^'^i^^^ i I E) R.ARY OF THE UNIVLR.SITY Of ILLINOIS 16/14' NEW LEGISLATION FOR THE CHURCH IS IT NEEDED? a Lettet TO HIS GRACE THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY AND PRIMA TE OF ALL ENGLAND BY WILLIAM J. IRONS, D.D. PREBENDARY OF ST. PAUL'S AND RECTOR OF ST, MARY WOOLNOTH ilontron RIVINGTONS, WATERLOO PLACE HIGH STREET TRINITY STREET ©xforli (fTtimbrttrge 1874 Price One Shilling [A-isil SUGGESTIONS EespectfuUy offered to the Meeting of Clergy at Sion College, on the Proposed "Eefokm of Convocation.". 1. Convocation as now constituted is, at the same time, a Sacred Synod of Bishops of the Province (with consulting Presbyters either personally or by Proctors attending), and an Ancient adjunct of the British Parliament. 2. In considering the " Keform " of such a complex body, both its Synodical, and its Constitutional character must be regarded. As a Provincial Synod of the Church, it cannot spiritually be " Eeformed," either by Committees of Presbyters, or by a Bill in Parliament. It is only, then, as a Con- stitutional body that it can, in the modern sense of the term, be "Eeformed," and in that case Parliament must be consulted. 3. As a Provincial Synod alone has it charge of spiritual matters; and as a Constitutional body alone has it to do what is constitutionally assigned to it. 4. The title " Convocation " is applied to this body both in its purely Synodical, and in its mixed or Constitutional character. As a Spiritual body, or Synod, it can only do *'such work as is proper to it" as a Provincial Synod of the Church. It cannot e.g. change the Creeds, or Sacraments, or Canon of Scripture; and could not ''bind conscience," if it attempted it. A Provincial Synod has no power to rule Doctrine ; that having been settled for all time. The Church of England decides therefore that the Primitive Councils and Fathers cannot be set aside. From the Acts of the National Assembly at Hatfield (a.d. 680), down to the Act {Eliz. i. 1. 36), of Queen Elizabeth, the unchangeable Eule of essential Doctrine, (which includes the Canon), has been "the First ( 2 ) Councils." To oppose them, is alone called '' heresy," by the Church of England/'' 5. Provincial Synods determine the details of the local discipHne of the Church, for common edification. Presbyters have not however, in all the history of the ancient Church of Christ, been called to sit in judgment oji Church matters, in order to decide either doctrine or discipline by their numerical majorities. Even in the English Convocations, the Presbyters have no power of this kind. The Bishops, there speaking by the Primate, have a veto on all proposals of Presbyters ; the Bishops being the sources of purely spiritual jurisdiction. It cannot of course be the intention of a *'Eeform" of Convocation, to create a new Presbyterian assembly, and abandon Episcopal discipline. 6. In an Assembly of a mixed kind, laymen and even women (as Abbesses) have taken part, and given assent; but the presence of Presbyters or lay people of either sex, in such mixed " Council" or Convocation in this country, at any time, has been in a constitutional capacity. 7. As to the attending any mixed Convocation by Proctors, it should be noted, that the Proctor summoned to Convocation (since Edward I., and not more anciently) attended for the sake of quasi-Parliamentary duties. Yet a Proctor, or Procurator, is always appointed a Domino. — What is known as laical '' franchise " in Parliament, may have pertained to the laity as having been enfranchised, or in some respects set "free," from serfdom: but the Clergy could not, as to Synods, be set free from their canonical superiors the Bishops, in any analogous way ; nor could they have any such '^ franchise." 8. Therefore the Proctors were always chosen " unani- mously" in Diocesan, or inferior Diocesan, Synod. And no one ever voted in a Diocesan Synod of the Church, except the Bishop, or whosoever acts in his place, with his delegated * Not that even General Councils are infallible " a parte ante','' as our Art. xxi. teaches ; but being known, as received by the Church Universal, the Truth as such ever remains. {See Laud against Fisher.) ( 3 ) authority ; to be confirmed afterwards by himself. {See Ferraris, and Lamhertini). 9. Proctors of the Clergy are thus in reality appointed only by the Bishop, in the ultimate resort ; the Bishop alone giving Jurisdiction — which indeed he cannot abandon while he is Bishop. ,' Hence the Proctors have never been ap- pointed according to the numbers, nor anciently by formal votes, of the Clergy — but in reference only to Jurisdiction. Deans, Kural Deans, some Canons, and all Archdeacons are Ordinaries and have already Jurisdiction from the Bishop ; so also the Parochus, or Parish Eector, though not quoad Jioc unless summoned thereto by the Bishop ; by whose writ alone is a Convocation, as a Synod, ever summoned. 10. Hence the Bishop himself presides, if he pleases, in the Diocesan Synod for nominating Proctors to the Convo- cation. This he has done in the Dioceses of Oxford, and Lincoln even to our own time. In London the Archdeacons send certain names to the Bishop, and the Bishop rightly chooses the Proctor. In other dioceses of this Province, Canterbury, Ely, Peterborough, Exeter, Worcester, Gloucester, Bristol, Bath, Wells, Hereford, Bangor, St. Davids, St. Asaph, the Election is made in Diocesan Synod in some form. In the remaining Dioceses, some peculiar customs prevail, (as Win- chester, Chichester, Llandaff, Norwich, and Bochester), but all involving the same principle. In Lichfield and Salisbury, the Bishop seems to have allowed the presbyters some freedom in the matter, de facto, at least at times. 11. The present notion, of some, then, — that our Con- vocation should be so Eeformed as to "represent" general religious opinion, and then discuss all points as in a religious ''Parliament," is as unhistorical* as it is uncatholic and un- spiritual. It seems to have originated with us just after the Revolution, in the struggles of Atterbury and the supposed High * The Arians at Ariminum seem to have had some snch idea (See St. Hilary's Fragments) ; and the Irish Church it is to be feared is acting on a theory of the same kind. ( 4 ) Church party of that day against the laxity of some of the more poUtical Bishops : but it was evidently a wrong principle that was assumed, and led, (perhaps most Providentially,) to the suppression of the action of Convocation in 1717. Had the *' Lower House " succeeded in asserting a jurisdiction for itself against the Bishops, a Presbyterian constitution of our Church must logically have followed. 12. To create a new governing body for the Church of England would be the inevitable result of the popular proposals for the " Eeform of Convocation." At present, as Gibson says, the ancient Synodal Constitutions, so far as legally unrepealed, are our inheritance — from the Constitutions of Stephen Langton downwards {see Lyndwood) to Henry III. ; — and all were ac- cepted by the Province of York in the reign of Henry VI. The Eeform now proposed goes much beyond the Tudor Eeform, (or even the Reformatio Legum, which Elizabeth refused), and cuts us off, so far, from the historical past. For all these, and other considerations, a " Eeform " of this great historic Body — our Convocation — (which is at present, and might long remain, an integral part of the British Constitution) is to be deprecated. Our Convocation as now existing, is a learned, thoughtful, efficient body, which will bear comparison, as all men may see, with any Body in this Eealm, ecclesiastical or secular. It contains the very flower of our Clergy, and justifies the wisdom of the Prelates who summon it — by showing itself equal at all times to the important work assigned to it, in relation to our Discipline and practice. — And Convocation has always of late been held in check by some good Providence, when it has approached matters of Doctrine, — {e.g. the Athanasian Creed, and the 2dth Canon,) — which do not belong to it. WILLIAM J. lEONS, D.D., Prebendary of St. PauVs, One of the Committee appointed at Sion College, for Convocation Pcefonn : March 23, 1874. JSeto iLegi0lation for ti)t Cfturcf) My Lord Archbishop, The announcement by the public press that your G-race intends on the 20th of April " to call the attention of Parliament to the state of the law respecting the performance of Divine Worship in the Church of England" has naturally excited much notice among the Clergy of all ranks. ISTo action that Parliament has taken, since it ceased to be an exclusively Church-of-England body, has failed to create anxiety, lest the legal status of the Reformation, acquiesced in by so many generations, should be changed in principle, even while nothing further might be intended than the alteration of some practical details. Such apprehensions must of course increase rather than diminish, as time goes on; and every one who wishes well to the " Establishment," as such, feels therefore the grow- ing delicacy of attempts to call in the assistance of the State, either to accelerate the movements or correct the defects of the Church. During your Grace's Primacy, the Church of England has attained a position of popularity A 2 4 State of the Chcrch in England. and usefulness never reached before. When the " Elementary Education Act " came into operation three years ago, it was found that the Church had opened Elementary Schools for five-sixths of the poor population of England and Wales, though that population had increased more than three-fold during this century. It is known too, that the efforts of the Clergy which had built those schools had, at the same time, nearly doubled the number of our churches throughout the country ; and perhaps the services have in the same period increased ten-fold. No doubt there have been many failures of duty, and many just complaints as to misdirected zeal, and imperfectly-informed theology among us : but the real results of the Church of England work, on the whole, are such as no country in Europe has ever yet seen. While France, and Spain, and Italy seem to be now, infallibly and finally, part- ing company with the Church of their fathers ; while Germany has just entered on a struggle with the Eeligions of the Empire, (which must touch the Christian foundations of the social system,) the Church of which your Grace is Primate is not only fuller than ever of spiritual activity, but has a body of Clergy, among whom are the critics, the thinkers, the philanthropists of the age, — a body of men whose orthodoxy clings nobly to all the unalterable past, and yet whose self-devotion has won the affection and respect of the present. Nor _uiuc!i Legislative Interference, 5 has this result been reached by any rigid enforce- ment of " acts of uniformity," but rather in con- nexion with the most thoughtful forbearance of our Rulers, the least possible Legislative interfer- ence, and the widest extension of Judicial licence, in opposite directions, to all who hold practically the Scriptures, Creeds, and Sacraments of the Church Universal. Your Grace, then, will not wonder that pro- posals to interfere in any way to arrest this daily- advancing progress of the Church, — proposals which must damp the zeal of some, even if they for a moment appease the prudence, or worldli- ness, or jealousy of others — startle us all. If any of us speak out at such a moment as this, we must needs speak of things as we believe they actually are. We cannot, in the face of the facts around us, be misled by the intentions of a few optimists who may fancy that a " short Act of Parliament " would just clear away remaining blemishes, and make our system perfect. We plainly see that, whatever be the motives, there is a proposal to interfere, by unsympathising legislation, with the present broad action of this great living and moving Church of ours ; and while giving the utmost credit to our present reforming friends for their intentions, we profoundly deprecate their assistance. It would, indeed, be wilful folly to shut our eyes to the patent insincerity of much of the pre- 6 Opponents of the Church. tentious opposition to the work of the Church on the part of the promoters of change. Any formal persecution of opponents, (like that against the Methodists, e.g. a hundred years ago,) would now of course be repudiated — and in your Grace's time it certainly would not be encouraged •, but this does not alter the fact that a narrowing of our ad- ministrative system must have much of the effect of persecution. It must, prospectively, be full of peril ; and it is this, more than any other point, that creates alarm. For any "new measure" would be expected to accomplish its work. A Parliamentary movement could be no light matter for us. A change indeed that seemed to promise much and did but little would irritate many and satisfy none. It must soon lead to further measures, adopted amidst disappointments on one side and exasperations on the other. Such measures must at once arrest the grand work which is now at all points responding to the age, and they would fill with hope (as the Bible Translators express it) — the "Enemies of our Zion." We must not wait therefore till the expected pro- posals are before us in detail ; not only because it may be too late to speak when a step is taken which cannot be retraced, but also because any change from without, at a time of great intellectual move- ment, is a disturbance to be deprecated by all who believe in the prevailing power of truth, and who doubt not the truth of their own principles. Let The Church of the Future. 7 the Church of England in this free age, as the opening of Magna Oharta itself sets forth, have free course under existing laws, and we believe that her true sons have nothing to fear. On the other hand, any attempt to stereotype our posi- tion, or restrain our truthfulness, must dwarf our life and perhaps insult conscience ; and form a new kind of '* State Religion" that coming times will not respect, and must speedily " disestablish." In discussing the subject to which our thoughts have been thus suddenly called, I can have no wish, my Lord, to evade any topic which has pro- minence at the present crisis ; but your Grace will fully feel that our first thought should be the Church of England of the Future. For myself it may be pardonable to say, that with few parochial duties at present, new legislation might seem to some extent personally unimportant; unless indeed (which no one imagines), it were to touch the Canon, the Creeds, the Sacraments, or the Hier- archy, — our "Historical Christianity;" I thus, then, may be able to look with more calmness perhaps on the probable results of change, and how they may affect the generations that will follow us. Belonging to no party, and having valued friends on all sides, I could not indeed contemplate with equanimity the calamity of any : but the Church's ultimate well-being is after all above other con- siderations. The Church of England, as we now know it, 8 The ChurcJis Historical Foundations can and does grapple with the religious and social problems of the English people, from the highest ranks of the educated even to the most outcast, whose condition never calls in vain for our help. No other agency, though all are free, even attempts what the Church does naturally ; and we welcome all real co-operation. If any would join our ranks, whether from the Eoman Catholics or Dissenters, we should surely think of their coming as of an ac- cession of more power to do our work, throughout the whole breadth of our civilization. We ought not indeed to exclude one fellow-worker who will accept as we have said those four realities, the Canon, the Creeds, the two Sacraments, and the three-fold Hierarchy, which are the " His- torical foundations " of the Church in all Christ- endom — which we could not part with, without self-destruction. The philosophy and science of this age, the criticism and archasology of the age to come, the taste, refinement, and developed civilization of the world around, can all be met by the Church in her great Christian mission to human nature, — if she be unchanged and left untrammelled. If over-weighted by more State- Legislation, we dread lest our powers be paralyzed. Hitherto, even irregularities and faults have been frequently overruled for good ; and not only now, but scarcely less so in former times, though often they have been grievous, and far beyond our own experience. During the last three centuries have remained tmc hanged. 9 almost all the outward conditions have changed again and again; — the Church by Grod's mercy always, in the long run, tenaciously holding fast to her Historical Christianity. No well-informed person can look back to the sixteenth or seven- teenth or eighteenth century, and mark the epoch, which he would say ought to have been fixed exactly as it was, and transmitted intact to our- selves. Surely too there are warnings, in that retrospect, of some hair-breadth escapes, in matters which no Churchman thinks unimportant, either in doctrine or discipline. Thus, the Royal Supremacy saved us at one time from the terrible " Lambeth Articles'*; the people's enthusiasm at another de- livered our Bishops from the tower, — and at an intermediate day the piety of ten thousands of Con- fessors kept our Prayer Book in the heart of the nation, when its use was prohibited " by law." God has assuredly been with us all along — " chas- tening, indeed, but not giving us over unto death." There' are periods for example to be noted in the Caroline and Tudor reigns, when our Hierarchy itself would have fared ill, had Parliament been called on to ^^ its character and functions ; and, in that case the defences afterwards made so suc- cessfully against Rome, by Bishop Bull, or by your Grace's great predecessor Archbishop Wake, would have been impossible. There are epochs too in the post-Revolution times, when contests were strong among our fathers, as to the Holy A 3 lO Probable Effects Sacrament, the Trinity, the doctrine of Grace, and the Bible itself. But Providence did not deliver us from those spiritual difficulties by '' new Legis- lation." A " way of escape "' surely was found, in leaving the Historical foundations untouched, and trusting to the " hidden life " within the Church spontaneously to revive in due season. The reflections thus suggested seem so important that your further patience, my Lord, may be asked to hnger on them a moment longer. Let us sup- pose, for example, that some action of Parliament had been invoked in the beginning of " the Ee- formation," to settle for us the question of the Inspiration of Holy Scripture, (just as Pope Sixtus had tried to settle it respecting the Vulgate, for all members of the Eoman Communion), we should have had the " Bishops' Bible" probably till now : or if King James's Authorized Version had strug- gled into beiiag, together with a new " Article " as to the " inspired text," (which had been almost glanced at in the Reformatio Legum), no one may doubt, perhaps, that it would have involved an a priori condemnation of most of the critical in- quiries and free exegesis which sprung up so soon ; and not only would such men as the speculative and mystical divines of the following century have been expelled by law, but not a few of the soundest hearts, and best heads among us now, would have been long since outside the pale of the Church of England. of Doctrinal L egislation. 1 1 Or, let us take an example from days of equal excitement though greater sterility, — say those of the Baugorian controversy, or of the later Metho- dist recoil ; — if the Englishman's panacea in dis- tress, the "short Act of Parliament," had been administered to the Church by those who were then in power, can anyone believe that the "Es- tablishment " would have remained, with life and blessing in it, sanctifying the whole people more and more, as now ? Why, my Lord, even our own generation impresses on us all this same plain lesson : If, as late as 1842, when Bishop Blomfield only asked us to preach in the surplice, and began building for worship in destitute districts a few of the plainest possible structures, — if, I say, at the bidding of the few gentlemen who then began the agitation at Tottenham in Vestry, the clergy had all been clothed in blackness for ever, and the churches white-washed by decree of the House of Commons, and of the House of Lords Spiritual and Temporal, your Lordship's Episcopate in London would hardly have found the Church eagerly hold- ing the front rank in our civilization, educating the mind and heart of the people, and leading the taste, and art, and thought of this fully-aroused metro- polis. A painful remnant might indeed have existed (whose prayer-book yet remaining, would have told of a glorious past, but) whose subjective spiritualism would have been hastening to its natural home among the least educated sects. 1 2 The London Mission. Happily for our nation, and our Cliurch, that vox 29opuli^ as it seemed (though in reality the voice of here and there a country squire, and some " aggrieved parishioner," not unfrequently out- side the Church), became little heeded. The age was fast outgrowing Puritanism, and it felt the in- congruity of Persecution ; — ever the grim resort of intellectual self-suspicion and moral imbecility in death struggle. Had it been otherwise, who would not have been ostracised for something ? Not High Churchmen alone — with their Sisterhoods, and Brotherhoods, and Choirs ringing now through all our Churches, — would have been excluded ; but perhaps, my Lord, half of the Eight Reverend Bench would not have been where they now are, nor the increasing body of critical teachers of Scripture truth have had any place among us. A single prosecution, e.g, based on " a very short act " indeed, defining " Inspiration," would have made havoc of them all, — and of the Church of England as by law established. But there is another phase of our present Churchmanship, of which every one is thinking ; and it must be useful to glance at it, for it may make our reasoning yet more real, at this mo- ment. It is represented in that phenomenon known to all, as "the London Mission of 1874." That certainly Hes " beyond the lines of " tradi- tional Anglicanism ; and no one will suppose that these pages are written with undue bias in favour The London Mission. 13 of the details, at all events, of that mission. It was formally recommended we know to the Church, by three of our most respected Bishops, and nearly a third of the London Clergy acqui- esced in it. The majority, who stood aloof to a great extent, generally respected the motive of the mission, and hoped that, under such auspices, it might by Grod's mercy avail in a measure to bring the Gospel in power to some who were hitherto unreached. There was a sacredness in that very abstinence of those who quietly paused, though they dared not approve that of which they saw no warrant in Scripture or in our Church's traditions. As a rule, they "opened not their mouth." They felt, perhaps, that in some states of our modern civilization there may be room for uncouth methods of touching the religious chord of human nature, methods with which the thoughtful may be little able to sympathize. — Might it possibly be a "foolishness" which is " wiser than men " ? — Well, their steady silence may have been blessed, beyond what their more demonstrative brethren suspect: though they see so much in the mission yet to deplore, and to make them deprecate such attempts hereafter. They, however, who most deeply hope that, with advan- cing education and loftier grace among us, we may be spared in future much of what we have lately witnessed, were content to leave " Revivalism " and " Missionism " to do whatever work might A 4 14 What are its Results ? possibly belong to them in primary stages of Religious civilization, whether led by new com- binations of teaching, or by the old familiar parties of enthusiasm among Churchmen. " Let these men alone," seemed, at least at the moment, to be practically preached to us in many ways; and even now we say with much confidence — ^Let old Churchmen go on doing their own work, and then no retrograde ^' pietism " is likely, (as in a neighbouring land,) to corrupt the spiritual life of a thoughtful people, or make the Church incom- patible with the progress of the nation. Again and again be it repeated — It is of the Church of the Future we have to think. Our nation is free, and the Church must not be too much fettered : and to begin to put new limits on earnest- ness in the Church, instead of leaving mistakes to wear themselves out, appears to some of us to be the strangest of infatuations. Time was, and not our best time, when each party in the Church was eager to gain advantage of the other ; but all are learning, and some more rapidly than ourselves, that what we need is to be unmolested in our work. No one is more interested in this freedom than his brother. The great host is now moving on with a wonderful success in its combined at- tack on the proud infidelity, as well as on the grosser irreligion and vice of the accumulating populations. No doubt the efforts of some divisions of that mighty army are open to animadversion ; some even lose sight of others, perhaps, while pene- Irregularities in the Church. 15 trating, at all hazards, " through the bush." But of cowards and traitors we do not often hear. Men in our days who have volunteered for the service have done so with fewer worldly inducements than ever. The struggle is at its height. Who is it that would venture to confuse the battle, or arrest its onward successes, by calling for a court-martial in the midst of the action on some of the best and bravest soldiers, — to satisfy the scruples of village ratepayers, safe at home, or of the anonymous corre- spondents of the County Grazette ? — How, my Lord, would such a mistake look in the Future ? My Lord, the insincerity^ of much of the outcry which is made, as to present " irregularities," is a feature of this subject to which the metaphor just used may naturally re-direct our attention. It is very important that this should be pointed out; because the persons who are eager to have interference with some departments of the Church's work will be the first to complain if the measures should not be, in their sense, thorough-going, and fully satisfy their passions or prejudices. They mean in their oppositions sometimes more, and sometimes less than they say. Surely there are irregularities on all sides, and all know it ; and dominant bigotry might, of course, suppress some of them by a new law^ in- crease others, and rid the Church very soon of a few weak brethren, and of not a few who are the Church's strength ; but, what is a far more serious ^ See page 7. 1 6 Some latitude allowable effect of this unthinking strife, reform like this will not hereafter attract the manly intellect of the rising generation to serve a Church committed to such narrowness and unrefinement, as would satisfy those for whose pleasure a few would now impose intellectual chains on the Church of England. May it not be, my Lord, that Providence even intended much of that diversity for us which is now so conspicuous, and may happily perhaps be more so ? There is, we know, but one set of Rubrics in the Prayer Book, for the Cathedral and for the village church, — must not some different use be allowed ? Queen Elizabeth claimed a good common-sense latitude for her Royal Chapels, and the Universities had their Prayers in Latin. Common sense, and " necessitas" which may Ije the highest " law," claim a thousand modifica- tions in a thousand places. Of course this goes to the very verge of what is bearable at times. Thus, Churchmen, who even had the honoured name of '' EvangeHcal," until very lately (and many I think even now) celebrate the Holy Communion so irregularly as to omit the Creed, the Lord's Prayer^ the Ten Commandments, and the Gospel and Epistle of the day, at their own discretion in early service. Then some so-called " High-Church" Clergy, who used to decry the " dry service " which stopped at the offertory, omit Holy Com- mimion on Good Friday — contrary to ancient in interpreting the Rubrics. 1 7 Canons, and in defiance of the Collects and Epistle and Gospel for that Holy day, — apparently for no other reason than the imitation of the poorest dramatic use of foreign Communions. But would it not, however, be unwise to call for an Act of Parliament on either side, to be the remedy of these things? — Or (not to give other details) can it be morally right for any to appeal to the fanaticism of an expiring form of Christianity, (which could not stand for a year, if left alone, in an educated age,) to lend its aid in " reforming " the Church in their direction ? They who would have all their preferences and peculiarities imposed on others, are little qualified to legislate for any. They have no love of Freedom in them. Let us take, in illustration, some of the most frequently paraded " objections " of the present hour in matters of yet higher concern — say, the position of the Priest in consecrating the Lord's Supper; the practice of encouraging private Confession ; and the use of excessive ornament in Divine wor- ship. Your Grace will forgive me if I seem for a moment to place myself too prominently in this part of my address to you ; perhaps it would not otherwise be equally easy to do justice to the subject itself, and make it evident that the writer is holding no brief for any party. First as to the position at Celebration. Before the opposition to the Rubrical position was heard of, I had for thirty years consecrated the Lord's 1 8 Position of the Celebrant Supper " standing before the Table." I bad always ^' knelt down at the Table," where the Rubric bids it (except when officiating anywhere for Clergymen whose practice was different). In those thirty years I never once imagined that that position '' before the Altar " was necessary to assert a doctrine of any kind. I did it because the Prayer Book told me ; as have others, who always to the utmost of our power have obeyed the Prayer Book ad literam. If the Prayer Book had told me to consecrate at the ^' north end," I should have done it, without thinking less of the Eucharistic Sacrifice, or of the office of the Priest as conferred in the words of the Ordinal. I never identified the position at the Altar with the priestly office. I may seem to some to have been wrong; but it is a fact. I have seen the Lord's Supper celebrated by the Pope himself, at the highest festivals, facing the people all gathered before him in thousands, in the nave of St. Peter's. I know that in the Oriental Churches the position of the Priest, or Bishop, has not unfrequently been the reverse of that which is now ordered by our Prayer Book. (I say "now ordered," because we believe it is ; and we cannot conceive how any com- petent person coming unbiassed to the Rubrics, " before the Table," and " at the Table," and " turn- ing to the Table," could think they mean that we must be at the north, leaning over book and cushion to get at the paten and chalice in the most " incon- venient " way possible, — having just been ordered at the Lord's Table, 19 to do all " conveniently.") I was quite unable to think people in earnest when I first heard the Priest's position described as ** turning my back "^to some- body in a pew, who was at the same time " turning his back " to the person in the pew behind him, and he to the next, and so on, a whole line of offenders, up to the Western door of the Church. Considering that for thirty years none of my con- gregation had to my knowledge ever thought my position wrong; considering too, that, by long habit, I had found it to be edifying to myself, help- ing to direct my whole worship personally, without distraction, to the duty in which I was engaged — (as it is said, " Sursum corda — habemus ad Domi- num"), I could not easily think the objection of controversialists to be quite sincere, I knew that I was " turning my face " to the Lord, and never thought of " turning my back " anywhere. I do not stand at the altar to pay compliments to any man — nor did I imagine that I was doing the reverse when I "turned to" the altar. As well might I tell a man who covered his eyes with his hands, or closed them in prayer, that he was " ashamed to look me in the face." My Lord, this would be too small a point to reason or speak about, but that its smallness has not deterred the smallest of disputers from using it as a weapon ad invidiam, against some of the Clergy, and controversialists have been weak enough, in their dire necessities, to stoop to this. 20 What says the Law f Of course, it might be desirable, when the question is raised — if indeed such a matter may not be left to right itself in time, — to have it settled. But, mean- while, why persecute one another for preferring either position ? Neither need claim credit for saying that they shall obey the law, when really declared, whichever way this matter may be settled. But will the present objectors '' obey the law," if it be decided against them ? We are bound in charity to hope they will : else, where is their sincerity ? The raising of a false issue is always unworthy. No honourable mind would be party to it ; and if the objectors to the Priest's position in celebrating are resisting the doctrine of the Eucharist, they ought to say so like men ; and then not hesitate to move for a change in the Office "for Order- ing Priests"; and they should certainly blush to affect affront at a point of etiquette like '* turn- ing the back " to the people, when such grave realities are believed to be in debate. Least of all should they give it out that they are but seeking to check the " excesses of the younger members of the Pitualist party." Some of us at all events are not very young members of the Church, and are content to be old-fashioned and orthodox, without attaching ourselves to any party at all. Some thousands will say this, thousands who will be wronged unspeakably by any change, in this or other respects, which deprived them of liberty and Private Confession. 21 peace in the Church, which, for all their lives thus far, they have enjoyed. Next, as to the practice of private Confession. The objections urged by many are directed wholly against all relief of conscience to the Pastors of the Church. Can that be sincere ? If men wished to restrain abuses, to prohibit inexperience, to dis- courage superstitious theories, and fall back^ as our Church does, on the Primitive rule, no one would have ground to complain, whose voice was worth listening to for a moment. Whatever is lax and unauthorized, especially in those who have not "cure of souls," (and I am far from underrating its impor- tance), might be met by the public admonitions and guidance of our Bishops — but cannot be in the slightest degree touched by coarse insinuations against prayerful and high-minded men, as pure as any that our Church, or any Church, ever possessed. The Pastors of all Christian communities are expected to " watch for souls as those who must give account." The imputations cast on parish priests for ministering to all who come, as God shall in each case give the wisdom, are equally applicable to the " ministers of every denomination " who attempt to do their duty in " bearing their peoples' burdens, and so fulfilling the law of Christ." Nor can any conceivable law of man touch such converse with souls, any more than it could pro- hibit thoughts, or rule that no two human beings shall speak together on any subject without wit- 22 Private Confession. 11 esses. Religion is a matter of the personal con- science, and this outcry is a tower of strength to the godless, who would distance all Eeligion thus. My Lord, if all this insincere dealing with so great a subject were discarded, and the public teach- ing thereon were protected by a watchful zeal on the part of those " who seem to be pillars " among us, the disturbance raised as to Confession would die of itself. — The question of the *' seal of Confession " is explained in the 113th Canon of our Church, and guarded by the penalty of " Irregularity," L e, ' deprivation.' The subject, if it is to be recon- sidered, could only be dealt with by those who hold responsible place in the Church. The deli- cacy, and difficulty, of the whole treatment of souls anxious about eternal things, need not to be pointed out to your Lordship. And to those who are not anxious for themselves, and are perhaps careless and ignorant, it would be useless to say more than to remind them again of the " insincerity " which attaches to all interference which ignores the principal conditions of the matter to be con- sidered. — So strong however is prejudice here, that a good man^ in a speech at a London meeting, lately said that, even on a death-bed, a most sensitive Christian's sorrow, if he is burdened with sin, sliould be audibly " confessed" in the presence of his friends around him, — and that even then, he should not be really " absolved," but rather taught that the so-called absolution had no eflicacy ! — and that that Reformers of the Ritual, 23 was what " our Church intended " to be done in the Yisitation Service ! — Did any one, (we may well ask,) ever do that ? — Or did the Church make pro- vision thus for what is impossible ? — Hardly could that earnest speaker have made the case really his own ! To legislate, then, with the hope of satisfying* the unreal, and to do so at the risk of the well-being, if not the very being, of the Church of England as an Establishment would seem to be the task to which these persons would invite us. For some such reformers no field is so attractive as the Ritual of our Churches, and we cannot doubt that they would willingly prune everything ecclesiastical — from the beginning to the end — from the high priest's Trirakov worn, as Eusebius says, by St. John, to the surplice of the modern chorister. Not how- ever to occupy your Grace unduly on this point, it may be enough to urge on your notice here also the " insincerity " of a great deal that is brought against those promoters of Ritual to whom the Church owes so much of the revival of the whole tone of our devotion everywhere, and, in some places, the re-creating in thousands of minds the lost idea of the public worship of God. A glance at the Church papers e.g, during the past week will suffice to show the most casual reader how effectual a series of services — unknown, in form at least, to our immediate forefathers — have been held in our sacred edifices -in opposition it 24 Rihialistic Development. seems certain, every one of them, to that great act of Parliament, the "Act of Uniformity" of 1662. From the Passion music of Westminster Abbey and St. Paurs,> the " Stations " of St. Peter's London Docks, and the " Words from the Cross " at St. Mary Newington, and the overwrought devotions of St. Peter's Eaton Square, there has at this time gone forth a power which certainly no statute can stop. But can it then be wise to try to stop it — or expect to do so ? — Is it " sincere " ? Again, let it be said, my Lord, that many of us whose own personal feelings are far from adopting all, or half the Ritualistic development, trust that it may be doing a work with others, if not with us. Such crowds of worshippers (the word is used advisedly) have in such times and places been un- known among us in London till now. If any should tell us, alas too truly, of excesses here and follies there, we may, at least for the present, answer with St. Paul (when informed that some in mockery and pretence were "preaching Christ ") : " every way Christ is preached, and I therein do rejoice, yea and will rejoice." Or, if there were more than questionable matters proved against some of the promoters of this mingled work, it niiglit we think be our wisdom to " let both grow together until the harvest." We may come, my Lord, to the last, and by far the most discreditable, because it is to be feared the most " ii] sincere," of all the pleas for " New Persecuting Legislation. 25 Legislation." If there really exists any sane person of education who dreads the growth of Popery in England, or who, after the Ecclesias- tical Titles Act of Lord Russell, believes, on the other hand, in checking " Popery " by any per- secuting action of the Legislature, it would be worth his while to look at the statistics of the English Roman Catholicism — its Chapels, Colleges, Schools, and their inmates for the last thirty years, and compare them with the growing population. There we may leave him to his reflections. Still, for all this, there is a kind of lingering supersti- tion in the classes who are uneducated, on which any one who wishes may engraft a panic of " No Popery." It is here that agitators still find an un- failing resource. The idea that our England in the nineteenth century is to be surprised by Ritual into "giving up its liberty to the Pope," is not more rational than the supposition of our all becoming Plymouth brethren. Perhaps it is less so. But it answers an indistinct, and not religious purpose, which however the agitators (themselves generally external to the Church) could not put into clear sentences, if they tried. Admitting, freely, that in raising the " No Popery cry " against those who have ornate Churches and Ser- vices, there are some who have a vague rough prejudice, an honest horror, which is quite genuine, we may own that they who are thus impressed may, in some sense, be excused for their readiness 26 Persecuting Legislation. to persecute before hand, those who (as they are told) might burn them some day, if they had the chance. But it is impossible to think that the persecuting spirit of the mere agitators pursuing a dozen obnoxious individuals or Churches, in London, is moved by this conviction of danger impending to our political liberties. And if so, their availing themselves of this chimerical pre- judice of the masses is another example of con- spicuous and disgraceful " insincerity." It may be^ my Lord Archbishop, that our argu- ment seems to oblige the inquiry v^hether all irregularities, except such as the present law can reach, should be left to go on, and probably in- crease — " irritating some Churchmen at all events, and many Nonconformists, who ought rather to be won than distanced ? " But this scarcely yet follows from what has been said. If it did, the Church of England perhaps might bear it and prosper under it, as she has prospered — the good sense of the nation throwing off the crudities of parties, and outliving their strifes. But we can intimate another course which is at least possible; even though every section among us might derive strength from what has been described as a ''policy of masterly inaction" on the part of those in power, such as has been pleaded in these pages. There is what may be termed a moral course. Think, my Lord, of the overbearing and knowing assailants of our faith in these days who must be Conclusion. 27 met. Shall the Church of England have men to nieet them ? — as well as other men to rouse pious feeling in the masses ? Will not a policy of en- couragement promote this, far better than a policy of coercion ? The successors of Professor Huxley, Mr. Darwin, Mr. Mill, and Dr. Tyndall, will go farther from us than they. Surely their teaching will not be encountered hereafter by those who are licensed to think by Act of Parliament? We have as much of this already as any Church will bear. Another treatment is required. So long as we firmly stand on the " historical facts" of our Christianity, with such freedom in other things as we now enjoy, we may hope all things, and dare all things for our glorious cause ; but there is a strong conviction among us, my Lord, that any new restrictions will operate injuriously in more ways than men suppose at present. At all events, we intreat, — let them not be ventured on for a moment, without far, far stronger reason than yet has been shown. The other course, too, the adoption of which might we believe suppress much of undesirable irregularity in some quarters, is a course which has not been tried hitherto. — Let your Grace, if we might presume so to say, summon to you the more prominent and representative members of the clerical body, of all the great parties among us — hear them, and be heard by them. They would not be more than the nave of our Cathedral would 28 Conclnsion. hold, and after prayerful deliberation with them, and with your com -provincial Bishops, your Grace might put forth your own solemn Admoni- tion, before Grod and the Church, on the more important points of the present Ritual contro- versies — which you might desire either to close, or to leave open as much more wise. Who would question that God's blessing would be on such a course ? Your Clergy, we believe, would obey, "for conscience' sake." The Clergy of surely all the Bishops, (at least with few excep- tions — for some Bishops seem, it is said, to have made obedience very hard,) the Clergy as a body would be glad if they could to find peace in their obedience ; and our Church would be a " spectacle to the world" of a Unity that would strengthen us to " do all things " for Christ our Lord. I have the honour to be, My dear Lord Archbishop, Your faithful servant, William J. Irons. 1 « Wi my. "i'^F.