—a— gam mr"T-iiiiiiyw»iffiBggsg [.,>,;., r .fyr .,^i ;j>^y..r CHURCH SYSTE i H THE ^CENT i^ J.G.ROGERS. B.A #^; PRINCETON, N. J. Shelf BR 375 .R6 1881 Rogers, J. Guinness. The church systems of England in the nineteenth % THE CHURCH SYSTEMS OF ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. THE CHURCH SYSTEMS OF ENGLAND NINETEENTH CENTURY. THE SIXTH CONGREGATIONAL UNION LECTURE. J. GUINNESS ROGERS, B.A. bonbon: : HODDER AND STOUGHTON, 27, PATERNOSTER ROW. MDCCCLXXXI. [All rights reserved.) .I'.WVIN BROTHEKSj PRINTERS, CHILWORTU AND LONDON. tSc tljc REV. HENRY ALLON, D.D., CHAIRMAN OF IN ITS JUBILEE YEAR, l88l, WHO, NOT MORE BY HIS HIGH CHARACTER, A'ARIF.D TALENTS, AND UNTIRING LABOURS, THAN BY HIS REMARKABLE UNION OF BROAD CATHOLIC SYMPATHIES WITH STRONG DENOMINATIONAL ATTACHMENTS, HAS RENDERED SUCH EMINENT SERVICES TO ENGLISH CONGREGATIONALISM, ©Iji© ^tohtntc is irtsirr ibefc» IN HEARTY APPRECIATION OF THE PRINCIPLES AND WORK OF HIS PUBLIC LIFE, AND IN GRATEFUL ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF THE PLEASURE DERIVED FROM AN UNBROKEN FRIENDSHIP OF MORE THAN A QUARTER OF A CENTURY, BY HIS SINCERE FRIEND, THE AUTHOR. ADVERTISEMENT By the Committee of the Congregational Union of England and Wales. THE Congregational Union Lecture has been established with a view to the promotion of Biblical Science, and Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature. It is intended that each Lecture shall consist of a course of Prelections, delivered at the Memorial Hall, but when the convenience of the Lecturer shall so require, the oral delivery will be dispensed with. The Committee hope that the Lecture will be main- tained in an unbroken Annual Series; but they promise to continue it only so long as it seems to be efficiently serving the end for which it has been established, or as they may have the necessary funds at their disposal. For the opinions advanced in any of the Lectures, the Lecturer alone will be responsible. Congregational Memorial Hall, Farringdon Street, London. PREFACE. NO one can be more conscious of the defects of this volume than I am myself. It was not till I had accepted the invitation of the Committee of the Congre- gational Union and consented to deliver a course of Lectures on the Church history of the period, and was actually engaged in preparation for the work, that I fully realized the difficulty of the task I had undertaken. The subject was one which had engaged a great deal of my thought and time, and in agreeing to deal with it, my only idea was to present a general survey of the position •of the various Churches which are influencing the religious thought of our country and our generation. But it ■soon became evident that I could not do this without attempting a fuller examination of the leading ecclesi- astical controversies of the time than I had originally intended. I have, of course, treated them from the standpoint of a Congrcgationalist and one who is com- mitted to the struggle for complete religious equality, but I have anxiously sought to do justice not only to viii Preface. the motives, but also to the principles of those to whom I am conscientiously opposed. I do not delude myself with the idea that in this I have succeeded to the extent of my own desire, but I hope that even those who are most ready to point out my failure will, at least, give me credit for honesty of purpose. I can, at all events, say that no differences of opinion would ever be allowed by me consciously to influence my judgments of cha- racter or to affect my relations to good men who arc serving the great Master to whom I seek to dedicate my own life. If my personal respect for them does not prevent me from opposing their views, it is because I believe that such discussions are essential to the full development of truth, and that Christian character may even gain by them, provided they be conducted with fairness and courtesy, in the growth of a wiser tolerance and a broader sympathy. A lecture on " Ultramontanism " formed part of my original plan. It has been omitted not from any doubt as to the importance of the subject, but from the im- possibility of treating it with any adequacy within the necessary limits of this volume. If God be pleased to give me health and strength, I indulge the hope of some day finding leisure for the separate discussion of a system which wears so alarming an aspect to numbers, and which, at all events, has made such aggressions of late years as to render it incumbent on all Protestants to try and understand the nature of its power and resources, so as to be prepared to offer it an intelligent as well as strenuous resistance. In the meantime, let Preface. ix me say, it is so distinctly a foreign system that I do not feel that its omission interferes with the completeness of the present survey. I am indebted to my valued friend Mr. R. W. Dale for kindly revising the proofs. The pains which he has bestowed upon a wearisome task, and the valuable sug- gestions which he has thrown out in the course of the revision, deserve my heartiest acknowledgment ; but this service constitutes a small fraction of the debt I owe to a friendship which is not only one of the truest joys, but also one of the most healthful and stimulating influences of my life. I have only further to express my obligations to the Committee of the Congregational Union for the honour they did me in inviting me to undertake this work, and for the patience with which they waited for the long delayed fulfilment of my promise. It has been ex- tremely difficult to snatch from the incessant calls of pastoral and public service the time necessary for the preparation of these lectures, and I feel how much I owe to the considerate thoughtfulness of a loyal and attached congregation, who under the pressure of this work have shown me a sympathy and indulgence which I am bound thus gratefully to recognize. The service here completed has been done for the honour of the great Head of the Church. The one question as to every system is how far it is in harmony with His will, and is calculated to promote His glory. In every Church, as in every age and every land, are those who love Him, and there is, perhaps., not one of x Preface. our systems which has not its own distinctive feature of excellence, and has not made its own special con- tribution to the "edifying- of the body of Christ." I trust that I have never been forgetful of this in any criticisms I have passed upon what to me appear to be errors, but rather have rejoiced to acknowledge that " amid the differences of administrations there is the same Lord," and "amid all diversities of operation it is the same God which worketh all in all." J. GUINNESS ROGERS. Clapham Common, May, 1 88 1. CONTENTS. LECTURE I. PAGE The Ace and the Churches .... i. LECTURE II. Religious Liberalism in its Influence on Church Polity ...... 45 LECTURE III. The Evangelical Revival ..... 93 LECTURE IV. The Oxford School . . . . . .151 LECTURE V. The Broad Church . . . ■ . . . 221 LECTURE VI. The Tractarian Struggle 269 xii Contents. LECTURE VI I. PAGE The Church and the Courts . . . • 3°9 LECTURE VIII. The Ritualist Controversy .... 353 LECTURE IX. The Established Church &> the Tree Churches 423 LECTURE X. The Plymouth Brethren ..... 483 LECTURE XL Methodism ........ 535 LECTURE XII. Presbyteriaxism .... 593 LECTURE XIII. Congregationalism . . . . . . .619 LECTURE I. THE AGE AND THE CHURCHES. *w LECTURE I. THE AGE AND THE CHURCHES. THE last half-century has witnessed a change, alike in the internal condition of the several communi- ties which together constitute Anglican Christendom, and in their relations to each other, that is little short of a revolution. It is not that there have been conversions on such a scale as to necessitate a revision of the eccle- siastical map, that any one of the great historic systems has passed through any great internal modifications, or has made important aggression at the cost of its neigh- bours. Here and there, indeed, may be found alterations in ecclesiastical arrangement, but they are of little sig- nificance as compared with those silent and unobserved changes, in spirit rather than in method, which leave the whole framework of institutions untouched, which are not registered in formal decrees, and which it would be difficult to express by any symbols, but which, never- theless, have wrought a more thorough transformation than any legislation could have accomplished. So gradual has been the process by which a revolution has been effected, the reality of which we are only now beginning to perceive, and which even to-day many would be un- prepared to admit, that we who live in the midst of it, and have ourselves been drifted onward by its currents, have been but dimly, if at all, conscious of its gravity 4 The Age and the Churches. [lect. and extent, and arc only able now to appreciate it fully by comparing the state of things around us with that which existed even within our own recollection. A superficial observer, looking at the England of to-day, might indeed be disposed to say that all things continue as they were, from the beginning at least of the days of toleration. Churchman and Dissenter, Protestant and Roman Catholic, orthodox and hetero- dox, fill their old places, flourish their old flags, engage in their old wrangles, and so the dreary round goes on from age to age, each successive generation refus- ing to learn from the experience of its fathers, and plodding its weary way through the same follies and errors to precisely the same results. It would be a melancholy fact if true ; but it is at best not more than a half-truth. Men do learn, though they may not be always ready to admit how far they have been compelled to renounce old ideas and admit new ones. Churches, even the most stolid and impenetrable, arc not so wholly inaccessible to the influences which arc at work around them as might appear from the servile de- votion to the past, and the obstinate adherence to their precedents, traditions, and formularies which seem by many to be regarded as an essential element of religion. Church and world, though antagonistic, perhaps because antagonistic, act and react upon each other ; and it is simply impossible that our various systems should have been exposed to the incessant play of all the influences tending to break down the barriers of conventional opinion, emancipate intellect from the bondage of tradi- tion and authority, and stimulate progress, which are at work in this age, without showing the effect. It is not easy to describe the course of the change, or to trace the }.] The Age and the Churclies. 5 connection between each separate cause and its result, any more than to write the history of the pebble on the beach, or to show what each individual tide has done towards shaping it into the form which the action of the waves has given to it. But the result is as impossible to deny in the one case as in the other. It is not only in our own country that these influences have been at work, or that they have affected the position of the Churches. But among us they have been more felt, partly because of the freer play of modern ideas in our midst, but yet more because with us Christianity is still a living force, and Church life a reality. To a large number of continental thinkers we are still but the miser- able victims of superstition, and, as we have recently been given to understand by a distinguished German critic in the pages of the Nineteenth Century, his country- men find some compensation for their own admitted inferiority in point of political freedom in the more perfect liberty they have attained in theological thought. It evidently did not occur to Dr. Hillebrand that there may be a relation between these two things very different from that which he has perceived, and that the robust- ness of principle and the independence of character, which have mainly contributed to make our political institutions what they are, may be traced to the sincerity and depth of our religious convictions. Certain it is that throughout our political contests the most strenuous supporters of liberty have learned from the gospel that respect for the individual man which lies at the root of all true conceptions of political right, and have caught their inspiration from Him who has taught, by precept and example, that our work in the world is to be a constant witnessing for the truth. Our noblest struggle 6 The Age and the Churches. [lect, for freedom was mainly inspired by Christian principle, and its character and results were largely due to that sturdy Puritan spirit which knew not the fear of man, because it was possessed by the fear of God. Happily for the nation we have not sunk into a condi- tion of supreme indifference to Christ and His message. There are those who loudly proclaim the decadence of the gospel and its approaching collapse, boasting that the intellect of the age has all gone away from it, and that the time cannot be distant when it will be con- signed to the tomb of obsolete superstitions. But though they seem to think they show the gospel wondrous con- sideration when they admit that there are in it some precious truths which will survive the wreck of the Aberglaube by which they have been overlaid, the passion with which they attack the religion of Christ is a tacit recognition of the hold it still has on the minds of the people. The fierceness of our contro- versies about things which are but childish trifles in the eyes of those to whom Christianity itself is but a strange illusion which they are unable to explain, is another fact pointing in the same direction. To the unbeliever all forms of religious worship are equally solemn and equally meaningless. To him it must be a matter of supreme indifference whether a Christian minister be a teacher or a priest, since he repudiates alike the claims of both. If his scepticism were dominant the conflicts about priests and robes would be treated by the people with scornful indifference. They would be partly amused, partly indignant, wholly contemptuous of the conflicts about altars and robes. Before a nation can be stirred to any strong feeling on such questions there must be in it so much of reverence for Christi- j i The Age and the Churches. y anity that it is a matter of practical importance what character its ministers are entitled to assume. England is agitated not only about the priesthood, but about its dress, the ceremonial which it is to adopt, the authority it is to enjoy. There could be no earnestness about such questions were the religion itself so discredited that they were all matters of absolute insignificance, except to the ministers themselves and a small circle of their admirers. Despite much that justifies anxiety, and sometimes creates depression, there is reason for thankfulness that the religion of Jesus Christ has still such a hold on the nation that alike in commercial, political, literary, and social circles there are men who are imbued with its spirit, and governed by its laws. The Christian Church is not a caste apart, a little sect belonging to the past rather than the present, and jealously clinging to a worn-out faith which the great body of the people have contemptuously cast aside. The leaders of Agnosticism cannot deceive themselves into the belief that the enthusiastic followers who applaud all their utterances, and ascribe to them something little short of infallibility, represent the domi- nant thought of the time, so long as they find Chris- tianity everywhere, and ardent and enthusiastic believers prominent in all the great works of the world. While the gospel teaches men not to withdraw from the world, but to manifest the beauty of godliness in it, the Churches whose members are brought into contact with the various forms of modern thought must, more or less, be moved by them. Were there less reality in the religion the effect would not be so great. If a point has been reached at which religion is regarded as a respectable propriety which it is not desirable to disturb, but to which sane men attach no value, every- 8 The Age and the Churches. [lect. thing pertaining to it would be left untouched. But where the religion is the life, everything that helps to foster or to manifest it is invested with interest. It lies so near the heart that it is impossible that the various influences which are forming the opinions of men should not affect their conceptions in relation to it also. As a fact, it has been so, and the spirit of the age is as mani- fest in our eclesiastical as in our social or commercial or political life. In America, no doubt, the causes which have pro- duced such results among ourselves are yet more active; but America is still a young country, and its institu- tions of all kinds are still more or less in embryo, and are developing new forms in harmony with the genius of the people and the peculiarities of their situation. Among them we expect a greater craving for novelty, and a much more extended and sweeping change would not produce the same impression there as in a country where every change is an invasion of established forms and venerable ideas, and wars against the strongest instincts of a people peculiarly conservative in spirit and character. America inherited systems from us, but in the very process of being transplanted they were freed from traditions which restrained and regulated their development here, and it was only to be expected that in the freer atmosphere of the New World, and amid less conventional surroundings, they should exhibit many varieties from the old type. What in the old country would be an extreme and violent change might with them only be a natural and necessary growth. The absence of a State Church, and the absolute social and political equality enjoyed by men of all opinions, is alone suffi- cient to create such a difference between the two peoples j.] The Age and the Churches. 9 as to render a fair comparison between the ecclesiastical changes that have taken place in them all but impos- sible, and, if possible, of no practical value. It is not •encouraging- either to the enemies of the gospel or to those timid believers who talk as though the perpetua- tion of its influence depended on the protection of the State to find that religious life in America, amid the changed conditions of its society, and in the absence of any favour from the State, is more vigorous and ener- getic than among ourselves. Its intensity and freedom may sometimes accelerate changes of method which among us are accomplished more slowly. At all events they create a difference of condition which makes attempts at comparison unprofitable. Leaving, therefore, the United States out of account, it is safe to say that there is no country in which Church systems have undergone a change which ap- proaches, even in a remote degree, to that which has been effected among ourselves. Ultramontanism has doubtless wrought a complete revolution in the Romish Church, and has placed it in a different attitude to the peoples among whom that Church is still powerful. But even that has been felt in this country at least as much as on the Continent, and is the more deserving of study here because here the contest between Rome and Pro- testantism is most real, and its strain most severe. It may sound like a paradox, and yet surely it is true, that to the Protestant people of England these " new fashions in religion," which the Vatican has introduced, have appeared of more grave significance than to those continental nations, with the exception of the people of Belgium, for whom they seem to possess a more direct interest. io The Age and the Churches. [lect. I. As has been said, the changes of the century have not involved the downfall of any of our Church systems. It is possible to go further, and say that in none of them can we find any of those indications of decay, or even weakness, which would lead any candid and thoughtful observer to prophesy their approaching downfall. Ardent Erastians may fancy that the Free Churches of England, after weathering the storms and troubles of centuries, after vindicating their right to exist by the unquestioned service which they have rendered to the nation and the kingdom of Christ, and after attaining a numerical strength and moral influence hardly, if at all inferior, to the Established Church itself, are silently but rapidly crumbling to pieces ; that their bodies will before long be consigned to the tomb, and that their only hope of a future life is in the resurrection of their glorified spirits in a comprehensive Establishment, where all individual conviction will be suppressed and the will of the State be supreme ; and in a blissful future, when scruples of conscience will be regarded as painful memories of an evil past, and perfect unity be enjoyed in the calm repose of a passionless and faithless culture. On the other hand, there may be uncompromising enemies of sacerdotalism and hierarchical rule who fancy that the root of both is to be found in a State Church, and that in the coming era of religious equality, no place will be left for evil growths contrary to the whole genius of Christianity. So, too, the believers in a Catholic Church may please themselves with the hope that all heretics will yet submit, and while Anglicans dream confidently of the reconciliation of Dissenters, Ultramontanes ma)- i.] The Age and the Churches. i r indulge in the same certainty of the submission of Anglicans themselves to the Papal See. But such antici- pations on all sides are rather the longings and forecasts of a passionate hope than the results of careful induction from accepted facts. Assuredly there is not any symptom even of in- cipient disease threatening such a disastrous consum- mation to any of our Protestant communities. Disastrous it may well be regarded, for it is difficult to see how any of the distinctive forms under which Church life has developed itself in Protestant Christendom could cease to exist, unless the gospel were beginning to lose its hold upon the hearts and lives of its men. There are few more useless occupations in which men can engage than that of proselytism ; there is no dream more chimerical than that of the sectary, who hopes to see his own system extend by the overthrow of others. Between authority and conscience, between priestly as- sumption and individual liberty, between a religion of the spirit and a religion of forms and ritual, there must be conflict a outrance. But between the several forms of Church polity there is no need for this perpetual anta- gonism, and it can only be carried on at the cost of that religion which must be dearer to all than any of their isms. The weakening of any of our Protestant systems does not necessarily mean an accession of strength to any other, but, in all probability, points rather to a decay of the faith common to all. At present there are not even indications that any one of these systems is gaining decided advantage over the rest. There are signs everywhere that each is exercising an influence, more or less manifest, upon its- rivals, and it is a fair subject for consideration as to 12 The Age and the Churches. [lect. where the leavening force is most powerful. Certain it is that communities are sometimes permeated by ideas to an extent of which they are themselves unconscious, until the effects are revealed in changes which at one time would have seemed impracticable. This is a pro- cess which has been going on in our Church systems. They have told upon one another gradually and silently, until now there may be traced in them distinct resem- blances, which may be very displeasing to bigoted pre- cisians of all parties, but which dispassionate observers will regard rather as evidencing the growth of wisdom and charity in our Church affairs. Congregationalists flatter themselves that their teaching and influence have not been lost upon any of the Churches around, and they, in their turn, would point to facts which to them indicate that Congregationalism has received as well as given. Still the dominant idea of each system remains untouched, and those who are most ready to profit by the example of others, and adopt innovations that do not militate against their own fundamental principle, cling to it with a tenacity that is not less because it has been proved to be the more likely to relax its grasp of the central truth, but with it is as- sociated a capacity for adapting it to varying conditions. Possibly the importance attached to the points which ■differentiate our several forms of polity is materially reduced, not only in the view of a world disposed to cry a plague on all our Churches, and to regard our controver- sies as idle disputes about curious points, which can have no living interest for rational human beings, but even in the estimation of those who have decided denominational preferences. But this does not foreshadow the absorption of any one Church in another. So great a change could be i.] The Age and the Churches. 13 the result only of a strong conviction that the absorb- ing Church had vindicated its right to some exclusive claim, either by overwhelming demonstration of its authority, or by service of transcendent excellence, or that the Church which was absorbed had given some equally conclusive proof of its weakness. But this is- exactly what is not implied by the more catholic view of the relations between their several systems which prevails among enlightened Protestants. That broad conception of their sectarian divisions is due rather to a feeling that the world, with its variety of tem- perament, character, and culture, needs them all, and that to destroy any would be to withdraw influences which tell upon a particular class, whose wants are not met by others, and that that class, whatever its im- portance may be, would not be attracted by any other,, but would, in all probability, be lost to Christianity.. Everywhere there may, nay, must be, need of reform.. In some cases there may have been developments which are essentially injurious not only to the particular Church in which the}' appear, but to Christianity itself, which must be resisted, even though the removal of the accretions should be fatal to the system. But this does not affect the point, that it is not possible to cast Church life into one mould, and that instead of those strivings after uniformity, which have wrought such evil in past days, the aim should be the cultivation of a spirit of true unity. II. The address of the Archbishop of Canterbury, at his recent triennial visitation, furnishes abundant evidence of the growth of this temper. If there is any man H The Age and the Churches. [lect. whose official position might dispose him to a con- trary feeling, the Primate is certainly the man. The State has placed him at the head of the National •Church, the only Church which, according to some of our teachers, has any right to exist. Dissenters are rebels against the authority which the law has com- mitted to him, and that authority his clergy, and the defenders of his Church generally, hold him bound to maintain, not so much for his own sake as for that of the Church of which he is the spiritual ruler. Ambi- tion can hardly covet a more exalted position, and every prejudice of his nature as well as all the influences of his surroundings would lead him to guard its dignity with all jealousy. Yet the archbishop feels himself con- strained, partly in obedience to the catholic instincts of a true Christian heart, but partly also as a man of practical judgment, who feels that he has to deal with facts and not mere ideals, to speak of these ecclesiastical rebels as fellow- workers in the kingdom of God. In theory they may be schismatics, but in fact they are con- tending for the same faith, serving the same Master, labouring to promote the same ends, as the Church to which they find themselves unable to conform. It will be our own fault if all the Protestant communities through- out the world, Episcopal and non-Episcopal, which adhere to the Apostolic faith, do not feel that their cause is indissolubly united ■with our own. . . . The Church of Christ throughout the world would, it must be remembered, be deprived of a vast proportion of its worshippers if we left out of sight our Christian brotherhood with non-Episcopal congregations at home, and the overwhelming mass of such congregations in the United States of America. Thus, I trust, we English Churchmen are learning more and more to realize once again that great idea which was so powerful of old to stir men's hearts and make them help each other, that there is a vast community cemented by Christian faith and principle i.] The Age and the Churches. 15 which, amid all national and other special differences, joins together the whole body of those who worship God in Christ.1 And again — The existence of Dissent from the National Church is a fact which we cannot overlook. We deplore it, but we cannot act as if there were no such thing in the land as dissent on the part of good men ; and I am sure that we all feel that it is our duty to meet the inevitable state of circumstances in which we find ourselves in a tolerant Christian spirit.2 A declaration like this, coming from the chair of Canterbury, surely marks a new era in our ecclesiastical relations. It is not for its novelty, or originality, or its special catholicity, that such an utterance is remarkable, but for the authority which belongs to it as coming from the Primate of all England. Not only have numbers of men thought or said as much before, but the facts were too patent to be denied except by extreme partizans. What is striking is that the Archbishop of Canterbury should have given them this public recognition, and have accentuated the record by placing it thus promi- nently in his address to his own clergy. The more his statements are examined in detail and in relation to the rest of his charge, the more significant do they appear. There is not any sign that the archbishop has any idea of abating the hostility of Nonconformists to the Establishment by the cultivation of kindly relations with them as Christians. In frank and manly style he acknowledges that in relation to the rights of the State Church there is difference, and difference that must pro- duce conflict, and yet he maintains there need not be estrangement and hostility. He thus proves that he has grasped the true idea of Christian union, which is not 1 The Church of the Future, pp. 13, 14. 2 Ibid. p. 17. 1 6 The Age and tJie Churches. [lect» the suppression of differences, but the manifestation of a tolerant Christian temper through them all. Nor is his catholicity of so molluscous a type, and so lacking in all strength of principle, that it degenerates into indifference to theological doctrine altogether. The body in which he desires to see unity manifested consists of those who "worship God in Christ." The language is general, and may no doubt be extended beyond what he himself intended, or what loyalty to the gospel would justify. But it is certainly very different from that weak sentiment which some dignify with the name of religion, and even of Christianity, although the votaries of this vague and hazy system are not quite cer- tain whether there is a God to claim their worship, or, if there be, whether it is through Christ that they are able to approach Him. Here is a distinctly Christian basis for the fellowship ; and though the description may- be abused or misrepresented, it is not easy to see how it could be well improved, either on the side of com- prehensiveness or exclusiveness. For from the spiritual confederation of Christendom none should be debarred who " worship God in Christ ; " and it is certainly hard to see how any who do not can have the sem- blance of a claim to admission. Christians, it cannot be too strongly insisted upon, are followers of Christ. Not all those who, according to their lights, are trying to be good and to live for the good of others are Christians, but those only who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as their Saviour, and serve Him as their Master, whose struggles after a holy life are inspired by love to Him, aided by faith in Him, prosecuted for His sake, con- ducted in obedience to His will, and anticipate as their one reward admission to His joy. There have been noble- i.] The Age and the Ckurclies. ij minded pagans, but it would be an abuse of language to call them Christians. Marcus Aurelius was not a Chris- tian, though he was a man of lofty moral purpose and rare virtue, with much of the Christian spirit in him ; and there may be men of his type to-day, with moral quali- ties as eminent, and yet as utterly without faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. No judgment is passed upon such men when it is said that they have neither part nor lot in Christ's kingdom. They would scorn the idea of the fellowship themselves. They do not profess to be Christians, and they are not Christians. What the Archbishop recognizes is the brotherhood of Christians, as manifest in the unity of faith, principle, and worship which underlies the varieties of creed, polity, or ritual. III. It is a successor of Laud who has propounded this catholic view of Anglican Christendom, and such an utterance, coming from such a quarter, is a very marked sign that the old dispensation is passing away and a new one is beginning to take its place. There is a very remarkable confession made by the Archbishop, which makes this recognition of the Christian brotherhood of Dissenters still more significant. He is clear-sighted enough to perceive the strength of a feeling among his own clergy which would make this view peculiarly ob- noxious to them, and yet he does not hesitate to place himself in direct antagonism to it. Speaking of the in- fluence exerted by the " Oxford revival of forty or fifty years ago," he says — Still, I think this must be granted on the other hand— that the teaching thus introduced or resuscitated, notwithstanding all its claims to catholicity, was and is based on a somewhat narrow 3 1 8 TJie Age and the Churches. [lect. system, and has confined Churchmen's sympathies in the direction in which before they were ready to expand. My predecessors in the Episcopate had, I think, less difficulty than we should ex- perience now-a-days in welcoming the co-operation of such men as was Robert Hall in the days of our fathers, and wishing them God- speed in their labours to resist prevailing infidelity.1 The phenomenon is certainly remarkable, but it is one eminently characteristic of an age which is full of such contrasts. At no period has Church sentiment been so exalted, and yet never has it been met, even within the confines of the Established Church itself, by an opposite current of true catholic feeling more strong and decided. J3ut so it is everywhere. By the side of the most ex- treme and intolerant assertions of authority we have a rationalism more daring in its spirit, more audacious in its denials, more defiant in its attitude, and more reckless in its speculations than at any previous period. Science has so far extended its empire, and brought so many regions that were once supposed to belong to the world of mystery within the range of its law, that its teachers may seem to have some excuse even for the extravagant pretensions which would seat it on the throne of universal empire, and leave faith without a province of the vast dominions over which its sceptre once extended ; and yet on the same pages which record some of these wonderful achievements of science is inscribed the story of some outburst of fana- tical superstition which carries us back to mediaeval times, and makes us feel that the spell of these mysteries is still upon large masses of our people. It is an age of extremes, and not very tolerant of the pleasant com- promises which endured in less exciting periods ; but these extremes may be either in the one direction or 1 Church of the Future, p. 16. l] The Age and the Churches. 19 the other. Men are disturbed in the quiet resting-places where their fathers dwelt at ease, and the self-same in- fluences acting upon them, as in the case of the two distinguished brothers, whose story is itself a picture of the age, have carried them far as the poles asunder. Sometimes the two currents strangely blend ; thus the Anglican school combines with the most profound reverence for antiquity, which approaches to a super- stition, an eager thirst for novelty that seems ready to adopt any expedient if it can impress the popular imagination. It exalts the authority of the Holy Catho- lic Church, and claims to be its representative, and yet is willing, in a spirit of strong utilitarianism, to accept a lesson in practical method from any sect of Dissenters. But the characteristic feature of the times is the presence of these two opposing influences, each of which is de- veloped to its utmost limit, while both are impatient of all attempts to mediate between them. It is the age of the Ultramontane and the Agnostic, and the one point on which they agree is that the future will belong ex- clusively to one of them, and that a final conflict must determine which shall remain master of the field. The Primate furnishes an illustration of the struggle between these opposing tendencies. The Ritualist party, who unquestionably have done much to increase the influence of the Church of England, would maintain the rights of what they call Catholicity, and treat Dissenters as schismatics and aliens from the spiritual common- wealth, with whom there can be no religious fellowship. But the Primate knows that the strongest influences of the day are against such cxclusiveness, that a temper at once more liberal and more practical is abroad, and that if there be anywhere a disposition to revive 20 The Age and the CJmrcJies. [lect. Church authority, its tendency is towards that Church in which authority finds its legitimate representative. He spoke the feelings of the great body of the laity of his own Church and of all Churches in those words of sober- ness, common sense, and Christian charity, in which he acknowledged in effect that all our Protestant Churches form part of one confederation, whose members may on some points have different opinions and conflicting in- terests, but who yet have common principles, common sympathies, and common ends, the transcendent import- ance of which may well serve to moderate the eagerness with which sectional objects are pursued, and to prevent the rivalry of principles from degenerating into the petty warfare of hostile sects. IV. This is the true ideal of Christian union, and there are few, if any, among Dissenters who would not heartily unite in the desire of the Archbishop for its realization. If there are no signs that any of our religious bodies are prepared to give up their own distinctive polity, there are abundant proofs that the leaders of all are less disposed to insist on an ex- clusive scriptural authority for their system, and more ready to concede the wisdom of a diversity in form of Church government, more inclined to treat the ques- tion of polity as one of expediency rather than of Divine prescription. The advocate of each of the three lead- ing systems finds, or thinks he finds, its germ in the New Testament. The Episcopalian points to Timothy and Titus as diocesan bishops. The Presbyterian dis- covers the model of synodical action in the meeting at i.] The Age and the Churches. 21 Jerusalem, by which the difficult questions that had arisen between the Jew and the Gentile were decided. The Congregationalist finds his system everywhere, and his strong belief that the primitive Churches were self- governing societies, each under the presidency of its own bishop, is confirmed by the admissions of the more candid class of opponents. Tracing the history of the Church through the centuries, the Episcopalian would urge that he had been the guardian of order ; the Presbyterian, that he had furnished the example of the most perfect organization and the most careful ortho- doxy ; the Congregationalist, that in the Churches of his type liberty had had its perfect work and the unrestrained energies of Christian zeal their fullest de- velopment. There is no probability that any party will abandon its ground or materially change its con- tention. But the more reflective and candid men on all sides are free to admit that there are points in which their rivals have an advantage over them. They believe of course that, on the whole, the advantage belongs to the system which they have conscientiously adopted ; but in adhering to it, they accept it as a human develop- ment of a Divine thought, in which there are sure to be imperfections. If the Apostle could speak of himself and his brethren as " earthen vessels " in which was " heavenly treasure," why need we hesitate to take the same view of our Church systems ? Following out this suggestion, we may expect that in them there will be not only flaws, but diversities, according to the cha- racter of the minds which have shaped them, and that these very diversities will only render them more suited to the varied wants of the world. Let this be realized and men will cease to dream of uniformity, and will not 22 The Age and the Churches. [lf.ct. greatly care to win other Christians to their own special systems. Their love to their own Church need not be less sincere, nor their efforts for its prosperity less earnest and untiring, because they believe that there are those to whom a different kind of Church life is more suited, and whose spiritual natures will develope with greater richness and beauty under a system which on themselves would exert a cramping and deforming influence. This view is utterly fatal to High Church theories on all sides, but practically it is only with the advanced section of the Anglican Church that it comes into con- flict. If there be those among Dissenting communities who hold that theirs is the one Divine system, and that all who are outside its circle are outside the Church of Christ, they take their own independent action, and have neither the power nor the desire to force their views upon others. With the High Church party in the Establishment it is very different. They speak in the name of the nation, and from the lofty pedestal of a public position, and thus they compel attention which would be refused to them as individuals. It is not pos- sible to ignore them and their claim, which is asserted with a dogmatism and vehemence in exact proportion to the weakness of the evidence adduced in its favour, and which cannot be admitted by Dissenters without a prac- tical confession that they are not of the heavenly kingdom. But it is very easy to exaggerate the force which this party actually possesses. Its convictions are strong, and by some of its members are defended with great ability. In its ranks are to be found some men of brilliant gifts, and numbers of devoted piety and pure con- secration. It has a high social standing, and exercises i.] The Age and the Churches. 25 great influence in a certain circle. Various circum- stances have told in its favour, and secured for it tacit acquiescence where it has not been able to secure active sympathy. Between it and Erastianism there can be no real concord, and yet Erastians, alarmed for the security of their favourite institution, have tolerated the aggres- sions of sacerdotalism. It has profited even by the growth of the Liberalism which it hates, and has won sympathy and support from numbers who repudiate its claims and detest its principles, but who honour many of its teachers for the lives they lead and the noble service which they render. Still its power is not so formidable as might at first appear. Undoubtedly it is strong among the hierarchy, strong in diocesan synods and Church Congress, strong in Convocation, and strong wherever clerical influence is dominant. But it is not strong among the laity even of the Establishment. It must not be supposed that those who tolerate its assumptions, and even claim for its more extreme section a liberty of development which would establish Congregationalism within an Episcopal Church, and permit all kinds of varieties under the shadow of an Act of Uniformity, are therefore recon- ciled to that which they thus permit. They see no mode of resistance which would not peril the existence of the National Church, and therefore they endure. But they do not approve ; and when they can do it without danger of compromising themselves as Church defenders, they do not hesitate to scorn the authority and protest against the exclusiveness to which the stern exigencies of the situation make them reluctantly consent. There must surely be times when it must occur to them that they are in fact sacrificing both the objects which 24 The Age and the Churches. [lfxt. they have at heart, ministering to the growth of priestism which they hate, and instead of securing the Establish- ment, indirectly contributing to its overthrow. Every day sacerdotalism becomes more rampant in consequence of their weak connivance, and it will ultimately rend the Establishment asunder. For a time the nation may be deluded, but as soon as it perceives that the Establish- ment is governed by sacerdotalism, it will make an end of the Establishment. For the present, however, high Anglicans are the gainers by the Erastian fear of any action that might interfere with the present relations of Church and State ; and even should the result of their advance be the downfall of the National Church, it is to them a matter of less importance, as they have a faith with a vitality independent of the State. But they could indulge no greater delusion than to suppose that the nation, or any considerable section of it, is with them in their claim to be the one true Church in the country. On the contrary, there is an ever-grow- ing resentment on the part not only of Dissenters, but of the independent laity of their own Church, against everything which tends to isolate it and its clergy from kindred Protestant communities. There are multitudes of sincere Churchmen, and their number is continually on the increase, whose loyalty to their own Church is asso- ciated with a large-hearted charity towards Noncon- formists. They are Churchmen by preference, or by descent, or by force of circumstances. They have grown up into a hearty attachment to the forms and arrangements of a Church dear to them as the Church of their fathers, and linked in their memories with all the most sacred seasons and circumstances of their lives. The simple but sublime words of its liturgy have a fas- i.] The Age and the Churches. 25 cination for them entirely apart from their theological teaching or their artistic beauty. They have that charm which belongs to the words familiar to us in our child- hood— a charm which endears to the Scotch peasant the homely words of the national version of the Psalms, and which causes an English Nonconformist to see a beauty in some of the hymns of Watts which offend against the laws of rhyme and rhythm. They not only prefer the ritual of the Episcopal Church, but they desire that that Church should remain the Church of the nation ; partly because they shrink from the disturbances which would result from the removal of an institution so deeply rooted in the associations, traditions, and habits of the people ; partly because they cannot reconcile their minds to the idea of a nation without a national Church and a national faith ; and partly because they fear that with- out a public provision for religious teaching and worship large districts in the country would be left to lapse into heathenism. Their loyalty to the Church is stainless, but it is not so blind and undiscriminating' as to induce them to approve claims which are as mistaken in policy as they are untenable in principle. They are as much opposed to the spirit as to the doctrines and ritual of Rome, and are resolved to prevent the intrusion of either into the Reformed Church of England. If its clergy will bear their honours meekly, they are content that they should retain them, but if they will flaunt their titles and prerogatives in the face of those who are as true Christians and as loyal citizens as them- selves ; if they show themselves unable to learn the spirit of comprehensiveness which is characteristic of the age ; if they persist in limiting the kingdom of heaven to their own Church, if not to their own party in it, laymen 26 The Age and the Churches. [lect. will leave the Establishment to fight its own battles, if they do not become instruments in the overthrow of an institution whose clergy show that they have lost the character of nationality altogether. V. This is distinctively the lay sentiment of the day, and it prevails in all Churches. There are exceptions. There are ecclesiastically-minded, or, to speak more correctly, clerically-minded laymen who are as zealous for Church power as the highest cleric in the land. But it is not from men of this type that the views of the English people are to be learned. Those views are expressed by the Primate rather than by the Bishop of Lincoln. In truth, if there is a bishop who throws himself into the work of this stirring age, as one who is in har- mony with all its loftiest aspirations and most generous impulses, who thinks more of usefulness than of dig- nity, who scorns the conventional ideas of his Church and his order when they interfere with his work for the public good, who frankly recognizes the work of Non- conformists and enters into fraternal relations with them even while ready, on every fitting opportunity, to com- bat the principles of their Nonconformity, there is the man whom the laity of the Church delight to honour. The lay mind, whether in Conformist or Nonconformist Churches, is impatient of priestly arrogance and subtle sectarian distinctions. For consistency, faithfulness, zeal it has high respect ; for official pretensions only contempt. It is independent, practical, touched with the scientific spirit of the times even where there is no great scientific knowledge and none of the scepticism i.] The Age and the Churches. 2/ which science sometimes engenders, modern in its views and tastes, and therefore very indisposed to listen to those who would interpose a fine-spun theory in con- tradiction to the plain teachings of common sense and to the hindering of the public good, especially if the first and most obvious result be the strengthening of priestly power. This temper is regarded by the priests as they have always treated similar developments — as a sign of ignor- ance, or of absolute incapacity to enter into the delicate question of ecclesiastical right, perhaps, of positive unre- generacy and unbelief. " This people knoweth not the lawr and is accursed ! " is no new cry, and it expresses the feel- ing, which is just as powerful to-day as it ever was in the past, of those who find the common sense and justice of mankind rebelling against their claims to authority. But the denunciations produce little impression on the strong intelligence and independent temper of men who see the tendency of the assumptions which they repu- diate, and who feel that the only effectual mode of re- sistance is to challenge the principle on which they rest. They respect their own clergy, but more for the sake of their work than their office ; and they are not slow to make them understand that they concede to them no exclusive right, but honour all other faithful ministers of the gospel as fellow-workers for the kingdom of God. The spread of High Church views among a section of the clergy, so large and so constantly increasing that it promises ere long to include the whole body, has served to intensify this liberal feeling. The influence which the High Church party has exerted in developing new life within the Church, and in extending its usefulness among the people, is fully recognized ; but even that does not re- 2S The Age and the Churches. [lect. concile those who perceive the real drift of the movement to the sacerdotal teachings by which it is characterized. They gratefully accept the good, but not the less stren- uously do they oppose the exclusive claims which ap- peal to such service as their justification and support. Evidences of this are continually cropping up, probably so trivial in themselves, and of so ephemeral a character, as to escape notice, and yet all indicative of the growth of a sentiment eminently encouraging to all friends of liberty and Protestantism, and as fatal to the anticipa- tions of any who believe in the probability of a revival of priestly power in the country. A lay utterance of this kind, given some two years ago, may be quoted as an example. It is noteworthy because of the high position of the speaker, and because of the special circumstances under which he spoke. The Duke of Devonshire is unquestionably one of the leading Anglican laymen, and one who has given unquestionable proof that his attachment to the Church is neither hesitating nor languid. The occasion on which the speech referred to was delivered was one that was calculated to rouse all his religious enthusiasm, and to restrain the expression of any senti- ment that might even seem to be in hostility to the Church and the clergy. He was presiding at a meeting held in the rising town of Barrow-in-Furness to cele- brate the opening of four churches in one day. Here was a marvellous proof of the strength of Church senti- ment as well as of the earnestness, liberality, and prac- tical judgment with which Churchmen were setting themselves to adapt their system to the great changes which the rise of new industries must make in the dis- tribution of the people. The Duke himself was a muni- I.] The Age and the Churches. 29 ficent contributor to the buildings, and was heartily interested in the work. It would seem as though he felt it necessary, for these very reasons, to utter a note of warning, which to many of the clergy must have been very disquieting. They had before them visible signs of the attachment of the people to the Church, but they must not be allowed to delude themselves into the belief that these meant an endorsement of the pretensions of the clergy. On the contrary, the Duke distinctly told them that the attempt to push the exclusive preroga- tives of the Anglican priesthood was just as offensive to true Protestants in their own Church as to the Dissenters outside — If (said his Grace) everything relating to the Church was as prosperous as the erection of new buildings and the additions to the clergy, the Church would indeed be in a flourishing condition ; but it was notorious that there was another side to the question. We cannot conceal from ourselves that there are matters in its internal state which give rise to considerable anxiety and which not a little qualify the satisfaction we should otherwise have on occasions like the present. These were ominous words for an Archbishop and his clergy to hear from one who was at the very time giving such unmistakable proof of his devotion to the Church. Had an enemy spoken thus, his words might have been ascribed to hostile prejudice. But it is a leading and liberal supporter of the Church of England, representing the views of a powerful class, who distinctly tells the clergy that the nation will not tolerate a priesthood that sets itself above the law, and would in fact make the State the subject of the Church. The warning was one which tens of thousands of the laity would be pre- pared to endorse. The reply of the Archbishop showed that he perfectly understood the point of the warning, 2o The Age and the Churclies. [lect. delicate as was the form in which it was conveyed. "Allusion," he said, "had been made by the noble Chair- man, and naturally so, to the painful phase of things existing in the Church. Without the allusion the subject could not have been completely treated. But even taking that into account, he did hope and trust that that was a passing phase — that the symptoms of disobedience to law which had been heard of, and which were mani- fest, would not, upon consideration of the subject, con- tinue to exist, because in point of fact no body whatever could subsist upon the principle of not obeying its own laws and constitution. Therefore they might hope that in the long run that spirit of obedience would prevail even more than the proceedings of law courts or the like." But all the optimism of the Archbishop cannot alter hard facts, which have become even more menacing since that date. His attempts to remove the unfavour- able impression that had evidently been made on the mind of the Duke were well meant, but they only showed how keenly he felt that the " lawlessness " of the clergy was as the ghost of Banquo at their feast of charity. That lawlessness grows, and is the fruit of a sacerdotalism, to whose pretensions Englishmen will not long submit. It has already produced a strong recoil. A growing liberality of sentiment is apparent even among those who have no sympathy with the prin- ciples of Liberalism. Numbers who are good Church- men are alarmed on the one hand at the growth of priestism, while on the other, their good sense and English love of justice make them feel that Dissenting Churches cannot be ignored, and ought not to be doomed to a position of inferiority solely because they cannot accept i.] The Age and the Churches. 31 the conditions of the ecclesiastical system as laid down by law, or, indeed, tolerate the action of public law in matters of conscience at all. This feeling found strong expression from Sir T. Dyke Acland, one of the most respected of our country gentle- men. " Clergymen must bring themselves to recognize the fact, that the laity are more and more willing to recognize ministerial service, regard/ess of the denomina- tion of the person by whom it is rendered." A more terse and pointed rebuke to the whole theory of the priest- hood could not well have been administered, and coming from such a quarter, it clearly represents the prevalent tone among a most influential section of the laity. VI. Perhaps the most remarkable public manifestation of this temper which has been seen, was the vote of the House of Lords in favour of Lord Harrowby's amendment on the Burials Bill of Lord Beaconsfield's government. In opposition to their own leaders, in disregard of their ordinary party obligations, in direct antagonism to the Convocation and a majority of the clergy,so overwhelming as to approach to unanimity, a number of Conservative peers voted in favour of the admission of the Dissenting minister and his services into the parochial burying- ground. Their action practically ended the controversy and fixed the terms on which a settlement has been effected. Those terms, unsatisfactory as they are to us, who have no faith in the compromise of a right, afford a very striking illustration of the tendency of the English laity in the very quarters where the attachment to the Establishment is most pronounced. The restriction of the 32 The Age and the Churches. [lect. services admissible in the parochial graveyards to those which are " Christian and orderly " is in violation of the principles for which Nonconformists have always con- tended, but it is an assertion of another principle, and of one which tells very seriously against the assumption of the Anglican priesthood. Those who would have thrown the graveyards open to all citizens, subject only to the conditions necessary for the maintenance of proper deco- rum, would have asserted only that these graveyards were the property of the nation, and that to them all the people should enjoy equal rights of access. Those who introduce the distinction between Christian and non- Christian equally enforce the control of the nation, and so set aside the claim of the Episcopal Church to treat these grounds as private property — a decision which was rendered still more emphatic by the proper re- fusal to deal with the burying-grounds of Dissenting Churches on the same principles. But they institute an entirely new religious test, and in doing it, practically place the clergy of the Church and Dissenting ministers on the same footing. They do not stand on the broad ground of liberty and refuse to take any cognizance of the religious opinions of men. On the contrary, their decision is formed in consideration of those opinions. They will tolerate only Christian services, but if the Christian character be preserved they will not allow priestly pretensions to stand in the way of public justice. The change is much greater than they themselves may have perceived. It is as directly in contravention of the principle of the Establishment as the more extreme and consistent course would have been, and it is even more adverse to the assumption of the clergy. Practically it means that there are, even among Conservative members i.] The Age and the Churches. 33 of the House of Lords, who are supposed to be the most exclusive Churchmen in the nation, not a few who, while they uphold the Established Church as an institution necessary for the religious good of the people, regard it as only one in a family of Churches — in their view the noblest, purest, and most useful of any — but still only one among a number of communities, all of which are entitled to sympathy and support because of the testi- mony they are bearing for Christ and the services they are doing in the moral and spiritual culture of the nation. Various influences have contributed to produce this state of feeling — some of the earth, earthy, but others of a higher and more spiritual character. The growing power of Dissent has compelled some recognition of its claims. It is impossible to ignore communities after which half the religious part of the people have gone. They may be a very disagreeable factor among the social and political as well as the religious forces of the times, but the last possible mode of dealing with them is to treat them as non-existent. They outlived the troubles of a stormy infancy, and passed through the perils of a weak and languishing childhood ; and when on all reasonable calculation they ought to have died out, they revealed a singular vitality and capacity of growth, and developed into a manhood of great vigour. The signs of the kingdom of God are on their history. They were but as the grain of mustard seed ; they have become a spreading tree, under whose branches not a few of the birds of the air find shelter. They have forced their way into universities, into municipal par- liaments, into the senate, into the very Cabinet of the Sovereign. They are recognized as among the forces by which the character of the legislature is determined, 4 34 The Age and the Churches. [lect. and by which ministries are made and unmade. To treat them as non-existent is only to war against the inexorable logic of facts. But there are nobler sentiments at work tending to the same issue. Candid men see that Dissenting com- munities are doing a great part of the religious work of the nation. It may not be done in the way that they approve, but it is done, and they are constrained to admit that it would be an evil thing for the nation if this influence had not been employed in the past, or if it were to be withdrawn now. As soon as this is ad- mitted, the absurdity of a theory which denies to Churches and to men who are working for the kingdom •of God a place in that kingdom becomes apparent. Sometimes it is common sense, sometimes it is a true and enlightened conscience which snaps the bonds of mere ecclesiastical theory. But broken they certainly are in innumerable cases, and in not a few to an extent of which Churchmen themselves are hardly conscious. They do not falter in loyalty to their own Church, but they have learned to form more generous estimates of other Churches. VII. There is a practical temper, eminently characteristic of the times, which leads so many to feel that there can be no material, still less any vital, difference between the Churches if the same great characteristics are found in the members of all. There are numbers who regard all the questions at issue as curious matters concerning the law in which men who have to play their part in the grave and urgent business of a practical world cannot be expected to show any interest. They are wearied of i.] The Age and the Churches. 35 assumptions which appear to them contradicted by common sense and history ; but even to these they will extend a contemptuous indifference if the men by whom they are put forward establish a claim to tolerance, and even respect, by honest service to God and man. They do not trouble themselves to examine the long pedigree of the bishops, and simply laugh at the Nag's Head story, and similar problems, which have caused many good men such serious trouble. They do not presume to adjudicate on the merits of the many controversies between the Catholic and the heretic, though when they have occasionally looked a little more carefully into the story of these conflicts, they have been forced to the conviction that the way which men have called heresy has often been the path of truth, and freedom, and righteousness. Of knotty questions about the validity of orders and their bearing on the efficacy of sacraments, of " notes " of catholicity and where they are to be dis- covered, and of lines of apostolic succession, they are profoundly ignorant, and regard them all as belonging to the infinitely little. What they do see is that in all Churches are to be found men intent on doing the will of God and serving their generation ; and they are disposed to regard the systems which are alike producing these results as possessing an equal authority. No Church has a monopoly of goodness, therefore no Church ought to be credited with a monopoly of scriptural right. Undoubtedly there are here some serious fallacies which must be dealt with afterwards, but it is not to be questioned that this broad view has a considerable sub- stratum of truth. Taken as an argument against the pretensions of any one Church to be co-extensive with Christendom, it is conclusive ; at least, in the absence of 36 The Age and the Churches. [lect. any definite scriptural warrant for such exclusive claims. Accepting, for example, the principle that where there is no bishop and no priest there can be no Church and no sacrament, we are driven to the belief that great Christian communities whose work has been honoured of God to the extension of His kingdom are not Churches. They have in their ranks multitudes who are earnestly seeking to live up to the Christian ideal, preachers who expound the truths of the gospel with a clearness and force equal to anything which can be found in the so-called Catholic Church, gene- rous givers whose liberal contributions swell the fund of Christian benevolence, and untiring workers who are of the very bone and muscle of the army which is contending against the ignorance, the unbelief, and the vice of the day. They have reared apologists who have done noble service in defence of the faith, have sent out missionaries who have subdued kingdoms for Christ, have trained martyrs who have not counted their own lives dear that they might win Christ. There is hardly one in that wonderful catalogue of the achievements of faith as given in the Epistle to the Hebrews which they have not in some degree reproduced. Through faith they have "subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of the fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the alien." In the annals of their struggle for existence, their patient en- durance of persecution, their wide-spread missionary enterprises, are deeds which may be truly described in language glowing as this ; deeds which give their members a place in that general assembly and Church i.] The Age and the Churches. 37 of the first-born, " of whom the world was not worthy," but whose names are written in heaven. Yet on this theory the communities which have thus been gathered in the name of Christ, whose one prayer and effort has been that they might be " living epistles of Christ, known and read of all men," whose members have lived for Christ, worked for Christ, suffered for Christ, died for Christ, are not Churches of Christ. Among the members of these rival communities — the Catholic Church and the sects which are not Catholic — are men who, whether they are to be judged by their public or their private life, present very striking features of identity. Take them away from the current contro- versies of the hour, or those which separate them from each other so far as Christian fellowship is concerned, and their sympathies run in the same channel. They cannot utter the same Shibboleths, but they kindle with enthusiasm for the same Leader, and they contend for the same great principles. Their lives are drawn through varied scenes, and the prominent objects of pursuit in them differ according to their diversity in taste, or in culture, or in social standing, but the differences do not at all coincide with their sectarian distinctions, and underneath them all is one deep foundation of spiritual sympathy and purpose. On questions of ritual they are hopelessly divided, and yet if you listen to their prayers, or their songs of praise, there is striking oneness, so that even the most rigid Catholic docs not hesitate to express his deepest religious sentiments in strains which have been prepared by one whom his theory regards as an alien from the commonwealth of Israel, and they seem as appropriate in his Catholic sanctuary as in the heretical conventicle which is their original home. 38 The Age and the Churches. [lect. Everywhere it is only in method and plan that they seem to differ — in aim and principle, and in all the deepest sentiments of the heart, they are one. Some men have a faith in freedom so absolute that they desire to let it have its perfect work, and face all pos- sible consequences ; while others believe more in the force of authority and tradition, in organization and dis- cipline ; but where Christ is owned as Lord, the object with both is to bring humanity into obedience to the will of God. They differ as to the rights of the indi- vidual conscience and the limits by which its liberty- ought to be restrained, but they are one in their desire for the supremacy of the gospel. The one holds that the end can be best secured by wise methods of protec- tion, the other that truth never flourishes so well as when under the bracing atmosphere of freedom. These rival ideas lead to the establishment of rival systems, to which strong loyalty and devotion are invoked on either side. But these systems themselves would lose their attraction for their most fervid votaries if it could be proved that they were contrary to the will of Christ, or unfavourable to the advance of His gospel. The gospel is greater than any polity, and Christ is more precious than any Church, to all except those with whom the Church has become a mere fetish, and of them it is not too much to say that they are fallen from grace. One is the Master of all these different communities ; and if it is not always so manifest as could be desired that they all are brethren, yet, when the veil that hides the private experiences of Christian hearts is lifted, that unity, often hidden amid the stress and pressure of our heated controversies, becomes beautifully apparent. The biographies of Christian men teach us what we i.] The Age mid the Churches. 39 should not always have learned from their outer life while they were in this world. In the deepest and most real utterances of the soul, as we are allowed to hear them, there is no special note of catholicity which dis- tinguishes the members of one community from all others, but the most extreme advocate of Church autho- rity will often show a simple trust, humble penitence, and adoring love equal to that of the stoutest champion of Christian liberty. In the closet and in the home, in the sweet communion of loving Christian friends and the anxious hopes and watchings of earnest Christian workers, in the secret wrestlings of the heart with God and its tender yearnings over those it would fain win for Christ, in the self-accusings of a soul intent on great holiness and painfully sensible of its failures, and in the rapturous joy begotten by a living sense of the Master's presence in the cries of faith for help in hours of temptation and weakness, and in the devout thanks- givings over victory won through Christ, we know neither Churchman nor Dissenter, neither Episcopalian nor Presbyterian, neither Congregationalist nor Metho- dist; nay, if we look at the loftiest examples of piety in the Romish Church, neither Roman Catholic nor Protestant, but all are one in Christ Jesus. These are not mere passing observations based on narrow experience and limited induction. They can be sustained by a long array of facts drawn from all countries and all times. In no age has a monopoly of spiritual power been granted to any one of our Churches. The " noble army of martyrs " — to take no other illustration — numbers in its ranks Catholic and heretics, men who may have been opposed to each other in life, and some of whom would even have consented to the death of their 40 The Age and the Churches. [lect. comrades in this illustrious host, but all of whom were one in this, that they accepted not deliverance at the cost of conscience, that they might obtain the better resurrection. Slowly but surely the world is coming to understand that the most precious element in martyr- dom— that which makes it an example of power and blessing to the world — is one in which all may equally rejoice whether or not they are in accord with the prin- ciples for which this great test of all sacrifice is made. The Church is richer and the world is better for every example of loyalty to conscience, even though the con- science itself be misguided. The Protestant believes that the Mores and the Fishers were opposing the highest interests of man in labouring to maintain a cruel des- potism, which by some strange folly of human nature had thrust itself into the place of the true ruler of the Church, and exalted itself above all that is known by the name of God, thus seeking to prevent the spread of light, the growth of liberty, and the conversion of man to the liberty that is in Christ. Yet he can rejoice that, be- lieving as they did, they chose to die rather than yield one iota of what to them was a Divine principle. It is the robustness of faith, the triumph of the spiritual over the material, the testimony to the world that man does not live by bread alone, the practical proof that there are those who value the testimony of conscience more than the favour of princes or people, and that death for truth is better than outward splendour when the soul has sealed its own degradation by its infidelity to the truth, that are the points most to be valued in the testimony of the martyrs. And these nobler qualities have been developed in men of all Churches. They have all — though some unconsciously — done noble and enduring service to i.] The Age and the Churches. 41 the cause of freedom, humanity, and progress, and they have done it from the same motive of love to Christ. Is it to be supposed that common sense will ratify the verdict which would pronounce some of them not Christ's because they did not acknowledge the Divine right of bishops. VIII. If there are those who are nobly superior to the logic of facts like these, which might be multiplied if instead of the martyrs we were to look at the apologists, or the missionaries, or the " sweet singers " of the Church, they can be only those whose theory has taken such deep root that they are loftily indifferent to all reasoning and all evidence. The judgment of the age is assuredly against them. With us the danger is that the conclusion should be pressed too far, and that we should be asked not only to recognize the goodness of the individual men, but on it to rest a general inference as to the merits of the system. There are, indeed, facts which might be adduced that point to a very opposite conclusion, and would almost .seem to justify the opinion that the barriers between the Established Church and its neighbours are being made more difficult, and guarded with a more watchful care. The dominant party among the clergy are becoming more contemptuous of Dissenting Churches, more thorough and outspoken in their denunciation of Dissent itself, more desirous to eschew all association with its ministers in distinctively religious work. It is remarkable, too, that this spirit of isolation is found in men whose bear- ing towards Dissenters is marked by the courtesy of the Christian gentleman. They arc not bigots, they arc only 4- The Age and the CJiurches. [lect. consistent, perhaps extreme advocates of an exclusive system. Dissenters may be puzzled to understand how High Churchmen can reconcile their theory either with the broader views of a high intelligence or the generous sympathies of a large heart, and most of all, how they can harmonize their practice with the spirit of the New Testament. But if the exclusive principle is con- scientiously accepted, and the believer simply follows out his conviction of the right, it is unjust to re- proach him for sectarianism and narrowness. Sec- tarianism is a matter of temper, not of creed. It is found in association with all creeds, and no individual is to be credited with it simply because of the opinion which he holds. A theory of this kind, indeed, is itself exclusive, and as such is sectarian in its tendencies, and the more so because of its usurpation of the Catholic name. Its necessary result is the isolation of those who maintain it from all who do not conform to its standards, and there are manifestations of its temper which would suggest that the liberalizing influences of the age have been exerted in vain, or that at best they have but softened social antagonism and introduced a more kindly feeling into controversy, but have done nothing towards the abatement of those ecclesiastical and priestly assumptions which render Christian unity impossible. It might be maintained with some show of plausibility that these High Church views are on the increase, and that they affect a section of Churchmen who are not in sympathy with the principles on which they rest. But exceptional developments of this kind are only what might be expected in an age marked by the intensity of our times. Action and reaction alike are violent, and the very strength of the forces arrayed against the i.] The Age and the Churches. 43 medievalism which claims to be Catholicity, and, indeed, against all the pretensions of authority, only rouses in their champions a more resolute spirit of resistance. They are more pronounced in their utterances, more extreme in their demands, more determined in their atti- tude, because the world has gone away from them. At every point they come into conflict with the spirit of the age, especially as developed in the laity. One of the most serious facts for the Anglican Church to contemplate is this separation between the clergy and the laity, which becomes more decided with every new advance of sacer- dotal pretensions. Despite some illusive appearances to the contrary, the age has no love for priests and no toler- ance for their assumptions. It is not prepared to con- cede the postulates on which these far-reaching claims are based, and subjects them to more keen and search- ing criticism than they have had to meet before. It has little patience with dogmatism and intolerance, especially when they are directly opposed to the teach- ings of common sense. It has a scorn for pretensions which, as they are not verified by facts, it regards as nothing better than shams. Its scientific spirit wars against a system built upon mere assumptions and unsus- tained by proofs, and its keen appreciation of results, and of results which are visible, leads it to treat very lightly demands based upon tradition or descent rather than upon actual work for God or man. The struggle against such forces is not hopeful ; unless there be an overwhelm- ing power in truth on the opposite side, it is absolutely desperate. It is not those who are cast outside the Christian commonwealth by the " Catholic " theory who have anything to fear, but the Church which adopts it and seeks to grasp its adventitious benefits. 44 The Age and the Churches, [lect. i. The forces of the age are for liberty and for progress, towards greater unity, and as a consequence, for the wiser economy of Christian power. That they are under- mining many a cherished prejudice and disturbing many a traditional arrangement in all our Churches cannot be questioned, and ought not to be regretted. There is more work for them to do in that respect, but their operation need not be feared by those who care more for principles than for methods, who are more desirous to have a system adapted to the life and work of the present than one conformed to the precedents of the past, and who have faith that no change in human plans can weaken the power of that spiritual life which is independent of all systems and in which alone the true strength of the Church is found. LECTURE II. RELIGIOUS LIBERALISM IN ITS INFLUENCE ON CHURCH ROLITY. LECTURE II. RELIGIOUS LIBERALISM IN ITS INFLUENCE ON CHURCH POLITY. THE change in the ecclesiastical temper of our country is due principally to the steady growth of the spirit of Liberalism. Liberalism has had to face a strenuous opposition, it has provoked an intense and violent reaction, it has forced the champions of authority to a more extreme assertion of its claims ; but it has not only maintained its position, but, despite some ap- pearances to the contrary, has continually increased in strength, and is one of the most powerful factors in the religious life of the day. Perhaps it is unfortunate in its name. In the minds of the unthinking and uninformed, it is sure to be associated with mere political move- ments, and the mistake is all the more probable, because a belief in liberty and in progress, which is the root-principle of all true Liberalism, may be ex- pected to influence men equally in their civil and eccle- siastical relations, and to produce the same results in both. Ecclesiastical Liberals will generally be political Liberals also. Still, there is a very real distinction between the two sets of opinion. The streams issue from one spring, but they flow in different directions, and at times are very divergent. 48 Religions Liberalism in its [lect. It might have been convenient, therefore, if the rivers had been described by distinctive names, but it is too late now to effect the change. The " Liberal " and the " Clerical " are two well-known terms, perhaps better understood on the continent than in this country, but with a sufficiently definite meaning among ourselves. When Cardinal Newman tells us, " The men who had driven me from Oxford were distinctly the Liberals ; it was they who had opened the attack upon Tract XC, and it was they who would gain a second benefit if I went on to abandon the Anglican Church,"1 there is no diffi- culty in understanding his exact point, whether or not we think his representation perfectly fair. Comparing himself, as he was before his secession to Rome, with Lacordaire, that is, an Anglican Tory with a Roman Catholic Liberal, he says, " We had been both of us in- consistent ; he, a Catholic, in calling himself a Liberal ; I, a Protestant, in being an anti - Liberal." Protes- tantism is thus identified with Liberalism, and then all the negations of unbelief are laid upon the head of the principle which has excited revolt against the authority of Rome. It is described as the " anti-dog- matic principle," and we are told that there arc " but two alternatives — the way to Rome and the way to atheism. Anglicanism is the half-way house on the one side, and Liberalism is the half-way house on the other." 2 Liberalism is thus made to cover a very wide range of opinion ; for though a certain distinction is recognized between the Evangelical and the Liberal, they arc regarded as representing the same tendency, and arc 1 History of my Religious Opinions, pp. 203, 204. 2 Ibid. p. 204. ii.] Influence on Church Polity. 49 involved in the same condemnation. Cardinal Newman enumerates no less than eighteen separate theses as con- stituting that creed of Liberalism which, in common with the High Church generally, he "earnestly denounced and abjured." To several of these, especially in the form in which he presents them, Evangelicals would object, and even those which they adopt they might desire to modify in expression. It is possible that the Evangeli- cal party in the Anglican Church have so far felt the leavening influence of the sacerdotal, or at least of the High Church sentiment, that they would be very apt to introduce ideas which would materially limit the application of the principles they recognize. But the fundamental idea of the whole — that which gives cha- racter to the movement — is neither more nor less than the root principle of Protestantism. " There is a right of private judgment ; that is, there is no existing authority on earth competent to interfere with the liberty of indi- viduals in reasoning and judging for themselves about the Bible and its contents as they severally please." * The results of fidelity to the right of the individual conscience, as thus asserted, may often be extremely inconvenient and unwelcome, but Protestants cannot attempt to set up restrictions and limits of their own without surrendering the raison d'etre of their system. That the Reformers themselves did not perceive how far their own principle went, and were only too willing to restrain the liberty of which they were the apostles, may be admitted without any depreciation of their character, or of the service which they rendered to humanity. Educated in submis- sion to authority, it was not wonderful that they did not all at once enter into the full exercise of liberty. But it 1 History of my Religious Opinions, p. 295. 5 50 Religious Liberalism in its [lect. was impossible that the rebellion which they headed could be so regulated as to become nothing more than an instrument for the establishment of a new despotism. Every blow which was directed against the tyranny of Rome told against all human authority ; every plea for freedom was an argument for the complete emancipation of the soul from all fetters, except those which it volun- tarily accepts as an act of homage to that loving Lord in whose service is found the truest liberty. Our own age has witnessed a more trenchant assertion and more vigorous exercise of the right of free thought, and some of its developments have so alarmed many who think themselves Protestants, but are afraid of their principles, that they would construct breakwaters by which to resist the advancing tide of Rationalism. They would be right and wise if these new defences were works constructed only by reason. But if the element of authority be introduced, Protestantism has been sacrificed. Those who are invested with power may thus restrain others, but at the same time they condemn themselves. Earnest Protestants seeking to repress free inquiry are an inconsistency as monstrous as Gracchus punishing sedition. Others have the same inherent right to freedom as themselves, and for the use of that freedom they are responsible not to man, but to the God by whom it is given. " Liberty of thought," says Cardinal Newman, " is in itself a good ; but it gives an opening to false liberty." There is a pleasant sound in the sentiment, which makes it acceptable and popular. The difficulty arises as soon as it is sought to translate a vague sentiment into plain words. With men generally the " false liberty " is that which leads others into differences of opinion from ii.] Influence on Church Polity. 51 themselves. It is only the believers in an infallible Church who can use such language even with a show of consistency. " By Liberalism," Cardinal Newman adds, " I mean false liberty of thought, or the exercise of thought upon matters in which, from the constitution of the human mind, thought cannot be brought to any successful issue, and therefore is out of place. Among such matters are first principles of whatever kind ; and of these the most sacred and momentous are especially to be reckoned the truths of revelation. Liberalism, then, is the mistake of subjecting to human judgment those revealed doctrines which are in their nature beyond and independent of it, and claiming to determine on intrinsic grounds the truth and value of propositions which rest for their reception simply on the external authority of the Divine Word." 1 The occurrence of such remarks in the history of the religious opinions of the writer is a curious phenomenon. In the exercise of his own thought upon the very ques- tions in relation to which he denies the competency of the human intellect to pronounce, and would interdict liberty in others, he has reached certain conclusions, and those who adopt opposite ones have been seduced into " false liberty." The pretension is extraordinary enough when we remember that the writer's present position is due to the distinct assertion for himself of the right of private judgment which he condemns so severely in others. It would be simply ludicrous were it not that Cardinal Newman believes himself to have found an infallible guide by which the wise exercise of his liberty is guaranteed. In the mouth of a Protestant such a pretension could provoke only contempt. It is 1 History of my Religious Opinions, p. 2S8. 52 Religions Liberalism in its [lect. bad enough to claim infallibility for a Church which, at all events, has the hoar of antiquity on its brow, and a sceptre of power in its hands. But a Protestant who advances such a demand claims in reality infallibility for himself. It is true that he may be a member of a society which has accepted the creed he desires to enforce, but even this is the result solely of an act of private judgment on the part of its members. They have agreed upon their own basis of union, and they are perfectly entitled to maintain it as a condition of fellow- ship in their community, provided they do not identify their society with the Catholic Church, and treat all who are not of it as aliens from Christ. From first to last, however, there is the exercise of free thought upon matters of religion, and to attempt to make any decision final and binding upon all is, in the ultimate issue, to proclaim the infallibility of the individual. The children of liberty must, in short, accept it with all its drawbacks, and these will not disquiet them so long as they retain their faith in God and in truth. But this does not imply that there are not excesses, perver- sions, and caricatures of liberty against which it is necessary to guard. Freedom can never confer any right to hinder or check the lawful action of others. A man's liberty is not curtailed because other men con- stitute a society, even though that society call itself a Christian Church, whose doors are barred against him by the terms of its membership. Nor is there any in- fraction of the rights of freedom in the enforcement of the terms of a contract on those who have themselves voluntarily entered into it. Religious freedom means nothing more than the right of every man to form his own opinions, and to take all means for propagating them ii.] Influence on Church Polity. 53 which do not interfere with the good order of society, without let or hindrance from human authority. It denies the right of toleration ; it asserts the equality of all varieties of opinion in the eyes of the law, and it does nothing more. It places the individual conscience outside human jurisdiction, and asserts the grand prin- ciple laid down by the apostle, that to his own Master each must stand or fall. One of the worst results of these advances of liberty is the tendency to a latitudinarianism which does not stop far short of absolute neutrality in relation to all creeds and Churches. Every man is free to think, there- fore every man's thoughts are equally true or equally false. Perhaps if the idea were put thus boldly few would endorse so startling a proposition ; but there is a great deal of opinion, and still more of sentiment, which practically amounts to this. The first attacks of this spirit are generally made not on doctrine but on polity, and there are numbers who do not perceive that the move- ment must inevitably extend. In matters of principle, as in all others, unfaithfulness in little things has a strong tendency to develope unfaithfulness in greater things. In guarding, therefore, against laxity in rela- tion to forms of Church government, confessedly sub- ordinate as they are, we are setting up bulwarks which may serve also as defences for the most precious spiritual truths. In truth, the more closely the working of this aggressive Liberalism is studied, the more clearly will the difficulty of separating between the greater and lesser points of Christian life appear. Where there is 54 Religious Liberalism in its [lect. a weakening of distinctive belief in relation to the latter, it is generally associated with the undermining of principle on the former also. When men begin to think that it is of no moment to what Church they belong, they are very apt to pass on to a conviction that it is of equally little importance what creed they hold. This extreme Liberalism, however, is very diversified in its development. Associated with an earnest if not very intelligent spiritualism, it is rashly contemptuous of questions of government. But under other influences it exhibits an equally decided tendency to make light of points of doctrine. There are indeed on all sides some who are more careful about the external vesture of the Church than about its spirit, and whose amazing tolerance of all attacks on the authority of Revelation, or even on the glory of the Divine Re- deemer, is in striking contrast with their intense jealousy for some ecclesiastical principle or institution. They would maintain to the last the rights of a National Church, and at the same time would part with every shred of the faith for whose sake alone that Church exists. In other relations they would insist that a Congregational Church ought to guard more carefully against organization which might interfere with its own self-government than to preserve that faith in the risen Saviour without which it is hard to see how or why there should be a Church at all. The phenomenon happily is not a frequent one. It is in striking contra- diction to the Lord's teaching that the life is more than the meat, and the body than the raiment. One point is certain, that when men have ceased to care for the life, any interest either in meat or raiment must speedily die out. Should faith in Christ Himself ever perish, men ii.] Influence on Church Polity. 55 will speedily cease to trouble themselves as to the government or support of Churches which may con- tinue to bear the name of Christian, in deference to the sensitive feelings of those who in their day may have the same unwillingness as many have now to part with forms from which the spirit has fled, and to abandon names even where the reality is gone. There might even then be some who would interest themselves in the old-world ecclesiastical questions as matters of an- tiquarian curiosity, just as scientific inquirers now em- ploy themselves in investigating the dead mythologies of the past. But it would be the work only of scholars, with as little practical value or living interest as some disputed reading or doubtful prosody in a Greek play. How could it be otherwise? The faith is dead, why should those who are sufficiently occupied with the work of the world trouble themselves about the laws and practices of a superstition which has become defunct ? A discussion about the validity of an apostolical succes- sion in a generation to which the apostles themselves were but the first victims of an illusion which they had helped to propagate and to perpetuate would be simply grotesque. Not less absurd would be a vigorous and enthusiastic defence of the independency of Churches which them- selves were only sad memorials of other days, when Christian communities had a gospel to preach and a work to do, but which had become nothing more than associations of men, who did not profess to have a common faith or a common object, and whose only bond of union was a vague spiritual sympathy. Such societies would, of course, adopt what kind of organiza- tion they approved, and there would be no reason why 56 Religions Liberalism in its [lect. those outside should concern themselves about their regulations, as there would be no standard of authority to which they could appeal. They would be mere clubs, having no relation to the world at large, and, indeed, no raison d'etre, except the personal gratification of their members, who would govern them according to their own pleasure. When a so-called Christian Church had renounced the authority of the New Testament and the sovereignty of Christ, it would have left itself without law or ruler, and it would be independent or hierarchical, according to the prevailing opinion of the majority. As a matter of fact, men would soon cease to care whether it was one or the other. Nothing can be more certain than that the decay of the Christian faith must speedily result in indif- ference to the claims of rival systems, and ultimately in the collapse of all. So long as a priesthood existed, and was clothed by the State with certain privileges and powers, so long might unbelief feel bound to maintain an attitude of hostility. But that would not imply any preference for a particular Church system ; it would be a resistance in the name of liberty and justice to any sacerdotal encroachments upon the rights of conscience, or any countenance on the part of the civil authority of opinions obnoxious to Liberalism — that and nothing more. The conditions of the conflict might cause this antagonism to wear the aspect of agree- ment with the pri'nciples of Independency, inasmuch as unbelief would adopt its protest against authority ; but there could be no vital sympathy between this indifference and spiritual principles of any kind. Like all our other Church systems, Congregationalism or Inde- pendency is based on the assumption of an antecedent ii.] Influence on Church Polity. 57 Christianity. The societies for which it asserts the right of self-government are pre-supposed to be Christian societies. If the Christianity were lost, the Congregation- alism would not be worth preserving. The value we attach to a polity must depend entirely on our conception •of a Church, and our idea of a Church must be regulated by our view of the authority of Christ. To the un- believer in Christ it must be a matter of supreme in- difference what form of government the societies of his followers may adopt, except so far as any of them may cross his individual liberty. Let the world become unbelieving, and the discussion about Episcopacy and Presbyterianism, between State Churches and Free Churches, will before long be relegated to oblivion. It matters little, therefore, as to the ultimate result whether Liberalism seek first to undermine the doctrine or the polity, since there is so intimate an association between the two that carelessness about the one is pretty sure to be followed in the long run by indifference to the other. II. As might be anticipated, this Liberalism seeks to minimize all points of difference. It is not only lati- tudinarian but optimist. Especially is this the result where there is an Erastianism intent on preserving a National Church at all costs. There is, indeed, a great deal that sounds extremely liberal, which is nothing but pure Erastianism, so intent on the one thing which it has undertaken to do that it will manifest the most extreme tolerance in relation to all differences of opinion, if by this it can avert so terrible a calamity as the eman- cipation of religion from the control of the State. 58 Religious Liberalism in its [lect. The clergyman may ignore or even contradict the creeds and articles which he has professed and is solemnly bound to teach. Protestantism may be in his eyes a rebellion against God, or a noble assertion of the fallibility of all Churches, the incertitude and vanity of all creeds, and the independence of conscience of all authority. He may sigh over the destruction which the Reformation wrought, or insist that its work was im- perfect, and that our dut}r now is to advance along its lines to an extreme rationalism. He may be a sacer- dotalist or a latitudinarian, if not an agnostic. He may idolize the sacrament, or he may refuse Divine worship to the Saviour. In principle he may be Ultra- montane, Puritan, or sceptic, but, provided he will wear the Anglican vestment and conform to the Anglican " use," he may have his place in the National Church. The maintenance of a public religion is of far more im- portance than the interests of any particular system of doctrine or even the rights of the individual conscience. Indeed, the appeal to conscience on such a matter is only an indication of excessive and irrational purism, a piece of ethical pedantry worthy of doctrinaires and fanatics, but despised by practical men. Strange to say, this spirit is sometimes found where there are very definite convictions on points which are generally es- teemed of paramount importance, but which are placed in subordination to the one dominant idea of a State Church. We have thus the extraordinary spectacle of men whose own theology is of an advanced type, and strikes at the authority of the Church and the priest, appearing as the champions of a party whose triumph would mean the overthrow of intellectual freedom and the restoration of mediaeval superstition. Better they ii] Influence on Church Polity. 59 should be allowed to use the prestige of the Estab- lishment for the promotion of a system which aims at the destruction of all that their defenders most prize than afford a triumph to the men who would have con- science unfettered and trust to the power of truth and to the grace of God, from whom all truth comes, to assert its supremacy. Erastianism practically teaches that there is no truth so pure or so precious that it is worth while to sacrifice the advantages of a national religion for its maintenance ; and in doing so, it adopts the argu- ments and uses the language of Liberalism, though its success would be fatal to true liberty. Devoted friends of the Anglican Establishment, who are at the same time alive to the peril by which it is menaced from the explosive forces within its own bosom, are continually indulging in pleasant utterances, which are intended to prove to the world that their dif- ferences mean very little. They seem unable to under- stand the impression which this mode of speaking pro- duces on those who know the facts, and have no motive for regarding them in couleur de rose. There is hardly a Church Congress at which some of the speakers are not intent on convincing the various parties or " schools of thought," as they are euphemistically described, that they are essentially one. But every one outside under- stands that when the Congress is over and the clergy go down to their own parishes, they will carry out the views of their respective parties in utter forgetfulness of this interchanging of friendly professions. Church Association and Church Union will still keep up their bitter strife, and their advocates will encounter each other in the courts of law, as keener adversaries even than those recalcitrant Dissenters who make no such professions, 60 Religions Liberalism in its [lect. and yet maintain a more real unity. The result is disastrous not so much to the Anglican Church as to religion itself. The opening address of the Bishop of Peterborough at the Leicester Congress affords one of the latest and not the least striking illustration of this kind. His observations are pitched in the tone, at once catholic and practical, which is peculiarly fitted to catch the public car and secure popular sympathy. This desire to be practical will account for the omission from our list of subjects of some of what are called the " burning Church questions" of our time. If these do not appear in our programme it is not because we were afraid of them, but simply because they were crowded out by subjects which seemed to us at once more important and more practical. For burning questions are not always important ones — sometimes they are even pitifully small and unimportant. And besides, they have for the most part, I think, a happy way of burning themselves out if you let them alone. Are we not walking now, coolly and comfortably enough, over the ashes of more than one once burning, and now burnt out, question ? No ! The really great, urgent, and burning questions of the day are far other and weightier than these. While we have been dis- puting about details of ceremony and modes of worship the world around us has been discussing whether there is any use or meaning whatever in our worship or in the faith that it expresses. It was a burning question once whether the minister should deliver his Master's message clad in a black dress or in a white one ; and while that dispute was being waged, the question was smouldering all around us whether he had any message whatever to deliver. It is, or it lately was, a burning question at which side of the holy table the clergyman should stand to minister the sacrament of his Lord's love ; but it was and is a burning question with thousands who have never witnessed nor cared to witness either position, whether the Lord of the sacrament were an impostor or a fanatic. It is a burning question what is the precise mode of that Lord's supernatural presence in the Eucharist. Alas ! has it not ceased to be a question with multitudes whether there be any supernatural at all ? Yes, the one great Church question of our time, the burn- ing question before which all others fade into insignificance, is this : Round about church and chapel, impartially indifferent or im- partially hostile to both, lie the masses of our great town popula- ii.] Influence on Church Polity. 61 tions, lie scattered units in our country parishes, for whom life has no higher, no better meaning than that of a daily struggle for the means of a joyless existence, uncheered by the hope of a happier hereafter, undignified by the consciousness of Divine descent and the heirship of immortality. There is so much of right feeling and good sense in this that it seems at first sight hard to object to it. Yet if the " practical spirit " by which it is inspired had been allowed fuller and freer play, it might have suggested that vital differences are never removed by being treated as thus insignificant, and still further that those outside, who assume that all theological questions are mere hair- splittings, about which there is a very absurd amount of excitement, are only confirmed in their contempt by this mode of dealing with differences which have been re- garded as vital. For these questions which the bishop now treats so lightly have been hotly and eagerly dis- cussed in pulpits, on platforms, in courts of law. They have been treated as questions of life and death. They have separated bishops, clergy, and members of the same Church from each other and arrayed them in hostile camps. They have formed topics for parliamentary discussion and for popular agitation. They involve points of conscience for the sake of which clergymen have gone to prison. Why there should be this sudden change of feeling in relation to them cannot be very obvious to uninterested observers, and it is not very wonderful if they leap to the conclusion that religious people are the unhappy victims of a mental eccentricity and are liable to occasional outbursts of frenzy which are very threatening while they last, but which soon pass over and are then admitted by themselves to have been extremely unreasonable. It is not to be expected that these critics will limit their view to any particular class 62 Religious Liberalism in its [lect. of theological questions. They will include all points of ritual, polity, and even doctrine in one category, and relegate them to the region of the unknowable and unpractical. The result, therefore, of this convenient mode of evading difficulties may be the increase of the very evils which the bishop, in common with Christian men every- where, so earnestly deplores. But his representation of the facts is so onesided as to be extremely unfair to the conscientious men who took part in these controversies, some of whom were lacking neither in piety nor ability, and were just as competent to take a just view of the relative importance of the points at issue as any prelate on the bench. It is, primA facie, incredible that leaders of thought, fully alive to the responsibility of the action they were taking, would have convulsed their Church about matters so insignificant as the colour of a robe or the posture of a minister. Great struggles are often waged about what seems to be a trifle light as air, and the con- duct of the respective combatants appears nothing less than ludicrous until it is understood that the battle is really for some great principle, of which the trifle is re- presentative. A conflict in a court about some precedent, a struggle for some Dulcigno which appears hardly worth the capture, the passionate devotion to a flag which excludes the aspirant from a throne, may all be made to look very ridiculous. But, in truth, it is the ridicule which is so shallow and absurd, since it contents itself with a view so superficial as to be wholly fallacious. In the case before us, the bishop might argue that even the point really at issue was not of the importance ascribed to it, and that all parties would have been much better occupied in seeking to recover the lapsed masses ii.] Influence on Church Polity, 63 to Christianity than in this internecine strife between different forms of Christianity itself. But the answer to this reasoning is obvious. These " burning ques- tions " touch so closely the essence of the gospel itself that until they be settled it is impossible to know in what character the messenger is to address the people, or what message he has to deliver. For the people and for the reception they are likely to accord him it is of the last importance to determine whether he ad- dresses them as a priest clothed with the authority of a Church, and speaking as representative of it and of God, or as a man of like passions and infirmities with themselves, whose only claim to be heard is that he is speaking that word of God which is the light and joy of his own soul. If he endeavours to inspire in them that faith in the supernatural which to many of them is at present the wildest of illusions, they will certainly demand to know whether the faith which he requires means a belief in a miraculous power as attending the consecrating prayer of the priest, or is nothing more than the confidence given to a man who appeals to the heart and conscience as witnesses that he is an ambassador of Christ. It is easy to say that these opposing schools, and indeed all the " schools of thought " in the Estab- lishment, hold the essence of Christianity ; but this optimist view sacrifices truth to charity. The "essence" of the gospel may be so corrupted by superstition as to lose its purity ; it may be so diluted by philosophy as to be robbed of its strength. One or other of these modes of tampering with the truth is imputed by the rival schools to each other. The Evangelical holds that the Anglican has made the commandment of God of none effect by his traditions ; the " Catholic " in his 6\ Religions Liberalism in its [lect. turn retorts that even the light which is in the Evangelical system has become darkness through its rejection of the guidance of the Church and the hierarchy. No doubt there are certain elementary principles which they hold in common ; but even these are so far affected by the doctrine with which in each case they are associated that the likeness hardly extends below the surface. One of the most able and candid defenders of the Establishment, whose Erastianism, intense as it is, has not so utterly blinded his perception of facts as to in- duce him to acquiesce in this irrational optimism, admits that these schools of thought are " so different that, did they not accept and delight in the use of the same liturgy — though interpreted, we must admit, in the most opposite sense — we should hardly know what they had in common beyond the belief in God and the example of Christ." J It is far better manfully to face the truth thus than to try and wrap it up in honeyed compliments or in vague generalities which deceive no one, but which do unfortunately confirm the impression already only too prevalent, that there is no reality about the most earnest theological controversies. • But there is a still more egregious fallacy into which the bishop has been betrayed. " Burning questions do not burn themselves out." They may take new forms, they may present themselves to different ages, or even to dif- ferent parties in the same age in different aspects, but they do not therefore become extinct volcanoes. The question of robes or rites may assume a great variety of forms, but the question of the priesthood remains the same. Some years ago it was a controversy about preaching in the surplice ; to-day, it is a discussion 1 The Spectator on the Primate's charge, p. 11 15. (1880.) ii.] Influence on Church Polity. 65 about the use of sacerdotal vestments in the celebration of the Communion. To say that the first question has burnt itself out is a fallacy, or worse than a fallacy. It remains the same as ever. The men who fancy that they have settled it by treating the question of the gown to be used in the pulpit as of no importance, are deceiv- ing themselves and misleading others. They have evaded the difficulty, but they have not grappled with it. It is as vital and as pressing as ever. The " burning ques- tion " is, " Have we a human priesthood ? " Twenty years ago it took the form of, " Shall the clergy preach in a surplice ? " To-day it is, " Shall they sacrifice at the altar in a chasuble ?" The meaning is precisely the same. Evangelicals have gained nothing by concessions, but they have practically given up the whole controversy. The question raised in past ages presses for solution still. The Bishop of Peterborough is mistaken if he is able to persuade himself into the belief that it has burned itself out. III. Liberalism boasts of being pre-eminently practical, and despises all scientific treatment of questions relating to doctrine or Church life. When ecclesiastical leaders, who may reasonably be supposed to have a deep interest in the principles about which these controversies are waged, and who must be assumed to have an extensive knowledge of the systems based upon them, treat the struggle thus lightly, it is not wonderful that the practical men, as they regard them- selves, should accept the view of the scientists, and should press it to an extreme. Everywhere this class 6 66 Religious Liberalism in its [lect. strives to assert itself, greatly to the hindrance of the search for truth, and to the vexation of those who are earnestly engaged in it. Professor Huxley, in a recent address at the opening of the new Science College at Birmingham, described with characteristic force the attitude which men of this type have taken in relation to physical science. The practical men believed that the idol whom they worship — Rule of Thumb — had been the source of the past prosperity, and will suffice for the future welfare of the arts and manufactures. They were of opinion that science is speculative rubbish ; that theory and practice have nothing to do with one another ; and that the scientific habit of mind is an impediment rather than an aid in the conduct of ordinary affairs. I use the past tense in speaking of the practical men ; for, although they were very formidable thirty years ago, I am not sure that the pure species has not been extirpated. In fact, so far as mere argument goes, they have been subjected to such a fete iVenfer that it is a miracle if any have •escaped. Would that it were possible to speak as confidently of the decay of this party in the ecclesiastical as in the scientific world. As descriptive of their views and ten- dencies, Mr. Huxley's language is exactly true. Mutatis mutandis, it might be applied to all ecclesiastical ques- tions. Numbers are of opinion that theology, with its creeds and dogmas, is speculative rubbish ; that doctrine and practice, creed and conduct have nothing to do with one another ; that the theological habit of mind is an impediment rather than an aid in the religion of daily life. It is to be hoped that one whose eagle eye detects so clearly the folly of such views in relation to his own department of inquiry will not allow himself to sanction a similar error in relation to a field of thought and knowledge he has not cultivated. The "practical men" hold very cheap all differences ii.] Influence on Church Polity. 6j about creed or polity. Religion, they urge, is not a theory, nor a sentiment, nor a profession, but a life. Doctrines and Churches are not themselves an end, but simply the means to an end, and that end conduct. If that end be reached, what is the advantage of wrangling as to the process by which it has been secured ? If "men do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with their God," what need is there to consider whether they hold the orthodox creed or belong to the true Church ? They have already attained the goal to which even the most perfect system professes to conduct them, and why should we disturb ourselves or trouble them as to the dogmas which they hold ? If there is error in their creed, at least they have largely escaped its corrupting and in- jurious influence ; and, in truth, if such men be wrong, better to stray with them than to walk in the straight path with many whose orthodoxy is beyond suspicion. They are good men, and that is all that we can desire them to be. In reply to this very summary method of dealing with one of the most difficult and delicate of problems, it might be said that human character is not the perfectly simple thing which it is thus assumed to be. In every one there mingle elements of good and evil. Even those who come nearest to perfect excellence have some qualities in excess, while in others they are defective ; and the question would still remain for all who are not prepared to dismiss all attempts to connect a man's moral qualities with his belief, as " scientific rubbish," how far these faults may be traced to his creed or to his Church. To assume that between the speculative and the practical there can be no relation is a mere petitio principii, and one which is contradicted by an 68 Religious Liberalism in its [lect. overwhelming array of facts. But that is precisely what is continually done, and hence the easy conclusion that doctrine and practice are independent of each other, and that if we can shape the conduct right, it matters not what becomes of the doctrine. The fallacy here arises out of the one-sided view which is given. The truth is not the whole truth. It is not ours to try and reconcile what we deem gross inconsistencies between a man's creed and his practice, when the latter seems to be broader and purer than the former. There may be intellectual prejudices or idiosyncrasies which lead him to cling to opinions which really form no part of himself. Or he may be under the unconscious influence of ideas which he has renounced, but which had been so far assimilated with his whole thought and feeling, and had become so thoroughly part of his intellectual being, that it was impossible for him to divest himself wholly of their effect. Or there may be in him some logical defect which prevents him from seeing and accepting the full consequences of the principles he has adopted. Or, what is still more common, the man may have a simplicity and purity of heart, and a generosity of temper, which may preserve him from the warping influences of his creed. Whatever the reason, there are numbers of men who are better than their creeds ; and when we find such cases, it certainly is not for us to try and fasten on the individuals views which they repudiate, or to attribute to them motives or acts which to us would seem natural and almost necessary could we accept their principles. Happily the judgment for which we, in our ignorance of the mysterious workings of the human spirit, are incompetent does not lie with us. It is for us to honour all goodness wherever it is ; to ii.] Influence on Church Polity. 69 give men credit for what they are irrespective of their opinions, and even, though we may sometimes wonder how with such opinions they can be what they are, to rejoice in the evidence they furnish of a law written in their hearts more authoritative and more enduring than the errors by which they may have been misled. It becomes a very different matter when a principle which we properly apply in our estimate of personal character is pressed into a rule for the judgment of Christian doctrines and Church systems. It is impos- sible, however, to ignore the strength of this tendency; and when it is applied even to the most vital points in the Christian faith, it is only to be expected that it should tell still more powerfully upon all questions of mere government. When it is boldly maintained that a man of pure life and spiritual sympathy should not be denied Christian fellowship, although he may repudiate everything distinctive of Christianity, and laugh to scorn the thought that the Lord Jesus can be his Prince and Saviour, it would be absurd to attach any importance to his views on the authority of bishops, the validity of the apostolical succession, or the rights of individual Chris- tians or Churches. But it would be a grievous mistake to suppose that the desire to be practical, which makes so light of the differences between rival systems, is always found in association with scepticism or indifference. It is not unfrequently the manifestation of an entirely different spirit — a spirit so earnest in its devotion to the spiritual interests of Christ's kingdom, so keenly alive to the perils which threaten the gospel itself, so far elevated above all sectarian sentiment, while at the same time so fervid in Christian zeal, that it has little patience with yo Religious Liberalism in its [lect. the controversies in which are frittered away energy and talent needed for much higher purposes. Its philosophy may not be very profound, nor its policy very sagacious ; even in its sentiment, which looks so beautiful in its catholicity, there may be an alloy of less exalted feeling, but there is here a feeling which has spread widely among laymen, and which materially affects their views of all sectarian movements. It is a recoil from the narrow exclusiveness which once was so rampant, and which still has so evil an influence upon the social relations of ecclesiastical parties. It is an emphatic protest not only against the condemnation of men because of the evil there may be in the systems, but also against the idea that the Church of Christ can be confined within the limits of any one of our Churches, or even of them all united. The feeling is the result partly of the scientific temper of which the age is so proud, and which is carried even into ecclesiastical questions. The extreme assumptions on which theologians are too often accustomed to build their arguments are no longer granted, nor are the hasty processes by which they reach conclusions in harmony with their own preconceptions allowed to pass un- challenged. Solitary texts of doubtful interpretation are no longer accepted as decisive of some grave question of authority. The New Testament is exmained as a whole, and on points of government the history of the Church is studied with the view of obtaining clearer light. The result is, in the case of numbers, a conviction that in matters of constitution there was meant to be great liberty, and that the Church which claims to be the only Catholic and Apostolic Church because of its Epis- copal orders is that which is really most opposed to the iij Influence on Church Polity. 71 true spirit of the gospel, and has done most towards forfeiting its claim to catholicity altogether. This view may easily be pushed to an unwarrantable and, in some of its aspects, even dangerous extreme ; but it has a good side. In so far as it serves to break down the barriers which ecclesiastical tradition, or individual bigotry or social custom, has set up between different Churches, it is effecting a great and necessary reform. When it leads men to see in all those who not only " profess to call themselves Christians," but prove that their profession is a reality by their efforts to do the will of Christ, members of the one Catholic Church who seek to develope their various schemes of Church polity in obedience to their individual conception of Christ's purpose, it is only help- ing men to recover the lost ideal of Christian unity as distinct from uniformity. In the honour which it renders to the conscientious maintenance of principle, apart from any judgment upon the principle to which this loyalty is shown, it is encouraging a temper which Christian charity should always foster, but which in the fierceness of controversy is apt to be trampled out. But if it goes beyond this, and teaches that questions of polity are of so little moment that a man need not feel himself bound either by the teaching of Scripture, or the lessons of history in relation to them, and that in fact there is no point of right or wrong, truth or error, involved in the controversy, it is making charity or liberty a cloak for a latitudinarianism which has in it the germ of serious evils. It would be strange, to say the least, if there were no principles in the New Testament to guide us in the con- stitution and government of Christian Churches ; and if they are there, it would be still stranger if individuals were at liberty to treat them as of no significance. There J2 Religions Liberalism in its [lect. is such a thing as the proportion of faith, and principles of polity may not have the same relative importance as the verities of Christian doctrine. But they are not to be lightly taken up or cast aside in obedience to caprice, or fashion, or personal interest, as though the authority of Christ was not supreme, or at all events, not absolute in such matters. Of course, if a man is not convinced that the great Head of the Church has left any directions on these points, in his case the question does not arise. He believes that there is perfect liberty, and " to the Lord " he uses this liberty. Even he, if faithful to his professions, must be a resolute opponent of all attempts to establish the rule of a hierarchy, which can have no foundation for its exclusive claims unless it be able to plead the right of a Divine institution. Nor can his neutrality between the rival systems be pleaded as an example by those who defend the main outlines of Church government in the New Testament, and who in treating them as mere accidents are ignoring what they confess to be of supreme authority. But for himself he is taking a course which, however mistaken and even irrational we may deem it, is in harmony with his inter- pretations of Scripture, and in obedience to Christ's law as interpreted by his own conscience. IV. Another danger of our religious Liberalism arises from the tendency to transfer our judgments of individuals to the system with which they are identified. It is idle to try to perpetuate the injustice of condemning men because of their Church associations, but the reaction is so extreme as to demand that we approve of the Church ii.] Influence on Church Polity. 73 because of the noble men to be found in its fellowship. The teacher or the priest is a good man, therefore the Church to which he is attached cannot be bad. The Liberalism which judges character with equity and gene- rosity thus tends to obliterate all distinctions between different Churches, and to foster the belief that no Church system can be bad so long as good men adhere to it. When with this is combined the influence of a strong hero-worship, which is characteristic of the age, the result cannot be viewed without some anxiety. One remarkable case of this kind stands out con- spicuously in our own time. It is not easy to measure the amount of power and prestige which the Romish Church has derived from the accession of John Henry Newman, and that, not so much from the force of his reasoning, keen and subtle as that is, nor from the great authority which he commanded among his co-religion- ists, and especially his friends at Oxford, but from the weight of character in the man himself, increased as that was by the self-sacrifice which was necessitated by his conversion. The respect felt for the genius, the conscientiousness, the self-devotion of the distinguished Oratorian has been by numbers half unconsciously trans- ferred to the system ; and in the brief period of a life- time he has done more to raise the status of the Church of Rome in this country than had been accomplished by all the work of two centuries. It would be anticipating subjects that must be dealt with hereafter were I to diverge here to estimate the exact progress which the Church of Rome has made during the last thirty years. Nor is it necessary, because it is not to the increase of its actual strength, which is much less than some alarmists would have us believe, 74 Religious Liberalism in its [lect. that reference is made, but to the change of tone in re- lation to the Romish Church. It is no longer regarded as the portentous monster which it appeared to Protes- tants of the last generation. Even where there is no abatement of the feeling against its perversions of Christianity, there is a readiness to discuss its principles, instead of treating it as a grotesque superstition, which lay beyond the region of rational debate. There may be no more sympathy, but there is a patient tolerance which was certainly not manifested thirty years ago. Canon Oakley explains the ignoring of Roman Catholics by the early Tractarians as the result of sheer ignorance. It must (he says) be very difficult for those who are sons of the Church, not by adoption, but by inheritance, to realize, even by a strong effort of the imagination, the depth and extent of the ignorance which prevailed among members of the Anglican Estab- lishment at the beginning of the Tractarian movement with regard to the state and feelings of the Catholic community in England. It is no exaggeration to say that many of us knew far more about the manners and customs of the ancient Egyptians or Scythian tribes than of the characters and doings of this portion of our fellow countrymen. This was, no doubt, due partly to the autocratic isolation which the members of the Anglican Establishment have cultivated, but it was intensified in the case of the Roman Catholics by the strong anti-Papal sentiment which prevailed. There is certainly no such ignorance to-day. The Roman Catholic Church is receiving now that amount of attention and even deference which is seldom denied in this country to a system round which any odour of aristocracy or antiquity gathers. It is recog- nized as an old Church, as a Church to which high-born families are attached, as a Church which has a certain following, though possibly a small one, in " Society." The ii.] Influence on Church Polity. 75 "little modest presbyteries" of which Canon Oakley spoke have been exchanged for imposing churches and even cathedrals, and the change in its social status has corresponded with this improvement in its outward fortunes. John Henry Newman has been the chief cause of this revolution. The secession of members of aristo- cratic families did much to compel attention, and of that secession Dr. Newman was the principal agent. But he has done much more than this. He is recognized by those who most widely differ from him as possessing one of the keenest intellects and purest souls of his genera- tion. England is proud of the man, believes in his ability, and believes in his sincerity. As a natural consequence there is a disposition to look at the Church which he has adopted, and in adopting which he must have sacrificed so much, with more consideration. The result of the more careful thought thus given to its claims may not be, in many cases certainly will not be, an acceptance of them. But at the outset the Romish Church secures a hearing which otherwise would not be accorded to it. Further examination may show that the great leader of this Romish reaction has proclivities which may explain his movement, but his adhesion to the Vatican certainly creates the impression that its doctrines cannot be a bundle of absurdities and idolatries, and that Romish priests are not necessarily the deceivers which heated partisans have represented. If the reaction stops here it is not to be regarded with disapproval or regret. There can be no objection to this more rational and satisfactory mode of entering into the Romish controversy. Those who believe in the principles of Protestantism would not wish it otherwise. They do j6 Religious Liberalism in its [lect. not desire to retain any advantage which is derived from mere blind prejudice They do not fear any conflict of argument ; and if Romanism appears to have gained undue advantage from the personal influence which has cleared away some of the odium that once rested upon it, they can see that is only a compensation for the in- justice with which it had long been treated. What is to be guarded against now is that the fair judgment on the system itself is not disturbed and affected by the consideration shown to a distinguished convert. There would be no danger at all were sufficient care always taken to discriminate between men and systems, and not to allow our feelings towards the one to colour our judgment of the other. But so strong is the tendency to confusion on the point, that even the liberal Dean of Westminster, who, of all men, might be expected to be free from such a mistake, showed that even he had been carried away by it, when, in this very case of Cardinal Newman, he reproached Nonconformists for their sym- pathy with him, as though it implied some leaning towards his High Church theories. Not Arnold, not Whately, not Milman, not Frederick Robertson, not Cecil, nor Venn, nor Simeon, but John Henry Newman, the chief of that retrogade and exclusive movement, though filled, as he himself describes, with " fierce thoughts " against the liberal ten- dencies of the age, is hailed by them as the English Churchman to whom they look with the greatest admiration.1 No suggestion could be more contrary to all proba- bility as well as to all the facts of the case. In the Non- conformist view, indeed, there was but little difference between the principles of which Dr. Newman had been the most eloquent exponent within the Established 1 Edinburgh Review, vol. 137, p. 206. (1873.) ii.] Influence on Church Polity. 77 Church, and those for the sake of which he went into voluntary exile from a Church whose highest honours were within his reach, and patiently submitted to the dreary years of neglect which awaited him in the Church which long seemed unable to understand the full value of the success it had achieved. To Protestants of the Puritan type, it was far from being clear that the cause either of Protestantism or freedom really suffered from the new and more logical position which its most subtle and eloquent assailant had assumed. Authority is the foe which they feel constrained to oppose, and it is to them of little practical importance whether its repre- sentatives wear the livery of Canterbury or of Rome, own the rule of Lambeth or the Vatican. High Church- ism is to them simply disguised Romanism, or, to put it more correctly, the spirit of Romanism without its dis- tinctive form ; and it was, to say the least, open to doubt whether the cause of Christian liberty might not have suffered more from John Henry Newman, as a leader of thought at Oxford, or a dignitary of the Anglican Church, with all its prestige behind him, than from the head of the Oratory, or even from the Cardinal as the world now knows him. The Church of Rome has gained more to external appearance from the latter, but it is doubtful whether Protestantism has suffered so much. But even this consideration did not determine the sympathy of Nonconformists. Apart from the results altogether, and without trying to balance the loss and gain to the cause of Romanism, they felt that the man was entitled to honour. Fully sensible of the extra- ordinary fascination which he exercises over numbers of minds, and mourning that his great ability should be employed to rehabilitate the power of an old super- 78 Religions Liberalism in its [lect. stition, they could still perceive that the cause to which he was most opposed, and in which they are as deeply interested — true Liberalism in religion — was served by the signal illustration he gave of the supremacy of conscience, in the very act in which he renounced its independence and placed it henceforth under the con- trol of human authority. They could even thank God for the grace which enabled a man, with infirmities like their own, who saw the leadings of Divine guidance on the one hand, but, on the other, felt the restraints of early association and strong affection, which with him were infinitely stronger than promptings of ambition, powerful as these may have been, to obey God rather than man, and to go out from the home of his early days, not knowing whither he went. They felt that truth gained infinitely more by his loyalty to conscience than it lost by the transfer even of his great force to the side of reaction. It is one of the misfortunes of the time that even Dean Stanley should not be able to recognize this, and should attribute to mere intellectual agreement on a subordinate point what was really due to a sympathy with moral heroism. " They (Nonconformists) are, of course," he says, " not insensible to the charms of genius, learning, and zeal which he shares with the other leaders of religious thought whom we have enumerated, but the distinction which at this time specially commends him to their notice is obviously his antipathy to Erastianism, and his separation from the Establishment." The unfairness shown in this representation to Dis- senters is a very secondary matter. Those who know their fidelity to Protestantism will not readily believe that even their hatred to Erastianism would induce them ii.] Iiifiuoice on Church Polity. 79 to lend any help, direct or indirect, to a system which would redress the evil done by Erastianism by creating another even more mischievous in its result. They refuse to bow to the jurisdiction of Caesar, but they are not prepared to substitute for it the tyranny of the priest. But as Dr. Newman believed that priestly rule to be Divine, they honour him for being faithful to his convictions, instead of endeavouring to square his con- victions either with the gratification of personal ambi- tion or the maintenance of a favourite institution. What is to be regretted is the inability to recognize this, for the natural result of it is to give the Church of which Car- dinal Newman is now a distinguished ornament all the moral prestige which accrues from the impression created by his nobility of character. Dean Stanley intended to make a point against the Dissenters. What he has actually done is to give the Church of Rome a fresh ad- vantage by the suggestion that the honour rendered to the cardinal is really an expression of sympathy with the Church to which he has yielded the homage of his soul. The mistake is all the more unfortunate, because it so entirely coincides with the feeling which must be en- gendered in so many minds by the position which Car- dinal Newman occupies. It is a disturbance of their old notions to see a prince of the Holy Roman Church treated with the respect accorded to him. They reason, and not unnaturally, that the character of Rome must be very different from all they have hitherto conceived, if even Protestant Dissenters can regard with admiration a man who has deserted the Anglican Church, in order that he may become a leader in the great work of recovering England to the faith, in opposition to which she has done such deeds of heroism, and nursed so noble 8o Religions Liberalism in its [lect. an army of martyrs. Dissenters answer that they hate the principles, but still believe that it is infinitely better that those who hold them should profess them than remain in the fellowship of a Church whose allegiance they have in their secret heart renounced. If this account of their feelings is not to be received, and the world is to be taught that it implies some approval of the new principles, then the effect is produced which is so much to be deprecated. Men begin to believe that the differences between opposing Churches were greatly magnified by the passions or prejudices of former gene- rations, that the world has grown wiser, and that to-day men will dwell in unity and peace, confessing that even between Romanism and Protestantism the antagonism cannot be regarded as vital, for even between the ex- treme men on both sides there is strong spiritual sym- pathy, and that it is of no importance in which army men enrol themselves, provided they are faithful to their convictions and professions. Nor is it on the side of the Romanist only that this conclusion will be drawn. The honour which is paid to a man who has broken with all the associations of his family, all the sacred influences of his Church, and all the best traditions of his country, because his conscience teaches him to submit to the authority of the Church, cannot and ought not to be denied to another who has made the same sacrifices, because his thinkings have led in precisely the opposite direction. In both cases con- science is supreme, though it prompts one to a servile submission to authority, and inspires the other to a daring revolt against the rule of faith. Those who main- tain the rights of conscience must honour both equally. But this does not imply that they are in sympathy ii.] Influence ou Church Polity. 81 with opinions which are in such rooted opposition to each other. All that it means is simply that they respect the integrity and high-mindedness common to both. There is no example of loyalty to conscience so conspicuous on the side of free thought as that of Cardinal Newman on the opposite side. But instances there are in which the sacrifice is quite as real, and in some senses even more painful, though to the world it may not seem so costly. Unbelievers who thus cut themselves adrift from all their old moorings have no such helps and consolations as await those who only forsake one Church in order to find in the communion of another that infallible guidance and perfect calm for which they have been sighing. The one class are launching out on a stormy sea, having cast away their compass and their chart, and refused to accept the guidance of any pilot. The others are steering their bark out of turbid and troubled waters into the quiet haven which the Church has prepared for them. The consolations which await the Romanists may seem to us very visionary ; but to them nothing could be more real or more strengthening. The sceptic, on the other hand, can, from the very nature of the case, have none of the consolations which faith supplies. It is idle to speak to him of a present Saviour or an approving Father when God and Christ have become to him but mere names, and in the spiritual firmament is neither sun, nor moon, nor stars, but one black canopy of darkness. Sad and cheerless indeed is the path of an unbeliever who has openly renounced the communion of the Church because he has ceased to believe in Christ as Prince and Saviour. He has left behind every trust on which his spirit may once have been stayed, and in the weakness 7 82 Religious Liberalism in its [i.ect. or sorrow, the conflict and the trouble, which may be before him has no rock that is higher than himself under which he can find refuge. Darkness is around him, and every step he takes only leads him into a thicker gloom and more complete desolation. The world has but scant mercy on those who have rebelled against its conven- tional ideas, and turned aside from the societies which fashion approves ; and, unfortunately, earnest Christians too often show themselves lacking in high-minded libe- rality in their treatment of the unbeliever. He has thus to face all the unpopularity which sturdy inde- pendence like his is sure to provoke. Were he a convert to Rome he could flatter himself with the thought that his Church, which even here enjoys a prestige accorded to no other community of Dissenters, holds a position in Christendom which enables it to look down with scorn on the childish pretensions of Angli- canism. But the unbeliever goes out into loneliness, perhaps to poverty, without the immortal hopes which strengthen the heart for the endurance of present suffering and loss. There is surely something heroic which those whose devotion to the gospel is most pas- sionate can still discern, and discerning can admire, in the power of principle and conscience which can nerve a man for such conflict. He denies all that they most firmly believe, he tramples on what they hold in deepest reverence ; but he asserts one principle in which they are in perfect accord, that the first of all considerations for every man is that he should be true. Can they who believe in a religion which asks no service, and accepts none, except that of those who yield it the sacrifice of their spirit and their understanding, fail to appreciate the courage of him who openly refuses this service ii.] Influence on Church Polity. 83 because he is not persuaded in his own mind, instead of rendering the homage of a Judas, and calling Him " Master " whom he betrays with a kiss ? Honour should be rendered to loyalty to conscience everywhere. But it is one thing to respect a man's conscience, another and a very different thing to suggest that his errors cannot be serious since they have not impaired his fidelity to his own sense of right. Perhaps an extreme example of this kind may do something to prevent the abuse of a sentiment which is not only to be admired but to be imitated. There are few who would go so far as to maintain that a belief in God is not a point of cardinal importance, because there are atheists who command respect by the general nobility of their spirit, and especially by their fidelity to their own convictions. But if the theory that all systems are equally good, provided they are accepted with equal honesty, cannot be carried out in all cases, there is no reason why it should be introduced in any, and we are forced back on the very simple but natural method of judging all systems on their own merits. The fruits they produce must form one important element in the adjudication of their claims, but in estimating them we must look to a wider induction of facts than is furnished by the study of a few individual cha- racters. Having fully recognized the idea that abso- lute and unadulterated truth is not to be found in any Church polity, and that a monopoly of holiness is not enjoyed by any Church, it still remains to be inquired which system most accords with the spirit of the gospel, has been most successful in developing the essential features of Christianity, and is best adapted to the great work for which all Churches exist — the estab- 84 Religious Liberalism in its [lect. lishment of the kingdom of God among men. Though the New Testament may not have marked out a pattern of Church government as elaborate and minute as the pattern of the tabernacle given to Moses, there are great principles for the government of Christian life which apply pre-eminently to the constitution and management of Christian societies. These cannot be violated without a departure from the path of duty and a consequent loss of power ; and if these departures proceed so far as to involve an invasion of personal right, and a consequent weakening of the spiritual force of the Church, they must be resisted at whatever cost of present ease and external agreement. The questions may not be of such a kind as to affect the salvation of individuals, but if they tell upon the aggressive power of the Church, and its efficiency for the work it has to do in the world, they are not to be lightly dismissed as of no importance. V. This leads to another of the errors which Liberalism continually commits. It is unable to appreciate the real importance of the struggles between rival systems. It regards only their superficial aspects, and fails to per- ceive how deep their roots strike. Questions of Church government may often involve not only theological doctrines, precious to men who, while concerned about evangelical truth, avow their indifference to points of mere ecclesiastical organization, but also rights and liberties in which those who despise creeds and Churches are deeply interested. To place mere questions of polity on a level with the vital doctrines of the gospel would be a mistake; but it ii.] Influence on Church Polity. 85 is very difficult to distinguish so completely between them as to say that our great ecclesiastical controversies turn entirely upon questions of government. Take the fundamental point of all — the proper qualification for membership in a Christian Church. Shall we, adopting the principle cujus regio ejus religio, assert that when the State adopts and establishes Christianity, every one of its citizens is, in virtue of his citizenship, a member of the Church of Christ ? Or, accepting the theory of the Catholic Church, shall we say that the Church is composed of those who have by baptism been made children of God, heirs of Christ, and inheritors of the kingdom of heaven ? Or shall we, following the instruc- tions of our Congregational forefathers (sometimes too apt to be diluted in our days), insist that there must be a spiritual qualification, and that the Church consists of those only who have been gathered out of the world and by living faith are united to Christ Himself? Our whole idea of Church government depends upon the view we take of this foundation principle, and it is only necessary to examine it to see how intimately that is connected with our theory of Christian doctrine. No one can attach importance to this cardinal idea of Puritan polity who has not accepted the idea of the Puritan theology, by which is not intended even the most moderate form of Calvinism, but the doctrine that under- lies Calvinism itself, and which is so thoroughly of its essence that opponents not unfrequently class all who accept it under the common designation of Calvinists, although among them are numbers who repudiate all sympathy with what are really the distinctive features of the Calvinistic scheme. That root-principle is most simply and comprehensively stated in the apostolic words, " By 86 Religious Liberalism in its [lect. grace ye arc saved, through faith, and that not of your- selves, it is the gift of God." That truth has a far-reaching application. It is the key not only to a theology but to a polity. How a Church constituted of men whose bond of union is their common faith in Christ and common recognition of the Spirit of God as the author and finisher of their spiritual life shall regulate their affairs is a point of secondary importance. They may reserve the direction absolutely to themselves, or vest it in an execu- tive, to which large functions shall be intrusted. The government may be by plebiscite or by representation. Separate communities may maintain their independence of all others, or unite in a confederation managed by common laws, administered by some representative body chosen by themselves. What is essential is that the spiritual conception of the Church be preserved, and this is done so long as the unit is the individual man, whose right belongs to him in consequence of his personal communion with God, and the governing body in the whole Church. The Church does not make the members, but the members constitute the Church. The officers, by whatever title they are known and whatever functions may be committed to them, are the servants of all, the ministers of all, not their priests and rulers. Under such conditions a hierarchy cannot grow up, nor would the authority of a State to declare men Christians be tolerated for an hour. Those whom Christ has made free cannot submit to human bondage, those whom God has called to the fellowship of His Son cannot permit the intrusion of human priests between them and the Father to whom they have this privilege of access. The outward forms of their society are subjects for careful consideration ; for even if they are to be determined on ii.] Influence on Church Polity. Sy grounds of expediency alone, it is still important to ascertain what methods are likely to be most subser- vient to the great end for which the society exists. But the spiritual principle touches the very life of the Church, and cannot be compromised without serious peril to doctrine as well as to polity. To put this in a more concrete form. If Episco- palianism meant nothing more than the government of a number of Churches, all of them composed of pro- fessed followers of Christ, and requiring that profession of personal faith in Him as the one condition of com- munion, under a bishop of their own choice, whether elected by representatives or popular vote, the point at issue between it and a Congregationalism which treats every Church as complete in itself, and owns no outward rule of any kind, would not be one of vital principle. There might still be reasons of sufficient validity for preferring the more simple plan of the latter. It might be contended that Episcopacy is prone to magnify its office, and to assume a power beyond that which the people have given ; that in past times it was easily transformed into prelacy, and in all probability would be so again ; that its influence is opposed to freedom and elasticity of method, and will for the most part be a powerful force on the side of a stolid Conservatism, unfriendly to growth and progress ; and, in general, that Churches left to bear the responsibilities of their own management acquire a robustness and energy which are not developed under other conditions. These reasons may be more or less weighty and conclusive, but none of them suggest that Episcopacy of this character would in any sense be inconsistent with loyalty to evangelical doctrine, or would trench upon the rights of Chris- 88 Religious Liberalism in its [lect. tendom. It is a very different matter when the Episco- pate introduces a hierarchy and a priesthood, when the priest stands at the very threshold of the Church and himself introduces to its fellowship, when bishops make priests and priests make Christians, when the Church exists by virtue of its ministry instead of the ministry existing by virtue of the Church. To treat this as a subordinate matter is simply impossible. In a system of this kind, not only are the individual privileges of Christians surrendered, but the whole idea of the gospel and of the Christian life is transformed. It is true that there are numbers who rank themselves as Episco- palians, and belong to a Church which sets forth this theory with more or less distinctness, who arc them- selves jealous for the simplicity that is in Christ. But that only brings us back to the old point, that our judgment is between systems and not individuals. We have to deal with principles, not with the interpreta- tions of them by individuals, or with the generous in- consistency between their spiritual sympathies and the system to which they stand committed. The doctrine of the Church as embodied in the Episcopalianism with which we have to deal — the Epis- copalianism of the Prayer Book, especially as its teach- ings are now pushed by numbers of the clergy — is a theory which goes much deeper than any points of detail and arrangement, and must be dealt with accord- ingly. There does not seem to be any reason why a Church which is governed by bishops should not retain simplicity and purity of doctrine. But history teaches that where an episcopate becomes powerful it aspires to become a prelacy, and that a prelacy is sure to lean for support on doctrines and practices n.] Influence on Church Polity. 89 opposed to the spirituality and purity of the gospel. Mr. Gladstone, in his remarkably candid as well as able article on the " Evangelical Movement," after showing how that great revival naturally led on to that which at first sight is most alien to it (Tractarianism), says : " Our Nonconforming friends seem, it must be admitted, in a condition, from their point of view, to admonish both in magisterial tones : ' This is what we have always •said : your semi-reformed Church, with her inconsistent laws and institutions all bound up together, is always on the downward gradient which descends to Rome. We teach Evangelical doctrine liberated from such associa- tions, and consequently, as you see, Rome gathers no booty from our homesteads ; you teach it in a Church of succession and priesthood, and from among you she makes captives at her will.' " The Nonconformist case could not have been better put. Indeed, Nonconformists would very properly have hesi- tated to put it in such strong terms themselves. But this is precisely what our Puritan and Nonconformist fathers did say in their objections to the Prayer Book, and the event has fully verified their predictions. Whether it would be possible to save an Episcopal Church from becoming prelatical is a point which it is not necessary to discuss so long as the system with which we have to deal is prelatical. There are, indeed, individual bishops who have nothing of the prelatical temper, and whose one earnest desire is to prove themselves wise and faith- ful leaders in Christian work. But the system recog- nizes the priest and the prelate, and these have as a rule been as unfriendly to liberty and progress as to pure evangelical truth. The controversy, therefore, which trathers around it is something more than a discussion 90 Religious Liberalism in its [lect. about forms of government. It is one that goes to the very root of Christianity and the rights of the human conscience. It is only a phase of the old battle between authority and conscience, Scripture and tradition. A wise and clear-sighted Lliberalism cannot ignore these facts. Even if it be associated with scepticism it should not fail to discriminate between different develop- ments of Christianity. To assume that the gospel is the antagonist of human freedom is to ignore its most cha- racteristic features and to forget some of the most striking pages in its story. To treat all its teachers as "clericals" who are intent on the subjugation of the human intellect, who have no sympathy with the noblest aspirations of humanity, to whom the researches of science are little short of profanity, and the triumphs of freedom a revolt against Divine rights, is to display only the spirit of the blind partizan, not of the philosophical thinker, and to show how far the temper of the bigot may develope itself in the most ardent champions of free thought. Even in the most "clerical " of systems all " clericals " are not Obscurantists ; and there are Christian Churches which are as much opposed to clericalism as the most passionate liberals. There can be as little of sound policy as of justice in allowing the hatred of Christianity to become so bitter that the dis- tinction is forgotten, and all its teachers are ranked in the same category and visited with the same condemna- tion. Even such errors, however, should never induce us to forget that true Liberalism is in harmony with the purest conceptions of Christianity. Congregationalists at all events receive the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ not because of the authority by which it is supported, but ii.] Influence on Church Polity. 91 because of the witness it finds in our own hearts that it is of God. They claim for their Churches no rights except those which have been conferred by the Lord Himself, and are therefore gladly recognized by men who have first yielded themselves, and regard these Churches as His own appointed instruments for the extension of His kingdom. They rest nothing on mere tradition and precedent, nor would they screen any of their prin- ciples from the most free and searching investigation. But they are not more ready to prove all things than to hold fast that which is good. Freedom of inquiry is one thing, a state of general suspense in relation to all doctrines and systems another. It may be the melancholy experience of some to find that they are doomed to this perpetual incertitude, but assuredly it is not a condition to be either admired or envied. For those who, happily for themselves, have been able to reach definite opinions, there should be an earnest desire to defend them, and yet at the same time to recognize the service which has been done to the truth of God by rival systems, and to honour the goodness of many of their champions. Liberty is not to be identified with indifference, nor charity to be made a cloak for dis- loyalty to principle. It is possible to honour the sin- cerity of those whose teachings we cannot accept, and to unite catholicity of temper with unbending firmness of conviction. LECTURE III. THE EVANGELICAL REVIVAL. LECTURE III. THE EVANGELICAL REVIVAL. IT would be more than uncandid, it would be the climax of blind partisanship, to deny the enormous power enjoyed by the Established Church in this country. Whatever the source from which its influence is derived, its magnitude is unquestionable. It is partly political, partly national, partly religious, and very largely social ; but the aggregate of the forces it can command is so great that it must certainly be regarded as the most important factor in the ecclesiastical life of the nation. Opinions vary as to the proportion of good in the power it wields, but there is hardly room for difference as to the preponderating influence it exerts. It is not to be measured by any numerical standard, for it is not confined within the circle of its active members, or even of its nominal adherents. The gradual sweeping away of the exclusive privileges belonging to it, as the Church by law established, has not reduced the power of the Church itself, for any loss thus sustained has been more than counterbalanced by the increase of its spiritual force. As a State institution it was never so weak as it is to-day, as a Church it was never stronger ; that is, its hold of political supremacy was never so doubtful, whereas it never gave more evidence of spiritual life. g6 The Evangelical Revival. [lect. The Free Churches by which it is surrounded have affected it, but it in its turn is also telling upon them, Taken altogether, its position is unique. All its develop- ments are not healthy, nor all its features worthy of imitation. But it may safely be said that there is not a national Church which retains so strong a hold upon the loyalty of the people whose religious faith it professes to represent, or whose clergy hold a position more honour- able and respected. The first care of any one who wishes to form a correct estimate of ecclesiastical England must be to understand the real nature of the power which the Established Church thus wields. He must inquire into the foundations on which it rests, the conditions on which it depends, the relations it bears to other religious forces which are at work in the nation, the extent to which it is affected by the political or intellectual movements of the time. Any view of the present situation as well as any forecast of the future must be largely affected by the conclusions which he forms as to the prospects of the Anglican Church, and these again will be governed to a considerable extent by his judgment as to the relative strength of the con- tending parties within it. Questions naturally suggest themselves to any thoughtful mind, on the answer to which the future of our systems must largely depend. Which of the different schools of thought in the English Church is most likely to assert its predominance ? Is that predominance likely to become so definite as to exclude rival parties, or so to absorb their members in the victorious school that the others shall become practically extinct ? Were sacerdotalism to become supreme, would the nation bow its neck to the yoke ? If Erastianism should, on the other hand, triumph, in.] The Evangelical Revival. 97 than endanger the existence of the Establishment ? Would the interest of Protestantism be secure in the former event ? would the maintenance of a testimony even to the cardinal truths of Christianity be preserved in the latter ? In the meantime, during the progress of these changes, what attitude would the Free Churches preserve, and how are they, and how is the religious welfare of the nation as a whole, likely to be affected by them ? These are among the points which immediately suggest themselves, and we cannot even approach a con- jectural solution of them until we have looked carefully into the state of the Anglican Church itself. A stranger visiting one of our country towns — take, for example, Louth or Boston in Lincolnshire, or Christchurch in Hants — must be struck by the position which the parish church occupies in the place. It is not only the most conspicuous building in the town, but it is the church which gives it a character and dignity. The hoar of the centuries is upon it, and the whole story of the town clusters around it. There may be Dissenting places of worship, which in these modern times are not without architectural pretensions, though they compare but poorly with the magnificent building approaching almost the dignity of a minster, which is the shrine of the established religion. These chapels, indeed, may gather to themselves more of the intellectual life, the spiritual earnestness, the aggres- sive thought and energy of the community ; in some cases even they may attract the highest social influence below the grade of the landed gentry, few of whom are so false to the traditions of their order and the prejudices of their circle as to enter the sectarian con- venticle ; still, whatever the numbers attending the 98 The Evangelical Revival. [lect. chapels, and however beneficial the influences they are exerting, there is a feeling which lingers round the parish church that cannot be rivalled by any of its competitors. It carries the mind back to that past with which Eng- lishmen ever love to identify themselves ; there is about it an element of strength and stability of which English- men always show a keen appreciation. Even those whom conscience has forced into dissent from its worship have a vague sentiment which they could hardly inter- pret themselves, which makes them feel that they are not wholly severed from it. It is the church of the parish, and they are parishioners, if nonconforming parishioners. Their ancestors worshipped within its walls ; probably they were themselves married at its altar ; in its quiet cemetery their fathers, the ' rude fore- fathers ' of the town itself, sleep, and there they expect to be laid to rest by their side. The rector or vicar has an official position which the State gives him, and which itself confers not only dignity but also imposes public duties which bring him into certain relations with all classes of the community. As with the parish church so with its clergyman. Both are regarded as essential parts of the town itself, and the remarkable position they occupy may not improperly be regarded as symbolic of the solidity of that Church to which they belong. Looking at these external appearances, it is not wonderful that the sanguine members of the Established Church should smile at the idea that it can be menaced with any great change. There is another side of the picture which dees not tell so flattering a tale or give the same encouraging assurances. Under the shadow •of the venerable buildings, and the equally venerable in.] The Evangelical Revival. 99 system with which they are connected, Nonconformity has grown to be the power it is in the land to-day. The forces which the parish church represents were far stronger two hundred years ago than they were a century later, more imposing fifty years since than they are to-day, whereas those by which they were opposed were trivial and insignificant at those earlier dates as compared with the resources of Nonconformity now. The retrospect is certainly not sufficient to justify the hopes of those who are set on the attainment of complete religious equality. It may suggest the idea that even now the power is not so great in reality as in appearance. But waiving these doubtful questions, at least for the present, the fact must be recognized that here is a potent force in our English society. The parish church, in such cases as those referred to, is peculiarly fitted to represent the strength of the national Church. The same sentiment which clings to the building is cherished also in relation to the system. It does not imply a faith in its doctrines, a respect for its rulers or teachers, an attachment to its ritual, still less a regular or even frequent attendance on its services. But as the building is the temple of the parish, so is the Church that of the nation. It is English, and there are multitudes with whom this one quality decides their choice and fixes their attachments. Verily our insular prejudices are sometimes pressed to such an extent as to become simply ridiculous. But where they are engaged it is idle to question their power. No doubt the fact that the Episcopal Church is known as the Church of Eng- land implies a great deal. It suggests (what will after- wards be more distinctly seen to be the case) that it is a reflection of English ideas, and that its constitution and ioo The Evangelical Revival. [lect. ritual arc adapted to the average English mind. It is, indeed, in every sense, of native growth. The national love of compromise, our sturdy independence, our prac- tical temper, are conspicuous in it everywhere. It is as full of anomalies, as contemptuous of logical consistency, as anxious to preserve a safe moderation, as the most patriotic Englishman could desire. English by birth and temperament, it has been made so still more distinctly by habit and tradition. The prestige which it thus enjoys is incalculable. There are numbers who consider that all English institutions are outside the pale of con- troversy. To question their authority would be dis- loyalty, to forsake them would be little short of treason. To this cause, perhaps more than any other, is to be attributed the marvellous survival of the Anglican Church, despite the attacks to which it has been exposed, and its even more wonderful power of cohe- sion amid the fierce strifes and rivalries of contending parties. There is at least as wide a divergence of view between the separate sections of the Anglican Church as between either of them and the Dissenters with whom it is in closest affinity. Yet they continue in the same Church. They dispute, perhaps go to law with each other, indulge in mutual recriminations which do not stop short of imputations of treason to the Church, and indeed to Christ himself, on each side, but they remain united still. It would be as unfair to attri- bute this to merely sordid motive as it would be a mere affectation of charity to ascribe it to a broad and comprehensive view of the constitution of the Church. There are too many who openly avow their dislike for the kind of Mezentian alliance into which they are forced to render it credible that they are under the dominion in.] T/ie Evangelical Revival. ioi of a catholic temper, and yet the indications of faith and conscientiousness are so numerous as to silence the suggestion that they are linked by fetters of gold. The uniting principle is neither so lofty as it would be on the former supposition, nor so unworthy as it would be on the latter. The Church is kept together by the reluctance strongly felt by each party to separate itself from an English institution and to place itself outside the pale of national life. Other influences doubtless have their own weight, but this national sentiment has a force for which full allowance has perhaps never been made. The intensely English character of the Church is at once its weakness and strength. It has isolated itself, with characteristic insular pride, alike from the Dissenters at home and from the Protestant Churches of the con- tinent. It has studiously repressed enthusiasm, and in all its formularies and arrangements has sought to pursue that via media so dear to the true Englishman's heart. It is not Romish, for it has protested in language suffi- ciently emphatic against the fables and blasphemies which it has detected in the Romish system. But neither is it Protestant, for it holds fast by what it esteems Catholic principles. It stands alone, and is English, cold, moderate, practical, anxious to escape the reproach of any sympathy with mysticism and yet to escape the reproach of lawlessness. One of its former admirers has said that it has not produced many saints. That, indeed, has never been its glory. Rational godliness, that is, a godliness which does not love excitement or indulge in raptures, or yield to any weakness of sentiment, and is never betrayed into any passionate devotion, but maintains its integrity and orthodoxy without reproach, is its ideal. It has reared men of a different order, undoubtedly ; but 102 The Evangelical Revival. [lect. they were not of the true Anglican type, and they would never have found a home in the Anglican Church but for the readiness with which its arrangements have lent themselves to all kinds of adaptations. Evangelicals with the fervour of a Newton, and High Churchmen with the mystical devoutness of a Pusey, have found it possible to harmonize with their own temper the teachings and formularies of the Establishment, but assuredly neither the one nor the other is the true representative of the Anglican spirit, whose ruling sentiment is a hatred of that enthusiasm which both alike cultivated. " Other faiths," says one of the most able and loyal sons of the Church, " apply themselves to the feelings, emotions, and imaginations of men ; this to their reason and conscience. Other Churches lay hold of the spiritual nature of man ; this of his moral and utilitarian." l In other words, it is distinctly Anglican. But if for spirits who feel the need of a more spiritual element, who have affections and emotions, who demand that a religion should meet the cravings of the heart, and not be thus coldly utilitarian, this is a source of weakness, it cannot be questioned, on the other side, that the ultimate association between the Church and the national history and life has told and still tells powerfully in its favour. Up to a certain point Dissenters have no right to grudge the advantage which it has thus derived. To the honour accruing from its faithful sons who have been true patriots, or learned men, or devout Christians, it is fairly entitled. The grievance of Dissenters is that their ex- clusion from the national seats of learning and from posts of public influence prevented them until a com- 1 Rev. J. S. Brewer, Introduction to Letters and Papers of Henry VIII. , vol. iv. p. dclvii. in.] The Evangelical Revival. 103 paratively recent day from taking their proper place in the noble rivalry of Christian patriotism. But it would be a wretched sectarianism indeed if any resent- ment for the injustice they have suffered were to prevent them from appreciating the rich contribution which the Anglican Church has made to the intellectual, the political, and the religious life of the nation. There are illustrious names associated with the work of Dissent, but the Episcopal Church is the Church of the nation ; and from the expulsion of the Nonconformists in 1662, almost down to the times to which the memory of living men extends, Dissenters were so feeble a folk, and thrust so completely outside the currents of national life, that outsiders might be forgiven who ignored their existence and identified the nation and the Church. Certain it is that in every department of learning the conspi- cuous men, with but few exceptions, owe allegiance to the Established Church. The prestige which has thus attached to the Church could not fail to tell enormously in its favour. Dissent is regarded as provincial, and therefore narrow and uncultured, and the elevating tone of national sentiment is supposed to be restricted within the privileged enclosures of the Established Church. This feeling of nationality has undoubtedly had its influence on the leaders of the Church itself, but the impression produced on behalf of the system is a still more decided advantage. A Church which has any claim to be regarded as national will necessarily attract a large number of adherents whatever be its intrinsic merits. The sovereign is its temporal head, its chief rulers sit in the legislature, its clergy have an official position assigned to them by the law, the great families are, with a few exceptions who cleave to the older 104 ^he Evangelical Revival. [lect. Church, among its members. All the power of fashion is thus arrayed on its side. Society scarcely deigns to recognize any other religious community, and if reminded of the existence of Dissenters, receives the mention with well-bred indifference. When a Church which thus appeals to some of the less worthy and noble sentiments has also other qualities and associations which address themselves to feelings of a higher order, it cannot but possess enormous power — and power which it would not wholly lose though the tie which connects it with the State were severed. The national idea, which is itself such an element of strength, would still linger round it, though the fact that it had ceased to be the Church of the nation should be recognized, and a system of religious equality be substituted for sectarian privilege. The Episcopal Church is chargeable with many faults. There are periods of its history over which its attached sons would gladly draw the veil of oblivion, there are acts to which it has committed itself for which they could not attempt an apology. But despite all, it has a record of which as a whole its sons feel proud, and some of whose passages touch the heart of every true English- man. Its early bishops may not always have shown themselves the spiritual heroes which they were at one time pictured. They breathed the infected atmosphere of the court and may have imbibed some of the poison. They moved amid the corruptions of a selfish and faith- less Erastianism, and they did not wholly escape the taint. They had been educated in the traditions of priest- hood and hierarchy, and their souls had been too strongly possessed by their superstition and pride for them to be able entirely to shake off the bondage. But many of them died for their religion and their Church, and their in.] The Evangelical Revival. 105 narr.es are enshrined in the hearts of true Englishmen, who remember only the fact of their martyrdom, and have little patience with the attempts to disparage their heroism. The fires of Smithfield and the heroic deeds of the Elizabethan time are among the memories which the Anglican Church has inherited and on which its children dwell with pride, as signs that it has reared heroes and martyrs. A Church which has such traditions is regarded by the people as Protestant, and its Pro- testantism commands their sympathy. No doubt there are large classes outside the ranks of the Nonconformist Churches who for various reasons, political and social quite as much as religious, regard the Establishment with jealousy and positive aversion. But it would be extreme folly to allow any prejudice to blind us to the fact that a Church which bears the English name, which has throughout our history been one of our national institutions, which, for good or for evil, has borne a pro- minent part in our national struggles, which has largely enriched our literature, and has from age to age minis- tered to the devotion of multitudes of our people, has, and will continue to have, a strong hold on the affections of a great part of the community. The feeling with which it is regarded is, to a consider- able extent, independent of the particular doctrines which it teaches. It is not attachment to the three Creeds and the Thirty-nine Articles, for numbers of those who cherish it are ignorant of the Articles and hold the more elaborate of the Creeds in abhorrence. Nor does it always imply a profound reverence for episcopal rule, for the keenest critics of the bishop are often found among those who love the outward pomp of the hierarchy and have a high appreciation of the lustre which a mitre io6 The Evangelical Revival. [lect. sheds upon the social circle. It does mean a love for the Book of Common Prayer, which may in multitudes of cases be a mere sentiment, but which is both widespread and powerful. When analyzed it will be seen that many elements contribute to it — that innumerable associations, which cannot be fully understood except by those whom they affect, cluster around it, that the reverence for an- tiquity, the deference to fashion, and the chivalrous devotion to party all unite to strengthen it, but that underlying the whole is a deep patriotic feeling. It is an English book, and Englishmen feel, not unjustly, that they have a right to be proud of it, as second only to the English Bible among the forces which this country has given to the religious work of the world. Many may question whether it deserves all the eulogies which have been passed upon it, even as a book of devotion and without reference to the special doctrinal teaching which it contains. But the sentiment which gathers round it is independent of any critical or even spiritual estimate of its merit. Critics may point to its redundances of expression as defects that mar its beauty as a great English composition. Devout and spiritual men may complain that it is pitched in too low a key and never attempts the higher strains of devotion. But such ex- ceptions are utterly futile if intended to abate the feel- ing with which it is regarded. Mr. Brewer, who is a very accurate reflection of pure Anglican sentiment, describes it " as a book of social prayer, the most won- derful achievement of any age — the greatest, next the Bible, of any human production." The peculiar quali- ties which excite his admiration and that of the class he represents furnish the clearest evidence of the point before us, that in its distinctively English character the in.] The Evangelical Revival. loj one main secret of its popularity is to be found. " It is not," says Mr. Brewer, " the genuine product of the Reformation ; " which means that while it is not Romish, it is not distinctively Protestant, but the true expression of a type of religion which, according to this author, found favour with our middle classes. His use of the term, which it may be necessary to criticize afterwards, is somewhat curious, but the idea is correct. The "middle classes" of whom he speaks correspond to the " Left Centre," and in England the Left Centre in its more moderate form prevails. It made the Anglican Reformation, and to that we owe the Prayer Book, which thus appeals to the patriotic and devotional feelings' of a class even more powerful in social influence than in numerical strength, and which remains the strongest bulwark by which the Anglican Church is defended. Extreme men on both sides attempt to modify or pro- pose to alter it only to provoke such quiet sneers as that in which Mr. Brewer indulges against the " impenetrable self-satisfaction with which lay and clerical reformers who could not compose one of the simplest of its collects propose to dismember, to reform, or to modify it." It is in vain that the people are told that the root of the Ritualist teaching they dislike is in the Prayer Book, and that it ought to be revised. It is not revised, and it may be safely predicted that were a revision carried out it would be fraught with disaster to the Church itself. That Church has long cast a spell on the imagination of the people, to whose fascination Dissenters are fully alive. The two stately piles which stand by the side ot that silent highway on which floats the trade of our great metropolis are themselves symbols of its power. From the ends of the earth men come to see the ""lories io8 The Evangelical Revival. [lect. of St. Paul's and Westminster Abbey. Children in those great empires of our own race which are growing up on the distant continents of America and Australia learn to hold these venerable buildings of the fatherland in affectionate reverence, and nurse the hope that they may one day see the hoary towers and the lofty domes linked in their memory with all the most stirring incidents in the story of their race. To Englishmen they are not so much the homes of an individual Church as the heritage of the nation. The veneration, however, which clings to them is in some measure transferred to the Church by which they are held. But why multiply illustrations or proofs ? The feeling is one with which all English- men are familiar. The position of the Episcopal Church is and must be unique, because of the national sentiment which gathers around it. Its defenders do it a gross injustice, and have evi- dently a very imperfect appreciation of its real strength, when they suggest that its strength depends mainly upon its relations to the State, and that Disestablish- ment would mean grievous disaster. It would alter the relations of different parties, it would lead to a modification of plans, it might deprive the Church of what can never be a source of real power, the support of some who care for it only as a political instrument ; but freedom would bring with it gains in increased elas- ticity and spiritual power which would far more than compensate for the loss of any material advantages, and would increase its spiritual power. Were a sectarian progress the object which Nonconformists had in view in their contention for religious equality, their sagacity would be open to reasonable doubt. The attraction which the Episcopal Church has for many in virtue of in.] The Evangelical Revival. 109 its associations, its aesthetics, or its polity, is neutralized at present by the repulsion produced by its subjection to the State. Remove these hindrances, so that these other influences may have free play, and the Church is sure to gain not a few who are at present kept in the ranks of Nonconformity by their repugnance to Erastianism. Whatever be the value of these forecasts, certain it is that the Episcopal Church is likely long to continue the most powerful Church in the kingdom, and no true Nonconformist can grudge it the distinction, so long as it is due solely to the influence of its teachings and works. But granting this, there is cause for reasonable anxiety as to the side on which the influence of that Church will be cast in the conflicts which are before us. The struggle between authority and conscience becomes keener every decade, and it is of no trivial importance to ascertain what part a community so powerful and professing to maintain its own via media will play in the controversy. There are contending forces within itself, and the question which suggests itself is as to which is likely to prevail. It may help us to an answer if we survey carefully the position of these opposing parties, so as to determine which may claim best to represent the actual mind of the Church, and which is best fitted to assert a decisive hold on the minds of the people. It will be necessary to this that we indulge to some extent in historical retrospect. The roots of present movements must be sought in the past, and our idea of their probable future determined by a review of their past story. We commence with the Evangelicals, and in order to under- stand their position and appreciate their work we must take a general view of the English Church and nation at the time when the party came into existence. no The Evangelical Revival. [lect. I. The eighteenth century was the golden age of the Establishment, an age of brass, or rather of iron, for the Church. Everything resembling vital godliness was under a ban at the very time when mobs gathered to resist any concession to Nonconformity, and the cry of the " Church in danger " was enough to overturn a ministry and set the nation in a blaze. It is the common habit, especially of those who have not learned the true lesson of the times, to assert that Churchmen and Dis- senters were sunk in common apathy and indifference. The clergy were asleep, and the Dissenters were en- couraging tnem in their slumbers. " Both parties," says the Bishop of Liverpool, " seemed at last agreed on one point, and that was to let the devil alone, and to do nothing for hearts and souls. And as for the weighty truths for which Hooper and Latimer had gone to the stake, and Baxter and scores of Puritans had gone to jail, they seemed clean forgotten and laid on the shelf." * A sweeping statement like this cannot be accepted by Nonconformists, especially in the face of the fact that even in those dark times they can point to men of eminent goodness, from Calamy down to Watts and Doddridge. It is true that the two latter, who saw the beginning of the great Evangelical revival, regarded it from the first with something worse even than suspicion. But it would be unjust to argue from this that they had any want of sympathy with its fundamental principles. In that great movement, as in all others of the kind, there were extravagances and eccentricities, not to say 1 Christian Leaders of the Last Century, p. 14. in.] The Evangelical Revival. 1 1 1 follies and superstitions. By us these slight blemishes in a noble work have been almost forgotten, and when they are remembered, they are reckoned as but the small dust of the balance in comparison with the pure gold which has stood the test of time, and whose value is more appreciated to-day than ever. But with contemporaries, even those who were most in sympathy with the spiritual aims of the revivalists, the faults bulked so largely as to conceal the real good that was being done, and to suggest doubts as to its genuineness and permanence. As time went on the real character of the work became apparent, and those who had doubted, not because they were disloyal to Evan- gelical truth or averse to Evangelical fervour, but because they were offended by some crudities in teaching and some signs of fanaticism in feeling, gratefully recognized the hand of God. Their mistake ought to serve as a warning against hasty judgments of great religious movements be- cause of the faults into which emotionalism is pretty sure always to be betrayed, but it must not be allowed to blind us as to the real cause of their error. Mr. Lecky, in his History of the Eighteenth Century, does more justice to Nonconformists when he tells us, " The Independents are said to have been attached more generally to Evangelical doctrines than any other sect, and in the Church of England itself we may find some traces of a more active religious life. They were, however, chiefly in the last years of the seventeenth century and in the first quarter of the eighteenth century." l The fact seems to be that every- where there was a lack of spiritual life. The age hated 1 History of the Eighteenth Century, vol. ii. p. 545. 112 The Evangelical Revival. [lect. enthusiasm, and the effect of its chilling cynicism was felt by the Churches. In the Church of England there was a widespread Rationalism ; among the Presbyterians, especially among the wealthier classes and in their semi- naries, a semi-Arianism was rife ; and if the Indepen- dents held more closely to the Evangelical creed, there was little earnestness shown in its diffusion, and nothing of that spiritual enthusiasm which inspired Wesley and Whitefield and soon wrought a marvellous revolution in the religious life of the country. Still it ought not to be forgotten that it is to this period we owe the hymns of Doddridge, and the still richer and more abundant contributions of Watts to our psalmody. When it is remembered what those hymns are, it can hardly be said that Independents had forsaken evangelical truth. Would that all the hymns of to-day were as full of true theology and devout spiritual sentiment as the strains — " When I survey the wondrous cross," " Come, let us join our cheerful songs," " Grace, 'tis a charming sound," "My God, I own Thy sovereign right," which were then and are still so familiar in Dissenting sanctuaries. According to Mr. Brewer, the Englishman whose views are embodied in the National Church is above all things moderate and utilitarian. " Though his Christianity is decorous, it is never enthusiastic ; though it enters into his daily life, it is never elevated. He is moral, but not devout ; religious, but not fervent ; strictly observant of his duties, but intolerant and im- patient of anything beyond them." x As he is, so is the Church which he has made. And certainly the Church of the eighteenth century exactly corre- sponds to this. Moderation was its idol as far as the 1 Letters and Papers of Henry VIII., vol. iv. p. v. in.] The Evangelical Revival. 113 religious principle was concerned. In polemics it was passionate, fefvid, intolerant, being fitly represented by Sacheverel, Atterbury, and Swift. But of zeal for the gospel, of yearning compassion for the souls of men, of earnest striving after a holier and better life, the traces are few indeed. Its divines might deprecate in- fidelity and enter into the lists with the deists and free- thinkers of the time, but their devotion to Christianity was all expended in their polemics, and never expressed itself in forceful appeals to the heart and conscience. There was no failure to inculcate the principles of morality, nor does there seem to have been in the con- duct of the clergy generally any shameless disregard of the precepts they gave from the pulpit. The Church was " moral but not devout, religious but not fervent." For three-quarters of a century the ideal of the typical Angli- can was realized. Neither Puritans nor Catholics, with their opposing enthusiasms, interfered with its develop- ment. The former were cast out by the Act of Uniformity and any influence which the latter would have exerted was withdrawn when the Nonjurors seceded from the Church, the rightful authority of whose chief ruler they could not conscientiously acknowledge. Puritans and Nonjurors were as far removed from each other in political opinion as in ecclesiastical sympathy ; neither party was able at the time to do justice to the merit of the other, and both would have been considerably surprised if it had been suggested to them that underneath all their bitter anta- gonisms there was a true unity. But we who contem- plate them from a distance can recognize a vital unity which the clouds of controversy concealed from them, and can rejoice that to an age which specially needed such teaching, both witnessed to the majesty of truth 9 U4 The Evangelical Revival. [lect. and the supremacy of conscience. Their separation from the Anglican Church, however, left the power absolutely in the hands of what may be regarded as the English Moderates. For those dreary years of the Hanoverian period Erastianism was let alone, untroubled by " spiritual idealism of any kind" — by what Mr. Brewer calls "any knight-errantry for Heaven." It was the nearest ap- proach that could be made in a country in which Chris- tian ideas had been dominant for centuries to an experiment of what could be done by a Church which quietly resolved to ignore the supernatural element of Christianity. What the result was to the nation will be apparent afterwards. As to the Church, it all but ensured its destruction. Without the revival which came successively from the opposite sides, first from the Evan- gelicals, and then from the Catholics, the Church of England would have ceased to exist as a national Establishment. It was saved from annihilation by the resurrection of the forces which it had done its utmost to extinguish. It may be doubted whether the Erastian idea is ever likely to have another opportunity such as that which it enjoyed in the beginning of the reign of Queen Anne. Active opposition had then been subdued, the High Church sentiment was supreme, and the difficulty was to prevent legislation which would have made the Tolera- tion Act a nullity. The High Churchman of that day was .a very different character from his successor of our times. The party names have remained, and perhaps even a party succession may be traced, but the original ground of distinction has long since been shifted. The differences signified by these historical appellations to-day are theo- in.] The Evangelical Revival. i 1 5 logical, ritualistic, and ecclesiastical, but in the last cen- tury they were mainly political. Swift and Atterbury were High Churchmen, but the interval is wide indeed which separates them from the late Bishop Hamilton, or Dean Hook, or from Dr. Pusey, or Canon Liddon. The political idea which was supreme with the former is of very slight importance to the latter. The High Church sentiment which was prevalent in the days of Queen Anne and her successors was that of supremacy as against Dissenters ; the contention was not for doctrines or ceremonies, but for political authority. The most famous Church hero of the times was Sacheverel, and his popularity was due to the fierceness with which he assailed all Whigs and Dissenters, and maintained the Divine right of the Crown. " Church and State " was the cry, the Church upholding the right of the Crown to a power little short of despotism, and receiving in its turn absolute supremacy. Sacheverel himself was not so much the creator as the creature of the violent storm on whose wave he rode to notoriety. " Imperious poli- tical forces," according to Dr. Burton, made him what he was. " Accident brought him within sweep of these powers, and a certain personal quality, not of any exalted kind, made him master of the situation when he found himself in it — that quality was vanity." l A melancholy time that must have been in which a clergy- man, whose ruling quality was vanity, could so avail himself of the political passion of the moment as to raise himself to eminence, and to become in fact the representative Churchman of the day. Other causes helped to produce this result, but a career like that of Sacheverel would have been impos- 1 History of the Reign of Queen Anne, vol. ii. p. 184. n6 The Evangelical Revival. [lect. sible but for the overwhelming power which the Angli- can Church, as an Establishment, enjoyed at the time. Its force in Parliament was all but omnipotent, and had it been directed to the accomplishment of the objects which a Church ought to keep nearest to its heart, ought to have produced great results. But there is only a dreary record of selfish indolence on the part of the rulers and of a consequent neglect of the spiritual in- terests of the people. For the wind which was sown then, the Church is reaping the whirlwind even to-day. Some work was undoubtedly done to which Churchmen may look back with satisfaction. The Society for Pro- moting Christian Knowledge began its active and useful career. An attempt was made to provide for the spiri- tual destitution of London, and the fund for the help of poor livings, with which the name of Queen Anne is honourably associated, was established. But this is a poor record for a Church which had the responsibility of providing for the religious teaching of the people, and which had done its utmost to prevent others from taking any part in the work. As a matter of fact, the negligence of the Church of that time prepared a work for its successors to-day which they are vainly endea- vouring to overtake. The rulers of the Church of the eighteenth century were far more intent on putting down Dissenters than on making Christians, and while they busied themselves in political intrigues to maintain their supremacy, neglected the opportunity for laying deep the foundations of that supremacy in the usefulness of the Church, and the attachment won by the abundance of its labours. Had the zeal which was shown by the promoters of Occasional Conformity and Schism Bills, which from time to time stirred up angry political strife and sec- in.] The Evangelical Revival, 117 tarian bitterness and popular fury, been displayed in the spiritual work of the Church, how different an aspect would the story of the times have worn, and how different might the subsequent fortunes of the Church itself have been. But the one thought was political power ; and while no efforts were spared to strengthen the defences of the Establishment, little or no care was given to the spiritual welfare of the Church. II. Those who are fascinated by the promises of Eras- tianism would do well to study this period, Tor in it their theory had its full development and perfect work. It is alleged, indeed, by High Church writers that the accession of the House of Hanover placed the enemies of the Church in power ; that though Anne and her ministers were friendly to Church extension, at her death there was an entire change of policy ; and that the aim of Sir. R. Walpole was to humiliate the clergy and corrupt the Churches. But this does not really affect the point before us. Walpole cared for Dissenters as little as for Churchmen, as little as he cared for any class of men except so far as they could be made useful for his ambi- tion. Yet it is hardly to be supposed that Bolingbroke, the darling statesman of the High Church party, had more real affection for the Church, or was more desirous to advance its spiritual prosperity. The one desired to use it for Tory, and the other for Whig purposes, but the latter was not more indifferent to its higher interests than the other. " Walpole's one idea of managing eccle- siastical affairs," as Mr. Overton tells us, " was to keep things quiet. He calmed down all opposition to the 1 1 8 The Evangelical Revival. [lect. Church from without, but he conferred a very question- able benefit on her by this policy." Both statesmen were alike Erastians, and the sole difference between the policy of Anne and that of her successors was that the Tories, who were favourites with the Queen, patronized that party of the clergy which was favourable to extra- vagant ideas of royal right and supremacy ; and the other, those of more constitutional tendencies. Dis- senters met with no favour from either. Both were pro- fessed friends of the Church, and both dealt with it in the true Erastian spirit, for it is impossible to suppose that either had any thought of its spiritual interests. For an outsider, indeed, it is difficult to determine whether it is more humiliating to the Church that it should once have been ruled by Walpole, or that it should have accepted the patronage and friendship of Bolingbroke. The supre- macy of the Establishment, however, was preserved not only inviolate but unmenaced under the Hanoverian kings as well as under Queen Anne. That was the time when the Church had all but a monopoly of the religious instruction of the people. The soul of the parish clergyman was seldom vexed by the intrusion of his Dissenting rival. Dissenting communi- ties there were, but they were few and feeble, and con- tent to be obscure. They had only just vindicated their right to exist, and it seemed not impossible that some turn of the wheel might deprive them of the concessions extorted with so much difficulty. They had not strength enough to make themselves troublesome ; indeed, had not so far recovered from the effects of the persecution to which they had been subjected as to think of aggression. Practically, bishops and the clergy reigned supreme, and if a National Church could have saved the nation the in.] Tlic Evangelical Revival. no, work would have been accomplished. It is as difficult to exaggerate the predominance which the Establishment enjoyed at that time as it certainly is to overstate the completeness of its failure. Mr. Overton in the remark- ably able and candid history of the Church of Eng- land of the last century, which he wrote in conjunction with Mr. Abbey, says, " Sad, indeed, is the contrast between the promise and the performance. Look at the Church of the eighteenth century in prospect, and a bright scene of uninterrupted triumph might be antici- pated. Look at it in retrospect, as it is pictured by many writers of every school of thought, and a dark scene of melancholy failure presents itseif. Not that this latter view is altogether a correct one. Many as were the shortcomings of the English Church at the period, her condition was not so bad as it has been represented." l This is not saying much in abatement of the sweeping condemnations which have been pronounced, but it is doubtful whether it is not more than can be sustained. It is hard, indeed, to see what there is to relieve the darkness of the picture which the Anglican Church pre- sents from the death of Queen Anne to the time of the Evangelical revival. No doubt it is conceivable that things might have been worse. The clergy might have scandalized their profession by evil lives. This cannot be laid to their charge. Though negligent of duty and, to a large extent, unfaithful to the gospel which they were bound to preach, lacking not only in fervour but also in faith, and eager only in the pursuit of selfish ends, they were not profligate or immoral. But in all the higher qualities of Christian ministers they were lacking. Mr. Leslie Stephen, speaking of Bishop Butler, 1 English Church in the Nineteenth Century, vol. ii. p. 2. 120 The Evangelical Revival. [lect. says, " He stands out in strange contrast with the push- ing patronage-hunters of his generation." The epithet conveys a severe condemnation, but not more severe than deserved. The higher ranks of the clergy especially were open to this charge, and the prevalence of such a spirit deprived them of any influence they might have exerted over those in humbler position. Episcopal authority perhaps never told for less, for the simple reason that the bishops were regarded as the nominees of the Court, and thus lost to a large extent the respect of the clergy. Often non-residents and pluralists them- selves, it was impossible that they could rebuke the shame- ful neglect of their duties by the parochial clergy, and in many cases it is impossible to suppose that they had any disposition to do so. Discipline was a thing unknown, and as the result a general condition of indolence and neglect prevailed. The sheep had shepherds regularly commissioned and liberally paid, but they were uncared for and untended. The Church had become simply a department of the State, and a department whose officers were, even in those days of general corruption and abuse, conspicuous examples of inattention to duty. The records of the revival convict them not only of gross negligence themselves, but of bitter opposition to those who sought to repair the effects of their lack of service. It is unnecessary to quote testimonies here as to the weakness of the pulpit, and the poverty and unimpres- siveness of the sermons which were preached ; to the contemptuous indifference with which a large propor- tion of the clergy ignored the distinctive truths of Christianity, and mocked hungry souls with the dry husks of a heartless morality ; to their neglect of the more spiritual function of their sacred office, and to the in.] TJie Evangelical Revival. 121 consequent prevalence among the people of an immo- rality and ungodliness passing on to absolute heathen- ism. In face of facts, the evidence for which meets us in all kinds of writers, it is hardly worth while inquiring whether Bishop Ryle is indulging in exaggeration when he says, "The sermons were unspeakably and undescrib- ably bad, and it is comforting to reflect that they were generally preached to empty benches." Looked at from a religious or even a moral point of view, there is not a sadder period of the English story than that of which we are speaking. Public spirit seemed to be almost extinct, and political virtue had come to be little more than a name. Not only were the constitu- encies corrupt, but the House of Commons itself was not pure ; indeed, if we are to trust some reports, its venality might almost match that of Sandwich and Canterbury in our own time. And the tendency was from bad to worse, until the lowest point had been reached in the reign of George II., and the early days of his successor. All the light that we get upon the internal history of the period only deepens the impression of the utter rottenness and corruption of society everywhere. One of the latest contributions to our knowledge of the times has been furnished by Mr. Trevelyan in his Memoirs of the Early Life of Fox. Two or three sentences must suffice to give the author's conception of the morals of the society on which the young man was launched. " The ministers who guided the State, whom the king delighted to honour, who had the charge of public decency and order, who named the fathers of the Church, whose duty it was (to use the words of their monarch) ' to prevent any alteration in so essential a part of the constitution as everything that relates to religion,' were conspicuous 122 The Evangelical Revival. [lect. for impudent vice, for daily dissipation, for pranks which would have been regarded as childish and unbecom- ing by the cornets of a crack cavalry regiment in the worst days of military license." : The Duke of Grafton, long a leading minister, and a special favourite with a sovereign who is continually held up as the type of royal piety, and about whose goodness such tender and touching stories are told, was not only flagrantly im- moral, but gloried in his shame, and had the insolence to flaunt his vice in the face of royalty itself. " But George III. was willing that the Duke of Grafton should bring whom he pleased under the same roof as the queen, so long as he kept such people as Rockingham, and Burke, and Richmond out of the Cabinet." 2 Here, no doubt, it was the influence of the court which told so disastrously ; but the head of that court was the monarch whom the Church of England had specially delighted to honour. With him the virtue of virtues was loyalty. Subservience to his will covered a multitude of sins, and, as might be expected, there were sins enough to cover even among the most exalted personages in the kingdom. Emphatically was it true that the wicked walked on every side and the vilest men were exalted. A country committed to the rule of Grafton, Weymouth, and Sandwich was indeed in evil condition. " Personal morality became a party question ; the standard of virtue was lowered to meet the convenience of the court ; and whosoever was desirous of evincing his attachment to the king was in a hurry to assure man- kind that he condoned the vices of the minister." A Church which had allowed such a state of things to grow up, and which was silent and powerless in the 1 Early History of C. J. Fox, p. 74. : Ibid. ii.] The Evangelical Revival. 123 presence of such monstrous evils, is condemned on evidence that cannot be gainsaid. As the court was, so was society. In those days Mr. Trevelyan describes it as "one vast casino." The influence of society, of course, permeated and corrupted the country by the leaven of its wickedness. A baptized paganism, and paganism not of a high order, approaching more nearly the type of Elagabalus than that of Marcus Aurelius, was the religion of a large part of England at the time. Had the report of these things come only from one class of writers, it might have been hoped that it was highly coloured by party bias or by religious zeal. But the witnesses are of all varieties of opinion, and many of them without bias of any kind. Among them are prelates like Butler, and retailers of scandal like Lord Hervey and Horace Walpole, novelists such as Fielding and Smollett, whose pages reflect the state of morals at the time, and historians differing in political sympathies, who honestly report what they have found in the contemporary accounts. Whatever kind of book we open the testimony is the same. Some bewail the degeneracy of the times, while others narrate the stories connected with them only as significant facts, which as faithful narrators they are bound to chronicle. But as to the facts, divines and historians, gossiping scandal- mongers and politicians, philosophers and biographers are agreed. Amid satirists there is endless diversity as to the cause of the disease, there is general agreement that England was largely suffering from a moral pesti- lence under whose destructive influence faith, purity, and integrity were withering away. Such was the product of an attempt which is being repeated to-day — to have a Christianity without a Christ, 124 The Evangelical Revival. [lect. to treat the more spiritual elements of religion as a mystical fancy by which sensible men could not longer be deceived, to ignore the supernatural, and to reduce religion to that cold and formal morality the ideal of which is presented to us in the " Whole Duty of Man," one of the characteristic books of the century. Such was the outcome of a State Church conformed to the Erastian model and deprived of the spiritual influence exerted by evangelical truth. The late Sir James Stephen makes an incidental observation in which may be found the key of a good deal of Anglican Church history. Speaking of the leaders of the Evangelical revival, he says, " They all reached and adhered to their system of divinity which has so long arrested the cor- ruption and prevented the fall of our Elizabethan Church economy." l Had this been written at a later period, after the Tractarian movement had developed its full power, it is possible that the philosophic observer might have qualified his observation so far as to recognize that wherever there is spiritual life there is the salt which might save a Church from corruption and decay. Whether in the ultimate issue sacerdotalism can give it vitality, and whether the existence of an Establishment in which it is the supreme idea is possible in England, is a point for future discussion. Sir James Stephen's opinion is quoted here only to show that the Elizabethan Church economy could only be saved from overthrow by a power which borrows its influence from outside itself. The history of the eighteenth century is a proof that the one desire of the times was to stamp out enthusiasm. No clement is more alien to the spirit of a State Church, none more dangerous to its safety, and the one thought 1 Essay on the Evangelical Succession, p. 40 1 . ii.] The Evangelical Revival. 125 of Erastian rulers in that day, as indeed at all times, was to be rid of it. " Pas trop de zele " was the motto of statesmen and prelates alike. They had their own way, but the nation had to gather the fruit of their devices. For nearly a century the policy of stamping out enthusiasm was pursued, and the end was a state of unfaith, ungodliness, and unrighteousness such as has no parallel in our history. The religion of conduct was the chief theme of the pulpit, and the people who heard cast off restraints upon conduct altogether. The State Church pure and simple, and without the infusion of the nobler elements and mightier forces which enthusi- asm alone can supply, and without the co-operation (to any considerable extent) of the Churches which derive their power solely from faith and love, was weighed in the balances and it was found wanting. The experiment has been made, and the story of the eighteenth century is the record of its failure. It teaches us in characters so plain that a babe might decipher them, that a religion may have the protection of the State, the defence of established creeds, and such power as moral teaching can command, but that without a living faith in Christ and a simple proclamation of His gospel it will speedily become as a tree twice dead, plucked up by the roots. III. No description could be more appropriate than that which designates the movement which delivered England from this condition as the Evangelical Revival. It was like new life from the dead to the Dissenting communi- ties, to whom it came as a fresh inspiration, and it was new life to the multitudes who thrilled under the power 126 The Evangelical Revival. [lect. of the evangelists, who proclaimed the old truth with which they were so unfamiliar that it had to them the surprise of novelty and the force of a fresh revelation. By and by also it became a new life to the Established Church, which for long did its utmost to repress the enthusiasm and zeal which were destined to work in it a religion that has given it a new tenure of existence. It is certainly not too much to say that if the Establish- ment had had to meet the storm of excitement and discussion, and of reforming energy, tending strongly towards revolutionary violence, which marked the resur- rection of Liberalism after the long Tory regime which ended in 1830, without the fresh power which had come to it from the work of the Evangelical party, it could not have weathered the perils of the time. When Earl Grey in a memorable speech warned the bishops to put their house in order, most fortunately for them some progress had already been made in that direction, or the danger would not have been so easily escaped. The Evangelicals had done nothing towards conciliating Liberal sympathy, for in their political action they were then as ever generally found on the side of Conservatism ; but they had redeemed the Church from the opprobrium which must always attach to any institution that has outlived its usefulness, and they had lent themselves to some of those great social and moral reforms on which the heart of true Liberals were set. As it was, the vessel was so heavily laden with the memories and abuses of an evil past, that it trembled under the force of the winds which it had to face, and it was saved because already it had been lightened of some of its burden, and so far repaired as to make it more capable of service. in.] The Evangelical Revival. 127 The movement was distinctively Evangelical ; that is, the work of the gospel itself. By the " foolishness of preaching" the heart of England was stirred to its very depths, and stirred as it had not been since the days of the Reformation. Indeed it is extremely doubtful whether, at the period of the Reformation, the English people were as deeply and widely moved as they were by the preaching of Wesley and of Whitefield. It was the misfortune of England that she had no Reformer who could be placed in the same rank as Luther or Calvin or Knox. The preaching of Latimer and others produced a strong impression, but it is questionable whether its effect was equal to that resulting from the work of the eighteenth century evangelists. The power which these men wielded was all the more remarkable because none of the men, and especially none of those who were directly connected with the Established Church, and who may be regarded as the founders of the Evangelical party, were distinguished either for their position or their learning. John Wesley was not only a great preacher, but he had a genius for direction and organization which marked him out as a leader of men. Whitefield must have been a consummate orator, but he was neither a profound thinker nor an accom- plished theologian. Yet these two men shook England to its centre, and were the pioneers of a movement which has been nothing short of a revolution. The Evan- gelical leaders who remained within the Anglican Church itself were men of even lower intellectual calibre. If John Newton influenced great masses of men, it certainly was not due to the force of his intellect, to anything original in his presentation of the gospel, or to any wonderful gift of eloquence which he possessed, 128 The Evangelical Revival. [lect. but solely to the intense and unmistakable earnestness with which he commended to the hearts and consciences of others the truth which had taken such complete possession of his own soul. If the commentaries of Thomas Scott have enjoyed such extraordinary popu- larity, and have proved of such inestimable value to multitudes of souls, assuredly it is not because of the learning which the devout author brought to the elucida- tion of Scripture, but to the evangelical simplicity of the teaching and the humble devoutness of spirit which they breathe throughout. Perhaps it has been the misfortune of the party that they achieved their success with such instruments ; for it seems sometimes to have led them to depreciate human learning unwisely and unjustly. But the fact is not to be denied that deliverance was wrought out for the Church and the nation by men whose power was derived from the inspiring power of the truth which they preached. Passing over Wesley, whose career will have to be considered in another connection, it must be said that there was little in any of these men to mark them out as leaders in a great revival. The tapster at a Gloucester inn and a slave-trader on the African coast seemed of all men among the least likely to play a prominent part in such a movement. Whitcfield was undoubtedly endowed with rare rhetorical powers. What he was as a preacher we must judge from the recorded results of his sermons rather than from the sermons themselves. Sermons which move vast multitudes are seldom those which delight us most in the quiet contemplation of the study. But in Whitefield's case especially the discourses were too long, and the preaching too frequent, to allow of care being expended in.] The Evangelical Revival. 129 on their composition. Art there was, but it was simply that divine art — the fruit of spiritual feeling rather than of intellectual study, an intuition of sympathy more than a product of science — which enables a preacher who has forgotten self, reputation, and human criticism, every- thing but the one purpose of glorifying Christ by the salvation of souls, " to become all things to all men, that by all means he may save some," and thus makes him a power. It is this which explains the all but miraculous results of Whitefield's ministry. It has been said that he was a great histrionic genius — as unquestionably he was — but this is not sufficient to explain what he was and what he did. Day after day and week after week he preached, and sometimes two or three hours at a time, and two or three times a day. The power of bearing the physical fatigue itself was marvellous, and the capacity for enduring the mental and nervous strain still more extraordinary ; but the hold which he was able to gain on the attention of vast audiences was the most remarkable of all. Not only did his hearers not grow weary, but they were affected as hearers are seldom moved except under the overmastering excitement of some great political or personal controversy. Whitefield made all who listened to him feel that the truths which he preached were just as real, as full of life and personal interest, as exciting to all his thoughts and affections, as those earthly objects of the hour are to those who struggle for them. Garrick had no need to address to him his celebrated lesson. He brought to his work skill hardly inferior to that of the great actor himself, not, indeed, with the idea of presenting fictions with such an air of realism as to make them appear truths, but to make the truths themselves stand out with such clear- 10 130 The Evangelical Revival. [lect. ness and vividness and force that men should feel them to be not mere dead fossils from an old-world creed, but living truths which to the heart of the preacher were the most precious realities in all the world. To Whitefield may be traced the revival so far as the Church of England is concerned. It is true that he himself practically became a Dissenter, and that to his labours the formation of the Countess of Huntingdon's Connection may mainly be attributed, and it is true also that there was in him much less of the Churchman, less reverence for tradition and precedents, as well as less disposition to put trust in sacraments, than in his great coadjutor, Wesley. When the latter founded the great society which bears his name, he necessarily drew off from the Established Church his immediate disciples. But Whitefield always maintained an intimate friendship with the best of the clergy, and they acknowledged their indebtedness to him. Newton was his convert, and Venn was not only his friend, but had such profound respect for him that he did not hesitate to offend the prejudices of his order by preaching in the Tabernacle the funeral sermon of one who had virtually become a Dissenter, who was, in fact, the most powerful Dissenter of his day, The place of Whitefield in the Evangelical succession is thus fixed by the late Sir James Stephen, than whom no man was more fitted to form a dispassionate view : — " It has been shown that Newton was the disciple of White- field, and that Scott was the disciple of Newton, and that Milner was his imitator. And it would be easy to show that Venn lived in a long and friendly inter- course with the great Itinerant, and officiated with him in places of public worship which rejected episcopal control." iii.] The Evangelical Revival. 131 To the devotees of ecclesiastical system, who carry the narrow and short-sighted spirit of sectarianism into a Church which claims to be catholic and national, it must be humiliating to feel that the salvation of the Anglican Church was due in the first instance to the influence of men who were forced out of her communion. In the eyes of a large party of the Church, Evangelicalism has always had upon it the taint of a Dissenting origin. But such a view of it is in reality unwarranted. Dissent did not produce the Evangelical movement ; but the Evan- gelical movement, for reasons which will be considered hereafter, greatly multiplied the force of Dissent. White- field occupies the extraordinary and paradoxical position of having contributed more largely than any single man (with the exception of Wesley) to the quickening of two forces which have so often been, and still remain, antago- nists, but between which there must nevertheless be a deep latent sympathy. Without saying that he was in any sense the parent of modern Dissent, no one can doubt that he was one of the most potent influences in the resurrection of its spi- ritual energy, while as to the Anglican Church, we have the testimony of a witness as philosophical in temper as he was free from strong party bias on either side to the fact that " the first generation of the clergy desig- nated as Evangelical were the second founders of the Church of England," and that Whitefield was the real founder of the school to which they belonged, the spiritual teacher and guide by whom its leading members were chiefly affected. The whole story is one of the most striking illustra- tions of that truth which men are so unwilling to receive, but of which every great movement in the Church fur- 13- The Evangelical Revival. [lect. nishes new confirmation, that God ever chooses the weak things of the world. As the Reformation found its great leader, not in a distinguished scholar like Erasmus, or in a great prelate such as Wolsey, or others who dabbled with Church reforms, whilst they had neither will nor power to lay the axe to the root of the tree, but in the cloisters of a German monastery and in the person of an obscure monk ; so here, the Anglican Church, which was rapidly decaying under the influence of Erastian dignita- ries, was saved by the intense faith, the impassioned zeal, and the devoted labours of a few humble clergymen whose names are redeemed from obscurity entirely by the service they rendered to this great movement. They brought to it nothing but great spiritual qualities, and these were made mighty of God. Popular movements, in truth, seldom spring from the noble or privileged classes. Even the great Popish reaction which followed the first successes of the Reformation and produced that Jesuistry which has proved the most powerful agent ever invented for crushing the liberty of the heart and corrupting the simplicity of conscience, was not due to any of the princes of the Church, but to the penitent knight who brought to the service of the cause which he had adopted the fiery passion of a devotee. This further point of analogy, too, may be traced between the great Jesuit and some of the leading Re- vivalists of the eighteenth century — they were alike animated by an overwhelming sense of the wonders which had been wrought in and for themselves. White- field and Newton in particular had their sense of the preciousness of the gospel enhanced by the feeling. which never forsook them, that by it they had them- selves been rescued from eternal death. The same in.] The Evangelical Revival. 133 intense feeling of gratitude for their own deliverance, of compassion for those who were still exposed to the .same perils, inspired the Jesuits and the Evangelicals. They worked by different means, and to some extent sought different ends, but equally they teach how much is possible to an intensity begotten by a realizing sense of the awfulness of eternal death and the greatness of the salvation wrought by Christ. IV. It was fortunate for the Anglican Church that the apostles of this new movement were men who thus sprang from the humbler ranks of the clergy. An Evangelical party headed by some dignitary, and in- cluding in its ranks any considerable number of sup- porters, would have had but little chance of existence- Imagine a school of thinkers, like those who in later days gathered at Oxford and laid the foundation of the Tractarian movement, combining in the middle of the last century for the purpose of an Evangelical Revival ; what possible hope could they have had of success ? The methods which the Tractarian s adopted would have been of comparatively little use to them. They might have published tracts, but they would have excited little attention, except from those who would have seen in them symptoms of Puritan reaction, and at once have set themselves to crush it in the germ. The great aim of Sheldon and his coadjutors in 1662 was to purge the Church of England of clergymen with the theology of Thomas Scott and the passionate earnestness of John Newton. These men, all unconscious of any disloyalty to obligations which they had contracted, or of dis- 134 Th* Evangelical Revival. [lect. obedience to the law to which they were bound to render submission, had really set themselves to undo the work which the Act of Uniformity had accomplished. They were the successors of the Nonconformists of whose piety and zeal that fatal Bartholomew's day had deprived the Establishment. If this had been clear to themselves, they might have hesitated, and if it had been detected by the then rulers of the Church, the action of these new Puritans would at once have been arrested by the strong- hand of the law. Ever since the Evangelical party has become a power, we have been told that the Established Church was intended to include it as well as its High Church rivals. It is strange if an Act which expelled Baxter was designed to include John Newton. Sheldon himself, who declared that if the door was not strait enough he would make it straiter, would certainly have been surprised if such a view of the Church had been suggested to him. Sheldon's successors might not have been more tolerant than himself if they had had to deal with a part)' seeking to restore the old Puritanism within the Church. There was no such purpose. Happily for themselves the Evangelical leaders of the Church did not trouble themselves about such points. They loved their Church, and they loved the simple truths of the gospel, and they did not stop to consider whether there was any opposition between the formularies of the one and the doctrines of the other. Their hearts were full of Christ and His salvation, and out of the fulness of their hearts their mouths spake. Of party organization they had no thought; and had the possibility of their labours resulting in the creation of a new party occurred to them, they might have shrunk from such an issue. But the part}' in.] The Evangelical Revival. 135 grew, nevertheless, and it was able to assert itself and obtain a solid footing before its full possibilities were discovered. There was nothing that could be called an Evangelical party for at least a century after the Act of Uniformity. For a time the few men of Puritan sympathy who had accepted the conditions of the Act preserved the tradition of the days when Puritanism was yet struggling for ascendancy within the National Church. But they died out ; and if they had any suc- cessors, they were so few and obscure as not to attract notice. Not till Wesley and Whitefield arose, to be followed by Newton, Venn, Scott, and Milner, and still later by Simeon and others, was there an Evangelical school. They were able to keep their place because so much popular sympathy had been aroused on their behalf, that it would have been simply impossible to dispossess men who had done so much to lift England out of the slough of wickedness into which the formalism of a former generation had plunged her. The mighty success of the preaching placed their position beyond the possibility of assault. Up to the time of the Gorham suit the right of the Evangelicals was never challenged, and then it was too late to interfere with it. What might have been the result if, at an earlier period, some prelate had antici- pated the action of Henry of Exeter, it is impossible to conjecture. The decision in the case of Mr. Gorham was eminently satisfactory to those who would save the Establishment by comprehending in it all who arc- willing to accept comprehension, but hardly to any who feel the importance of the questions at stake. It was a decision which decided nothing, except that it was not expedient to expel a party so powerful as the Evan- 136 The Evangelical Revival. [lect. gelicals had become. But it introduced a new principle into the interpretation of the formularies of the Church, a" principle in virtue of which any form of opinion may be tolerated as long as it is supported by a party so formidable as to make their disaffection or secession a peril to the Establishment. It is safe to say that no such principle would have been introduced for the sal- vation of the Evangelicals, had the attack been made in earlier days, and when they were yet few and feeble. They had grown up from very small beginnings. Their first leaders had neither the power nor the desire to play a prominent part in ecclesiastical affairs. They were despised for their fanaticism ; but there was nothing in their action to alarm those who did not share their fervour. Those were not the times of synods and conferences, of rival associations and active agita- tions, of great demonstrations and important lawsuits. The conflict of Church parties was of much later date. If it had begun then it is very doubtful whether men like Venn or Newton, Romaine or Simeon, would have cared to engage in it. Perhaps Simeon realized more fully the necessity of united and organized action, but it was only with the view of securing a number of evangelists and preachers in important centres of popu- lation. Happily for their country and for themselves, the thoughts of these earlier Evangelical leaders were not distracted from the one work to which they had consecrated themselves by discussions of Church Con- gresses, the wranglings of ecclesiastical courts, or the enticements of ecclesiastical ambition. in.] The Evangelical Revival. 137 V. Their strength was due greatly to this unity of aim and of method. They lived to save souls, and to save souls by preaching. Great preachers, in the scholar's sense of the term, they were not, with the solitary excep- tion of Whitefield, if indeed he is to be regarded as an exception. It would be absurd to deny him the title in face of the fact that, though moving in a very limited circle of ideas, and dealing with what might be supposed to be familiar themes, he contrived, by the force of his own genius and earnestness, to clothe them with such freshness and force, that his sermons moved not only uncultured minds, that easily lent themselves to the play of enthusiasm in the speaker, but cold sceptics like Hume, clear-headed and unimpressible politicians like Franklin, frivolous votaries of fashion like Chester- field. Still, there is little in the sermons as we read them now that helps us to understand their effects ; nothing that would entitle the preacher to be placed in the same category as Barrow or Jeremy Taylor, Owen or Howe, or such preachers of our own gene- ration as Archer Butler or Frederick Robertson. But if a work is to be judged by its results, he was a far greater preacher than any of them. He moved men as English preacher never has moved them, and it would be mere pedantic affectation to question his right to take a foremost place among greater preachers, because his permanent contributions to theological literature have been small, and because his success was won not so much by the matter of his sermons as by that personal intensity which was breathed into them all. 138 The Evangelical Revival. [lect. But there is not another of the saintly group who can claim the title. Newton was plain, practical, and force- ful ; Berridge, quaint, eccentric, and striking ; Venn, lively, impressive, and moving ; Romaine, learned, de- vout, and spiritual ; Grimshaw had an extraordinary facility for speaking to the people in their native Doric without ever falling below the greatness of his subject ; Simeon had a marvellous power of method and arrange- ment which gave him a singular felicity in the exposi- tion of doctrine. But it is not probable that the sermons of any of them, judged by any other test save that of practical efficiency, would secure any special mark of dis- tinction. What the Bishop of Liverpool says of Venn's sermons would apply more or less to all of them : " There is nothing striking, brilliant, or powerful about them. There is nothing that appears likely to lay hold of men's minds, to arrest or to keep their attention. In short, you find it hard to believe that the man who preached these sermons could ever have been a great preacher." The truth is, their greatness lay solely in their power to stir men's souls, and in this they were supreme. They owed it very largely to the fact that they had themselves deep experience of the power and joy of that salvation which they preached to others. Not from the calm and quiet paths of spiritual indifference had they been drawn by gentle influences to a lowly and loving trust in Christ, which had grown up so gradually that they could hardly trace its genesis. The conflict varied in character ; some of them, like Scott the commentator, having to contend against intellectual difficulties ; while Whiteficld and John Newton had had such bitter experi- ence of the seducing and debasing power of sin that they ever regarded themselves as brands snatched from the in.] The Evangelical Revival. 139 everlasting burnings. Whitefield was still but a youth when, to use the language of Paul, he was laid hold of by Jesus Christ. But the previous struggle, if brief, had been intensely keen. The hot passions of youth, fed by evil associations, fought against the nobler instincts of his heart. Efforts after a better life were fitful and often followed by violent reactions. Times of self-indul- gence and remorseful repentance alternated, and a victory over some besetting sin was followed by a lapse into evil. The experiences of many a soul struggling into liberty and light were, in his case, repeated with a vividness and intensity proportioned to the strength of his nature, until at length the frivolous youth, whose goodness had been as the early cloud and the morning dew, was converted into the living disciple and the mighty preacher of that gospel of whose saving power he was himself so distinguished an example. John Newton's was a still more striking case. A swearing sailor and a profligate slave-trader turned into a devoted minister of Christ was little short of a miracle ; was, if looked at fairly, as great a wonder in the spiritual world as the raising of the dead in the physical. Men with such experiences as these preached with irresistible force. They could not but be fervid in feeling and impassioned in utterance. They had realized the full meaning of the terrors of the Lord, for they had looked into the hell which seemed ready to receive them, and whose fires had, indeed, been kindled in their hearts. They could not speak in calm, measured accents of a Saviour who delivered them from such agonies. Their souls were at the white heat of faith and love. So they spoke, and so men believed. 140 Tlie Evangelical Revival. [lect. VI. What was to them a mighty power has been a source of weakness to the party which claims them as its founders, They cannot with truth be said to have had a theology. They had neither opportunity nor disposition, even if they had possessed the necessary learning, for establish- ing a " school of thought." Such schools are not founded amid the passionate excitement of a revival such as that which then swept across England, nor by men who wield the electric force by which these awakenings of a nation are produced. It is too common to ignore the " diver- sities of operations " by which the same Lord " worketh all and in all," and to suppose that the preacher who is mighty in the pulpit should also be the theologian acute and learned in the study. Such combinations are not frequent. They were certainly not found in the men of the revival. It had no one who in any true sense of the term can be called either a great divine or an ecclesias- tical statesman. It is, of course, only of those who remained in the Anglican Church that this is true. Wesley was one of the most remarkable statesmen ever found in the Christian ministry. He has sometimes been compared to Hildebrand, but he had more of the genius of Richelieu, of course with the difference produced by the sanctifying power of God's grace. Wesley also had a theology, which is more than can be said of the fathers of the Evangelical party. The literature which they produced was not extensive, and such as it was it was mainly practical. This is not said with any view of depreciating their work. A party whose leaders produced books which have had such an in.] The Evangelical Revival. 141 influence as Scott's Force of Truth, John Newton's Auto- biography, and Wilbcrforce's Practical View of Godliness, need not be discomfited by the thought that they have added so little to the enormous pile of literature, by which theology has perplexed the world with subtle controversies, and not unfrequently darkened the counsel of God by words without knowledge. But the fact is there, and it has exercised no little influence on the position of the party. Thomas Scott's commentary may be cited in opposition, but its testimony would be wholly in favour of the view. It is a book which has been productive of more good than many a theological treatise, but it is itself valuable rather as a guide to a devout and spiritual life than as an exposition of theo- logy. Sir James Stephen has said that it would not be " easy to form for an}- student of the Bible a better wish than that he might drink so deeply of Mr. Scott's spirit as to lose the power of perceiving his defects and the disposition to censure them." The characterization of what he calls " this vast Biblical thesaurus, the greatest theological performance of our age and country," is perfect, but it teaches us to find its merits not in its scientific character, but in its spiritual force and beauty. " Thomas Scott, the comparatively unlearned, the posi- tively unskilful, and the superlatively unamusing com- mentator, has descended further into the meaning of the sacred oracles, and has been baptized more copiously into their spirit than the most animated and ingenious and accomplished of his competitors." 1 Higher praise no earnest Christian could desire to have, and it is as discriminating and just as it is high. But it does not at 1 " The Evangelical Succession."' Essays on Ecclesiastical Biography. By Sir James Stephen, p. 429. 1868. 14- The Evangelical Revival. [lect. all touch the point that his commentary, admirable as an instrument of spiritual culture, does not supply the foundation for the new school which was rising up in the Anglican Church. Sir James Stephen has in a sentence defined the characteristic of the early Evangelicals. Referring to Milner's attempt to discriminate between the orthodox and the Evangelicals, " two appellations so equivocal in themselves, so tossed about by party spirit, and so con- tinually shifting in their use," he adds, " The knot would perhaps have been best cut by defining an orthodox clergyman as one who held, in dull and barren formality, the very same doctrines which the Evangelical clergy- men held in cordial and prolific vitality, or by saying that they differed from each other as solemn triflers from the profoundly serious." In other words, the difference was one of soul rather than of intellect. They subscribed the same creeds, and the spiritual barrenness of the eighteenth century proves, in addition to the points already indicated, how useless are the defences con- structed by formal creeds when the men who fight behind them are not at heart loyal to the truth. The difference consisted " in the degree in which they were combined with that caloric — the vital heat of the soul itself — which quickens into animating motives the other- wise inert and torpid mass of doctrinal opinions." The reason why so much prominence has been given to this point will be apparent afterwards. Let it suffice for the present to observe that when there comes to be a real distinction of parties, and of parties seeking Church position, and exercising a permanent influence on the public mind, there must be a greater difference than this. Possessed with apostolic zeal, these Evangelicals went ni.] The Evangelical Revival. 143 directly to the object in view, and did not stop to con- sider their position as churchmen. They found, as they believed, the doctrines so precious to them in the Articles, and for the time the world was stormed by their enthusiasm. But when the fervour of early feel- ings had abated, when others with more mixed motives entered into their labours, when ecclesiastical con- siderations of a more worldly character began to affect them, there arose a necessity for a clearer definition of their position, and the deficiency became apparent. An access of devout feeling can make a revival, but it •cannot lay the foundation of a great ecclesiastical party. But this was a point that did not arrest attention in the first days of the great movement. Then it was only the practical good which the revival accomplished and the spiritual enthusiasm by which it was inspired that stood out conspicuously. Those who recognized its effect on the character of the nation and on the good of humanity rejoiced in these results, without any thought of its ultimate bearing on the fortunes of the Church Establishment. VII. Sydney Smith scornfully branded men whose spirit he could not understand, and whose work he did not appre- ciate, with a name which he meant to be expressive of contempt. But the sneer of the cynic has died away, whereas the work of the noble company he despised sur- vives and grows. Like such titles as " Les gueux," or Methodists, or even the highest name of all, Christians, originally flung out as insults at the party on whom they were branded, it has become, in virtue of the deeds 144 The Evangelical Revival. [lect. associated with it, a title of honour rather than a badge of reproach. A company in which were included the men who helped to found the Bible Society, to enlarge and support the operations of the Church Missionary Society, and to emancipate the slave ; which was com- posed of men like Zachary Macaulay, John Thornton, Lord Teignmouth, the Grants, and William Wilberforce, which had for its bond the one principle of love to God, and for its object the work of Christian philanthropy, may be called a sect, and may long have been every- where spoken against, but it exerted an influence as widespread as it was useful, elevating, and noble, and has left behind it a memory which ought to silence all its detractors. These laymen did hardly less for the promotion of the Evangelical party than did their clerical leaders. They gave an exhibition of its principles and action which impressed the people. They contributed munificently to its funds, and thus helped the extension of its influence ; in some cases educating men for its ministry, and largely- helping to support evangelistic agencies both at home and abroad. The contrast between them and the clerically minded laymen, who under recent influences have become prominent as leaders amongst the laity, is very striking. The latter are so intent upon the outward framework of the Church that they too often lose sight of its spiritual mission and of the practical methods by which this is to be fulfilled. The attention which is now given to elaborate architecture, chancel decorations, or em- broidered altar-cloths, was given by these noble-minded men to the working out of the practical principles of the gospel in the redress of wrong, the comforting of sorrow, or the reclaiming of ignorance and vice. While the one in.] The Evangelical Revival. 145 are intent upon the exaltation of the Church, the other sought only the glory of Christ in the conflict against human evil and the increase of human happiness. What- ever judgment may be formed of the theology or the Churchmanship of such men, their eminent services to the cause of Christian truth and philanthropy could not fail to be a tower of strength to any party and to any Church. They, as well as their clerical friends, recognized that the true policy of Evangelicals lay in co-operation with men who, though they were not of their Church, had a vital spiritual agreement with them which they did not find in many of their own brethren. They were not ashamed of the association of Dissenters, because, like the apostle, they were not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. The foundation of the Bible Society was one of their great works, and there certainly is none that redounds more to their honour. Noble as it is, in the object which it contemplates, and in the influence which it exerts wherever it goes, it was hardly less noble as a true exhibition of Christian unity. To bring the Word of God within the reach of every peasant and workman in England was a service which might have satisfied the ambition of the most large-hearted Christian. But the men who laid the foundations of the society have done far more than this. That society has translated the Divine record into the languages and dialects not only of great nations, but even of sparse and scattered tribes. It has taken the Word of God into the palace of the prince and the wigwam of the savage ; to the nomads of the prairies and the masses of the crowded cities ; to the reckless gold-workers in Australian diggings, and the superstitious devotees of old idolatries in China and in India. Wherever there is special work to be done in the 11 146 The Evangelical Revival. [lect. comforting of the bereaved, or the instruction of the ignorant, or among promiscuous bodies of men collected together for the great enterprises either of peace or of war, there is the agent of the Bible Society to be found. On the battle-field or among the navvies' huts ; in the camp or in the hospital ; in fact, on every continent and in almost every land are to be found the fruits of that noble work, the beginnings of which were laid by that Clapham sect which represents the laity of the Evangelical Revival. The cause of justice and liberty owes that little company almost as great a debt. They did not give much heed to the measures of political progress which interest the hearts of English Liberals, but their souls were profoundly stirred by the wrongs done in the name of their country to African slaves. Trained for the most part in those Conservative principles which are in harmony both with the spirit and with the traditions of the Anglican Church, they attached little if any importance to the inequalities of representation, or even to the restrictions put upon conscience by the civil disabilities imposed on Roman Catholics and Dis- senters. And, in truth, when the heart of a man became possessed with the thought of millions held in a slavery which was a wanton outrage upon the first laws of God as well as upon the rights of man, it is not wonderful that he should think comparatively little of the injustice inflicted upon his own fellow- citizens by their want of the political franchise, or by grievances which, however real, might seem sentimental in the presence of the enormous wrongs which the fettered negro had to endure. At all events, the redress of the latter certainly claimed their first attention. And in.] The Evangelical Revival. 147 many an error that they may have committed may well be condoned in recollection of the fact that in those quiet homes on Clapham Common the forces were created and fostered by which the conscience of Englanc was at length stirred to the noblest deed of justice and humanity that is to be found in the records of any nation. The school which trained the men to whom eight hundred thousand slaves owed their emancipation from bondage, has by that act alone laid England and the world under lasting obligation. In fine, their broad sympathies with human suffering and sorrow, the munificent liberality with which they gave to the work of Christian missions, their labours in the cause of education, their noble efforts for the emanci- pation of the slave, have given this little company of true and noble men a distinction more to be envied than that which falls to the lot of victorious generals or eminent statesmen. Foremost among them stands William Wilberforce, the true type of the Evangelical politician, since he was a man who made his politics bend to his religion, instead of accommodating his religion to his politics. William Pitt had no truer friend or more loyal follower than that noble-minded man, " in bodily presence weak," who on a day that has become historic presented himself in the Guildhall at York, and by his persuasive eloquence suc- ceeded in turning the current of popular feeling, and in securing the verdict of that great county in favour of his chief. But when the choice was between Pitt and morality, Pitt and righteousness, Pitt and official purity, as in the memorable case of Lord Melville, and on more than one other occasion, Wilberforce obeyed conscience in opposition alike to the voice of part)- interest and 148 The Evangelical Revival. [lect. personal friendship. It was not his habit to hurl anathemas against evils he did nothing to oppose, to forsake the guidance of Christian principle which led him outside the lines of his party obligations, or, in short, to subordinate his own convictions of the right to considerations which, however disguised under specious pleas of care for higher interests, meant the preference of some object of the hour, which were of the things seen and temporal, to those great principles which are unseen but eternal. This judgment must, in fairness, be pronounced upon his course of action, whatever we may- think of the attitude he took upon particular questions. Like the Evangelicals of later times, he lacked that unswerving faith in truth which would have led him courageously to dispense with those legal securities which the State had erected for its defence, and to trust to God alone for its vindication. Liberal instincts and sympathies, indeed, were continually coming into con- flict with the conservative tendencies which his training and associations had fostered, and the latter generally gained the victory. This was the case in relation to ecclesiastical questions, and the man who spent a great part of his life in a noble effort to free the negro from bondage even voted for the perpetuation of a wrong to the Roman Catholics of Ireland and the Protestant Dis- senters of England. But however inconsistent and erro- neous such conduct may have been, it was undoubtedly taken from conscientious motives. Had Wilberforce, who exerted great influence, taken a more liberal view of politics, it might have produced an effect upon the party in general that would have given it a stronger position in the country to-day. The natural affinities of earnest Protestants must surely be with in.] The Evangelical Revival. 149 Liberalism, and their proper place in the ranks of the army of progress. But from the first the Evangelicals of the Anglican Church have more or less identified themselves with Conservatism, until, in our own day, they have been found among the most ardent defenders of a tricky imperialism, and have eagerly adduced the predictions of sacred Scripture on its behalf. How far a different tone might have been given had their first leader among the laity, as Wilberforce unquestionably was, identified him- self with Liberal principles, it is useless to conjecture. In his political action there was at all events a con- scientious independence and an elevation above the character of the mere partisan which, unhappily, has not always been seen in the members of his school. For the most part the Evangelicals, clergy and laity alike, have regarded the liberal and progressive tendencies of the age with an alarm scarcely less disquieting than that of the Ultramontane himself. "Work done for God it dieth not," and that noblest title to remembrance certainly belongs to the Clapham sect, and pre-eminently to Wilberforce as its leader. His book on Practical Christianity reflected a higher lustre on his name than any of his purely political achieve- ments, and his development of its principles in his private and public life was far grander than the book. One who himself belonged to the inner circle of fashion, who was the intimate of leading statesmen, and a favourite in society, bore his testimony on behalf of the gospel to a scoffing age by whom it was largely denied as a creed, and still more widely ignored as a rule of conduct. As a literary production, his treatise is not remarkable for profundity of thought or brilliancy of style. There is in it no sign of genius and no pretence to originality. J 50 The Evangelical Revival. [lect. hi. But it achieved an unexpected popularity and exercised an extraordinary power, and one reason of it was that behind it was the life of the man. Sydney Smith sneers at him as " the head of the Clapham Church," but happy would it have been for the Church of England if its canonries and other high offices of the time had been filled by men of a spirit like that of this despised sect. The works of the Clapham sect redound to the credit of the Evangelical party, and will ever be an evidence of its happy influence in the nation. It has had its faults, and grievously has it answered them. It had glorious opportunities which it failed adequately to improve, and its failure has told to the hindering of the gospel with which it identified itself both in name and work. Its signal virtues were marred by serious errors — some of exaggeration and some of defect. But its merits ought never to be overlooked by the Church which it has loved and served with a devotion that has been the cause of many of its mistakes, by the nation which it saved from the evil which the spirit of the French Revolution might otherwise have wrought in this country, and by the friends of true religion, who feel that the work of these devoted and godly men has given a new and impressive proof of the enduring vitality of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. LECTURE IV. THE OXFORD SCHOOL. LECTURE IV THE OXFORD SCHOOL. THERE are few, if any, parallels in history to the extreme changes which have passed over the spirit and teaching of the Anglican Church within the last century. The form and outward aspect remain un- altered. A modification in the terms of subscription appears to have done something, the exact value of which disinterested critics are not able to perceive, for the relief of scrupulous clerical consciences ; but the formularies to which all the ministers are required to give their consent are those which Sheldon devised, and by means of which Baxter and his noble associates were ejected from the Church. An " Act of Uniformity " still regulates and controls a Church, within whose circles are to be found the widest diversities of teaching and of ritual — from some who insist on every anathema of the Atha- nasian Creed down to others who would get rid of all creeds ; from the stoutest defenders of " Catholicity " to Low Churchmen whose ecclesiastical practice is hardly to be distinguished from that of Plymouth Brethren ; from the copyists of Romish worship, who have accus- tomed us to an Anglican service hardly to be distin- guished from the Mass, to lovers of Puritan simplicity, 154 The Oxford School. [lect. who arc afraid to carry out the rubrics of their own Church. In all this, things continue as they have been from the Restoration, except that each party in turn has deve- loped its own idea, and that the consequent differences are more accentuated to-day than at any previous period. The successive phases of Church life which the century has witnessed are due to this cause. At the beginning of the century the Evangelical party were making steady advances, and in its second quarter they attained the highest position they have ever reached. The period of political supremacy, when the appointment of bishops was virtually in the hands of the well-known leader of the Evangelical party, did not come till a little later, but decay of the spiritual force had begun before the access of political influence, and the consequent improvement of its Church status, came to hasten the process. Another school had already begun to acquire popularity, and it hated all that Evangelicals most loved, and made it its chief business to restore all that Evangelicals had been most anxious to destroy. The Protestantism in which the one gloried was to the other a shame and reproach. The points of mediaeval doctrine and worship which the former would fain have treated as excrescences on the reformed liturgy, only allowed to remain through over- sight or weak concession on the part of the Reformers, the latter was determined to regard as its most pre- cious and characteristic features. There is no room for saying, in relation to the two parties which have played so conspicuous a part in the ecclesiastical history of the time, what Sir James Stephen, in the passage quoted in the last lecture, asserted as to the differences between the old " High Church" party iv.] The Oxford School. 155 and the Evangelicals, that the views held by the oppos- ing schools were essentially the same, and that they differed only as to the spirit in which they held them. Here are two antagonistic theories between which it is not possible to find any honest mode of reconcilia- tion. There is a section of the Evangelical school which, if it has not approached more nearly to its rivals, has certainly learned to speak of them and their views with more tolerance, and has even gone so far as to confess that for all except the extreme members of the party there must be a place in the national Church. But this position is due to the hard pressure of necessity, and could not easily be shown to be logical. The con- cession is made to the great historic High Church party with the hope that the two centres might unite. But the expectation has proved more illusive in ecclesias- tical than even in secular politics, and, in fact, it is the Ritualists who have profited by this melancholy lack both of sagacity and principle. The unfortunate result of these cravings after an impossible compromise has been the corrupting of Evangelical simplicity, and the enfeebling of that Evangelical force so urgently needed for the stern conflicts of the time. The advantage remains with the extreme party, which knows its mind, which is as tenacious in its purpose as it is clear in its perceptions, and which has in its favour so much in the express language of the Prayer Book, and even more in the undoubted service which it has been able to render to the Church. In little more than a hundred years, then, the Anglican Church has presented at least three distinct phases. First, it was the Church of Tillotson ; later it gave pro- mise of becoming a Church such as might have satisfied 156 The Oxford School. [lect. Leighton ; to-day, considerable advance has been made to the ideal of Laud. A century ago it was still under the sway of a " High and dry " school, whose deficiencies were hardly repaired by their rivals, irreverently de- scribed as " Low and slow." Fifty years later Evange- licalism had seated itself on the Primate's throne, and a little later we had that administration of the Palmerston bishops, which seemed to mark the supremacy of the Evangelical party, but which tended rather to para- lyze its true strength. To-day the party in which are found spirit, audacity, and courage is the party which hates the Reformation, abjures the Protestant name, and reviles the Protestant heroes of the Angli- can Church, which boldly claims the position and re- venues of the National Church as its private estate in right of its " Catholic " succession, and which is engaged in a resolute crusade for asserting the supremacy of the Church over the State, or, at least, an independence which shall render the control of Parliament over all ecclesias- tical matters little more than a name. The outward changes which this last party has wrought in the wor- ship of the churches where it has control are so striking that a stranger revisiting England, after an absence of twenty years, would fail to recognize in one of the shrines of this new cult a sanctuary of the Established Church. But the alteration in spirit is even greater. It may not be so extensive as the strong utterances of its representatives would lead us to suppose, and it is certain that it has provoked a decided opposing senti- ment which, for the time, may not be so demonstrative in expression, but which is deep and only bides its time in order to make itself felt. It may even be that the force which at present appears to be telling so power- iv.] The Oxford School. 157 fully on behalf of the Establishment, and is on that account alone viewed with favour by Erastians, may ultimately prove the instrument of its destruction. But for the present, the " Catholic " temper is in the ascend- ant among the clergy and laymen of a clerical temper. Beyond the confines of the school itself a higher Church sentiment has come to prevail, and as the former genera- tion of Evangelicals passes away and another takes its place this will be still more fully developed. That this change should have been carried so far in England, and in an age like the present, seems at the first view altogether incomprehensible. The Archbishop of Canterbury only said what a thousand facts might be cited to confirm, and what must be confirmed by every thoughtful observer, when he expressed his conviction that "the current of popular opinion throughout the world is all in the opposite direction from superstition ; and I have great fear lest in the long run the faith of our Church and country may suffer far more by ab- straction from than addition to its approved system of Christian doctrine." l Yet the fact is undoubted that, in the country of free thought, and in an age which resents every kind of restraint, and with fearless daring insists on forcing its way into the very Holy of Holies, and challenging its most sacred mysteries, there is in the National Church this extra- ordinary development of sacerdotal and sacramentarian teaching. The priest, it might be supposed, would be treated as an anachronism in nineteenth century Eng- land, with its spirit of resolute independence, with the inherited traditions of liberty to which it clings with fond patriotic pride, with its speculative philosophy, 1 Church of the Future, p. 89. 158 T/te Oxford School. [lect. with those marvellous achievements of science which, with a little pardonable exaggeration, may be said to have brought a new world under the dominion of man ; and, above all, with that liberal Protestantism which never understood its principles better or was prepared to apply them more trenchantly. That the priest would cease to exist, even under such a condition of things so unfriendly to his power, was too much to anticipate ; but it might have been hoped that his sway would have been restricted to the Church which is his proper home, and whose powerful machinery is all employed for the strengthening and extension of his influence. But, on the contrary, he has a position in the Anglican Church such as he has never held since the time when the first Prayer Book of Edward VI. marked the place which the timid reformers of the day would have left him, except in the brief period of that wild attempt of Laud to establish a hierarchy, which speedily brought about a revolution that involved mitre and crown in a common disaster. He claims to-day rights and functions which, as has been proved by the ablest divines of the Romish Church, his predecessors never ventured to assume. The only effect of the liberal spirit of the age on him is to make him more arrogant, more extreme in his pretensions, more exclusive in his claims. He breathes something of the independent and daring spirit of the times, but in him it exhibits itself in a defiance of prin- ciples of liberty and toleration supposed to be accepted, and in the revival of pretensions which it was thought had been exploded by their own absurdity. He scoffs at the victories of freedom, and reviles those who have been esteemed its martyrs and heroes. He gives us iv.] The Oxford School. 159 new readings of history, and requires us to reverse our verdict alike upon its characters and its events. Under his guidance the current of religious feeling is turned back. Mediaeval saints are the models to which Chris- tians are urged to conform themselves. The Church takes the place of the Bible, and it is well if the priest himself does not hide Christ from the eye of the soul. The name of Christ is, indeed, pronounced with honour, and if external signs of reverence could compensate for the lack of clear conceptions of His work, the result might well be satisfactory. But while there is scrupulous care bestowed upon the form of worship, the Saviour bears a different aspect from that in which He appears in the simple proclamation of apostolic preaching, " be- lieve on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved." Christ approached with overwhelming awe, which makes long and trying preparation for an approach to Him, Christ with His will interpreted, and the access to Him guarded by priests, Christ materialized into the idol of a sacrament, and served by fastings and bodily exercise, is not the Christ whom Paul preached, and in whom the men He gathered into the early Church believed. But it is the Christ whom modern sacer- dotalism exhibits, and, strange to say, in this era of progress, there are numbers who have submitted them- selves to its rule, and who would, if it were in their power, entangle others in the yoke of bondage. A phenomenon so anomalous may be explained partly on the principle of reaction. As the Reformation was followed by the establishment of the Jesuit order, 160 The Oxford School. [lect. and the extraordinary Romish revival which it pro- duced, as the dreamy Erastianism of the Hanoverian period was succeeded by the most wonderful outburst of spiritual enthusiasm by which the Church of Eng- land has ever been blessed, as Ultramontanism was the recoil from the infidel teaching of the French Revolu- tion, so the mediaeval reaction, which first bore the name of Tractarianism, and in its more recent develop- ments is known as Ritualism, is the product partly of the extreme simplicity and essential Puritanism of the Evangelical movement, and partly of the aggressive Liberalism which made itself felt forty years ago. The Ultramontane wave, which had spread over a large part of Europe, unquestionably affected this country to some extent, and the first result of its operation was to intensify the Church feeling of a party young, numerically small, apparently possessed of little influence, but including some men of saintly temper and of great capacity, and one in particular, who towered high above his compeers. At the beginning of a move- ment the ultimate development of which the most far- sighted could not have forecast, there was certainly no sympathy with Rome, and no thought of subserving her purposes. The early leaders were so far from any senti- ment of the kind that one of the first influences by which Cardinal Newman was affected was a bitter re- sentment at the granting of Catholic Emancipation. So little disposition had he to recognize the claims of Rome that Canon Oakely, in speaking of the ignorance about English Romanists which prevailed among his friends, tells us: " I did not myself know the Rev. W. Newsham, the priest at Oxford, even by sight, when in the year 1845 he received me into the Church. The only one iv.] The Oxford School. i6i among those'who took part in the Tractarian movement, to whom that worthy priest was personally known, was Mr. Newman, who, on being appointed to the parish of St. Clement's, in which the Catholic chapel of Oxford was situated, laid claim (I have heard) to him as one of his parishioners. If this story be true, the tables ought to have been reversed, and were so twenty years later." l But while the leaders regarded Roman Catholics in the same light as other Dissenters, and asserted their own exclusive prerogatives with absolute impartiality to- wards all, it is not less certain that the so-called Catho- lic revival of the continent had an indirect effect upon them. The same influences which made Montalembert an earnest devotee, and Lacordaire an eloquent apostle of the Romish Church, roused in the hearts of Newman and Pusey and Keble a spirit which made them under- take a crusade with a view of repairing the wrongs which the Anglican Church had suffered at the hands of various tormentors, from the Reformers down to the Liberals, who had forced on the removal of religious disabilities, and who, growing bold with success, had ventured on still more daring iniquities in the appoint- ment of an Ecclesiastical Commission, and the abolition of sinecures in England, and of bishoprics which were even worse than sinecures in Ireland. The political feeling is put forward prominently by themselves as one principal cause of the movement. When in 1829 Newman, in consequence of his opposi- tion to Sir Robert Peel's re-election, broke off his friendship with Whately, the future Archbishop of Dublin, he says that he took this action against Peel 1 Historical Notes 011 the Tractarian Movement. By Frederick Oakely, p. 37. 12 1 62 The Oxford School. [lect. on "an academical, not at all on an ecclesiastical or a political ground," because he felt that " a great uni- versity ought not to be bullied even by a great Duke of Wellington ; " but he adds : " By this time I was under the influence of Keble and Froude, who, in ad- dition to the reasons I have given, disliked the Duke's change of policy as dictated by Liberalism." This in- fluence grew very rapidly, so that in a year or two we find him possessed by a mingled dread and hatred of this Liberalism whose reforming energies were troubling old abuses and vested interests everywhere. " The Whigs had come into power. Lord Grey had told the bishops to set their house in order, and some of the prelates had been insulted and threatened in the streets of London. The vital question was, How were we to keep the Church from being liberalized ? There was such apathy on the subject in some quarters, such imbecile alarm in others ; the true principles of Church- manship seemed so radically decayed, and there was such distraction in the councils of the clergy."1 II. Here is a suggestion as to one active cause of an awakening of mind which was afterwards to produce such fruits. The Church was in peril because there was on every side an unfaithfulness to the principles on which the Church was founded. Some treated what the ardent and devout young thinker regarded as a Divine institution as though it were nothing better than an Erastian creation of statesmen. The Evangelicals had 1 Historical Notes on the Tractarian Movement. By Frederick Oakely, p. 30. iv.] The Oxford School. 163 done much for religion, but nothing for the Church as he understood the Church. " I thought little of the Evangelicals as a class. I thought they played into the hands of the Liberals." The charge is one of the last which could be sustained against the Evangelicals. They hate Liberalism only less than Romanism, which they regard as its natural ally. Whether it be developed in politics, or literature, or religion, it is everywhere dis- tasteful to them. It seems cruel to charge them with playing into the hands of a party they have always opposed. Yet in the sense in which it is made the ac- cusation is true. The Evangelicals had so far under- mined what Churchmen would esteem " sound Church principles " as to promote, however undesignedly, the advance of true Liberalism, that is, of that recognition of the rights of the individual which is fatal to the claims of authority, whether in the Catholic rule of the Church or the Erastian assumptions of the State. They were not Liberals themselves, but, on the contrary, were for the most part as much alarmed at the aggressions of free thought, as anxious to preserve intact all the securities for national orthodoxy, as distrustful of the spirit of progress, and as eager to restrain its friends, as the most inveterate champions of the past. But they were Pro- testants— albeit unable to perceive the full sweep of their own principles, and prepared to substitute another rule for that of an infallible Church — and their anti- Romish, and therefore anti - hierarchical, tendencies forced them into being reluctant, and indeed uncon- scious, helpers of the Liberal movement. That they had done as much to multiply Dissenters as to revive the Church is a fact that is patent to all students of the period. In Huddersfield, where Venn 164 The Oxford School. [lect. laboured with such signal success, his removal led to the formation of a Congregational Church, and the good man, with a Christianity which was stronger than his Churchmanship, did not hesitate to give it his counten- ance. What was done there with the sanction of the clergyman was done elsewhere without it, possibly in defiance of his opinion. The old bottles would not hold the new wine, and Dissenting communities reaped the benefit of the revived spiritual energy which the Church sought rather to restrain and check than to utilize. To some extent this result was independent of the action of the Evangelical preachers, and would have happened whatever course they had taken. But, to their honour be it told, many of them showed a noble liberality which could not but lead their followers to think more of spiri- tual affinities than of ecclesiastical relations. A recent High Church writer tells us that the Calvinistic clergy were guilty of the enormity of attending meeting-houses ; that " Butt, vicar of Kidderminster and king's chaplain, habitually, in full canonicals, held the plate at the door of the Kidderminster meeting-house ; " and that a Mr. Wills, knowing that he was to be followed in the curacy of St. Agnes, which he was resigning, by a clergyman of opposite views, sold his family plate to build a meeting- house. Had he lived in our times, and especially if his views had inclined to the opposite extreme, he might have adopted an expedient which would certainly have been less costly to himself and stimulated an agita- tion for congregational freedom within an Established Church. Of course such facts as those cited are alleged as cause of reproach, and, from a High Churchman's point of 1 Church Quarterly Review, vol. iv. p. 344. iv.] The Oxford School. 165 view, justly so. These devoted Evangelicals were earnest Christians, but they were not sound Churchmen. Great injustice is done them by the writer when he taunts them with want of zeal for their Church, adding, " It is a sufficient condemnation of this powerful section of Churchmen to say that hardly a church had been built in London for seventy years, and that of its 1,129,000 souls, one million were unprovided for in the churches of the National Establishment." * The blame of this scandalous neglect rests upon the rulers, who at that time could have done pretty much what they would, not on any " powerful section of Churchmen." But we know not how the " seventy years " are to be reckoned to which this observation applies. There is no continuous period ot seventy years during which the Evangelicals were really powerful for the kind of work for the lack of which they are reproached. But it is not necessary to defend them. Their works follow them, and it needs all the bitterness of "Catholic" bigotry to ask, as the High Churchman does, "Can there be a greater delusion than the popular notion that the Evangelicals revived the Church ? " On this point it is unnecessary to add what was said in the last lecture. It is true, however, in relation to the Evan- gelical movement that " it had reanimated the old deno- minations ; it had filled their chapels ; it had supplied very largely their pulpits ; and, in addition, it had called into existence a multitude of novel sects." 2 With the exception of the last phrase, which needs great qualifica- tion, this is true. What the writer does not perceive is that the strong tide of spiritual feeling which swept across the nation could not be confined within the narrow limits of any one Church, and here and there was 1 Church Quarterly Review, vol. iv. p. 347. 2 Ibid. p. 353. 1 66 The Oxford School. [lect. so strong that it burst all the old boundaries and worked out new channels for itself. Unless he is prepared to deny the existence of any good outside the pale of his own communion, the results which were thus produced in the country and the world might well lead him to doubt his own theory about the Catholic Church. Un- fortunately, the only effect they have had upon the school he faithfully represents is to make them more severe in the condemnation of the Evangelicals, without whom it is very questionable whether they would have had a national Church left, and whose contributions to the increase of Dissent were due to the working of forces over which they had no real control. The conclusion which this writer reaches must be quoted in his own words — " On the deplorable condition of the Church during the first decade of the nineteenth century all men are agreed, but as to the causes they differ. Weighing care- fully all the facts advanced, will any impartial person deny that, great as were the evils of Walpole's tyranny, and those of the Arian school, with its deadening influ- ence, the deepest and most incurable were due to the misdirected zeal and energy of the fathers of the Evan- gelical school, their utter ignorance of all that is meant by Church principles in general and of loyalty to the Anglican Church in particular." l The implications in this sweeping allegation are certainly very startling. Better, according to this writer, have the Church paralyzed and benumbed, and, what is even worse, patron-ridden by a Minister, of whom we are told by the same critic that " his malice against the Church was displayed in small things as well as great ; " 1 Church Quarterly Review, vol. iv. pp. 354, 355. iv.] The Oxford School. \6j better even the Arianism which robbed our Divine Lord of His honour, and Christianity of its vitalizing force, than an intense spiritual Evangelical preaching which did not understand Church principles or conserve Church interests. And this judgment, which would be laughed to scorn, where it did not awaken intense indig- nation, by all beyond a narrow ecclesiastical circle, is gravely propounded as one which every impartial person would ratify. More convincing proof could hardly be furnished of the blindness of the ecclesiastical partizan, but nothing could help us better to understand the feel- ing which led to the Tractarian movement. It is really what Newman means when he says that Evangelicals played into the hands of Liberals. The acute thinker whose principles of Churchmanship were to lead him far beyond the Anglican lines deals more justly with the Evangelicals, whose influence he has done so much to weaken. He complained of the party in his day because, " with their late successes, they seemed to have lost that simplicity and unworldliness which I admired so much in Milner and Scott." Pro- ceeding on the principle that whatever gift Wesley and Whitefield may have possessed they derived through the Church, and that therefore the Church owed nothing to them for any work they did, since they only rendered the service of a gift which the Church had been the instrument of bestowing, he still, writing in the earlier days of the Oxford movement, distinctly said, " we fully grant that they have been instruments in the hands of Providence of raising the standard and extending the influence of religion in the land." " The English Church," he says again, " could not but have had a revival, if it be a branch of the true Church ; that Wesley and Whitefield 1 68 The Oxford School. [lect. were the instruments of that revival (as far as they were such) was what may be called an accident of Providence, but that the Church should revive is an inspired promise from the beginning.1 This is not a very gracious recog- nition of noble and permanent services, but it is better than to represent that service as an evil greater than Erastian corruption or Arian heresy. The contrast marks the difference between the first Tractarians, among whom were men with a wide sweep of intellectual vision, and the Ritualists or semi-Ritualists of to-day. Both political and ecclesiastical motives inspired the movement, which first took shape in the publication of the celebrated Oxford Tracts. Writing of his own feel- ings on that memorable visit to the south of Europe, which immediately preceded his entrance upon a course of action destined to produce results of which neither he nor any of his coadjutors could have had an inkling, he says, " England was in my thoughts solely, and the news from England came rarely and imperfectly. The Bill for the suppression of the Irish Sees was in progress, and filled my mind. I had fierce thoughts against the Liberals. It was the success of the Liberal cause which fretted me inwardly. I became fierce against its instru- ments and its manifestations."2 His great dread was that Liberalism might get a footing in the Church, because if once there, he felt it would be victorious. He turned away from the Evangelicals because he felt that, holding the principles of the Reformation, they were powerless. He was not attracted by the Papal Church, for even his visit to Rome had not produced a favourable impression on his mind. On the contrary, he tells us, 1 Essays Critical and Historical, vol. i. pp. 422, 423. 2 History of my Religious Opinions, pp. 32, ^^. iv.] The Oxford School. 169 " My general feeling was, All, save the spirit of man, is Divine." The explanation suggested in the narrative, written more than thirty years after, is, " Of the hidden life of Catholics I knew nothing." He did not falter in his loyalty to the Church of his fathers, or dream that he would ever be driven into exile from the religious home of his youth and early manhood by the resistless force of conviction. His one thought was there was need of a second reformation in order to bring England more into harmony with the " Church Catholic and Apostolic," which he felt was "something greater than the Estab- lished Church," which could at the utmost be only the " local presence and organ " of the universal Church. III. The idea of the catholicity of the Anglican Church was the key to their whole system, and it is just to say that it was not a novelty of their own invention. Mr. Gladstone's attempt to trace a distinct connection be- tween the Oxford school and their great rivals, so that the " Evangelical movement " may have stood in the relation of parentage to the " Tractarian," came as a startling surprise to all except the few who had thought deeply on the subject. The most prominent facts seem to be all opposed to it. The Evangelical has a hatred of Rome which sometimes approaches to fanaticism, and is generally characterized by a narrowness which goes far to weaken the effect of its protest. The sentiment of the Tractarian was well expressed in the well-known verse of the poet of the school. The scarlet woman of the Evangelical is the "erring sister" of the Tracta- 170 The Oxford School. [lf.ct. rian. Antagonism could not well be more complete than this. Looking, however, to the history of the school, it is certainly curious that so many of its leaders were of Evangelical training. " Of the three great authors of the Tracts, Mr. Keble was the only one belonging to the school of traditional Anglican theology." In Car- dinal Newman himself nothing is more striking, as Mr. Gladstone points out, than the frank disclosure in his Apologia " of the close spiritual associations between Evangelical doctrine and feeling and the foundations of his religious life." The point of connection between the two schools does not seem so difficult to discover. The Evangelicals had cared little for Church laws and prin- ciples, and had overlooked the fact that they belonged to a Church whose formularies set forth very strong teaching on some of these points. To ministerial orders they attached but slight importance, and fretted under the restraints which they imposed upon them. The anomaly of their position was unseen by themselves. Church theory they had none ; and while the flush of youthful zeal continued, the lack was not perceived. The good accomplished was too manifest and too precious to allow of objections being started — at all events, by those in whom devout gratitude for deliverance from the coldness, barrenness, and rationalism of the previous generation absorbed every other feeling. But when the early en- thusiasm, if not wholly quenched, had considerably abated, men of devout spirit, who had been trained in the Prayer Book, became conscious of a void. The Prayer Book was full of ideas called " Catholic," of which there was little or nothing in the Evangelical teaching. That teaching ignored the " priest " to whom iv.] The Oxford School. 171 the bishop had committed the tremendous power to loose or retain men's sins, and whom the Rubrics directed, on certain occasions, to pronounce the solemn form of Absolution. It treated as subordinate, though still im- portant points, the sacraments to which the liturgy gives a kind of mystic efficacy. It was based entirely on the authority of Scripture, and showed little, if any, deference to the voice of catholicity or antiquity. It must be granted by those who have the profoundest appreciation of all that Evangelicalism involves, that its position in a Church with a liturgy shaped by the Caroline divines was logically untenable. What it appeared to the new school of thinkers is put with all his characteristic force by Cardinal Newman. " The system in question, if so it may be called, is, as we have intimated, full of inconsistencies and ano- malies ; it is built not on one principle, but on half-a- dozen, and thus contains within it the seeds of ruin which time only is required to develop. At present not any one principle docs it carry out logically ; nor does it try to adjust and limit one by the other ; but as the English language is partly Saxon, partly Latin, with some German, some French, some Dutch, and some Italian, so this religious creed is made up of the frag- ments of religion which the course of events has brought together and imbedded in it — something of Lutheranism and something of Calvinism, something of Erastianism and something of Zwinglianism, a little Judaism and a little dogmatism, and not a little secularity, as if by hazard. It has no straightforward view of any one point on which it professes to teach ; and to hide its poverty, it has dressed itself out in a maze of words which all inquirers feel and are perplexed with, yet few 1/2 The Oxford School. [lect. are able to penetrate. It cannot pronounce plainly what it holds about the sacraments, what it means by unity, what it thinks of antiquity, what fundamentals are, what the Church, what, again, it means by faith. It has no intelligible rule for interpreting Scripture beyond that of submission to the arbitrary comments which have come to it, though it knows it not, from Zwingle or Melanc- thon. ' Unstable as water, it cannot excel.' " l This is a sweeping indictment expressed in very in- cisive terms. Possibly it might not be easy to sustain all its counts ; but that there is truth in its allegations is to be inferred from the extent to which the Evangelical school, by the concessions made of late years to the High Church party, have tacitly admitted their former weakness. But, true or not, it is the view which these Oxford reformers had conceived, and on which they acted. They had no thought of returning to the formal and lifeless orthodoxy of their fathers ; they were de- sirous of retaining all the new truth and life which the Church had gathered from the Evangelical movement. What they desired was to correct its errors and sup- plement its deficiencies. The "High and dry" party had been nothing but Churchmen ; the Evangelicals had been everything but Churchmen. What this new and earnest generation were bent on doing was to retain all the Evangelicalism plus the Churchmanship. As time rolled on, and their opinions became more de- veloped, many of them were forced to confess that their position was just as indefensible as that of the Evangeli- cals, and that Church principles demanded submission to the Church which claimed to be Catholic and infallible. But they only felt their way to this conclusion gradually, Newman's Essays, vol. i. p. 295. iv.] The Oxford School. 173 and their decision was greatly facilitated and hastened by the course of events. The charges frequently and some- what rashly hurled against them of treason to Protes- tantism are natural enough under the circumstances, but so far as they imply that there was any conscious dis- loyalty to their own Church, they are absolutely without proof. They were not Protestants, but their contention was that neither was the Church to which they belonged. They believed that it was meant to be the via media, and in that path of moderation they sought to walk, until they discovered that this mode of harmonizing irre- concileable principles was a mere illusion; that in eccle- siastical affairs, as in the deeper concerns of the soul, it is impossible to serve two masters ; that authority must be supreme, or it cannot be maintained at all ; that a Church which puts forth the right to reform itself must concede the same to all ; that there was, in short, no consistent resting-place between Rome and liberty. IV. The new school seemed to rise suddenly; but there had been considerable preparation for it, which we are now able to trace with some distinctness, though to those living amid the events the connection was not per- ceptible. There were pioneers whose ideas produced results which they themselves could not have anticipated. Canon Oakely speaks of the teaching of Dr. Charles Lloyd, afterwards bishop of Oxford, whose lectures as Regius Professor of Divinity helped him and his com- panions to " truer views of the Catholic religion general ly current in the country." But this is the view of a divine who was one of the most distinguished converts whom 174 TJic Oxford School. [lect. Rome was able to secure from the Oxford school, and he looked at the subject from the standpoint of a Roman Catholic. To those who remained in the Anglican Church, the relation of the bishop to the movement would probably not be so apparent. He was a " High Churchman of Tory principles," but with kindly senti- ments towards Roman Catholics, and in his lectures on the Council of Trent and the Prayer Book he appears to have taken a more broad and philosophic, as well as more " Catholic," view of these subjects than was com- mon at the time. Such teachings may have had the effect of softening the strong prejudice against the Romish Church, which was as much a social and political as an ecclesiastical sentiment ; but that is the utmost he can be said to have done — and even that was scarcely understood till a much later date. It was " a new notion of Catholics and Catholic doctrine " that he gave, rather than any suggestions as to the special posi- tion occupied by the Anglican Church. " Upon the subjects of Church Authority, Episcopacy, the Aposto- lical Succession, and others, with which the earlier Tracts were almost exclusively occupied, I do not remember to have derived any very definite ideas from Dr. Lloyd's teachings." Of course, in weakening the strength of Protestant sentiment, preparation was. made for treating all these questions in a new spirit. The Church of Eng- land was made to appear not so much as the keen antagonist of Rome, but as a friendly society, reluctantly forced into separation, prizing the precious legacy which it had received from the older community, and desirous, as far as possible, to repair the breach between them. It is easy to see how the tone of thought and feeling which Dr. Lloyd thus fostered prepared the way for the Tracts, iv.] The Oxford School. 175 even though there may not have been in his teaching the germs of the system which was developed in them. For them we must look to the writings of a man of more obscure position, and whose influence was of a more private character — Alexander Knox. To many, and even to those who are familiar with the history of the movement, he is nothing more than a name ; to others not even so much. How far he exerted a direct influ- ence upon the minds of the leaders it would not be possible to discover. But it is certain that in his letters, and in those of his most frequent correspondent and intimate friend, Dr. Jebb, the vicar of Limerick, we have the conception of the Anglican Church which the Trac- tarian writers wrought out with such completeness, and a foreshadowing of the entire movement. Dr. Newman refers to him as one who had clearly foreseen what was coming ; and, in fact, as having been the prophet of the new movement. His devoted attachment to the Angli- can Church led him to anticipate that Providence would in some way lift it up from the condition of practical inefficiency into which, in his view, it had fallen. " No Church on earth has more intrinsic excellence, yet no Church probably has less practical influence." He could not believe that so unnatural a condition of things would be allowed to continue, and he anticipated that in all probability some tribulation might be the means of reviving the memory of truths which it had forgotten, and so of enduing it with a power which has long been lost. " Another fall by Dissenterism will make it be felt, that if Popery can be a Charybdis, there is a Scylla on the other side no less dangerous. But it will be still more useful to learn that, in the mixed mass of Roman Catho- lic religion, there is gold, and silver, and precious stones, 176 The Oxford School. [lect. as well as wood, hay, and stubble ; and that everything- of the former nature is to be as carefully preserved, as everything of the latter nature is to be widely rejected."1 He reasons from the analogy of the Restoration that a calamity to the Anglican Church, such as overtook it in the seventeenth century, would be followed by a revival of High Church spirit and teaching such as was seen at the Restoration. The passage is so remarkable as to deserve quotation. " The distress of the English Episcopal Church, during the Usurpation, had more than ever endeared her to her genuine children ; and the hand which inflicted the discipline served to abate all undue Protestant zeal. A revision, therefore, of the liturgy being called for, the revisers seized the oppor- tunity (contrary to what the public was reckoning upon) to make our formularies not more puritanic, but more Catholic. They effected this without doubt stealthily, and, to appearance, by the minutest alterations ; but to compare the Communion Service, as it now stands, espe- cially its rubrics, with the form in which we find it pre- viously 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, principally by a few significant circumstances in the manner of conducting the business, which were fitted to impress the devout, though certain to be fully under- stood only by the initiated." Admitting that the dread of Popery was stronger in England at the time of his writing than even at the earlier date, he reasons that any calamity suffered from the opposite side would produce an entire change of sentiment, of which he gives the following hints : " It would not be strange if there were 1 Knox's Remains, vol. i. p. 58. iv.] The Oxford School. \yj a rebound of feeling ; a self-reproach, for having been so unsuspicious of Protestants. . . . Perhaps some of the grossest errors might, on close examination, be found to point us to valuable but hitherto neglected truths ; and we should possibly, in several instances, discover that there was a providential necessity for questionable practices to continue, until there was a disposition some- where to extract the entire spirit from the unworthy, but till then indispensable vehicle." l It is necessary here to say how completely this prophecy has been fulfilled. Alexander Knox was a Churchman of devout spirit, strong religiousness, and independent thought, who was dissatisfied with Evangelical teachings. He sympathized with the spiritual aims and purposes of the school, he recognized the value of the service it had done to re- ligion, but he believed that it had left one side of Christian doctrine and life uncultivated, and still more, that it had failed to develop the true idea of the Anglican Church. The account he gives of himself in a letter dated so far back as March, 1806, is extremely curious, when viewed in the light of to-day — " I am a Churchman in grain ; not a Tory Churchman, for that is a disease in the Church, not its constitutional term ; nor yet a Whig Churchman, for they did not value enough the distinguishing features of our Estab- lishment. But if I may use the term, I am a primitive Churchman, prizing in our system, most cordially, what it has retained from Christian antiquity, as well as what it has gained from the good sense of the Reformers, in expurgating it from later abuses. But the truth is, I am not one whit Puritanic : I love Episcopacy, the surplice, 1 Remains, vol. i. pp. 59-63. 13 178 The Oxford School. [lect. festivals, the communion table set altar- wise, antiphonal devotions, i.e., versicle and response. I am somewhat un-Puritanic, too — being much more engaged by the sublime piety of St. Chrysostom than by the devotional dogmas of St. Austin or any of his followers." l Here is a Tractarian before Tractarianism. The " primitive Churchman," as Mr. Knox describes himself, is the " Catholic " whom we now know as the Ritualist. What he might have been and done, had not his chronic ill-health unfitted him for public work, and made him a contemplative recluse, instead of an active leader of men, it would be profitless to inquire. He only scattered seeds, but they were of such a character that they could not fail to bear abundant fruit in the congenial soil into which they were cast. He was a man sui generis, large- hearted, and liberal in sympathy in an age whose ten- dencies were towards narrow exclusiveness, cultivating the society of good men of all parties, and honouring them for their piety even where he dissented most from their opinions, acquainted with Dissenting literature, and doing it as full justice as he rendered to that of his own Church, but withal striking out an independent course and holding it firmly. In his early days he was a friend of John Wesley's, and later on a correspondent of Mrs. Hannah More, so that he had an intimate know- ledge of the Evangelicals. But they did not satisfy his cravings, nor did they bring out his conception of the peculiarity which he believed to be the true distinction of his own Church, which furnished " the best and loveliest form of visible Christianity." After his death it was asserted by an ardent Evangelical that in his last days he had changed his views, and inclined more to the 1 Remains, vol. iv. p. 206. iv.] The Oxford School. 179 party which hitherto he had somewhat freely criticised. But of this there is no proof, while all the probabili- ties are in the contrary direction. So far as his letters show, his " Catholic " principles grew stronger, and his doubts as to the wisdom of our Reformers more con- firmed. " We are," he says, in a letter to Mrs. Hannah More written in 1810, "no further members of the Church of England than as we are, in the justest and strictest sense, Catholic ; that is, diligent inquirers after the united sense of the regular Christian Church " (in interpreting Holy Scripture), " and steady adherents to what we there find clearly avouched to us." l From this conception there is no sign of departure, and, in truth, through his long life, he seems to have been as consistent in his maintenance of these principles, to which he gives the name of Catholic, as Dr. Pusey himself. But the question of his individual position is a very minor one. He is interesting as a typical character, one of the most striking illustrations of the tendencies of a pious soul trained in Anglican ideas and tenacious of Anglican principles. There was no antecedent pre- judice against Evangelical simplicity, but rather the contrary. There was no official sentiment inclining him to a theory which would exalt the office and order to which he belonged. He was not dominated by the traditions of a school which might have helped him to find some mode of reconciling Evangelical ideas with the Anglican formularies. Living much alone, pursuing his train of thought in the quiet solitude of his own study, he took his independent position. There must have been some good Churchmen in whose minds were the same opposite currents, but in him they had freer play, 1 Remains, vol. iv. 240. i8o The Oxford School. [lect. and the result was what we must be prepared to find under similar conditions continually, a devout Anglo- Catholicism. Admitting that his Church, in common with other reformed Churches, holds " that the fundamentals must have Holy Scripture for their basis," he maintains that it holds also a second principle peculiar to itself, " that in elucidating fundamentals, or in deciding secondary questions relating not to the essence of Christianity, but to the well-being and right ordering of a Church, the concurrent voice of sacred antiquity, the Catholic rule — 'quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus' — is, next to sacred Scripture, our surest guide ; and in the matters to which it is justly applicable, a providentially authoritative guide ; nay, more than providentially, rather, where the indication is clear, divinely authorita- tive, because Christ has said, ' Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the world.' " J These opinions are not quoted merely to show that Mr. Alexander Knox must be regarded as a pioneer of the movement which afterwards became so powerful, but rather to prove that the school of thought of which he was the precursor had its origin not in deliberate disloyalty to the Anglican Church, but in an earnest desire to develop that which was believed to be the characteristic feature of the teaching of the Anglican Church. If a charge of treason and conspiracy could be established against the early Tractarians, there would be less cause for apprehension as to the future of the Church on which their successors have now so strong a hold. The Protestant who believes that the Anglican Church belongs to him might indeed be gratified if he could 1 Knox's Essays, vol. iv. p. 43. iv.] The Oxford School. 181 believe that this entire movement was due either to the eccentricity or the unfaithfulness of a few gifted individuals who, unfortunately for the Church in which they were trained, had felt the attraction of Rome. Phenomena of this kind are not likely to be of fre- quent recurrence ; and it might be hoped that when the present fever had spent itself, there would be a return to a more sound condition of clerical thought and Church feeling. This was the view entertained by numbers thirty years ago after the secessions to which the Gorham judgment had led. Those perver- sions were supposed to justify all that had been said as to the Romeward spirit and tendencies of the whole movement, and it was hoped that the loss which they inflicted upon the Established Church would be more than compensated by the freedom from a disturbing and reactionary element. The experience of the subse- quent period has shown the vanity of these calculations, and ought to have shaken the opinions of those who from the beginning insisted that there was more or less of Romish inspiration in the whole movement. There could be no more complete delusion, and the effects of it are so mischievous that it is worth some trouble to expose it. In disproof it is not necessary even to adduce the distinct statements of the authors of the Tracts themselves, though these must be accepted as conclu- sive by all who do not believe the writers deliberately dishonest. There is independent evidence altogether in the fact that there were Tractarians before Tractarianism, who laid down the fundamental principles of the Oxford school with as much distinctness as Dr. Newman or Dr. Pusey. 1 82 The Oxford School. [lect. V. Alexander Knox, as we have seen, was one of these precursors of the Oxford school ; but his pupil and corre- spondent, Dr. Jebb, bishop of Limerick, may be cited as a still more remarkable example. An appendix to the sermons of this eminent prelate of the Irish Church, which has always been supposed to be free from this Romish taint, contains the Tractarian teaching in germ. The fourth edition was published before the appearance of the first tract, and the bishop, without any party object, simply sets forth his own view of the Church of England. He starts with a quotation from Mosheim, of which he gives an independent translation, which is certainly a more faithful rendering of the original than that of Dr. Maclaine. The great Church historian describes the English Church as " that correction of the old religion which separates the Britons equally from the Roman Catholics and from the other communities who have renounced the domination of the Pope." Here is the via media of which so much was heard in the Tractarian controversy, and on which Dr. Newman in particular expended such pains, and which he so irradiated with all the charms of his genius and eloquence, that it has been a very common notion that it was he who laid it down. But before he wrote at all, Bishop Jebb had insisted that it was the true idea of the Church of England, and quoted very high authorities, from Ridley downwards, in support of his view. Speaking of the revisers of 1662, he says — " Those wise and pious men had a deep reverence for Catholic antiquity ; and from this reverence they omitted no fair opportunities of giving prominence to iv.] The Oxford School. 183 the great principles which constitute the tie between the Church of England and the purer ages of Catholicity. One of the chief agents was the admirable Pearson, whose exposition of the Creed, and particularly his in- comparable selection of authorities, proves that Vin- centius could not have a disciple more thoroughly like- minded. But the attentive observer of what was then effected will perceive the spirit of the workmen in every touch of their hand. To correct certain departures from antiquity, which, at the persuasion of Martin Bucer, but, we have strong reason to believe, against the judgment of the wise and temperate Ridley, had crept into the second book of Edward, was evidently, their primary object." l The bishop corroborates the view which has already been taken in these lectures of the intention of the party which gave the Prayer Book its present form, and by doing so expelled Baxter and his friends from the National Church. His is the judgment of one who had not been affected by the influence of the heated contro- versies of recent times. Without claiming for him impartiality, this may at least be said, that his view of the position of his own Church is that which com- mended itself to a thoughtful and devout Christian who had been brought up in its principles and traditions. It is not even necessary to assume that his view is absolutely correct. If it be one which an honest and independent thinker can legitimately form and can support by a great variety of evidence, it is one which is certain from time to time to develop itself in the Church, even if, as is more probable, it does not assert a per- manent hold there. The Church of England " steers a 1 J ebb's Sermons on Subjects chiefly Practical, p. 390. 184 Tlie Oxford School. [lect. middle course. She reveres the Scripture ; she respects tradition." " Her appeal is made to past ages against every possible error of the present." The path of the perplexed churchman is plain. " It is not merely his own judgment; it is not, by any means, the dictatorial mandate of an ecclesiastical director which is to silence his scruples and dissolve his doubts. His resort is that concurrent, universal, and undeviating sense of pious antiquity, which he has been instructed, and should be encouraged, to embrace, to follow, and revere." x The Tracts are simply built upon this foundation. Grant the authority of tradition and the right of appeal to " pious antiquity," and it is hard to say what we may be required to accept. There is an end of Protestantism; for Protestantism recognizes no infallible interpreter of the Divine law, and suffers no restriction of the freest right of the individual conscience. No position, however, could be more logically indefensible. On every side it presents points of attack, and it is raked by the cross- fires of the army of spiritual freedom on the one side and the hosts of priestly despotism on the other. Almost every word in the celebrated canon opens new matter of discussion, and any answer given to the doubts that are suggested only introduces a new series of insoluble problems. The principle indeed might be granted with little practical result. If it is only the unanimous voice of "pious antiquity" which is to be heard, the amount of truth to be believed would certainly not be large. But from this " pious antiquity " is tacitly excepted the mass of opinion which the majority of Councils has branded as heresy, but which may in fact be as worthy of con- sideration as that which the Church regards as orthodox. * J ebb's Sermons on Subjects chiefly Practical, pp. 405, 406. iv.] The Oxford School. 185 Heretics have often been among the truest, the bravest, the most loyal followers of Christ, but they are to be treated as dwellers in the outer darkness, whose dissent from the conclusions of " pious antiquity" must not be allowed to affect its value. The Anglican has a line beyond which the antiquity ceases to be pious, or at least to have authority. But the reason why it should be drawn at the particular point he has selected is not so obvious to others as it is to him. The Romanist denies the propriety of setting up any line of demarca- tion whatever, and demands that the authority of the Catholic Church being once conceded, the right of the mediaeval be recognized as fully as that of the primitive Church. The point is too obvious to require explana- tion or illustration. The marvel is how intelligent men can believe that any Church can have the right to liberty and authority — liberty in virtue of which it protests against the usurpations of a Church which, at least, is able to appeal to the prescription of centuries and the assent of a large section of Christendom in its favour and authority, in virtue of which it denies to others the freedom to which it owes its own existence. A reformed Church isolating itself from all Protestant communities and setting up for its own Protestantism (for however moderate the changes it has introduced, and whatever the name by which it is called, Protestantism it is), a claim to the authority supposed to attach to Catholicity, is one of the most extraordinary anomalies to be found in the ecclesiastical world. But such the Church of England unquestionably is. It has always, from the time of the Reformation, included men who had little or nothing of this ecclesiastical temper, and whose desire it was to make the Church as 1 86 The Oxford School. [lect. free and decided in its Protestantism as they believed it was intended to be. It is also true that among the first Reformers were some who conscientiously endeavoured to give it this character, and that perhaps there never was a period of any length in which they had not some successors and representatives. There have not always been Evangelicals, but there have always been Low Churchmen who have maintained a certain Protestant tradition. But the formularies lend but little counte- nance to their views, whereas the Prayer Book is full of that hierarchical and sacerdotal spirit of which Trac- tarianism was the incarnation. VI. The various influences — philosophical and poetical, romantic and practical — which had been affecting the minds of the young and ardent Churchmen at Oxford are well described by Newman himself, in an article in The British Critic in 1839. Coleridge and Scott, it need not be said, had no direct connection with the school, but in the view of its most distinguished mem- ber they had mainly contributed to produce a " ten- dency towards the character of mind and feeling of which the Catholic doctrines are the just expression." The effect of the writings of the " great wizard of the North " in stimulating chivalrous sentiment, awakening a reverent admiration for the past, surrounding the Church with a halo of interest and glory, and so helping to inspire a passionate devotion to its cause, can easily be understood. " Doubtless," says Newman, " there are things in the poems and romances in question of which a correct judgment is forced to disapprove, and which iv.] The Oxford School. 187 must ever be a matter of regret ; but, contrasted with the popular writers of the last century, and some of its most admired poets, as Pope, they stand almost as oracles of Truth confronting the ministers of error and sin." x They were, in fact, permeated by an intense hatred of Liberalism. They were Jacobite in politics and Romish in religious spirit, and books of this cha- racter, acting on the susceptible spirits of young men, themselves already possessed with an enthusiasm with the mediaeval temper, naturally helped to promote the reaction. That Coleridge, who is held in such veneration by a large class of Liberal thinkers, and whose writings have exercised so strong an influence in forming the opinions of some distinguished Broad Churchmen, should be regarded as the philosopher of the opposite party is more remarkable. But Transcendentalism seems to offer the champions of authority the very foundation which they want, and it is thus that it is viewed by one who was fitted, perhaps beyond any other man, to describe the natural history of the movement. His account is full of suggestive interest. After speaking of the influence of Scott, he says — "While history in prose and verse was thus made the instrument of Church feelings and opinions, a philo- sophical basis for the same was under formation in England by a very original thinker, who, while he in- dulged in a liberty of speculation which no Christian could tolerate, and advocated conclusions which were often heathen rather than Christian, yet after all instilled a higher philosophy into inquiring minds than they had hitherto been accustomed to accept. In this way x Essays, vol. i. 267. 1 88 The Oxford School. [lect. he made trial of the age, and found it respond to him, and succeeded in interesting its genius in the cause of Catholic truth. It has, indeed, been only since the death of Coleridge that these results of his writings have fully shown themselves ; but they were very evi- dent when they were once seen, and discovered the ten- dencies which had been working in his mind from the first. Two living poets may be added, one of whom in the department of fantastic fiction, the other in that of philosophical meditation, have addressed themselves to the same high principles and feelings and carried for- ward their readers in the same direction." l The genesis of the movement is thus traced in order to confute the notion described as " plainly idle and perverse," that a few individuals, whether as mere eccentrics, or as " simple Dominies " working covertly in the interests of Rome, had entered upon this work and accomplished so extraordinary a revolution in Church sentiment and feeling. Looking at the subject broadly, and especially with the light that the subsequent history of Tractarianism has thrown upon it, it must be sub- mitted that it was a natural development, and not, in any true sense, a monstrous growth of the Anglican Church. It is hard to believe that Sheldon would have regarded the teaching of the Tracts with any disap- proval. The Nonjurors were representatives of the opinions and tendencies which the Oxford school have worked out under more propitious conditions and with greater success ; and though their secession from the Church left the power entirely in the hands of the Erastians, it was not to be supposed that a party which had once been supreme, and which was the true 1 Essays Critical and Historical, vol. i. p. 268. iv.] The Oxford School. 189 exponent of the most characteristic principles of the Prayer Book, could be permanently suppressed. Some of the High Church utterances of John Wesley, and especially the sacramentarian views found in some of the Wesleyan hymns, show at least how much there was in the Prayer Book to incline a devout spirit to this type of piety, and suggest that under different influences the Wesleys might even have anticipated the action of Newman and Pusey. In 1830 there was a spirit abroad which affected both these leaders and their followers. Coleridge, Scott, Southey, and Wordsworth had in dif- ferent ways helped to foster it. But, as Newman with his penetrating insight perceived, it was a phenomenon " in a manner quite independent of things visible and historical. It is not here or there ; really it has no progress, no causes, no fortunes ; it is not a movement, it is a spirit ; it is a spirit afloat, neither ' in the secret chambers,' nor ' in desert,' but everywhere. It is within us, rising up in the heart, where it was least expected, and working its way, though not in secret, yet so subtly and impalpably, as hardly to admit of precaution or encounter, on any ordinary human rules of oppo- sition. It is an adversary in the air, a something one and entire, a whole wherever it is, unapproachable and incapable of being grasped, as being the result of causes far deeper than political or other visible agencies."1 It is because so many of the opponents of the school failed to perceive this that their resistance was so miser- able and unsuccessful. They dealt with the symptoms instead of seeking to understand the root of the evil, or they treated it as an acute disease due to special causes, when in truth it was a constitutional malady. 1 Essays Critical and Historical, vol. i. p. 271. 190 The Oxford School. [lect. All that can be said as to the influence of individuals or of circumstances, is that the peculiar difficulties of the times, and the inspiration of some special teachers, told upon a number of ardent young Churchmen. They were not of one class, they had not been trained in the same school, but gradually they were brought into sympathy by their common devotion to the Church. That the spirit of which Laud was the most con- spicuous representative should have displayed such ex- traordinary power in this age is no doubt surprising ; but if there was to be such a revival, it might safely have been predicted that the old Anglican university should be the centre of its activity. Oxford has always been the home of the most intense Anglicanism, and it had been thrown into a perfect state of panic by the energy which marked the action of the popular party after the passing of the Reform Bill. Remembering that Earl Grey was the head of the Liberal Govern- ment, and that he was followed by Lord Melbourne — who always seems to us to have stumbled into the Liberal premiership by accident, and never to have had any true faith in progress — it is hard to realize the state of feeling which, as has been seen, moved Newman, and was still more strongly developed in some of his associates. " There was not," says the Rev. W. Palmer, of Worcester College, in his narrative, " a single stone of the sacred edifice of the Church which was not ex- amined, shaken, undermined by a meddling and ignorant curiosity. Such was our condition in the early part of 1833. We knew not to what quarter to look for support. Prelacy threatened and apparently intimidated. A Government making its powers subservient to agitators who avowedly sought the destruction of the Church. The State, so long IV>] The Oxford School. 191 the guardian of the Church, now becoming its enemy and its tyrant. Enemies within the Church seeking the subversion of its essential characteristics. And what was worst of all, no principle in the public mind to which we could appeal : an utter ignorance of all rational grounds of attachment to the Church ; an oblivion of its spiritual character as an institution, not of man, but of God ; the grossest Erastianism most widely prevalent, especially among all classes of politicians." l This appears now a highly coloured picture, but exaggerated as the fears of Tory Churchmen look in the retrospect, there can be no doubt that this is a truthful description of the state of panic into which they had been thrown. That any sober-minded men should have been thus alarmed by anything so moderate as the mild Whiggery of Earl Grey seems incredible. But England had escaped so long from the exciting influences of the French Revolution that the revelations of the pent-up excitement which had been slumbering under the outward calm which Tory repression had produced, were very startling to all the defenders of vested institu- tions, and to none more than to the champions of the Established Church. The hour of depression and anxiety found the men ready for the work of revival. The exigencies of the time and the affinities of religious and political senti- ment forced into union a little group of ardent enthu- siasts, who in a spirit of chivalry banded themselves together, in the hope of resisting what appeared to them the advancing force of revolution. The revival of a Church spirit was, in their view, the best way of ac- complishing this end, for not only was the Church 1 Palmer's Narrative, p. 4. 192 The Oxford School. [lect. threatened, and with it religion also, but the want of faith was regarded by them as the primary cause of that reckless spirit of change which was rampant every- where, and assailing everything. If the Church could be restored to its rightful position, everything would be saved ; if not, there was nothing to expect but a suc- cession of changes, each more extreme and mischievous than its predecessor. VII. It is needless to say that John Henry Newman was the most distinguished of a distinguished company, but at the beginning the most influential of the group was Keble. It is extremely curious — remembering that the one died a country clergyman in the Anglican Church, whereas the other is now a cardinal — to be told by Newman that "when I was elected fellow of Oriel Keble was not in residence. He was shy of me for years, in consequence of the marks which I bore upon me of the Evangelical and liberal school." Still, even then the younger man had a profound admiration for the elder, and he tells us of the awe with which he looked up to him at the beginning of his collegiate life. Very touch- ingly he says in his reminiscences, in relation to the con- gratulations which he received on his election to the fel- lowship from his seniors : " I bore it till Keble took both my hands, and then felt so abashed and unworthy of the honour done me that I seemed desirous of quite sinking into the ground. His had been the first name which I had heard spoken of, with reverence rather than admira- tion, when I came up to Oxford." The influence which a man regarded with such veneration would give to a iv.] The Oxford School. 193 new movement is incalculable. He was older and had more experience than most of his associates, and his was one of those saintly characters which command the affection and respect even of those who are most opposed to their doctrines. Keble was both the saint and the poet of the school. It had other saints and other poets, but there was in Keble more of the purely mystical temper than in any other of the little company who undertook the bold task of giving the Anglican Church an entirely new character, which, however it might be justified by the formularies, had never been attained except during the brief period of Laud's tyranny. The spirit of Keble may be under- stood from the closing sentences of the preface to The Christian Year, in which he speaks " of that soothing tendency of the Prayer Book, which it is the chief pur- pose of these pages to exhibit." Of all men he seemed least fitted to take a prominent part in polemical war- fare, but combined with a singular sweetness of temper there was an intensity of faith, and a devotion to what he believed to be truth, which prepared him, when the occasion demanded, to be a fearless champion of the cause he had espoused. To his celebrated assize sermon, preached in the University pulpit, on July 14, 1833, Newman dates the movement, and in his Apologia tells us that as such he " ever considered and kept the day." It was certainly a sermon distinguished by remark- able faithfulness, and was heard by the friends of the Church as a trumpet-blast that called them to arms in defence of all they most loved. The subject was the " National Apostacy," and its keynote is found in the reference drawn from our Lord's words, " He that hcareth you, heareth Me, and he that despiseth you, despiseth 14 194 The Oxford School. [lect. Me," from which he concludes, " These words of Divine truth put beyond all sophistical conception, what com- mon sense would lead us to infer, and what daily experi- ence teaches ; — that disrespect to the successors of the apostles, as such, is an unquestionable symptom of enmity to Him who gave them their commission, and pledged Himself to be with them for ever. Suppose such disrespect general and national ; suppose it also avowedly grounded, not on any fancied test of religion, but on mere human reasons of popularity and expedi- ency, either there is no meaning at all in these emphatic declarations of our Lord, or that nation, how highly soever she may think of her own religion and morality, stands convicted in His sight of a direct disavowal of His sovereignty." l The intent of all this was unmistakable. The condition thus hypothetically stated was the actual state of the English nation. The sermon itself and the advertise- ment to the first edition show how deeply troubled the mind of the preacher was. The intensity of his feel- ing is, indeed, the only excuse which can be urged in extenuation of so grave an impropriety as the employ- ment of an assize sermon, preached before the judges, and with all the solemnity which the occasion must have lent to it, as an instrument of attack upon the existing Government. It is true that the preacher urges that " submission and obedience are still duties," but no effort is spared to discredit the principles and policy of those to whom these duties are to be paid. We are living in exciting times now, and the High Church sen- timent is doubtless more pronounced and more powerful than it was in 1833 ; but it is not easy to conceive of • Keble's Sermons, \sp. 139, 140. iv.] The Oxford School. 195 a clergyman venturing now to preach a violent party sermon under similar circumstances. The only plea that can be urged in favour of Mr. Keble is that he spoke under a deeply conscientious feeling of duty to the Church. The Legislature — " the members of which were not even bound to profess belief in the atone- ment " — had undertaken to make laws for the Church, and had gone so far as to ratify the principle that it was only " one sect among many." Erastian prin- ciples were supreme, and it had become a question whether it was possible for Churchmen to remain in the communion of the Established Church without incurring the taint. The calamity (the suppression of the Irish bishoprics) which had overtaken the Church between the delivery of the sermon and its publication justified the fear that their children's children would have to say, " There was once here a glorious Church, but it was betrayed into the hands of libertines for the real or affected love of a little temporary peace and good order." That such reflections should occur to a Churchman under the circumstances is not surprising. What was open to question was the propriety, or even decency, of raising a war cry on such an occasion, and appealing to Churchmen to rally for a determined resist- ance to the Government. To us, reading this after the lapse of nearly half a century, it is still more surprising that Mr. Keble himself was so easily reconciled to the Erastian rule he so justly deprecates, and, most of all, that the party who have inherited his principles, and pushed them to a still further point, have also imitated his acquiescence. Church principles may be more generally held to-day than then, but the evils of which Mr. Keble complained remain not only undiminished but even 196 The Oxford School. [lect. intensified. The Parliament has not assumed a more Christian character, has found it impossible to stand on the "thin ledge" of Deism. Nor has it abandoned any of its pretensions to ecclesiastical rule. Indeed the more pronounced the " Catholic " claims of the Church, the more decided the Erastianism of the State. Is it possible that the dreaded taint of this Erastianism is even on those who have accepted the defence and propagation of these Church principles as their primary duty ? Assuredly few sights are less admirable than the contrast between the loftiness of these pretensions and the meekness that accepts the contempt with which they are treated with such long-suffering resignation. For Keble it may be urged, what cannot be said for his successors, that he trusted to the revival of Church sentiment and principle for checking the encroachments of the State. The experiment has been tried for half- a-century, and has signally failed. Keble and his fellow- workers may have the credit of earnestly and conscien- tiously making the attempt. The result has been the encouragement in many of the clergy of a lawlessness which professes to be spiritual independence, but not a solitary concession on the part of the State. It is strange that this should content those who claim to represent the authority of the " Holy Catholic Church." The delivery of the sermon was speedily followed by the issue of the celebrated Tracts. Sir John Coleridge, in his Life of his friend, tells us that " Keble was the true and primary author " of the movement, and quotes some letters which show at least that he had a principal hand in the work, though they hardly establish so much as the biographer asserts. " What think you," Keble says to a friend, " of a kind of association (as quiet and iv.] The Oxford School. 197 unpretending as may be, if possible, even without a name) for the promotion of the two objects, first, the circulation of primitive notions regarding the Apostolic Succession ; and secondly, the protection of the Prayer Book against profane innovation ?" Keble was a High Churchman, and had been trained in High Church principles, and his whole action shows that his one idea was restoration ; and the association he was anxious to see established was to have this only in view. There is as little reason to suspect any of his associates of an ulterior object. The thought of one and all was the purification and salvation of the Anglican Church. Whether Keble first conceived the plan of an asso- ciation is a point of very slight importance. Possibly the idea occurred simultaneously to several minds possessed by these High Church sympathies. "I," says Cardinal Newman, "had out of my own head begun the Tracts ; " but he also gives us to understand that the commencement of the Tracts was not the actual rise of the movement. The Rev. William Palmer, of Worcester College, who was extremely anxious for a committee or association, gives us this account : " I had not been," he says, " very intimately acquainted with Mr. Newman and Mr. Froude, and was scarcely known to Mr. Keble or Mr. Perceval, when our deep sense of the wrongs sustained by the Church in the suppression of bishoprics and our feelings of the necessity of doing whatever was in our power to arrest the tide of evil, brought us together in the summer of 1833. It was at the beginning of the Long Vacation fwhen, Mr. Froude being almost the only occupant of Oriel College, we frequently met in the common-room) that the resolution to unite and associate in defence of 198 The Oxford School. [lect. the Church, of her violated liberties, and her neglected principles, arose." 1 The Rev. H. J. Rose, then the vicar of Hadleigh, was consulted, and a celebrated conference at Hadleigh was one of the landmarks in the history of the movement, as Mr. Rose was certainly one of the most active among its original promoters. The differences which afterwards became more apparent early manifested themselves. Mr. Rose soon abandoned the company, and, from the first, Froude and Newman were more daring and reso- lute than most of the band, and especially than those who were already in the enjoyment of ecclesiastical preferments. Froude, says Newman — and we shall presently find abundant illustration of the remark — was " a bold rider : as on horseback, so also in his speculations ; " but others were more timid, and shrank equally from his logical consistency and from the inde- pendence of Newman, who speaks of himself as the representative of personality in opposition to Palmer and Rose, who desired the support of organization in their movement. After much difficulty and several abortive attempts, terms of agreement were at last formulated and circulated in parsonages and other places where, it was hoped, they might be accepted as the basis of regular association. This hope was disappointed, but the expressions of sympathy received were sufficient to assure the leaders that they had behind them a large amount of Church, and especially of clerical opinion. In all these preliminary steps, great as was the service which Keble rendered by means of his courageous as- sertion of principle — which was all the more impressive because of his gentleness of spirit, his high reputation, 1 Palmer's Narrative, pp. 5, 6. iv.] The Oxford School. 199 his moderating counsels — it was not so valuable as that which he had already done in the publication of The Christian Year. That book was not intended in any sense to serve the ends of party. It was issued in a time of perfect tranquillity, before the removal of Catholic disabilities had aroused the alarm and indignation of Oxford Churchmen. Its effect has un- doubtedly been the growth of a strong Church senti- ment, and so far, but so far only, can it be regarded as doing the special work of a party. Its mysticism, its reverence for the Church and its authority, the sanctity and beauty with which it invests all Church festivals, the reverential tone approaching to the superstitious which it takes towards the sacraments, and its great tenderness for Rome — all unite to foster the ideas and feelings of the school from which it emanates. Its utterances on Church questions are always distinct, often very emphatic, and in some cases very misleading and mischievous. But apart from these, there is the expres- sion of sentiments, in which every true Christian heart must unite, often couched in language as choice and chaste as the thought itself is striking. As an interpreter both of nature and of Scripture, Mr. Keble shows great originality and spiritual insight, though, it must be con- fessed, he indulges in occasional conceits that spoil the effect of poems which would otherwise be extremely touching and beautiful. Many of his hymns have found a place in all our collections, and are sung in the Dissenting meeting-house with as much heart as in the churches for which they were primarily intended. Several of them indeed are familiar as household words. His morning and evening hymns, if they have not actu- ally supplanted those of Ken, may certainly challenge 200 The Oxford School. [lect. comparison with them in point of popularity. There are other poems which, being more deeply spiritual and subjective, appeal to a smaller circle ; but by the devout spirits which can enter into them, they are prized as among the best helps to true spiritual life. A book like this, so exquisite in feeling, so elevated in thought, ap- pealing so strongly to the best affections, so directly ministering to Christian edification, could not but exert a mighty influence on behalf of the principles with which it was saturated. Its circulation has been enormous, and the effect was the preparation of the soil for the seeds of doctrinal teaching which the Tracts were to scatter. Those who have no sympathy with its distinc- tive ideas are very liable to underrate its power. Non- conformists assimilate the Christian sentiment which it breathes, and reject its ecclesiastical and sacramental ideas as foolish conceits or vain superstitions ; but that is not the case with those who have an antecedent faith in the Church and love of the Prayer Book, and who find here only the full development of sentiments they have long held, but whose entire meaning they have not grasped. With them it has been a mighty power, cer- tainly one of the most potent of the indirect forces which have contributed to the spread of Tractarian views. The Catholic Revival has had other poets, but if we except the few but choice contributions of Newman himself, the only poetry which has exerted any great influence is that of The Christian Year. The Lyra Apostolica, which was published with the definite inten- tion of promoting the interests of the school, and which included poems from its most distinguished members, may have interested admiring friends, but hardly affected any wider circle. An acute and competent critic in The iv.] The Oxford School. 201 New Quarterly Magazine, says, " Few of these pieces are poetry in any true sense. They are hard, dogmatic, forced, and crabbed. Those who were poets among the authors seem to have put off their poet's mantle ; those who were not are as heavy as performing elephants. Dr. Newman is the one exception. The verses, ' Lead, kindly Light,' which have made their way into almost every hymnal in the land, appeared here." The Lyra Innocentium, which Keble published at the later period marks a distinct stage in his own ecclesiastical develop- ment, and is on that account extremely interesting, especially when read in connection with Dr. Newman's criticism upon it, which taken altogether is one of the most suggestive and touching pieces of self-revelation, as well as of a criticism whose logical keenness is tempered by the kindly memories of a close friendship, which he has penned. But its artistic character is correctly de- scribed by the able writer already quoted : " The faults and merits of The Christian Year are in these also, but the faults are far greater and the merits fewer." Dr. Newman tells us that Keble " did that for the Church of England which none but a poet could do ; he made it poetical," and then in a passage of singular eloquence, too long to quote in full, he shows how pre- dominant that poetic element is in the Romish Church, and how far Keble had sought to naturalize it in the Anglican, " over which he threw the poetry of his own mind and the memory of better days." " His happy magic made the Anglican Church seem what Catholicism was and is. The established system found to its surprise that it had been all its life talking not prose but poetry — ' Miraturque novas frondes ct non sua poma.' 202 The Oxford School. [lect. Beneficed clergymen used to go to rest as usual on Christmas Eve, and leave to ringers, or sometimes to carollers, the observance which was paid, not without creature comforts, to the sacred night ; but now they suddenly found themselves, to their great surprise, to be ' wakeful shepherds,' and ' still as the day came round,' ' in music and in light,' ' the new-born Saviour dawned upon their prayer.' Anglican bishops had not only lost the habit of blessing, but had sometimes been startled and vexed when asked to do so ; but now they were told of their ' gracious arm stretched out to bless ;•' moreover, what they had never dreamed when they were gazetted or did homage, they were taught that each of them was an ' Apostle true, a crowned and robed seer.' The parish church had been shut up, except for vestry meetings and occasional services, all days of the year but Sundays, and one or two other sacred days ; but church-goers were now assured that ' martyrs and saints dawned on their way,' that the Absolution in the Com- mon Prayer Book was the ' Golden Key each morn and eve,' and informed, moreover, at a time too when the Real Presence was all but utterly forgotten or denied, of the ' dear feast of Jesus dying, upon that altar ever lying, while Angels prostrate fall' They learned, besides, that what their pastors had spoken of and churchwar- dens had used at vestry meetings as a mere table was 1 the dread altar,' and that ' holy lamps were blazing,' perfumed embers quivering bright,' ' stoled priests to minister at them,' while the ' floor was by knees of sinners worn.' " r This graphic picture enables us to understand the extraordinary effect which Keble produced. The 1 Essays, vol. ii. p. 444. iv.] The Oxford School. 203 Christian Year did more to diffuse the spirit of the movement than all the elaborate subtleties of the Tracts. It affected men unconsciously to themselves, and created a sentiment more powerful and enduring than any mere logical conviction. The Protestantism of the Anglican Church has been more injured by the loyalty of Keble than by the secession of Newman. Newman may be right in saying that Keble " has kindled hearts towards his Church," I and perhaps even "raised up advocates for it among those who otherwise, if God and their good angel had suffered it, would have wandered away into some sort of philosophy, and acknowledged no Church at all." 2 But the Church for which he educated them was not a Protestant Church. He has done at least as much to educate the Church out of its Protestantism as to attach individuals to its communion. The school he helped to train is one to which all ideas of freedom are hateful, and by which the Romish errors that are most abhorrent to Protestant opinion and feeling are regarded with indulgence and even favour. So distin- guished was Keble himself " for a deep, tender, loyal devotion to the Blessed Mary " that, writing in 1846, Newman, unwilling to give up the hope that they might again be united in the same Church, thus expressed his hopes : " The image of the Virgin and Child seem to be the one vision upon which both his heart and intellect have been formed ; and those who knew Oxford twenty or thirty years ago say that, while other college rooms were ornamented with pictures of Napoleon on horse- back, or Apollo and the Graces, or Heads of Houses lounging in their easy chairs, there was one man, a young and rising one, in whose rooms instead of these might 1 Essays, vol. ii. p. 445. - Ibid. 204 Tlie Oxford School. [lect. be seen the Madonna di Sisto or Domcnichino's S. John — fit augury of him who was in the end to do so much for the revival of Catholicism. We will never give up the hope, the humble belief, that that sweet and gracious Lady will not forget her servant, but will recompense him in royal wise sevenfold, bringing him and his at length into the Church of the one Saviour, and the communion of Himself and all His saints whom He has redeemed." x The hope was not to be fulfilled. But the best friends of the Anglican Church, certainly those who are most anxious for its Protestant character, may feel that the seeming loss it would have sustained would have been a real gain had Keble, instead of remaining to Romanize his old Church, followed his friend into that of Rome. VIII. A very different man from Keble — not less resolute, but more daring and extreme — was one whose early death was a heavy blow to the party, Richard Hurrell Froude. From all the accounts we have of him from his surviving friends, he must clearly be regarded as its leading spirit in its first days. Newman describes him as a " man of the highest gifts, so truly many-sided that it would be presumptuous in me to attempt to describe him, except in those aspects in which he came before me." Again he speaks of him as "a man of high genius, brimful and overflowing with ideas and views, in him original, which were too many and strong even for his bodily strength, and which crowded and jostled each other in their efforts after distinct shape and expression." This is the estimate of friendship, and may be coloured by its 1 Essays, vol. ii. p. 452. iv.] The Oxford School. 205 partiality ; but no careful reader of the Remains which this accomplished and independent youthful thinker has left behind him will be inclined to charge it with serious exaggeration. What Mr. Froude might have been to the party had he lived it would not be profitable to con- jecture. All that is necessary to do is to note the kind of influence which he contributed to it ; for he, more than any other, may be regarded as its author. It was he who actually drew Keble into the fellowship ; it was in the Oriel common-room that many of the preliminary discussions were held, he being the centre of the little knot that gathered there ; and it was his presence and counsel which, as Newman shows, lent so much force and decision to their early action. The publication of his Remains was one of the sensations of the struggle which, beginning with the issue of the Tracts, reached its first stage when the Gorham judgment forced a number of the party into secession to Rome. The memoir of Bishop Wilberforce shows with what alarm and displeasure it was viewed by numbers of timid men, and especially by those who had given the Tract writers a certain measure of counte- nance without committing themselves in their favour. The feeling was only natural, for the book was singularly damaging to the High Church party, from the light which it shed upon its tendencies. With the exception of Tract XC, it was perhaps the boldest, the most advanced, and the most uncompromising of all the productions of the school. Alike in its scornful reflections on Erastianism, in its bitter hate of everything that looked in the direc- tion of Anglican Puritanism, in its daring vindication of Catholic authority, and its tolerance of what Protestants esteemed the worst errors of Rome, it was a startling re- 206 TJie Oxford ScJiool. [lect. vclation. To this day it remains one of the most instruc- tive teachers as to the real spirit of the movement which caught so much of its inspiration from this brilliant writer, who had set himself, with the characteristic chivalry of youth, to be an apostle of reaction in this age of freedom and progress. An undisguised hatred of the Reformers of the An- glican Church is one of the most prominent features in these Remains. This was not due to a Romanist feeling, for Froude appears to have had as keen an eye for the abuses and hypocrisies of the Romish system as the most ardent Protestant could desire. Though at one time he was possessed with a hope of possible reunion, it died away when he learned that Rome would yield nothing, and that if the English Church were to be reconciled, it must accept the Tridentine Creed, with the infallibility of the Church and every other dogma included. If there had been any leanings towards Rome previously, of which, however, there is no sign, that discovery ended them. " I never could be a Romanist," he says ; " I never could think that all those things in Pius' creed are neces- sary to salvation. . . . They are wretched Tridentines everywhere." The anathemas troubled him most, for he could not accept the conclusion to which they would have forced him relative to his friends. But, besides his revulsion from them, he had a very keen sense of the practical results of Romanism. Some of the converts to Rome — Mr. Allies, for example — appear to have received their first favourable impressions of the system from their observations on the continent. With Mr. Hurrell Froude the effect was entirely opposite. Priests and people alike offended him : the one by their servility to the state, the other by the superficiality and hollowness iv.] The Oxford School. 207 of their apparent devotion, and the grossncss of their superstition. His general conclusion was that the Roman Catholic countries held the truth in unrighteous- ness. " I have seen priests laughing when at the con- fessional ; and, indeed, it is plain that unless they habitually made light of very gross immorality, three- fourths of the population [of Naples] would be excom- municated. . . . The Church of England has fallen low, and will possibly be worse before it is better ; but let the Whigs do their worst, they cannot sink us so deep as these people have allowed themselves to fall, while retaining all the superficials of a religious country." ' It is possible that the stern logic of his system might ultimately have led him to Rome. Newman raised his voice with equal strength against Rome and her errors, and at length humbly recanted his protest, and yielded to the authority he had so vehemently denounced, and the principle which ultimately constrained him was at work in the mind of his friend. But so far from any signs of yielding in Froude, there was up to the time of his death the same determined resistance to the claims of the Papal See. What perplexed many, and led them to fancy that he was a Romanist in disguise, was this bitter and almost malignant scorn he poured upon the Reformers and the Reformation. He writes to his friends that he is study- ing the history of the period, and he is manifestly doing so under a prepossession which makes Romanists appear increasingly attractive and Protestants more odious. As to the Reformation itself, " it is a limb badly set ; it must be broken again in order to be righted." Of much that Englishmen have been accustomed to revere and 1 Froude's Remains, vol. i. p. 294. 208 The Oxford School. [lect. honour he is an unsparing iconoclast, while, on the other, he is prepared to rehabilitate the reputations of those whom Protestants hold in loathing. He has a kindly word for Gardiner and Bonner, while Pole is the cha- racter which he admires beyond all others in that troubled time. He set the evil example, followed by later Ritua- lists, of piling calumny and abuse upon the Reformers. To the poetry of Milton and the policy of Cranmer he has an equal aversion, since they are alike Protestant. It is true that he incidentally bestows a kind word upon Penry ; but it is not that he loves him more, only that he loves his Erastian persecutors less. But Froude has his ideal. If he is equally caustic in his remarks upon Romanists and Protestants, he has his own idols, and they are Anglican Catholics. "The Church is to be remodelled according to the ideas of Charles I. and the Nonjurors." The aim of the movement could not well have been better described. A Church such as Laud would have had it was what these Tractarians desired to see, and their Tracts were meant to further this object. Laud had no intention of submitting to Rome, but he meant to establish the rule of" Catholic" antiquity and to restore a number of doctrines and prac- tices of which the Reformers had got rid. The priest, the sacrament, the confessional were all assumed to be sanctioned by the voice of the " Catholic " Church, and ought, therefore, to have their place in the Anglican Church. As archbishop, he regarded himself as the head of an imposing hierarchy, whose power was to be in- creased by the awful sanctity with which priests were to be invested and the tremendous authority with which the}- were to be endowed. It was this for which Laud struggled, and it was this which the writers of the Tracts IV>] The Oxford School. 209 had set before them as the object which was to be accomplished. What Laud had failed to do with an unscrupulous despot behind him, and with the rights of Parliament suspended in order to facilitate his plans, they hoped to accomplish by tracts and pamphlets, soothing poetry and polemic fiction, plain sermons for the people, and elaborate treatises for the learned. The conception was daring and original, but the sagacity of those who formed it and carried it out with such energy has been vindicated by the event. They set in action influences which have altered the tone of the clergy, changed the outward appearance of the Anglican Church, and its style of worship, and, in fact, produced a revival of energy which is one of the remarkable facts of this generation. Whether the ultimate result will be as satisfactory as present appearances would indicate is a more doubtful matter. But it is hardly to be questioned by any candid man that the little company, of whom Hurrell Froude was at first the centre, gave an entirely new direction to the current of ecclesiastical life within the Establishment. That the people are inclined to tolerate in the nine- teenth century a clerical tyranny which they spurned in the seventeenth seems hardly credible. Yet the actual facts seem at first to point in that direction. A few men, all of them young, and most of them as yet without ecclesiastical position, unsupported by their official superiors, set themselves to persuade the world that the current view of the Anglican Church, that which had prevailed for three centuries, which had been accepted by the great majority of its divines, which was adopted by its own dignitaries, and in which its members had been educated, was utterly wrong. 15 210 The Oxford School. [lect. In doing this they opposed themselves to the pre- judices of the people, the conservatism of the Church, the strongest political and social instincts of statesmen, and the earnest religious convictions of Evangelical Protestants, whether in their own Church or the Dis- senting communities. If there was a belief more deeply rooted in the mind of the English nation at the time than another, it was that they were a Protestant people, and theirs par excellence the Protestant Church. These would-be guides of public opinion set themselves boldly to defy and, if possible, overcome this feeling, and with it all those rights and principles of which Protestantism has ever been the inspiration and the bulwark. They flouted the name of liberty, scoffed at the rising spirit of religious tolerance, treated the aspirations after progress as though they were a rebellion against the law of God and the order of Providence. In all this they were trusting to a theory the foundation of which was on the sand, as the most eminent and consistent of them ulti- mately found. But what was lacking in strength of argument was made up by audacity of temper and bold- ness of assertion. If they were ever troubled by a doubt as to their position, it was certainly never suffered to .appear. The Anglican was the Holy Catholic Church in these realms, and in their school were its true representa- tives. In vain did the Romanists insist that the authority of the later was equal to that of the earlier Councils, and equally in vain did the Dissenter maintain that the liberty to reject the errors of Rome implied liberty also for him to reject that of Canterbury. They had decided that their Church had found the true mean between those conflicting claims, and that her voice alone was to be obeyed. " Hear the church " was the text of a cele- iv.] The Oxford School. 211 brated sermon from one who, though not absolutely identified with the school, and disapproving of its later developments, was long in earnest sympathy with its principles and aims. It is the keynote of all the Tracts. IX. The carrying out of this principle meant the reversal of a judgment which the nation had long since pronounced with such emphasis that it was supposed that controversy upon the points involved had been closed. The real mean- ing of the Lord's Supper, the functions of the priest, the entire penitential system, including confession, penance, and absolution, were supposed to have been settled. The Tracts boldly re-opened them all, on the ground that much which had been treated as Romish error was grand " Catholic " truth, which the Church of England had never renounced. " The glory of the English Church," it was maintained by them, " is that it has taken the via media, as it has been called." It lies between the " so- called Reformers and the Romanists." If it was objected, as naturally it was, that the Articles at all events were decidedly opposed to such a view, the answer was that the true mind of the Church was to be ascertained rather from the liturgy, which was to be constantly used and had a permanent character, which did not belong to Articles that were intended only as polemical protests against the errors of the day. There came a time, as the views of the writers became more developed, when the Articles were dealt with in another fashion, and when — in contempt alike of the plain meaning of language and of the whole testimony of history — it was gravely argued that the Articles were capable of a Romish interpreta- 212 The Oxford School. [lect. tion. But the original contention was that "the liturgy, as coming down from the Apostles, is the depository of their complete teaching ; while the Articles are polemical, and, except as they embody the creeds, are only protests against certain definite errors." The object of the Tracts, therefore, was to use every hint that the liturgy supplied and expand it to the utmost for the exaltation of the ministerial office, the elevation of the sacraments as " the sources of Divine grace," the revival of practices long disused as pieces of Romish superstition. "Metho- dism and Romanism," we are told in the preface of the first volume, " are in different ways the refuge of those whom the Church stints of the gifts of grace ; they are the foster mothers of abandoned children." These writers set themselves to the supply of this lamentable deficiency, and the recovery for their Church of the position it had lost through this unfaithfulness to the trust committed to it. With a few exceptions these Tracts are not brilliant productions. Apart from those contributed by Cardinal Newman himself, they would soon have passed into oblivion. It may be doubted whether they are now much known except by students. They laid the foun- dation of a school now both numerous and powerful, but it is open to question whether, among those who have accepted the conclusions they set forth, there are many who are careful to examine the reasonings by which they are sustained. Reasoning is indeed a doubtful term to apply to these pieces of superb dog- matism. Specious subtleties are introduced in the working out of the teaching, but the ultimate basis on which everything is made to rest is the authority of the " Catholic Church," and for that we have to trust to the iv.] The Oxford School. 213 assertion of the writers themselves. What they accept is Catholic ; what they reject is not Catholic. Vincentius Lirinensis has given forth the dictum by which they abide. But if a question be raised as to the prerogative in virtue of which this writer is entitled to lay down an abiding rule of faith for all times, there is no reply. These teachers have submitted themselves to his guidance, and so must we. If we proceed to take to pieces his celebrated maxim, we find ourselves again required to yield the same deference to our teachers, who must be allowed to introduce the exceptions which bristle all round a principle laid down as simple, satisfactory, and decisive. From the " ubique" we must leave out the lands where heresy is dominant ; from the " omnibus " we must exclude the heretics themselves ; from the " semper " the period prior to the full development of the system for which this Catholic sanction is claimed. It is not pretended, it must be remembered, that there is scriptural authority for every idea or right which the Church is thus required to accept. The law is invented for the very purpose of determining what additions may legitimately be made to the New Testament teaching. The apostolic age is therefore, ex hypothesi, excluded from the " semper ; " and in ascertaining the mind of Catholic antiquity we are to give no heed to the time when the Church was in its freshness and purity. As little notice are we to take of Dissent, however widespread and however influential, but are to regard the decision of a majority, however narrow and by whatever means obtained, as the unbiassed judgment of all. All this we are to accept because these exponents of Anglo-Catho- licism have so decreed. " The multitude of men cannot teach or guide themselves ; and an injunction given 214 The Oxford School. [lect. them to depend on their private judgment, cruel in itself, is doubly hurtful, as throwing them on such teachers as speak daringly and promise largely, and not only aid but supersede individual exertion." So say these writers in their preface. In order to deliver the unhappy victims of this liberty from such " blind leaders of the blind," they speak even more daringly and promise even more largely. As clergy of the Catholic Church they hold the commission to teach, and they will instruct men, leading them in the safe and pleasant paths which neither Romanists nor Dissenters know. As Archbishop Whately cleverly put it, "The mass of Christians are called on to believe and do what is essential to Chris- tianity, in implicit reliance on the reports of the re- spective pastors as to what certain deep theological antiquarians have reported to tliem respecting the reports given by certain ancient fathers of reports current in their times concerning apostolical usages and institutions." There is something extremely offensive in the arrogance which first maintains that the Church must decide every- thing, and then quietly slips in the idea that " we," the writers, or the school, express the will of the Church. And that is what the claim of these Tractarian writers really meant. " In a word," says Professor Rogers, in one of those keen and incisive exposures of the system which were among the most valuable contributions to the Protestant side of the controversy, " we find the Church is just Mr. Newman or Dr. Pusey, not unbe- comingly disguised in the habiliments of a somewhat antiquated lady, and uttering their ' private judgments' as veritable oracles." They make every endeavour to shelter themselves behind venerable names and recog- nized authority. They give us wonderful catena; of iv.] The Oxford School. 215 opinions taken from the works of Anglican divines of acknowledged reputation, but they themselves select the divines to whom they appeal, and the particular dicta in their writings by which they are content to be guided. Take them on what point you please, whether it be the opinion of the Fathers, or the tradition of antiquity, or the decree of the Catholic Church, everywhere there is a selection, and it is by them that it is made. " We " restrain freedom and determine at what point it becomes license. " We " pronounce what dogma and what par- ticular phase of dogma is Catholic. " We " decide how far it is expedient that restoration should be carried, and when and how the revival should be effected. " We " are Protestants against the Romish Church, but we are " Catholic " to all the world beside, and " whatever be our private differences with the Roman Catholics, we may join with them in condemning Socinians, Baptists, Independents, Quakers, and the like. But God forbid that we should ally ourselves with the offspring of heresy and schism in our contest with any branches of the Holy Church which maintain the foundation, whatever may be their incidental corruptions." l The spectacle of this little company entrenching themselves in their narrow territory and insisting that it alone is Christendom, while on either side is the uncovenanted land of the Puritan or the schismatic, has its ludicrous aspect. The insular pride which this pretension exhibits is, however, almost the only English element about the movement which is constantly described as Anglicanism. The inculcation of the theory of reserve, which was early made so prominent in the teachings of the Tracts, 1 Tracts for the Times, vol. vi. ; Records of the Church, No. 25, pp. 8, 9. 216 The Oxford School. [lect. is, on the contrary, essentially un-, or shall we not rather say, anti-English. Before the appearance of the two tracts on this subject, there had been a gradual awakening of the public mind to the tendencies of the series of tracts which had been issued with such frequency, and were marked by such unity of purpose as to indicate that a new ecclesiastical school had arisen. The first feeling which was provoked was that of contempt. That clergy- men of a Church which was regarded as Protestant should claim a special Divine commission, and in virtue of the authority thus intrusted to them enforce the rights of the priesthood npon a generation which had felt the influence of the first French Revolution, and which was seething with aspirations after progress and liberty, seemed little else than a lusus natures. If ever a theory seemed to be born out of due season, it was this new idea of apostolical succession and sacramental efficacy born at Oxford in the second quarter of the nineteenth century. Some treated it as a wild outburst of clerical fanaticism ; others esteemed it the natural though over- strained reaction against the reforming energy of Liberal- ism, and the protest against the achievements it had already effected. The excitement produced soon began to gather in intensity, spreading from the university to the country parsonages, with which the university is so closely connected, and gradually extending to the outer world. Some were amused, many contemptuous, others indignant and alarmed. But few realized the seriousness of the procedure, or had the faintest idea whereunto it would grow. With the appearance of successive tracts, in which the aims of the school became more apparent, the feel- ing deepened. But the two tracts on Reserve in the Communication of Religious Knozvledge excited an alarm iv.] The Oxford School. 217 much keener than had been felt before. Romeward tendencies had been suspected and charged before, but here was a confirmation of every allegation. What was this theory of an esoteric doctrine for the initiated, and an exoteric for the common people, or for those who, from some prejudice or other cause, were not prepared to receive the full truth, but the very principle of Rome in its worst form ? It was bad enough that the words of our Lord should have been perverted in order to justify such an "economy" in the teaching of truth, and that before all others the doctrines of the atonement and of the Holy Spirit should have been selected as those to which it was proper that it should be applied. It was worse that for Anglican priests should be claimed the right of deciding when and how far this reserve should be carried, since this claim in- troduced an entirely new element of doubt into the rela- tions between the teacher and the taught. The preacher who fancies that with him it remains to decide how much of what God has shown him he is to give to the people, who arrogates to himself the right of manipulating the gospel as though it were his to determine how much of the Divine message is suited to those to whom it is addressed, and who even insists that it is not neces- sary to give prominence to the doctrine of the atonement and of the work of the Holy Ghost, must have a very different view of the duties of his office from that of the great Apostle, who felt that " necessity was laid upon him, and woe was unto him if he preached not the gospel." The one was really an ambassador for Christ, who be- lieved that the more fully he set forth the story of his Master's love, the better did he discharge the trust com- mitted to him. The other is a priest, who assumes that 2i8 Ths Oxford School, [lect. some special authority has been given to him, and that it is for him to determine when, how, and in what pro- portions the knowledge he possesses should be given to the people. But while this impressed all thoughtful people, still more painful was the utter loss of confidence in the defenders of such a practice, and the consequent appre- hension that, even when using strong Protestant lan- guage, they might still be secretly the servants of Rome, and employing all means in their power in order to advance her interests. Archbishop Whately put the first point with characteristic force and point. " What would be the natural and reasonable reply of the people to teachers who avow such principles as these ? Should it not be, ' We thank you for the warning. You have disclosed your method of procedure : and that is of such a nature that no reasonable man would choose to become your disciple.' He who professes the allow- ableness and duty of having one gospel for the mass of the people and another for the initiated few, and is believed in that profession, could not wonder to find that he is believed in nothing else." l From the time that this doctrine was broached, all dis- avowals of sympathy with Rome were treated as idle, if not delusive words. But clear-headed men had long seen that, whether from inability to perceive the drift of their movement, or of malice prepense, the Tractarians were gradually leading men on to Rome. One of the cleverest and most telling brochures of the time 2 was a Pastoral purporting to come from the Pope, and done with such admirable skill that, at first, numbers were deceived by it. In this His Holiness gratefully acknowledges his 1 Cautio7is for the Times, p. 222. 2 Ibid. p. 252. iv.] The Oxford School. 219 obligation to such faithful workers, while he gently chides the indiscretions which had revealed too much of their secret thought. It expressed a widespread belief not only as to the effect of the writings, in which it was correct, but also as to the intentions of the writers, in which all the evidence warrants us in saying that it was wrong. The secession to Rome, when it came, was supposed to justify these previous suspicions. But in truth it was only the logical outcome of principles whose issue was perceived from the first by all save those who believed in them and taught them. They were not in- tentionally disloyal to the Church at whose altars they ministered, and they went where, at first, they had no thought of going. Until this fact is faced, the rulers of the Anglican Church will never understand the real nature of the difficulty with which they have to grapple. One of the venerable leaders of the school still remains in the Established Church, and has round him a more numerous and not less daring band of followers than ever, and there is not even an attempt to dispossess him or them. It may be that their extreme doctrines and practices are condemned, but it is not easy to maintain that there is no foundation in the formularies for that principle of authority on which the whole system rests. Where that is, there are all the evils of ecclesiasticism, priestism, and sacramentarianism in embryo, and waiting only suitable opportunity for full development. The Tractarian and Ritualist struggle is only one phase of the ever returning conflict between Christ and human authority, and it is a war in which there can be no neutrality or half-hearted allegiance. It is this that gives such significance to the struggle which the Oxford movement inaugurated, and in the midst of which we 220 The Oxford School. [lect. iv. find ourselves to-day. Behind the question of rites and robes, of fasts and festivals, even of priests and sacra- ments, is the far deeper issue of authority. There is but one rule which can be opposed to that of Rome, and it is that of Christ. As the story of this move- ment shows, no canon of Catholicity avails those who have compromised the liberty which Christ gives. Pro- fessor Rogers well laid down the only rule which can safely be opposed to the canon of Vincentius Lirinensis, when he said that the apostles shall be our "omnes," their writings our " ubique," their age our " semper." LECTURE V. THE BROAD CHURCH. LECTURE V. THE BROAD CHURCH. In 1826 John Henry Newman was elected a fellow of Oriel College, Oxford, succeeding to the place which was vacated by Thomas Arnold. At that time, and for some years before and after, Oriel was the centre of much of the intellectual activity of the University. As we run through the list of distinguished men who during this brilliant period of its history mingled in its Combination Room, or gather up the hints we find scattered through the biographies of some who have passed away, or the narratives of others who still remain and have given accounts of those collegiate days which have since produced such impression on the world, it is impossible not to regret that the references are so brief, and that no one has preserved fuller record of the men and the incidents that had so large a share in the training of those hereafter destined to be leaders of religious thought and ecclesiastical party. It is only necessary to mention Whately, Hampden, and above all Arnold, on the one side, Keble, Pusey, Newman on the other, to say nothing of such names as Copleston, Davison, and Hawkins, less known to the world out- side, but hardly less distinguished in their respective departments — to show that from Oriel of that day pro- 224 The Broad Church. [lf.ct. cecded the great intellectual forces which moulded the subsequent history of the Anglican Church, and whose influence has not yet expended itself. Apparently the conflict of the times has been between the Protestant and Catholic, or the Evangelical and High Church party in its various phases and degrees of development. The Church Association and the Church Union alike would repudiate the Broad Church theory and those by whom it was advocated, and the supporters of both would in all probability forget their fierce enmities and unite once again, as they have done at least on three great occasions already, for the suppres- sion of those whose principles they alike hold in abhor- rence ; but the power which has supplied the most effectual counteraction to the aggressions of priestism is the Liberalism of which the Broad Church is the repre- sentative. It is equally true on the opposite side, that but for it and the influence it has exerted on public opinion, even in the Church itself, the extreme form of High Churchism would have had but little chance of the tolerance which it at present enjoys. Still, strange, and even paradoxical as it may appear, it is in the Liberal spirit which Broad Churchmen have fostered that sacerdotalism has found its most resolute and powerful foe. Cardinal Newman and Dean Stanley are both right. As the former says, the Liberals created the spirit to which he succumbed, and it was they who drove him from the Church ; but the Dean is equally correct when he asserts that the " blows which were intended by the Oxford decrees to have made it im- possible for him to retain his position were warded off, I will not say entirely, but in a very large mea- sure, by the self-denying efforts of the Liberal party." v.] The Broad Church. 225 The explanation of all this will become apparent in the course of this review. Evangelicals have no doubt taken a leading part in opposition ; have organized a more public and more noisy resistance ; have been more anxious to convert the Church into a party preserve ; have inspired and sus- tained all the movements in the courts of law with that view. They might have done more than that had the}' been thoroughly loyal to those grand Protestant ideas of which they assume to be the best exponents and the natural guardians. But their position in the Establish- ment has compromised them. They conceded too much to the adversary to be able to present a firm, unbroken front to his attack. A subtle sympathy with many of his ideas early began to discover itself, and robbed them of much of their strength. Gradually their force has been weakened as the rising clergy of their party have more or less succumbed to the influence of priestly theory, or been overborne by the exigencies of their clerical position. If they have not fallen away to the opposite side, they have done their utmost to infuse into their Evangelical teachings such a delicate aroma of ecclesiasticism as may please the tender susceptibilities of moderate High Churchmen, with whom they are so desirous to cultivate friendly relations. The result is that the opposing force of the Evangelical party has in all its moral elements been greatly reduced. It main- tains its associations, it institutes prosecutions, it launches invective and denunciations, but it does not carry with it the heart even of the Protestant people, numbers of whom have a lurking suspicion that the ecclesiastical spirit and priestly temper, which are at the root of the whole evil, may be found in the one party as well as in 16 226 The Broad Church, [lect. the other. The cxclusiveness and arrogance of the so-called Catholics are their most obnoxious features, and certainly on this score the Evangelicals have but slight justification for reproaching them. It is in the nature of things that the Broad Church party should be the champion of Ritualists when assailed. The spirit to which it owes its existence engenders a chivalrous sympathy by which men of the most opposite opinions benefit. It is bound, if it would not be untrue to its own instincts and false to its professions, to stand by all parties whose right to a place within the Established Church is challenged, and therefore it con- demns the suits which have resulted in the imprison- ment of sincere, though mistaken, clergymen, just as it was opposed to the first of those ecclesiastical proceed- ings— that instituted for the expulsion of Mr. Gorham. But the very principle on which it does this strikes at the very root of all sacerdotal pretensions. Catholics can hardly be thankful to those who would befriend them by insisting on a true catholicity which at one fell swoop would get rid of the claims of their Church, the autho- rity of their priesthood, and the supernatural grace of their sacraments. Rather must they see here an antago- nist with whom there is no possibility of accommoda- tion. The fact that they owe so much of their impunity to rivals, whose tolerance and liberality they would re- quite by using the first opportunity to expel them from the Church, is not likely to make the seeming alliance into which they are sometimes forced at all more palatable. v.] The Broad Church. 227 I. The Liberalism which has always been the aversion of the High Church party may fairly claim Arnold as its leading representative in modern times. Latitudinarian- ism was nothing new, but Latitudinarianism of Dr. Arnold's type, if such a term can be properly used in relation to him, was as far removed from that of the Feathers' Tavern or of Paley, or even of some of the present leaders of the school, as from Tractarianism itself. A founder of a school he was not, nor did he ever aspire to such a position, but on that very account he may be regarded as the fairest representative of the Broad Church. For the object of the party is not to assert the predominance of a special set of opinions, but to insist that the National Church shall be the home of all varieties of opinion. This aim itself necessarily brings it into conflict with other schools who hold views more or less exclusive ; but its antagonism is directed against the exclusiveness rather than the opinions. Its members may believe in the Trinity, but not the less do they earnestly oppose the Athanasian Creed. They may even have sympathy with certain aspects of the Cal- vinism for which the Evangelicals contend ; but as soon as any attempt is made to set up Calvinistic theories as the law of the Establishment they rebel. They are intense Protestants ; but they would not even safeguard Protestantism by expelling from the National Church the men by whose teachings its principles are under- mined. They thus naturally sympathize with the defen- dants in every suit, and while they receive nothing but condemnation, have only kindly sentiments for all except persecutors. 228 The Broad Church. [lect. In these respects Arnold was pre-eminently fitted to be their representative. He was a man of active intel- lect, of wide and varied culture, of rare independence of thought, and of rare courage in expression and action, but, beyond and above all, of a large and generous heart. His influence was that of character much more than of intel- lect. Whatever men thought of his system, they were forced to honour and respect himself. Few men have ever fought their way out of such a fierce and malignant unpopularity into a position of such wide-spread affec- tionate esteem. The prejudices of High Churchmen, who hated his stern outspoken condemnation of their Catholic aims ; of Evangelicals, who distrusted his views of inspiration, his principles of Scripture interpretation, and in general his whole conception as to creeds ; and of the clergy generally, who disliked his real, deeply rooted Liberalism, were conquered by the irresistible goodness of the man. Unlike some who are broad to the very verge of licence in matters of opinion, but at the same time narrow, and even intolerant, in all their sympathies, Arnold's breadth was distinctively that of the heart. He honoured all good men although he was unsparing in his attacks upon the errors of all systems. No one therefore could be more fully repre- sentative of. the school, of which it was said by one who was in strong sympathy with it thirty years ago, before its more recent developments had some- what changed its spirit and attitude, " Its distinctive character is the desire for comprehension ; its watch- words are charity and toleration ; its adherents love the Church of England for that very peculiarity which has most provoked the criticism of its detractors. For they believe that the superficial differences between v.] The Broad Church. 229 Christians are as nothing in comparison with their essential agreement. And they are willing that the portals of the Church should be flung as widely open as the gate of heaven." l It is hardly needful to point out that this view may be pushed to such an extreme as to reduce all theological opinion to the level of uncertain speculation, about which experts may feel a certain degree of interest, but which cannot be expected to exert any influence on the prac- tical business of life, or the formation of religious cha- racter. But, on the other hand, it may be associated with a faith in the vital truths of the gospel, and espe- cially in Christ Himself, so real and absorbing that it causes all other opinions to be regarded as the small dust of the balance. The former was the position of the memorialists of the Feathers' Tavern, the latter that of Dr. Arnold. Latitudinarianism of his type had been unknown to the Anglican Church before, except in some rare examples, and even these were looked on with but little favour by some of the parties who were struggling for ascendancy in the Church at the time when the head master of Rugby startled the eccle- siastical world by his liberal views of reform and com- prehension. In this respect Arnold differed from many who had gone before him. After the failure of the well-meant efforts of Bishop Burnet and his friends to widen the constitution of the Establishment, little or nothing had been done in the direction of comprehen- sion. Even liberal-minded men were content to enjoy their own ease and freedom within the Church, whose tolerant spirit they did their utmost to exhibit, and 1 Conybeare on " Church Parties.'' Edinburgh Review, vol. xcviii. p. 330. 230 The Broad Church. [lect. took no active measures to secure a reform in its con- stitution. Arnold was not satisfied with this unaggressive Liberalism. He would have made the Church conform to his ideal, and have extended it by the comprehen- sion in which he gloried. With him the Church was the nation, and he would so far have widened the terms of conformity as to make facts correspond to his ideal. With such consistency did he carry out this view that he would have excluded from national privilege those who, like the Jews, could have no place in the national Christianity. But these very cravings after a National Church made him intent on making the terms of conformity so wide that, all except those who denied Christianity itself should be included among its mem- bers. These active endeavours after reform distin- guished him even from the most liberal Churchmen before his time. But the party which may be accurately described as Latitudinarian is the party of Paley, and others of similar tendencies. From these he was dis- tinctly separated by the fervour of his piety as much as by his theological opinion. II. Thomas Arnold was the first of a noble band who not only lifted up the public schools of England to a position worthy of themselves, but have associated some of the most perfect culture in the Anglican Church with the cause of Liberalism. The Head Masters of England have for some time past been honourably distinguished by their superiority to the prejudices of their order, and by their desire to bring their Church more into harmony with the advancing v.] The Broad Church. 231 tendencies of the times. The wiser and more liberal policy by which the bench of Bishops has of late years often separated itself from the evil traditions of former days, and incurred the censure of the inferior clergy, is due to the presence amongst its members of those who have caught the tone of the scholastic profession, and for that tone England is indebted en- tirely to the great Head Master of Rugby. His posi- tion at that school, the simple earnestness with which he set himself to work out in it his own theory of Church and State, gave him a much more extended influence than he could possibly have commanded as a country clergyman or an Oxford professor. Those trained under him caught something of his nobility of nature, his superiority to narrow sectarianism, his dis- trust of all religious conventionalism, his generous com- prehensiveness. Between the master and the disciples there are differences on which it will be necessary to comment. Many of them have certainly been so far untrue to the spirit if not to the letter of his teachings that they have attached a value to the mechanical appliances of the Establishment, and been ready to make any sacrifice to preserve them, even though they are manifestly being used to perpetuate and extend a system which he held to be subversive of Christianity itself. It is hardly credible that the idolatry of an institution would so completely have enslaved Arnold as to cause him to shut his eyes to facts ; or that he would have gone on protesting that the Establishment was the best defence against priestcraft at the very time when its prestige was being employed to secure for the priests a power they have not enjoyed in England since the days of the Reformation, and which they ccr- 23^ The Broad Church. [lect. tainly could not acquire as the ministers of a voluntary Church. But, despite this strange infatuation of some who call themselves Liberals, and yet refuse to carry out in ecclesiastical practice those principles of righteous- ness on which they insist everywhere else, these dis- ciples of Dr. Arnold have often proved themselves the sturdy friends of liberty, and in the work they have done we trace the influence of one of the best men of the century. That such a man should have been exposed to so fierce a storm as that which for years beat around his head may at first excite some surprise, but the more closely the circumstances are considered, the more quickly will any feeling of the kind subside. With all his gentleness of spirit, Arnold was singularly outspoken and courageous. He had the susceptibility of an intense nature, which is nowhere more conspicuous than in the constant expressions in his correspondence of an anxiety to be reconciled to those friends, his relations with whom had been disturbed by differences of opinion. But the self-same qualities which made him thus tender and considerate to individuals made him also uncom- promising in his resistance to the errors of their teach- ings. A critic, at once tender and discriminating, says of him : " It is the combination we admire so much in Arnold— the moral greatness, which was his first nature ; and the Christian greatness, which was his second. By the first he was born more allied unto St. Paul, by the second he became of kindred with St. John." l The comparison ignores the fact that John was a Boanerges, and that the passionate force of character which made him so tender and loving im- 1 Edinburgh Review, vol. lxxxi. p. 199. v.] The Broad Church. 233 parted to him the boldness of a lion when error was to be resisted, or wrong to be overcome. He suffi- ciently represents the type of character to which Arnold belonged, and Paul is only introduced because so many fail to perceive identity of qualities which, though they assume different phases, are radically one. Arnold was misjudged, as many a man has been beside, because of a strength of utterance which was due neither to rhetori- cal art nor sectarian passion, but solely to the force im- parted by his desire to present the truth to others with the vividness with which it was apprehended by his own mind. Of course those who so judged him did not know the man, and they were not alone in their inability to suspect the singular tenderness of spirit which was behind, and which comes out with such beauty in his letters. So lofty was his nature, so capable of affection that should be at once strong and expansive, that Archbishop Whately says of him : " He was attached to his family as if he had no friends, to his friends as if he had no family, and to his country as if he had no friends or relations," Yet those who knew him only as a fierce assailant of errors which appeared to him to be threatening the gospel itself fancied him severe, passionate, and bigoted, and attacked him accordingly. III. The points against which Arnold directed his criti- cisms were regarded by his opponents as the most precious things in a great spiritual inheritance, and his attacks upon them were resented accordingly. The idea of the High Church party in particular was that, in an age of excitement and innovation, the first duty 234 Tlie Broad Church. [lect. of loyal Churchmen and Christians was to make strong every bulwark, while here was one who, instead of strengthening the defences, was actually prepared to sur- render the key of the position. The Athanasian Creed appeared to them the strongest buttress of orthodoxy. Dr. Arnold would actually have dispensed with it altogether, as a stumbling-block in the way of devout Unitarians, who might otherwise have found their way to the truth which it is supposed especially to conserve and enforce. Though he could say, " I do not believe the damnatory clauses under any qualification given of them, except such as substitute for them propositions of a wholly different character," he reconciled himself, by a process of reasoning it is not very easy to follow, to its retention and use. Still he objected to the Creed. That was enough to lead many to the conclusion that he had his doubts about the doctrine, even if he had not utterly rejected it. The objections to his theology were, however, not more keen than those to his Church policy. His liberal ideas found but few sympathisers. His attempts to serve the Church, which did not number among her sons one with a more enlightened loyalty or a grander conception of the work entrusted to it, exposed him to a persecution not less intolerant in temper and vexatious in the penalties which it inflicted because it was not able to proceed to extremities. Lampooned in newspapers, denounced from pulpits, attacked in his school as well as in his writings, deserted by not a few of his former friends, seriously injured both as author and teacher, perhaps the climax was reached when the Archbishop of Canterbury refused him permission to preach at Lambeth at the consecration of his friend Dr. Stanley. v.] The Broad Church. 235 It is not easy to believe that any party could so influence the mind of the present Primate as to cause him to per- petrate an injustice such as that done to Dr. Arnold by his predecessor. All parties are profiting by the more liberal tone which is prevalent, which Dr. Arnold him- self contributed so largely to produce, and for which he suffered so severely. It is hardly fair to reproach the Administration because such a man received none of the honours of the Church. Men who boldly contend for reform must make up their minds for sacrifice ; certainly the prizes of an Establishment will not, unless in very exceptional circumstances, fall to them in early life ; and it must not be forgotten that Arnold died before reaching the age at which men are ordinarily called to the episcopate. Whether, had his life been prolonged, he would have received this just recognition of his worth it is idle to speculate. Certain it is that the Church of England suffered a more severe loss than its friends understood in the early removal of one who was so capable of rendering still nobler service, and who especi- ally had shown a capacity and willingness to grapple with the errors which are robbing it of its real strength, equalled by no man except his friend Archbishop Whately. Dr. Arnold clearly detected the folly of those who were carried away by an apparent reaction on behalf of the Church and Church principles due to the early Tractarian movement. To numbers who were dis- quieted by the revolutionary tendency of the times, and fancied that this new appeal to Church sentiment was to erect a breakwater against it, Pusey, Newman, and Keble appeared as heaven-sent saviours of the Church and religion. The laity were not very deeply affected 2 16 The Broad Church. [lect. by this sentiment, but with the clergy it was all power- ful. It was in harmony with the spirit which the Prayer Book had nurtured ; it gave the true position to their order ; it encouraged the hope that they might be able to resist the encroachments of the reforming temper which had gone abroad. The political spirit of the time was in favour of the new school. IV. A strong reaction, due to causes which have no relation to our subject, had followed the great Liberal triumph of 1832, and the new Oxford School had the credit of contributing to its growth by the revival of the wavering loyalty of the Anglican Church. That this was one factor in the production of the re- markable change of opinion which within nine years raised Sir Robert Peel from the position of leader of a discouraged, impotent minority to be the head of one of the most powerful governments England had seen, may be granted without supposing that the Protestant feeling of the nation had been quenched. Beyond a limited circle there was no disposition to adopt the policy of the Tracts and conform the Establishment to the ideal of Laud. The truth is, the ultimate tendency of the movement was perceived by very few_ The Evangelical party condemned it, but their sagacity was not equal to their zeal, and their protest was discredited because of the extravagant form which it generally assumed, and because also of the undefined distrust of the churchmanship of the school. On the other hand were many influences which predisposed various classes to sympathy, inducing a tacit aquiescence in the pro- v.] The Broad Church. 237 ceedings of the Tractarians where there was not open approval. Numbers who had no intention of strengthening the hands of the priest were glad to see introduced into the worship of the Anglican Church that mystic sanctity with which the altar and the sacra- ment were invested by the Oxford divines. Others, to whom the modern developments of Ritualism arc ex- tremely distasteful, were attracted by the aestheticism, the general air of culture, and the strong Church prin- ciples of the new school, and did not stop to inquire whither its leaders would conduct them. The cry of " The Church in danger " had touched the chivalry and awakened the zeal of a still more numerous party, and they rushed to the support of those who claimed to be par excellence its friends and defenders. For the moment the Conservative Philistinism of the country was on the side of the Oxford party, as was evidenced by the fact that it enjoyed at this period the condescending patronage of The Times. With characteristic inability to grasp great principles, or to discern the ultimate tendencies of a movement based on a conception of the Church utterly opposed to the miserable Erastianism of English politicians, it saw in the bold and self-devoted men who had undertaken to rally the nation to the banner of the old Church a num- ber of ardent enthusiasts who would do great good by their zeal, and whose excesses would be counteracted by the practical sense of the people. This was the prevailing sentiment of the section of society which is possessed by the belief that English opinion is represented by its clubs, drawing-rooms, and coteries, and therefore perpetu- ally furnishes new proofs of its shallowness, its inability to lead, its incapacity to understand even the most mani- 238 The Broad Church. [lect. fest signs of the times. It cannot be said ever to have adopted Tractarian opinions, though there have been seasons when a certain Tractarian tone has been the fashion. More than once society has endeavoured to use this ecclesiasticism as its tool, and it did so at this stage of its history. Its extravagances were regarded as amiable weaknesses, which were to be condoned in consideration of the service it would render to the party of privilege. Tory politicians hailed it as providing a new and much-needed defence for the threatened Establishment. Many who had been sincerely alarmed by the spread of Liberal ideas, although they still re- tained their strong antipathy to Rome, welcomed the attempt to establish Catholic authority independent of, and indeed antagonistic to, the Papal See. In short, the party of stolid resistance to all popular advance were glad to hail a mediaeval reaction which yet had on it the glow of the nineteenth century and the charm of novelty, in the hope that by its aid they might baffle the hopes of the detested Radicals. It was to a people, therefore, specially disinclined to listen that Arnold addressed warnings which showed the sagacity of a true statesman as well as the liberality of an enlightened Christian. Considering the manly testimony which he so courageously bore as to the encroachments of an error which has since caused such serious trouble to the rulers of the Estab- lishment, and has now involved it in difficulties out of which it is not easy to discover a way of escape, it is curious that Arnold did not look upon some of the outward manifestations of Tractarianism with the abhorrence or dread that many earnest Protestants expressed. In this respect, as in others, he was far v.] The Broad Church. 239 removed from the Evangelicals, though equally resolute in his resistance to the new school. External symbols troubled them, the vital principles at issue alone dis- turbed him. It must come as a surprise to those who know him as a most strenuous opponent of the Trac- tarian teaching to find him saying : " Daily Church services, frequent ceremonies, memorials of our Christian calling continually presented to our notice in crosses, wayside oratories, commemorations of holy men of all times and countries ; the doctrine of the communion of saints practically taught ; religious orders — especially of women — of different kinds, under different rules, de- livered only from the snare and sin of perpetual vows — all these, most of which are of some efficacy for good even in a corrupt Church, belong no less to the true Church, they may be purely beneficial."1 He would therefore have met the new teachers with a frank recogni- tion and acceptance of all that was good in their system, and dissociated it from the pernicious error on which it was assumed to be based. The Ritualists have since adopted the same principle in their practical work. They do not refuse to borrow from the most extreme Protestants instruments which appear to them likely to be useful. This was precisely the course the Broad Churchmen would have pursued in relation not only to them but to the Romish Church also. The contention of Dr. Arnold is that the branches which some over- zealous Protestants are anxious to destroy, are not in fact directly connected with the corrupt root at all and that by confining attention to them a double evil is done, for not only is the root-error untouched, but it is allowed to get the advantage resulting from associa- 1 Sermons, vol. iv., Preface, p. hi. 240 The Broad Church. [lect. tion with practices in which some see beaut}' and goodness, and from which they derive even spiritual benefit. V. The Protestantism of Arnold was not narrow and sectarian — full of intense hatred to Rome and desirous of finding in prophecy intimations of its approaching downfall, but at the same time just as ready to set up another pope in the place of him whom it desired to dethrone. It was the Protestantism of free thought, which sought to emancipate the human mind from every form of bondage, which resented the preten- sions of the priest as an invasion of Christian liberty, and with a holy jealousy opposed ever}' attempt to substitute the Church for Christ and the traditions of men for the teachings of His gospel. He did not live in perpetual fear of committing himself, for he had no principle which he was afraid to test, and there was no institution whose security he would have preferred to the truth, and no calamity he would have deprecated more than the triumph of priestism over human intelli- gence and Christian conscience. Between a Protes- tantism of his type and the Oxford school there could be only deadly war. And it was the only kind of Protestantism which had any prospect of offering a successful resistance. It is curious as well as instructive to look back now to some of the pointed and incisive attacks which he made upon the teachings of this new school in its early days. The contrast between his attitude and that which the Broad Church party has taken since is not more striking than the directness with which he soes to the heart of v.] The Broad Church. 241 the subject is refreshing in these times of smooth speak- ing. With all his craving for a true national Church, he was too honest to desire that the semblance should be preserved if the reality was gone, and had too much of statesmanlike insight to suppose it 'possible if desirable. The comprehension of Dissenters he did not regard merely as something to be hoped for and sought after, but as an absolute necessity if the Establishment was to be maintained. A national Church from which half the nation had gone astray had no attractions for him. There was the fact — very unpalatable to him, but too patent to be denied or ignored — that a large proportion of the Protestantism of the nation, including its more robust and vigorous elements, was not in the National Church, and was not there because of conscientious objections either to its doctrine, or its polity, or its rela- tions to the State. The idea that the lost nationality could be restored by calling Dissenters " non-conforming members of the Church of England " does not seem to have dawned upon him. He realized too fully the meaning of Dissent to attempt to impose on himself by mere phrases, or to wound Dissenters by applying to them a name which was a satire on their whole history. But his fixed conviction was that Nonconformists must be reconciled, or the days of the Establishment were numbered, and he dreaded the Tractarian movement because it tended to produce still further alienation. "This fancied reaction in favour of the High Church party," he says, " seems to me the merest illusion in the world ; it is like that phantom which Minerva sent to Hector to tempt him to his fate, by making him believe that Deiphobus was at hand to help him." J 1 Arnold's Life, Letter Ixxxv. 17 242 The Broad Church [lect. The attitude of all the parties has unfortunately changed since that time. What Arnold regarded as " the merest illusion " appears to not a few of those who would claim him as their leader as the most substantial of supports. They are content to utilize the sentiment which, if it mean anything, is the revival of an old superstition in order to perpetuate the Establishment. Under its shadow priestcraft may grow up in rank luxuriance ; by its influence reaction, both political and theological, may be strengthened ; and by its operation a large part of the people, and that the section most intent on progress everywhere, may be doomed to political inequality. But the National Church must be preserved though it has long since lost all valid pre- tensions to nationality, though certainly it cannot long retain its nominal dignity, and though, for the sake of the brief tenure of privilege, which is all that is possible, a teaching must be tolerated the effects of which will be permanently mischievous. But all considerations, whether of justice or expediency, of political right or religious principle, are to be subordinated to the para- mount necessity of maintaining an Established Church. This was not the policy of the man who exhibits in highest form all the noblest tendencies of the Broad Church. He not only did more justice to the claims of Nonconformity, but he also more clearly perceived the reactionary character of the movement by which he found himself confronted, and whose influence he re- garded as destructive of all that he felt to be most precious in Christianity, and fatal to all his cherished hopes for the progress, the liberty, and the elevation of humanity. v.] The Broad Church. 243 VI. Remembering that Arnold was taken away before the conflict reached its full intensity, and never had the opportunity of taking public action against the move- ment he so much hated and dreaded beyond the expo- sure of its errors and fallacies in his sermons ; that while he left innumerable admirers, he founded no school of thought, and that in the subsequent struggle there has been no party which has fully carried out his views, it might seem as though he were assigned too prominent a place in this sketch. But the opinions of Arnold have really more significance attaching to them than many an event which produced considerable excitement in the course of the conflict, and which at first sight would seem of more importance. Dr. Arnold may fairly be described as a Broad Evangelical, and if the principles which he laid down could have been successfully main- tained in the Establishment, they would have been the most effectual defence against the so-called Catholic party. Where the Evangelicals have always been weak, he was strong ; where they faltered, he was decided ; where they shrank from the full application of their own principles, he was uncompromising. His fervid utter- ances even in those early stages of Romanizing develop- ment are in marked contrast with the stammering and uncertain language often heard now from Evangelical chiefs at Church Congresses, ever since the reaction towards medievalism has become so strongly pro- nounced that the eyes of all wise Protestants ought to have been enlightened as to the seriousness of the danger. How much the cause of Protestantism in the Anglican Church has lost by the lack of such champions, 244 The Broad Church. [lect. or by the absence of a school formed after his model, it would not be easy to estimate. There have, no doubt, been others who have laid down principles of liberty as broadly as he has done, but he combined with these a firm attachment to the essential points of the Evangelical system, which has not always been found in other members of the school. F. D. Maurice was as truly earnest and spiritual, but his line of inquiry lay in another direction ; and though his teach- ing was just as strongly opposed to Tractarian teach- ings, he never threw himself into the controversy with the same passionate ardour. The same may be said of the Hares, Charles Kingsley, and others whose varied services it is not possible to describe in so brief a review. The result has been that the discussion has been too much left in the hands of men who have been too deeply compromised, either by their connection with the State Church or by their reverence for party traditions and precedents, to speak with the boldness which the emer- gency demanded. Almost the only exception was that of his friend Whately, who had full sympathy with Arnold in his dread of sacerdotal aggression. It is simply impossible to hold the position of these two great champions of spiritual liberty, so long as (using Newman's words in a Protestant instead of a Tractarian sense) Evangelicals have to go on "teaching with the stammering lips of ambiguous formularies, inconsistent precedents, and principles but partially developed." Newman made the experiment of teaching them as a " Catholic." Con- science and logic forced him into the Church of Rome. The Evangelicals have never seemed fully to understand their special difficulty, and have been engaged in a per- v.] The Broad Church. 245 petual effort, as difficult as the tasks of Sisyphus and Tantalus, to reconcile the irreconcilable. Arnold was strong because he held fast by the principles without troubling himself with the speculation which seems to disturb so many as to their probable influence upon the Establishment, and with still less concern as to the possibility of reconciling his views with the formularies of his Church. His position is clearly defined in a letter he wrote to an old pupil in whom he had detected sympathy with the New Oxford ideas. The young man had indicated " a possibility that he might be tempted to look else- where than to the New Testament for a full picture of Christianity," and on this his former tutor and friend addresses him. He rests nothing on any appeal to the traditions and precedents even of the first centuries, but rightly takes up the point as marking the radical antagonism between the religion of the New Testament and that of the Oxford School. "The Newmanites would not, I think, yet dare to admit that their religion was different from that of the New Testament ; but I am perfectly satisfied that it is so, and that what they call Ecclesiastical Tradition contains things wholly inconsistent with the doctrines of our Lord, of St. Paul, of St. Peter, and of St. John. And it is because I see these on the one side, and on the other not the writings merely of fallible men, but of men who, even in human matters, are most unfit to be an authority, from their being merely the echo of the opinions of their time, instead of soaring far above them into the regions of eternal truth (the unvarying mark of all those great men who are and have been — not infallible indeed — but truly an authority, claiming a priori our deference, and 246 The Broad Church. [lect. making it incumbent on us to examine well before we pronounce in the peculiar line of their own greatness against them) ; because the question is truly between Paul and Cyprian ; and because all that is in any way good in Cyprian, which is much, is that which he gained from Paul and from Christianity — that I should not feel myself called upon, except from local or temporary cir- cumstances, to enter into the inquiry. And if I did enter into it I should do it in Martyn's spirit, to satisfy myself, by a renewed inquiry, that I had unshaken grounds for rejecting the apostasy, and for cleaving to Christ and His apostles ; not as if by possibility I could change my Master, and having known Christ and the perfections of His gospel, could ever, whilst life and reason remained, go from Him to bow down before an unsightly idol." r VII. It is strange that Evangelicals should to so large an extent have been indifferent to an aspect of the con- troversy which involves the very essence of the teaching of the Apostle Paul and of our Lord Himself. About questions of symbol or rite they have been vehement in protest and even decided in action. When some piece of special audacity has excited public indig- nation they have not been slow to take advantage of the popular fury, but even then they have sought to turn it upon the obnoxious individual or the offensive practice rather than on the evil principle underlying the whole. Arnold described them as a party " with infinitely little minds, disputing about anise and cum- min when heaven and earth are coming together around 1 Arnold! s Life, Letter clxxxi. v.] The Broad Church. 247 them, with much of Christian harmlessness, but with nothing of Christian wisdom." Lynch law, as he calls it, has been their favourite instrument always. If a majority could be secured in the University Convo- cation, or a condemnation obtained in a court of law, they were satisfied ; but not only have they nervously shrunk from such reforms as might cleanse the foun- tain from which such evil streams are continually bursting forth, but have been extremely timid and halting in the assertion of the principles which they undertook to champion. It was with the principles that Arnold was concerned. His keen dissection of the Oxford teachings and his trenchant denunciation of the system, alike in its fundamental doctrines and in the conclusions to which they led, were of high value then, but they are, if possible, even more useful now. Time has vindicated the accuracy of his diagnosis, but it has also proved the impossibility of apply- ing the necessary remedies without ensuring the de- struction of the Establishment. It has done even more than this. It has demonstrated the insidious and corrupting influence of errors that have certainly lost nothing of their mischievous character. If, as Arnold insisted, they were antichristian then, they are anti- christian now. Their teachers indeed are bolder and more extreme than ever, and no effort is spared to secure for them popular sympathy and approval ; but how seldom do we hear such emphatic and manly protests as those which abound in the writings and letters of Dr. Arnold. In his view the peril was one which threatened Chris- tianity itself, and all considerations bearing upon the interests of the Establishment or the Church were for- gotten in an intense anxiety, like that of Paul, lest 248 The Broad Church. [lect. any should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. There was in him none of the miserable bigotry which prevents so many from doing justice to the high qualities of the Tractarian leaders and their writings ; but, on the other hand, there was none of that morbid charity which would have restrained the condemnation of false teaching because of the lofty character of the teacher and the beauty of the form in which he presented his error. " I have been reading," he says, in a letter to Dr. Hawkins,1 " the Pusey and Newman Tracts with no small astonishment ; they surpass all my expectations in point of extravagance, and in their complete oppo- sition to the Christianity of the New Testament. But there are some beautiful things in Pusey's Tracts on Baptism, much that is holy and pure and truly Chris- tian, till, like Don Quixote's good sense in ordinary matters, it all gets upset by some outbreak of his particular superstition." This discrimination is emi- nently characteristic of the man, who was as incapable of doing intentional injustice to the men as of per- mitting any tampering with the sacred interests of truth. The Oxford movement was in his view the apostasy of the day, and he was too loyal a servant of the truth to withhold his protest, or to give it in any modified form. To-day we are asked in the name of liberty and comprehensiveness to tolerate variety of ritual, by means of which the priest may be able to im- press the worshippers with a sense of the sanctity of his office. Dr. Arnold, on the contrary, held the whole to be a mere idolatry, and did not hesitate thus to express himself. " And these, being only imperfect ideas, the 1 Arnold's Life, p. 381. v.] The Broad Church. 249 unreserved worship of them unavoidably tends to the neglect of other ideas no less important ; and thence some passion or other loses its proper and intended check, and the moral evil follows. ... I have been looking through the Tracts, which are to me a memor- able proof of their idolatry ; some of the idols are better than others, some being indeed as very a Truncus jiculmis as ever the most degraded superstition wor- shipped ; but as to Christianity there is more of it in any one of Mrs. Sherwood's or Mrs. Cameron's, or indeed of any of the Tract Society's, than in all the two Oxford octavos. And these men would exclude John Bunyan, and Mrs. Fry, and John Howard from Christ's Church, while they exalt the Nonjurors into confessors, and Laud into a martyr."1 This is the ground of a consistent Protestantism — and it is the only one on which the battle can ever be successfully fought. A Christianity without authori- tative tradition, without human priests, without altar or mystic sacrifice, was the ideal for which he con- tended. Of tradition, he says, " I am well satisfied that if you let in but one little finger of Tradition, you will have in the whole monster — horns and tail and all.*' 2 With others of the most cherished ideas of the party he had just as little patience. His was the policy of thorough, and had it been possible to rally the Anglican Church to such a standard, the aggressions of a semi- Romanism might have been more readily arrested. But the defenders of the Church were more afraid of their real friends than of their assailants ; they shuddered at the thought of the principles in which would have been found their salvation, and sought to conciliate and tem- 1 Arnolds Life, Letter cxxxv. • Ibid., p. 374. 250 The Broad Church. [lect. porizc with those whom they ought to have resisted to the death. VIII. Archbishop Whately exercised much less influence on the formation of opinion than his friend and comrade, Dr. Arnold ; but he was a more formidable opponent of the Tracts and their writers. If it would be speaking too strongly to describe Arnold as the founder of a school, he may at all events be regarded as one of the principal authors of that tendency which has subse- quently been more fully manifested by the Broad Church party. In many of the most distinguished representa- tives of that spirit the effect of his teachings may be distinctly traced, and they would themselves be the first to admit the fact. With Whately it was very different. The power he wielded was that of logic — keen, tren- chant, and conclusive — and the service which he thus rendered to the cause of truth was inestimable. But he did not captivate the hearts of men or train a body of followers to perpetuate the influence of his spirit. It was rather as a mighty champion of scriptural purity and simplicity than as the leader of a distinct party that he played his part in this great struggle. Perhaps one of the chief reasons for this isolation was the logical character of his mind, and his refusal to accept those qualifications of principles which were sug- gested by timidity or expediency. He followed a truth to its full issue, and was not deterred from applying it to existing circumstances by any fear of wounding the prejudices or disturbing the comfort and security of those whose cherished ideas or favourite institutions he challenged. An illustration of the uncompromising v.] The Broad Church. 251 temper in which he treated the " burning " questions of the time is supplied in a little book, the authorship of which he never acknowledged, but never disclaimed, although, as his biographer tells us, " public opinion has uniformly atrributed it to him." Of it Newman writes : "In the year i326, in the course of a walk, Froude said much to me about a work then published, called ' Letters on the Church, by an Episcopalian.' He said that it would make my blood boil. It was certainly a most powerful composition." " Great force and ingenuity ' and " thorough-going vehemence " are the characteristics of this able book as described by Newman. They are cer- tainly the qualities found in the writings of Whately everywhere, and the results on opponents must often have been to make the blood boil. The Archbishop had no liking for pleasant compromises, for halting state- ments which lose more than half their strength by their cautious qualifications, for ingenious attempts to reconcile direct opposites, and make them appear the one and the same. Instead of looking at angles of great questions from some peculiar standpoint of his own, he dealt with their central principles, which he subjected to keen scrutiny and unsparing criticism. There could be no greater contrast than that between his stern and rugged presentation of hard truths and the beautiful pictures of ecclesiastical principles and systems in which the Broad Church leader of our own time delights. He dealt with hard realities, the Broad Churchman of to-day with ideals evolved out of his own consciousness. The force of Whately's serene and penetrating intellect was all the more telling because there was in his writings as little sign of passion as there was of a desire to soften his statements in accommodation to the feelings of 252 The Broad Church. [lect. others. His arrows went straight to the mark, and that mark was not a mere accident of the system which he was opposing, but its essential principle. He left it to others to meet the new Oxford teachers on their own ground, and to prove how utterly they failed to establish their own positions by an appeal to Christian antiquity. For himself he refused to concede any authority even to those early ages of the Church in whose teachings and precedents Dr. Newman and his followers found that law of the " Holy Catholic Church " by which, they contended, the Church of to-day should be bound. The Master Himself was, in the Archbishop's opinion, the King in His own kingdom; and in his liberal and most powerful essays on that kingdom, he maintained that the teachings of Christ were utterly irreconcilable with that scheme of hierarchical rule on behalf of which the sanction of the primitive Church was invoked. Dr. Goode, afterwards Dean of Ripon, and Isaac Taylor abundantly demonstrated the weakness of the position which the Tractarians had taken ; but the Archbishop inflicted on their cause more deadly injury by cutting away the foundation on which the whole structure rested. The Cautious for the Times, consisting of a series of tracts addressed to the people in an English parish, by the former, contain the most thorough dissection of the Oxford movement in all its parts which the controversy evoked. Various writers were engaged in the work, but the informing mind was that of Whately himself. They were not written till some years after the secession of Dr. Newman, and, in fact, were called forth by the panic which followed the promulgation of the celebrated Bull, by which the Pope divided England into dioceses. They set forth with such masculine vigour the principles for v.] The Broad Church. 253 which true Protestantism must contend as to awaken a regret that one who had both the courage and ability to meet the great evil of the day with such a powerful resistance was sent to the Irish Primacy, instead of being placed where the pressure was most severe, and the need of a stout champion of the truth most imperative. But of Whately it was even more true than of Arnold, that he was regarded with distrust by those who should most eagerly have welcomed so powerful an ally. The failure of the Evangelicals and these Liberals to compre- hend each other has proved nothing short of a calamity not only to the Established Church, but to the cause of Pro- testantism and true religion. Perhaps both parties were to blame for the unfortunate misunderstanding which not only prevented the co-operation of these two sections of the great Protestant army, but continually arrayed them in hostility to each other, the common enemy being in turns the ally of both. The Broad Church party has con- sistently advocated comprehension, and its sympathies have thus always inclined to the side of those whose position in the Establishment was attacked. The Evan- gelicals have, on the contrary, ever been ready to join in the assault on all who differed from their theories. In their view the Anglican Church was meant to be Pro- testant after their type, and they have, therefore, been just as ready to assist the men whom they denounce as traitors in excluding from the Church those who pushed their Protestant principles a little further than they were prepared to do themselves, as to seize on any opportunity that offered itself for stamping out the treason with which they had entered into such unnatural alliance. 254 ?~/ie Broad Church. [lect. IX. To the friends of Protestantism and liberty, to what- ever Church they belong, the story is a melancholy one. Evangelicals have always suspected Liberals, and in their turn Liberals have been too prone to be scornful of Evangelicals. Thus Whately had to face a storm of opposition from a party which, had it been more clear- sighted, would have discovered in him a force the most necessary and valuable for the conflicts of the time. The Tractarians were imposing on multitudes by their con- fident assumptions of authority, their appeals to the Fathers, to tradition and the voice of the Church. If they were to be successfully met, it was necessary their claims should be subjected to an examination con- ducted on the principles of the severest logic, no tolerance extended to high-sounding assertions which were laid down as axioms when they were nothing better than postulates, and no fallacy allowed to veil itself under an ambiguous phraseology. Whately was the very man to conduct such an investigation, and he has clone it with great thoroughness and, it must be added, when we consider the position which he occupied and the criticism which he provoked, with a courage approaching to intrepidity. An Archbishop asserting that Chris- tianity not only does not acknowledge, but absolutely condemns, the priest, the altar, and the sacrifice, opposing in strongest and most emphatic terms the extensive claims put forth by his own Church because of its Episcopal constitution, and defining its "Apostolical Succession " as nothing more than its " being a regularly constituted Christian society, framed in accordance with the fundamental principles taught by the Apostles and v.] The Broad Church. 255 their great Master," proved himself to be at once a true and a brave man. But he was supposed to be heterodox in his views of the Sabbath, and to have a soupcon of the Sabellian heresy in his theory of the person of Christ, and he was looked upon with suspicion, or even some stronger feel- ing, by Evangelicals, who seem unable to comprehend that it is Romanists only who pretend to infallibility, and that where there is the liberty for which Protestants contend there are sure to be diversities of opinion. It is true that much of the opposition to his elevation to the Primacy was due to political causes, and was admitted to have been partly based on misapprehension. But not the less was it continued. His biographer tells us that, M generally speaking, Whately occupied an intermediate position throughout life, between the high dogmatic school in the Church and the school which refines away dogma into mere sentiment. Neither suited his positive turn of mind : the first because most of their doctrines seemed to him to rest on mere assumption ; the second, because a religion without distinct doctrines was in his view impossible. The articles of his creed were there- fore few, but they were adhered to with great steadiness, and, it may be added, not without some tendency to depreciate those minds which could not rest satisfied with his ' common-sense view,' as some disparagingly called it, of Christianity." x This testimony of a devoted ■daughter may be the more readily accepted because the writer's own sympathies inclined much more decidedly towards Evangelical opinions. It accounts both for his strength and for his weakness. A little infusion of 1 Memoirs of Archbishop Whately, vol. i. p. 105. By E. Jane Whately. 256 The Broad Church. [lect. sentiment into his character would have increased his personal influence, and would have broken down some of the antagonism that he had to encounter ; but it is open to question whether it would materially have contributed to his power. For that power lies in the pitiless logic with which he demolished pretensions which looked so venerable and imposing that few were possessed of the courage necessary to dispute them. Tractarians were wont to talk " so loudly of the Catholic Church " and its authority that the unwary and unlearned were overawed, and even those who were most disposed to resist the particular dicta never ventured to question the right of the Catholic Church to authority. Whately boldly traversed the entire assumption, repudiated the authority, denied the existence of this Holy Catholic Church. " No shadow of proof," he says, "can be offered that the Church in the above sense — the Universal Church — can possibly give any decision at all ; that it has any constituted authorities as the organs by which such decision could be framed or promulgated ; or, in short, that there is, or ever was, any one community on earth recognized, or having any claim to be recognized, as the Universal Church, bearing rule over and compre- hending all particular Churches." l This was the Liberalism to which Dr. Newman was intensely opposed. It was here in its most pronounced form, and it is not surprising that the separation between the quondam friends became so complete. Still Newman acknowledges that to Whately he owed much. " He em- phatically opened my mind and taught me to think and use my reason. . . . What he did for me in religious opinions was first to teach me the existence of the 1 Whately on The Kingdom of 'Christ, p. 139. v.] The Broad Church. 2,57 Church as a substantive body or corporation ; next, to fix in me those anti-Erastian views of Church polity which were one of the most prominent features of the Tractarian movement." l But these early associations could not prevent the development of a radical anta- gonism. Though Arnold and Whately were the most con- spicuous Broad Churchmen of the day, it was on one of their friends that the full weight of High Church opposition fell. The Anglican, or Catholic, school was the party to begin actual hostilities. The object of attack was Dr. Hampden, whose appointment in 1836 as Regius Pro- fessor of Divinity at the University afforded oppor- tunity for an outburst of popular violence and an unscrupulousness of party tactics which touched Dr. Arnold at his most sensitive points — his love of justice and his faith in liberty. It is not easy, after the lapse of the eventful years which have separated us from the conflict, to understand the fierceness of the excitement which raged on both sides during this memorable struggle ; which, however, was surpassed, both in bitter- ness and in interest, by the still more exciting strife which was waged round the appointment of the same divine to the see of Hereford. His Bampton Lecture was the occasion of the almost malignant opposition which he had to encounter. Reading the book now, when the passion of the hour has died away, we are puzzled, and some of those who raised the commotion must be puzzled also, to understand the intensity of the feel- 1 Apologia, p. 10. 18 258 The Broad Church. [lect. ing on both sides. A disinterested observer of to-day- finds as little to call forth the strong admiration of his friends as to excite the passionate opposition of his censors. The real fault of Dr. Hampden, however, was as much in his Liberalism as in his theology. He had assailed the scholastic modes of teaching, and this was construed into an attack on the doctrine of the Trinity. But he had done something much worse when he ad- vocated the admission of Dissenters to the University. The appointment of one who not only questioned the theology of the University, but desired also to break down the barriers of its exclusiveness, could not be allowed to pass unchallenged, and all kinds of methods were employed in order to obtain the condemnation of the teacher and his teachings by the University. What chiefly roused Arnold was not so much the attack as the form which it took. He objected to the adverse impression which had been created by the selec- tion of particular passages from his lectures, which when grouped together and separated from their context gave a very unfair view of the general tenor of his teachings. But he objected still more to the appeal to a tribunal which could not have a judicial character, instead of to one where the whole question could be fairly and thoroughly raised. He had strong views as to the merits of the case, but still stronger as to the attempt to enlist theological and ecclesiastical prejudices, and so to steal a verdict against the accused. If Dr. Hampden was a heretic, his heresy could be proved ; but an excited Convocation, the majority of whose members had never read his book, could not be a fitting tribunal to try him. Indeed it was not too much to say that their decision might have been as certainly predicted before the discussion as the verdict v.] The Broad Church. 259 of a jury of Irish landlords upon the lawlessness of Mr. Parnell and the Land League. Country clergymen, trained in the dread of Liberalism and the hatred of Dissent, were not the men to pronounce upon the teach- ings of one who was supposed to be an exponent of both, and in addition was accused of a heterodoxy which traversed the doctrines of the Athanasian Creed. " It is merely lynch law," said Arnold, " and they might just as well run down any other man who is unpopular with the dominant party in Oxford, and say that they have no confidence in him, and therefore pass a privilegium against him without giving him any trial. It is making the legislative power encroach on the judicial with a vengeance, and therefore I would go up to vote for Pusey, Newman, Vaughan, Thomas, or any other whom I deemed a most unfit man in Oxford, if a Tory minority had appointed them and a Whig majority in Convocation were to attack them on a charge which has never been tried." The time came when the Tractarian leaders found that the weapons forged for the injury of others could be turned against themselves. But for the hour their influence was in the ascendant, and the righteous soul of Arnold was at once roused to manly indignation, and touched with a pathetic sorrow, at the outrages offered to liberty and justice professedly for the sake of religion. Cardinal Newman in the confessions of the "Apologia " — that remarkable book which for ever cleared away the imputations of bad faith which had so frequently been made against him, but at the same time showed how far a great intellect may be enslaved and misled when once it has yielded itself to the rule of any false principle — best enables us to understand the sentiment which in- 260 The Broad Church. [lect. spired the opposition. A pamphlet of Dr. Hampden on Dissent appeared to him and his friends the opening of the floodgates of a Liberalism which, if unchecked, would soon overflow the University and even the Church. " While I respect the tone which the pamphlet displays," he says in a letter to the author, " I dare not trust myself to put on paper my feelings about the principles contained in it, tending as they do, in my opinion, altogether to make shipwreck of Christianity. I also lament that by its appearance the first step has been taken towards interrupting that peace and mutual good understanding which has so long prevailed in this place, and which, if Once seriously disturbed, will be succeeded by dissensions the more untractable because justified in the minds of those who resist innovation by a feeling of imperative duty." This was nothing short of a decla- ration of war : it was not allowed to become a mere brutum fulmen. Tractarians saw, or thought they saw, an " assault of Liberalism upon the old orthodoxy of Oxford and England," and they organized themselves for resistance. That they so far succeeded as to engender a strong Church sentiment, which has made it certain that, whatever becomes of the Establishment, the Epis- copal Church will exist and flourish independent of its help, cannot be questioned. But in the objects which its leaders regarded as paramount the movement has failed. It has not repressed freedom of thought ; it has not even narrowed the range within which theological speculation is tolerated ; it has done nothing towards freeing the Church from the heresies which in its view were so hateful, which to-day display an audacity and a strength unknown to Hampden and his friends. It is not to be denied however that the Tractarians have created a spirit v.] The Broad Church. 261 which has given an entirely new aspect to the Anglican Church, and may yet have a very material influence upon its destinies. XL Looking back to the memorable gathering in the Sheldonian theatre for the condemnation of Dr. Hamp- den, by which the mind of Arnold was so deeply moved, it is impossible not to be strongly impressed by the contrast between the spectacle as it appeared to him, and as it presents itself to us who see it in the light which history sheds upon it. " The whole scene," says his biographer, " was invested in his eyes with a tenfold interest by the general principles which it seemed to involve. In the place of the Oxford Convocation there rose before him an image which he declared that he could not put away from him — of the Nonjurors reviling Burnet ; of the Council of Constance condemning Huss ; of the Judaizers banded together against Paul." Hamp- den would hardly suggest to any one now the idea even of Burnet, to say nothing of Huss, least of all of the great Apostle of the Gentiles. He was not a man of distinguished ability, of originality of view, or even of remarkable courage ; and the part he subsequently played in the history of the Church makes the excite- ment about his appointment all the less intelligible. He had another great battle to fight, or rather which others had to fight for him, and in which his adversaries contrived to cover themselves with greater discredit than even in this attack on the Bampton Lecture ; and then he subsided into an easy-going bishop, who disappointed the fears of his enemies, and must surely have dis- appointed also the hopes of his friends. On the other 262 The Broad Church. [leci\ hand, only a few years passed after his trial before the plaintiffs became themselves the defendants. Oxford was stirred with a passion still more violent, leading to results just as futile, and making it, if possible, even more manifest that, whatever be the power by which heresy is to be checked in the Anglican Church, it certainly does not reside with the Convocation of Oxford. That these proceedings against Dr. Hampden were in the last degree impolitic and shortsighted there are perhaps few now who would be prepared to deny. As Lord Melbourne, in defending the appointment in the House of Lords, very truly said, the writings assailed were upon points of extremely recondite and difficult ecclesiastical learning. In this alone was sufficient reason for acting with cautious discrimination. But from first to last his opponents showed a spirit and proceeded in a manner which could not fail to alienate the sympa- thies of all friends of liberty and justice. They not only made the man offender for a word, but they themselves contrived so to represent and interpret the word as to create the offence. In short, the conduct of the assailants was nothing better than one of those acts of high-handed injustice in which the records of ecclesiastical controversy unhappily abound. The action of the Bishop of Oxford in the latest stage of the Hampden controversy, that which arose relative to his appointment to the see of Hereford, is very suggestive. His lordship felt himself bound to take certain action with the view of submitting Dr. Hampden's orthodoxy to the decision of a legal tribunal. Circumstances forced him to withdraw from this position, and in this withdrawal he makes the follow- ing extremely naive admission in relation to these v.] The Broad Church. 263 Bampton Lectures : — " I have now carefully studied them throughout, with the aid of those explanations of their meaning which you have furnished to the public since their first publication, and now in your private commu- nications. The result of this examination, I am bound plainly to declare, is my own conviction that they do not justly warrant those suspicions of unsoundness to which they have given rise, and which, so long as I trusted to selected extracts, I myself shared But allowing for the blemishes of what was, I believe, a necessarily hasty composition, and taking into account, as I now can, your various explanations and assurances, I find in the ' Lectures ' little which will not admit of a favourable construction." l With such an acknowledgment from a right reverend father of the Church, that he had actually taken steps which implied a degree of acquiescence in the con- demnation of Dr. Hampden before he had even read the book, what was to be expected from men of far inferior calibre and without his official responsibility. They were content with the extracts which had been so freely circulated, but which, on the admission of the Bishop of Oxford himself, did not give a fair representation of the character of the book, and they gave their votes accordingly. The comments of Lord Melbourne are not more caustic than just. " Very few of your lordships, indeed, have the means of forming any sound opinion upon such extremely difficult, abstruse, and obscure points as those. With respect to an intimation that was made to me upon the subject from the University of Oxford, it seemed to me to have been made by persons who were 1 Wilberforce's Life, vol. i. pp. 486, 487. 264 The Broad Church [lect. utterly ignorant of the writings of Dr. Hampden. I know very little upon the subject, and yet I believe I know more than those who have opposed the doctor's nomination." l The quarterly representative of Tory opinion still holds that the principal blame for the transaction rests upon the Liberal Premier, because of his appointment of Dr. Hampden to the episcopate ; but a very different judgment will certainly be pronounced by those who have the whole record of the transaction before them. It is not necessary to justify the wisdom of Lord John Russell's selection because the conduct of the bishops, the clergy, and the Convocation is con- demned. The appointment to the see of Hereford may have been extremely undesirable, but the opposition to it, like the opposition to Dr. Hampden as Regius Professor of Theology, by which it had been preceded, was something much worse than a mistake, it was an outrage on the first principles of justice and liberty. Whether the greatest amount of blame attaches to the original authors of the movement — to the Convocation which pronounced a decree whose legality was question- able, and whose unfairness is almost beyond controversy, or to the bishops who afterwards made themselves parties to the attempt to deprive Dr. Hampden of his position — it is not necessary to inquire ; but the cause which suffered most severely by the whole was that of Evan- gelical Protestantism, whose representatives failed in loyalty to their own principles, and threw themselves into an alliance the benefits of which were reaped by the party against the development of whose influence they should have most carefully guarded. It was the first example of an ill-omened alliance of two parties 1 Memorials of Bishop Hampden, p. 95. v.] The Broad Church. 265 between whom there is no vital union of theological principle, and who combined only for the repression of that liberty on which the very existence of Protestantism depends. How is it that in a nation priding itself on its scorn of priestly power — a scorn so innate and intense that it manifested itself even during the period of Roman •dominion in a sturdy resistance of Popish aggression that more than once cowed the successors of Hildebrand — and in an age which has a hatred of superstition, equalled only by its contempt, the protest of men such as Arnold and Whately has been so far ineffectual that the party whom they resisted so manfully holds at bay the authorities of Church and State, and has produced such an impression of its strength that on every side there is an eager desire to find some terms of com- promise with which it will be content ? The first and most obvious answer is that, admirable as were the principles which these enlightened theologians taught, they are not the principles of their own Church. It does attach a certain value to tradition ; it does teach the heresy of a human priesthood ; it does ascribe to sacra- ments a supernatural character. Scripture and reason were with Arnold and Whately ; but if we turn to the teachings of the Prayer Book, still more, if we study its history and read it in the light of our know- ledge of the compilers, it is impossible to deny that the formularies of the Church favour their adver- saries rather than themselves. It may be that they do not pronounce absolutely in favour of either of them ; but assuredly they lean to the side of a high ecclesiasticism, with hierarchy, priesthood, and symbolic rite, rather than to that of a free and reasonable Christi- 266 The Broad Church. [lect. anity, as laid down by those two eminent divines. The position of such men as clergy — one of them a prelate — in a Church which was constructed on the model of the Caroline divines, was certainly anomalous, as the course which the controversy has taken has abundantly proved. Then, further, the interests of the Establishment told powerfully even upon men like these. They were desirous, if possible, to preserve the Establishment, and were willing, therefore, to take an optimist view of ten- dencies and influences which ought to have excited their gravest apprehension. This spirit is strongly manifested in one of the Cautions for the Times. The writer repre- sents some as saying : " ' Let the Church perish, so as the truth of the gospel is maintained.' And, to be sure, if the question were between maintaining the truth of the gospel on the one side, and sacrificing the pre- sent constitution of the Church on the other, every Christian who deserves the name would be ready to make that or even a still greater sacrifice." In reply to such a feeling, he seeks to point out the blessings which the Establishment confers both upon its members and upon the country at large, and the evils which would result from the withdrawal of the Protestant element. " There never was a time when the Church could less afford the loss of men of sound Protestant principles. ' Except these abide in the ship ' the vessel cannot be saved. But if they will remain among us, and exert themselves, not only strenuously but discreetly, to stem the present tide — which, after all, like other tides, has its hour of ebbing — there is every reason to think that the prevalent errors may be resisted much better from within the Church than from outside it." l This is 1 Cautions for the Times, p. 358. v.] The Broad Church. 267 the policy which has been adopted at every point of the controversy, and we see the result in the posi- tion of the different parties to-day. It is impossible to deny that the school against which these " Cautions "' were directed is in the ascendant, and has not only strengthened it own position, but leavened the minds of its opponents to an extent that Arnold and Whately would have believed incredible. Whether or not the Tractarians had developed the true theory of the An- glican Church, previously allowed to lie dormant, certain it is that their idea has been so far accepted on every side that it is only here and there that we find,, even among the admirers of the great Broad Church leaders, utterances at all worthy of their teachers. Arnold, Whately, Archdeacon Hare, Maurice, Charles Kingsley have left behind them few successors with a true liberality and courage like their own. The dis- tinctly rationalistic character which has marked the ten- dencies of a considerable section of the Broad Church has weakened the influence which the party might other- wise have possessed ; but the Erastianism which it shares with the Evangelicals has done it still more serious injury. The Anglican Church is suffering to-day because its Evangelical party has lacked breadth, and its Broad Churchmen have so often been lacking in Evangelical simplicity and spiritual fervour, and because both have lacked that living faith in God and His truth which would have encouraged them to renounce their clinging dependence on the protection and support of the State. WThat the Anglican Church has suffered, what Eng- lish Christianity has lost, how far the nation has been injured by the failure of these two great parties to dis- charge their true functions, time only will fully reveal. 268 The Broad Church. [lect. v. Optimists may indulge the hope which is expressed by a well-known writer in The Edinburgh Review, that the Oxford reaction, when it has run its course, " will at last be gradually absorbed in the larger, more generous movement from which it sprang, and which in a great •degree it has thwarted." But no one who marks closely and judges impartially of the drift of public opinion will very confidently indulge that hope. The divines who are influencing the religious life of the Anglican Church at the present moment are not men of the Liberal school. Arnold, Whately, Milman, Robertson, Kingsley are valued by students and thinkers, but they do not exercise preponderating influence on the opinion of the Church, nor do they create the fervid enthusiasm which is doing so much to multiply its agencies and extend its power. On whatever side we look, sacerdo- talism seems, in one form or other, to be stamping its impress on the Establishment. The new churches which are built are for the most part fashioned according to its model, and constructed so as to embody its ideas. Among the clergy, and especially among the younger section of them, it becomes increasingly dominant each year, exercising a certain sway even over those who do not belong to the Tractarian school. It has a large number of adherents among the laity, and in them it is developing an ascetic type of piety that craves for the confessional, that submits to penance, that exalts the positive over the moral precepts of religion. The power which it has fostered will never be conquered, except by a strong and living faith on the opposite side. Unfortunately this is the element in which the Broad Church has always been deficient. LECTURE VI. THE TRACTARIAN STRUGGLE. LECTURE VI. THE TRACTARIAN STRUGGLE. THE real leader of the agitation against Hampden, as he was the soul of the whole movement which so deeply excited not Oxford only but the entire Church, was John Henry Newman. The name by which Arnold designated the movement was "Newmanism," and though it has not passed into common use, and even as a nick- name speedily gave place to that derived from the other distinguished leader of the school, it undoubtedly gave a correct idea of the natural history of the party. Newman was its true inspiration, and although, with characteristic modesty, he sought to keep himself in the background, he became the party leader almost tnalgre lui. He pro- jected plans, and did much to carry them out ; he wrote tracts, and edited periodicals or great works of ecclesi- astical history as occasion demanded ; preached from the pulpit and the press, and wielded immense power in both. But he exerted a still more potent influence by means of that singular personal fascination which was one of the principal factors in the promotion of the objects he had so much at heart. " I never," he says, " had the staidness and dignity necessary for a leader. To the last, I never recognized the hold I had over young men."1 There can be no reason for doubting the perfect sin- 1 History of My Opinions, p. 59. 272 The T Tartarian Struggle. [lect. cerity of this avowal, and as little for questioning that his remarkable personal charm served more than any- thing to attract the youth of Oxford to the standard of Catholicity. It is difficult to believe that the early Tracts could have exerted any strong influence, except on minds that were predisposed to receive their teach- ings. No doubt the teachings themselves were, in some points, extremely congenial to the views of those to whom they were addressed, inasmuch as they exalted the authority of the Church to which Oxford belonged, and invested the order which a large section of its students aspired to enter with all the veneration due to successors of the Apostles and heirs of the mysterious or even miraculous powers of the priesthood. But had the Tracts stood alone, their influence would have died out. But they were supplemented by an entire litera- ture, including prose, poetry, learned treatises, popular appeals, theological arguments, devotional manuals. Hard, often very dull, prose ; devout, sometimes very touching, beautiful poetry. Newman was at the head of the whole, and, while he moved others, did a very large share of the work himself. The extraordinary resources of his versatile genius were all made available for the one end. Subtract from the publications of that time his own contributions, how little remains that would have stirred the imaginations and moved the hearts of men. He was critic, theologian, preacher, and a poet — and he was great everywhere. The English Church has produced no greater man, the age has known no subtler intellect, and, with one or two exceptions, none that could ever compare in breadth and power with the dis- tinguished curate of St. Mary's, who has now become a cardinal of the Romish Church. vi.] The Tractarian Struggle. 273 A writer in The New Quarterly Magazine already quoted, says : " There is probably no Englishman who is not proud of this simple, grand old man, and who does not feel that his country is honoured by the cardinal's purple which is at last offered to Dr. Newman." In the former sentiment there will be general if not unanimous agreement, but as to the latter there will be much wider diversity. Earnest Protestants would probably rather be disposed to say that even the cardinal's purple — symbol to them of mediaeval superstition, of priestly arrogance, of relentless opposition to human right — cannot hide from them the great intellectual and moral grandeur of the man who, alas, has condescended to wear it. An evil day would it be for England if her reverence for a man, of whom any country and any age might be proud, should lead her people to forget that the system to which, unfortunately, he has given the sanction of his illustrious name, has lost none of the qualities which provoked the revolt of their forefathers against its pre- tensions, but that its " newest fashions " have narrowed the exclusiveness and intensified the absurdity of its dogmas. That such a man should have yielded himself to the dominion of such a system is cause for unspeak- able sadness, but the sorrow it awakens is a tribute to his power and nobility. A wide continent of opinion separates Cardinal Newman from Protestant Dissenters. Yet even among his most enthusiastic admirers there are few who have done him more justice or done it more heartily than those who dissent most from his Church, and regard him as the most powerful force in favour of obscurantism which the century has produced. Poet, philosopher, orator, he has served the party of reaction in each capacity, and has contributed to it a strength 19 274 The Tractarian Struggle. [lect. it is impossible to estimate. Still he is a true and a grand Englishman, and some of the apparent inconsistencies in his career may be explained by the struggle which has been so long going on between his true English instincts and the principles of authority which his intellect had accepted. His reputation, at all events, should be dear to right-minded men, and it will be satisfactory if, in the brief review of the conflict in which he was a distinguished chief, it is possible to vindicate him from the charges of deliberate treason and insincerity once so freely brought against him. I. The motives which led him to the publication of the Tract which brought on a decisive conflict are easily intelligible. His soul had bowed down to the idol of authority as set up in the Catholic Church, and in seeking to obey its dictates he found himself brought continually into conflict with the ideas prevalent in the Church of which he was a clergyman. He saw that much which he felt to be precious was con- demned by the letter of the formularies to which he had sworn allegiance, and he set himself to inquire whether this was really so. The Evangelical party, with that impolicy which has characterized their entire proceed- ings, had joined with him in his too wild assault upon Dr. Hampden ; and then, as though ashamed of their alliance, turned round and reproached him, hinting that their next appearance at Oxford might be in the cha- racter of defenders of the Protestant Church from the attacks of the Tractarians. He felt that for his own sake, and for that of others, he was bound to give a clear ex- position of his own views of the actual meaning of those vi.] The Tractarian Struggle. 275 Articles which he was said to be continually opposing-. Because of difficulties on this point many of his followers were passing over to Rome, and for their sake he felt it necessary to deal with the subject. This was the real history of the celebrated Tract XC, the publica- tion of which was the turning-point not only in his own history, but in the history of the movement. It was no hasty or unpremeditated step. The Articles had long been his study, and to some extent his difficulty ; and some time before the appearance of the Tract, it had been his determination to comment upon them. Friends and foes alike felt that they were a stumbling-block to his school, and he was naturally desirous, if possible, to get rid of the obstacles that interposed in his path. They were, or were assumed to be, the key to the Protestant position, and, even if he could not demolish the fortress, it was necessary at all events to attack it. Tract XC. was an able, bold — its admirers would describe it as a most masterly, its enemies as a most unscrupulous — attempt to capture the artillery of Angli- can Protestantism, and turn its guns against its own defenders. The Protestantism which rests its defence of truth on any traditions however venerable, which accepts any human formularies as binding on the conscience, which calls any body of men " master," may find in the acute analysis by which a writer endeavours to evacuate words of their definite meaning, or to deal with them as the figures in a kaleidoscope, only a proof of the utter futility of those creeds and articles in which so blind a confidence is often reposed. But to the Anglican Pro- testant, as to the Evangelical, this searching criticism destroyed the very foundations of his system. In any time of uncertainty as to his true relation to the Church, 276 The Tractarian Struggle. [lect. when disquieted by some of those phrases in the Liturgy which all unprejudiced minds outside read as though absolutely decisive against their theories ; when per- plexed by the solemn words of the Absolution, or the not less distinct declarations of the Catechism as to Baptismal Regeneration, or, worst of all, by the priestly commission he had received from the bishop — he had taken refuge in the Articles, comforting himself with the thought that they, at least, were Protestant. The brilliant epigram which described the clergy as Armi- nian and the Liberals as Popish, had characterized the Articles as Calvinistic. But here was a critic who con- tended that this was an entire mistake, and that they lent themselves as easily to the interpretation of the Catholic as of the Protestant school. The excitement which was at once aroused, not only in Oxford but over the entire country, is very difficult for us — who have become so accustomed to semi-Romish innovations that we should scarcely be startled by any- thing short of the appearance of the Archbishop of Canterbury in a tiara, or the Dean of Westminster in a cope — to realize or even understand. The educating pro- cess has done a great deal since then which the friends of liberty and Evangelical Protestantism cannot contemplate with any degree of satisfaction. " The English nation," said Arnold in 1836, "are like a man in a lethargy. They are never moved from their conservatism till mustard poultices are put to their feet. Had it not been for the fires of Smithfield they would have remained hostile to the Reformation. Had it not been for the butcheries of Jefferies they would have opposed the Revolution." The remark has been signally verified in the history of the Romanizing movement, with this additional fact to be vi.] The Tractarian Struggle. 277 noted, that the mustard poultices in the shape of start- ling sensations, that have from time to time been applied, have lost their power by repetition. Everything now seems to be treated with tacit acquiescence. It was not so in 1 84 1. The nation had not yet learned the lesson which has subsequently been taught by the hesitation or cowardice of Protestant leaders. Wherever, therefore, it became known that an Oxford clergyman, a promi- nent leader of the party, already regarded with jealous suspicion, had published a Tract to prove that the Articles were not the Protestant formularies they had been supposed, a passionate resentment was aroused in Protestant minds. II. In Oxford itself the feeling was intense. A picture of the state of things has been drawn by one who was himself in the midst of the excitement. " Tract XC. had not been out many days before the University of Oxford was in a fever of excitement. It was bought with such avidity that the very presses were taxed almost beyond their powers to meet the exigencies of the demand. Edition followed edition by days rather than by weeks ; and it was not very long before Mr. Newman, as I have heard, realized money enough by the sale of this shilling pamphlet to purchase a valuable library. If, during the month which followed its ap- pearance, you had happened to enter any common-room in Oxford between the hours of six and nine in the evening, you would have been safe to hear some ten or twenty voices eloquent on the subject of Tract XC. If you had happened to pass two heads of houses or tutors of colleges strolling down High Street in the afternoon, 278 The Tractarian Struggle. [lect. or returning from their walk over Magdalen Bridge, a thousand to one but you would have caught the words ' Newman ' and ' Tract XC " * Before men had time to recover from the shock produced by the publication ; while the more calm and prudent were quietly speculating as to whereunto this would grow ; while the hot-headed and impatient were eager to demand those repressive measures which to a certain class of minds appear the "heaven-designed instruments for putting down all differences of opinion, whether in regard to articles of religion or conditions of land-tenure, the swelling storm was lashed into wilder fury by the appearance of the well-known letter of the four tutors. The names of these four gentlemen deserve to be commemorated. Two of them are little known to fame — Mr. Churton, Vice-Principal and Tutor of Brazenose, and Mr. Griffiths, who filled a similar position at Wadham College. The others were Mr. H. Bristow Wilson, who was afterwards himself indicted as one of the authors of the Essays and Reviews, and has been very unfairly taunted for his conduct in this matter, and reproached with having set an example of that heresy-hunting of which he himself became a victim. Whatever may have been the merits of Mr. Wilson's own case, it is not easy to comprehend why he should be condemned for a manly protest against teaching which he held to be false in principle and immoral in tendency. The last name on the list is more remarkable still. It is the first public document to which is attached the name of the present Primate ; and there are not many documents with which he has been associated, even in the great public position he occupies, which transcend this in real significance or 1 Oakely's Tractarian Movement, p. 46. vi.] The Tradarian Struggle. 279 historic value. There is no valid reason why he should look back with regret upon the part he played in this memorable transaction. The tutors say that " the Tract would appear to us to have a tendency to mitigate beyond what charity requires, and to the prejudice of the pure truth of the gospel, the very serious differences which separate the Church of Rome from our own, and to shake the confidence of the less learned members of the Church of England in the scriptural character of her formularies and teaching." What is this more than a repudiation of the " new and startling views " of liberality which it propounded, such as the friends of the Church had a right to expect from some men of responsible position ? The Tract, like its predecessors, had appeared anony- mously, and the demand of the tutors was that it should be endorsed by some other name than that of the printer. Newman acceded to this request, though not until the Hebdomadal Board had confirmed the action of the tutors by a distinct censure upon the teachings of the Tracts. It was to the Vice-Chancellor that he avowed his authorship, while later, at the request of his bishop, he discontinued the Tracts entirely. The spirit of the man, a spirit in harmony with the idea of the system he so ably and seduously inculcated, and in such striking contrast with the conduct of the " Catholic " school of to-day, is very marked in this procedure. Newman was the champion of authority, especially of the authority of the Church as vested in the bishops. He gave practical evidence of this by acceding to the wishes of the bishop opposed though they were to his own tastes and con- victions. He had not received the new light which has dawned upon this generation, that the best mode in which the clergy can uphold the authority of the episco- 280 The T.ractarian Struggle. [lect. pate is to obey their own will and follow the devices and desires of their own clerical heart. He tells us — " I did not care much for the Bench of Bishops, except as they might be the voice of my Church ; nor should I have cared much for a Provincial Council ; nor for a Diocesan Synod presided over by my own Bishop ; all these matters seemed to me to be jure ecclesiastico, but what to me was jure divino was the voice of my Bishop in his own person. My own Bishop was my Pope ; I knew no other ; the successor of the Apostles, the Vicar of Christ. This was but a practical exhibition of the Anglican theory of Church government, as I have already drawn it out myself, after various Anglican divines. This continued all through my course ; when at length, in 1845, I wrote to Bishop Wiseman, in whose vicariate I found myself, to announce my conversion, I could find nothing better to say to him than that I would obey the Pope as I had obeyed my own Bishop in the Anglican Church." l Acting on this maxim, he gave up the publication of the Tracts, while still maintaining the soundness of the views propounded in Tract XC. It is not possible fully to understand his position with- out taking into consideration the revelations as to the workings of his own mind which are to be found in Loss and Gain. If its hero is in any way to be regarded as representative of the author, and of the inner workings of his mind which issued in his adherence to Rome, it is easy to understand that the Tract was intended quite as much for his own relief as for that of his followers. Speaking of the Articles, the hero, replying to an observa- tion of his tutors, that " they are quite clear enough and 1 History of my Religions Opinions, p. 51. vi.] The Tractarian Struggle. 281 speak the language of common sense," says, " They seem to me sometimes inconsistent with themselves, some- times with the Prayer Book ; so that I am suspicious of them. I don't know what I am signing when I sign, yet I ought to sign ex animo. A blind submission I could make ; I cannot make a blind declaration." " Give me some instances," said Carlton. " For example," said Charles,