much that is beautify-
ing and elevating, and even to carry our holy rites, if neces-
sary, to cellars, and sheds, and caves, substituting for their
lost magnificence a comeliness of penitential tears, and
greater earnestness and humility, and rejoicing in the
presence of Christ amongst us, though veiled in manger
garb." Supposing they did that, ceasing to be compre-
hended within the National Institute, where many, however,
might consent to remain, they would not cease to be com-
prehended within Christ's own Church. If their Bishops
went with them, they would be a Church, even in the view of
those who require for that apostolic succession and valid
orders ; but if they did not, Protestant principles would
sustain and justify their claim. However broken, marred,
deficient, in respect to form, their external arrangements
might be, their adherence to vital truth (for that is sup-
posed) would, to the Divine eye, make them one "with
God's holy Church, throughout all the world."
THEN AND NOW. 87
I propose, in this paper, to go back to the time when that
act of " Parliamentary legislation " took place, which gave
to the Church of England its present form, the time M'hen
it received its last great modification, and became what it
now is. But I must introduce the subject by showing its
connexion with my Australian reminiscences.
II.
When I arrived in Australia, in March, 1858, I had
no thoughts of anything, as has been seen, but of quietly
moving among my co-religionists. In August of that year,
when I arrived in Adelaide, I had never uttered a word
about the Church of England, nor done any thing except
that I had refused to preach on behalf of a Free Episcopal
Church, because I would not intermeddle with ecclesiastical
disputes, nor presume to sanction what, for anything I
knew, might be a schismatical proceeding. There was
nothing wrong, surely, in that, unless it be, as some may
think, that I suffered a desire for peace and quietness to
prevent my investigation of what might have turned out to
be justifiable and deserving of support. The first thing that
occurred soon after I got to Adelaide was this. Having
consented to deliver a lecture on behalf of the Sunday-
School Teachers' Union, an institution including, I should
have thought, the teachers of schools belonging to the
Episcopal as well as other Churches, the Committee
requested the Bishop to oblige them by presiding. His
reply, declining their request, while speaking most
kindly and respectfully of myself personally, spoke of
my being regarded by others ^as " duly called " to the
ministry ; and with respect to the " Union," he could
not recognize it, as the teachers belonged to congrega-
tions which had " se])arated in times past from the Church
of England." To me, there was nothing offensive in this,
nor surprising. It is right in every man to decline doing
what, to himself, may seem to sanction what he thinks
88 TWO HUNDRED YEARS AGO ',
wrong. The second thing, however, that occurred did occa-
sion surprise, that was, the receipt of the Bishop's letter,
referred to in the preceding pages, which was written a few
days after the above-mentioned note. The first impression
was bewildering. Properly understood, the two documents
were not really inconsistent; because the letter, while
breathing a most loving and catholic spirit, began by telling
me that my " orders were irregular, and my mission the
offspring of division," and ended by proposing that all
Nonconformist and Non-episcopal bodies should accept the
recognition and rule of the English Bishops. Then came,
one after another, as has been already referred to, various
utterances, charging all the " schism," " separation,"
" division," &c, on us, which, with the necessity of com-
plying with the Bishop's request, occasioned, to my own
special inconvenience, the writing, delivery, expansion, and
publication of the preceding " Charge."
Now, being myself more of a religious Nonconformist to
the Church of the Prayer-Book than anything else having
no great objection to moderate Episcopacy, or liturgical
forms; and knowing, moreover, that the two points which I was
called upon to touch in my Australian apology for Noncon-
formity, will be objected to as springing from dissenting
inaccuracy and dissenting misconception ; I mean here,
like the Bishop of Tasmania, to justify my statements by
calling into court two clerical witnesses to give their testi-
mony on the points mooted. Of the first point what
occurred " in times past," (two hundred years ago) it will
be said, it is said, that the fault was ours, the separation
causeless, the result to us schism and sin. Of the second
point the meaning of the Offices it will be said, it often
has been, (I speak, now, only of one party,) that we do not
understand the peculiar language of the Offices, or will not ;
that we mistake or ignore the proper mode of interpretation.
I propose that we listen to what Churchmen have to say on
both these points. But this, it may be objected, will only
THEN AND NOW.
89
be individual opinion. True ; that, however, in such men,
men environed as they are, is quite sufficient to excuse or
justify other men, differently positioned, for thinking like
them.
III.
We begin with the Eev. Isaac Taylor ; and before we
receive his testimony on the precise point on which he is
to deliver it, he shall speak a few words bearing upon
a matter briefly referred to in our " preliminary chapter."
" While many moderate Churchmen will probably be of opinion
that prudence may well dictate some timely liturgical concession,
they will stoutly refuse to admit that the Dissenters themselves
have any right or title to demand the smallest change. It will be
said, that though the adoption of conciliatory measures is a matter
of vital consequence to the Church, yet that our opponents have no
locus standi in the revision of the liturgical forms of a Church from
whose teaching they have withdrawn themselves. This would be
a valid argument, did it relate only to two sects, both on an equal
footing. Thus the Baptists have no imaginable right or title to
exercise any interference, direct or indirect, with the devotional
practices or the doctrinal teaching of the Independents.
" But the Church of England is not a sect. She enjoys the
prerogatives of her connexion with the State, and she must sub-
mit to the bondage thence ensuing.* She is the National Church.
Her connexion with the State is most intimate. The Sovereign
has an ecclesiastical supremacy, unexampled save in Utah, or in
the Papal States. The Bishops of our Church are Peers of Par-
liament. The edifices of the Church are national property, main-
tained by a national impost, and built, some of them, by a Parlia-
mentary grant. More than half of the Church patronage attaches,
directly or indirectly, to the Crown. The formularies of the Church
have a Parliamentary sanction. Her offices all Englishmen can
legally claim as their birthright. Her revenues, for the most part,
" * It is perhaps needless to point out that higher grounds are here in-
admissible. The argument relates to the Church of England, not to the
Church of Christ. To assume that the Church of England is, in England,
the sole and divinely appointed conservatrix of truth, would be to beg the
whole question ; or at least to argue it on premises which nine-tenths of
Englishmen would refuse to admit."
00 TWO HUNDRED YEARS AGO;
are not private foundations, like the endowments of Dissenters,
but are national property, and are, and have been, controlled by
Parliament, in a manner which would be utterly inappropriate
and unjustifiable in the case of the revenues of any body of Dis-
senters whatsoever.
" So long, then, as the Church continues her connexion with the
State, so long is she a national institution ; so long every citizen
of the State has a beneficial interest in her endowments, and a
personal concern in the teaching of her formularies.
" If the teaching of the National Church is in such discord with
the conscientious convictions of any man that he is compelled to
withdraw himself from her pale, he has an ostensible grievance ;
and it is his right and duty, by the use of those means which the
Constitution has provided, to endeavour to obtain the redress of
this grievance, and to strive to produce a conformity between the
teaching of the National Church and what he conceives to be the
true doctrinal and ritualistic standards
" The Dissenters hold firmly to the great fundamental doctrines
of the Reformation, as embodied in the Articles. In the Prayer-
Book, as it came from the hands of the Reformers in 1552, they
would find comparatively little to which they could object. But
since the time of the Reformation the Prayer-Book has undergone
most material alterations. It has been subject to no less than three
re-actionary revisions. The first, in 1 559, was made with the politic
object of facilitating the conformity of the Romanists, who were
then a numerous and formidable body. The revisions of 1604 and
1662 were carried out under the auspices of the High- Church
party, with the object of over-riding and crushing the Puritans,
and rendering their conformity distasteful or impossible. The
modern Nonconformists are the theological and ecclesiastical
representatives of those Puritans who, in the course of the seven-
teenth century, were, by these aggressive revisions of the Prayer-
Book, driven out against their will from their national and
ancestral Church.
" The fact that the Prayer-Book was reduced to its present form
with the express purpose of being unacceptable to those holding
opinions analogous to those which the Dissenters hold, gives
them, in these days of theological calmness and moderation,
a strong claim to be heard anent this question of Liturgical
Revision.
" Strong as is the constitutional right of the Dissenters to a
voice in the revision of the National Liturgy formidable as is
THEN AND NOW. 91
their numerical claim upon our consideration yet their historical
claim can be urged with even greater force on men of calm and
catholic temper."
The last statement carries us from principles to facts,
and thus naturally introduces the subject of inquiry,
namely, what took place two hundred years ago. As an ap-
propriate heading to Mr. Taylor's testimony, we may place
over it the opinion of a very eminent man, who, on looking
back to the period in question, thus spoke of what
occurred
THEN.
" All hope of union was blasted by that second most disastrous,
most tyrannical, and schismatical Act of Uniformity, the authors
of which, it is plain, were not seeking unity, but division."
Archdeacon Hare.
It is not, of course, my intention to quote every thing in
Mr. Taylor's pamphlet which bears on the point before us;
I merely wish to take what will be sufficient to satisfy those
into whose hands the work is not likely to fall, and to en-
courage others to obtain it for themselves. As our object
is to listen to what the witness has to say, the extracts may
be given almost without comment.
" The story of the rise of the Dissenting bodies is indeed a
lamentable and a shameful one. At first driven out from that
Church, with which they would fain have remained in communion,
then utterly alienated by fierce persecution, beggared by ruinous
and repeated fines, and embittered by long imprisonments, they
were ultimately called into numerical equiponderance with the
Church by the rigidity of her liturgical and ecclesiastical system,
by the criminal apathy of many of her ministers, and the fatal
sluggishness of her gigantic organism in providing for the spiritual
destitution of the masses
92 TWO HUNDRED YEARS AGO
o have
" In fact, as will presently appear, this revision seems to
been conducted with the express object of making the Prayer-Book
as distasteful as possible to the Puritans, and so of preventing
any extensive conformity from taking place. In this unwise and
unchristian spirit the Prayer-Book was systematically revised
obnoxious ceremonies were not only retained, but were fortified by
auxiliary rubrics : almost every incidental word or phrase in the
Liturgy, which the Puritans valued as being favourable to their
own ecclesiastical theories, or their doctrinal views, was now care-
fully excised, and such words and such phrases were substituted
as were known to be specially offensive to their prejudices. Those
matters, about which the Puritans scrupled, were now made more
prominent ; and a coherence and a systematic consistency were now
for the first time given to those sacerdotal and sacramental theo-
ries, which had previously existed in the Prayer-Book only in an
embryotic condition ; and certain dogmas, which, by the modera-
tion of the Reformers, had been couched in vague and general
terms, were now expressed in ample and emphatic phraseology."
After stating that about six hundred alterations were at
this time made in the Prayer-Book, most of them minute in
themselves, but many being indicative of a certain " inten-
tion ;" and after saying that they may be divided into two
classes, the first consisting of alterations which were un-
doubtedly improvements ; Mr. Taylor proceeds :
" The alterations of the second class are of a re-actionary cha-
racter, and seem to have been introduced with two chief objects.
A few alterations, mostly rubrical, seem to have been made, with
no other assignable object than that of rendering the Prayer-Booh
distasteful to the Puritans, and so preventing any probable or pos-
sible conformity. There are, also, doctrinal alterations of a very
insidious character. They seem to have been introduced with
the purpose of bringing the Prayer-Book into a more systematic
harmony with the sacerdotal and sacramental theories then held
by Gunning and his coadjutors, and so destroying the balance
which the Prayer-Book hitherto had held between the two parties
Puritans and Romanizers."
Many of the changes referred to are considered in
detail. Some are selected from the first class, showing
how, in spite of remonstrance, additional lessons were
THEN AND NOW. 93
added from the Apocrypha, and the discretional liberty
previously possessed of changing such lessons for others,
was taken away;- how, in the words of Hallam, "the
Puritans, having always objected to the number of saints'
days, the Bishops added a few more, more than sixty of
the mythical or semi-historical heroes of monkish legends,"
and, for the charitable purpose of annoying those who
objected to all commemorations of the kind, the names of a
few Popes were considerately included in the list : how,
because it was desired " that parents might be allowed to
present their own children at the font, and to dispense with
the intervention of other sponsors, to render that impos-
sible a rubric was now first added to enjoin three god-
parents for every child ;" how, the Puritans wishing the
word "priest" to be changed to "minister," the words
"pastor" and "minister" were changed into "priest," with
other offensive alterations that could not but have been
designed. The following paragraphs are then added :
" These changes, trifling and indifferent as perhaps they seem at
the present time, struck with a deadly malignity at points which,
to the Puritans, seemed vital points. The. Puritans held that a
bishop was only 'primus inter pares :' that is, that the difference
between bishops and presbyters was a difference of degree, not a
difference of order : or, to use the words of Cranmer, that ' they
were both one office in the beginning of Christ's religion.'
" In the reigns of Edward and Elizabeth the Church of England,
by statute as well as in practice, had recognised Presbyterian
ordination. At the close of the sixteenth century ' scores, if not
hundreds' of clergymen were officiating in the Church of England
who had been ordained by presbyters in Scotland, or on the Con-
tinent.
" Now, however, a clause was inserted in the preface to the
Ordinal, asserting the necessity of Episcopalian ordination, and
consequently denying the validity of the orders of all those who
had been ordained during the last fifteen or twenty years.
" This liturgical change was not suffered to remain a dead letter.
The Act of Uniformity deprived of their ministerial character all
those who had received Presbyterian ordination, unless, by con-
94 TWO HUNDRED YEARS AGO ;
senting to Episcopal re-ordination, they would agree virtually to
confess the nullity of their previous ministrations.
" But while the leaders of the High-Church party were devising
liturgical innovations, which they well knew would drive their
antagonists out of the Church, at the same time, with an almost
blasphemous irony, they inserted in the Litany a petition for
deliverance from that ' schism ' ichich they were themselves
intentionally bringing about by their own high-handed and
intolerant conduct."
IV.
Mr. Taylor, after having thus noticed "the changes
which, though, not without doctrinal import, appear to have
been primarily introduced for the purpose of rendering the
Prayer-Book as distasteful as possible to the Puritans,"
proceeds to refer to those " which seem to have been
mainly effected for the purpose of giving consistency to the
doctrinal position of the High-Church party." " These
alterations," it is observed, " must of course be chiefly
in the Offices." Two or' three pages then follow on the
Communion, Baptismal and Burial Services ; after which
come a variety of observations and remarks which bear
more on the present time than the past. As the past, how-
ever, is that in respect to which the witness has been
, called, we confine his utterances to it. The following pas-
sages are all for which we can find further room :
" A modern High-Church writer, while speaking in approving
terms of the results of this revision, asserts, that ' to compare the
Communion Service, as it now stands, especially its rubrics, with
the form in which we find it previously to that transaction, will
be to discover, that without any change of features which could
cause alarm, a new spirit was then breathed into our Communion
Service.' ....
" At the Savoy Conference, the Puritans had objected to the
mention of the sanctification of the waters of Jordan, or any
waters, by reason of Christ having been baptized therein. The
Bishops, in 1662, not only retained the obnoxious allusion, but
introduced a still more obnoxious petition for the sanctification of
the water in the font. The semi-Popish Office of 1549 contained
THEN AND NOW. 95
a similar petition, which had been struck out in 1552, in deference
to the strong representations of Bucer. He thought that ' such
blessings and consecrations would create in people's minds the
notion of magic and conjuration.'
" This consecrating clause was probably introduced partly to
disgust the Puritans, and partly to render tenable that magical
theory of baptismal regeneration, which was held by the High-
Church party at the time
" Such, then, was the character of this revision of 1662. It was
re-aotionary in its theology, unconciliatory in its temper, short-
sighted in its policy, but was eminently successful in bringing
about the desired result. ' What was the result which was desired,
is not a mere inference from the character of the alterations which
were made, but is established on independent evidence. Bishop
Burnet says : ' The Presbyterians laid their complaints before the
King ; but little regard was had to them. And now all the concern
that seemed to employ the bishops' thoughts was, not only to make
no alteration on that account, but to make the terms of conformity
much stricter than they had been before the war.'
" Extensive and disastrous as was the schism which was produced
by this high-handed revision, even this did not satisfy the framers
of the Act of Uniformity, or come up to their expectations.
" "When the Lord Chamberlain Manchester told the King, while
the Act of Uniformity was under debate, ' that he was afraid the
terms of it were so rigid that many of the ministers would not
comply with it,' Bishop Sheldon replied, ' I am afraid they will.'
Nay, 'tis credibly reported he should say, ' Now we know their
minds, we'll make them all knaves, if they conform.' "
The candid and straightforward way in which Mr. Taylor
gives his evidence is worthy of high praise, but a parting
caution may not be amiss. Such language as " dealing a
deadly blow to the prosperity of Dissenters" is not in good
taste ; and the frequent somewhat intemperate reference to
" political Dissenters" is unwise. The one makes people
think of godly Dissenting ancestors, who might have
held, with Doddridge, that "Dissent was not only the
cause of rational liberty, but in a great measure that
of serious piety too." The other' may provoke the remark,
that if there was not a political Church, there could not
be political dissent. The first begets the second, and it
96 TWO HUNDRED YEARS AGO ;
is really too bad for the Parent to disparage his own
Child.
NOW.
i.
Mr. Taylor having thus given us his views about the last
revision of the Liturgy, (two hundred years ago,) the spirit
in which it was conducted, its aim and purpose, its successful
result in the rupture that followed, and the rise of a power
without the Church, we proceed to call our second witness,
that we may hear from him something about what, at the
present time, is passing within, the thoughts and feelings
which are stirring and throbbing in the minds and hearts
of many of the clergy of the present day, as they look at
their Church formularies, and realise their ecclesiastical
position. The Rev. Philip Gell has put forth his " Thoughts
on the Liturgy ;" his object is to acknowledge and set
forth " the difficulties of an honest and conscientious use of the
Book of Common Prayer." With some men, these difficul-
ties are the grounds of their " conscientious clerical non-
conformity." With Mr. Gell, they are consistently con-
sidered as a " loud and reasonable call to the only remedy
revision." He expresses himself sometimes very strongly,
but always seriously, earnestly, calmly, and like a man of
honest purpose, uprightness of mind, and depth of feeling,
burdened by a weight which he sighs to have removed.
The following extract from his preface has received in-
creased significancy by the events of the last few weeks,
and hence, also, a new interest.
" Observe how Convocation declares against all doctrinal im-
provement of the Liturgy. True it is that some Bishops have
not shunned to express their wish that salutary changes might be
made, but their sympathy, as a principle of action, appears to be
less with those who feel hurt and forced in conscience by expres-
THEN AND NOW. 97
sions in the Services, than with those who do not so feel
We go mourning under the difficulties of the Book we use, but no
comfort do our venerated Fathers seek for us To speak of
a reformed Convocation, and bid us wait for a revised Liturgy by-
means of it, is but to trifle with our hopes or our credulity. This
is far out of sight."
In the first section, entitled " Opening Statement of the
Subject," Mr. Gell begins by referring to the fact, that "four
leading heresies" have for some time been forcing them-
selves on public attention. " Confession, with priestly abso-
lution ;" " The power of Episcopal hands to give the Holy
Ghost to every ordained priest, perpetuating thereby what is
called apostolical succession, and imparting Divine powers to
men in sacramental administrations ; " " The real presence,
maintained in a way which eludes ecclesiastical jurisdiction ;"
" Absolute baptismal regeneration, preached in most of the
Churches of the land." After some remarks on the way
in which these " grievous and alarming corruptions" have
recently sprung up amongst us, comes the following
passage :
" Now, whatever fault may be chargeable upon men in the
revival and earnest propagation of these offences, it cannot well
be denied that our ecclesiastical formularies are the real ground
from which their origin has been derived. Would any person have
originated one of them without believing confidently that he had
liturgical authority to stand upon ? Does he not point to, and
plead, the very words in the Prayer-Book, on which he thinks
himself required to teach and act; and has he not ostensible reason
in those words, understood most naturally, and at first sight, for so
doing ?"
Section II. is " On the Difficulties occasioned by the Lan-
guage concerning the Absolution of the Sick." The most
of the clergy of any moderation give up this, but, like
Dr. Robinson, many persuade themselves that the words
" I absolve thee," only mean " I declare thee absolved."
Even that is offensive, and liable to serious objection ; but
Mr. Gell believes that the subterfuge is utterly imaginary,
u
98 TWO HUNDRED YEARS AGO J
and, by a reference to the views of Cranmer, and other
arguments, he makes good his position. The Bishop of
Melbourne said to me in a letter, " I regret the expression
used in the Visitation of the Sick, thinking it calculated to
mislead." Mr. Gell says, when looking at the most favour-
able side of the question :
" Even when we have done all we possibly can to modify such
an expression, is it worth the labour ? Is it not at least too bad to
keep, considering the trouble it gives ?
" The fact is, our best apology is honestly to confess our delin-
quency, accept the consequence, and labour to remove both the
words and their apologetic interpretation as soon as possible."
Whatever may be the low and modified sense which some
of the clergy attach to the absolution in question, and how-
ever others may constantly, and of design, abstain from the
use of it, I imagine that in many quarters it is viewed as of
great importance, and much suspended upon its being
received, from the idea that some mystic virtue clothes and
accompanies the words of him to whom " Jesus Christ has
given power and authority to pronounce it." It is very
natural that this should be the case. Indeed, if such a
feeling is not to be indulged, the whole thing, the claim
asserted and the act done, is a useless impertinence, and
something more.
One day, as I was walking leisurely down a street in
Sydney, a young man came hastily up to me in a state of
considerable agitation, and said, " Sir, are you are you a
clergyman in full orders ?" Knowing his meaning, and see-
ing his distress, I could only meet the question in his sense
of it, and state that I was not what he sought. I then said,
" But are not you a clergyman ?" " Yes ; but I am not in
full orders, and I want one immediately who is ;" and away
he started, in hurry and distress, in search of a qualified
person to administer, as I supposed, to some dying mortal,
that absolution which the priest only, not the deacon, is
able to pronounce. I looked after him, and then turned
THEN AND NOW. 99
away to ponder on the evil and danger of superstitious
dependence on priestly acts, and the encouragement of this
by priestly pretensions ; and I could not help asking myself
whether something of the sort might not be lurking in all
Churches, from the importance attached by the sick and
dying to the mere fact of having " a minister to pray by
them." Who can tell, I thought, but some of us, who lay
no claim to the power of absolution, by our want of faith-
fulness, or the perfunctory performance of the visitation of
the sick, may stand exposed to the sarcastic rebuke of the
prophet, " and so they wrap it up ? "
II.
In Section III., "On the words of Consecration and Ordi-
nation," Mr. Gell, as I think, demonstrates that the words of
the Bishop, " receive the Holy Ghost, &c," must be under-
stood in the sense of imparting the Divine gift, and not as
a prayer that it may be received. " That the donative
sense stands immoveable is evident," he says, from the con-
siderations, reasonings, and facts to which he refers. The
book must be read for the argument to be appreciated, for
it is long and elaborate. The following words, coming
from a Churchman, have a solemn significance :
" If it may be believed that through a solemn declaration and
imposition of hands the Holy Ghost is actually given to every
one episcopally ordained, the same gift having been transmitted
from one Bishop and Presbytery to another, from the Apostles,
and Christ himself, it is concluded, with apparent reason, that
all the endowments of authority and power belonging to a true
ministry are conferred upon every individual thus ordained, be
his real character and qualifications what they may ; nay, even
the endowments of true ministers are surpassed by some pretended
to be swper-ordinary, seeing that such ' priests ' give the body of
Christ to His people, really baptize with the Holy Ghost, deliver
Divine pardons upon confession; and again, when consecrated
bishops with another donation of the same Spirit, themselves give
Him in their ordinations, as they received Him. Thus dead pro-
fessors assume to be living ministers of Christ, and are let into
u 2
100 TWO HUNDEED TEAES AGO;
the sanctuary of God, pretending to exercise Divine powers, but
destroying innumerable souls, instead of saving them, by their
false ministrations."
Mr. Gell treats only of the consecration of persons ; but
there is the consecration of places. I know not exactly how
much this is supposed to include, but that some extra-
ordinary sanctity is imparted by it, and continues indelibly
attached to the consecrated edifice, would seem to be
understood. Any place where "two or three" habitually
meet to worship, and where, according to the Divine word,
Christ will be spiritually present in the midst of them, is to
me hallowed. I enter with a feeling of reverence into the
meanest little "Bethel" or "Ebenezer" under that senti-
ment ; just as I never go into a Church, especially an
old one, without awe, not from thinking of its cere-
monial consecration, but because in it are lifted towards
heaven the thoughts of earth, in such words as " Thou
art the King of Glory, Christ." When a Church,
in a large town in the north, was opened with great
pomp, the newspapers, I remember, reported what seemed
to me a somewhat irreverent and ostentatious display,
intended to show how the clergy regarded the approaching
rite. After the people were assembled, but before the
service began, they walked about the Church in a careless
sort of way, and with their hats on; they did so, it was
said, purposely to express how the building was as yet
" common and unclean," but that after consecration it
would be felt to be "holy," and such an indecency would
never be repeated.
One day, walking in a small town in one of the Aus-
tralian colonies, where houses, streets, public buildings,
&c, were in a very imperfect and incipient condition,
though it had been settled some years, I was struck
by observing what looked like a ruin. " That is singu-
lar," I said to my companion, " a ruin in a new country !
of something, too, which seems to have had archi-
THEN AND NOW. 101
tectural solidity and pretensions; what is it?" "It is
the old Episcopal place of worship : there is a new
Church, you see, rising on the hill. This was a pretty little
building, and its destruction is much regretted. The
people wished to have kept it for their school, but that
could not be allowed, because it had been consecrated."
u I wonder at that ; especially as the education would
have been religious, carrying on what had been begun
in the children at their baptism within its walls." " We
thought so ; but such a use of it could not be sanc-
tioned or permitted by the Bishop. It was ordered to be
taken down, but with the proviso that the stones should
be used in the walls of the new Church." " And that is
being done ? " " As far as possible ; but the materials can-
not all be made available ; some have been disposed of, and
in one case, have been used in completing a public-house."
The speaker seemed puzzled by the prohibition, and scan-
dalized by the result. I explained to him what I took to be
the theory of the thing, which, if correct, I thought would
in some measure alleviate the mystery. " Consecration,"
I said, " was an act which separated and set apart to
sacred uses an edifice, as such : it did not probably confer
any sanctity on the stones, individually, though it did, I
believed, on the ground on which a Church stood, and
which it covered. It was seemly, however, in the present
instance, to work the materials of the one Church into the
other, and unfortunate that any of them should have been
apparently desecrated." At the same time, I could not but
acknowledge, that it might have been better to appropriate
the building to a school, instead of incurring the risk of any
of its parts becoming devoted to worse purposes ; to pro-
viding facilities, as in the case mentioned, for the morning
M nip " or the mid-day " nobbier."
To return to Mr. Gell. His fourth section is headed,
"On the Indications of the Presence of the Body and
102 TWO HUNDEED TEAES AGO ;
Blood of Christ in the Lord's Supper, and of the Holy
Ghost causing new birth in baptism, which are taught in
the Catechism." From this, the following passages may be
taken.
" But there is worse in the Catechism than this, for it teaches
correctly in one answer, that a sacrament is one thing, the out-
ward sign of another ; but in another answer it teaches that a
sacrament is two things, a sign, and also the thing of which it is
a sign. In the Lord's Supper, it is bread and wine received by
the mouth, and also the body of Christ received by faith ; and in
Baptism it is a washing in water, and also a vivifying or new
birth by the Holy Ghost. This is confusion ! There is no holy
discerning of the Lord's body from the material symbols of bread
and wine ; no discerning of the baptism of the Spirit from the
symbolical baptism of water. And so the minister has got the
possession, and command, and distribution, both of Christ and of
the Holy Ghost, the pride and ambition of pretending to which
has given rise to the confusion under the old instigation, ' Ye
shall be as Gods.' And throwing into the sacraments the very
realities of heavenly things, even of God himself and his Almighty
operations in the salvation of men (of which, in truth, they are
only the edifying representative celebrations), people are fatally
deceived with the idea, that when they participate in the celebra-
tion, they most properly receive the reality also
" Pity it is that human blindness and superstition should ever
have conceived the idea of taking the representation for the reality,
and imposing it as such upon multitudes, to the eternal destruc-
tion of their souls ! . . . .
" How many of our most valuable Christian teachers have often
to explain away the misleading errors of our old Catechism, with
a secret sadness that it should be necessary for them to do so ;
how many are conscious that their attachment to it is but very
questionable, though still they use it ; how many have almost
given over teaching it; how many are troubled that it should
exist at all, misleading multitudes of poor children, who receive
the teaching without any antidote ! "
III.
From the next section, " On the Difficulties attending the
Ministration of Baptism," we might quote largely, and we
THEN AND NOW. 103
must be somewhat liberal, though we will confine ourselves
to as few as possible of the more striking utterances. We
meet, near the commencement, with the following statement
of the writer's opinion :
41 Taking the words of this service in their plain and literal
meaning, we should be clearly unjust if we did not agree to the
following general proposition, as to the principle on which it is
constructed, namely, that
" The Baptismal Service of the Church of England is formed on
the supposition that the baptism or birth of water, and the baptism
or birth of the Spirit, are both administered in one and the same
ordinance."
After stating certain grounds on which many thoughtful
men in the Church feel compelled to put a meaning on the
words different to this obvious and natural one, Mr. Gell
says :
" These considerations are thought strongly to prove that we
ought to put an interpretation upon our service more consistent
with facts, and to reject the natural sense as illegitimate; in other
words, that when we read, this child is regenerate, or, it hath pleased
thee to regenerate this infant, (absolute and dogmatical assertions,
concerning which it might very well be asked, How can you speak
so certainly ?) we should say, ' Oh, we suppose it to be so,' we
mean, this child, as we hope, is regenerate; or, it hath pleased thee,
as we hope, to regenerate this infant; distinctively charitable sup-
positions, meaning something quite different from those dogmatical
assertions; notwithstanding which, it is held to be better thus to
sag one thing and mean another, at the risk of being continually
misunderstood, than to disturb the old forms and make corrections,
so as to say what we mean unmistakably. Surely, this is bar-
barous ! "
The hypothetical theory, referred to in the preceding
Address, which was strongly held and advocated by some of
my clerical friends in Australia, is then submitted to a full
examination. We have only to do with the result the
fixed shape which our friend's thoughts have taken, in the
form of a settled opinion respecting it, and which comes
out in sentences like these :
104 TWO HUNDRED YEARS AGO ;
" The positive and absolute meaning of the words, as they stand,
is altogether banished, and supplanted by another of hypothesis
and hope. The words are not to mean what at first they did mean,
and naturally ever will mean: they may say one thing, but they
must mean another. And, instead of ' This child is regenerate,'
our thoughts are to be, ' We hope this child is regenerate.' ....
" We have to hold and fearlessly assert that is means we hope
is, and it hath pleased thee means it hath pleased thee, as we
hope, and Christ hath promised means Christ, we hope, hath
promised, just as I absolve thee is held to mean, I declare thee
absolved; and it matters little, to our shame and sorrow be it
spoken, that we have solemnly subscribed to the Prayer-Book, as
containing in it nothing contrary to the Word of God, at the very
time that conscience obliges us to reject the natural sense as un-
scriptural, and to invent another ; and that we have declared that
we will use the form in the said book prescribed, and no other,
when, fictitiously and covertly, we are using another all the while,
and rejecting this
" To proceed in this way of duplicity before God must be wrong
in a very high degree, whatever excuses may be made for it. . . .
" There is no authority or leave given us for this superinduced
meaning in the Ritual itself not the slightest expression of such
a charitable hypothesis or hope from one end of the service to the
other, as it now stands
" The very idea of a mere hope is unnatural to them [the whole
three baptismal services]. Let them only speak, let them be
heard, and they give the same certain sound everywhere. But
this we drown by imposing the hypothetical sense, and, while they
plainly say one thing, insist upon their meaning another ! *
" In all this, whatever research or adroitness of argument may
be shown in endeavouring to prove, from the principles and
writings of our Keformers, that such an hypothetical meaning
ought to be imposed, we are sanctioning falsehood while we keep
the words as they are, and perplexing many by our sophistical
explanations. We are leaving plain people to stumble upon the
dark mountains of a mistakable Liturgy, interpreted in a way of
"* The honest 2000 clergy, ejected in 1662, could not do this. Not
the shadow of an idea had they that those who took the natural sense
were fools, and ought to drown their folly in the hypothetical, which was
the true and intended sense. If this had been then conscientiously dis-
coverable, would not those martyrs have seen it ? (See ' Moore's Gorham
Case,' Dr. Adams's Argt., p. 334.)"
THEN AND NOW. 105
rare expediency, and not of truth, when all ought to be so plain
that ' the wayfaring man, though a fool, shall not err therein.'
And to leave men to take baptism for regeneration, what can be
worse ?
" To rest contented under such a state of things can indicate no
very safe state of conscience : to confess oneself honestly to be
uneasy under it, and to be seeking complete deliverance, may give
us hope concerning ourselves.
" In fact, the theory is wholly unsatisfactory as a relief of con-
science before God, though it serves, as it were, to keep us afloat
in the difficulties of our condition. To go on in this way much
longer we shall be ill content."
From section sixth, " On Confirmation," we confine our-
selves to one extract. The words directed to be said by
the Bishop, it will be remembered, describe the candidates,
in positive language, as regenerated and pardoned.
" It being impossible, however," Mr. Gell remarks, " to
speak of the regeneration of these persons, and the forgive-
ness of their sins, as generally or in all cases certain," it
becomes requisite, for the same reasons as in the case of
baptism, to give to the language the meaning only of hope
and supposition. He then goes on to say
" We feel, indeed, that it cannot possibly be true that they are
all really regenerate, and have all their sins forgiven them ; and it
is unspeakably painful to the conscience to hear it so said by a
Bishop of the Church of Christ
11 The Bishop himself, to his distress in some instances, cannot
use the words in their literal meaning ; and, if accused of solemnly
affirming what is not true, he would, most probably, rejoin, ' It is
so, as we hope.' But then, why not so say ? Why not speak in
honest and conscientious language, giving pain to no one, and
admitting of no objection ?"
An illustration of what is here said came before me in
Australia, occasioning, at the moment, the mental utterance
of the very words which are hei'e used. When on a visit
at some little distance from Sydney, there was to be, we were
informed, one morning, a confirmation at the Church.
Some of the family were going to attend the service, and I
106 TWO HUNDRED TEARS AGO ;
availed myself of the opportunity to go with them and
witness the ceremony. It had many points about it of
great interest. The most of the candidates were young
women, household servants or the daughters of small
tradesmen. They had all white veils over their heads,
and, though in some cases there was a marked contrariety
between the appearance of the person and the ornamental
robe, the sight was, on the whole, both picturesque and
affecting. It was preferred, I was informed, that the head
should have some covering upon or over it at such a time,
though this could not be so in the case of youths, of whom
there were four or five. The service was becomingly con-
ducted. The Bishop, in his bearing, was kind and paternal.
The a 
