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934 Perceval (Hon. and Rev. A. P.) Vind. 
 of the Principles of the Authors of the 
 " Tracts " — Hussey, " Reasons for Vot- 
 ing " — MacMullen, " Two Exercises 
 for the Degree of B.D." — Bennett 
 (W. J. E.) "1st Letter to Lord John 
 Russell," and another, in 1 vol, 8vo, 
 boards, 3s 1841-50 
 
 ^ V 
 
 9 
 

 A 
 
 FIRST LETTER 
 
 TO 
 
 THE RIGHT HONOURABLE 
 
 LORD JOHN RUSSELL, M.P, 
 
 THE PRESENT PERSECUTION 
 
 OF 
 
 a rertain ^crtion of tfee Ofnglfeft Cfturri). 
 
 A SERMON, 
 
 PREACHED AT S. PAULAS, KNIGHTSBRIDGE, 
 ON SUNDAY MOENING AND EVENING, NOVEMBER 17, 1850. 
 
 BY 
 
 THE REV. WILLIAM J. E. BENNETT, M.A. 
 
 PERPETUAL CURATE OF S. PADl's, KNIGHTSBRIDGE. 
 
 LONDON : 
 W. J. CLEAVER, 46, PICCADILLY. 
 
 MDCCCL. 
 
 Pric6 Is. 6d ; hy post, 2s. 
 
" The name of Popery is more odious than paganism among divers of the more simple 
 sort, so as whatsoever they hear named popish, they presently conceive deep hatred against it, 
 imagining there can be nothing contained in that name but needs it must be exceeding detest- 
 able."— Hooker's EccL. Polity, Book iv. 4. 
 
LETTER, 
 
 ETC. 
 
 My Lord, — 
 
 I AM desirous of informing your Lordship, as 
 one of my chief parishioners, and as one also charged by 
 our Sovereign Lady the Queen to administer the govern- 
 ment of this kingdom, and therein to keep order, peace, 
 and harmony among her subjects — I am desirous of in- 
 forming you, in both these capacities, that I am in great 
 trouble and distress of mind at the present moment 
 in regulating the aifairs of my parish. I am also 
 desirous of forwarding you a copy of my sermon 
 preached at S. Paul's, Knightsbridge, your parish 
 church, on Sunday the 17th November. The sermon, 
 should you possibly spare time to read it, refers to the 
 difficulties and embarrassments under which we all are 
 labouring as to the good order and decency of Divine 
 service ; as to freedom of conscience in worshipping our 
 God without bodily fear; as to a great alarm under 
 which we daily live, lest some sin of sacrilege should 
 be committed by a tumultuous and disorderly mob 
 which is continually molesting us in our holy offices, 
 and threatening violence to our church and to our 
 persons. 
 
 I wish to inform you, my Lord, that on Sunday the 
 10th of November, while I was performing the. duties 
 of Divine service in the church of S. Barnabas, a 
 tumultuous crowd assembled in the streets round about 
 the church, and that a band of persons who had con- 
 gregated together no doubt for this purpose within the 
 very church walls, was guilty of a violent outrage against 
 all decency, in uttering hisses, and exclaiming " No 
 
 B 
 
mummery !" " No popery !" and other similar cries, 
 alarming the decent worshippers who are in the habit 
 of frequenting our church. I wish to inform you that 
 in consequence of this outrage, being literally in fear 
 lest some very grievous act of desecration might be 
 committed, the churchwardens and myself thought it 
 advisable to close the church for the evening service, 
 and so it must continue to be closed, until these tumul- 
 tuous assemblages are stopped, and that consequently 
 our poor parishioners, and other respectable persons 
 who are in the habit of attending Divine service at 
 S. Barnabas, are now hindered from so doing, and are 
 in a great degree deprived of their spiritual privileges. 
 I wish to inform you that since that time it has been 
 thought necessary by the Police Commissioners that our 
 church and residence should be guarded night and 
 day; and that we are at present under the vigilant 
 inspection of police constables, who are watching the 
 streets without cessation lest mischief should arise. 
 I wish to inform you, that on Sunday Nov. 17, a very 
 large mob of most tumultuous and disorderly persons 
 collected together a second time all round the church, 
 and this with a much greater demonstration of violence 
 than on the preceding Sunday — that a force of one 
 hundred constables was required to keep the mob from 
 overt acts of violence ; that notwithstanding the exer- 
 tions of the police, much violence was committed, and 
 a leader of the rioters taken into custody; that the mob 
 again assembled at the evening service at three o'clock, 
 and were guilty again of violent cries, yells, and other 
 noises, battering at the doors of the church, and dis- 
 turbing the whole congregation — that similar scenes 
 occurred again on Sunday the 24th of November, when 
 I was interrupted in my sermon by outcries and other 
 signs of disaffection as before ; all this tumult, your 
 Lordship will please to remember, arising from persons 
 collected from all parts of London — non-parishioners. 
 I wish to inform you that the effect of this has been, 
 that the poor, the timid, and particularly women and 
 children, have assured me that they dare not any longer 
 
3 
 
 attend Divine service ; that they are so intimidated, as 
 w^ell in bodily fear, as also shocked by the blasphemous 
 expressions of the multitude, to which they are com- 
 pelled to listen, that they think it advisable to remain 
 at home until these disturbances are put down. 
 
 I wish to inform you, that, in consequence of this, we 
 on our part, I mean the clergy, are very seriously crip- 
 pled and hindered in the various pastoral works of our 
 calling; that the minds of our parishioners are dis- 
 turbed, and kept in an unhealthy stretch of excitement ; 
 that the peace and love with which it is our duty to 
 look upon each other, however great our diflFerences of 
 opinion, are gone ; that hatred, animosity, and bitterness 
 of spirit, are engendered among us all ; and that we are, 
 in short, both clergyand people, in a very great state 
 of trouble and distress ; that we look forward to the 
 next Sunday, when the greater services of the Church 
 will again be performed, under considerable fear that 
 some violent outbreak may take place. In short, the 
 w^hole idea of worshipping our God, in the peace and 
 love of Christians, is almost destroyed. It is time in- 
 deed, my Lord, when a congregation of Christian wor- 
 shippers is obliged to have detective police within the 
 walls of their church to keep order, and a body of one 
 hundred constables without, to keep off an unruly mob 
 from bursting in and violating the Lord's sanctuary; 
 when, in their attendance at divine service, the parish- 
 ioners come in and go out in actual bodily fear ; when 
 the residence of a simple inoffensive clergyman is obliged 
 to be guarded, all day and night, by special police con- 
 stables, as though he were in a state of siege, defending 
 himself against an enemy; — it is time, my Lord, then, 
 that we ask ourselves the question — ^What is the mean- 
 ing of all this ? How has it come to pass ? Where is 
 the cause of it ? Who has done it 9 
 
 I am about to tell you, my Lord, who has done it. 
 I am about, if you will have the patience to listen, to 
 tell you where lies the moving cause of all this outrage 
 and blasphemy. To those who have eyes to see, alas, 
 it is too plain ! 
 
 b2 
 
In walking through my parish but a few days since, 
 I was met by a man offering to me for sale a slip of 
 paper, purporting to be a letter from your Lordship to 
 the Bishop of Durham. And, shortly afterwards, I saw 
 in a shop window the same letter advertised, with a 
 great shew of attraction, at price two shillings and six- 
 pence per hundred. Of course I could not but be at- 
 tracted by seeing your Lordship's name appended to a 
 letter to the Bishop of Durham. Knowing the troubles 
 which now beset our unhappy Church, — its many 
 schisms, wants, and infirmities, — I might have been 
 pardoned if I had imagined a letter to the Bishop of 
 Durham suggesting some healing medicine for our 
 wounds ; pointing out some stay and comfort in our 
 troubles ; promising some synod, or convocation for 
 deliberation on our distracted state ; I might have 
 imagined a scheme for additional bishops; some en- 
 largement of the national education of the poor ; some- 
 thing, in fact, to help us on and guide us to deeper unity 
 and more fervent love among ourselves. 
 
 But, my Lord, what was my surprise when I found 
 that your letter was no more or less than an attack 
 upon the Bishop of Rome ; that it was a manifesto full 
 of anger and indignation against a power said to be 
 feared now, though it had been for twenty-five years, 
 or thereabouts, sedulously courted, cultivated, and 
 nursed up into its present condition, by no other than 
 yourself. And, what was my surprise, not unmixed 
 with something deeper, to find that, although the 
 Bishop of Rome was held up as a great source of danger 
 to the mighty empire of Great Britain, at which I 
 wondered ; there was still a greater danger behind, at 
 which I wondered more. It is said in that letter — 
 
 " There is a danger, however, which alarms me much more than 
 any aggression of a foreign sovereign. 
 
 " Clergymen of our own Church, who have subscribed the Thirty- 
 nine Articles, and acknowledged in explicit terms the Queen's supre- 
 macy, have been the most forward in leading their flocks, ' step by 
 step, to the very verge of the precipice.' The honour paid to saints, 
 the claim of infallibility for the Church, the superstitious use of the 
 sign of the Cross, the muttering of the Liturgy so as to disguise the 
 language in which it is written, the recommendation of auricular con- 
 
fession, and the admission of penance and absolution, — all these are 
 things pointed out by clergymen of the Church of England as worthy 
 of adoption, and are now openly reprehended by the Bishop of London 
 in his charge to the clergy of his diocese. 
 
 " What then, is the danger to be apprehended from a foreign 
 prince of no great power, compared to the danger within the gates 
 from the unworthy sons of the Church of England herself ? 
 
 " I have little hope that the propounders and framers of these 
 innovations will desist from their insidious course. But I rely with 
 confidence on the people of England; and I will not bate a jot of 
 heart or hope so long as the glorious principles and the immortal 
 martyrs of the Reformation shall be held in reference by the great 
 mass of a nation which looks with contempt on the mummeries of 
 superstition, and with scorn at the laborious endeavours which are 
 now making to confine the intellect and enslave the soul." 
 
 Having read this letter, which I did very carefully, 
 my attention was fixed to the peculiar day of its date, 
 November 4th, and I could not help remarking that it 
 was a curious coincidence that this condemnation of 
 the Bishop of Rome should tally so closely with the 
 popular delights concerning Guy Fawkes. Then I 
 looked on from November the 5th to November 9th, 
 the one almost as great a day as the other in the annals 
 of the city of London ; and when the day came, I 
 anxiously read the speeches of the Lord Chancellor, 
 and Chief Justice, and of yourself; and it was curious 
 to remark how only one topic seemed to engross all 
 parties. It is reported that the Lord Chancellor said — 
 
 " There are some who have thought it right to depart from that 
 simplicity of Christian worship which our Divine Saviour adopted 
 and left us an example of, and who have sought to approximate as 
 near as possible to Romish forms, one would almost think, to invite 
 that very invasion with which we have been recently visited." 
 
 I was somewhat struck by this novel remark of the 
 Lord Chancellor as to the " simplicity of Christian 
 worship which our Lord adopted'', I had always 
 thought that our Blessed Saviour worshipped in the 
 Synagogue which was of the Jews — and in the Temple^ 
 under a most gorgeous, minute, and ceremonial ritual, 
 concerning which, his Lordship might learn, if he had 
 time to study in the Books of the Law of God ; and I 
 also thought that the disciples of our Lord were called 
 " Christians first at Antioch", long after. 
 
Then followed your Lordship's speech, which is 
 reported in the following words — 
 
 " I can only say, gentlemen, that that attachment to the religious 
 freedom of this country which I have hitherto felt, will always con- 
 tinue to animate my breast, and that it will be my duty to maintain to 
 the utmost of my power the supremacy of our sovereign, and the 
 religious liberties of the people, from whatever quarter they may be 
 assailed. Let me add, however, one thing further. When perils 
 much more grave, much more imminent, impended over this country, 
 a wise princess who at that time ruled our destinies, thought fit to call 
 to her aid all those, whatever might be their religious persuasion, who 
 were faithful to the throne, and true to the interests of their country. 
 Such was the conduct of Elizabeth in times of as great danger as ever 
 occurred in the country. Such conduct, I will venture to say, is 
 worthy of imitation; and I believe that with religious liberty esta- 
 blished in this country, persons of all religious persuasions, while 
 obeying the dictates of their consciences as to the mode of worship 
 they think it right to adopt, may rally round the institutions of the 
 country, pay a grateful homage to the Crown for the protection they 
 enjoy, and rejoice that they live in a land where freedom is generally, 
 and I trust I may say permanently, established." 
 
 Now all this^ I confess^ did somewhat startle me. I 
 could not conceive how it was that the members of Her 
 Majesty's Government could find themselves of a sudden 
 such deep masters of Divinity as thus to pronounce ex 
 cathedra upon the deep mysteries of our most holy 
 faith. It was a wonder to me how your Lordship 
 should have found time to add to the incessant toils of 
 your political office the study of theology to such an 
 extent, as to pronounce on some of the most difficult 
 dogmas of the Church. But, nevertheless, I said to 
 myself — this letter is a very important thing, be it as 
 it may : I compared the unhappy disturbances at our 
 church of S. Barnabas with those speeches at Guildhall 
 — I compared the mob, with its outcries of ^'JVo Popery \ 
 '^ No Mummeries'\ and the like, with your Lordship's 
 letter, which breathes the same spirit, of '^no mum- 
 meries of superstition" — " no superstitious ceremonies" 
 — and the like. I said to myself — It cannot be very 
 much a wonder that ignorant persons, consisting mostly 
 of the lowest orders of society, should be so stirred 
 up to molest us poor people of S, Barnabas, when the 
 
Prime Minister himself writes them a letter and tells 
 them that we are more, dangerous than even the Pope 
 of Rome. 
 
 But your Lordship will perhaps say, " I never men- 
 tioned S. Barnabas. I only spoke generally of a 
 certain party in the Church." No, my Lord, you did 
 not mention S. Barnabas, — but your residence is known 
 to be in Chesham Place, — you are known to have been 
 a w^orshipper in S. Paul's Church, from which S. Bar- 
 nabas is an off-shoot. You are known to be intimately 
 acquainted, from your parochial connexion, with all that 
 is done there — and the inference is so plain that any 
 child could have made it — namely, that S. Paul's and S. 
 Barnabas were the places which you really had in your 
 mind, and the clergy of whom you spoke, among others 
 — the clergy of those churches. 
 
 Your letter to the people, coupled with the speeches at 
 the Guildhall, speaks just to this effect — " Listen to me, 
 people of England, and specially inhabitants of London. 
 There is a great danger, as you all know, from the 
 Bishop of Rome, who has just issued a bull, making a 
 Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster, and other bishops, 
 of his own communion. This is a great act of power 
 and aggression against the Queen's supremacy ; and it 
 is my opinion that no one has a right to say anything 
 concerning bishops and the episcopal superintendance 
 of any of the people of this country, save only the 
 Queen. It is plain that if you do not look to it, you 
 will have all the people converted to the Roman faith, 
 — you will have the Queen's crown in danger. Take 
 care of your liberties. But, my good friends, I should 
 like to tell you something further, and I beg you to 
 listen to this most attentively :— however great a danger 
 there is arising from the Pope, I will tell you of another 
 which is even greater. There are a set of clergymen in 
 the Church of England, who are peculiar in their method 
 of performing divine service. They do and say such and 
 such things (then you mention them) ; they teach this, 
 and they teach that ; they do this, and they do that ; — 
 and let me tell you that it is from these men that the dan- 
 
8 
 
 ger of Popery comes. If it had not been for these clergy 
 of the Church of England, you would never have had 
 anything to trouble you in regard of the Church of 
 Rome. Now take care of your Protestant liberties, — 
 raise a ' no Popery' cry, and protect the Royal Supre- 
 macy." 
 
 What followed? Why of course the newspapers 
 echoed your cry. Your Lordship had given the major 
 premiss, — the New^spapers supplied the minor, — the 
 Mob drew the conclusion. 
 
 Did yon want them to draw the conclusion ? How- 
 ever, so it was. A conclusion inevitable. Though I 
 had been sorely puzzled to know w^hy we were so 
 attacked at S. Barnabas' ; now^ it w^as plain enough. 
 For days and days, not a single newspaper but teemed 
 with letters and articles about our poor inoffensive 
 church ; though I had been before sorely puzzled 
 about it in my simplicity, now it all came upon me 
 in a moment of enlightenment. How was it possible 
 they should avoid it? How was it possible, when the 
 uncultivated, ignorant minds of the common people 
 were so skilfully plied with incendiary matter by the 
 Prime Minister of England, backed by the Lord Chan- 
 cellor and an unscrupulous public Press, that they 
 should not take fire? When the law in Court of 
 Chancery, and the law in Court of Queen's Bench, 
 represented by grave and solemn men, spoke out 
 from a Guildhall dinner, and egged on the multitude 
 with speeches about " Civil and rehgious Liberty" ; 
 and with many jestings about the Pope, and when 
 Sir Peter Laurie wound up the story by saying : 
 "Whether ministers led or followed, one thing was 
 certain — Britons never would be slaves"; to what? 
 " either to Puseyism or to Popery" ! How, my Lord, 
 could w^e wonder any longer at what had taken place ? 
 Why, it would have been a perfect miracle had w^e 
 escaped. You might as well have laid a train of 
 gunpowder from Chesham Place, stretching along the 
 streets to poor S. Barnabas' church, and then put into 
 the hands of your friends, '' the people", a torch, and 
 
9 
 
 have said : " Now you know where the mischief is"; 
 and then have expected that the torch would not have 
 been applied to the train. 
 
 Will your Lordship allow me to say a few words, 
 first on the subject of your consistency in regard of 
 this matter, and then in regard of your theological 
 opinions. 
 
 I remember a certain period in your Lordship's poli- 
 tical life — it was the year 1835 ; when, being appointed 
 Minister of State for the Home Department, you became 
 a candidate for the representation of South Devon; 
 and notwithstanding your popularity as a minister just 
 accepting place, and other advantageous circumstances 
 in that county, you were defeated by a majority of up- 
 wards of six hundred. You then addressed the electors 
 in these w^ords : '* To the effects of intimidation and 
 undue influence ; on the temporally alarm^ on weak 
 minds, caused hy tJie revival of tJie cry of ^No 
 Popery ' . . . . my defeat is to he attributed^ So that 
 Popery and your Lordship were once identified. I re- 
 member well, even earlier than that, the many contests 
 which used to take place in the House of Commons on 
 the great subject of '' the Catholic claims", and how you 
 used to be an invariable champion on their behalf. 
 So that " Popery" has not always been a bane to you. 
 t call to mind also the fact of your advocating, for 
 many years, grants of the national money for the edu- 
 cation of the Roman Catholic Clergy at Maynooth ; so 
 that neither the propagation of the faith of the Church 
 of Rome could possibly then have been sinful in your 
 eyes, nor, of course, could its existence in this country, 
 at that time, have been thought by you dangerous to 
 the Queen's supremacy. 
 
 I have always considered that you have hitherto been a 
 staunch, firm, and faithful advocate, and, in my opinion, a 
 just advocate, of the rights of conscience. Both towards 
 Dissenters, as well as Roman Catholics, you have invari- 
 ably manifested a tolerant disposition ; not considering 
 that religion, or religious forms of belief, should be any 
 
10 
 
 cause of the loss of the rights of citizenship. I bear in 
 mind also the fact, that you advocate the rights of con- 
 science to such an extent, that you have brought a 
 Bill into the House of Commons for the purpose of 
 allowing Jev^s to take part in the legislation of our 
 country ; and that you are notoriously of opinion, that 
 not even the denial of our Blessed Lord and Saviour 
 Jesus Christ ought to form any bar to the free use of all 
 the privileges and honors of our country. I call to 
 mind also the fact, that you esteem the education of 
 the poor of such great importance, that even creeds 
 and dogmas of faith should be given up in order to 
 combine every form of religious profession in a grand 
 scheme of universal knowledge. Thus, in all points, I 
 find you so far from being narrow-minded or bigoted 
 to any one set of opinions, that you gladly ignore all 
 the laws and obligations of every Church whatsoever. 
 I find that you fly, whensoever it may suit you, to 
 the teaching of those who are entirely opposed to 
 the English Church, such as the Presbyterians, while 
 nominally you remain within her pale; that you 
 uphold the educational system of Dissenters who 
 adopt no creed whatever, while you simultaneously 
 worship in a Church which anathematizes heresy, and 
 insists upon creeds as embodying truths vital to salva- 
 tion. I find that your idea of the faith of the Gospel 
 is large, broad, liberal, free ; that you would not have 
 yourself crippled or confined by any narrow circle of 
 man's (as you call them) decrees or opinions ; that you 
 make an eclectic system of your own, and claim the right 
 of w^orshipping in the morning in a communion which 
 says, that without Bishops there is no Church, while 
 you worship in the evening in a communion which denies 
 the episcopal grace altogether : in short, I find by the 
 whole course of your political life, that you are most 
 liberal, generous, and unfettered by any bonds of preju- 
 dice, to either creed, party, or Church. And finding this 
 to be the case, I understand then very clearly what you 
 mean by the clergy '* enslaving the soul", and " confin- 
 ing the intellect", which otherwise I could not have 
 
II 
 
 understood. "Enslaving* the soul'^ points to the dog- 
 matic teaching of any Church whatsoever. " Confining 
 the intellect", advocates the free and rationalistic use 
 of God's great gift to men — the mind, "Enslaving the 
 soul", would be tantamount to believing creeds such as 
 the Athanasian. " Confining the intellect", would be the 
 necessity of belief in the doctrine of Baptismal Regene- 
 ration, or in the real Presence in the Blessed Sacrament. 
 In fact, my Lord, it is clear, in regard to your faith, judg- 
 ing it by your conduct, that you are in religion as in poli- 
 tics, a LIBERAL. You are not a prejudiced man. You are 
 not a bigot. You are not narrow-minded. Consequently 
 I should suppose, a 'priori^ that in regard to the State, or 
 the Crown, or the Government administering the Crown, 
 you would be of opinion, that the imposition of any 
 doctrine by such an evidently human institution as that, 
 would be the very severest of tyranny ; that the idea of 
 a man's faith being bound down by a mere earthly king, 
 — the idea of a number of men's faith, that is, a Church, 
 the idea of a great community of Christians being bound 
 in things spiritual to obey the supremacy, or final adju- 
 dication, or decision of a Royal Court of mere men, 
 that this idea would be dreadfully abhorrent to your 
 feelings. A Royal Supremacy Church one would think 
 the very last which a man of your liberal sentiments 
 would tolerate, — one which your faith would reject as 
 impossible to be founded on God's Word, and your 
 principles deny as being unworthy the freedom of the 
 human intellect. In short, I should say, a priori, that 
 a State Church, State creeds. State Courts, State cathe- 
 drals. State deans and canons, and, above all. State 
 Bishops, would be a piece of king's craft odious in your 
 eyes, as " confining the intellect and enslaving the soul" 
 most foully, most fatally. 
 
 My Lord — I agree with you entirely in the latter 
 portion of what might have been expected of you 
 a jyriori — I disagree with you in what I find existing 
 in you as a fact — but again I agree with you in the 
 moving principle by which you are guided and directed 
 in your course. The moving principle is love of free^ 
 
12 
 
 dom, toleration, liberty; in that I agree. Your actions 
 flowing out of that principle, namely, your letter to the 
 Bishop of Durham and speech at Guildhall — in these 
 I disagree, because they are inconsistent; and there- 
 fore, that which I might have expected a priori, does 
 not exist. For while you cry out most heartily, 
 " Liberty of Conscience", you stop the mouths of men, 
 confine the intellects of men, and enslave the souls 
 of men, by a great, cumbrous, unwieldy, tyrannical 
 machine called a State Church, which you enforce 
 against us without mercy, and while you find fault 
 with Christ's Holy Catholic Church for dogmatizing in 
 creeds, you nevertheless rule them with a rod of iron 
 in the dogmas of an Act of Parliament. While you 
 yourself get free of Articles and Queen's Supremacy in 
 the liberty of a Presbyterian, you charge the unfortu- 
 nate clergy of the English Church with their bounden 
 duty of submission to the Thirty-nine Articles and the 
 Queen's supreme headship and government over them 
 in things spiritual. My Lord, you are like a jailor 
 who has manacled and fettered his prisoner, and being 
 free himself, stands off and laughs at him. 
 
 I heartily agree with the American Minister at the 
 Guildhall Dinner, who said — 
 
 " Where was it that the first stand was made against the royal 
 prerogative of collecting Ship-money ? Here, in the city of London, 
 by that immortal man, John Hampden." 
 
 Well then, citizens of London, and you my Lord— to 
 contend against a royal prerogative,if it bean unjust one, 
 is not in itself abstractedly wTong. If John Hampden is 
 esteemed by you a patriot because he contended against 
 the royal prerogative of Ship-money, why should you 
 mark us out as being criminally wrong, and call us " in- 
 sidious" because we question the Royal Supremacy in 
 that portion of it which bears upon our religious liberties. 
 You will understand carefully that there is a great dis- 
 tinction between the question of loyal and dutiful 
 obedience to our Queen, and the question of the Prime 
 Minister ruling the Church against her own doctrines 
 and against her own courts. We are of opinion^ that 
 
13 
 
 the Royal Supremacy has been unjustly strained and 
 distorted, pushed in many cases of late into unjusti- 
 fiable acts of tyranny, and therefore we claim the same 
 right that John Hampden claimed, of doing our best 
 conscientiously to protest against it, and, constitution- 
 ally to abrogate that portion of it wherein the injustice 
 lies. You will remember that John Hampden, whom 
 you revere as a patriot, did something more than this. 
 You were very anxious once, my Lord, when you saw 
 rottenness and corruption in the representative system 
 of the House of Commons, to reform it, and you endured 
 much labour and difficulty in attaining your object. 
 If you had been accused of being " insidious" when you 
 did so, or of being an enemy to your country, when 
 you only meant to benefit her, you would have been 
 very indignant, and would have said that persons were 
 unjust in so calumniating you. I only claim the same 
 justice at your Lordship's hands, in reference to the 
 constitution of the Church, as your Lordship used to 
 claim, in reference to the constitution of our country. 
 I am of opinion, with many others, that there is much 
 rottenness and corruption in the English Church. I 
 mean in the election of her chief pastors, and in undue 
 interference with doctrine, and I am of opinion that the 
 source of the corruption is the Royal Supremacy as now 
 administered. I exercise an Englishman's right to say 
 this. I exercise an Englishman's right to combine with 
 others, in measures for its reform. Because we do this 
 on the principle of John Hampden in the Ship-money, 
 and your own principle on the Reform Bill, and still more 
 strongly on the Catholic Emancipation Bill, I claim of 
 you in consistency to acknowledge, that it is very pos- 
 sible that we may be doing it neither as " insidious" in 
 regard of our faith, nor as enemies in regard of our 
 Church. 
 
 But, my Lord, either not understanding this, or else 
 wilfully passing it by — I hope the former — you throw 
 dust into people's eyes, and say that we, a certain por- 
 tion of the English clergy, are bringing in the Pope, 
 because we speak against the Queen's supremacy. 
 
14 
 
 It is not the Queen's supremacy that we complain 
 of — jt is the prime-minister's supremacy that we com- 
 plain of, — not the thing, but the abuse. Your Lordship 
 is very earnest in your cry for " liberty of conscience." 
 Why will you not concede it to us the clergy, as well 
 as all other of her Majesty's subjects ? You cry out 
 against us, that we are enslaving the souls of the people, 
 we cry out against you, that you are enslaving the souls 
 of the clergy ; that you are crippling, deforming, poi- 
 soning the fountains of jurisdiction and the springs of 
 the pure doctrines of the Catholic faith. If " civil and 
 religious liberty" means anything, we have a right to 
 say this, and to act upon it, and that right we claim. 
 It is your inconsistency that we would point out to the 
 world, in fighting so bravely and enduring so much for 
 a principle in yourself, and for yourself, which you wdll 
 not concede to another. 
 
 My Lord, I quite agree with you that no man has a 
 power to enslave the soul of another, that a man's con- 
 science is free. But I charge you with inconsistency 
 in not following this up, and allowing a fortiori that 
 neither has a State such power. 
 
 If one man has not the power, neither have many 
 men. If I have no power to enslave your soul, neither 
 have you to enslave mine ; and I claim the liberty you 
 enjoy for yourself. What the Dissenters have, the Pres- 
 byterians, the Quakers, the Roman Catholics, and I 
 think justly, have, I claim for the English Church, 
 and for myself. A man's conscience is a man's life ; a 
 man's soul is himself. We are under shackles ; we 
 have a right to get free if we can, as John Hampden 
 did, whom you revere. 
 
 I agree with your cry of civil and religious liberty. 
 I believe that penal laws against religion are the greatest 
 acts of tyranny of which a country can be guilty. I 
 have read many of your Lordship's speeches with the 
 highest delight in the enthusiasm of my youth, when 
 you fought hard and desperately against the (as I 
 thought) bigoted and narrow-minded cries about Church 
 and State, and about the danger of the Pope and his 
 
15 
 
 bulls. I have rejoiced exceedingly, as session after 
 session went on, and Roman Catholics were at length 
 admitted to their undoubted right to sit in parliament 
 as Christian men serving loyally a Christian sovereign. 
 I rejoiced to see penal statutes after penal statutes 
 abrogated, as marks of antiquated prejudice^ and a relic 
 of a mere cowardly fear unworthy of a mind that 
 believed truth greater than falsehood. For I said, if 
 the truth is with us, w^hat matters the Pope ? If the 
 truth is with the Pope, what matter our acts of parlia- 
 ment ? 
 
 And I agree with your Lordship even more lately 
 still, even up to last November 9th, when you said : — 
 
 " Persons of all religious persuasions, while obeying the dictates of 
 their consciences, as to the mode of worship thej think it right to 
 adopt, may rally round the institutions of the country, pay a graceful 
 homage to the Crown for the protection they receive, and rejoice that 
 they live in a land where freedom is generally, and I trust I may say 
 permanently, established." 
 
 But then I ask, how is it, my Lord, that the poor 
 '^ clergy of the English Church may not be permitted, in 
 the dictates of /^^zV conscience, to use the mode of wor- 
 ship which they think it right to adopt ?" Where is the 
 religious freedom of sending down upon S. Barnabas a 
 violent mob, to teach us how to worship our God, and 
 not permit us to do as we like ourselves, in a land 
 where " freedom is established" ? Are the clergy of 
 the Church of England the only persons who have no 
 consciences ? Your Lordship says : " Yes, but you are 
 guilty of error : your practices are not in accordance 
 with the Church of which you are members." I reply : 
 *'Who made your Lordship judge of that?" You say : 
 " Why, I see the Bishop has judged it so" — then you 
 quote the Bishop, and shelter yourself under him. But, 
 my Lord, the Bishop is not infallible. You object to the 
 infallibility even of the Church, (See your own letter.) 
 Much more you must object to the infallibility of a single 
 bishop. How you would throw the bishop aside, with 
 perfect contempt, if he were to say something in an epis- 
 copal charge about the schism of members of the Church 
 of England taking their children to be baptized by a dis- 
 
16 
 
 senting minister, or about Church of England members 
 frequenting conventicles, which, according to the Canons, 
 is a censurable, if not a punishable act : how you would 
 rise up in indignation against such an infringement of 
 the rights of conscience then. But where is your con- 
 sistency ? You quote the Bishop and the Church on 
 your side, when you want to make use of an argument 
 against an adversary ; you throw them altogether out, 
 when they make against yourself. Is that fair, my Lord ? 
 No; you know it is not. Bat it suits your purpose 
 just now to crush a certain party in the Church, and to 
 ward off the indignation of the people, which is burning 
 against Popery, by appearing to take their side just for 
 the moment. You are not on their side really. You 
 do not really mean that you think the Pope dangerous. 
 You do not really think that the Queen's supremacy 
 in temporal things — otherwise her crown — is in danger 
 in consequence of a papal bull. You do not really 
 mean that a number of Roman bishops, exercising spi- 
 ritual jurisdiction over their people, is an aggression 
 against the Queen's right to her throne ; for if you did, 
 you w^ould not surely act as you have doneall your life, 
 in endeavouring to promote this very point. You would 
 not have repealed statute after statute to prepare the 
 way for it. You would not have given large grants of 
 money to the College of Maynooth. You would not 
 have acknowledged Roman archbishops and bishops in 
 the colonies, and have paid them salaries, and have 
 given them precedence over English bishops, and have 
 recognized their titles. You would not have counselled 
 and aided in various Acts of Parliament in which these 
 titles and salaries are made the law' of the land. You 
 would not have conceded in the court of Dublin a pri- 
 ority of rank, or, at least, a recognition of rank in the 
 Irish bishops, and have, on many occasions, addressed 
 them by their titles. No, my Lord, I cannot impute to 
 you the idea of having done all this, or joined in all 
 this, freely and notoriously, with a conjunction of your 
 opinion being in reality what it seems, that Popery is 
 like to be the destruction of the Queen's authority in 
 
17 
 
 this realm of England. Why, I would ask you, are you 
 now denying both the words and the works of your 
 whole life ? Why put before the people these exciting 
 things, to which your life gives the great answer, — They 
 are not true ? Why, my Lord, fondle and pet and nurse 
 a viper which you knew would only sting you when it got 
 sufficient warmth and vitality ? If the Roman Catholics 
 are dangerous, why did you foster them ? If they are 
 not dangerous, why do you say they are ? 
 
 My Lord, you not only excite " the weak minds" of the 
 people of England against Cardinal Wiseman and the 
 Pope, and cry "no Popery", but you do something more. 
 While you say " Popery is dangerous, down with it", you 
 say — " It is not my fault, gentlemen. It is true I have al- 
 ways advocated their claims, and forwarded their views ; 
 but now that they have come out into power, that is not 
 my fault ; it is the fault of certain clergy within *' our 
 Church". You couple yourself with us^ although now a 
 follower of Dr. Cumming, a Presbyterian. It suits you 
 for your purpose to do so, and you do it. Knowing where 
 the blame ought to lie, you turn it oflp, and say : " There, 
 look at that, — look at these clergy, — look at their 
 ' mummeries', and their ^ superstitions', — observe these 
 Roman doctrines, and their insidious teaching. These 
 are the men that have caused this danger. Thus, 
 under a masked battery, having diverted the attention 
 from yourself, you aim your guns with too true an aim 
 against us. Down with those clergy of ' mutterings', 
 and of ' confessions', and of ' infallibility', and of 
 ^ freedom from the queen's supremacy'. These are the 
 mischief-makers." Then the mob is stirred and infu- 
 riated, and instead of the Roman Catholics themselves, 
 we become the butts and objects of hatred, and ridicule, 
 and violence. If there is a precipice at the end of a 
 certain walk, and you know it, and dread it, and would 
 not for the world move towards it, for fear of falling 
 over it, — you would not hate the precipice ; you would 
 know of its existence, and simply avoid it. But if after 
 a while, some one began to lead you towards it step by 
 step, — and you went on under his guidance, as it were 
 
 c 
 
18 
 
 fascinated, and bewildered, — when you should at length 
 arrive at the precipice, and fall over, and thereby 
 injure yourself, — with what kind of feeling would you 
 look at such a guide ? — hatred, wrath, repugnance, 
 punishment. But this, my Lord, you have just done 
 towards us, the clergy of S. Barnabas. You have told 
 the whole Protestant world concerning the Roman 
 Church, that it is the great enemy of the crown of 
 Queen Victoria. You have saturated the people with 
 the unchristian feeling of looking upon Rome with a 
 sort of hatred, as though it were a natural enemy to 
 England. Having signified this, you go to the bishop ; 
 and you say : See what the very bishop says. He 
 speaks of these clergy as men " leading you step by step 
 to this precipice." What is to be done with them ? 
 
 My Lord, you say this very adroitly under the cover 
 of the bishop. But let me remind you, that if we, the 
 clergy of S. Barnabas, are so very much to blame, — if it 
 be really so, that we are leading the English Church to 
 the Roman Church, and are therein (of course together 
 with other brethren all over the country) of so much 
 importance, in the danger of our tenets and practices, — 
 if this be so, let me remind you, that it is only five 
 months since the very bishop from whom you quote, 
 came down among us, consecrated our church, gave us 
 his blessing on our w^ork, entered cordially into all our 
 operations and plans for the good of the parish, and par- 
 took with rich and poor of a church-feast on our day 
 of consecration, and made, at the dinner, before the 
 assembled parish, this speech : it is so recorded in 
 the Morning Post of June 13. 
 
 " As soon as the applause had subsided, the Bishop of London 
 returned thanks. Before he proceeded to the pleasing duty assigned 
 him by his friend Mr. Bennett, he was anxious to assure them, and 
 he did so with the greatest sincerity, that he had experienced the 
 highest gratification in coming among them on this occasion ; and 
 after the solemnities of the morning, by which a new house of prayer 
 had been dedicated to the honour of God, he thought it was most 
 fitting to preside at such an entertainment as this, where rich and 
 poor were met together. He was glad to be with them there, not 
 only because he saw the poor refreshing their bodies, and he hoped 
 improving the tone of their minds by such enjoyment, many of them, 
 
19 
 
 he regretted to think, not much abounding in the good things of this 
 world ; but because he could not but regard such an assembly as a 
 type of the Church itself, which provided a common feast for all with- 
 out distinction. The Church, any more than its Divine Head, did 
 not recognize any worldly distinctions, but offered to all alike the 
 choicest blessings of the Gospel. His Lordship then paid a high com- 
 pliment to Mr. Bennett, for his successful efforts to furnish so com- 
 plete a provision for the spiritual wants of the neighbourhood, and 
 expressed his earnest hope and confidence that the church and schools 
 so munificently provided, would be the source of inestimable blessings 
 to all around. He then addressed the four boys in affectionate terms, 
 and formally admitted them to the foundation of the college. His 
 Lordship was much cheered. 
 
 " The bishop then proposed, in glowing eulogy, the health of Mr. 
 Bennett." 
 
 Now, I can hardly think it possible that the bishop, 
 after saying this, approving, as you see, cordially, and 
 with " the greatest sincerity", and with " the highest 
 gratification'', of all he saw and all he joined in, should 
 now mean to blame and censure those very same things. 
 That would indeed be blowing hot and cold. In what 
 or in whom could we ever trust, if that were the case ? 
 I hold that the very idea of such a thing is an insult to 
 the bishop. I will not believe it : there must be some 
 delusion. 
 
 For remember all is just the same now as it was 
 then ; we have not altered the church, or put anything 
 therein which there was not before ; we sang our ser- 
 vice with him, and he with us, in what your Lordship is 
 pleased to call "muttering", the same "muttering" which 
 there is now ; we had all the same dress, the same font, 
 the same Altar, and all belonging to it ; the same rood- 
 screen, with its cross ; the same cross upon the Altar ; 
 and all else. There are only two things since added, 
 which I need not speak of here; one, which is the acknow- 
 ledged practice at S. Paul's,* and known to the Bishop, 
 the other commanded by the Church.f Yes. I may 
 fairly say the whole spirit and tone, the intention, the 
 mind of the whole church and college ; the foundation 
 for the choristers, the masters, the mistresses, the 
 curates, the general scheme and arrangement of the 
 
 * Flowers. f Lights upon the altar. See Dr. Hook's Church 
 
 Dictionary, c 2 
 
20 
 
 whole; and yet still, moreover, as far as I myself am 
 humbly concerned ; my doctrine and way of teaching ; 
 my views and principles in the regulation of the service ; 
 my character as a priest ; intending to do, teach, and 
 pursue my way, in the very way I am now pursuing it. 
 I repeat, all this was known to the Bishop. I know 
 full well his kindness on that occasion. I believe fully 
 that he sacrificed much on that occasion of his own 
 private feelings and opinions as an individual; and I 
 am filled (and all who know me will bear me witness 
 how I have always expressed myself to this effect), with 
 the greatest gratitude for the kindness of manner, and 
 the paternal affection, with which the Bishop then 
 treated me. And therefore it is that I cannot imagine 
 that he should speak so harshly now. I believe then 
 there is a delusion. The Bishop knows that I never can 
 go back in the things I have said and done ; that I can 
 never from any fear of man, change, or recede from 
 that which has been begun as a j^rincij^le, I have told 
 him that I cannot. That which he saw and knew then ; 
 that which he saw and blessed then; that which he 
 knew to be my intention, and my mind then, in ceremo- 
 nies and ritual ; that shall it be now, — please God, and 
 for ever the same, unchanged, unchangeable. 
 
 Therefore, my Lord, I fear you have done unjustly 
 by S. Barnabas ; I fear you have traduced our clergy 
 here, by imputing false things to them. It cannot 
 possibly be, that we are leading the people step by step 
 over the precipice. How can we, when the Bishop led 
 the w^ay himself, in consecrating and blessing the Church 
 which now you see ? 
 
 But I have done with this point now. The sum is 
 this. You say, the danger is in us ; the fault on our 
 shoulders. We say, not more so now than when our 
 Bishop approved of all, and gave us our starting point. 
 You say, that we are leading, step by step, our people 
 over a precipice ; meaning, of course, Rome. Let me 
 ask you to read this little extract from the Bishop of 
 Exeter's reply to the clergy at Plymouth. You will 
 
21 
 
 there see what party in the Church he thinks are the 
 leaders to Rome. 
 
 "If Eomish principles have indeed prevailed, and still do prevail 
 among any members of our Church — what has led to this most lament- 
 able result? 
 
 " I will frankly state my own conviction, and will, as your Bishop, 
 invite you, not to adopt it because it is mine, but to give it, on that 
 account, your grave consideration. I believe, then, that to earnest- 
 minded, intelligent, and reflecting men (as we must own many of 
 those who have left us to be), the most eflfectual of all the induce- 
 ments to abandon their loyalty to their Church, has been the wanton 
 disregard of the principles of that Church, which is too often exhibited 
 by many even of her clergy. 
 
 " For instance : when we see ministers of large and populous towns 
 acting as if it were their main duty to raise, or keep alive, some 
 ignorant prejudice, or to swell some low party-clamour among their 
 people, — denying and calumniating, it may be, neighbouring ministers, 
 more active, more zealous, and, therefore, more successful than them- 
 selves ; limiting, meanwhile, their own services within the narrowest 
 bounds — neglecting those plain directions of their Church which they 
 have solemnly pledged themselves to fulfil — ' keeping holy' none of 
 the prescribed festivals in commemoration of Apostles, and saints, 
 and martyrs — closing the House of God except on Sundays, as if 
 among the countless thousands committed to their charge, there were 
 none who are desirous of joining in the * Communion of Saints' on 
 any other day. Still worse, talking, and even teaching of the Church, 
 which is the Body of Christ, as if it were an empty name ; of His 
 sacraments, as if they were mere ritual ordinances : of the whole 
 wondrous and mysterious scheme devised by God's wisdom and mercy 
 for the restoration of fallen man, as if it were solely a m.atter of in- 
 ternal personal feeling. When, I repeat, we see and hear these 
 things, we may condemn, we must lament, but we cannot wonder at 
 the indignant impatience which has driven sensitive and earnest 
 minds to seek, even in the corrupt system of Eome, something less 
 unsatisfying than what they have been compelled to witness at home." 
 
 There is something further which I have need to say- 
 about your Lordship's consistency. Not your con- 
 sistency in the political measures of your government, 
 for of course with that subject, as a clergyman, I have 
 nothing to do ; nor your consistency in your own per- 
 sonal conduct and rule of faith, for of course the right 
 of private judgment being in your own mind established 
 as a necessary part of Protestantism, you only follow 
 its dictates, in following your own will in regard to 
 religious w^orship. But conceding, as I do, the right of 
 
22 
 
 private judgment to you, I would ask, why will you not 
 concede it to others ? — why will you not concede it to 
 me ? It would seem but fair that a latitudinarian 
 should give latitude to others ; a free thinker, free 
 thought ; a free agent, free action ; a liberal, liberality. 
 But, as I have shewn, it is not so with you. What you 
 impose on others, you do not impose on yourself; what 
 you demand of others to be given to you, you are very 
 reluctant indeed to give to them. But this principle, 
 vicious and faulty as it is, is allowable, you might say — 
 a general^ a political, an abstract fault, and nothing to 
 do with yourself. You perhaps try, as many politicians 
 have done, to separate your political character from 
 your personal, and you might say, it is very true I am 
 an advocate for the right of private judgment, and civil 
 and religious liberty, and so I would in my personal 
 conduct abstain carefully from any measure or dealing 
 with my neighbour, which would violate that principle ; 
 but as a statesman and a public servant of the constitu- 
 tion of my country, I am bound to adhere to that con- 
 stitution ; and finding, as I do, that the Church compels 
 certain things of those who are her members, it is my 
 duty to enforce her laws. 
 
 The truth of the matter is, that statesmen such as 
 your Lordship, when they separate themselves into a 
 public and a private character, immediately set up 
 for themselves two opposite rules of conduct ; and 
 those opposite rules of conduct are the destruction of 
 their consistency. The rule of conduct in private 
 may perhaps be " the Word of God", or '' faith", or 
 " religion"; the rule of conduct in public is " Public 
 Opinion". While therefore in private, statesmen may 
 possibly retain a tolerably consistent and harmonizing 
 course, it is impossible that they can do so in public ; 
 because their rule is a shifting rule. As it is all-power- 
 ful, and subdues everything that comes in its way ; so it 
 is never the same two years together, — always varying, 
 uncertain, contradicting itself, and therefore they who 
 are under it, are always varying, and uncertain, and 
 contradicting themselves. And yet it is impossible to 
 
23 
 
 hold the reins of government and not bow down to it. 
 So at least it appears. '' What is the prevailing dominant 
 temper of the national mind ? Call it public opinion^ 
 or the spirit of the day, or the popular judgment, or 
 the temper of the times, or the idea of the age, or the 
 voice of the people, or fashion, or the ruling principle 
 around us ; in each alike we acknowledge the presence 
 of a mysterious influence, shaping our thoughts and 
 acts, controling, overawing, resisting, — now laughing to 
 scorn, now crushing with violence, now whispering and 
 tempting us to silence, and now clamouring with all the 
 noise of the people ; but before which, as private indi- 
 viduals, we quail, and as citizens we own and even boast, 
 that the governments of the earth must bow and obey."^ 
 Yes, my Lord, as a governor of this kingdom it is 
 impossible for you to resist public opinion. You must 
 either obey it, or you must cease to be the minister of 
 our country. You prefer the former. Hence, though 
 an advocate for Popery in your earlier life, you are its 
 enemy now. "Catholic emancipation" was your cry 
 formerly ; — now, " No Popish Bishops", not seeing that 
 the one is the natural and just development of the 
 other. At the South Devon election, ^^-ou were rejected 
 as Secretary of the Home Department, because of your 
 adherence to the side of" Popery". You have taken a 
 lesson from that mischance, and are determined to 
 maintain your place as Prime Minister on the opposite 
 side of "No Popery". Public opinion compels you. It 
 binds you down to its chariot- wheels, and hurries you 
 hither and thither just as it will. You play into each 
 other's hands, and, as it were, feed and sustain each 
 other. Public opinion induces you to write to the 
 Bishop of Durham ; and then your letter is seized upon 
 by Public Opinion as the vehicle for propagating itself. 
 You are used as a kind of standard or sign of the 
 people's will. 
 
 But whatever this may be in other men — however, 
 in some cases it may be imagined that a politician can 
 have two consciences, one for his country and one for 
 * Sewell— Sermons on the Spirit of the age. 
 
24 
 
 himself, — I now desire to show, in your Lordship's 
 case, that there is no sach difficulty. You have been 
 consistent, in being inconsistent in all w^ays — you have 
 not as a statesman been now deriding and destroying 
 what before you praised and fondled, and that alone — 
 but, as far as regards the matter now in hand, (for you 
 will remember that I write this letter as a parish priest 
 to his parishioner) you have done the very same in your 
 parochial connexion with our poor church of S.Barnabas. 
 I wish, my Lord, to remind you of this, and to expostulate 
 as gently as I may with the fact of a sudden and unac- 
 countable aversion where before there was at least some 
 degree of toleration and countenance. 
 
 In the year 1843, the Church of S. Paul, Knights- 
 bridge, was consecrated by the Bishop of London. You 
 being a parishioner, became from the very first a 
 member of the congregation therein worshipping ; you 
 were constantly at Divine Service, constantly at ser- 
 mons, you have received the Holy Sacrament, you and 
 yours, at my hands. You must therefore have been 
 aware of my teaching in the pulpit, must have been 
 aware of the system or party in the Church to -which 
 we W'cre attached (for, my Lord, it is of no use to dis- 
 guise the fact that there are parties in the Church). 
 You must have been aware of all this, and yet there 
 you remained for the period nearly of seven years. 
 
 Moreover, being one of our chief parishioners, you 
 generously contributed subscriptions to our parish 
 schools, and all other charitable institutions devised for 
 the use of the poor. In private also, according as the 
 need arose, you have more than once, unsolicited and 
 of a kind sympathy with the needs of our poor, sent 
 me private sums of money for their benefit ; you have 
 frequently accompanied these gifts with remarks of 
 your own concerning the way in which you would 
 desire them to be used, all showing such a spirit of 
 charity and fellowship with us, as induced us to think, 
 that neither our public teaching nor our private pas- 
 toral works could be altogether unacceptable to you. 
 
25 
 
 In course of time, among other pastoral duties, we 
 devised the scheme of building a new church. When the 
 idea was first set forth that this very church from which 
 I am now writing, and which unhappily has drawn down 
 on our heads such hatred and bitterness of spirit, — this 
 very church, against which, among others, if not princi- 
 pally, your Lordship's language, in your letter to the 
 Bishop of Durham, is levelled, — when this project for the 
 good of our poor brethren was set forth, you most gene- 
 rously were among the first to contribute of your alms 
 for its advancement. And not only this, my Lord. It was 
 not the chance or careless gift of one who thought not 
 of what he was doing ; it was not money thrown down 
 and left, as it might chance, to be fruitful, or not ; but 
 you were so good as to enter into the details of the 
 plan. It was at Christmas 1846, being then at Woburn, 
 that you wi'ote to me concerning this matter. You had 
 been at church the Sunday preceding, and there had 
 been an offertory, being Ember Week, for the Curates' 
 Fund. In your letter you enclosed an alms-gift for 
 that purpose, and then entered into details concerning 
 the new church. You were so good as to propose a 
 specific plan of your own ; which had, indeed, some 
 advantages in it, but w^e thought not on the whole ad- 
 visable. Though I could not agree with you in the idea 
 which you suggested, still I was very thankful for your 
 expression of sympathy, and specially as it manifested 
 the fact, that the good w^ork, intended to be done, had 
 been a matter of consideration with you. In that letter 
 you go on to speak of the new church in these words : 
 
 " "Will you permit me to say, that if I understood you rightly, the 
 seats of S. Barnabas are to be all free seats; I think you are mistaken 
 in not requiring some small payment (say sixpence a month) for at 
 least half of them. I believe they would be more valued, and the 
 money might be spent in keeping the seats clean and warming the 
 church." 
 
 My Lord, you can hardly imagine how gratified I was 
 at the reception of that letter. I was so pleased to 
 think that you could, in the midst of your laborious 
 occupations, have been able to give our little church of 
 
26 
 
 S. Barnabas even a thought ; and I wrote, in reply, that 
 our idea was to make the church entirely free and 
 open, on the ancient principle of churches, leaving the 
 payments, necessary for the maintenance of the fabric, 
 to the voluntary offerings of the people, which would be 
 made at the offertory. But this by the way. My object 
 in reminding you of this letter, is to identify you with 
 myself, and S. Paul's, and S. Barnabas', in knowledge, if 
 not in spirit ; to shew that at that time you fully entered 
 into the system of the church which I advocated ; that 
 you did not object to my teaching; that you had no 
 fault to find with my general principles and views. 
 Could I at that time have been among those " insidious" 
 persons whom you now would have the people to destroy, 
 and get rid of? And yet there has been no change 
 whatsoever. It is all the same. The same ecclesiastical 
 system; the same line of preaching; the same "mode 
 of worship" ; the same ritual, and ceremonial ob- 
 servances. I would ask, then, is it consistent of your 
 Lordship, is it kind, now to persecute that which before 
 you took part in ? Have I done anything (as far as my 
 poor flock of S. Barnabas is concerned) to merit such 
 an utter change of feeling and of sentiment, as now ap- 
 pears in your letter and speech. Last spring you joined 
 in our W'orship at S. Paul's. This autumn, not so much 
 as six months after, you say of certain of the clergy, 
 among whom, your description will of necessity include 
 myself; you say of them, that you have little hope that 
 they will " desist from their insidious course"; that 
 course containing, in your estimation, ''a greater danger 
 than the aggression of a foreign sovereign". Is this 
 quite fair ? 
 
 But, my Lord, let me go on a little further. So late 
 as the year 1849, at our anniversary festival of S. Bar- 
 nabas, you were so kind as to say that you would come 
 and take part, personally, in our festivities. You were 
 to do this as a parishioner, together with your colleague, 
 the Earl of Carlisle. When the day came, the unex- 
 pected summoning of a Cabinet Council prevented you 
 
27 
 
 (you wrote to me to say so) ; and at the dinner that 
 day, the Earl of Carlisle spoke as follows : — 
 
 " He begged to return his best thanks to Mr. Bennett and his 
 fellow-parishioners for their kind notice of the nobility, and of himself 
 personally as one of that order. His first words ought to be those of 
 regret for the unavoidable absence of his fellow -parishioner, and his 
 colleague in another capacity, Lord John Russell. That noble lord 
 had wished and intended to be present, and he had commissioned him 
 (Lord Carlisle) to express his deep regret that very pressing business 
 prevented him coming among them on so interesting an occasion. He 
 only wished that Lord John Russell had been present to have wit- 
 nessed the gratifying scene before them (cheers). For his own part, 
 he would briefly state what had brought him there at the sacrifice of 
 time which he could ill spare from public duties. He had come as an 
 inhabitant of the district in which such great things were being done 
 for the highest happiness of the people. He had come to countenance 
 a great work of charity, and to look with interest on such a heart- 
 stirring scene, where rich and poor were met together at the festive 
 board (cheers). He had come also as a parishioner to express his 
 warmest admiration of the untiring industry, and the unbounded zeal, 
 of Mr. Bennett as their pastor. Allusion had been made to the pos- 
 sibility of differences existing between them. He knew of none which 
 could prevent him co-operating heartily with Mr. Bennett in his pious 
 and charitable exertions for the good of the people committed to his 
 charge; and he had come there, he repeated, to express his highest 
 admiration of the immense practical good which Mr. Bennett was 
 doing, more especially among the poor (cheers)." — Morning Post, 
 June 14, 1849. 
 
 So far then as S. Barnabas' day 1849, there was no 
 diminution of agreement, and countenance, to a certain 
 extent, of the tone and principles of worship in S. Paul's 
 church. I say, to a certain extent, because no doubt 
 with all the external and apparent agreement, it would 
 be very possible that points of internal disagreement 
 lurked beneath. It would be very possible that all you 
 had done and said were merely the demonstrations of a 
 kind heart, wishing, although you did not agree, not to 
 manifest anything, on your part, of open hostility. It 
 might have been a desire not to kindle strife, not to 
 sow the seeds of disunion in a congregation, — to show 
 the example of a parishioner, duly attending his parish 
 church : or it might have been (which I hope sincerely 
 it was not) that you were like Gallio, and cared for none 
 of these things, desiring to let them take their course. 
 But this, for the reasons just given, I do not think could 
 
28 
 
 have been the case. At any rate^ be it either one or 
 the other of these causes, there could not have been 
 anything so very severely wrong in me, as to justify 
 the expression contained in your letter, in 1850, when 
 in 1849 you were willing to take open part in the 
 charitable works of my parish with me and for me. If 
 my course was insidious, why did you take part in that 
 course ? If I so muttered the liturgy, as to disguise its 
 language, — why did you join in so glaring a profaneness 
 for nearly seven years ? If I practised " mummeries 
 and superstition"^ — why did you come to join in them 
 for nearly seven years ? Why did you so far and. so 
 deeply join in them, as to receive, at my hands, so late 
 as Ash Wednesday 1849, theHoly Eucharist, yourself and 
 your family ? If I were one of those designated in your 
 letter as bringing a greater danger than even the Pope, 
 why then, my Lord, was it, that you said not all this 
 before ? Why, for seven years,^ — not occasionally, remem- 
 ber, or as a stranger, but in your place as a regular parish- 
 ioner — why, by external acts of union and participation 
 in what was being done — why by this participation mani- 
 fested in the deepest mystery of our faith, did you sig- 
 nify to the world (as far as such things can be signified) 
 your agreement essentially in all that was done ? If 
 you really thought that your soul, and the souls of your 
 family, were likely to be enslaved, and their intellects 
 confined, why place yourself and yours within a sphere 
 of religious teaching, which Avas tending towards that 
 end ? Or if you feared not for yourself, as being too 
 strong to heed it, why countenance it by your own 
 example in regard of others w^ho were weak ? why tend 
 towards, and co-operate with, a system which was 
 likely to be so pernicious and so fatal to their spiritual 
 welfare ? And lastly, my Lord, why in the midst of all 
 this (if it were so) " insidious teaching", *' mummeries 
 of superstition", and " leading of the flock to the verge 
 of the precipice", — why did you lend your countenance 
 and give your alms, not only to the maintenance and 
 support of that system as then established at one church, 
 but also to the building and establishment of another, 
 
29r 
 
 which you knew would be conducted on the very same 
 principles ? Why, not only look on, and bear with, and 
 take part in, such a profane and wicked perversion of 
 truth as 1 must really have been guilty of, if your words 
 are true, with a passive or acquiescent permission — but 
 jo'm publicly and actively in its propagation and exten- 
 sion. Either, my Lord, you and myself must have been 
 wilfully, and grossly, and wickedly wrong for seven 
 years, or we were right, — and only mistaken, or mis- 
 understood. If the former, how awful must be our 
 case before the Living God, at the great day of judg- 
 ment, — tampering with holy things, receiving of His 
 blessed sacraments, joining in His holy ordinances, 
 presuming to stand before Him, and invoke His holy 
 name in prayer, — and all the while, imagining that we 
 were doing no more than a " mummery", and believing 
 no more than a '^ superstition." If the latter, why have 
 you given up what you .once approved, or at least 
 assented to ? why have you abandoned what you were 
 content to practise ? why have you denounced what you 
 helped to advance and to increase. 
 
 I should like now, my Lord, to say a few words on 
 the subject of your theology. You invite me to do so 
 in your letter to the Bishop of Durham, by the very 
 marked manner in which you couple certain points of 
 divinity and ecclesiastical usage with the danger you 
 say you apprehend from certain " clergymen of our own 
 Church". You say that this is a danger which " alarms 
 you". And then you speak of the Thirty-nine Articles 
 — the Queen's Supremacy — the honour paid to Saints — 
 the claim of infallibility for the Church — the supersti- 
 tious use of the cross — the muttering of the Liturgy so 
 as to disguise the language in which it is written — the 
 recommendation of auricular confession, and the ad- 
 mission of penance and absolution. All these points 
 having been mentioned in order, you go on to say that 
 those who teach and practise such things are ^^ unworthy 
 sons of the Church of England'', you call their course 
 "insidious", you hope the nation will look with contempt 
 
so 
 
 on their " mummeries of superstition". And these are 
 the grounds upon which you say that they are making 
 ' laborious endeavours' to confine the intellect and to 
 enslave the soul". 
 
 After such language as this, 1 do not wonder, my 
 Lord, at the mob thinking the same things and acting 
 thereupon. You designate me among others as " un- 
 worthy", *^ insidious" — imputing motives. You say 
 it is a "laborious endeavour", imputing system and 
 an object ; the object meant being, to induce our flocks 
 to join the Church of Rome. You say " we lead our 
 flocks to the very verge of a precipice", the precipice 
 being Rome. You call w^hat we do, " superstition", and 
 a " mummery". Mummery is defined by Dr. Johnson 
 to be ^' foolery". It is " playing the fool in a mask^\ 
 It very nearly means the same thing as histrionic or 
 acting. And this is what you deliberately charge a 
 clergyman with being and doing, under whose mini- 
 strations you were content to abide for seven years. 
 What could I not say to you, my Lord, if I were not 
 restrained by the decency and temper which it becomes 
 a Christian clergyman to use even towards those who 
 are most averse and opposed to him ? I will not speak 
 as I might, but I will pass over all that suggests itself 
 to rae, as to the spirit with which you have entered on 
 these religious topics — as to the good taste of a Prime 
 Minister of England enteringupon religious controversy, 
 and taking a part in religious strife of tongues— as to 
 the wdsdom of your throwing yourself thus open to the 
 imputation of some motive of politics lying behind all 
 that you say — as to the impossibility from your education, 
 your political habits and your present laborious office— the 
 impossibility of your sufficiently understanding the sub- 
 ject upon which you so dogmatically pronounce. All this 
 I will pass over ; but I mast, of course, in defence of 
 myself, explain to your Lordship, and through your 
 Lordship to my flock, and others concerned in what 
 you have said, the total fallacy of the idea which you 
 seem to have formed about Church matters, and the 
 strange perversions, and distortions, with which you have 
 overloaded the reality of the case. I must do this as a 
 
3t 
 
 matter of defence^ because I am bound for their sakes 
 to protest to them that, however •' unworthy a son of 
 the Church" I may be, still I am not " insidious", that 
 I am not given " to play the fool in a mask'^, or given 
 to " acting'" in the things of God ; that I am not so 
 laborious as to try in the nineteenth century, with all 
 the learning, and wisdom, and books, w^hich now are the 
 property of all, " to confine their intellects and enslave 
 their souls". 
 
 The first religious topic you mention is, " the honour 
 paid to Saints". I was not aware that there was any- 
 thing specially remarkable in any of the clergy of the 
 Church of England paying honour to Saints. I thought 
 the very dedication of our churches was "paying them 
 honour", seeing every church in England is either 
 named after the Holy Trinity, or some Saint or Angel 
 of God's invisible Church. I thought, too, that it was 
 a well know^n thing that a great portion of the Book of 
 Common Prayer was occupied in " honouring Saints", 
 seeing that the calendar is full of their names, with 
 special days and services set apart for each, and seeing 
 that the clergy are directed to announce the recurrence 
 of those days to the people in order that they may be 
 kept holy. All this, I thought, was very well known, 
 and hardly needed now any further explanation. I 
 should indeed desire for you, my Lord, that you would, 
 as a member of my parish, escape from the teaching of 
 Dr. Gumming, in regard to this point of honour paid to 
 Saints ; because I believe that the Presbyterians deny 
 all idea of that great doctrine, which the Catholic 
 Church has always faithfully clung to, — namely, " the 
 communion of Saints". I understand that they never 
 imagine it necessary to record, or commemorate, or 
 hold communion with in prayer or otherwise, any por- 
 tion of the Church triumphant in heaven ; that it is a 
 part of divinity entirely ignored by them. I wish your 
 Lordship wouldput yourself once more under the teaching 
 of our Church, and then you would learn, very much to 
 your spiritual comfort, how glad a thing it is to look with 
 faith, with reverence, and with honour, to the joyful 
 
32 
 
 company of martyrs and Apostles, and the blessed 
 Virgin Mother of our Lord, and all holy men and holy 
 women of every age and place, whom the Apostle 
 S. Paul himself designates, " the spirits of just men 
 made perfect". The Directory indeed says : " There 
 is no day commanded in Scripture to be kept holy 
 under the Gospel, but the Lord's day, which is the 
 Christian's Sabbath". Would your Lordship have us 
 to return to the Directory and cast away the Prayer 
 Book ? If not, let us follow the Prayer Book, as that 
 follows all primitive antiquity, in honouring Saints. In 
 the Communion Service, in the prayer for the Church 
 militant, in any of the collects for the Saints' days, and 
 also the Burial Service, you will readily find this 
 doctrine. It is all founded on the ancient fathers, 
 as the use of the Church coming directly from the 
 Apostles. It is founded on what S. Augustin says : 
 " We honour the memory of Saints, as of holy men of 
 God, who contended for the truth even unto death. 
 By that honour we offer God thanks for their victo- 
 ries, and encourage ourselves by the refreshing of our 
 memory, to the imitation of their crowns".* And 
 what would you think, to go from ancient to modern, 
 what would you think of Dr. Arnold ? He, at least, was 
 no special favourer either of Romanism, or of the 
 English portion of the Church, as you describe it ; and 
 yet it is said of him by his biographer : " The touching 
 recollections of those among the living and the dead, 
 whom he had loved or reverenced, which passed 
 through his mind as he talked of All Saints' Day, and 
 its accompanying feast, now no longer observed. All 
 Souls' Day, might have escaped a careless observer."f 
 Yes, my Lord, sweet is the memory of the dead, we 
 will not pass it by ; and joyful the honour of the saints 
 in Christ. Their lives let us imitate, and we shall be 
 less of the world ; their holy actions let us follow, and 
 we shall be nearer God ; their sufferings and labours let 
 
 * S. August. De civitcate Dei, viii. 27. 
 I Life and Correspondence, i. p. 154. 
 
33 
 
 us take part in when we can, and in Christ, and for 
 Christ, we shall win their crowns. 
 
 Your next topic, my Lord, is '^ The hifallihllity of 
 the Churcli\ Here, again, I plead guilty to your charge. 
 I do claim for the Church infallibility. I have always 
 taught this ; and I now desire to tell you why I have 
 taught it. I think that infallibility is essentially neces- 
 sary for the very existence of a Church ; that any article 
 of faith, vital to salvation, depends necessarily uponit ; 
 that without it, we have nothing certain to believe at 
 all. But in what sense; and how ? I do not believe there 
 is infallibility in the English Church, or in any particular 
 national Church : our Articles of Religion expressly 
 say that there is no such infallibility; that all national 
 Churches are liable to err. But national Churches are 
 not the Catholic Church. It is the whole, universal. 
 Catholic Church, throughout all ages, and in all coun- 
 tries, and in all times agreeing, and blessed by the Spirit 
 of God, as the Apostles were at Pentecost — it is this 
 Church, the Church of the living God, of Christ Jesus 
 our Lord, that is expressly called in Holy Scripture, 
 '• the pillar and ground of the Truth". For let me put 
 it to you, my Lord, in the simplest w^ay, just for illus- 
 tration. You are quite certain that the book of the 
 Gospel of S. John is an inspired book ; that it is really 
 the Word of God ; that it is written by the Evangelist 
 w^ith the gift of the Holy Ghost. This you must be- 
 lieve, otherwise you deny the Holy Scriptures, and are 
 worse than an infidel. But on what ground do you 
 believe it? How do you know anything about it of 
 yourself ? How can you prove that S. John wrote that 
 Gospel at all ; and if he did, how do you know that he 
 was inspired, or wrote the truth, or that the words you 
 read are his w^ords, — that there is no interpolation, or 
 mistake, or error in them? How can you or I possibly 
 know about this of ourselves ? We cannot. We only 
 believe it, because the Church tells us so ; because 
 the Church examined into it, tested its authority, 
 genuineness, and inspiration, and then pronounced it to 
 be so. Now^ if the Church be not infallible, any one 
 
34 
 
 at his pleasure might set up his own criticism to dispute 
 it — might openly say, I believe not a word of it ; but if 
 the Church be infallible, we have a certain ground for 
 our belief in that Holy Book. And what applies to the 
 one book, applies similarly to all. Your faith rests upon 
 Holy Scripture; Holy Scripture must be true. You 
 can only know that it is true upon the infallibility of 
 the Church, which has pronounced it to be so, and 
 handed it down to you. In proportion as you take 
 away the infallibility of the Church, you take away the 
 certainty of the Holy Scriptures ; and in proportion as 
 you take away the Holy Scriptures, you destroy your 
 own faith in Jesus Christ, by which you hope to be 
 saved. Without this idea, I see no resting-place any 
 where, for any doctrine or for any practice ; no cer- 
 tainty for any thing that w^e read, see, or imagine in 
 the whole wide groundwork of our salvation. We 
 become at once rationalists ; and from rationalists, 
 sceptics ; and from sceptics, infidels. We are without 
 a guide, without a pilot, without a hope, without a 
 light, without a faith ; but with it, we see, acknow^- 
 ledge, are assured, embrace Christ in faith, and die in 
 Him with confidence. We see then the meaning of the 
 most wonderful and gracious saying : '' The Holy Ghost, 
 whom I will send, He shall guide you unto all truth". 
 " Lo, /am with you always unto the end of the world !" 
 " Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My 
 Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." 
 I must say this then, my Lord, that were I to tell 
 you, that the Church of Christ \% fallible^ I should tell 
 you that you have no grounds for being a Christian ; 
 that were I to say you need not " confine your intel- 
 lect in this faith, but let it wander whithersoever it 
 might lead you, — you would become an Atheist in a 
 few months, as so many have, or, at least, a free thinker 
 and a sceptic; and then indeed fearfully, most fear- 
 fully would your soul be ^^ enslaved"; — not by me, 
 but by him who is ever wandering about seeking 
 whom He may devour ; by that dreadful tempter and 
 destroyer of souls, w^hom God permits, for their chas- 
 
35 
 
 tisement, to take men captive at his will. Do not, 
 my Lord, mistake what I say. Clearly understand, 
 honestly consider it. Which doctrine is it that en- 
 slaves your soul ? His, who would end in making you 
 an infidel ; or His, who would lead you in peace and 
 comfort to a firm repose and rest in the Holy Scrip- 
 tures, your ground-work, your rock, your stay, your 
 confidence, your assurance of salvation ? 
 
 Next to the doctrine of the Infallibility of the Church, 
 you mention '' the sign of the cross'\ and you call it 
 superstitious. I do not suppose you mean to make 
 any distinction between a superstitious sign of the 
 cross, and a sign not superstitious ; because if you only 
 mean that, of course we grant your charge at once. 
 Anything superstitious, as such, is of course objection- 
 able. Superstitious prayers, superstitious reception of 
 sacraments, superstitious reading of the Bible, as far as 
 it is superstitious, is of course wrong ; but take away 
 the superstition, and then the thing itself is right. This 
 you would readily grant. But what you mean no doubt 
 is this, that all use of the sign of the cross is super- 
 stitious. If so, then you go against the Church, 
 which commands it at the font in baptism. I myself 
 will freely confess to you, that I highly delight in that 
 holy sign. I have long been accustomed to use it on 
 all great occasions, and in all holy places, and recom- 
 mend it to others. If persons will take offence at it, they 
 must remember Him whose sign it is, and learn better. 
 I use the holy sign, not for superstition, but in token 
 that I am not ashamed " to confess the faith of Christ 
 crucified, but hope manfully (with God's grace) to 
 fight under that banner against sin, the world, and the 
 devil." It seems to come so naturally, and so grace 
 fully from the baptismal font. It seems so beautiful 
 and simple a type of our love of our blessed Saviour. 
 It seems so called for in this present age of unbelief and 
 worldliness. It seems so hallowing and purifying an 
 invocation of His presence, and of the atonement by 
 which we are saved, that in the first instance, viewed 
 abstractedly and without prejudice, — where the true 
 
 D 2 
 
86 
 
 Christian could be found to object to it, it is beyond me 
 to imagine. I can conceive a Socinian, or a Deist, or a 
 Unitarian, or some violent heretic of that kind, to 
 object both to the name of the Holy Trinity and the 
 Cross of Jesus, both its doctrine and its sign ; but how 
 an orthodox Christian can object (alw^ays setting aside 
 prejudice), I am quite at a loss to understand. In 
 Bishop GrindalFs Articles of Visitation, it is said: " No 
 
 persons are allowed to w^ear beads nor supersti- 
 
 tiously to make the sign of the Cross when they enter 
 the church" ; upon which Collier remarks : " But sup- 
 posing they did not do these things siiperstitioiisly, it 
 is possible they might not come within the censure of 
 the Article." — Collier, part ii. b. vi. There may be an 
 allowed distinction between doing a thing supersti- 
 tiously, and doing it with a pure and devotional mind. 
 Why should it be of necessity superstitious ? Edward 
 VI and Elizabeth both used the sign of the Cross in 
 touching for the king's-evil — both good Protestants. 
 L'Estrange, in his Alliance of Divine Offices, mentions 
 it with approval. Our own Canons speak of it as per- 
 missible (30th of 1603). At the end of Edward VFs 
 first Prayer-Book, I find this note : " As touching 
 kneeling, crossing, holding up of hands, knocking upon 
 the breast, and other gestures, they may be used or left, 
 as any man's devotion serveth, without blame." And 
 it may be observed that nothing in subsequent editions 
 of the Prayer-Book has ever contradicted this. What we 
 want is to get rid q{ puritanical prejudice, and to judge 
 of matters intrinsically of themselves. I believe your 
 Lordship is a great admirer of the writings of Dr. Ar- 
 nold, whom indeed I quoted before concerning honour 
 paid to saints. If you will turn to the life of that 
 eminent man, lately published, vol. i, you will find that 
 he was an advocate not for the Cross only, but for the 
 Crucifix. " The second commandment", he says, " is 
 in the letter utterly done away with by the fact of the 
 Incarnation. To refuse, then, the benefit which w^e 
 might derive from tlie frequent use of the Crucifix ^ 
 under the pretence of the second commandment, is a 
 
37 
 
 folly, because God has sanctioned one conceivable simi- 
 litude of Himself, when He declared Himself in the 
 person of Christ." In another place, he says : " I like 
 the simple crosses and oratories by the road side" (vol. 
 II. p. 362). Again, he says : — 
 
 1. " The open churches, the varied services, the beautiful so- 
 lemnities, the processions, the Calvaries, the crucifixes, the appeals to 
 the eye and ear through which the heart is reached most efiectuallj, 
 have no natural connexion with superstition." — Life and Corresp, 
 II. 395. 
 
 2. " In the crypt is a calvary and figures as large as life, repre- 
 senting the burying of our Lord. The woman who showed us the 
 crypt, had her little girl with her ; and she lifted up the child, about 
 three years old, to kiss the feet of our Lord. Is this idolatry? Nay, 
 verily, it may be so, but it need not be, and assuredly is in itself right 
 and natural. I confess I rather envied the child. It is idolatry to 
 talk about holy church and holy fathers — bowing down to fallible 
 and sinful men; not to bend knee, lip and heart, to every thought, and 
 every image of Him our manifested God." — p. 402. 
 
 3. " We found the afternoon service going on at the cathedral, and 
 the archbishop, with his priests and the choristers, were going round 
 the church in procession, chaunting some of their hymns, and with a 
 great multitude of people following them. The effect was very fine; 
 and I again lamented our neglect of our cathedrals, and the absurd 
 confusion in so many minds between what is really popery and what 
 is but wisdom and beauty, adopted by the Roman Catholics, and ne- 
 glected by us."— p. 434. 
 
 You spoke, my Lord, at the Guildhall Dinner of a 
 good princess, Queen Elizabeth. You say — *'When 
 perils much more grave, much more imminent, im- 
 pended over this country, a wise princess, who at that 
 time ruled our destinies, thought fit to call to her aid 
 all those, whatever might be their religious persuasions, 
 who were faithful to the throne and true to the interests 
 of their country. Such was the conduct of Queen 
 Ehzabeth in times of as great danger as ever occurred 
 in this country". What kind of danger does this allude 
 to ? Coupled with the context and the general run of 
 the speech, the danger must be on the ground of reli- 
 gion, the differences then struggling on between the 
 Pope and the Queen, which ended in her excommuni- 
 cation. Well then, this danger of religious freedom 
 — this Papal aggression — this precipice over which 
 Queen Elizabeth's Protestant subjects were in danger 
 
38 
 
 of being led — was the faith of the Roman Catholic 
 Church. That is plainly your Lordship's meaning. 
 Now turn to Neal's History of the Puritans, and you 
 will find from him that this wise princess " had a cru- 
 cifix in her chapel, with images of the Blessed Virgin 
 and S. John. The gentlemen and singing children ap- 
 peared in surplices, and the priests in their copes. The 
 altar was furnished with rich plate and two gilt candle- 
 sticks, with lighted candles, and a massy crucifix of 
 silver in the midst. The service was sung, not only 
 with the sound of organs, but with the artificial music 
 of cornets, sackbuts, etc. etc." Now Queen Elizabeth, 
 you told us, my Lord, was a wise princess, a good Pro- 
 testant, and a friend of religious liberty. 
 
 The next topic is " The muttering of the Liturgy so 
 as to disguise the language in which it is written \ 
 
 I hardly know how to reply to this, for it would seem 
 an accidental defect either in the voice of the minister- 
 ing clergyman, or the ear of your Lordship. He might 
 not perhaps articulate clearly, or you hear clearly. 
 But if you mean more than the accident — if you mean 
 that we " mutter" with a purpose, and that purpose is 
 "to disguise the language" — then I must ask your 
 Lordship what this means. To disguise, is " to con- 
 ceal by an unusual dress" — " to hide by a counterfeit 
 appearance" — see Dr. Johnson. What is it then that 
 we hide or conceal ? The English language^ and with 
 what dress or counterfeit do we so hide it ? It pro- 
 bably could be said, by the Latin language, that being 
 the language of the Roman Communion — our point of 
 danger. Now, if this really be the idea of our " mut- 
 tering", it w^ould indeed be " mummery", or '^ playing 
 under a mask", or " acting", or any other of the accu- 
 sations brought against us. But it cannot surely mean 
 so great an absurdity as this ; if not, then there can only 
 be one other meaning possible, the concealing or hiding 
 the language altogether under sound, mere sound, 
 musical or otherwise. It is then said (for remember, 
 to disguise, conveys an act with a j)urpose), that we 
 use the choral or musical, or ca.thedral form of service 
 
39 
 
 ill order to hide or conceal what we say, by music. But 
 suppose you say, '^ I did not mean a purposed hut only 
 an accidental hiding or concealing". Then we are 
 thrown back on the more ordinary arguments for the 
 cathedral and choral form of divine service. And then it 
 becomes a matter of private taste, private like, or dis- 
 like, a matter of suitableness one way or another, and 
 not a matter of principle. If so, all about our being ^' insi- 
 dious", a " mummery", or " acting", falls to the ground. 
 For we do no more than the cathedrals all through 
 England do, in principle recognized and acknowledged, 
 a principle handed down to us by the Reformation in 
 express terms, a principle coming from God Himself in 
 the Jewish worship, and blessed to us by our Lord and 
 the Apostles therein participating, and made of full, 
 and of undoubted authority by the Fathers of the 
 Church from the first century down to the present. 
 Let us reflect with S. Chrysostom whether the fault of 
 not hearing, be, not on the singer, but the hearer. It 
 is easy to say the word ^' mutter ing^^ — may not the 
 fault be in the heart within, w^hich does not attune 
 itself to the divine melodies of the Catholic worship — 
 S. Chrysostom's words are these — 
 
 " But what do the multitude say ? * I do not hear what is read/ 
 saith one, * nor do I hear what the words are which are spoken.' 
 Because thou makest a tumult and confusion, because thou comest not 
 with a reverent soul. What sayest thou ? ' I know not what things 
 are said.' Well then for this very reason thou oughtest to give heed. 
 . . . . Tn truth, there ought to be but one voice in the church always, 
 as there is but one body. He who chants, chants alone ; and though 
 all utter the responses, the voice is wafted as from one mouth.^'' — 
 S. Chrys. Horn, on Cor. xxxvi, 9. 
 
 And there is another authority which I am fond of 
 quoting when I can, — one more near your Lordship's 
 own ideas as to many points, but strangely differing 
 in more, — I mean Dr. Arnold. You have heard his 
 opinions about the use of the cross, and the crucifix, — 
 now hear what he says concerning the Choral Service : — 
 
 " How visible was the animation with which by force of long asso- 
 ciation he joined in the musical parts of the service, to which lie ivas 
 by nature wholly indifferent, as in the chanting of the Nicene Creed, 
 which was adopted in accordance with his conviction that creeds in 
 
40 
 
 public worship (Sermon iii. 310) ought to be used as triumphant 
 hymns of thanksgiving ; or still more in the ' Te Deum', which he 
 loved so dearly, and when his whole countenance would be lifted up 
 at his favourite verse, ' When Thou hadst overcome the sharpness of 
 death, Thou didst open the kingdom of heaven to all believers.' " 
 
 I think I need hardly argue the matter of the Choral 
 Service now. There are so many works on the subject, 
 easily within your Lordship's reach. You ought to read 
 them, before you judge those who simply follow the 
 Church's authority. You ought, indeed, to be more 
 careful of bringing accusations, before you are sure of 
 your ground. But I would recommend, Jehh's Choral 
 Service and La Trohe on the Music of the Church, 
 I have said a few words myself, in Lectures on the Book 
 of Common Prayer, (See the last chapter.) 
 
 But I must come to the next topic of your accusation, 
 which is somewhat more important, — it regards Auricu- 
 lar Confession, Penance, and Absolution. They all go 
 somewhat more or less together, and they form, I do 
 acknowledge, a very material feature in the organization 
 and discipline of the Church. 
 
 In explanation of this, and in deprecation of a pre- 
 mature judgment of things you could hardly well be 
 supposed to understand, I would ask your Lordship 
 simply to turn to your Prayer Book, at the service for 
 Ash Wednesday. I remember that in one of our more 
 happy years, and when T was not considered among 
 the " insidious", that you were at church at S. Paul's 
 on an Ash Wednesday. It was Ash Wednesday 1849. 
 
 My lord, I was always anxious, most anxious, as a 
 pastor of Christ, set over you in the Lord's congrega- 
 tion of which you were a member, — I was always most 
 anxious, secretly within myself, for your spiritual w^el- 
 fare and salvation. This cannot, I hope, be charged 
 against me, as any attempt at self-glorification, or 
 claiming more in my duties than was required of me. 
 Our duty is so very imperative, to " watch for the 
 souls" of the flock committed to our keeping. I 
 state the mere fact, that when I could not help seeing 
 you as I did continually before me, subject to my teach- 
 ing, hearing the elucidation of Gospel truths, and the 
 Church's authority from my mouth, and joining in 
 
41 
 
 prayer and sacraments from time to time — I state the 
 mere fact — that a peculiar and avv^ful sense of responsi- 
 bility was felt to be kindled within. It seemed as if 
 great things might have been depending on the right- 
 ness of my teaching, and that the Church in Her real 
 beauty, and magnificence, and truth, might be lost or 
 not lost, by some mistake or want of judgment on my 
 part. I knew your temptations and dangers. I felt 
 for you in the awful responsibilities of your high office, 
 as the chief ruler of our country. I feared for you, and 
 I prayed for you. I would never have told this, as now 
 I do, but for the special and awful crisis which has, 
 through your principal instrumentality, been brought 
 about. But this now I will tell, known before only to 
 God, that frequently, very frequently in the lone night, 
 and when you have been labouring in the House of Com- 
 mons, I have been in the church where you worshipped, 
 and by nam.e (of course with others of my flock accord- 
 ing to their needs) have invoked the Almighty God of 
 nations, that He would vouchsafe to guide your policy 
 for our country's welfare, and our Church's blessing. 
 Yes, often have I prayed specially in your behalf, — 
 often have I specially sought of God, that I might have 
 grace in preaching, to win you to the deeper truths of 
 our most holy faith. I say this now, because at such a 
 time it was — I "mean in the year 1849 — so late as Ash 
 Wednesday 1849, — I find a note in my journal, thus : 
 " Lord and Lady John Russell at the Holy Communion 
 this day. This looks well. Oh, that we could make 
 them love the Church !" I give you, my Lord, the very 
 genuine simple words of my private journal, such words 
 of course never expecting to see the light. But there 
 they are, and I give them to you to shew you how I 
 felt then, and how^ rejoiced I was, on such a day, at 
 such a time, to see the testimony of your faith, your 
 repentance, and your love. 
 
 But what has all this to do, you will say, with 
 Auricular Confession and Penance? Why this much; 
 that on that day, you did hear and join in that solemn 
 Service of the Church which is called " the Commina- 
 tion Service"; and in that Service you heard these 
 
42 
 
 words : ^^ Brethren, in the Primitive Church there was 
 a godly discipline, that at the beginning of Lent, such 
 persons as stood convicted of notorious sin, were put 
 to open penance, and punished in this world, that their 
 souls might be saved in the day of the Lord, and that 
 others, admonished by their example, might be more 
 afraid to offend. Until whereof (until the said dis- 
 cipline may be restored again, which is much to be 
 wished), it is thought good", etc. The idea of Penance 
 is, then, held in the Church of England as a thing 
 desirable. 
 
 With regard to Auricular Confession, and absolution 
 by the priest, you will see the doctrine of the Reformed 
 Church clearly set forth in the first Prayer Book of 
 Edward VL When the priest exhorts his parishioners 
 to the Holy Communion, he does so in the following 
 words : — 
 
 " And if there bee any of you, whose conscience is troubled or 
 grieved in any thing, lacking comfort or counsaill, let him come to 
 rae, or to some other dyscreete and learned priest, taught in the law 
 of God, and confesse and open his synne and griefe secretly, that he 
 maye receive such ghostly counsaill, advyse and comfort, that his 
 conscience may be relieved, and that of us (as of the ministers of God 
 and of the Churche) he may receive comfort and absolution, to the 
 satisfaccion of his mynde, avoyding of all scruple and doubtfulnes : 
 requiryng such as shall be satisfied with a general confession not to 
 be offended with them that doe use, to their further satisfying, the 
 auricular and secret confession to the priest : nor those also which 
 think nedefull or convenient, for the quietness of their owne con- 
 sciences, particularly to open their sinnes to the priest, to bee 
 offended with them that are satisfied with their humble confession to 
 God, and the generall confession to the Churche. But in all thinges 
 to followe, and kepe the rule of charitie, and every man to be satisfied 
 with his owne conscience, not judging other men's myndes or con- 
 sciences, whereas he hath no warrant of Godde's Word to the same." 
 
 In our present Communion office, the words are 
 these, somewhat modified, but conveying the same 
 essential meaning : — 
 
 '•' If there be any of you, who by this means [self-examination and 
 confession to God] cannot quiet his own conscience herein, but 
 requireth further comfort or counsel, let him come to me, or some 
 other discreet and learned minister of God's Word, and open his 
 grief, that by the ministry of God's Holy Word he may receive the 
 benefit of Absolution," etc. etc. 
 
43 
 
 In the office of Visitation of the Sick, 3^our Lordship 
 will find that the priest visiting " the sick person" is 
 plainly directed, as a necessary part of his duty, to " move 
 him to a special confession of his sins, if he feel his con- 
 science troubled with any weighty matter ; after which 
 confession, the priest shall absolve him, if he humbly and 
 heartily desire it, after this sort." Upon which Dean 
 Comber remarks thus: ''To confess our sins to a priest, 
 even in health, is a pious and ancient custom^ and not 
 only a sign of repentance, but the best means for ob- 
 taining pardon, and for amending our lives," etc. etc. 
 And let me ask you, my Lord, carefully to look at the 
 form of Absolution : — 
 
 " Our Lord Jesus Christ, Who hath left power to His Church to 
 absolve all sinners who truly repent and believe in Him, of His great 
 mercy forgive thee thine offences. And by His authority, committed 
 to me, I absolve thee from all thy sins, in the name of the Father, 
 and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." 
 
 To cite to you all that is said by the divines of the 
 Church of England on this head, would be absurd in 
 such a letter as this. And to refer you to the fathers 
 of the early Church, to explain its doctrine and practice, 
 would be even more absurd. Sufficient it is for me to 
 call your attention to the fact, that confession to a priest 
 (commonly called auricular confession) is advocated, 
 and pronounced useful, by the English Church. The 
 only diflFerence you will observe between the Church of 
 Rome and ourselves being this, that Rome makes such 
 confession absolutely necessary for salvation ; the other 
 leaves it as a voluntary act, to be used, or not used, 
 according to the spiritual needs of the penitent. If 
 your Lordship could but follow the simple teaching of 
 Edward VFs first Prayer Book, to the effect that auri- 
 cular confession was to be left to each man's own con- 
 science; he that used it, not to be judged of him that 
 did not use it ; he that did not use it, not to be judged 
 of him that did use it ; then we should, indeed, have very 
 little difficulty with each other. If you find fault with 
 those clergy who do, for the comfort of penitent souls, 
 receive their confessions when tendered ; if you find 
 
44 
 
 fault with them for going to the priest in difficulties, 
 and when they cannot find their own way out of con- 
 scientious scruples, and misgivings of sin ; if you find 
 fault with priestly absolution, and the announcement 
 made to sinners that they may repent, and be saved ; 
 then you find fault not with the clergy, but with the 
 Prayer Book ; not wuth me^ my Lord, but the Church. 
 Your better rule had been, since these holy things al- 
 ways suffer by the conversation of the world, not to 
 have thrust forward this subject so rudely. The rule 
 of the English Church is clear. A distinction is to be 
 drawn h^tsN^^w forced auricular confession and volun- 
 tary auricular confession ; allowing the one to belong 
 to the Church of Rome, the other, to ourselves. And 
 I would remind you further, my Lord, of one little cir- 
 cumstance which ought to have weight in considering 
 the subject; I would remind you of the charge and 
 jurisdiction conveyed to the priest as affecting this very 
 point : " Whosesoever sins ye remit, they are remitted ; 
 and w^hosesoever sins ye retain, they are retained" ; 
 taken, as you remember, from the mouth of our Lord, 
 and applied in the Ordination, as an essential and dis- 
 tinctive mark of the office of a priest. 
 
 I would remark to you further, that the custom of 
 auricular confession derived from this, both in doc- 
 trine and in practice, is clearly deducible all through 
 the Reformation, down to our own days. Archbishop 
 Cranmer says that it is '' very useful, and highly neces- 
 sary".^ Erasmus advocates it; saying among other 
 things : " The penitent, by laying the state of his 
 conscience before a priest, is better acquainted with the 
 degrees of his guilt, and the danger of his miscarriage". f 
 Of Bishop Ridley it is said by Collier — " As to auri- 
 cular confession to a priest, he always looked upon it as 
 a very serviceable usage, that by this expedient the 
 penitent might be instructed, reproved, and comforted".;}: 
 The visitation articles of Bishops Overall, Andrew^es, 
 
 * Cranmer's Works, iv. p. 281. 
 
 f lu-asmus, Exomologesis, sen modus confitencli. 
 
 % Collier, part ii. book v. 
 
4o 
 
 Montague, Wren, Gunning, all are cast in the same 
 mould, and are founded on the Exhortation in the 
 Communion Office and the Canons of 1604 — for in- 
 stance, Bishop Gunning. He inquires whether any 
 person, especially before receiving Holy Communion, 
 doth, for the quieting of his conscience, unburden his 
 conscience to his priest, and doth the said priest, upon 
 special confession of sins made, together with fruits 
 meet for repentance administer to him abso- 
 lution.^ Here we have the whole three points of the 
 present charge against us set forth in order. Con- 
 fession, penance, absolution. Bishop Cosin says — 
 ''Among the precepts of the Church, to receive the 
 Blessed Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ 
 with frequent devotion, and three times a year at least, 
 of which Easter to be always one. And for better pre- 
 paration — to disburden and quiet our consciences of 
 those sins that may grieve us," etc.f Bishop Taylor 
 also — *' That having made choice of such a confessor 
 who is every way qualified, that you may trust your 
 soul with him, you are advised plainly and sincerely to 
 open your heart to him". " That for frequency of doing 
 this, you are to consult with your own necessities". J 
 
 This testimony might be augmented a hundred-fold, 
 but this I should presume sufficient for proof of what 
 the English Church holds and teaches concerning auri- 
 cular confession. It is so very simple and so very 
 charitable, that I cannot bring myself to consider that 
 you would have found fault with the clergy in this 
 practice, had you known the real state of the case. I 
 have incurred, I am aware, much odium — I have lost, I 
 know, the affections and confidence of many, by openly 
 stating the Church's doctrine and rule in this matter. 
 It is very unpopular to the Protestant ear. There is 
 hardly any thing so identified with Rome. Nevertheless 
 what is truth must be said, and this consolation always 
 attaches to it, namely that one penitent in his repent- 
 
 * Quoted from Dr. Pusey — Letter to Mr. Richards, p. 117, for 
 wliich see further proofs. 
 
 t Idem, p. 123. J Idem, p. 127. 
 
46 
 
 ance and confession saved from sin, is more to be valued 
 in the sight of the Holy Angels and Saints of Heaven 
 and God Himself, than ninety-nine who need/ or think 
 that they need, no repentance. 
 
 I have endeavoured now, my Lord, to explain to you 
 in some degree, those points of your objection to the 
 Church which reflect upon her discipline and doctrine ; 
 but there is one point which stands the first and fore- 
 most on your list, which I have as yet left untouched. 
 I have reserved it to the last, because I know that in 
 your own opinion it is the most important. I am not 
 much afraid that you care about the infallibility of the 
 Church, or her power of the keys, or the muttering of 
 the liturgy ; I should rather be afraid that these are 
 put forth, because you believed they would prove 
 popular objections for the mob. I really believe that 
 the one, and the only one, real objection and alarm in 
 your Lordship's mind is this : The Queen's Supremacy, 
 I think, from what I have observed in the course of 
 Dr. Hampden's appointment to the see of Hereford, 
 and Mr. Gorham's appointment to the living of Bram- 
 ford Speke, that your opinion concerning the Royal 
 Prerogative in the matters of the Church is very high 
 indeed; that you arrogate for the crown something 
 which approaches the actual Papal powers, against 
 which, in the Pope himself, you so vigorously protest. 
 And then we must remember that the Royal Preroga- 
 tive now is nothing more than the Prime Minister's 
 prerogative; and the Prime Minister's prerogative is 
 the people's prerogative. Hence the strength of the 
 cry which now rises up against any party in the Church 
 which either denies or limits it. It is easy to see why 
 statesmen delight to honour the Queen's Supremacy. 
 It is easy to see why Parliaments, why meetings, why 
 parish vestries, why all assemblies of men of whatever 
 creed, or whatever kind, or for whatever purpose 
 banded together, decry what is now called '^ The Papal 
 Aggression". 
 
 Men have not yet learned to separate the spiritual 
 
47 
 
 power of the Church from the temporal. They imagine 
 that when the Pope is mentioned as a foreign prince or 
 potentate^ and that when he claims jurisdiction in 
 England, that he claims jurisdiction over all England. 
 Every one who knows History, knows full well that the 
 Rock upon which the Church is founded is not of this 
 world — ^' My kingdom," said our Blessed Lord, " is not 
 of this world" — that the throne of S. Peter the fisher- 
 man does not claim jurisdiction over the souls of men, 
 because it accidentally happens to be also a temporal 
 throne, but only because of the spiritual power com- 
 mitted by our Lord : — '^ Upon this Rock I will build 
 My Church." 
 
 It suits your Lordship, because it is a popular outcry, 
 to set the people on a false scent about '' No Popery", 
 in order to strengthen your own secret schemes within, 
 of strengthening the Royal power in the things of the 
 Church. All the bishoprics, deaneries, canonries, a 
 great number of livings, and offices and places in and 
 about the Church, are yours. You are contending, 
 therefore, for the continuance of your own advantage, 
 when you contend for the continuance (in your own 
 sense of it) of the Queen's Supremacy. You are con- 
 tending for the power of general liberty of opinion, — 
 Latitudinarianism, Freethinking, Scepticism, and the 
 like. When you contend for a Royal Headship over the 
 Church, you are contending for your own power to 
 appoint a Dr. Hampden to all the sees of England; and 
 a Mr. Gorham to all the parishes of England, that by 
 so doing you may, by the weakness of the clergy, and 
 their division, and their jealousies of each other, ride 
 through the storm yourself triumphant. I leave it for 
 your consideration, whether you really have any love 
 for the truth, and any desire to increase the strength 
 of Christ's Church, as such, when you speak of the 
 Royal Supremacy, — or whether it is only from a sort of 
 statesman's etiquette, that power should always be in 
 his hands. 
 
 I would remind you, my Lord, of what happened at 
 the Hampton Court Conference, in the reign of James I : 
 
46 
 
 " The king reminded Dr. Reynolds that lie had several times 
 argued for his supremacy, which his majesty liked well, and then put 
 this question to him, whether he knew any persons at the conference 
 or elsewhere, w^ho approving the present ecclesiastical government, 
 disliked the regale ? Dr. Reynolds answered, ' No.' ' Why, then', 
 says the king, ' I will tell you a story. When the Reformation in 
 England was overturned by Queen Mary, we found the effect of it in 
 Scotland, for then Knox, in a letter to the queen-regent (a virtuous 
 and moderate lady) told her she was supreme head of the Church, and 
 charged her, as she would answer it before God's tribunal, to take 
 care of Christ's evangel, and of suppressing the popish prelates who 
 withstood the same. But how long, think you', continues the king, 
 * did he hold this opinion ? Why, till by her authority the popish bishops 
 were disabled, till himself and his adherents were settled and grown 
 strong enough to work by themselves ; for when they found them- 
 selves in the seat, and big enough to manage the contest, they de- 
 serted from her supremacy, undertook the business without law, and 
 pretending new degrees of illumination, reformed further at discretion. 
 How they used the poor lady my mother is well known, and lies 
 uneasy on my memory. This princess only desired a private chapel 
 for herself and a few of her family, to serve God in the way of her 
 education ; but her supremacy, it seems, was not considerable enough 
 to procure this liberty. And how they treated me in my minority, 
 you all know.' Then, putting his hand to his hat, ' My lords the 
 bishops,' says his majesty, ' I may thank you that these men plead 
 thus strongly for my supremacy ; they think they cannot make their 
 party good against you, but by appealing to the regale, as if you, or 
 some of your friends, were disaffected to it. But if once you are out, 
 and they in place, I know what would become of my supremacy ; for, 
 no bishop, no king ! as I said before.' "* 
 
 Suffer me to remind you, my Lord, that in the 
 English Church as by law established, there are two 
 distinct component parts. There is not only a Royal 
 power as over civil matters attaching- to the Church by 
 accident, but there is the sacerdotal power inherent in 
 the Church by essence. That is accidental, without 
 the existence of which the Church would still exist ; 
 namely, the Royal Supremacy. That is essential, without 
 the existence of which the Church would be no Church 
 at all, — namely, the sacerdotal power. That which is 
 essential, we must take to be the part of the Church 
 which is alone worth preservation ; that which is acci- 
 dental, notwithstanding the many privileges attaching 
 to the accident, we must, in the coming contest, cheer- 
 
 * Collier, book viii, part ii, 682. 
 
49 
 
 fully abandon. Hitherto we have been brought up in 
 the idea, that there is between the two parts an inse- 
 parable connection. Church and State has been a cry 
 of the eighteenth and first half of the nineteenth century, 
 to which no one, w^hatever he thought secretly, dared 
 to raise a voice of objection openly. But this mys- 
 terious charm is fast dissolving now. Whether the 
 Church is still to be a Parliamentary Church, is a ques- 
 tion that is now-a-days continually agitated and dis- 
 cussed. Whether the " Establishment", as a mere legal 
 affair, is to take the lead and supersede the Church as 
 Christ's Spouse, is now a question. The Establishment, 
 as such, is a statesman's tool. It is his creature, his 
 instrument, his food; but the Church, as sueh, is of 
 a very different complexion. She is his opponent, his 
 mistress, his superior and ruler. She is not under 
 him as coming from Csesar, but above him as coming 
 from God. You endeavour, my Lord, to confound two 
 palpably distinct things. The Royal Supremacy every 
 loyal Englishman would cheerfully acknowledge, pro- 
 vided it be limited to the " Establishment", and that go- 
 vernment of the Church which is permissible by the law 
 of Christ ; but when it is claimed over the Church, 
 either in doctrine or discipline, w^e retire to our citadel 
 and defy it. " My kingdom is not of this world". The 
 Royal Supremacy in civil matters, as well as in eccle- 
 siastical matters, as long as they are merely ecclesi- 
 astical and not spiritual ; also in all temporal mat- 
 ters, causes and trials, arising out of them, we cheer- 
 fully acknowledge : but the Royal Supremacy in the 
 doctrines of our Blessed Lord, in the discipline of the 
 Church within, in the regulation of her pastors, in 
 the enunciation of her doctrines, we utterly and ex- 
 plicitly deny. This matter has been well considered, 
 and the exact shape and form of words by which I 
 would embrace the idea of the Royal Supremacy, is 
 embodied in the following propositions, to which I beg 
 your Lordship's attention ; in order that, if I am right, 
 my flock may know, as far as I am myself concerned, 
 what is meant by denying the Royal Supremacy and 
 what is not meant : — e 
 
50 
 
 1. I have hitherto acknowledged, and do now ac- 
 knowledge, the Supremacy of the Crown in ecclesias- 
 tical matters to be a supreme civil power over all 
 persons and causes in temporal things, and over the 
 temporal accidents of spiritual things. 
 
 2. I do not, and in conscience cannot, acknowledge 
 in the Crown the power recently exercised to hear and 
 judge in appeal the internal state or merits of spiritual 
 questions touching doctrine or discipline, the custody 
 of which is committed to the Church alone by the law 
 of Christ. 
 
 3. I therefore, for the relief of my own conscience, 
 hereby publicly declare that I acknowledge the Royal 
 Supremacy in the sense above stated, and in no other. 
 
 These propositions, I believe, have been subscribed 
 by about one thousand eight hundred clergy. It is our 
 only way of extricating ourselves from the difficulty of 
 denying our blessed Lord and Master, and His kingdom, 
 which '' is not of this world" ; our only way of getting 
 rid of the Erastian sin of considering the Church as a 
 mere creature of the state, and surrendering the things 
 of God to the things of Csesar, contrary to our blessed 
 Lord's own precept. I would remind you, my Lord, 
 as a statesman, and first minister of her Majesty's 
 Government, of what Thorndike says (and with him 
 many divines agree) ; that, in case of so terrible a ne- 
 cessity, our duty as churchmen is plain ; and that there 
 are many now ready to abide by it, should you con- 
 tinue, as you have done, to press forward your claim to 
 unlimited power over the Church. This is what Thorn- 
 dike says :— 
 
 *' For seeing there is, by this determination, no manner of coactive 
 power in the Church, but all in the state (for excommunication con- 
 strains but upon supposition that a man resolves to be a Christian), 
 there remains but one head in the civil society of every state, so abso- 
 lute over the persons that make the Church, that the independent 
 power thereof in Church matters will enable it to do nothing against, 
 but suffer all things from the sovereign. And yet so absolute, and 
 depending on God alone in Church matters, that if a sovereign pro- 
 fessing Christianity should not only forbid the profession of that faith, 
 or the exercise of those ordinances which God hath required to be 
 served with; but even the exercise of that ecclesiastical power, which 
 
51 
 
 shall be necessary to preserve the unity of the Church, it must needs 
 be necessary for those that are trusted with the power of the Church, 
 not only to disobey the commands of the sovereign, but to use that 
 power which their quality in the society of the Church gives them to 
 provide for the subsistence thereof without the assistance of secular 
 powers." Thorndike, JRlglit of the Church in a Christian State, p. 189.* 
 
 It would be well indeed, my Lord, that your Lord- 
 ship, and those who agree with you in your theory 
 of an Act of Parliament Church, should consider the 
 probable effects of straining too far your idea of 
 governing her by a power external to herself. It 
 w^ould be well that you do so, before it be too late. 
 Remember that we stand in the via media between two 
 great opponents, on either side, who distinctly and 
 utterly repudiate your theory, — I mean the great body 
 of Protestant Dissenters on the one side, and the great 
 and increasing body of the Roman Catholic Church on 
 the other : that it has happened of late, and must 
 happen more and more frequently, as time goes on, 
 that disaffected members of the English Church will be 
 continually thrown off her body, into one or other of 
 these inimical portions of the religious world surround- 
 ing her : as for instance, Mr. Baptist Noel to the side 
 of Dissent, and many of the most learned and most 
 holy of our clergy (too many for me now to name) to 
 the side of Rome. Remember that by this we are gra- 
 dually attenuated, weakened, and emptied out, and 
 shall soon be not much more than dry bones. If this 
 be your object, well indeed you are working towards 
 it ; if not, then let me supplicate you ; my voice, indeed, 
 is but poor, but yet it is a voice ; let me supplicate you 
 to pause before you bring us to this dread alternative, 
 either secession from the communion of the Church 
 of England, or resistance to the temporal power for 
 conscience sake. The miseries consequent on such an 
 alternative. — the miseries of the poor, the hearts of 
 thousands broken, the hopes of thousands dispersed; 
 scepticism, doubts, misgivings of all truth, infidelity, — 
 these, my Lord, must be the inevitable results. 
 
 And let me honestly tell you, my Lord, that to resist 
 * London : Cleaver, 1841. 
 
 E 2 
 
52 
 
 the Church; I mean the Church as really such — God*s 
 ordinance — to resist the Church, I do not say it in your 
 parliamentary sense, but the Church of the living 
 Saviour of the world ; His bride, His spouse ; to resist 
 her, is a vain thing : " Whosoever shall fall on this stone 
 shall be broken, but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will 
 grind him to powder". If you drive the Church out 
 of England, the Church will rise up, my Lord, else- 
 where. If you destroy her as a component part of the 
 institutions of this country, you will have her riding 
 over your head triumphant, in that foreign prince, 
 whom then you will have good reason, according to 
 your own principles, to dread. The Rock of Ages does 
 not depend upon the crown of any temporal prince, 
 nor rest for its security on Acts of Parliament. Ask 
 the Dissenters what they think of this doctrine ? Ask 
 Dr. Cumming. Would he submit his Presbyterian 
 doctrines to be judged by the civil and temporal law- 
 yers of Her Majesty's Privy Council ? He never has 
 done so, and he never will. Ask the Wesleyans, the 
 Independents, the Baptists, would theij permit their 
 doctrines to be overhauled in your courts of common 
 or ecclesiastical law ? Of course they would not. Well 
 then, where is the justice of talking about civil and 
 religious liberty, if the State is brought in to rule 
 matters which do not belong, never have belonged, and 
 never can belong to it ? The Church's Infallibility goes 
 along with the Church's Supremacy. They are one 
 and the same. They afe above all earthly canons, out 
 of sight, and beyond the reach of all the Acts of Par- 
 liament that England ever had ; beyond all the sove- 
 reigns that ever reigned throughout the world ; beyond, 
 in short, every power and every will, every strength 
 and every dominion, save that only which is of the 
 King of kings and Lord of lords. 
 
 What is the general character of the Church of Eng- 
 land, its general tone, the beating of its pulse, the 
 circulation of its blood ? Statesmen as such know very 
 well. And how to rule her and make her subject either 
 to the blandishments of worldly delights or the threats 
 
53 
 
 of worldly violence, they know very well. Its Erastian 
 spirit — its barren, and generally speaking, lukewarm 
 care for souls when contrasted with the Roman Church 
 — we feel humbled in acknowledging. What a bitter 
 and biting sarcasm that is, ray Lord, of the new Car- 
 dinal Archbishop of Westminster, when he speaks of 
 conceding the parks and the palaces of Westminster to 
 us, retaining the lanes and streets of the poor for his 
 archbishopric. In parallel with this, I would ask you 
 to read what Dr. Arnold says. He speaks of the Church 
 of England as never recovering the " Aristocratic and 
 regal selfishness of its birth". I quote Dr. Arnold, let 
 me remind you, because he is one of your own. He 
 says — 
 
 *' It seems then, that in the improved state of society, the influeno® 
 of the Catholic clergy is used for purposes of general charity, and not 
 for their own advantage ; and who would not wish that our clergy 
 dared to exercise something of the same influence over our higher 
 classes, and could prevent that most unchristian spirit of family 
 selfishness and pride, by which too many wills of our rich men are 
 wholly dictated ? But our Church bears, and has ever borne the 
 marks of her birth ; the child of regal and aristocratical selfishness 
 and unprincipled tyranny, she has never dared to speak boldly to the 
 great, but has contented herself with lecturing the poor. * I will 
 speak of thy testimonies even before kings, and will not be ashamed', 
 is a text which the Anglican Church, as a national institution, never 
 seems to have caught the spirit of. Folly, and worse than folly is it, 
 to think that preaching what are called orthodox doctrines before the 
 great is really preaching to them the Gospel. Unless the particular 
 conclusions which they should derive from those doctrines be im- 
 pressed upon them; unless they are warned against the particular sins 
 to which they are tempted by their station in society, and urged to the 
 particular duties which their political and social state requires of them, 
 the Gospel will be heard without offence, and, therefore, one may 
 almost say, without benefit. Of course I do not mean offence at the 
 manner in which it is preached ; nor offence, indeed, at all, in the 
 common sense of the word ; but a feeling of soreness that they are 
 touched by what they hear, a feeling which makes the conscience un- 
 easy, because it cannot conceal from itself that its own practice is 
 iii\jL\ij."—ArnolcVs Life and Correspondence, vol. ii, p. 382. 
 
 Yes, alas ! it is no new thing thus to speak. We are 
 too fond of praising our own works, and exalting our 
 own glory. It is good to be thus humbled, and by one 
 of the most candid and close observing men of his age. 
 
 If such words had been uttered by me or by any of 
 
54 
 
 the clergy whom your Lordship calls '' insidious", we 
 should soon have been overwhelmed with accusations 
 of disloyalty and disaiFection, but coming as they do 
 from your own friend, what will you say ? Let me tell 
 you, thoughtful men begin to feel this truth more 
 closely than you imagine. 
 
 But now to bring this letter to a conclusion. I would 
 say to you, my Lord, in the language of Hosius to the 
 Emperor Constantine — 
 
 " Stay, I beseech you. Remember that you are a mortal man. Fear 
 the day of judgment. Keep your hands clean against it. Meddle not 
 with Church matters. Far from advising us about them> rather seek 
 instruction from us. God has put dominion into your hands. To us 
 he has entrusted the management of the Church, and as a traitor to 
 you is a rebel to the GrOD Who ordained you, so be afraid on your 
 part, lest, usurping ecclesiastical power, you become guilty of a great 
 sin. It is written, * Render unto Caesar, Caesar's, and what is God's 
 to God'. We may not bear rule upon earth, you, O emperor, may 
 not bear rule in the things of worship. I write this from a care for 
 your soul." — Ath. Hist. Aiian. ad Mon. 44. 
 
 I pray God, my Lord, even yet daily more and more 
 wdll I pray, that you may be spared from being the in- 
 strument, under God's hand, for the destruction of the 
 Church of England. It is a fearful thought for a man 
 to dwell upon, that possibly he may be the appointed 
 channel in the councils of God for some sweeping 
 calamity about to descend upon this great nation. I 
 presume you would really think that the loss of her 
 Church would be a sweeping calamity. Yet the loss of 
 her Church is by no means, at the present moment, in 
 her peculiar position, an impossible thing. May I, a 
 very humble individual, entreat you to pause, to stay 
 your hand, to arrest the downward course of her fall, 
 before it be too late. For myself, and those around 
 me here, while we will give ourselves only the more 
 sedulously to prayer and sacraments, and the good 
 works of the poor, we will not give way one single inch 
 in the duties we owe to the Church. The spirit of 
 Pilate may be in the rulers — the spirit of Judas in the 
 brethren — the spirit of Gallio in the nobles— but yet 
 let us hope that there may be the spirit of Peter and 
 Paul in the priests and bishops of the fold. For our- 
 
55 
 
 selves, the greater the fierceness of the people's madness, 
 so much the greater our patience ; the more violent 
 their outcries of wrath, the more earnest and the longer 
 our prayers. May it be said of us as it was of S. Gregory 
 Nazianzen — 
 
 " The rage and clamour was great against him, but he comforted 
 himself at that instant to remember, that though they had the stronger 
 party, yet he and his had the better cause ; they had the churches, 
 he had God ; they had the people to back them, he had angels to 
 guard him ; they had boldness and confidence, he had the Faith on 
 his side ; they could threaten, while he would pray ; they beat him, 
 and he endured it ; they had wealth and treasure, he the true Catholic 
 doctrine." — Cave's Lives of the Fathers, fol. p. 525. 
 
 I have the honour to be, my Lord, 
 
 Your Lordship's humble servant and 
 Parish Priest, 
 
 Wm. J. E. Bennett. 
 
 POSTSCRIPT. 
 
 For fear of misunderstanding, I desire to add to the 
 observations made at page 19, to the following effect. 
 
 I have stated that the church, in its tone, building, 
 ornaments, and all other points, is the same now as it 
 was at the day of consecration, when it was openly 
 sanctioned by the Bishop. I w^ould say that the cere- 
 monial used at the holy Communion is not the same. 
 On the day of consecration the Bishop himself cele- 
 brated the holy Communion, and every thing was done 
 according to his own will and custom^ bu subsequently 
 
we adopted that form of celebration which w^as in use 
 at Margaret Chapel (now All Saints), and also used 
 at Christ Church, S. Pancras, and at S. Andrew's, 
 Wells Street. This form of celebration was adopted as 
 understood to be known to and permitted by the 
 Bishop. The lights, also, burning at the time of the 
 holy Communion, as already mentioned, were added on 
 the ground of their being sanctioned by the Church, 
 for which see Dr. Hook's Church Dictionary, under 
 the word "Altar Lights", and also as being used at 
 Margaret Chapel. 
 
 I have received, in a letter from a friend on whose in- 
 formation I can rely, the following remarkable state- 
 ment, bearing on the use of the Cross and Lights upon 
 the Altar. 
 
 " In the German Liturgy, published at Berlin in 1829, by au- 
 thority of the late King of Prussia, for the use of the Evangelic 
 Church throughout his dominions, it is required by the rubric to have 
 * two burning lights, with a crucifix,' on the *' altar' at the time of 
 the celebration of the Sacrament. This liturgy received the sanction 
 of the late Archbishop of Canterbury, at the institution of the Jerusalem 
 bishopric, and was authorised by him for the use of the Protestant 
 congregations who voluntarily submit to that episcopate. The celebrant 
 is directed therein to stand and turn towards the midst of the altar, 
 with his back to the people, at consecration, prayers, and hymns. The 
 service itself commences with the words, ' In the name of the Father, 
 and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.' The sign of the cross is made 
 by the celebrant at the absolution, consecration, and benediction in this 
 liturgy. The Archbishop of Canterbury acted under Parliament as 
 the authorized representative of the English Church." 
 
 I would beg to draw your Lordship's attention to 
 the following opinion of Dr. Cumming, by which you 
 will be astonished to see how strong his advocacy ap- 
 pears for the chant and choral service, which your 
 Lordship, I presume, designates by the expression 
 " muttering the Liturgy". 
 
 " I do so long to see the wretched rants that are but too popular 
 
57 
 
 banished from our churches, in order that these grave and noble com- 
 positions may occupy their place ; and one object of this lecture is, to 
 lead you, if possible, to abjure and eject many of those tunes which 
 have neither merit nor beauty, and popularize those noble composi- 
 tions, the anthems, chants, and tunes of the ancient masters . . . The 
 chant is the most purely Protestant music. The common tune and 
 the metrical hymn, are God's Words shaped and adapted to man's 
 music ; but the chant is God's Word retained as the Spirit gave it, 
 and man's music following and unfolding it. . . . The words of the 
 composition of Farrant, which I will ask the choir to illustrate, are, 
 
 * Lord, for Thy tender mercies' sake, lay not our sins to our charge, 
 but forgive us what is past, and give us grace to amend our sinful 
 lives, to decline from sin, and to incline to virtue ; that we may walk 
 with a perfect heart before Thee, now and evermore.' In the reign of 
 Elizabeth flourished Tallis . . . the author of a single chant . . . con- 
 taining in the melody not above three or four notes, and yet in its 
 harmony extremely expressive, and truly fitted for Christian worship : 
 
 * Blessed be the Lord God of Israel,' etc. I wish you to notice how 
 very simple that music is ; and yet, if ministers of the Gospel, and 
 others who have influence in this matter, will introdnce that style of 
 music into their congregations, they will find it the most popular of 
 all. In the sixteenth century flourished Palestrina, the Homer of 
 music, whose powers, however, were given to the Church of Rome. 
 In the seventeenth century flourished Orlando Gibbons, the author of a 
 celebrated Sanctus. ... In the beginning of the eighteenth century 
 flourished John Blow. His beautiful single chant in the minor key I 
 am never weary of listening to. Among the English composers, the 
 most illustrious is Purcell, and one regrets that his music is not more 
 known, or rather more used, than it is. Time would fail me, to speak 
 of Pergolesi, Jomelli, and others : in later times, Handel's name is a 
 household word. . . . Why should there be no congregation able to 
 sing at Christmas, * Unto us a Child is born,' etc.? One regrets that 
 the compositions of such masters as Haydn and Mozart are inseparable 
 from the superstitions of the Church of Rome. . . I do lament that 
 Rome has secured so rich music for Passion [Holy] Week. I know 
 
 nothing grander than the Miserere that noble, monotonous 
 
 burden of sound, rising and swelling as if the heavy moan of a world's 
 calamity. . , . All this is grand : it has been monopolized by the Papacy, 
 
%8 
 
 because Protestantism has disregarded it. , . . These noble compo- 
 sitions have become so identified with Romanism, that we think them 
 essentially Romish. 
 
 " Some of Luther's tunes are from the old Latin chants, and others 
 were composed by himself. Most of the singing in the Mass, he said, 
 is very fine and glorious, breathing nothing but thankfulness and 
 praise; such as * Gloria in Excelsis, Alleluia, Benedictus [Sanctus] 
 Agnus Dei'. 
 
 " It is essential to effective general singing in a congregation that 
 there be a powerful concentrated choir." (^JMiisic in its Relation to 
 Religion. A Lecture by the Rev. John Gumming, D.D., Minister to 
 the National Scotch Church, Crown Court. Delivered in Exeter 
 Hall, Jan. 29, 1850. Sir E. N. Buxton, Bart., M.P., in the chair 
 London, Nisbet. 
 
A SERMON, 
 
 ALLUDED TO IN THE PRECEDING LETTER, PREACHED AT 
 
 S. PAUL'S, KNIGHTSBRIDGE, ON SUNDAY MORNING 
 
 AND EVENING, NOVEMBER 17, 1850. 
 
 S. Luke, xxi, 17, 18, 19. 
 " And ye shall be hated of all men for My name's sake. But 
 there shall not an hair of your head perish ; in your patience 
 possess ye your souls." 
 
 What more can we have than this ? A prophecy of 
 suffering, — " Hated of all men". And yet a prophecy 
 of safety, — "Not a hair of your head shall perish". 
 And the means whereby we shall attain our safety , — 
 " In your patience possess ye your souls". 
 
 Suffering ! " Hated of all men" ! It is, brethren, 
 the token of a Christian. How often have we spoken 
 from this place, in theory^ of persecution and the cross. 
 How often, when surrounded here by the fears of the 
 great and the glad agreement of an approving multi- 
 tude, and when all without was smooth and prosperous, 
 and all within was comfort and joy, — how often have 
 we spoken about self-sacrifice and self-denial; of the 
 passion of our Lord, as the passion ready for ourselves ; 
 of the crucifixion of His precious body on Calvary, as the 
 type of ours ; and His denial of the world, as our denial 
 of friends and once beloved ones ; and how all was to 
 the Christian, if rightly received, the token of his reality 
 and his earnestness, the harbinger of his crown. O, 
 brethren, it was very easy then to talk thus, when we 
 did not know of its real coming, and only imagined it 
 and painted it, as it were, in a picture, and looked at it 
 from a distance ; and, as I said, it was a theory to us. 
 For how could it be otherwise then than a kind of 
 
60 
 
 dream ; when speaking here there came a thousand 
 listeners, with titles of the world's greatness round 
 abont them, and when the chief ones of the earth 
 would come and kneel down among us, and worship, 
 and give God thanks ? And then we had only to say, 
 will you do this for us, for the Church, for our schools, 
 for our poor? and all did it gladly ; and very seldom did 
 there come across us a stray voice of discontent or 
 murmur, but that it was hushed and put aside ; and 
 very seldom did there float along the air of our holy 
 worship any accidental breath of displeasure, but that 
 it was quickly soothed and lulled into quiet by the con- 
 fidence of our hope, and the stedfastness of our faith. 
 
 How very easy then, to talk of being ''hated of all 
 merU''! 
 
 But God has been very gracious to us ; for where 
 there was a possibility of danger from an over-confi- 
 dence in man, or a temptation to vain-glory in the 
 success of human efforts, if viewed irrespectively of God, 
 there it has pleased Him now to interfere. He has 
 gone to the higher grounds of blessing instead of the 
 lower. He has given us tears, and sorrow, and mis- 
 giving, instead of the fulness of joy which used to dwell 
 among us. He has given us the hatred of men instead 
 of their praise, their curse instead of their blessing. 
 He has taken aw^ay the danger of any mere theory of 
 suffering, by putting it personally before us. We are 
 beginning at last to know, in God's mercy, the reality 
 of '^ suffering for His name's sake", of being hated, and 
 reviled, and separated, and cast out. Our cross is 
 taken up. Let us pray that we may bear it bravely. 
 
 Can you conceive anything, brethren, that could 
 possibly give to those, who love the Lord Jesus Christ, 
 and believe what He promises, a greater, or a purer 
 source of joy, than such a text as this ; and then to 
 see the fair and worldly friends who used to flock here, 
 now, because the wind has changed in the current of 
 its flow, and the tide begins to ebb, and the clouds 
 look dark, and there is a lurid spot of something like a 
 storm brooding on the horizon, to see these great ones 
 
61 
 
 (specially one) joining the common multitude in their 
 cry ; that multitude, who would, as we know last Sun- 
 day they did, enter the house of God, and drown the 
 adoring voices of pure and holy worshippers with cries 
 of blasphemy, and threaten destruction to all that be- 
 longed to the sanctuary with axes and hammers ; that 
 multitude, who wdth one voice would enter the chief 
 city of England, and elevate with approbation a Jew 
 into its seat of legislation, and with another voice would 
 desecrate the house of a Christian's God, with cries of 
 " Down with it, down with it, even to the ground." 
 
 I say to you then, brethren, now the time has come ; 
 the real time ; it is no longer a dream now ; a theory 
 now. " Ye shall be hated of all men for My name's 
 sake." Does it not seem a very glad fulfilling of the 
 earnestness of our faith ; for see how our blessed Lord 
 speaks of such things : "^ Rejoice and be exceeding glad 
 when men shall revile you and persecute you, and shall 
 say all manner of evil against you falsely." " Rejoice, 
 and leap for joy, when men shall hate you, and separate 
 you, and cast out your name as evil." " Blessed are 
 they that mourn, that are poor in spirit, that are per- 
 secuted for righteousness' sake." And the Apostles 
 readily follow our blessed Lord in this teaching : and 
 for what reason ? Our reward, our glory, our crown. 
 Not here, but in His glory : " If we suffer we shall also 
 reign with Him." "Yea, and all that will live godly in 
 Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution." It seems insepar- 
 able. It seems an almost necessary condition of a true 
 faith. " If when ye do well, and suffer for it, ye take it 
 patiently, this is acceptable with God ; for even here- 
 unto were ye called." It was for this very purpose that 
 we were made Christians. 
 
 Then I say, brethren, to you that remain here true, 
 while the worldly fly ; that pause in a quiet assurance 
 of your rectitude of purpose, while the timid are scared 
 at they know not what, and the lukewarm give way, 
 and the faithless wander, and heedless swell the throng- 
 ing multitude in their sneers and their blasphemy. To 
 you, brethren, it surely is a blessed privilege to know. 
 
€2 
 
 that, what we talked of before in theory, now is a glad 
 and living thing ; that you are far nearer Christ than 
 you ever were before ; that you know something now 
 of " the Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief" ; 
 that you are joined in His stripes, drink of the blood 
 of His wounds, suifer in His passion, are crucified in 
 His death : and so, do really see before you now some 
 little glimpse of the crown, with which, if you per- 
 severe. He will eventually greet you in the kingdom of 
 His glory. 
 
 But it is promised of God that in the midst of this 
 suffering, there shall yet be safety — ^^ Not a hair of your 
 head shall perish". It was said to them w^ho were 
 about to pass through the fearful troubles of the siege 
 of Jerusalem. It was a prophecy that they should as 
 Christians escape out of the danger which surrounded 
 them ; and while the Jews should be utterly destroyed 
 by the victorious armies of the Roman empire, they 
 should escape, and be unharmed. And what is it to 
 us ? It is atypical promise of the same security. The 
 world may be against us, — the armies of the world 
 may be in array for our destruction. There is no escape 
 from them save in God, but in God there is, — " Not a 
 hair of your head shall perish". 
 
 Jacob, though a great favourite (so to speak) with God, 
 — chosen by Him specially above his elder brother Esau, 
 and made the channel of His grace for the salvation of the 
 world, — yet was a man continually beset by trouble, vex- 
 ation, fear, and annoyance. Immediately after the pro- 
 mise of God, that his seed should be as the dust of the 
 earth, and in him should the families of the earth be 
 blessed, there was a vision specially sent, manifesting to 
 him God's favour and love; yet, with all this — with all 
 this clear demonstration of the power of God on his side, 
 yet he seemed to be deficient in confidence : he spoke 
 hesitatingly, without assurance — '' If God be with me, 
 and will keep me in the way that I go, and will give me 
 bread to eat, and raiment to put on (//—it was hypothe- 
 tical), — then shall the Lord be my God". And when, 
 subsequently, Esau rose up against him, and he fled, — 
 
63 
 
 and then, by God's command^ was about to return 
 to his native country, — ^yet he was in trouble : " Deliver 
 me, I pray Thee, from the hand of my brother." It 
 was a cry of anguish and doubt. And then once more, 
 — when Joseph was lost, he put sackcloth upon his 
 loins, and all his sons and all his daughters rose up to 
 comfort him, " but he refused to be comforted." And 
 then again, Avhen it was proposed to take Benjamin, — 
 " Me have ye bereaved of my children", he said, as 
 though he could no longer bear it, — " Joseph is not, 
 and Simeon is not, and ye will take Benjamin away : 
 all these things are against me." 
 
 Such, brethren, is the picture of a troubled man, — . 
 troubled by worldly things, troubled by losses, and 
 afflictions in temporal prosperity. One thing comes 
 after another, blow upon blow, — to-day one, to-morrow 
 another ; — to-day misinterpretation of words, to-mor- 
 row desertion of friends, — the next day defamation of 
 things beloved, — then hatred, then contempt, then 
 poverty ; until the mind is weakened, dispirited, cast 
 down, cannot lift itself up, — and cries out in its utter 
 prostration, and abandonment, to whatsoever may hap- 
 pen — " All these things are against me." 
 
 Now take an opposite of Jacob, who is in the Law, 
 — namely S. Paul, who is in the Gospel. At first there 
 is every outward demonstration of prosperity. A sin- 
 cere and successful persecutor of a rising sect, as he 
 called them, opposed to his own opinions, — held of 
 great esteem among his own, — of the strictest and most 
 esteemed among his countrymen for religion and for 
 learning; and so he had all that the world could 
 give him. Then he changes, and immediately, with 
 opposition to the world comes the persecution of the 
 world. They who before loved him, now hated him. 
 They who before sided with him, now are against him. 
 Then what followed. Poverty and suffering were his daily 
 companions while he preached Christ crucified, whom 
 before he denied. Instead of ease, there came labour and 
 toil ; instead of honour, reproach ; instead of the well- 
 speaking of the world, its contumely ; instead of riches 
 
64 
 
 and affluence, need, want, and afflictions ; instead of the 
 great ones of the earth, the chief rulers and the high 
 priest employing him in honourable embassies, their vio- 
 lent and searching persecution. And these not once, or 
 for a short time, or with any hope of cessation, but daily, 
 continuous, and not ending but with death. You know his 
 own [description of himself, in 2 Corinthians, — '^ In 
 labours more abundant, in stripes above measure, in 
 prisons more frequent, in deaths oft ; of the Jews 
 five times received I forty stripes save one, thrice 
 was T beaten with rods, once was I stoned ; thrice I 
 suffered shipwreck, and night and day have I been in 
 the deep, in journeyings often, in perils of water, in 
 perils of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, 
 in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils 
 in the sea, in perils among false brethren ; in weariness, 
 and painfulness, and watchings often; in hunger and 
 thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness." 
 
 Well, did all this daunt him ? Did he give way ? Did 
 he hold up his hands in despair, and say as Jacob said, 
 " All these things are against me." No, but hear w^hat 
 he said : "If I must needs glory, I will glory in the things 
 which concern mine infirmities." And why ? Because 
 he went about with this assurance, ''Not a hah' of your 
 head shall perish.'' It was the voice of the Living 
 God that whispered within his whole spirit and cha- 
 racter of faith. " It is I, be not afraid". It was the 
 voice that gave comfort to the three children in the 
 fiery furnace, and Daniel in the lions' den. It was 
 the voice that came to the blessed Jesus in His 
 agony of Gethsemane ; the voice of God, by holy angels 
 ministering, comforting, cheering. It was that voice 
 which says : " When summer friends are gone and fled", 
 still thou art not alone. When the blaze of persecu- 
 tion gleams around, still thou art not alone. When 
 tyrants do their work, and the people rage ; when there 
 is a fancied triumph of the wicked, and the spoiler 
 exults in the overthrow of the righteous, there is yet 
 ONE left, the single friend ; one single voice, which says, 
 / am with thee. This is a spell which none can know 
 
65 
 
 but the sorrowing for righteousness' sake ; a charm, 
 which, in the midst of the deepest woe, still whispers, 
 " Be not afraid ; cling to the Rock ; bear all things, 
 endure all things, hope all things". And so the Apostle. 
 It w^as not a grief to him to suffer the hatred of men ; 
 it was not a pain. No ; his sufferings became a pleasure. 
 He rejoiced in them. '' Therefore", he says : " I take 
 pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in 
 persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake ; for when I 
 am weak then am I strong". 
 
 And shall it not be so with us, brethren. Shall we 
 join with Jacob in his worldly despair, or with Paul in 
 his spiritual joy r Shall we say : " All these things are 
 against me", and give all up ; forsake our principles, 
 and deny our faith to please the multitude; or shall 
 we say : *' I will glory in my infirmities, for of Thee do 
 they come, O God". How many things there are in us, 
 types of our spiritual suffering ! Our very baptism is a 
 type and sacramental figure of suffering. Shall we who 
 are baptised not suffer ? The blessed Sacrament of the 
 Eucharist is a type and sacramental figure of suffering. 
 A broken body, a poured-out cup; types of agony, 
 passion, woe, and death. Are we to go thither for 
 our chiefest stay, and then refuse to bear with Him, 
 Whom there we commemorate ; the breaking of our 
 hopes and joys, the pouring out of our souls in sorrow 
 to Him. " Can ye be baptized", saith He Himself, 
 " with the baptism that I am baptized with, and are ye 
 able to drink of the cup that I drink of?" We are 
 able. We will strive to do so, O God. Our toil may 
 be thankless; our labour, lost; our intentions misin- 
 terpreted, and our hopes dispersed. We may be hated 
 of the world ; not understood, forsaken, despised ; but 
 in Thy baptism, O Son of God, we will take cheerfully 
 our part, and of Thy cup we will cheerfully drink. '* It 
 is the Lord, Let Him do what seemeth Him good". 
 " If God be for us, who can be against us". ^' Not a 
 hair of our head shall perisJi\ 
 
 And now let me speak of the means. How shall 
 we do all this ? Our blessed Lord tells us : " In your 
 
 F 
 
66 
 
 patience possess ye your souls". And the word pati- 
 ence here does not mean, in its common sense, a mere 
 suffering, but it means an abiding {vTrouovrj), a waiting ; 
 it means, be not in a hurry ; " Tarry the Lord's leisure"; 
 wait, and see what the Lord will bring to pass. 
 
 Times of excitement are sure to throw up the dregs 
 and refuse of society to the surface. All whose passions 
 are violent and not under control, all who are destitute 
 of the power of reflection and thought, all who are 
 fond of becoming important, all who have a zeal for 
 religion without knowledge, all who are narrow-minded 
 and bigoted in their ideas, all who have a political turn 
 to serve, — these, and such others, are sure to put them- 
 selves forth at such times, take advantage of current 
 events, and stimulate the multitude on one side, or are 
 stimulated themselves on the other, to acts of outrage 
 and persecution. This has been the case among us here, 
 and is now, as you well know. Here is our unhappy 
 Church, torn and rent and bruised in every member of 
 her body ; full of division, sectarianism, heresy. Here is 
 one party contending against another. Here are the very 
 rulers of the Church themselves poisoned, incapacitated, 
 feeble, without power of action. Here are the rulers of the 
 State taking counsel against the Lord and His anointed; 
 and the Heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain 
 thing. The public mind has taken in one absorbing 
 idea, which has been skilfully infused into it by poli- 
 ticians and statesmen, who desire to turn the crisis to 
 their own account. All the world, forgetful of aught but 
 its own will, runs headlong down the precipice, like 
 the swine possessed with the evil spirit, not knowing 
 where they are going, what they are saying, or what 
 will be the issue of their madness and their folly. The 
 many are but tools and puppets of a wise craftsman, 
 who stands above and leads them on. Then, of course, 
 happens what we have seen in our days. The object 
 is to crush that portion of the Church of England 
 which is true to its spirit as a Church, and to elevate 
 that portion of it which is attached to the Erastian 
 policy of the Government. The Establishment is the 
 
67 
 
 tool of statesmen, and used as such ; the Church is 
 thought to be their enemy, and treated as such. The 
 Establishment therefore is strengthened by feeding it 
 with unorthodox Bishops and heretical priests, and the 
 laws of the land are strained and perverted for the 
 maintenance of mere State purposes. Then, every one 
 who dares to run in opposition to this spirit; everyone 
 who speaks of the Church as independent of the State, 
 as the Body of our blessed Lord, and only of Him de- 
 pending, and by Him to be sustained and fed ; every 
 one who on this principle goes forward to w^ork for the 
 Church, as for Christ, preaches unity and the kingdom 
 of the Gospel, as opposed to the kingdom of the world, 
 restores Catholic usages, spends his time and his love 
 in beautifying the Lord's sanctuary, is full of deep and 
 strict attention to all ancient laws of discipline ; heeds 
 not the power of the great, but rebukes vice even in 
 the highest ; despises the favour of courts and kings, 
 and bids the great ones of the earth kneel down, and 
 bow, and humble themselves before the great God and 
 King of all ; who tells the people, without fear and 
 without compromise, that they must " hear the Church" 
 if they will be saved, receive the blessings of the sacra- 
 ments, and worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness: — 
 everyone, be he priest or layman, who does this, is now 
 the subject of persecution and malignity; he is pointed 
 out as the dangerous enemy of his country and his 
 Church ; and the infuriated mob are fed up and led on 
 in their passions, for the purpose of destroying this 
 enemy.^ 
 
 * These allusions will be easily understood by most persons who 
 have studied the history of the Church for the last ten years. The 
 appointment of Dr. Hampden to the see of Hereford; in vain the re- 
 monstrance made by a certain number of the bishops ; in vain the 
 opposition by Dr. Merewether the dean of the cathedral in his elec- 
 tion; in vain its opposition by the Church at his confirmation. Then the 
 appointment of Mr. Gorham to the living of Bramford Speke ; his re- 
 jection by the Bishop of Exeter on points of manifest heresy ; the 
 trial in the courtof Arches, where the Bishop's judgment was confirmed; 
 his appeal to the Privy Council; the remarkable trial which there took 
 place ; the judgment of the Court of Arches reversed; the Archbishop 
 
68 
 
 Of course it is very easy, brethren, for us to see 
 through all this. But it is not easy for the multitude, 
 for they know not what they do. They are only led 
 hither and thither, by the crafty and the skilful, who 
 use them for their own purposes. But being as we are, 
 suffering as I have described, what are we to do ? We 
 are to wait. It is plain, very plain, that God's hand is 
 upon the Church of England just now, whether for 
 good or evil we cannot tell ; we must wait and see. We 
 must not act precipitately. We must not be indignant, 
 or wrathful, or revengeful, or retort in a bad spirit, but 
 we must be calm, dignified, patient. We must endure 
 and wait. If feelings get excited on our part, if pas- 
 sions boil up, if on our side we recriminate, or become 
 impetuous and hasty, then our course is run — the last 
 days of the Church of England as a Church are at hand. 
 As a State Establishment she may linger on, but she 
 will, in that case, become more and more Erastian 
 every year, and so lose the spirit and life of her Blessed 
 Head, both in doctrine and in practice, until by degrees 
 
 of Canterbury forcing the priest condemned of unsound doctrine in his 
 own court, against his own court, into the diocese of another bishop, 
 on the authority of the State. Then a little further on, the Roman 
 Church sending bishops, and the people rising up, not in tempered 
 or calm reasoning concerning the measure, but urging political cries 
 of " No Popery". Then, upon this, a letter from the prime minister, 
 under cover of the Bishop's Charge, inflaming the mob. Then 
 our own unfortunate case, on beholding our beautiful house dese- 
 crated by the inroads of profane men, who came with hootings 
 and yells, and fierce threats that they would destroy all before them. 
 This, indeed, is a series of events, all pressing on each other, and 
 leading on to some great catastrophe, too manifest, too significant of 
 some essential inherent weakness in the Church of England as a 
 Church. And now no one speaks of our wrongs, no one speaks of 
 the heresy which is still among us, no one remembers the instances 
 above described, although not so far away; but all seem hanging on 
 to one exciting topic — No Popery. — Why was it that we had not this 
 activity in the case of Dr. Hampden or in the case of Mr. Gorham ? 
 because men are not sensible of any danger. Why not sensible of any 
 danger ? because the great bulk of the people are very little taught 
 in the doctrines of the Church. I mean the great doctrine which applies 
 to that subject — Sacramental grace. But in the case of the Bishop of 
 Rome, it Apolitical. The political objection is manifest. The reli- 
 gious objection is not heeded. 
 
69 
 
 she will die completely out. " In your patience possess 
 ye your souls". Great things are at hand, wait and 
 see what they are. The shadows are too dark just at 
 present for us to read what God says. We are too much 
 excited and beside ourselves to judge calmly of what is 
 our duty. The writing on the wall is as yet dim and 
 confused. There will be more light anon, and then we 
 may try and read it : greater certainty and precision in 
 the writing as coming from God, greater confidence in 
 the reading as appertaining to us. Soon there will 
 come some mark or sign from God so clear that we 
 shall not be able to misinterpret it, and have no excuse 
 in turning aside so as visibly to give it no heed. Till 
 that comes, " in your patience possess ye your souls". 
 God may have much for us to do yet. There may be, 
 no doubt there is much more suffering before us yet, 
 much more division, and falling away, much more 
 heresy, much greater insults to the Church, much 
 greater oppression of the clergy, much more vitupera- 
 tion and slander of motives and principles, much more 
 of that which David had in his heart, when he said 
 " Why boastest thou, O tyrant, that thou canst do 
 mischief?" What I desire to warn you against, and 
 prepare you for, is this very point, that as yet, this is 
 only the beginning of sorrows. Alas ! what will they 
 be in their fulness. 
 
 And now, brethren, let me add one single word 
 further. One single word, as though it were the last 
 that I should ever from this place address to you. Let 
 your waiting be coupled with hope, let your waiting be 
 coupled with charity. In faith, of course, all you do 
 is done. In faith, it cannot be otherwise than presumed, 
 that you would bear with me, or even against me, 
 should it so be, — all that you do and think. You no 
 doubt earnestly believe, that what you do, and what 
 you say, in all that appertains to religion, comes of 
 faith. You believe that it is necessary to salvation. 
 You believe that without your doing it, you would be 
 in danger of losing eternal life. No other than this 
 deep principle could form the ground-work of your 
 
70 
 
 worship, or the basis of your lives. Take away your 
 faith, and your spiritual life is fundamentally and 
 essentially extinct; for on the one hand you could neither 
 find fault with what I say or do, with any degree of 
 justification to your own conscience, or any idea of 
 excuse before God ; nor on the other hand could you 
 agree with me in what I say or do, or join with me in 
 carrying into operation what you have done, or what 
 you may do, with any prospect of the eternal crown to 
 be won by you in the salvation of your souls, — unless 
 you possess deep down in your hearts as a principle of 
 it SiW,— faith in the merits, and for the cause, of your 
 blessed Redeemer and Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ. 
 So that faith, I take it for granted, one way or other, 
 is yours. 
 
 But I would speak of your waiting with hope. Yes, 
 hope for the Church of England even yet, as the pro- 
 phet Jeremiah beautifully says, " It is good that a man 
 should both hope, and quietly wait, for the salvation of 
 the Lord". And S. Paul in like manner, " If we hope 
 for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for 
 it". It is even hope against hope. Hope, even as it is 
 called in war, a forlorn hope, — and yet a hope. I would 
 ask you for yourselevs, brethren, I would ask you for 
 me^ — never cease to hope that God may even yet 
 deliver Israel from all his troubles. 
 
 But above all, charity, — for without the third, what 
 are the other two ? S. Paul tells us they are nothing. 
 We may do all things, suffer all things, labour in all 
 things ; endure, with the Apostles, imprisonment, and 
 martyrdom, and give our body to be burned, and yet, 
 without love it shall all be nothing. So let love pre- 
 vail, even though this be the last word. Let love pre- 
 vail : if anything should be done hostile to your feelings, 
 if any act of aggression, if any slander, if any injustice, 
 if any wrong, — remember, I beseech you, both for 
 yourselves and for me, the golden rule of our blessed 
 Lord, " Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, 
 do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that 
 despitefully use you and persecute you '. Consider 
 
71 
 
 this; that in all great disputes of religious doctrine, 
 when men's passions boil over, and they are hurried by 
 impetuous and fervid minds into some one great extreme, 
 — they are not almost (so to say) morally responsible ; 
 they are taken out of themselves ; they do and say in 
 the excitement of their zeal what they could not do and 
 say in the calmer moments of deliberation. Consider 
 their education, the natural tone and temper of their 
 minds ; their ignorance of your meaning, your igno- 
 rance of theirs. Consider this, too, that however right 
 we may think ourselves, still we may not be right ; we 
 may be under a delusion ourselves. Or even this, we 
 may be right for ourselves and in our case, and yet 
 they may be right in God's sight, in themselves, and in 
 their case. We cannot tell. Charity would come in 
 here, even though we might suffer, and '^ think no 
 evil". Love would come in, and looking from his 
 cross, even as He did Whose children we are, would 
 say — " Father, forgive them, for they know not what 
 they do". 
 
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