THE UNIVERSITY 
 
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 LIBRARY 
 
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 THREE LECTURES 
 
 TRACTABIANISM, 
 
 DELIVERED IN THE TOWN HALL, BRIGHTON. 
 
 BY THE LATE 
 
 REV. HENRY NEWLAND, M.A. 
 
 “SEMPER EGO AUDITOR TANTUM, NUNQUAMNE REPONAM ?” 
 
 Stxtf) Hftitton. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 JOSEPH MASTERS, ALDERSGATE STREET, 
 
 AND NEW BOND STREET. 
 
 NEW YORK: POTT AND AMERY. 
 
 MDCCCLXIX. 
 
LONDON: 
 
 PRINTED BY JOSEPH MASTERS AND SON, 
 ALDERSGATE STREET. 
 
 »> 
 
TSaAf 
 
 £?3 
 
 TO THE 
 
 VENERABLE THE ARCHDEACON OF TAUNTON. 
 
 My dear Archdeacon, 
 
 What I say in these Lectures I think, and what I think I mean 
 to act up to. I can therefore find no more appropriate patron for them 
 than the man who, on the Education Question, as on all others, meant 
 what he said, and did it. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 Henry Newland. 
 
 667189 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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PREFACE. 
 
 A Pkeface is generally supposed to be an explanation of causes which 
 have produced the Book, sometimes it is also a sort of apology, which 
 the author thinks it necessary to make to the public for having written 
 the book at all. My Preface partakes of both these characters. I 
 wish to -explain, and I feel that I ought to apologise. 
 
 I must confess, in the first place, that as a general rule, the Plat¬ 
 form is not the place for a Clergyman; circumstances no doubt may 
 call him there, just as circumstances may call him into any situation of 
 life whatever, and if they do call him, they fully justify his being there; 
 still the Platform is not his proper sphere of action, and, if ever he 
 appears on it, it is incumbent on him to establish to his own con¬ 
 science, and, if he can, to the judgment of the public also, that he had 
 reason sufficient to warrant him in putting himself in such a position. 
 
 Whether my reasons will be considered of sufficient force to satisfy 
 the public I know not; such as they are, the public shall have 
 them. I know this, that they took a whole twelvemonth to satisfy 
 me, and a good many discussions also, not only in my own Union, but 
 among my friends in other parts of England. I took a long while to 
 make up my mind, and till I had made it up, I did not come forward. 
 But when I had, I went at my work boldly, and boldly I mean to con¬ 
 tinue it. I have delivered these three lectures on Tractarianism, and 
 purposely chose for them as untractarian a locality as I could find. I 
 have been successful hitherto, and next season I mean to deliver three 
 more. There’s nothing, after all, like Luther’s maxim, “pecca for- 
 
 a 2 
 
VI 
 
 titer;” or Sir Boyle Boche’s, “The best way to avoid danger is to 
 meet it plump.” 
 
 All that can be said against such a measure I have considered 
 already. I am aware that it is open to many objections, and no one 
 can appreciate the weight of these objections better than I. All I say 
 is, that when I considered and compared the reasons for and against 
 this course, those which were in favour of it seemed to me of more 
 weight than those which were against it. 
 
 Let me not be set down as an egotist in saying this, though of 
 necessity I must speak principally of myself. Let me not be supposed 
 to attach any particular importance to my own opinions. I am not so 
 much seeking to justify myself and my own individual conduct, as I am 
 that of the Union of which I have the honour to be Secretary. The 
 Committee of the South Church Union have, on deliberation, deter¬ 
 mined that it is advisable to speak openly to the people, and in this 
 determination I fully concurred; now therefore, in justifying myself 
 for the advice I gave, I am justifying also the Committee for the course 
 they are taking. The reasons which influenced me, and which in¬ 
 fluenced the Union, are these : 
 
 No publications that I have ever heard of have had so great an effect 
 on the public mind, as the “ Tracts for the Times.” Whether those 
 Tracts are approved of or disapproved of, all must admit this, for the 
 whole framework of society has been moved by them; its relative parts 
 mayremain as far separated from each other as ever, though I hardly think 
 they do, but the whole of society together has, since their publication, 
 taken a churchward move. The very Dissenters build their meeting¬ 
 houses with an ecclesiastical character, they adopt our chants and our 
 liturgies, and, whereas in the days of the Evangelical leading, the 
 Church was copying Dissent, Dissent has in these Tractarian days, 
 begun to copy the Church. Men do right in calling us Tractarians; 
 we may not have read the “ Tracts for the Times,” we certainly do not 
 defend or approve of all that was said in them; but it was the “ Tracts 
 for the Times” that roused the Church from its slothfulness and its 
 slumbers : it was the “ Tracts for the Times” that set men’s minds on 
 the watch for the truth; and, whether they were or were not the actual 
 
Vll 
 
 means of leading them to it, at all events they showed them where it 
 was to be found, and how to find it. As it was the Truth, and not 
 Wesley’s organization; as it was the Truth, and not Simeon’s preach¬ 
 ing, that moved, and in a measure revived the Church in former days, 
 so it was the Truth and not the “ Tracts for the Times” which moved 
 and revived it in ours. The Tracts were the vehicle which conveyed it 
 to men’s minds. 
 
 The religious revivals of former times laboured under one very 
 serious defect, and in one respect at least, the present movement has 
 had the very same defect as those which preceded it;—its action has 
 been partial, and not general. The entire framework of society has 
 been moved no doubt, but the moving power has been applied exclu¬ 
 sively to one section of it at a time; and tbus the rest, when it was 
 impelled forward, was impelled as it were with a wrench. The rough 
 eloquence of Wesley, and his utter disregard of self, spoke forcibly to 
 the lower classes; but it spoke to the lower classes only, his vulgarity 
 and assumption confined it to them. So also the real though unprac¬ 
 tical piety of the old Evangelicals was the very thing for a religious 
 but uneducated middle class, but its shallowness confined it to the 
 religious and uneducated. While in our times the Tractarian, with his 
 deep reading, logical arguments, and historical precedents, is no less a 
 class controversialist; he speaks to the higher and educated classes, 
 and to them only. Learning is useless, logic is incomprehensible, and 
 history is an unknown land among the ignorant and uneducated, and 
 such by far the majority of our middle classes are still. 
 
 The fault in each of these movements is the same, each was a class 
 movement; it spoke the language and adapted itself to the feelings and 
 habits of a class. The whole of society was moved by each one of 
 them, for there was Truth in them all, and Truth must prevail; but in 
 all cases it was moved awkwardly and painfully by a force applied at a 
 single point, and that perhaps not a central one. 
 
 In the present instance it is perfectly certain, that throughout the 
 upper and educated classes of society, the effect of the Tractarian pub¬ 
 lications has been wonderful—but there it has stopped. Like a plough 
 set to a certain depth, it has moved the soil readily and effectually as 
 
Vlll 
 
 far as that soil was exposed to its action, but, though the subsoil was 
 just as good and just as fertile, it has glided over and over it without 
 being able to touch it. 
 
 The error was seen and partially corrected; cheap publications and 
 plain writings were tried, but of what use was that among a class whose 
 pursuits are not literary ? The “ Tracts for the Times” had produced 
 their effect among the reading classes, because they were read and 
 weighed. They were bold and startling productions; in some cases 
 they convinced, in some cases they were refuted; but in either case 
 they had done their work, for they had led the men who read and 
 weighed them, to look deeper for themselves, and to search the Church 
 of England diligently, and the Scriptures diligently, to see whether 
 these things were so. 
 
 But they could have no such effect among the non-reading classes ; 
 neither was it of any use to re-write them and re-state their arguments 
 in a plainer style: neither in one style nor in the other were they suited 
 to the habits of those classes; they are non-reading. They can read, 
 no doubt; but that particular class of men, from which our tradesmen, 
 and shopmen, and artizans are taken, read little beyond newspapers for 
 their amusement. Tracts might be written for them, they might be 
 even bought and circulated, but they were not read ,—the plough re¬ 
 quired a different setting. 
 
 Now these people, though they will not read, yet they will attend 
 lectures and public meetings for their amusement. I am very far from 
 thinking that they can be taught their religion by lectures and public 
 meetings, any more than the others can be taught their religion by the 
 “ Tracts for the Timesin neither case they are to be so taught, that 
 is another and a farther step, but their attention is to be roused and 
 directed. When therefore I made up my mind that those classes were 
 to be addressed at all, I determined also that they must be spoken to 
 in the way in which they would listen; not by writing for them, but 
 by speaking to them. I had no expectation whatever in these lectures 
 of convincing people of any class, still less of teaching them their duty 
 towards their Church and their G-od. My business was to excite their 
 attention, to lead them to make inquiries for themselves, to induce 
 
IX 
 
 them to go to those whose business it was to teach them. To teach 
 them was Mr. Wagner’s and Mr. Gresley’s work, not mine. They 
 were to spin the threads and weave the fabric of English Churchman- 
 ship ; what I undertook was merely to beat off the husks, and prepare 
 the rough material. My lectures in the Town Hall would be useless, 
 and I knew that they would be useless, were it not for the Church in 
 West Street. 
 
 But I have yet another reason, that contained in the line of Juvenal, 
 which I have adopted as my motto : 
 
 “ Semper ego auditor tantum, nunquamne reponam ?” 
 
 We are not the first in this method of addressing the middle classes : 
 their minds have not been left as a blank sheet of paper, open to take 
 any impression that may be offered to them. Men less scrupulous than 
 ourselves have been already at work; their own peculiar literature, the 
 public prints, have been unsparingly brought into play. “ Punch is 
 with us,” said Mr. Close, of Cheltenham, and the lecture room has 
 been made an engine of religious warfare long before we ever turned 
 our attention to it. 
 
 It is as idle to accuse us of disturbing the Church by this, as it was 
 for the wolf to accuse the lamb of disturbing the stream ; the provoca¬ 
 tion did not come from us to them, but from them to us; and when 
 accused, as we are accused, of not sitting down content and suffering 
 our adversaries to load the Church with insults in all peace and quiet¬ 
 ness, we reply, as Elijah replied before us, “ I have not troubled Israel, 
 but thou and thy father’s house.” 
 
 It was, indeed, long before we moved—for a long while we sat and 
 listened to the frothy harangues, or read the truculent articles with a 
 sort of half-amused half-contemptuous wonder, at what would come 
 next, what preposterous falsehood would next be palmed upon the 
 public conscience, what absurdity would be the next grievance, or what 
 wonderful piece of ignorance would next unblushingly and innocently 
 develop e itself. 
 
 This was incaution in us; it was ignorance of human nature: we 
 might have known, that where prejudices are involved, no story is too 
 
X 
 
 absurd for popular credence. We might have remembered the old 
 cavaliers and the child-eating propensities so readily ascribed to the 
 followers of the Lumleys and Gorings in Charles’ days. We might 
 have seen that the English public of our own times is neither wiser nor 
 less credulous than ever it was then—that statements had been roundly 
 asserted on one side, and had not been balanced by counterstatements 
 on the other, that the old bugbear of Popery had been newly dressed 
 up and presented to the public gaze, while no one had given himself 
 the trouble of revealing the turnip, the white sheet, and the pole which 
 composed it. Pacts had been shamelessly misstated, it is true, but how 
 was the public to know that ? downright fictions had been invented, 
 but who was there to say that they were fictions ? The public acted 
 honestly to the best of its information; but if the information possessed 
 by any particular portion of that public was bad, whose fault was it 
 but that of those who gave it no better ? 
 
 The fault lay with us. We had not made ourselves acquainted with 
 the habits of the class we wished to deal with. We had plenty of 
 reason on our side, no doubt, but we had put our reason in such a 
 form that it never reached those whom we wished to convince. And 
 in the mean while our opponents, by merely falling in with the habits 
 and prejudices of the people, gave a show of reason even to absurdi¬ 
 ties. We were satisfied with joking among ourselves about how a 
 learned prelate had rubrical scruples on the propriety of permitting the 
 general confession to be made in monotone, because in his ignorance 
 be imagined that this expression meant one man’s voice; and how a 
 zealous sailor took the exact compass bearings of the Altar, and gravely 
 complained to his Bishop that the parson was two points westward of 
 his true position . 1 
 
 We never troubled ourselves with explaining these things. We fan¬ 
 cied because they were absurd that they could do no harm; that their 
 absurdity would be their best refutation. We overlooked the spirit of 
 that wise as well as witty repartee which Sheridan made to a noble 
 Lord who proposed to take the “ sense of the country.” “ Do so, my 
 Lord, and welcome, and we will take the nonsense of it, and depend 
 
 1 These are facts. 
 
XI 
 
 upon it we shall leave your Lordship in a very small minority indeed.” 
 This is our mistake; we Churchmen have been satisfied with taking 
 the sense of the country, and we have gained it; but we have made no 
 provision for its nonsense. 
 
 Now let me not be supposed to speak or think disrespectfully of 
 the nonsense of my native land, for under that term I comprehend 
 not only those who judge hastily and thoughtlessly, but a great num¬ 
 ber of very worthy individuals, who have neither time nor oppor¬ 
 tunity, nor learning enough to form an opinion of their own, but who, 
 being free Englishmen, are very tenacious of their Englishmen’s right 
 to have their own opinion, and therefore are satisfied with taking up 
 that of their customary newspaper, and fighting for it stoutly. They 
 never read religious works, not they, they have no time for such 
 reading; their morning paper, or their weekly paper, or their monthly 
 periodical, is enough for them; and, as for their views of religion, 
 these, if they are so inclined, they pick up without much trouble at 
 Exeter Hall, or at the National Club, or at the Protestant Defence 
 Society. The arguments they hear there are all on one side, no 
 doubt, but one side, as James I. pithily expressed it, is quite enough 
 for an honest man. 
 
 Few of these men,—I may say none of them, worthy men as they 
 are,—know what the Church of England is, and what it is not; what 
 it commands, and what it forbids; what is the restoration of a forgot¬ 
 ten precept, and what is an innovation on a legal canon; all are zeal¬ 
 ous, and very properly so, for their own English Church,—the Church 
 of the [Reformation,—only they are ignorant what the Church of the 
 [Reformation is, or what the Eeformation itself was, and they have 
 neither time to find it out, nor patience to investigate the dry books 
 and tracts which would inform them. These are the very men for the 
 interested and designing to work upon; their very conscientiousness, 
 their religious feelings, their attachment to their Church, blind and 
 ignorant as it is, even though it be honest and sincere, their very con¬ 
 servatism, that is to say their firm determination to preserve all the 
 usages of their Church which they themselves have ever seen, or have 
 ever had explained to them, these very virtues do but render them 
 
Xll 
 
 more ready and willing dupes to those whose interest it is to preserve 
 abuses and to denounce all order and all restoration as mere Popery. 
 
 Two years ago, and I was as harmless and inoffensive a country 
 parson as any in the land. I minded my schools, I visited my poor, 
 I preached my weekly sermon, and said my daily prayers; I never 
 dreamed of lecturing, I never thought of dabbling in controversial 
 ink. In those days it had never come into the head of any of my 
 parishioners that their parson had done wrong, or could do wrong, 
 for their parson had never made a change capriciously, or without re¬ 
 flection, and had never introduced it without private as well as public 
 explanation; they were quite innocent of Popery, they had heard of it 
 no doubt, and hated it of course, but none of them knew exactly 
 what Koman Catholics looked like, and whether Jesuits were not 
 to be known by their horns and hoofs. The changes, such as they 
 were, that I had made in the service might possibly have seemed 
 strange to them at first, but by that time they had become old and 
 established usages, neither questioned nor thought of; they were the 
 way, according to the Westbourne use, in which prayer was wont to 
 be made. 
 
 In the midst of all this comes down upon us like a storm in harvest 
 the Popish Aggression. Then we had Lord John Eussell’s letter, 
 followed by a circular from the Duke of Manchester and his Na¬ 
 tional Club. These were the real disturbers of the Church’s peace. 
 To suit their own purposes they took advantage of the just but some¬ 
 what blind and ignorant indignation which pervaded the land, and 
 succeeded in turning it from those whom they did not care about upon 
 us whom they both disliked and feared. 
 
 Whatever may be said of the propriety of public lectures, it was 
 Lord John Eussell and his Grace of Manchester and my Lord Shaftes¬ 
 bury, and their petty imitators, the Sir Thomas Blomefields, the 
 Sir Culling Eardleys, the Spurrells, and the Horsmans, men weak 
 enough no doubt, but still mischievous if unopposed and unrefuted, 
 who made me what I am; from that time forward I joined the South 
 Church Union, from that time forward I set it before me as a duty to 
 explain those things as widely as was in my power to those whom 
 
Xlll 
 
 these agitators were misleading, and to do it in a way which the care¬ 
 less would listen to, and the ignorant comprehend. 
 
 I wish it to be distinctly understood that my warfare is not against 
 the Evangelicals, properly so called, for whom, mistaken as they may 
 be on certain points, I have the highest respect; but on those who 
 would ride into notoriety upon their shoulders, the Manchesters and 
 Blomefields of their party, and that my warfare is, after all, only de¬ 
 fensive. I replace distorted facts in their true light, I state truths in 
 plain language, for my object in my Lectures is to open the eyes of 
 the people, and to show them that in finding fault with the customs 
 and teaching of us, whom they had been taught to call Tractarians, 
 they are finding fault not with us, but with their own Church, whose 
 teaching and whose customs we are upholding; that in their ignorance 
 they are the innovators, not we; that they have been permitting their 
 Church to become dilapidated, and that we are but restoring what they 
 have let slip, and bringing back into light what they have forgotten. 
 
 I have no particular predilection for the light style in which I have 
 chosen to convey this information. I fully agree with the Record , 
 that a graver and severer style would be far more appropriate, but my 
 object is to have my Lectures read , and I do remember two pamphlets 
 of mine, “The Kingdom of Christ,” and “Whom has the Pope 
 aggrieved ?” that the first was grave in style, and the latter light and 
 satirical; and I do remember that the proportion in which these two 
 pamphlets sold was somewhere about one to twenty. If I am to write 
 against popular writing, I must write, whether I like it or not, in the 
 style of popular reading. 
 
 Hitherto we have taken no note of these things, and because we 
 have taken no note of them, National Clubs and Protestant Defence 
 Associations have waxed bold by impunity; we despise them, of 
 course, but they “ applaud themselves and count up their subscrip¬ 
 tions.” Unrefuted only because unassailed, they try a higher and a 
 higher flight, until now at last they have succeeded in arousing us, and 
 impressing on our minds the truth of the Irish maxim, “ that de¬ 
 spising is all very well in its way, but that the only safe plan after 
 all is to thrash your enemy first and despise him afterwards.” 
 

 
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TRACTARIANISM. 
 
 LECTURE I. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 I am glad to see so many collected here to-night. I think it is a hope¬ 
 ful sign of the times that people take an interest in matters of religion. 
 This is in itself a revival of the Church,—few would have done so fifty 
 years ago. 
 
 Whether you do or do not agree in the view I myself take of the 
 subject; whether you are Tractarians or Anti-Tractarians at this mo¬ 
 ment signifies comparatively little; what people want in these days is 
 zeal to excite them; with this moving power they may go wrong for 
 the time, no doubt, but if they combine with this a thirst after know¬ 
 ledge to guide them, and Christian charity to keep them from thinking 
 ill of their neighbour who differs from them; they will not be long be¬ 
 fore they understand, not perhaps Tractarianism or Anti-Tractarianism, 
 but the true laws of the kingdom of God. 
 
 I hope every one here is fully alive to the value of a good name. 
 Charteris was: perhaps you never heard of Charteris; he was, how¬ 
 ever, a great man in his way. He was a very great rogue, who lived 
 , in the last century, but rogue as he was, he knew well the value of a 
 good name. Speaking to one of his old companions in the latter days 
 of his life, when he was old and poor, he said, “No one knows the 
 value of a good name, until he has lost it. Poor as I am, I would 
 give £10,000 at this moment for the good name which I once pos¬ 
 sessed, for I am quite sure I could make £20,000 by it.” In the opinion 
 of Charteris, therefore, the intrinsic value of a good name is £10,000; 
 and he is quite right. The man with a good name may, metaphorically 
 speaking, steal a horse, while he with a bad one may not look over a 
 hedge. 
 
 With the moral of this story in my mind, as fully impressed as 
 
 B 
 
2 
 
 Col. Charteris could have been with the value of a good name, I yet 
 come before you in all confidence, though the possessor of a very bad 
 one,—I am called a Tractarian. 
 
 I come before you in all confidence, and I will tell you why. The 
 English character abhors deceit, and when a man comes before them 
 fairly, openly, and honestly, concealing nothing, extenuating nothing, 
 nor setting down aught in malice, I feel sure that he will receive from 
 an English audience a hearing as fair and honest as his own fairness 
 and honesty deserves. I am not the apologist of Tractarianism, I am 
 its historian. I tell you facts as they are, I leave you to judge of 
 them. I abhor concealment, not only because it is wrong, but because 
 I feel certain that the more we are known, the more we shall be ap¬ 
 preciated, and that the greatest enemy that we have is the ignorance of 
 our sentiments, our opinions, our views and objects, which even in this 
 day is so universal. Our present object is to remove ignorance, to re¬ 
 pudiate concealment, to show ourselves as w r hat we are, and then in all 
 confidence to leave the judgment to the public,—all we want is what 
 Englishmen never yet denied,—a clear stage and no favour. 
 
 What are Tractarians ? If the question had been put in another 
 form—how came certain persons to be called Tractarians, it would be 
 impossible to answer it. We are called Tractarians, no doubt, and 
 Puseyites, and there is such a man as Dr. Pusey, and a very amiable, 
 worthy, learned, pious man he is, but withal, a very retiring man, and no 
 leader, not in any way calculated to play the part of first conspirator. 
 
 There are also certain publications called “ Tracts for the Times,” 
 but many of us have never seen them, few of us have read them all, 
 none of us, I suspect, would like to be bound by them, or to make 
 them our confession of faith. 
 
 In truth we are called Tractarians, not because the name was appro¬ 
 priate, but because people could find no better for us. Lutherans 
 were the followers of Luther, Calvinists of Calvin, Wesleyans of Wes¬ 
 ley, Protestants were those who were bound by the Confession of Augs¬ 
 burg ; all this was straightforward and easy; but people could find 
 for us neither recognized leader, nor distinctive tenets. Does not this 
 look very much as if we had no distinctive tenets separate from those 
 of Christ’s Church now in England, and had no leader except its 
 Divine Master and Founder, acknowledged no doctrine and fellowship 
 except that of the Apostles, and no bond except that of the breaking 
 of the Bread, and of the prayers ? 
 
 It is so,—still we do not wish to blink the question; you have mis¬ 
 named us, but we plead to the indictment. Tractarians we are not, 
 but we are what you call Tractarians. 
 
3 
 
 And now we will tell you wliat we are : Tractarians are the reformers 
 of the nineteenth century. 
 
 If ever I have the pleasure of addressing you again, I will endeavour 
 to point out to you those particulars in which Tractarians differ from 
 other Reformers; which part of the subject our time will not suffer us 
 to enter into very fully to-night. 
 
 On this occasion, I shall for the most part confine myself to two 
 propositions; 
 
 1. That with respect at least to discipline, the Church of England 
 needs reform. 
 
 2. That those men commonly called Tractarians are its Reformers. 
 
 TRACTARIANS ARE THE REFORMERS OF THE NINETEENTH 
 
 CENTURY. 
 
 There is a truth which churchmen as well as politicians would do 
 well to bear in mind; that constant and continual reform is the neces¬ 
 sary condition of existence to everything here below. Decay itself is 
 constant and unceasing. Repair therefore must be constant and un¬ 
 ceasing also; nothing that has life is stationary. 
 
 Gifted ourselves by our Creator with the principle of life, which it¬ 
 self is only the perpetual struggle of animal energy against natural de¬ 
 cay, we have the power of imparting life to our institutions; but we 
 must not forget that we do not ourselves create it,—we can impart life 
 to them only by living in them, and therefore it is, that every institu¬ 
 tion, be it what it may, requires a constant succession of living agents 
 to keep it alive. The very best constitution that ever State was blessed 
 with, would decay and fall to pieces, were it not that living men were 
 continually watching over it—continually repairing the little breaches 
 which time or accident has produced; not altering it indeed, but adapt¬ 
 ing it always to the current wants of passing times. 
 
 And in like manner, the Church of God itself, with its holy consti¬ 
 tution, the Bible, would be practically dead,—dead to us, that is,— 
 were it not for those living men whom its Blessed Rounder has ap¬ 
 pointed, continually to watch it, immediately to repair its breaches, 
 and—not to alter it, that were impossible, but—constantly to apply it 
 to the peculiar wants of existing generations. 
 
 In Church and State alike, these men, whether they themselves are 
 or are not conscious of the fact, are reformers; their office is continu¬ 
 ally to repair and restore to its original form, or in other words to 
 reform, whatever has fallen into temporary decay. They are there- 
 
4 
 
 fore reformers, and it is for this reason that I say, that reformers are 
 as necessary to the Church as they are to the State. 
 
 To say that Beformers often do a great deal of mischief, is quite 
 true, but nothing to the purpose. There are such things as ignorant, 
 pig-headed, interested, rash, and worthless reformers in both Church 
 and State, and many of them; just as there are ignorant carpenters, 
 and pig-headed masons, and interested lawyers, and rash physicians, 
 without proving the inutility of their respective professions. These 
 are spoken of as Beformers no doubt, but they are not what they call 
 themselves, they are destroyers in disguise, and it is the unwise, as 
 well as wicked energies of these men, which have given a bad sense to 
 a good word, and have caused Beform to be confounded in our minds 
 with Innovation. 
 
 Necessary, however, as reformers are to both Church and State, the 
 two enjoy a very different degree of popularity, and for this plain rea¬ 
 son, every one can see the wants of his body, but every one cannot see 
 the wants of his soul. When the tax-gatherer puts his hand into my 
 pocket, I feel it very sensibly to be an evil; when he shuts up my 
 windows, I am inconvenienced; when he puts an additional two-pence 
 on my beer, or an additional penny on my bread, I wish it were other¬ 
 wise every day of my life ; and if we lived in a land less free than ours, 
 we should feel all this still oftener: for instance, if, as in the case of 
 fraternal Trance, or liberal Switzerland, we could not move from town 
 to town without asking leave of the police, we should be continually 
 made sensible that we are not treated as freemen; and the State Be¬ 
 formers, they who undertook to amend all this, and restore to us our 
 rights, would be popular characters. But we do not feel all this with 
 respect to religious Beformers. Why ? because the wants of our souls 
 are less perceptible to ourselves than the wants of our bodies, because 
 the less a man knows about the concerns of the next world, the less he 
 knows about his wants for the next world. When a man shuts up my 
 window, I feel the want of light, but the more I sit in spiritual dark¬ 
 ness, the more I like it, so long as this world lasts, and therefore it is, 
 that though I hail the State Beformer, and receive him as a friend; I 
 suspect, and I fear, and I dislike the Church Beformer, who would 
 rouse me out of my comfortable sloth that does so well for this world, 
 and who would give me in the place of it something, of which in my 
 spiritual darkness, I do not see the want at all. 
 
 Tor this reason it is, that whenever we look at Church History we 
 find it invariable, that those who have ever done good to the Church— 
 those who founded it—those who preached it—those who repaired and 
 restored it—have been during their own lives the unpopular characters, 
 
5 
 
 while those who opposed them and would continue the errors and 
 abuses, have been popular; Church Reformers indeed do not lose their 
 reward even in this world, but they do not see it,—their works do not 
 go with them—they follow them ; in ages after they have gone to their 
 rest, when we have reaped the fruit of their labours and their self- 
 denial, we honour and reverence them, but while they are on earth, we 
 hate and persecute them. 
 
 When S. Paul came to Rome, all that was known about “ this 
 sect” that he was preaching was, that “it was everywhere spoken 
 against.” Wherever the Apostles and the early Christians came, they 
 preached glad tidings of great joy, but they were not received as the 
 messengers of joyful intelligence. And in after days, almost in these 
 our times of rebuke, Wesley and his followers, who alone in evil days 
 had the courage to arouse a sleeping Church, and to preach its forgotten 
 obligations, were persecuted, and hunted, and driven out of it,—stig¬ 
 matized as they were by the name of “ Methodists.” 
 
 Again, under the leadership of Yenn, Cecil, Wilberforce, and Simeon, 
 a whole host of reformers preached boldly a crusade against the “ Mere 
 Morality,” into which the Church had sunk, called loudly for the long- 
 forgotten doctrines of the Christian Paith; and again did popular 
 opinion lift up its voice against the Reformers. It did its utmost to 
 drown the unwelcome voice of truth in party clamour, and though less 
 successful this time than before in cutting off and rejecting the unwel¬ 
 come element, it did succeed in driving hundreds of earnest energetic 
 “Evangelicals” as the party name now was,—men who would have 
 laid down their lives for the Church—to swell the ranks of Protestant 
 Dissent. 
 
 When Charles Simeon, who lived to be the popular leader of that 
 party, was first appointed to Trinity Church, Cambridge, all the parish¬ 
 ioners with one accord petitioned the Bishop against him. 
 
 The Bishop was firm; he wrote thus: “The parishioners have pe¬ 
 titioned for Mr. Hammond, and unless gratified, insinuate their inten¬ 
 tion of bestowing the lectureship on a different person from my curate. 
 I do not like that mode of application, and if you do not accept it, I 
 certainly shall not license Mr. Hammond.” 
 
 The next day Mr. Simeon preached for the first time in Trinity 
 Church. 
 
 “ The people almost universally,” says Simeon, in one of his letters, 
 “put locks upon their pews, and would neither come to church them¬ 
 selves nor suffer others to do so. Multitudes, from time to time, were 
 forced to go out of church for want of necessary accommodation. I 
 put then a number of forms, and erected at my own expense some open 
 
 b 2 
 
6 
 
 seats; but the churchwardens pulled them down, and cast them out of 
 the church. To visit the parishioners in their homes was impracticable, 
 for they were so embittered against me, that there was scarcely one 
 that would admit me into his house.” 
 
 Again, he says : “ The churchwardens shut the church doors against 
 me. On one occasion, when the congregation was assembled, it was 
 found that the churchwarden had gone away with the key in his pocket. 
 I therefore got a smith to open the doors for that time.” 
 
 I remember that Charles Simeon well, but he was an old man when 
 I knew him. I remember also that Trinity Church, and those doors 
 which had been closed against him by his parishioners : it was equally 
 impossible to enter them then, but it was from the crowds that filled 
 the church. 
 
 He was a Church Reformer of his times; he lived to be an old man, 
 and did what rarely happens—he saw the fruit of his labours. 
 
 Again, and in our own times, there arise a new set of Reformers, 
 who urge self-denial, work, obedience, energy,—who point sternly to 
 forgotten duties, to doctrines neglected, and discipline become obsolete ; 
 who admit of no compromise, no expediency measures ; who are con¬ 
 scious that they have had a trust committed to them, and who will 
 preserve it intact; who stand up for the whole of their Master’s will, 
 for every doctrine that He has given, and for all alike; who belong to 
 Christ’s kingdom, and show that they belong to it by obeying its 
 laws, instead of trying to mend them by the measure of their own in¬ 
 tellect ; who belong to the Church of England, and show that they 
 belong to it by relaxing nothing of all that that Church requires, and 
 by obeying its rules, because they promised to obey them. These men, 
 like those who preceded them, are, by their very lives and doctrines, a 
 living and perpetual reproach to a self-willed, self-indulgent, sensual 
 generation. Like their predecessors, the Evangelicals, they are sus¬ 
 pected and hated. Like that of S. Paul, their sect is everywhere 
 spoken against. Like all Church reformers, they are persecuted. And 
 some of them, like their more faint-hearted predecessors, have been 
 driven from the Church they would have served. As the others sought 
 rest in Protestantism, so these have sought rest in Rome, and like them 
 also, not from preference, but as a refuge from the storm. 
 
 When I was at Plymouth last summer, I saw the precise counterpart 
 of the scene I have been just relating. The very words with which 
 Simeon described his first ministry at Trinity Church, Cambridge, 
 would describe precisely Mr. Elower’s first ministry at Christ Church, 
 Plymouth, to which he was appointed temporary curate by the Bishop 
 of Exeter, down to the very locking of the doors and sending for the 
 
7 
 
 smith to open them. Nay, even bands of ladies, who might have re¬ 
 membered the Roman epitaph, “ domum mansit, lanam fecit,” and 
 stayed at home and minded their crochet-work, went round the town 
 canvassing an insurrection against the Tractarian. The Bishop of 
 Exeter was as firm as the Bishop of Ely had been in the case of 
 Simeon: and when I next visited Plymouth, a deputation had been 
 sent to the patron, praying him to institute that very curate; and a 
 deputation of sixty communicants was waiting on that curate with an 
 address thanking him for his zealous ministrations among them. This 
 was another Church reformer. 
 
 As the first of these sets of Church builders and restorers were stig¬ 
 matised as “ Christians, ’—as the first of those in our own times were 
 called “Methodists,” and the second “Evangelicals,” so these, the 
 third set, are held up to popular clamour as “ Tractarians.” All, and 
 all alike, are objects of popular dislike and distrust, and all for the 
 same reason,—human nature loves darkness rather than light, because 
 its deeds are evil: but only so long as its deeds are evil. 
 
 The reformer of the state sets his energies against evils affecting this 
 world; he ministers to the body, and is popular. The reformer of the 
 Church sets his energies against evils affecting the world to come; he 
 sacrifices the body to the soul, and is hated. So it is, and so it always 
 will be. 
 
 There is, however, one cheering element in all this. Although the 
 Wesleyans were driven, in a body, into schism, and the Evangelicals, 
 who succeeded them, were shattered indeed, and dispersed, and many 
 of them were lost entirely, or for a season, still the greater portion of 
 them remained within the pale of their Church, and are with us still, 
 either in the ranks of the “ Tractarians,” or in their own still existing, 
 though diminished, party. But of the present reformers we have lost 
 comparatively few in number, who, as it was impossible that they could 
 join those who made no pretence even to be a Church, have found their 
 refuge in Rome. TVe do not undervalue our losses : we have lost some 
 of our most active, most learned, most pious, and most zealous men : 
 we have lost them too, at a time when we could least spare them, when 
 every hand was wanted for the work. Still, they are but few : none 
 compared with the thousands severed from the Church on the two 
 former occasions. 
 
 lou are surprised to hear me say that we, the Tractarians, have lost 
 comparatively few from the ranks of the Church, when the public prints, 
 Romanist and Low Church alike, are ringing the changes on the enor¬ 
 mous number of secessions to Rome. 
 
 Deep cause have we to lament these secessions, for to our shame and 
 
8 
 
 our sorrow must we confess, that they have taken place among our 
 best. Our loss is grievous; but if we reckon by numbers, to what 
 does that loss amount P Have there been a thousand conversions in all 
 England ? It is a great many. But of Wesley’s followers, and they 
 were Churchmen once, in 1770 there were 29,000 lost to the Church: 
 in 1780 there were 43,000 : in 1790 there were 71,000 : in 1800 there 
 were 109,000. This is why I say our losses are comparatively nothing. 
 What are 1000 to 109,000? And do you think that 300,000 would 
 cover our losses at this day to this one schism ? This is what I call a 
 loss. We must not measure numbers by excitement. Twenty men 
 would make a crowd in a small room. I do not undervalue the 1000; 
 I regret them exceedingly; but I rejoice that our losses are not now 
 what they used to be. I say, that all this is a decisive proof of general 
 advance in Churehmanship and general gain to the Church. It shows 
 not only diminution of prejudice in the minds of the public, but the 
 establishment and recognition of firmer, truer, better, and more Church¬ 
 manlike principles on the part of the Beformers. The Wesleyan and 
 the Evangelical movements were successful far above what appeared on 
 the surface of society; they did their work, and they made their way 
 for a third. It is like the advancing tide against a sand-bank; wave 
 after wave is beaten back, and, apparently without result melts into the 
 great ocean undistinguished: but it has done its -work; it has opened 
 the way for its successor, it has shaken that which it was unable to re¬ 
 move. The irresistible tide comes on; wave after wave gains ground, 
 till at last, that which once looked so firm, so solid, so impenetrable, 
 so immoveable, is overwhelmed and dissipated in the advancing waters. 
 
 This is the conquest of truth over prejudice. But in the mean while 
 though prejudice be gradually giving way, it is a fact, and an admitted 
 fact, that no man likes to be told that he is wrong—no man likes to be 
 waked out of sleep—it does not follow that men are always in a state 
 to discern who are their real friends, or what is true kindness and 
 charity. When Captain Cook went on his survey round the world, 
 there was attached to the expedition in the capacity of naturalist, a 
 learned Swede of the name of Solander; and when a party from the 
 ships landed in Patagonia, Dr. Solander accompanied them. It was 
 in the depth of winter and a cold south wind accompanied with driving 
 snow surprised the explorers at a distance from their encampment. 
 Dr. Solander called the party round him. “ I have had some experience 
 of this,” said he, “ in my ow r n countries, and you have had none; attend 
 to my advice, for upon it depend your lives. We must resolutely set 
 our faces to get back to the encampment; we must do this without 
 stopping, for the danger lies in falling asleep. I warn you that the 
 
9 
 
 men, as tlieir blood grows cold, will ask to be allowed to rest—do not 
 permit them for one moment—urge them, urge them with blows—urge 
 them with the bayonet if necessary—the wish to stop is the first symp¬ 
 tom of the blood refusing to circulate—to yield to it is death.” 
 
 The party moved on, the wind blew, and the snow fell, and the frost 
 cut them through and through; but stout English hearts held on still; 
 there was no prayer for rest; there was no wish to stop, or, if there 
 was, it was suppressed and kept under by a firm strong will, until at 
 last, to the surprise of all, the Swedish doctor himself asked for a halt, 
 only for five minutes, he said, and they would all get on so much better 
 after it. The lieutenant in command of the party paused a moment, 
 but he recollected the doctor’s own earnest admonitions. “No,” said 
 he, “ urge him on, drive him on, beat him if necessary, do not let him 
 stop for one moment, or he dies.” The doctor expostulated, but the 
 men had had their orders, and acted upon them; he stormed, but 
 British discipline was far beyond the reach of his anger—Swedish tem¬ 
 per is somewhat of the shortest, and the doctor grasping his pole laid 
 about him stoutly, beating this man, pushing at another, kicking a 
 third, still the men drove him on, till at last his blood being got into 
 circulation by his own exertions and the energy of his friends, he awoke 
 to a sense of his danger, and lived to thank his companions for the 
 rough but salutary remedy, and to confess that he owed his life to the 
 steadiness of British discipline and the hearty thwacks of British oak. 
 
 Mo7'al. —Our best friends are not always those who give way to our 
 ill-judged wishes, but it does not therefore follow that we are thankful 
 to them at the time. 
 
 But after all, who are these rough friends to the English Church; 
 who are the Tractarians; what are the Tractarians ; what do they be¬ 
 lieve, or do, or teach ? I might ask this question to every one of you 
 separately, and I should not get from one a definite answer. I never 
 did, often as I have put it. The sect is everywhere spoken against, but 
 when one comes to ask men, why ? what for P we get no answer. They 
 build churches ? yes :—schools ? yes :—they say their prayers ? yes, 
 far oftener than we have ever seen it. They read their Bible P yes, the 
 whole of it, four chapters every day. They give alms ? yes, they are 
 always preaching about it. They do preach then ? yes, constantly, and 
 catechise too. Do they spread the Church of Christ among the hea¬ 
 then ? yes, they have founded colleges for that very thing; they are 
 continually sending out both Bishops and Priests. That seems very 
 like Christians—why then do you hate and persecute them ? what harm 
 do they do ? we know they teach in surplices; what do they teach in 
 them that is w 7 rong ? Who ever got a reasonable answer to this ques- 
 
10 
 
 tion P The most reasonable that I ever got was that they read prayers 
 every morning and called them vespers, which was wrong certainly, 
 and a mistake, but not, one would think, of sufficient importance to 
 account for all this disturbance. Who knows really anything about 
 them ? 
 
 This is a question which really was asked not long ago in a court of 
 law, and people did not seem much more ready with their answer. 
 There was a case brought before Vice-Chancellor Knight Bruce in his 
 court, about a bequest made by some eccentric individual, in which all 
 sects were included by name. But special exceptions were made against 
 Roman Catholics, Protestant Episcopalians, and Puseyites. “ Roman 
 Catholics,” said the judge : “ that is clear enough. Protestants of the 
 Episcopal Church? well, I suppose I can make out what is meant by 
 that. But Puseyites P—Puseyites ?”—looking round the court—“ can 
 any of my learned brethren tell what are Puseyites ?” An universal 
 silence. “ What! does nobody know what Puseyites are ?”—it seems 
 they did not—for nobody answered. 
 
 Nothing is known about them for certain; yet they are people that 
 you meet with every day. You meet Erenchmen, and Germans, and 
 Italians every day, and you like to find out what sort of people they 
 are, and therefore you read books about Paris and the Parisians, Vienna 
 and the Austrians, Rome and the Italians, and when you think of these 
 people you are not altogether at a loss. Nay, you give yourselves some 
 trouble to see what sort of animals lions and. tigers are, for you pay 
 your shilling at the gate of the Zoological Gardens and read Buffon. 
 Would you not like to know what sort of animals are these Tractarians, 
 from some better source than some of those who have been lecturing 
 in this place ? 
 
 To be ignorant on subjects which we are constantly meeting with is, 
 to say the least of it, awkward. Take an instance,—a stage coach was 
 starting, it matters not from what place, or where it was going to, I do 
 not know myself, but its only inside passenger was a worthy, comely, 
 well-fed, and well-intentioned dame. Just before the coach drove out 
 of the inn yard, the guard opened the door, and a quiet parson-like, 
 middle-aged gentleman, with a meek aspect and a benevolent smile, 
 took his place by her side. Journeys by stage coach take a long while 
 in performing, and, before they had arrived at their respective destina¬ 
 tions, the parties in question had had time for a good deal of conver¬ 
 sation. Being each prepossessed with the other’s appearance and 
 sentiments, they had formed what may be termed a stage coach intimacy. 
 The lady talked much, as ladies of that age are apt to do, of the wick¬ 
 edness of the times, “and then those Puseyites,” said she; “those 
 
11 
 
 wicked Popish Puseyites—they are worse than all put together—what 
 ever shall we come to ?” & 
 
 . “ Puse y itf ;S> ma’am,” said the gentleman : “ what are they, and what 
 wickedness do they commit ?” J 
 
 “ Is it possible sir,” said the lady, “ that you have never heard of 
 those ruseyites, that are turning the world upside down ?” 
 
 ,, 8' entleman admitted that he had heard of such people, but 
 
 that he did not know a great deal about them, and as for turning the 
 world upside down, the lady had just admitted, that she did not see 
 much good in the side which was now uppermost. 
 
 “Do you knovv,” said she confidentially, speaking in a low solemn 
 voice and laying her hand upon his arm, “ do you know that Dr. Pusev 
 himself sacrifices a lamb every Friday?” J 
 
 ‘‘Nonsense ! my dear madam,” said the gentleman, “I assure you 
 he does no such thing.” J 
 
 “I don’t know what you mean by nonsense, sir,” said the lady 
 drawing herself up, and speaking with becoming dignity. “ I suppose 
 you do not mean to doubt my word: and, I assure you, I have it from 
 the very best authority, that it is as I tell you, Dr. Pusey sacrifices a 
 
 But madam, my dear madam,” said he deprecatingly, “ I am Dr 
 Pusey, and I never sacrificed a lamb in my life; I hare not the heart 
 to do it; and I don t know how to kill it either.” 
 
 This is all very well, and very laughable, as far as the surface goes. 
 As a mere story, no one probably enjoyed it more than the individual 
 to whom it happened ; but whenever we give it a deeper thought, and 
 begin to look beyond the surface, it is very sad, and very wicked : be¬ 
 cause, ludicrous as it seems, it is in truth a breach of the ninth com¬ 
 mandment of God, and a proof, if indeed a proof were wanted, that 
 this particular instance was only one out of many, all of them perhaps 
 not quite so innocent. r r 
 
 . respectable, decent old lady in question was, no doubt, not an 
 intentional breaker of God’s commandments: she would have been 
 horrified at the thought of it. She fully believed every word that she 
 said. But she had taken up a story to the detriment of her neighbour’s 
 character, on grounds so light, that to us they appear ridiculous. She 
 had been nourishing a prejudice, and she was then and there dissem- 
 inating that prejudice. Whatever might be her feelings, they were not 
 Christian chanty, for charity - thinketh no evil; charity rejoiceth not 
 in iniquity —that is to say, in finding out or imagining iniquity in 
 other people,—“ but rejoiceth in the truth.” 
 
 Bailing of this kind, or indeed of any kind, in the long run invariably 
 
12 
 
 reacts upon itself, and injures the cause it appears to serve. Machiavel 
 indeed says, that a lie believed for half an hour may change the fate of 
 kingdoms. And this may be true : but then it must be acted upon 
 within the half hour: it must not be about anything that lasts so long, 
 as to suffer the excitement to die away. When people have time to 
 consider, they begin to find out that all is not true which has been so 
 virulently asserted; they begin then to run into the opposite extreme, 
 and to believe that nothing is true; then they come to think that they 
 have done injustice, and Englishmen, of whom justice is the boast and 
 characteristic, are peculiarly sensitive on this head; and then they go 
 just as much into the opposite error, by way of making it up. 
 
 Most of you have heard of the “ Ereischutz,” and a very instructive 
 opera it is, if you will only keep an eye to the allegory, instead of think¬ 
 ing of the story. A huntsman, to forward his own purposes, seeks the 
 devil, and together they cast seven bullets, six of these are to strike 
 wherever the caster wills, but the seventh is to be the devil’s, and is 
 to recoil and strike the caster, who throughout the whole piece is never 
 certain which of them all he is putting into his rifle, and at last is 
 struck down by his own shot. 
 
 These seven bullets are Evil-speaking, and when we use the devil’s 
 weapons, we get the devil’s wages; sooner or later we hurt ourselves 
 by our own efforts, and what is more, injure our own cause, however 
 good and righteous in itself that cause may be. 
 
 Most of you have heard of King James II., and have been accus¬ 
 tomed to consider him as the king who lost his crown because he 
 attempted, contrary to his coronation oath, to introduce Popery into 
 the kingdom of England. 
 
 You are quite right as a matter of history, that was the reason why 
 he lost his crown; but perhaps you would be astonished to hear, that 
 that same James, when Duke of York, and a very young man, had been 
 a sort of confessor for the English Church. 
 
 It was so. During the time of the Commonwealth, when the Eng¬ 
 lish Royal family were residing at the Erench court, both the Duke of 
 York and the Duke of Gloucester suffered at the hands of Henrietta 
 Maria, what to young men of their age must have amounted to almost 
 a persecution. There are extant several very beautiful letters from 
 both Charles and James to their younger brother, exhorting him to 
 persevere and to remain faithful to the Church of his baptism. He 
 did remain faithful, and died a member of that Church. And what 
 was it that turned both his advisers, Charles and James, to Popery ? 
 Not persecution, nor the influence of their mother. We have James’s 
 own account of his conversion, in a letter which he wrote many years 
 
13 
 
 afterwards to his own daughter Mary. In this, after alluding to the 
 stand he had once made against Romish teaching, he attributes his 
 conversion entirely to the virulence of the court preachers, during that 
 disgraceful period of the English history, which is commonly known 
 by the name of the Popish Plot. These men, he said, drove him to 
 examine for himself: he felt disgusted at what he heard, and he deter¬ 
 mined to see for himself what that religion was which they gave them¬ 
 selves so much trouble in denouncing. He consulted, he said, the 
 most eminent of its divines, and they convinced him not only of the 
 groundlessness of the charges, but of the truth of their religion itself. 
 Thus it was, and thus it always will be: men see what is wrong, and 
 then they will mistake the reverse of wrong for right. And if, as I 
 propose to show you presently, the present disorders and general ineffi¬ 
 ciency of the Church of England may be traced back to the secession 
 and consequent abdication of King James, it follows that we owe all 
 these things to the virulence of those court preachers, who in the days 
 of Titus Oates, thought they were strengthening the Church of Eng¬ 
 land by uttering invectives against the Church of Rome. 
 
 Heai an instance of this. I can vouch for its truth, for it happened 
 almost under my own eyes. In one of the sea-port towns in the west 
 of England (I need not say which, for though the event which I am 
 going to 1 elate happened some years ago, there might be still persons 
 living in that town, whose feelings I should be sorry to hurt,—in one 
 of the sea-port towns, then,) there lived a very worthy, hard-workino- 
 Protestant curate. He was a good man, and a good parish priest in 
 many points, though not a very wise one. But he had a monomania. 
 He had an idea that the Pope of Rome was Antichrist, and that he 
 had a special mission to preach against him. True it is, that his 
 parishioners were simple Protestants; that they had never seen a 
 Roman Catholic in their lives, and had no more idea of Transubstan- 
 tiation than they had of the Binomial Theorem. That was no fault of 
 his : and thus year after year did that good man fulfil his mission. 
 Sunday after Sunday did his Protestant thunder shake the walls of the 
 little church; and if the Pope had only heard him!—but the Pope 
 lived in Rome, and in the mean while 
 
 “ He was Sir Oracle : when he oped his mouth 
 No Popish dog did bark.” 
 
 There was no Popish dog to bark. Whether his parishioners profited 
 by all this, or whether they went home 
 
 “ Compounding for sins they were inclined to, 
 
 By damning those they had no mind to,” 
 
 C 
 
14 
 
 it is impossible to say. “ Thus happily the days of Thalaba went by,” 
 till on one unlucky Sunday morning, in the porch of his own church, 
 and in the presence of his own churchwardens, and fully half of his 
 “ respectable congregation,” who had assembled there for their Sunday’s 
 gossip, he was accosted by a well-dressed gentlemanlike man in black. 
 He was much edified, he said, by his reverence’s powerful discourse; 
 in fact, he was well-nigh brought to a sense of his errors, for he must 
 confess that hitherto he had held the doctrines of the Eomish Church. 
 There were however a few questions which he was desirous to have 
 explained, and which he could not very well interrupt the sermon to 
 ask in church; would his reverence kindly meet him the next day in 
 the town hall, when they might each explain to the other the tenets of 
 their respective faiths ? In an evil hour the poor parson consented ; 
 for alas, his adversary was a Eomish Priest, a practised disputant! 
 These men, wise in their generation, never suffer their priests to handle 
 controversial subjects till their talent for doing so has been well ascer¬ 
 tained, a point in which I wish we imitated them. In fact this indivi¬ 
 dual had been sent down for the express purpose. The result may 
 easily be imagined. They met in the presence of half the parish; our 
 poor friend, versed perhaps in the Bible so far as mere texts were con¬ 
 cerned, but very doubtful about what were and what were not the doc¬ 
 trines of his own Church, immeasurably ignorant about those of his 
 adversary, hazarded wild assertions, which were disproved; maintained 
 impracticable points, which were turned to his own disadvantage; o-ot 
 confused, got angry; and, though perfectly on the right side,’ had 
 he only known where he was, or how to handle his weapons, left the 
 field to his quiet, meek, and smiling adversary. 
 
 Moral .—Depend upon it, whenever we talk big against any men, 
 or class of men, even though it be against the Pope of Eome, it is as 
 well to have some knowledge of the subject on which we talk. Por 
 the most effective weapon against any adversary is, when we do possess 
 information, plain truth; when we do not, prudent silence. 
 
 In the town of Newbury, in Berkshire, there is a Dorcas Society. 
 It is composed, of course, of ladies. Why ladies are said to be more 
 given to talk than we men, I am sure I do not know. However, one 
 of their number died, and left the society a legacy, on condition that 
 they met once a year in a given place, to listen to Wesley’s Sermon on 
 Evil-speaking. 
 
 My dear public, if ever I leave you a legacy—don’t expect too 
 much, I have no immediate intention of doing any such thing, but if I 
 do—I will attach the very same condition to my bequest. The very 
 best reader that can be procured shall read you that sermon : and no 
 
15 
 
 one shall enjov his legacy who has not listened to Wesley’s Sermon on 
 Evil-speaking. 
 
 In order to give you some insight into the history of the modern 
 refoimeis, whatever names they may happen to go by, or anything like 
 a collect view of their aims and objects, we must first examine into the 
 state of the English Church, and see in what respects it had evinced 
 symptoms of natural decay, and consequently on what points restora¬ 
 tion was necessary. There had been times in its history, when that 
 decay had extended to the doctrines of the Church. The work of the 
 refoimeis in King Henry s time had been to compare the then existing 
 doctiines with those of the primitive Church, and to ascertain wherein 
 during the course of ages, these doctrines had been added to or dimi¬ 
 nished from. But this was not the case in these later times. The 
 doctrines of the English Church, thank heaven, had been so confirmed 
 and veiified by the earlier reformers,—so fixed, and stamped, and 
 sealed in the Prayer Book by the conferences of King James’s and 
 King Charles the Second s time, that no subsequent negligence has 
 ever been able to shake them. They never were shaken, but they lay 
 dormant; the people had forgotten them, ay, and the clergy too many 
 of them. Discipline had become so relaxed, that men had no idea of 
 what the words Priest and Bishop meant, simply because the Priest 
 and the Bishop were seldom or never presented to their eyes as ambas¬ 
 sadors of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of Con. They con- 
 sideied them, what indeed most of them were, gentlemen or noblemen 
 who had, no doubt, certain duties to perform, but wdio lived in the 
 woild, and with the world, and, for anything they could see, very like 
 any other members of the world. 
 
 And what was the effect of all this? Let me ask you one question, 
 which will seive to show you what the effect was. TVTat is your idea 
 of the word Parson ? 
 
 I remember, when I was ordained deacon, I was staying at the 
 Bishop s palace, and being in conversation with the Bishop’s wife, I 
 carelessly used the word Parson. “Hush! hush!” said she, “you 
 must not talk in that way now, you must say Clergyman, not Parson.” 
 ^ hy ? VV hen I went home I turned to Blackstone’s Commentaries, 
 and found theie, that the term Parson is “ the most honourable, the 
 most beneficial title by which an ecclesiastic can be designated, because it 
 is, Persona ecclesise, the personification or representation of the Church 
 itself. I made the extract and sent it to the Bishop’s wife, and from 
 that day to this, Parson has been my name. My friends speak of me 
 as the Pai son. They address me as Parson, my parishioners down to 
 the pooiest of them call me Parson Newland, and I myself am proud 
 
16 
 
 of the name and title. But for all that the Bishop’s wife was right— 
 that name once so honourable, and now again, thanks to other restora¬ 
 tions, creeping slowly back into honour, had, at the time I am speaking 
 of, become desecrated and degraded. I asked you just now what was 
 your idea of the word Parson: is it not derived from the old carica¬ 
 tures where the Parson is represented with a fat paunch and a pimply 
 nose, carrying away the tithe-pig, while the old sow is pulling at his skirts; 
 or else presiding with a maudlin eye and drunken leer, over the orgies 
 of the parish club P And there was truth in all this, not, of course to 
 the extent represented in the caricature, or as far as men’s imagina¬ 
 tions went. But it must be confessed that there was some truth be¬ 
 neath the surface of these sarcasms, and a good deal of it. We have 
 in one of Archdeacon Paley’s charges, a gentle insinuation, that though 
 he would not interfere with the social enjoyments of his clergy, he did 
 not think it looked well that the Parson of the parish should lounge 
 about the door of the public house with a pipe in his mouth. 
 
 Now do not mistake me. I do not say that this was the type of all 
 the clergy even in the worst of times, or even of the majority ; but I 
 do say that such characters did exist: that the Church was too supine, 
 and the people too indifferent to do away the reproach, and that they 
 existed in sufficient numbers to stamp disgrace on the name of Parson 
 in the estimation of the public. 
 
 And I ask you also this. Although such may be your conventional 
 ideas of Parsons derived from old writings and old prints, did you ever 
 yourselves see anything of this sort ? Parsons may be worldly, some 
 of them, now, and may be covetous—for after all they are but men ; 
 but they are not so openly covetous or shamelessly worldly as to justify 
 such caricatures now. An instance now and then may occur, but he 
 who furnishes it is not suffered now to disgrace his holy calling, he is 
 suspended or expelled the Church; such caricatures are out of date 
 now, neither do you see any such. Just call to mind what the present 
 style of caricature is : how are we Puseyites represented ? not as run¬ 
 ning off with tithe-pigs or roaring drunken songs, but fasting, praying, 
 and such like. Now without venturing any opinion about fasting and 
 praying, at all events they are better things than the old-fashioned 
 drunkenness and debauchery. 
 
 This proves two things; 1st, that so far as discipline was concerned, 
 a reform was needed. And 2ndly, that for some cause or other, and 
 what that cause is we will afterwards discuss, a reform to a certain ex¬ 
 tent has taken place. 
 
 And in doctrines also a reform was needed, and to a great extent is 
 needed yet—not such a reform as was needed 300 years ago, because 
 
17 
 
 for the reason I told you the doctrines had not been altered or inno¬ 
 vated upon, but that did not prevent their being forgotten. They had 
 
 been put aside as inconvenient lumber. Morality had become the 
 teaching of the day. 
 
 For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight, 
 
 His can’t be wrong whose life is in the right,” 
 
 is the sentiment of the most popular poet of the day; I am happy to 
 say the poet himself did not belong to our Church, but to that of 
 Home; still that sentiment was re-echoed and applauded as falling in 
 with the religious notions of the times. Works and human merit 
 formed the popular religion. What wonder then that articles of faith, 
 when drawn again into light, looked cumbersome, heavy, and old- 
 fashioned . But of this we will speak more at large presently; what 
 1 am speaking of now relates to matters of discipline, and hitherto I 
 have spoken of it as relates to the clergy only, but the Church does not 
 consist of clergy only, but of clergy and laity. 
 
 To say that there was ever a time, since the days of the Apostles 
 and apostolic men, when the Church did fully and completely perform 
 the whole of its duty, without presuming on it and arrogating to itself 
 an undue exercise of power on the one hand, or on the other, without 
 shrinking from it, or compromising it, would be to say, not only what 
 If ^ w hat is not possible. Divine institutions are managed 
 
 by fallible men, and men are subject to the infirmities of humanity 
 But to fix a time when the Church did exercise its spiritual powers,* 
 did order its clergy, did restrain its laity—did present the aspect, not 
 of a religion only, but of what it is called in the Bible—a kingdom, 
 with its laws, its ordinances, and its constitution—is a task not so 
 difficult.. A or is it so difficult to show that there was one particular 
 
 1 i /» 1 ^ ^ to fall ; nor why it was that it 
 
 began to fall from that date; nor how, when it had ceased to discharge 
 its mission, it began to lose its hold upon the minds of the people • 
 nor how, except the Lord had left in us a very small remnant, “ we 
 had been as Sodom and we had been like unto Gomorrha.” My belief 
 is that in their turns, the TVesleyans, the Evangelicals, and now the 
 Tiactaiians, have been, and are, God’s instruments for saving the 
 Church—not saving her from any foreign danger that I know of— 
 Papal aggression or State interference; but saving her from herself- 
 saving her from becoming so effete, so worthless, so utterly inadequate 
 to her holy mission, that the Lord Himself would be compelled as it 
 were to remove her candlestick, and that we should then fall by disper- 
 
 c 2 
 
18 
 
 sion, by invasion, by oppression, by disruption, by any of the thousand 
 means which are a sword in God’s hand when He would punish or 
 destroy. 
 
 The time that I shall choose from which to take the history of the 
 Church, and to mark its decline and revival, is from the last days of 
 James the Second’s reign, not that the Church had not had its fluctua¬ 
 tions in discipline and in efficiency before those times, neither that it 
 was at that time by any means perfect, but that it did act then for the 
 last time openly and evidently as a Church, both in administering its 
 internal discipline, and in resisting, and resisting successfully, Papal 
 aggression and State encroachment at once. 
 
 From those days down to our own, the Church has gradually been 
 losing its legitimate action: its energies have been cramped by those 
 who ought to have strengthened them, and it has fallen more and more 
 into a state of slumber: first, it disused, then it forgot, then it lost its 
 powers, until it seemed utterly hopeless to attempt a revival. The 
 whole head was sick, and the whole heart faint. I will show you what 
 I mean by giving you an instance. I say the Church is powerless. 
 
 lou have I doubt not a very distinct remembrance of what was called 
 the Popish Aggression last year. I speak of it now as I wrote of it 
 then, in a little pamphlet of mine called “ Whom has the Pope ag¬ 
 grieved ?” I say now as I said then, that it was to the Church of 
 England a grievance, a wrong, a deliberate and wilful, and moreover 
 an unprovoked and gratuitous denial of our Church, our orders, and 
 our baptism; a blotting us out, as far as the word of man can blot us 
 out, of the map of Christendom, a treating us like heathens. You were 
 incensed, you were angry, and very naturally so; you remember no 
 doubt how you showed it; the meetings and the speechifyings, and the 
 hard words and the strong resolutions; you will not forget the endless 
 and reiterated debates in the House of Commons, and the wearying, 
 wearying, opposition of those Irish members, called very appropriately 
 the Pope’s brass band. And with all this, what has been done? 
 Why! there are the intrusive Bishops still. There is the Cardinal 
 Archbishop of Westminster, and the Bishop of Birmingham, whose 
 existence is illegal; it was only last summer when I was in Plymouth, 
 that there was a grand installation of its intrusive Bishop. With all 
 your clamour you are just where you were, you have said much, but you 
 have done little, and that little is disregarded, and into the bargain we 
 have the satisfaction of finding that while the rules of their Defence 
 Association are signed by Paul, Primate of all Ireland, in their papers 
 our Bishops are spoken of as Mr. Sumner, Mr. Blomfield, Mr. Gilbert. 
 
 It was about this time last year that I wrote thus. After relating 
 
n 
 
 the aggression of a remarkably fine lion into the camp of Mr. Gordon 
 Cum ming, I said: “ our quiet Church has just been roused up from 
 its slumbers by a similar inroad, in like manner the lion was a remark¬ 
 ably fine one, in like manner, the hounds were slipped, and in like 
 manner instead of running their natural game, they have fallen to 
 fighting and quarrelling among themselves. The lion of course will get 
 of unscathed, if indeed he does not chop up some of us by the way.” Was 
 this a prophecy ? at all events it has come true; the lion is unscathed, 
 and some of us are chopped up. Yes, this comes of opposing spiritual 
 weapons by carnal. This is the way the State fights the battles of the 
 Church. This is the way the Church fights when her hands are tied 
 and her voice is stopped. 
 
 But was it always so ? was this the first aggression which the Pope 
 has attempted on the English Church P No, that it was not; nor was 
 it the most formidable. Let me go back to the times I have spoken 
 of. Let me call your attention to a few historical facts, that I may 
 show you what the English Church was once, though even then in a 
 sadly corrupted and degraded state. Let me show you what she did 
 then. And though much that Macaulay has said of her be sadly true 
 even in those times, let me show you how faithful she was then, and 
 the point to which as a preliminary to internal reforms, we Tractarians 
 would restore her. 
 
 The Popish aggression of those days of James the Second was not 
 Avhat it was in ours, it was urged with all the weight of hereditary 
 monarchy, and all the influence of the court, and all the power of 
 government,—the king—the king of England himself was the leader 
 of the aggression. 
 
 M hat was the bulwark against Popery then ? not our “ dissenting 
 brethren, they had been bribed, cajoled, deceived, and flattered by the 
 Toleration Act. Three poor cold pamphlets were all the defence they 
 offered, and these,” as their historian observes, “ stole out as it were 
 by moonlight, as if the authors were ashamed of them, as perhaps they 
 had some reason to be.” 
 
 ? flattering the monarch, they encouraged him in that course 
 which issued in his ruin, and which he could not have pursued so long, 
 had they acted faithfully like the Bishops and Clergy.” Who were 
 King James’s encouragers and supporters in his attempts to bring the 
 Bomish religion into England? Penn, the Quaker, and Cave the 
 Dissenter,—who buoyed him up, and urged him on with delusive ex¬ 
 pectations, and so involved him that in the end it was found impossible 
 to resist the introduction of the Bomish forms of worship without the 
 deposition of the king and almost the recasting of the Constitution. 
 
The Dissenters—Scott writes thus,—“ The Dissenters had at one time 
 coquetted with James II., and showed some disposition to accommo¬ 
 date themselves to his plans of arbitrary power, in order to gratify their 
 vengeance by enjoying the degradation, and perhaps the fall of the 
 Church of England.” Some disposition indeed ! Alsop’s address on 
 the subject, in so many words, “ wishes the king success in his great 
 councils and affairs.” 
 
 And who was it, who at that time, alone and unaided, save by the 
 deep strong voice of the people she had taught, who was it who stood 
 in the gap and made up the breach? I say the Church of England. 
 She had not then been shorn of her convocation, nor were her Bishops 
 then appointed by the prime minister. Two hundred and thirty dis¬ 
 tinct treatises put forth by her members attest at once her learning and 
 her determination. “ The influence of the Government was used to 
 prevent the clergy from introducing the subject into their pulpits, but 
 a stern sense of duty led them to persevere.” The infatuated king 
 persisted, and the fatal declaration of Indulgence was put forth, which, 
 though nominally embracing all sects, was obviously intended for the 
 admission of the Romanists. All the clergy were commanded to read 
 it from their pulpits, and among the thousands in England, two hun¬ 
 dred only were found to do it. A deputation of seven Bishops headed 
 by their Primate, all indeed who could be collected on so short a notice, 
 waited on the king. Eancy a deputation of Bishops in our times 
 waiting upon the Queen to protest against suspicion of heresy or Papal 
 or Erastian aggression on the Church of Christ ; there have been op¬ 
 portunities enough for it if that were all that was wanted. 
 
 “Please your majesty,” said Ken, Bishop of Bath and Wells, “we 
 are bound to fear God and honour the king; we desire to do both, 
 we will honour you, but we mud fear God.” “Ken,” said the king, 
 “ I will be obeyed.” “ God’s will be done,” said the Prelate. 
 
 They were all sent to prison, and the result is well known: their 
 trial, the influence used to procure their condemnation, their acquittal, 
 and the burst of wild acclaim that greeted them, the heartfelt sympa¬ 
 thies of a mighty nation; from street to street it echoed, caught up, 
 repeated, and renewed by concurrent multitudes, heard even at the 
 camp at Hounslow, and returned from thence with louder shout and 
 wilder joy. “ Sire ! it is a revolt,” said an affrighted courtier. “ It is 
 a revolution,” said the king. 
 
 And so it was—the liberties of Christ’s Church had been invaded. 
 “ No weapon formed against thee shall prosper,” was the prophecy of 
 old time, and it was fulfilled now, for the Church was faithful. Within 
 a very few months, he who had invaded those liberties was himself a 
 
21 
 
 fugitive, deserted by his own family, deserted by his false friends and 
 faithless flatterers, deserted by all except the Church he had for¬ 
 saken and oppressed, he sat a pensioner at the court of his rival and 
 his enemy. 
 
 This is the way the Church when faithful fights; her “ strength is to 
 sit still.” “There is no doubt,” as Dalrymple says, “that the peti¬ 
 tion and imprisonment of the Bishops was the immediate cause of 
 King James’s dethronement,” indeed the king himself admits it; yet 
 in that revolution the Church had no hand from first to last, she took 
 no aggressive steps, she stood firm, and let God fight for her; her 
 weapons were a steady and quiet determination to do her duty, a firm 
 but calm resistance to requirements which were incompatible with her 
 mission. She conquered by suffering, and he who had assaulted her, 
 like a man who has rushed against an earth-fast rock, fell indeed, but 
 fell by the violence of his own assault. 
 
 Now shift the scene,—unroll a few years farther on the page of 
 History. The Revolution is accomplished. The change no doubt is 
 far greater, far more sweeping than its promoters had even contem¬ 
 plated : it is ever thus—man may raise the storm of revolution, it is 
 God alone who can control, direct, or allay it. 
 
 The wary prince, who had been called in as a mediator, had assumed 
 for himself the reins of government; the people of England wished in¬ 
 deed for the redress of their grievances, but they had no desire to cast 
 off their allegiance. William saw his advantage and kept it. He had 
 placed the nation between the alternatives of accepting him on his own 
 terms, or restoring unconditionally their deposed and exasperated king. 
 The nation had never contemplated this, but state craft and policy 
 were successful. The sins of the fathers were visited on the children; 
 not only was James deposed, who from the breach of his own corona¬ 
 tion oath might in some sense be said to have forfeited the allegiance 
 of his subjects, but his son, who had neither taken that oath nor 
 broken it, nor was of an age capable of taking or breaking it, was ex¬ 
 cluded from the kingdom also. It was the triumph of expediency; 
 England had grievances to be redressed, but she chose to redress them 
 in her own way, instead of in God’s way; by the rule of expediency 
 rather than of principle. She gained her point, and she reaped the 
 fruits of it. She repaired her political constitution, but it was at the 
 expense of grievous damage to her Church. 
 
 The land was at peace,—William was firmly seated on the throne; 
 but where were the Bishops who had so lately shown themselves the 
 firm bulwarks of the English Church,—where the firm opponents of 
 the Romish encroachment? Dispersed, deposed, deprived of their 
 
22 
 
 titles, banished from their sees; they conld not take the oaths of 
 allegiance to William. If James had forfeited their allegiance, his son 
 had not. William was not their rightful king, and as their rightful 
 king, they could not acknowledge him. The consequence was their 
 deprivation: whether the act were popular or unpopular, he could not 
 permit that which was a continual protest against his authority. He 
 was in the position of Jeroboam, the course of truth and justice would 
 have led inevitably to his own dethronement. Voluntarily, he had 
 placed his foot on the ladder of ambition. Voluntarily, he had ascended 
 a throne which was not his; having done this, he ceased to be a free 
 agent; there was now no retreat, the course of events swept him on, 
 the position he had achieved must be maintained, even though the next 
 step were upon the Church of God. 
 
 The next step was upon the Church of God. From this we may 
 date the corruption of the Church. For from the deposition of those 
 nine Bishops and those four hundred Clergy, we may date the deadness 
 and lethargy in which the English Church has been slumbering, and 
 the corruptions and abuses which are its natural consequences; a 
 lethargy so deadly, corruptions so deep, that we cannot doubt but 
 that the raising up. of the Wesleyans and the Evangelicals of former 
 times, and of the Tractarians now, were so many merciful dispensations 
 of Providence for preserving the life of the English Church. 
 
 The first and immediate consequence of the act of deprivation was 
 to place a division between the Bishops and the Diocesan Clergy. No 
 man with any pretensions to churchmanship, no man of weight or in¬ 
 fluence in the Church could be prevailed upon to accept a bishopric 
 which was not ecclesiastically vacant: men were actually solicited to 
 accept; the deprived Bishops were actually negociated with to return 
 and govern their dioceses, but in vain; King William would have 
 chosen well, but he could not: it was no blame to him that his new 
 Bishops were politicians and not churchmen; he could not help it,— 
 none else would fill the sees; he did what he could; he did choose 
 men of learning, but he could not choose men who either had, or could 
 gain, the confidence of the Clergy; who either had, or could establish 
 a spiritual authority over them. 
 
 Neither was the case much better in those dioceses in which the 
 Bishops consented to take the oaths; their subserviency stood out in 
 glaring contrast to the disinterestedness of their deprived brethren. 
 It was evident that their oaths were taken against their consciences, 
 and the time-serving Bishops gained no more confidence than the in¬ 
 trusive Bishops. In short, a worldly political set of men were raised 
 to the Episcopate. 
 
23 
 
 This led to perpetual and vexatious contests between the upper and 
 lower houses of convocation; for the Church was in a manner free then 
 and had her parliaments. It is useless now to inquire whether in these 
 particular contests, or in the majority of them, the blame rested mostly 
 with the upper or the lower house; it is evident that they were the 
 necessary consequences of the want of confidence which existed between 
 the two orders of the ministry; neither can it be denied that the effect 
 of them was to impair the usefulness and influence of convocation. 
 And this in a subsequent reign formed a plausible pretext for its sup¬ 
 pression : convocation was suppressed by the temporal head of the 
 Church, in order to quash the opposition which was expected to be 
 made against the nomination of Hoadly, an avowed heretic, to the see 
 of Hereford. 
 
 Now, citizens of England, imagine your position, if deprived of your 
 parliaments, (corrupt as those parliaments might be,) by any sovereign 
 whatever, in order to prevent you from opposing the undue elevation 
 of an unworthy member of the cabinet. Imagine what would be your 
 feelings as freemen and as Englishmen, and tell me what ought to have 
 been the feelings of the citizens of Christ’s kingdom then, at an act 
 of arbitrary power so entirely similar. In your case would there not 
 arise one burst of universal indignation from one end of the land to the 
 other? Why was it not so then in the kingdom of Christ? Where 
 were the successors of Sancroft, and Lloyd, and Ken ? Why were there 
 none now, as in earlier times, to court imprisonment and trial in the 
 line of their duty, the service of their Lord, and to rejoice that they 
 were counted worthy to suffer shame for His sake ? 
 
 Because there were none who were worthy. George did what James 
 could not do, for corruption had already done its work. The Bishops, 
 appointed now, not by the king with the advice of his Church, but by 
 the king with the advice of his Prime Minister, that is to say by the 
 Prime Minister himself—had become mere members of the House of 
 Lords—continuators of the apostolic succession indeed, but without 
 spiritual authority; that they had placed in abeyance along with their 
 spiritual character. Their rule so far as it was enforced at all, was 
 enforced by temporal penalties ; spiritual censure was first unheeded, 
 and then forgotten, nay, it had ceased to exist, for spiritual censure is 
 not the arbitrary opinion of any individuals in the Church, but the 
 solemn sentence of a Bishop in council. In those days no Bishop would 
 have ventured to summon his diocesan synod, under the certainty of 
 multiplying and bringing home to his own palace those scenes of re¬ 
 crimination and vexatious opposition, which he had witnessed in con¬ 
 vocation : he would not do that, even though that Bishop was quite 
 
24 
 
 aware, as he could hardly fail of being, that without his synod his 
 spiritual rule would be of little avail. 
 
 This is the state in which the Church was left. Its Bishops were 
 without authority; its laws were without force; its Clergy did each that 
 which was right in his own eyes, for the secular laws which alone were 
 available, were far too cumbersome to be made use of; its laity were 
 indifferent, how indeed could they be otherwise ? and now all hope of 
 internal reformation by its own legitimate action was cut off. The 
 deliberative power of the Church was suppressed, and how was she for 
 the future to resist foreign aggression? How was she to arrange inter¬ 
 nal differences ? . How was she to meet the changes of a changing 
 world ? Supposing her to become fully alive to all the deficiencies and 
 errors that had crept into her system, how was she to remedy them ? 
 Whatever was wrong at that time, must remain wrong for ever, for 
 with her parliament she had lost the power of remedying it. 
 
 Imagine any free and enlightened State—the State of England if you 
 will, and tell that people that they must impose their taxes, and ad¬ 
 minister their internal justice, and conduct their foreign wars by acts 
 passed in the reign of King William III. Imagine, if you can, the 
 kingdom of England without its parliament, and then you will have 
 some idea of the kingdom of Christ without its convocation. 
 
 Under these circumstances, it is no wonder that the Church fell into 
 a deep and deadly slumber; that her doctrines dwindled into mere 
 morality, and her ministers sank into decent respectability; that so 
 many among them lived as country gentlemen, followed the habits and 
 pursuits of country gentlemen, performed the very minimum of duty 
 which the law required, and were regarded by their flocks as country 
 gentlemen. How could it be otherwise ? How could they regard as 
 an ambassador of Christ, that man who in no perceptible manner 
 differed from their squire ? 
 
 And what was there to keep up the tone either of the doctrine or the 
 clergy ? Episcopal oversight came to nothing. The Bishop neither 
 saw, nor if he saw could he prevent; there was no civil law against 
 hunting, or feasting, or dancing, or drinking. How could there be ? 
 W hat should we think of an act of Parliament limiting the number of 
 times a man was to dine out in a twelvemonth, or forbidding him, 
 under penalty of a month on the treadmill, from dancing at a ball ? 
 Spiritual censure was in abeyance; a Bishop’s command was absolute, 
 no doubt, but upon those only who chose to obey it. 
 
 And even in grosser cases, even in cases of open and notorious sin, 
 what could a Bishop do without his synod ? Arbitrary power is ab¬ 
 horrent to the English constitution and character. The Bishop was 
 
25 
 
 afraid to summon his synod, and yet he was powerless without it. That 
 power which might safely be lodged in the hands of a Bishop in coun¬ 
 cil, was refused, and rightly so, to the Bishop as autocrat and sole 
 judge. 
 
 In consequence of this, the ecclesiastical laws were fenced round with 
 so many checks, that for all practical purposes they were absolutely 
 useless. Criminous laymen were utterly ignored, there were no such 
 things; and criminous clerks were retained as a perpetual disgrace to 
 the Chuich, because their removal was a matter of such enormous ex¬ 
 pense and difficulty, that few Bishops would venture to attempt it. I 
 know an instance myself,_ and that within the last twenty years, when a 
 conscientious but w 7 eakminded Bishop, actually bribed a clergvman to 
 absent himself from his living, positively paying him out of ''his own 
 pocket a subsidy, to enable him to carry himself and his disgrace to 
 the continent; and paying, also out of his own pocket, a curate to 
 perform his duty. I heard that Bishop say myself, that he did it, be¬ 
 cause he could not afford the expense of bringing him to justice, 
 together with the risk of failing to establish legal proof, though the 
 moral proof was certain. These are the straits into which Church 
 discipline is driven; as for doctrine, what guarantee had the people 
 that the doctrine preached from the Church’s pulpits was not as parti¬ 
 coloured as Joseph’s coat P Who was there to be the judge of doctrine ? 
 Nay : what guarantee have you at this present moment ? Becent 
 decisions have shown you, that any beneficed clergyman may preach 
 almost any doctrine of any assignable sect; that the civil tribunals will 
 uphold him in it; and that his own Bishop cannot restrain him. And 
 not unjustly either ; for the Bishop sole is no legitimate judge of doc¬ 
 trine. The Canons of Christ’s Church, like the constitution of 
 England, admit no autocratic power. The Presbyters are called by 
 them the Bishop’s co-rulers, and in his attempt to act independently of 
 them, he loses his own legitimate authority. 
 
 Under such circumstances as these, I need not ask you whether it 
 was wonderful that during the last century many fell away, and more 
 sank into utter uselessness. I should ask you rather, whether it is not 
 wonderful that the Church is still what we see it ? Whether it is not 
 a manifest proof of her Divine constitution, that we have so many 
 earnest, hard-working, orthodox, and conscientious clergymen among 
 us still ? Bemember, each one of us is working alone and without 
 control; his own sense of his divine commission alone arousing his 
 energies; his own sense of his ordination oaths alone restraining them 
 within bounds. I say, the present existence of the Church of England 
 is a positive miracle, a positive proof that the Lord is still among us. 
 
 D 
 
26 
 
 Show me another set of men on earth, who with so little supervision 
 have done so much; with so much liberty, have erred so little. I re¬ 
 peat, the existence of the Church at all under circumstances so depress¬ 
 ing, is a manifest proof of her divine commission. 
 
 This was the state to which the policy of the Third William, and the 
 subsequent suppression of convocation had reduced the Church; but 
 before long, its episcopal authority, and consequent discipline, were 
 destined to receive a still more serious injury. 
 
 Thankful should we be to Him, Whose Spirit guides us, that this 
 blow was not permitted to fall on us during the dead and slothful 
 times of the last century: nor until the exertions of the succession of 
 reformers had in some degree called out the inherent energies of the 
 Church. 
 
 From the times of King William, the appointment of Bishops had 
 been transferred practically from the hands of the Sovereign to those 
 of the Prime Minister. This in itself had been a great blow to epis¬ 
 copal authority, over both laity and clergy ; not only because men soon 
 became aware that Bishops were now selected on account of their political 
 bias; not only because they saw them in the House of Lords, ranging 
 themselves under the banners of this or that political party, according 
 as this or that party had been in power at the time of their consecra¬ 
 tion ;—but because the selections were now made for the most part 
 from that class who were the least capable of discharging the spiritual 
 duties of the office. Men were called upon to become shepherds of 
 shepherds, who had never been shepherds of sheep. The parish Priest, 
 whose occupations and experience had been confined to the cure of 
 souls and parish work, was of no use to the politician, and was in con¬ 
 sequence seldom or never selected, though he was the man who alone 
 knew how to guide parish Priests. It was the master of the school, 
 or of the college,—it was he who had helped to train the rising genera¬ 
 tion of statesmen,—who was personally acquainted with them, and who 
 might be hoped to influence them, either by past associations, or by 
 Church patronage,—he it was who was selected. And thus the Bishop 
 came to his diocese less conversant in the ordinary duties of his office, 
 than the youngest incumbent under his rule. This fact could not but 
 weaken still farther his influence, if not his authority, over his presbyters 
 —the teacher required to be taught. It was destined to be weakened 
 still farther. 
 
 Dissatisfied as men might have been with the selection of Bishops, 
 they had no right to complain, because it was popularly supposed that 
 we had the means of correcting it in our hands,—that the Church had 
 the power, if she chose to exert it, of objecting to the consecration of 
 
27 
 
 improper persons. According to the laws of England, no man could 
 be consecrated Bishop, until open proclamation had been three times 
 made, and all who knew anything against either the doctrine or morals 
 of the Bishop designate, had been cited to come forward and make 
 known their objections. 
 
 As long as this law remained inviolate, men had no reasonable 
 giounds for objecting to this or that individual; he might not perhaps 
 be the most proper person in the world to be appointed Bishop, but 
 they felt that if they themselves had by their silence acquiesced in the 
 appointment, they were bound to uphold the authority they had not 
 objected to. J 
 
 Now let us again unroll the page of history, and place our finger on 
 a date still more recent. 
 
 The scene is now the interior of a large church in the city of London. 
 It is filled with anxious and excited crowds, for men are met to confirm 
 the appointment of a Bishop. It is a confirmation of no ordinary 
 character. The Bishop in question had been the intimate friend and 
 constant associate of one who had since become an avowed Socinian : 
 he was an author, and his writings were not only questionable, but had 
 been questioned ; he was an officer of the university of Oxford, and was 
 )ing under university censure; Bishops had dispensed with attendance 
 on his lectures on the part of their candidates for orders, not being 
 satisfied with the orthodoxy of the lecturer. These things were no- 
 tonous, and it was notorious also that at that time there were men in 
 the church who meant to claim the protection of English law, and to 
 object to the confirmation of the Bishop, until such time as the writings 
 
 m question should have been examined and the suspicion of heterodoxy 
 disproved. J 
 
 All stood in eager and anxious expectation as the service of the Litany 
 drew to a close, and the Proctor, standing by the side of the Bishop 
 elect, presented him before the congregation, and demanded, as by law 
 he was bound to demand, that if there were any opposers to the con¬ 
 firmation of the Bishop they should be publicly called. 
 
 “ Let the opposers be publicly called,” said the Vicar-General. The 
 Apparitor-General rose up,— 
 
 “ Oyez, Oyez, Oyez, all ye who may, or shall, or will, object to the 
 consecration of the Bev. Penn Dickson Hampden, D.D., as Lord 
 Bishop of the episcopal see of Hereford, now come forward and state 
 your objections, and you shall be heard.” 
 
 In obedience to this summons, Mr. Townsend rose, and declaring 
 that he appeared in behalf of three clergymen then present, tendered 
 his objections in writing. 
 
28 
 
 “Mr. Townsend,” said the Chancellor of the diocese, “you have no 
 right to bring a libel; you are not permitted to appear.” 
 
 In vain the case was argued, in vain authorities were cited in proof 
 of what to an ordinary mind would seem incontrovertible, namely, that 
 when a person was called upon to appear, he was permitted to appear. 
 The three legal authorities, the Vicar-General, the Chancellor, and the 
 Master of the Faculties, agreed that it could not be, and the very indi¬ 
 viduals so cited and so standing before the congregation, stood by to 
 hear themselves pronounced contumacious for not appearing, when 
 
 THERE THEY WERE. 
 
 One by one the writings were tendered, and opposition having been 
 thus silenced, were accepted, and again the Proctor stood forth, as he 
 was bound by law to do, and again prayed that all and singular the said 
 opponents be again publicly called. 
 
 “ Let the opponents be again publicly called,” said the Vicar-General. 
 
 The Apparitor-General rose,— 
 
 “ Oyez, Oyez, Oyez, all ye who shall, or may, or will, object to the 
 consecration of the Eev. Eenn Dickson Hampden, D.D., as Lord 
 Bishop of the episcopal see of Hereford, now come forward and state 
 your objections, and you shall be heard.” 
 
 Mockery ! Mockery ! Humbug ! Deceit! These were the cries that 
 rang throughout the sacred edifice, and in the midst of such acclaim 
 the Bishop elect kneeling took the oaths, and was “admitted” into the 
 government and administration of the spirituals of the said Bishopric of 
 Hereford in the Church of Christ. It was with this authorization 
 that the Bishop, thus confirmed, went down to take charge of the 
 diocese thus committed to his care. Is it wonderful that there are men 
 in that diocese of Hereford, and there are many both clergy and laity, 
 who declare that at this time there is no Bishop of Hereford, that the 
 see is vacant? What do you suppose is the amount of episcopal 
 authority at this moment over his diocese of a man so nominated, so 
 elected, and so confirmed? 
 
 But if you imagine that the mischief was confined to that single 
 diocese, you very much underrate it. The whole episcopal authority 
 throughout England did then and there receive a deadly blow. It had 
 now become evident that the people,—I am not speaking of the clergy 
 only, but the people, you, —had no voice whatever in the selection of 
 your Bishops, that you had been deprived of even the negative voice 
 which the law allowed, that the appointment was the arbitrary act of 
 the prime minister, and of him alone. If you had no confidence in the 
 prime minister himself, by a vote to that effect you could procure his 
 dismissal, but if you had no confidence in the Bishop he appointed, you 
 
29 
 
 might vote, you might object, you might appeal to the laws of the land, 
 but he was forced upon you still. You will observe that the transaction 
 I have just related was absolutely independent of the truth of the accu¬ 
 sation, was as unjust to the Bishop elect as it was to the people, for if 
 they were denied the opportunity of establishing the truth of their 
 objection, he was denied the opportunity of establishing his own inno¬ 
 cence of the accusation; no one could‘tell whether the objection was 
 valid or even what it was, for it was never heard. The Bishop might 
 have been perfectly innocent, it would have been just the same. He 
 might on the other hand have been an immoral character, he might 
 have been an Atheist, no one could tell,—the papers were not looked 
 into. . c< lou are not permitted to appear ,” was the expression. 
 
 It is not idle nor invidious to bring forward these facts, for they are 
 necessary for the justification of the course we have pursued. From 
 that day the whole relation of the episcopate, with respect to the 
 Church of England, laity and clergy, was changed, and from that day 
 the establishment of Church Unions may be dated. The Church must 
 be reformed, and the Bishops could not be the men to reform it. The 
 task must devolve on the second order of the clergy, (for of the third 
 only a shadow remained,) and on the laity; and therefore mixed asso¬ 
 ciations of clergy and laity were formed throughout England, with the 
 avowed intention of reforming abuses of the Church, and from that 
 circumstance were called Church Unions. They had become necessary 
 foi this leason. That was now evident which before had been unwill- 
 ingly suspected : that the Bishops were mere ministerial officers, not 
 fiee agents ; continuators indeed of the apostolic succession, necessary 
 indeed as such to the existence of the Church and its preservation until 
 better times; and to be obeyed, inasmuch as like the Scribes and 
 Pharisees, they sat in Moses seat, but not to be regarded as free and 
 independent Bishops, because free and independent Bishops they were 
 not; without their co-rulers, without their free synod and council they 
 cannot be independent. They will not summon this council; they 
 piefer that their authority shall be based on acts of parliament, and 
 must expect that it be limited by their penal clauses. 
 
 It has been objected to us that we are inconsistent in this point of a 
 Bishop’s authority, that we magnify and uphold the office as long as 
 we find it convenient, but that the moment we feel the check of epis¬ 
 copal control ourselves, we resist and disobey like other people. 
 
 M e are not inconsistent : we honour, we magnify our Bishops ; we 
 consider them as they were considered in old times : “ fathers of 
 fathers, and “ highest of priests.” We are not disloyal to them, any 
 more than Sancroft and his brethren were disloyal to King James at 
 
 D 2 
 
30 
 
 that time when they were resisting his unconstitutional proceedings: 
 any more than you are disloyal to your Queen, though as Englishmen 
 you would resist if necessary, and resist without failing from your loy¬ 
 alty, any uncalled-for suspension of the Habeas Corpus or a suppression 
 of parliament. 
 
 The uncorrupted Church of Christ recognizes no autocracy of any 
 kind, except the autocracy of Christ. S. Paul did not of his own 
 authority command that men should or should not be circumcised ; he 
 caused a council to be called ,—they decided, he saw their decrees car¬ 
 ried out. This is the Bishop’s province, and so it was throughout the 
 whole of the early Church. Councils decreed,—general, provincial, 
 diocesan,—according to the importance of the subject; Bishops were 
 the executive, not the legislative. 
 
 Autocratic Bishops there have been, but they were the growth of 
 after ages. They were what you call many things,—Popish innova¬ 
 tions ; neither has the matter been much improved of late years by the 
 Erastian element which the State has associated with them. 
 
 It is to the constitutional Bishop, it is to the Bishop in Council 
 legislating, or to the Bishop sole executing the laws of the council, 
 that we owe obedience, not to the Bishop issuing his own arbitrary 
 commands. 
 
 As Bingham remarks, speaking of S. Ignatius, the Bishops and 
 Presbyters are always joined together; when therefore, to quote the 
 words of another eminent authority, “ we are instituted into our livings, 
 we have rights of spiritual jurisdiction conferred upon us as sacred as 
 those of the Bishop himself, who if he invades those rights, incurs the 
 guilt which is incurred by any other usurper.” This is the explanation 
 of our seeming inconsistency. 
 
 This is the present state of discipline in the English Church. And 
 you must see that, fettered in this manner, she is incapable of action, 
 and is not and cannot be what her Pounder designed her for. She is 
 not practically a witness and keeper of holy writ, for she has no voice 
 to make her judgment known. She has not power to confirm her own 
 doctrine, for her interpretation of doctrine is overruled by a civil court. 
 She is not even a guardian of morals, for she cannot so much as cen¬ 
 sure, far less excommunicate, any individual whose life is a disgrace 
 to her. 
 
 It is impossible that a Church can for any length of time exist under 
 such circumstances, any more than a tree can exist with the flow of its 
 sap permanently stopped. Its inherent vigour will put forth its leaves 
 and carry on its life for a time, but it must either collect strength and 
 vigour to burst through the obstacle, or it must pine and die. The 
 
3 L 
 
 Church must either burst out again as a Church of Christ, proclaim¬ 
 ing the voice of its Master, or it must dwindle into an establishment 
 with no voice but that of the prime minister. To remain what it is 
 is impossible. 
 
 This is the reason why the Church needs Reformers, and the best 
 proof that she is not yet cast off is that Reformers are continually 
 raised up among us. The Wesleyans contended for the lost discipline 
 of the Church. The Evangelicals contended for the forgotten doctrines 
 of the Atonement. We strike at the root of all this evil,—we protest 
 against that which caused both discipline and doctrine to fall into 
 abeyance ; and that is, the fettered state of the Church, which prevents 
 her from restraining the aberrations of her own members either in 
 doctrine or in discipline. Our predecessors attacked the symptoms of 
 the disease only, and in consequence their reforms were temporary, and 
 what is worse—partial; we attack the disease itself. 
 
 The ground on which the first Tractarian alliance was formed, some 
 twenty years ago, was the arbitrary suppression of ten bishoprics with¬ 
 out the consent of the Church. 
 
 Since the nomination of Bishop Hampden, this movement, as I have 
 just stated, has in most parts of England resolved itself into Church 
 Unions. The grounds on which they are all formed are nearly the 
 same: they are :— 
 
 1. A revival of Church Legislature, i.e. of Convocation. 
 
 2. The obtaining of a suitable Court of ultimate appeal in matters 
 of doctrine and ecclesiastical discipline. 
 
 3. General Church Extension. 
 
 4. An increase of the Episcopate, with some valid security against 
 unfit appointments. 
 
 5 . The restoration of Church discipline. 
 
 The questions that I would ask you are these :— 
 
 1. Are you satisfied with the present state of the Church of Eng¬ 
 land P Do you think it is without abuses ? Do you think it cannot 
 be restored to something better than its present state; to at least that 
 condition in which it was at the accomplishment of the Reformation in 
 Queen Elizabeth’s times—to the days of Archbishop Parker, or of 
 Archbishop Sancroft? 
 
 2. If you think it may, do you feel yourself at all justified in sitting 
 still, and not lending a helping hand to those who are doing their ut¬ 
 most to restore it P 
 
 Let me now take into consideration one or two popular objections. 
 You are afraid that Church Restoration, necessary or unnecessary, 
 would give too great power to the Clergy; I have heard this sentiment 
 
32 
 
 expressed in so many words. “ No !” men say, “ this may be all very 
 true, the state of things in the Church may be very bad, but in the 
 days before the Beformation, when you clergy had power, you misused 
 it; we will take care that you shall not do so again, for now that we 
 have got you down we will keep you down.” 
 
 Now I am not going to defend the state of things before the Befor¬ 
 mation : I have no doubt but that all, clergy and laity alike, did re¬ 
 quire a radical reform after the close of a civil war which had lasted 
 for two generations, and if they wanted it they had it. 
 
 But whatever might have been the aims of the clergy in those days, 
 I defy any one to show now the least disposition to “ lord it over God’s 
 inheritance,” in any of our clergy. If we appear to take a greater 
 lead in ecclesiastical matters than is strictly our due, Lord Chichester 
 shall tell you the reason why this apparent lead is forced upon us. 
 “ I confess,” said his Lordship, “ I do not like that the school should 
 be so exclusively the clergyman’s school.” Why Lord Chichester 
 should not like that they to whom is committed the teaching of the 
 whole parish should also superintend the teaching of the young, it 
 would be difficult to say; “ but,” continues his Lordship, “ I do not 
 see how this is to be averted, for the Clergyman is frequently the only 
 man who seems to take any interest in the matter.” 
 
 That is the reason;—we are forward in these things, but it is not 
 because we step forward, it is because you hang back. Try this,— 
 come forward, take an interest yourselves in Church matters, join us, 
 and you will find no undue preponderance of claims on the part of the 
 clergy; but do not stand aloof, do not leave us to take all the work, 
 and then say that we arrogate to ourselves too much authority, because 
 we alone are found in our places to do it. Look at our Church Unions, 
 the only attempts that we have ever made to construct a deliberate 
 meeting. Look especially at this South Church Union here at Brighton, 
 at whose invitation I am now addressing you, and to a co-operation with 
 which, in the reform of Church abuses, I now invite you. This is the 
 first time since my joining that I have sat under the presidency of an 
 ecclesiastic; our chairman is always a layman. Join us, and see whe¬ 
 ther your votes as lay communicants, are not as influential as those of 
 any priest in the Union. 
 
 But you object to the irregularity of the action,—you say that 
 voluntary meetings of clergy and laity to deliberate on Church matters, 
 are irregular, unauthorized, and unprecedented : of course they are, we 
 do not attempt to deny it,—they are only substitutes for the autho¬ 
 rized and regular meetings of which we have been deprived, and will 
 cease the moment those meetings are restored. On this part of the 
 
33 
 
 subject I should wish to quote from an unpublished sermon which has 
 been put into my hands, and which I trust will not be an unpublished 
 one much longer :— 
 
 “ Have we not a remarkable likeness between the natural body and 
 that spiritual body the Church? Poison, deadly, subtle poison, is 
 lurking in the system. Does the heart continue to beat, do the lungs 
 continue to play, with their ordinary calmness ? Hot so. Nature, as 
 we speak, exerts herself to the utmost to cast out the venom ; she excites 
 the system; she accelerates the action ; and the man is in a fever. 
 But the fever itself is no disease. Treat it so, and you miserably fail. 
 But assist nature in her struggle, and by God’s grace you may hope 
 to succeed. 
 
 “ Thus, in the Church, irregularity of action is, I do not deny, the 
 symbol of disease. There is something wrong somewhere when it 
 occurs. But suppress it, and who may tell the consequences ? The 
 fever of controversy, and irritations, and clamour, are better than the 
 cold of death.” 
 
 But there are so-called physicians, ready with their universal remedy 
 for the Church. They never trouble themselves to see where the sore 
 lies. Only keep still, only be at external peace, only be sure that when 
 you say opposite things you mean precisely the same, only let truth be 
 neither mine nor thine, but divide it, and you have the panacea. Wise 
 physicians, that check healthy action, and think they are destroying the 
 disease ! wise masons, that stop the cracks with mortar, and think they 
 have propped the wall! wise purifiers, who chalk over a foul spot, and 
 pronounce it free from pollution ! 
 
 If at this time, and in this Church, action were perfectly regular,— 
 if opeiations were carried on with the cold monotony which characterized 
 the Church of England in the last century, when she seemed sleeping 
 herself to death, then indeed I do think the case would seem desperate. 
 But irrepressible energy, finding no vent, will make one. 
 
 But you object that the doctrine of the Tractarians leads to Borne, 
 lou fear Borne. You have reason to fear her ; and therefore, however 
 much you may see the necessity for reform generally, you keep clear of 
 that road which has led others to Borne, and which may lead you. 
 Bight as the measures may seem, you eschew them on account of the 
 results which you imagine they have produced. 
 
 I say, the doctrines of the Tractarians do not lead to Borne ; they 
 are a safeguard against it. Other things have from time to time 
 tempted men to leave the Church, not their doctrines. And when they 
 did leave it, they left it not on account of their doctrines, but in spite 
 of them. 
 
34 
 
 And for this reason: reformers must be discontented with things as 
 they are; if they were not, they would not be reformers ; there w°ould 
 be nothing to reform. Whenever they are for the time defeated, and 
 are unable to effect the reforms they think necessary, then they are, as 
 a matter of course, more discontented; and if they happen to be of an 
 unfaithful and impatient disposition, they become so discontented as to 
 be disgusted. They despair of reforming the Church, and therefore 
 they leave it. I say, that up to this point, doctrines have nothing to 
 do with their leaving the Church ; that this is a natural and obvious 
 temptation to which all reformers must necessarily be subjected. When 
 Cromwell and Hampden would have left England for America, it was 
 not that their principles led them to seek America, but that they were 
 unable to effect the reforms they thought necessary in England, and 
 therefore they left England; the going to America was the accident, 
 other attractions determined them about that. This is a temptation to 
 which political reformers have yielded occasionally, but to which Church 
 reformers of every age have yielded in numbers, and will always yield, 
 —Tractarians as well as others. 
 
 But I say, that to yield to it is especially contrary to the doctrines 
 of Tractarianism, and that in this, Tractarianism differs from all Church 
 Reform whatever, that it denounces as a sin, that particular desertion 
 which all other Church reforms have tolerated and connived at. 
 
 One of our main principles is this : Do your duty, but do not expect 
 to see the success of your work. “ Show Thy servants Thy work, and 
 their children Thy glory.” Do your own work, never think of success 
 as the test of it, if it be good for the general course of God’s Provi¬ 
 dence to let you see it, He will do so; but if not, it is no business of 
 yours whether you succeed or not, provided you yourself have done 
 your duty. Let the consciousness of having done your work be its 
 own reward. These are Tractarian doctrines, and I do say, that doc- 
 tiines such as these are diametrically opposed to that impatient spirit 
 which is the snare and temptation to all Reformers; and that the 
 operation of this doctrine is the reason why we count our losses by 
 tens and by hundreds, while others count them by thousands and tens 
 of thousands. Still we must expect our losses, or human nature would 
 not be human nature; but when we do lose men from the Church of 
 England they go to Rome, of course they do, where are they to go? 
 They cannot join any Protestant dissent. They know, that without a 
 Bishop, theie can be no Church. They consider a Church as necessary 
 to their salvation, and protestant dissenters have no Bishops. If they 
 leave us at all they must go to Rome; they do not prefer it any more 
 than a man who thinks his ship to be sinking may be said to prefer 
 
35 
 
 the boat. But is it just to reproach those who are still working 
 gallantly and faithfully on the wreck, hoping, against hope, but working 
 still, with the cowardice and faithlessness of those who have deserted 
 them and sought their own selfish and inglorious safety P I say the 
 fault of such men does not lie in their doctrines but in their faithless 
 and impatient despair, which tempts them to shrink from them ; our 
 doctrines are, “ Where God has placed you, there He will find you 
 work, and there He expects to see you performing it. 
 
 It is upon these grounds that I invite you to the Union; do your 
 work in it honestly and patiently; you may not save the Church of 
 England, for it is not for us to know the times and the seasons which 
 the Bather has left in His own power. You may not save the 
 Church, but you will have done your work in it as faithful churchmen, 
 and you need not fear your finding yourselves in the Church of Rome’ 
 when you know that God has given you your work in the Church of 
 England. Whether He be pleased to remove that Church from, England, 
 or whether He will not, matters little to you, He will save you His 
 faithful servant in that Church, because He has given you your work 
 in it, and because you have been faithful to the work He has given you 
 to do. This then is the leading principle of Tractarianism,—fidelity 
 and unchangeableness. That which has been once held, “always 
 everywhere, and by all,” must be held to all eternity; that good thino’ 
 which has been transmitted to us must be transmitted unchanged to 
 oui successors, that work which lies before us must be done. In 
 that place in which God has set us we must remain. 
 
 How this principle is worked out in all the ramifications of faith and 
 duty; how it pervades all our life and all our practice, giving weight 
 and consequence to things in themselves trivial, is a subject which I 
 shall enter upon more fully at some future season. 
 
 At present let me sum up what may fairly be called our confession 
 of faith, the bond, if there is any bond besides that of Christian fellow¬ 
 ship, which holds us together. I will do it, not in my own words, for 
 I am hardly known, and my sentiments are of little weight, but in the 
 words of one who has always been foremost among us,—always in his 
 work when there was work to be done,—one whom the Leader news¬ 
 paper designates, and designates very appropriately, as Brave George 
 Anthony Denison. ° 
 
 “ I believe it to be a sin to desert the Communion of the Church of 
 England. 
 
 “ I believe it to be hardly less a sin to abide in the communion of 
 the Church of England, and not to labour earnestly, systematically, vigo- 
 rously, and steadily, for the removal of those causes which make the 
 
36 
 
 message with which she is charged from God to be little realized even 
 by great numbers of her clergy, and therefore to be little understood, 
 welcomed and appreciated by large masses of her people. I can as 
 little understand an acquiescence in the wrongs, or a connivance at the 
 unrealities of the Church of England, as I can understand an accept¬ 
 ance of the corruptions of tlie Church of Rome, the wanderings of 
 dissent, or the negations of the State. 
 
 “ I believe, that to be inert and indifferent now,—not to affirm and 
 maintain, and realize for ourselves and others as best we may, the 
 essence of the Church of England as a living branch of the Church 
 Catholic, is more than ever to be parties to a surrender of her heritage, 
 and to betray souls to Rome, or to dissent, or to what is far worse and 
 full of consequences more deadly even, to the indifferentism of the 
 State. 
 
 “ This is the work in which we call upon" you to help us. The 
 Church of England if she be wise wants no defence at the hands of a 
 legislature, which is not her own,—she invokes no such assistance 
 against her many foes,—she wants nothing but that the legislature 
 should untie her hands and leave her free to fight her own battle in 
 the strength of God. 
 
 “ That true son of the Church, whether Bishop or Peer, or repre¬ 
 sentative of the people, who shall gain freedom for the Church of 
 England to do the work proper for her in the full and free exercise of 
 her synodical power for the regulation of all her internal concerns, 
 whether of doctrine or discipline, or the increase and endowment of the 
 several orders of her clergy; who shall persuade the civil power not to 
 usurp the functions of the spirituality, either in respect of the appoint¬ 
 ment of Bishops, or judgment of doctrine, or education, or discipline; 
 that man will do more to build up the Church in the hearts of men, 
 and to make us a happy people, acknowledging c One Lord, one Eaith, 
 one Baptism,’ and endeavouring to keep the Unity of the faith, in the 
 bond of peace, than the framer of a hundred laws, professing to uphold, 
 but in fact degrading, secularising, and stultifying the Church.” 
 
37 
 
 LECTURE H. 
 
 BEfORE speaking on the main subject of this my Second Lecture 
 which is the Prayer Book as the Churchman’s guide, I have a good 
 deal of ground to clear away on subjects connected with my last ? 
 
 cnt f s . and friendly critics too, have expressed their 
 
 with pTaile* 1 ” m ° Ur kSt eCtUle We tUd DOt “ begin with P ra y er aud end 
 
 Now the truth is, we Tractarians, who have been taught to put everv- 
 ing to its proper use as well as to do everything at its proper time 
 
 be ma a de’T P iT rS in the “P Ia «i "here prayer was wont to 
 
 be made, and, having done so, it never entered into our heads to offer 
 up our prayers m the town hall. 
 
 You came here, some of you for instruction, most of you for amuse- 
 ment, none of you for prayer; or if you did, you came' to the wrong 
 p ace. Instances certainly we have in the Bible of people standing it 
 the market-place and making long prayers, but these were not people 
 
 wa, b beM d; , ej W Tv not P raised for 80 do “g- Their conduct 
 was held up not for imitation, but for a warning. Depend upon it 
 
 hoiv e tbi nosuc t t, eig , of i r r erence iu this worid as mi of 
 
 holy things,—the vessels of the sanctuary at the feast of Belshazzar 
 As for my anonymous critics, I hold them in about the same decree 
 of lespect as that in which I should hold a boy who throws a stone at 
 me fiom behind a wall and then runs away. Still they have their 
 uses; every created thing we are told has its use, and the use I should 
 
 X ““ ^ ^ ^ ^ Sund ° a “ the cab ™‘ 
 
 If I have any acute historian among my auditors he will detect me 
 ..’'fi “ say that his lordship never occupied anyplace in any of 
 Sir Robert s cabinets. My acute friend would be wrong, as the fol¬ 
 lowing after-dinner conversation between Sir Robert and his son 
 
 “ I have often wondered, sir,” said Horace Walpole, catching his 
 lather in an unusually communicative mood, “ what can induce you to 
 take into your most intimate councils that Lord Sundon; all the world 
 
 far wrong”™ n f ° r ““ ^ Up ° n my W ° rd 1 d ° not tbink the worId 
 
 prayer ,” 8 ^ Churoh ’ not the fe cture-room, that i» called “the House of 
 
 E 
 
38 
 
 “ My dear Horace,” said Sir Bobert, “ the world is perfectly right; 
 nevertheless, that man whom you very justly call an ass, is of more 
 use to me than all my cabinet put together. The people of England, 
 like the people of most other countries, may be divided into two par¬ 
 ties, the wise and the fools, and I am prime minister over both of them. 
 Now, in bringing forward my measures, I know well enough what 
 the wise will think of them, but how am I to know what the other 
 party think ? So I submit them to Lord Sundon, and ask his lord¬ 
 ship’s opinion, and when I have got that, I know pretty well what the 
 fools think. Every prime minister keeps a Eoolometer: Lord Sundon 
 is mine.” 
 
 Whether Lord John Bussell keeps a Eoolometer at this present time 
 is more than I can tell you. His lordship is a very energetic man. 
 Possibly he does his own business himself. At any rate, that place in 
 my cabinet is vacant, and if the “ Layman,” or the “ Looker on,” or 
 any such person will step forward, I shall be happy at once to deliver 
 the seals of office into his hands. 
 
 In the mean while I will avail myself of one or two of his sugges¬ 
 tions. I had written about more of them, but really this lecture has 
 grown to such a length that I cannot make use of them. I must take 
 some future opportunity. 
 
 One point however I will notice. I mentioned as one of the prin¬ 
 ciples held by us, and one of our greatest safeguards against secession 
 to Koine, that God having assigned to each one of us his place in 
 which he should be born into this world, it is every man’s duty to re¬ 
 main in that place, and to labour in that place, unless he can assign to 
 his conscience satisfactory reasons for fearing that his salvation will be 
 endangered by his so doing. I say that a man born in the Church of 
 England, and holding such principles, will not be very ready to leave 
 that Church and to go to Borne. My critic demands sneeringly, if a 
 man is born a Mahometan is he to continue a Mahometan ? Most 
 distinctly; if any man leaves Mahometanism for any cause whatever, 
 short of absolute conviction produced by patient and humble investiga¬ 
 tion, he commits a deep and grievous sin, a sin just as deep and just 
 as grievous as if he left Christianity for Mahometanism on like 
 grounds. 
 
 My friend seems to think that a convert is no bad thing, let him 
 come in any way whatever. We Tractarians think differently. The 
 nursery rhyme says, “ Tommy Twopenny turned a Turk for twopence,” 
 and I should add, dear at the money. Such a man as that the Church 
 might buy back any day for two pence more, and a right bad bargain 
 she would make if she did. Your wandering dissenter, or Churchman 
 
39 
 
 so-called, with itching ears, who blunders about from church to chapel 
 and fiom chapel to meeting-house, and back again to church, is worth 
 
 doctrine *° an ^ 0( ty ; Iie mere chaff, carried about by every wind of 
 
 Through all the religions of Europe they run, 
 
 And end at the last by believing in none.” 
 
 Why ! 1700 years ago a heathen satirist, speaking of a thoroughly 
 worthless contemptible fellow, says, “ In what prayer-shop shall I look 
 ioi you ? —m qua te quaere proseucha P 1 
 
 Talking of worthless contemptible fellows, did you ever hear of a 
 Mi . h i ancis Bees Gawthorne, who baited his trap with a piece of Pro¬ 
 testantism and caught an Archbishop of Canterbury P I do not think 
 he would have found it so easy to catch the Bishop*of Chichester; but 
 he tried. Let me tell you how he did it, and how it was that his trap 
 was knocked over, for that will afford a very good illustration of my 
 opinion of converts. ‘ v 
 
 In those days I was organising in my parish what you would call a 
 commercial school, which was to be under the visitorship of the Bishop. 
 
 . ,^ ve slI ? ce g' re ater safety made one of my curates master of it, but 
 m those days I was looking out for a lay schoolmaster. Whether Mr. 
 Gawthorne applied to the Archdeacon to recommend him to me or 
 whether he applied to me and I consulted the Archdeacon, as on most 
 points of importance I was in the habit of doing, I cannot now remem¬ 
 ber. However that was, I did consult him, and he recommended me 
 to go to London and not to bring down Mr. Gawthorne until I had 
 judged for myself. So to London I went, and had one or two inter¬ 
 views with that celebrated personage. 
 
 I examined him as to his attainments. They were far above par. 
 
 - tIL C U l ”t n0t , COnceiv ? ^ vei 7 sagacious and learned paper the 
 Record, accused me of misapplying this quotation, until I stumbled on 
 
 what m my school days was called a Juvenal cribber, in which I found my 
 passage thus rendered, “ m what brothel shall I seek you ?” A little learning 
 is a dangerous thmg, especially in a critic; the cribber certainly cave the 
 satirist s insinuation correctly, but it did not give the English of the word 
 proseucha, which originally signified simply a place of prayer. In Acts xvi. 13 
 . -caul is said to have gone where according to custom there was a proseucha* 
 ®!’ s a8 p e ren d e r it, where prayer was wont to be made. Between the days 
 Raul and those of Juvenal several obscure sects sprang up, and these 
 proseuchae which were held by night, lost their character and were frequented 
 by the fast young Romans, for much the same purpose as, teste Hogarth, our 
 modern evening meetings are attended by fast young Englishmen now. I 
 
 TnvlT P 1 m w °r. d prayer-shop I have given the nearest rendering to 
 d uvenal s proseucha which the word is capable of bearing. 
 
40 
 
 If learning and intellect were the only things required in education, as 
 some of our Manchester and Salford friends tell us, Mr. Gawthorne 
 was a prize indeed! neither did he answer badly the ordinary ques¬ 
 tions on religious subjects. He gave me references to two or three 
 distinguished men, some of whom I know personally. He had been em¬ 
 ployed by them, it is true, only a short time (a very short time, I found 
 out afterwards, for Mr. Monro, of Harrow Weald, one of his refer¬ 
 ences, had had him for three or four weeks;) that however was easily 
 accounted for, he said, by the fact that it was not long ago since he 
 had become a convert to the Church. 
 
 A convert! thought I. Oho ! What had he been before ? He had 
 been a Baptist, and his friends were Baptists still, and that was the 
 reason why he was so anxious to be employed: he wished to leave 
 them. This part of the story T afterwards found was true enough, for 
 I had the curiosity to call at their house and talk to his friends. 
 
 Immediately, but quietly, I drew the examination round to the sub¬ 
 ject of Baptism: he had very vague ideas about regeneration, he had 
 never heard of the Council of Carthage, he could not draw the analogy 
 between circumcision and baptism, he could not show that the Jewish 
 children who were in covenant with God by the former would have 
 been thrown out of covenant by their parents embracing Christianity 
 had they not formed part of the household baptized by the apostles, 
 neither indeed could he tell distinctly why the Church admitted chil¬ 
 dren at all. 
 
 My decision was formed at once: he was a convert on some other 
 grounds than those of conviction, he could not have been convinced, 
 for evidently he had never examined the subject at all, he had never 
 looked into the points of difference between the sect he was leaving 
 and the Church to which he professed to join himself. What right had 
 he to leave the Baptists, whom he could not show to be in error? 
 How could he be sincere in his wish to join the Church into whose 
 doctrines he had never looked ? 
 
 There was no use in telling him this, so I let the matter drop quietly, 
 and on other grounds; to this moment Mr. Gawthorne does not know 
 why he could find no employment in the diocese of Chichester; but my 
 real reason for rejecting him was what I tell you. Whenever a man 
 becomes a convert, whether to or from my own faith, without having 
 thoroughly weighed and examined every step which led him to make a 
 change affecting his eternal salvation, he must of necessity be, either a 
 light, inconstant, feather-headed character, tossed about by every wind 
 of doctrine, or else he must be a deep, dark, designing hypocrite; there 
 is no medium, he must be either the one or the other; that is my 
 
41 
 
 judgment of sucli converts, and who shall say that in this case at least 
 my judgment was not fully borne out by the event ? 
 
 From the man who remains in the faith in which he was born and 
 educated, we do not expect minute inquiry into its abstruser doctrines; 
 they are open to his inquiry, but it is no sin in him if he receives them 
 in faith. But this is not the case with the convert; for every step he 
 takes he is accountable to God. Men shift and change as fancy 
 leads them; they are not sufficiently aware that God will require of 
 them not only that they choose rightly, but that they have a right 
 reason for choosing. 
 
 I wish I had time to say a few words on the office of the Priest, as 
 distinguished from his person, and on the unchurching of our neigh¬ 
 bours ; two points on which, judging from my Foolometer, people most 
 particularly mistake us, and as a necessary consequence, are particularly 
 abusive. But I really have not space enough for them, I must put 
 them off to some future opportunity. 
 
 As for strong language, that of course—we expect it, and are pretty 
 well used to it; it is a pretty fair test of truth. Falsehoods hurt no¬ 
 body, we are all remarkably patient under them; it is truth that carries 
 the sting in its tail, and makes people angry. 
 
 Neither of the Wesleys was very merciful to the Calvinists; but 
 Charles was always peculiarly severe upon them : he had a theory, that 
 Calvinism, as a matter of necessity, soured the temper, just as rennet 
 sours milk. One day he was preaching in his chapel, and had got on 
 his favourite theme: “ I never knew,” he said, “ such a thing as a 
 good-tempered Calvinist; it is a contradiction in terms, a moral im¬ 
 possibility a man started up at the farther end of the chapel, and 
 putting his arms a-kimbo, screamed out, “You’re a liar!” “Ah,” 
 said Charles Wesley, “have I drawn out Leviathan with a hook?” 
 And so say I. I know well enough that there always are, and always 
 will be, those who love darkness rather than light, and when they show 
 themselves touched, I think quietly with myself, Ah! what, have I 
 drawn out Leviathan with a hook P 
 
 And now a few words to draw out Mr. Thelwall. He at all events 
 is a gentleman of flesh and blood, though not exactly what I should 
 call a Leviathan. There is no mistaking that gentleman; his handbills 
 all over the town declare that we Tractarians are unfaithful to our 
 Church. I was curious to know how he made that out, so I sent for 
 the Brighton Gazette. He begins, I see, with an enumeration of what 
 he considers the true doctrines of the Church. These I find are mostly 
 taken from a little book much in use in our National Schools, called 
 “ Faith and Duty.” That about Popery he gets from “ Macknight’s 
 
 E 2 
 
42 
 
 Sermons,” no very deep book either. With the exception of one or 
 two wonderful blunders, which of course I put down to the score of 
 those universal scapegoats the reporters, the doctrines are perfectly 
 right and true, and pretty well known; and, led me add, open to the 
 meanest capacity; for I will venture to say, that there is not a child in 
 the first class of my National School, who does not know them, and 
 cannot prove them out of Scripture. 
 
 I am perfectly ready to give honour where honour is due, and to 
 admit that we owe the great blessing, that those doctrines are so well 
 known, to the exertions of the earlier Evangelicals. All the fault I 
 find with the lecturer here is, that by giving himself the trouble of 
 proving such evident things, he would lead you to imagine that we do 
 not hold them, and are therefore unfaithful. Of course we should be 
 unfaithful if we did not hold them; but a good deal depends upon 
 that if. 
 
 Minus his blunders, we hold them all. Eor instance,—though we 
 certainly do not consider preaching to be the means of justification, 
 which is no doubt a blunder of that careless reporter,—we do fully 
 consider it what he meant to say, a means of grace; and accordingly, 
 there are few people who avail themselves more of it than the Tracta- 
 nans. I know more than one of them who preaches every day. I have 
 pleached ten sermons in one week myself, if there is any merit in that. 
 
 Well: all these doctrines he finds in the Bible easily enough : they 
 aie all, as I told you, in the “Eaith and Duty,” with their references. 
 
 .ere they are; the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Atonement, the Suffi¬ 
 ciency of the. Scriptures, Justification by Eaith, and two or three 
 more. That is all he can find in the Bible; but he cannot find the 
 A uosiolical Succession; it is not quite so plain on the surface, no 
 /doubt; and what is more to the purpose, it is not in the little book. 
 It never occurs to him, that there could not be a great deal about 
 The Apostolical Succession while the Apostles were alive. Long live 
 *o.ur gracious Queen; but I am afraid she must die before we know 
 Anything very certain about the reign of Albert the Eirst. When Louis 
 the Thirteenth was dying, he had his children brought to him, and not 
 being able to distinguish them, said feebly, “ Who is this ?” “ Louis 
 
 Quatorze,” said the boy. “Not yet, my son,” replied the poor old 
 king. Mr. Thelvvall’s ideas of Succession must be very like those of 
 Louis Quatorze. 
 
 There are people who are naturally incapable of chronological ar¬ 
 rangement, 
 
 “ And when such people go astray, 
 
 Their bumps are more in fault than they.” 
 
43 
 
 I dare say you have heard of Sir Boyle Boche, Bart., an Irish Member, 
 who got up in his place in Parliament and said, ££ Mr. Speaker, I can¬ 
 not understand why we should be called upon to do all this for pos¬ 
 terity ; I cannot for the life of me see that posterity has done any¬ 
 thing for us. I suspect that Sir Boyle Boche would have been 
 physically incapable of understanding the doctrine of the Apostolical 
 
 Of course, these doctrines are to be found in the Bible, but they 
 want a little looking after. This very doctrine is found prophetically 
 ni the last verse of S. Matthew’s Gospel. Do you suppose that our 
 Saviour promised to be present, even to the end of the world, with 
 those eleven men whom He was then sending forth to teach, every one 
 of whom would be dead in fifty or sixty years P—or is it not with them 
 and those similarly sent, that is to say, their successors ? 
 
 It is found historically in the first chapter of the Acts, where, in ful¬ 
 filment of a special prophecy, “ his bishopric let another take,” that is, 
 let there be an Apostolical Succession, S. Matthias is elected into the 
 vacancy made by the transgression and death of Judas. 
 
 e t> ^°. u , n( ^ a o a i n i n the Epistles to Timothy, where by the laying on 
 of S. Paul s hands, and those of the Presbytery, Timothy himself is 
 consecrated into the vacancy at Ephesus made by S. Paul, who, after a 
 two years’ episcopate in that city, is anxious to set out on his travels. 
 
 • i 61 n arG P^ en ty °th er passages about this, both in the Bible and 
 m the Prayer Book; but I admit at once, people are not going to find 
 them without looking after them. 
 
 I really have not time to go through all the doctrines that Mr. Thel- 
 wall cannot find in the Bible; I should have enough to do. It would 
 be much easier to treat on all those that he can find. I remember 
 when I was at Corpus, our college tutor, who was a very irritable man, 
 getting very angry with one of our young gentlemen who had not an- 
 swered a great many of his questions. ££ There,” said he, tearing off a 
 little bit of paper about twice the size of his thumb-nail, ££ w T rite me 
 down on that piece of paper everything that you do know.” I cannot 
 now be filling up Mr. Thelwall’s deficiencies, because I want to 
 say something for myself; not about doctrines, for as I told you, we 
 Tiactarians are quite satisfied with the doctrines of the Eno-lish 
 
 Chuich as they are, but about discipline, on which point we are not 
 satisfied. 
 
 1 “f*- however, before we leave this subject, say a few words on 
 Mr. Thelwall s idea of Tradition. I say Mr. Thelwall’s, because his 
 idea of it bears about as much resemblance to real ecclesiastical tradi¬ 
 tion, as the figure of a man scribbled by a child does to the original. 
 
44 
 
 Mr. Thelwall’s idea of tradition is merely the private interpretation 
 of certain ancient Fathers; and this he accuses us of substituting 
 for the Bible, or at least of considering of equal value with it. 
 
 Mr. Thelwall is really very like that celebrated warrior Tom Thumb, 
 who “made the giants first, and then he killed them.” We attach no 
 more value to ancient private interpretation than we do to modern 
 private interpretation. What ecclesiastical tradition really is, I may 
 find time to show you in some future lecture; it is something 
 very different indeed from Mr. Thelwall’s notion of it. But to 
 show you that there must be such a doctrine, I will ask you a few 
 questions. 
 
 I will venture to say there are not two people in this room, who in 
 any way distinguish the Sabbath from any other day of the week, 
 whereas they all more or less keep holy the first day, in spite of the 
 commandments,—why? Because the Loud rose from the dead on 
 that day. Very true, and very proper; but that is not the question. 
 What authority have you for it ? where do you find it in the Bible, 
 Mr. Thelwall’s sole reference ? I can tell you, but you cannot tell 
 me. 
 
 Again: how many Gospels are there ? Four, you say boldly. Well, 
 but my good friends, there are eleven. You will find them all in the 
 British Museum ; what have you done with the other seven ? Why is 
 not the Gospel according to S. Peter as good as the Gospel according 
 to S. Matthew ? I can tell you, but you cannot tell me. 
 
 Now take the books that are actually in the Bible. You are required 
 to receive as God’s Word the Proverbs of Solomon, but the Wisdom 
 of Solomon, which contains some far finer passages, you are not required 
 by the Articles to receive in the same sense. Why ? Because Solomon 
 never wrote the latter ? How do you know that—or how do you know 
 that he did write the Book of Proverbs ? It is so, you are right, but 
 how do you know it ? I can tell you, but you cannot tell me. 
 
 You need not be ashamed of not knowing these things. I am not 
 ashamed to say that I do not know how to make my own shoes, or com¬ 
 pound my own medicines. I may learn to make them if I please, so may 
 you, if you like to give yourselves the trouble, learn these things ; but if 
 your business does not lie that way, you are permitted to take the word 
 of those that have learnt them. 
 
 I mention these things to show you that not being able to find doc¬ 
 trines in the Bible, is no proof either that they are not there, or that 
 they are not doctrines, but that there really are more things in heaven, 
 as well as in earth, than are dreamt of in everybody’s philosophy. 
 
 Now I find no fault with Mr. Thelwall’s doctrines, nor for his pro- 
 
45 
 
 claiming them ; they are very true doctrines, as far as they go, and very 
 necessary to be known. What I do find fault with him is, that he 
 takes upon himself to call unfaithful all who can see further than he 
 sees himself, and to measure all the learning and all the intellect of the 
 English Church by his own pint measure. Mr. Thelwall defies us to 
 prove our doctrines. Our doctrines are the doctrines of the Church. 
 Of course I cannot prove them now, I have not time, and many of them 
 aie fai too holy to be played with in a lecture room; but have we never 
 written anything? 
 
 . Wli en the celebrated Abernethy was wanting to sell off an edition of 
 his works, and his unfortunate patients asked him the usual questions, 
 
 Well, doctor, what am I to do? what diet do you recommend?” and 
 so forth,^he used to say, “What do you bother me for? go and read 
 my book. So say we, go and read our books, we have written enough; 
 
 and we, at all events, are not in the habit of making assertions without 
 proof. 
 
 Suppose you were standing on the beach, and heard a man say, 
 “ Tliere are four ships in the offing and another on the cliff replying, 
 “ There are a great many more than that; I can see a dozen.” You 
 would not think this at all strange; you would probably set down each 
 man as right, according to the situation he occupied ; and that, although 
 they might be a little distorted by refraction, the four ships seen by the 
 man below, were some of the identical ships seen by the man above. 
 But suppose the man on the beach, totally disregarding, or altogether 
 ignorant of, the convexity of the earth’s surface, were to turn round 
 and call out in everybody’s ears, “You are unfaithful;” or were to 
 make use of the equivalent expression in the vernacular which found 
 favour with Charles Wesley’s friend : you possibly might think the man 
 ill-bred and abusive, most certainly you would set him down as con¬ 
 ceited, ignorant, and presumptuous. 
 
 Mr. Thelwall says, that he told a pious old lady, who asked him the 
 difference between High Church and Low Church • “ The High Church 
 place the Church above Christ, the Low Church place Christ above 
 
 the Church;” which definition, I have no doubt, was highly satis¬ 
 factory. 
 
 Above a hundred years ago, that very same question was asked of 
 the famous South: “Why, said he, “the High Church are those 
 who think highly of the Church, and lowly of themselves ; the Low 
 
 Church are those who think highly of themselves, and lowly of the 
 Church.” 
 
 It is not for me to say which of these two definitions is the most 
 correct; but South was a very great man, and a very eminent preacher. 
 
46 
 
 Mr. Thelwall may be both the one and the other, but I cannot say I 
 ever heard of him before. 1 
 
 I have, been told that many people were surprised at my lecture 
 because, like my friend the Layman, I did not pray all the Evangelicals 
 might be confounded, but on the contrary praised them. I suppose 
 they had been so accustomed to hear strong language from the Protestant 
 Defence Association here, and the Roman Catholic ditto in Dublin, 
 that they could not conceive the possibility of a controversial lecture 
 without a pretty plentiful seasoning of theological pepper. 
 
 If I have done no other good by my lecture, at least I have done 
 this : I have shown you that it is very possible for a man to be firm in 
 his own convictions, earnest in diffusing them, strong, and if you will, 
 obstinate in his determination, and yet unwilling to impute unworthv 
 motives to those who differ from him : I have shown you that he may 
 feel quite sure that he is right himself, without consigning to eternal 
 perdition all who think him wrong,—in one word, that Christian zeal 
 is quite compatible with Christian charity. 
 
 When I was a graceless young fellow at Cambridge, I used to abuse 
 Charles. Simeon, and ridicule the Simeonites. I have lived to be abused 
 and ridiculed myself, and having, like Tiresias, tried both sides of the 
 question, I can assure you, from personal experience, that the recollec¬ 
 tions of the latter of these conditions are very much pleasanter than 
 those of the former, especially when one grows older, and begins to read 
 one’s Bible. 
 
 Shallow brooks are noisy, deep waters are smooth. Depend upon 
 it, when a man is deeply and strongly impressed with the truth of 
 his own convictions, he is in no way tempted to rail at his neighbour. 
 The consciousness of latent strength gives calmness : the certainty that 
 truth is on our side, and must in the end prevail, whatever it may seem 
 to do at present, gives patience. Anger implies a secret doubt, and we 
 have no secret doubt; we have a calm, quiet, firm, and strong convic¬ 
 tion of the soundness of our position ; we can afford therefore to leave 
 anger, and railing, and scoffing, ay, and envy, hatred, malice, and all 
 uncharitableness to those who want them. We do not. 
 
 You have heard the story of the deaf man relating that Mr. A. and 
 Mr. B. had had a serious quarrel, and that Mr. B. was quite wrong. 
 “ What was it about?” said the friend. “ That I do not know,” said 
 
 1 Mr. Thelwall’s father, however, from whom, probably, his son inherits his 
 turn for lecturing, is more fortunate. Non caruit vate sacro. Canning thus 
 hands him down to posterity : 
 
 “ Thelwall, and ye who lecture as ye go, 
 
 And for your pains get pelted, praise Le paux.” 
 
47 
 
 the deaf man, “ for I did not hear one word of it.” “ Then how do 
 you know which was right ?” “ 0 easily enough,” said the deaf man; 
 
 Mr. ih lost his temper, spoke very loud, and Mr. A. was as cool all 
 the while as I am at this moment.” 
 
 The deaf man was quite right; anger really is a very good test of 
 truth; people never use strong language except when they run short 
 in strong arguments. When they are angry there is a screw loose, and 
 they know it. There was a good deal of sound practical sense and 
 shrewd knowledge of the world m the indorsement of that brief said 
 
 to have been picked up in Westminster Hall: “A weak case: abuse 
 the plaintiff s attorney. 
 
 Truth and raffing invariably take opposite sides. This I say generally 
 as a lecturer, as a controversialist, as an individual like yourselves • but 
 as an ambassador of Christ I say much more,—I say that it is abso¬ 
 lutely impossible that I should express irritation, or even feel it I 
 cannot feel anger at receiving that which I know is my own ‘just 
 punishment. We were placed in this our office by our Heavenly 
 Master for the express purpose of teaching the doctrines of His Church 
 of laying down the laws of His kingdom : “ Go ye, teach all nations ” 
 were the words, m which our appointment was given into our hands 
 and the very existence of opposition proves that we have not fulfilled 
 our mission; the greater the opposition, the greater the proof of our 
 neglect; the firmer our conviction in the truth of the doctrines which 
 we hold, the greater the blame to us, when we find that you whom we 
 were appointed to teach, do not hold them also. If we had done our 
 duty, you would not be ignorant of these things; if you were not 
 ignoiant of these things, you would not now be opposing us. 
 
 That I personally can divide the blame with hundreds of thousands 
 who have preceded me in the ministry, or who are now partaking in it 
 with me, that we spread it over a century and a half of cold neglect 
 diminishes from it nothing. It is no new thing that God should visit 
 upon the children the sins of their fathers; nor are our own sins of 
 omission so few, that we can complain that He does so. 
 
 And now when we find our late and inadequate efforts to repair that 
 which should never have been permitted to go to ruin misunderstood 
 and suspected, the real true everlasting doctrines of Christ’s Church 
 called Popery, and ourselves reviled and stigmatized as Papists —is it 
 or us to be angry, is it for us to say that we have not deserved it we 
 have not deserved what you say of us, we have as great a horror of 
 Popery as you can have yourselves P But we have deserved your 
 reproaches, for we have been unmindful of our duty; we have suffered 
 you to live and grow up in forgetfulness of our Master’s laws, when it 
 
48 
 
 was our business to teach them, in ignorance of the channels whereby 
 He bestows His grace, when it was our duty as stewards of His 
 mysteries to bring them home to every one of you. What right then 
 have we to complain that we are reaping the fruit of our own neglect 
 — that these things are strange and unpleasant to your eyes—and that 
 you show that they are so ? What right have we to be irritated with 
 you, to call your opposition factious ? Your opposition, unjust as it may 
 be, is our well-deserved punishment. You have received a loss at our 
 hands, not that which you imagine, but a loss no less, and you have a 
 right to be angry with us. 
 
 -Do you remember one of the earlier engravings of the Art Union, 
 called “ Una entering the Cottage,” which was once in all the print 
 shops ? That picture was the cause of my becoming a subscriber to 
 the Art Union. I have hung it up in my sitting-room, and many a 
 lesson of patience and humility has it taught me. You may not perhaps 
 remember it, for it is now some years since it came out. A female 
 figure, calm, serene, and robed in pure white, is entering a low, mean, 
 dark cottage, the door of which, strong enough and solid enough to be 
 the defence of a castle, has just been burst open and thrown down by 
 the lion that attends her. It is an incident from Spenser’s “ Faerie 
 Queen,” and is in itself a deep and solemn allegory. Una is the One 
 Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church; the lion that attends her is the 
 force of Truth; the strong door is the strength of prejudice, which it 
 is the mission of the Church, aided by the force of Truth, to overcome. 
 In this case it has been overcome, and the pure light of heaven shines 
 at last through the doorway. And how is this inestimable blessing 
 received by those who have hitherto sat pining in the darkness within ? 
 With evident fear, and mistrust, and aversion. These passions are 
 painted strongly on their countenances; they are represented as turning 
 from the light, which, blessing as it may be, is yet painful to eyes so 
 long unused to it. And how is Una herself depicted? Calm and 
 pitying, she is repressing what the poet calls “ her unruly page;” she 
 is keeping back the lion, secure in the quietness of her confidence. 
 
 And if that was the attitude of Una at her first entrance, what should 
 it be now ? She should never have left the cottage, and she knows 
 that; she should never have suffered the strong door to be closed. If 
 the painter had been depicting the Una of our days, besides the pity 
 and compassion for those who were thus turning away, which he has 
 expressed on her countenance, he must have depicted also a strong tinge 
 of self-reproach. 
 
 “ The truth is,” says Mr. Gresley, in a little book of his, which I 
 would advise you all to read—“ Clement Walton, the English Citizen” 
 
49 
 
 " the l truth is > tha t the Church has been sadly neglectful for the last 
 two or three generations; she ought to have divided her parishes Ion* 
 ago, and increased the number of her ministry, and_” 
 
 “ But, my good sir,” said Mr. Hammond the clergyman, with some 
 degree of warmth, - whose fault was that ? Why did not you laymen 
 vho have been managing our affairs for us, take care to divide our 
 panshes, and appoint a proper number of clergymen ?” 
 
 “And why did not you clergy,” replied Mr. Walton, “tell us what 
 we ought to do, and preach at us every Sunday, morning and evening, 
 
 till we did it P I never heard that you ever made any great efforts of 
 iQis sort. 
 
 In good truth we have all been neglectful; neither clergy nor laity 
 can afford to cast reproach upon the other, for both have come short of 
 their duty ; and thus our “ English Citizen” continues : “ I can assure 
 you, says he, “ that when I spoke of the Church having neglected her 
 duty Lmeant to speak of laymen as much as of clergy; I did not in 
 the least intend to exonerate the State from her share of the blame. 
 And now, since we have both been equally neglectful, let us vie with 
 each other which can do most to repair the mischief.” This is what we, 
 the Church Union, are striving to do, clergy and laity alike. This is 
 why we are Reformers. 
 
 One of my critics remarks, that in common consistency, in the pur- 
 suance even of my own system, Wesley, and Simeon, and such men, 
 should have been denounced by me as schismatics, rather than lauded 
 and commemorated as Reformers. He observes also that the same title 
 might with great propriety be applied to us Tractarians also. 
 
 He is right: he is quite right. It is a melancholy proof of human 
 corruption, that m this world there exists no good whatever without its 
 concomitant evil; and it is also true, that the particular shape of evil 
 which waits upon reform of any description, is schism or division. 
 
 Look at the State Reformers; they are a known and recognized 
 party, and m turbulent and excited times they are a factious and 
 rebellious party. This is an evil, no doubt; all division is an evil; 
 but it is far better than its alternative, permitting the whole constitution 
 of the State to fall away into despotism or anarchy. Trance is a united 
 nation just now, there is no opposition. Divided councils is the price 
 we pay for our political safety. 
 
 So it is with the Church. The Reformation itself was a deep and 
 grievous schism; it was a very great price that we paid—not too great 
 — nothing can be too great a price to pay for the preservation of 
 Christ s Truth”—but it was a grievous sacrifice that we made, an 
 enormous price that we paid for it. 
 
 F 
 
50 
 
 And so it was with those minor Eeformations that I have been 
 speaking of; so it was with the partial Reformation of Wesley. The 
 Church was to a degree awakened and roused for a time from her sloth, 
 and the schism of 300,000 men was the price we paid for it. 
 
 And so it was with Simeon, and Venn, and their followers. The 
 forgotten doctrines of the Atonement were again brought into light by 
 their exertions : and who shall say that the fluctuating secession into 
 Protestant Dissent, and the Pive Trustee system which resulted from 
 it, are too great a price to pay for such a blessing ? 
 
 And so with ourselves. We are no more exempt from the common 
 lot than those who preceded us. We are Reformers, and we are but 
 men. We cannot hope to effect our reform any more than they, without 
 paying its price. I have shown you, by reference to facts and figures, 
 that, compared with the reforms of our predecessors, its price has been 
 but small. I hope to show you from reasoning, and argument, and 
 analogy, that in all probability its price will be small. The closer we 
 adhere to Christian principle, the less we give way to maxims of human 
 expediency, the smaller will be our price. But there is no escaping 
 the common lot, the price must be paid. God never effects for us a 
 deliverance from the consequences of our own faithlessness, without 
 marking by a punishment a sense of His displeasure. He saves us 
 indeed, but as by fire. 
 
 Perhaps some of you may have read a little book that I wrote last 
 year, called The Erne and its Legends ; if you have, you will know that 
 T am the historian of the fairies, and am learned in the chronicles of 
 their race. I will tell you a curious legend about them. In those 
 days when there was war in heaven, and Satan and his angels rebelled 
 against the Almighty, one circle of angels alone, it is said, remained 
 neuter. They would not join the Arch Rebel, neither would they range 
 themselves among the hosts of their Almighty Sovereign. At the final 
 discomfiture of the rebellious angels, that circle which had not joined 
 in their rebellion could not justly be associated with them in their 
 punishment, neither, on the other hand, did it deserve the blessedness 
 of heaven. Those angels were therefore consigned to the earth, and 
 bound irrevocably to its fortunes. These are the fairies. They enjoy 
 all the pleasures and all the happiness which their new habitation can 
 afford, but it is on a lease as it were, and every seven years their lease 
 expires. It is renewable as long as the earth lasts, and they are always 
 reinstated in their privileges, on paying to Satan a quit-rent of one of 
 their number. This legend, like most of the fairy history, is an allegory. 
 Whenever we have been neglectful of our duty, whenever we have refused 
 to fight the battles of Him whose soldiers we have avowed ourselves, 
 
51 
 
 we may be forgiven indeed, and reinstated in our former privileges, but 
 it is always at the expense of some sacrifice to the principle of evil, 
 whose power we should have resisted from the first, but did not. 
 
 It is a true principle, and we Tractarians admit the fact, we acknow¬ 
 ledge it as the just punishment of our former faithlessness and sloth¬ 
 fulness in fighting the Lord’s battles: our reforms have and must 
 have a tendency to schism, we must strive against it, we must labour 
 to counteract it. It is our duty to do so, but we can no more escape 
 the danger than we can prevent our shadow from darkening the ground, 
 unless indeed we content ourselves with remaining in the shade. 
 
 We cannot be too thankful that the duty which lies before us now, 
 the reformation that we are called upon to attempt, is mainly one of 
 discipline and not one of doctrine. You will be surprised to hear me 
 say this, when every one is regretting, and in regretting is receiving it 
 as an admitted fact, that there are two parties in the Church, and 
 deducing as a necessary corollary, that as there cannot be two rights, 
 one party must necessarily be wrong. 
 
 Now of this corollary I admit the absolute truth, but I deny 
 altogether the proposition on which it is founded. Strictly and cor¬ 
 rectly speaking, there are not two parties in the Church. There are 
 two schools in the Church, but that is a very different thing. Parties 
 are where one set of men maintain a doctrine which another set of men 
 repudiate. The Church, for instance, maintains the apostolical suc¬ 
 cession of Bishops, the Presbyterians deny it; the Church maintains 
 the co-equal divinity of our Loud, the Socinians deny it; the Church 
 of Borne maintains the infallibility of the Pope, the Church of England 
 denies it. These are parties. Schools are different things. Here both 
 maintain all the doctrines, but attach a different value to them respec¬ 
 tively. The whole Church believes in some sense the efficacy and 
 necessity of the Sacraments as means of grace, apostolical orders, the 
 new birth, the necessity of constant renewal and divine assistance; but 
 one school brings one set of these necessary doctrines into the fore¬ 
 ground, while another school insists upon the greater importance of 
 another set of necessary doctrines, both believing equally the absolute 
 necessity of all, and differing only in their relative importance as a 
 matter of teaching. Now though I say that in our Church there do 
 exist different schools of divinity, which I believe to be a divinely- 
 appointed division of labour for the preservation of all the doctrines of 
 the Christian faith, yet I deny that there are different parties in the 
 Church. It is for this reason that we claim the Evangelicals of the last 
 generation as our fellow-workers. We and they belong to different 
 schools indeed, but the truths they maintained then we maintain now. 
 
53 
 
 Ay, and we will say more than that: the doctrines that we maintain 
 now they would have believed then, only they were in the shade, and 
 would have maintained them as firmly and openly as we, had they been 
 brought out into light in those days. Had those great men who led 
 the Wesleyan and Evangelical movements lived in our days, they would 
 have been Tractarians. 
 
 I ask you, is the name of Wilberforce unknown among the Evan¬ 
 gelicals ? Newman was a dissenter; Manning I myself knew as an 
 Evangelical. Thousands, and some of them our best men, have joined 
 us from the Evangelicals. And let me beg you to reflect, did you ever 
 know one of them to go back ? did ever any join the Evangelicals 
 from us ? 
 
 Liberally indeed have the numbers of Protestant dissenters been 
 supplied by them, while, frightened and dismayed by this, many of 
 them have rushed through our ranks to Home, disturbing and confusing 
 us in their passage, but did you ever know one of our men who left us 
 for the Evangelicals ? It is not so, it is not possible. The light which 
 good men possessed in those days made them see the neglect of parti¬ 
 cular doctrines on which that light then shone. It made them Evan¬ 
 gelicals, and would have made us Evangelicals had we lived in those 
 days. The increased light shows us now those very same doctrines, 
 and, in addition to them, many other forgotten doctrines which require 
 restoration as well as those of the atonement. That increased light 
 has made us Evangelicals, and it has made us something more also : it 
 has made us Tractarians, and would have made them so had they lived 
 in our days. 
 
 But we are all reformers alike. As reformers they were, and we are, 
 suspected and feared : as reformers they are, and we shall be, honoured 
 and commemorated. But no man is canonized until he is dead —/irjdev 
 
 7rpiv av Te\evrrjaavT 
 
 One great reason why I am anxious that our real principles should 
 be brought into light, is that I am convinced that our opponents 
 within the Church will perceive that we are like the knights that have 
 been looking at the opposite sides of the gold and silver shield, that 
 we have been contending earnestly for two truths, both equally true, 
 and neither in opposition to the other, that we say the same thing only 
 in different ways. 
 
 We have been contending with one another, because we were ignorant 
 of one another. I do not know any good that the rural chapters have 
 
 1 This, if the Record only had learning enough to find it out, really is a 
 misquotation, for I have no authority for asserting that CEdipus ever did receive 
 the honours of Canonization. 
 
53 
 
 done to the Church greater than the simple fact of bringing us together, 
 and showing each of us what really are the principles which we really 
 do hold. Bishops were afraid of these chapters, just as they are afraid 
 of Synods now: there were so many parties in the Church—we should 
 meet and quarrel. We stood apart and quarrelled, but when we met 
 we agreed. Why ? Because we had all been holding the same doctrines, 
 only we had been expressing them in different forms. It was no wonder 
 that we did so, we had never met together to compare our sentiments. 
 
 The grand and everlasting doctrines of Christ’s Church had always 
 been there, always before our eyes, only in the darkness they had not 
 been seen. In the deep dark night of the 18th century and the beginning 
 of the 19th, it was as much as we could do to keep in sight the faint 
 far outline of the everlasting hills and the strong firm mountains just 
 dimly traced upon the dark horizon; all the minor features of the 
 landscape were wrapped in gloom. What wonder then that each one 
 of us who strained his sight into the darkness gave to those dim and 
 dusky forms, which he could scarce distinguish at all, that hue and that 
 form which his own imagination supplied, and what wonder that that 
 hue and that form seemed different to different observers. It would 
 be marvel indeed were it otherwise. But as the light dawns across 
 the same scene, one after another, the old half-forgotten yet familiar 
 objects come into sight; now the ray strikes on some well-known 
 landmark, now on the old familiar spire of some church, now on the 
 well-remembered shelter of an ancestral grove, now on that hill that 
 used to be our beacon, now on that hollow that used to be our retire¬ 
 ment. The shapes with which our imaginations had invested these 
 objects during the hours of darkness fade away, and we all, and all alike, 
 hail with holy joy the well-known landscape of the Church’s childhood. 
 
 The Bishop of Oxford said that if his brother of Exeter could have 
 put off for ten years the baptismal controversy, he might have put it off 
 altogether, for that, within the Church, there w 7 ould then be no differ¬ 
 ence left to contend about. He said right. Schools of theology we 
 shall always have,— God forbid that we should be without them,-—but 
 the controversies about the Church’s doctrine will then be with those 
 that are without; it may be with the State, not with one another; 
 within we shall have light enough soon to distinguish our fellow- 
 soldiers. 
 
 To what do we owe our preservation during these hours of darkness ? 
 I say, under God, to the Prayer Book. When we consider the time 
 and the manner in which the Prayer Book was compiled, the tests to 
 which it was subjected, the trials which it underwent, he who can doubt 
 that the hand of God was over it, that a special Providence produced 
 
 f 2 
 
54 
 
 it, that it was absolutely intended to be our safeguard through our long 
 night of slothfulness, must be blind indeed. 
 
 We have often been accused of undervaluing the Thirty-nine Articles 
 in comparison with the Prayer Book. The Articles are part of the 
 Prayer Book, and it is absurd to say that we undervalue a part in com¬ 
 parison with the whole. The Articles were drawn up with the intention 
 of guarding against the errors of Rome, and they answer their purpose 
 perfectly—they do guard against them. But the Prayer Book is the 
 whole manual of Catholic Christian doctrine, adapted to the use of the 
 English Church. 
 
 Let us examine shortly its history, and we shall soon see why it is 
 so peculiarly valuable, it is that, subjected, as it has been, to every 
 conceivable test, it has stood its ground as the interpreter of the Bible 
 through them all. 
 
 No sooner had the turbulent reign of the wicked and inconsistent 
 Henry come to a close, than the first Prayer Book saw the light. It 
 was the unaided compilation of the English reformers from the old and 
 received services of the Church, but purged from innovations which had 
 been interpolated among them. About this time the persecutions which 
 were going on throughout the continent drove several of the foreign 
 reformers to take refuge in England, and under their auspices a second 
 Prayer Book was drawn up, tinged strongly with the peculiarities of 
 their school. It had a great deal of good in it, no doubt, but it was 
 altogether un-English and irregular; it was merely the concoction of a 
 certain knot of divines, it was never submitted to convocation or par¬ 
 liament, and was circulated by the authority of an order in council 
 alone. Each of these Prayer Books, was, in one way or other, accepted 
 by the State, rather irregularly it is true, for parliament had no voice 
 in the latter of them : it owed its State authority merely to an order in 
 council. Still the reception of them by the State gave them their lay 
 element. 
 
 Thus matters remained in England till the death of Edward. On 
 the accession of Mary both Prayer Books were of course suppressed, 
 and, during the persecutions which took place in her reign, not only the 
 foreigners, whom we could well have spared, but many of the English 
 reformers also, were driven from our shores, and, during the next five 
 years, were compelled to find refuge among their brethren on the 
 continent. 
 
 Now the Reformation which took place in those countries simul¬ 
 taneously with that of our own, was by no means so perfect or so regular 
 as ours was. Numerous as were the abuses which occurred during our 
 own Reformation, still it was a Church reforming itself, acting by its 
 
55 
 
 own innate vitality, but under the sanction and protection of the State. 
 They, on the other hand, were far too impatient to wait for God’s 
 leading. In almost every case abroad the Reformation was forced on 
 irregularly and schismatically, by the reformers separating themselves 
 from their Church, and acting for themselves, instead of working in it, 
 gradually leavening the whole mass, and waiting God’s own time for 
 accomplishing the work. The consequence of this was that in some 
 countries the Reformation was actually suppressed and strangled, and 
 in all it was more or less imperfect. By the foreign reformers the rule 
 of expediency had been adopted rather than the rule of principle, and 
 in every case many essentials of a Church, which their ingenuity was 
 not able to supply and which they had not faith to wait for at God’s 
 hand, were first dispensed with, and after a while forgotten or despised. 
 It was among these that our brethren were compelled to sojourn durin°* 
 the five years of Mary’s reign, in which time they had learnt, first, to 
 palliate the errors of their hosts, then to defend them, and in the end 
 to adopt them and make them their own. 
 
 On the accession of Elizabeth the two Prayer Books of Edward VI. 
 were again brought forward, and as the suppression, which had been 
 effected by the parliament of Mary, rendered legislation again if not ne¬ 
 cessary at least expedient, a thorough revision took place, the two Prayer 
 Books were collated and compared, and from them a third was produced. 
 This substantially is our own Prayer Book, which properly speaking, dates 
 from the beginning of Elizabeth’s reign, when the Reformation may be 
 considered as completed. The Prayer Book therefore may be considered 
 as the great work of the Reformation, embodying and condensing' the 
 sentiments of reformers, and containing their own matured ideas of the 
 doctrines of their Church. This book was based on the first or English 
 book of King Edward, but upon it were engrafted many good points 
 from the second or foreign book. To give you an instance, which will 
 serve for an illustration; as the Lord’s Supper is to us a means of 
 grace, so the first book, at the administration of it, has these words, 
 “The Body of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was given for thee’ 
 preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life.” To this the foreigners 
 Bucer and Peter Martyr had objected that the Lord’s Supper should 
 be considered as a remembrance of our Lord’s sufferings and atone¬ 
 ment. In the second book, therefore, the words which I have just 
 quoted were left out, and for them was substituted, “ Take and eat this 
 in remembrance that Christ died for thee.” In Queen Elizabeth’s 
 book the two sentiments are, as you may see by your own Prayer 
 Books, united. This particular alteration was effected at the queen’s 
 own request, because, as she said, and said truly, the Lord’s Supper is 
 
56 
 
 really a remembrance of our deliverance from the power of sin, and it 
 is also a means of grace to strengthen us in resisting it. This book, 
 like the others, was presented to the laity in parliament, and having 
 been accepted by them, continued the law of the Church and State 
 during the remainder of her reign. 
 
 In the mean while the refugees began to return to England. These 
 men, besides imbibing the peculiar notions of the foreigners, had 
 acquired also a good deal of spiritual pride. They really had been 
 greater sufferers for their religion than those who had remained in 
 England, and who in all probability had more or less succumbed before 
 the persecutions of Mary, and they came home priding themselves 
 upon this, and despising those whom they considered their weaker 
 brethren. They pretended to a higher degree of purity, and in token 
 of it, assumed for themselves the title of Puritans, a name which though 
 little heard of at that time, was destined in after days to acquire for 
 itself a terrible celebrity. 
 
 All things however remained in a quiet and apparently prosperous 
 state during Queen Elizabeth’s long reign, and under the judicious rule 
 of Archbishop Whitgift; but at his death the Puritans had acquired 
 sufficient strength to demand of James, who as you will remember, had 
 been brought up a Presbyterian, that the Prayer Book should be again 
 revised and adapted to the sentiments of the foreign reformers. 
 
 It was upon this that James called together the celebrated Hampton 
 Court conference, to which we owe our present translation of the Bible. 
 The most eminent divines of the Puritan, as well as that which, for 
 distinction’s sake, we will call the English party, were selected, and 
 the whole Prayer Book of Queen Elizabeth underwent a thorough dis¬ 
 cussion, sentence by sentence, for the most part in the presence of the 
 King. 
 
 It seems, however, that the English nation preferred their own 
 reforms to those of foreign extraction, for very few alterations were 
 made to Queen Elizabeth’s book—none of any importance. Yet the 
 revision was again subjected to the approval of the laity represented 
 by Parliament, and being by them accepted, it became the law of the 
 land, and continued to be so for the two succeeding reigns. 
 
 On the temporary triumph of the Puritans, Cromwell suppressed the 
 Prayer Book, as Mary had done before him, the use of it was made 
 felony ; that party as well as the Papists were always more celebrated 
 for zeal than for charity or toleration, and thus the Church, as in ancient 
 times, was driven to caves and holes in the rocks. It was thought 
 advisable therefore on the restoration of Charles II., (which restoration 
 you will remember was not effected by the cavaliers and churchmen. 
 
57 
 
 but by the repentant Puritans themselves,) to subject the whole Prayer 
 Book to a fresh revision. A conference for that purpose was accord¬ 
 ingly summoned by the King at the Savoy Palace, similar in all respects 
 to that held before by James at Hampton Court. A fresh sifting took 
 place on this occasion also, and it was made before divines of every 
 school. A few additions were found necessary—such as the office for 
 adult baptism, for it was discovered that during the days of the Church’s 
 depression, many had grown up to manhood unbaptized ; still, as before, 
 no material alteration was made; and the revised Prayer Book was 
 again presented to the laity, and accepted by Parliament, and thus, 
 receiving the King’s sanction, it again became the law of the land. A 
 sealed copy was deposited among the archives of the kingdom as a 
 memorial of this last revision, and as a guide against unauthorized 
 alterations, and this is the Prayer Book which we possess at this pre¬ 
 sent day. 
 
 Now I say that a Prayer Book so tested, so sifted, so tried, is pecu¬ 
 liarly valuable. Three hundred years—an absolute suppression under 
 penalty of transportation—two complete revisions under the scrutiny 
 of every conceivable school of divinity, have produced no alteration in 
 it, there it stands, tried like the pure gold seven times in the furnace 
 of adversity, there it is still, KTrj/xa e? dec, a possession for ever, pro¬ 
 claiming to us all, “ This is the way the English Church interprets to 
 her own children, (her own, as distinguished from their brethren of 
 other Churches,) that Book of God which is the common inheritance 
 of them all.” These are the distinctive doctrines of the Church of 
 England. 
 
 This is the Prayer Book to which we clergy declare our unfeigned 
 assent and consent. It is not only the law of the land, but the written 
 law of the Church of England; and a strict and undeviating adherence 
 to it in its plain literal and grammatical sense, without any deviation, 
 addition, curtailment, or mental reservation whatever,—this is pre¬ 
 eminently the principle of Tractarianism. 
 
 And are we to be called Popish because we adhere scrupulously to 
 the Prayer Book of the Reformation ? Are we to be called unfaithful 
 because we say as our fathers said, nolumus leges Anglice mutari. 
 
 People may say, they do say sometimes—why not the Bible? the 
 Bible is God’s Book. The Prayer Book, valuable as it may be, is 
 only man’s book after all. Why‘take the Prayer Book for your guide ? 
 
 I will tell you. God planted every vegetable that we use in the 
 wide field of the world, He put them there for man’s use, and man’s 
 food, that he may live thereby; we take them thence, thankfully I 
 hope, and remembering that they are God’s gifts; but we plant them 
 
58 
 
 in our gardens, and arrange them so that they shall come in at their 
 proper seasons and times, so as to be most useful to us. It would be 
 a very inconvenient thing if we had to go out into the fields and to 
 search for any particular vegetable that we wanted at any particular 
 time, and the chances are, that though there were plenty of them, we 
 should not be able to put our hands on them just when they were 
 wanted. It is a mistake to call the Prayer Book man’s work, it is no 
 more man’s work than the turnips and carrots you plant in your gar¬ 
 dens are man’s work; it is man’s arrangement, and it is adapted by 
 the most scrupulous care to the wants of the English Church; but 
 every doctrine of it, ay, and almost every expression and every word 
 of it, is to be found in the Bible; and as for the very words of the 
 Bible, do you not know that the Prayer Book provides that the whole 
 Bible be read through every year, the Old Testament once, the New 
 Testament three times, and the Psalms twelve times ? Nonsense about 
 comparing the Prayer Book with the Bible. The Prayer Book is the 
 Bible arranged for your use, and if you do not read the Bible, and the 
 whole Bible too, by the Prayer Book, whose fault is that? You are 
 told to do so. 
 
 But I will tell you why we are particular about that Prayer Book. 
 We are ministers of the Church of England, and that book is the book 
 of the Church of England, and when we became ministers of that 
 Church, we promised our unfeigned assent and consent to that book. 
 This or that particular may not be of importance of itself, but the truth 
 of our engagement is of importance, and if our conscience does not 
 compel us to keep it in little things, what guarantee have you that we 
 will keep it in great things P If I had promised you an acorn next 
 first of October, and all the oaks in England had been blighted, it 
 would become my duty to send to Spain for one, but not for the value 
 of the acorn. Did you ever hear of Buy Diaz el Campeador, who, in 
 order to arm his men for a campaign against the Moors, had borrowed 
 money upon some chests of stones, which the Jews of Burgos, who lent 
 it, imagined to be plate ? He redeemed the pledge, and when his 
 generals on seeing the chests opened, wondered at his doing so, (honesty 
 does not seem to have been the Spaniard’s forte in those days,) he said, 
 Do you not know that there was in those chests a treasure far more 
 precious than anything you can see ? they contained el oro de mi verdad 
 —the gold of my truth. Far more than meets the eye is implied in 
 the keeping or the not keeping of a trifling rubric; it is not the thing 
 itself, but it is the compromise of principle—it is the difference be¬ 
 tween truth and falsehood—between honesty and dishonesty. He 
 who keepeth the whole law, but yet offendeth in one point, is guilty 
 
59 
 
 of all, and rightly so, because he offends only where he is tempted to 
 do so. 
 
 Well, we have another reason for being particular about that book; 
 not perhaps a reason of such high obligation as that which I have- just 
 treated of, but one not without its force either. Beside being ministers 
 of the English Church, we are citizens of the English nation, and as 
 such we are bound to obey the laws of the land. I told you, that 
 before the Prayer Book, or any alteration of it, could be used at all, as 
 the laity are concerned in it, so the laity must accept it; and that they 
 do this by means of parliament. The laity have indeed no power to 
 alter it themselves, because it was not to them that the command “ go 
 teach all nations” was given, but it is their business to verify it: that 
 is to say, in the words of the Bible, it is their business to search the 
 Scriptures diligently, whether these things are so. Accordingly the 
 Prayer Book, having been accepted by Parliament, is made the" law of 
 the land by what is called an Act of Uniformity. 
 
 Let us take the last of these. The last time the Prayer Book was 
 revised, was, as I told you, in the reign of Charles II. Let us see 
 what the Act of Uniformity passed in the 14th year of that reign, says 
 on this matter, and how the Parliaments of those days speak of minis¬ 
 ters who altered these things to suit their own fancies, and of the 
 mischief which ensued from their so doing. As a simple matter of 
 history, this act is instructive. 
 
 “ Whereas by the great and scandalous neglect of ministers in using 
 the said order of liturgy so set forth and enjoined as aforesaid, great 
 mischiefs and inconveniences during the time of the late unhappy 
 troubles have arisen and grown : And many people have been led into 
 factions and schisms to the great decay and scandal of the reformed 
 religion of the Church of England, and to the hazard of many souls,” 
 and so forth : “Be it enacted by the king’s most excellent majesty, 
 with the advice of the lords spiritual and temporal, and of the commons 
 in Parliament assembled,” and so forth, “that every minister shall be 
 bound to say and use the morning prayer, evening prayer, celebration 
 and administration of both the Sacraments, and all other public and 
 common prayer in suck order and form as is mentioned in the said 
 booh ,” and so forth : “ upon pain to forfeit the sum of five pounds to 
 the poor of the parish for every such offence upon proof of two credible 
 witnesses, before two justices of the peace.” 
 
 Here you see an adaptation to all natures. However conscientious 
 the clergy of the Church of England may be as a body, there will 
 always be some among them who are not to be bound by either the 
 engagements of their ordination or the laws of their Church. And for 
 
60 
 
 these a wise parliament has provided two credible witnesses and a 
 bench of magistrates. As Duncan Macwheeble remarks, “an his 
 honour winna believe Leviticus, he might aye put his trust in the 
 statute book.” 
 
 A ludicrous instance of this occurred some years ago in the diocese of 
 Winchester. I need not name the parish; many of us know all about it, 
 and to those who do not, the story will do just as well without the names. 
 
 In the parish of X-then, let us say, there was an individual, 
 
 who being in the habit of reading his Prayer Book, a thing which very 
 few people do, was struck with several little discrepancies between the 
 directions therein contained, and the manner in which these directions 
 were carried out by the curate. He wrote to him a friendly letter 
 thereupon, pointing these things out, and desiring they might be re¬ 
 stored. Above all, he did not see why he should every Sunday be 
 deprived of the prayer for the Church militant, when the Church said 
 as plainly as words could speak, that “ on Sundays and other holy 
 days, if there is no Communion, then shall be said all that is appointed 
 at the Communion, unto the end of the general prayer for the whole 
 state of Christ’s Church militant here in earth.” 
 
 The curate replied that some of these things he would do out of his 
 
 friendship for Mr.-, but that for the rest, his friend really must 
 
 excuse him, he could not think of it. 
 
 • Mr.-returned an immediate answer, that friendship had no¬ 
 
 thing to do with the business; that these things were his right; and 
 that he required them to be all done immediately. 
 
 “ 0 !” said the curate, “ if that is your way, I will not do anything. 
 I’ll let you see who is the master.” 
 
 Mr.-said nothing, but quickly bundled up the whole corres¬ 
 
 pondence, and sent it to the Bishop through the Bural Dean. 
 
 His Lordship returned answer, that he had perused the whole cor¬ 
 respondence, and did not see any reason for interfering in the matter. 
 Bishops do generally act with great caution, and so they ought: pity 
 this Bishop had not acted with a little more. 
 
 Mr.-’s reply to his Lordship was, that he should have been 
 
 very unwilling to engage a poor curate, in an affair which might be 
 very expensive, but that he had no such scruples with respect to a rich 
 Bishop; that possessing as he did a document proving that his Lord- 
 ship had refused to do his duty when called upon, it was his intention 
 to apply to the Queen’s Bench for a mandamus to compel him; that he 
 should be at church wdth two credible witnesses, on the following Sun¬ 
 day, and that he thought it fair to let his Lordship know it, as the 
 business would probably be expensive. 
 
61 
 
 He was there, with his two credible witnesses, but there was no¬ 
 thing to witness, except what was strictly correct—not a tittle of the 
 rubric was violated. It was “ a palpable hit egad !” 
 
 I will give you another story. Last winter I was memorialized 
 against to our ovvn Bishop. The Duke of Manchester and his zealous 
 mends had sent down their letters and had knocked up a terrible storm 
 m our little parochial puddle. You cannot conceive how high the sea 
 was running in our tea-cup. Among other things our churchwardens 
 told the Bishop that I walked straight from the Nicene Creed into the 
 pulpit, and began my sermon without any prayer whatever. Now 
 oui Bishop, who is a very considerate and judicious man, and who 
 imagined that probably I knew more about my own business than the 
 churchwardens, or the Duke of Manchester either, asked me what ob¬ 
 jection I had to using a prayer in the pulpit. 
 
 Objection! my Lord,’ said I, “ none whatever, only I have no 
 authority : if your Lordship will give me a written authority I have 
 no objection to say as many prayers as you like.” 
 
 « T ‘ But ^ r : Newland,” said his Lordship after a little consideration, 
 to “ S lve y° u a wrltten authority • I have no authority myself 
 
 “ Then, my Lord,” said I, “ I humbly presume that I have no autho¬ 
 rity to do it without.” 
 
 Well might the Bishop have said that he had no authority in that 
 matter. I did not know it at the time, but as soon as the matter be¬ 
 came public, a friend found it out for me; for using any prayer during 
 service which is not marked in the Prayer Book, the fine on the of- 
 endmg pnest is one third of the annual income of his benefice. And 
 it the -bishop can be proved cognizant of the fact, Ms fine is a hundred 
 marks, that is to say between seventy and eighty pounds. 
 
 It is singular that the punishment should' be so severe, but the 
 reason of it is this. At the time of the Deformation there were a 
 great many clergymen who wished to do, what you say we Tractarians 
 want to do now—hold all Romish doctrines and their benefices into 
 the bargain But since, whatever you may think to the contrary, our 
 Protestant Prayer Book really does not permit this, they were in the 
 habit of inserting the expunged portions of the service in all convenient 
 parts but particularly after the Nicene Creed. Cranmer therefore got 
 that law passed, in order to make it dangerous for them to do so. 
 
 n these days, Bishops are quite incapable of doing wrong, as everv- 
 body knows; and therefore the Bishop of London, when he brings in 
 a bill tor the correction of criminous clergymen, is relieved from the 
 paintul duty of putting in anything about criminous Bishops. But 
 
 G 
 
62 
 
 Cranmer, I am sorry to say, had not the same implicit confidence in 
 his episcopal brethren, which is enjoyed by the Bishop of London now, 
 so he put in a little clause about them also. 
 
 It is a singular thing, considering the number of unauthorized prayers 
 and collects Avhich are inserted every Sunday by clergymen of all 
 sorts, my High Church friends as well as the rest, between that Ni- 
 cene Creed and their Sermons—to reflect that any one of them at the in¬ 
 formation of any one of his parishioners might be mulcted in one third 
 of his income, and his Bishop possibly in eighty pounds into the bargain. 
 
 All this goes to the poor of the parish. What are the poor-law 
 guardians doing that they neglect to avail themselves of so profitable 
 a haul ? 
 
 I have said so much about the Prayer Book for three reasons. The 
 Prayer Book contains the whole principles of Tractarianism; and 
 
 In the first place I consider it your safeguard and ours against 
 Popery. 
 
 In the second, I believe it will prove ultimately the ground on which 
 all that is good of the Evangelical and Tractarian schools, will combine 
 against their common enemy, the Indifferentism of the present age. 
 
 In the third place it will account for the seeming contradiction of a 
 number of men acting together without party and without leaders. 
 
 We will take these three points each in its turn. 
 
 In the first place then, I think that if you remember the value which 
 we Tractarians put upon the Prayer Book, its doctrines, its practices, 
 even the very mint and anise and cummin of it, as well as the weightier 
 matters of its law, you will soon begin to have less fear than you seem 
 to have now, that our doctrines are the doctrines of Popery or in any 
 way lead to it. 
 
 That Prayer Book which we prize so highly is pre-eminently the 
 Book of the Reformation, and is therefore a perpetual though silent 
 protest against the doctrines of Popery. It serves for this purpose 
 better than the Bible itself, for this plain reason : the Bomanists have 
 the Bible as well as you, and that does not prevent them from holding 
 Popish opinions: but I never heard of one of them using the English 
 Prayer Book. 
 
 The simple fact, for instance, that the prayer for the Church militant 
 contains no petition for the dead, while the corresponding prayer in 
 the unreformed Prayer Books does contain a petition for the dead, is as 
 Bishop Mant very justly observes, a standing proof that the English 
 Church disavows that doctrine. None of her ministers therefore can 
 preach that doctrine, without first cutting out that prayer from the 
 Communion Service; and yet this is the very prayer that so many of 
 
63 
 
 you petition the Bishop to do, what it is as much as his place is worth 
 to comply with, order it to be disused. This is but one instance out 
 of many. 
 
 When I call the Prayer Book the book of the Reformation, I do not 
 mean that it was written then; it would not be nearly so valuable, 
 either as a manual of theology or as a protest against Rome, if it had 
 been. It was collected then from the existent books; their errors were 
 detected by a comparison with the doctrine of the primitive Church, 
 and the whole was revised by the men of the Reformation. It expresses 
 therefore the precise doctrines which these men held, more clearly than 
 if they had written them themselves, because it shows that their atten¬ 
 tion was specially directed to those points, and that they either accepted 
 or disavowed them. 
 
 When people in our days are hard run upon this point, they fly, like 
 Newman, to the doctrine of development, as he calls it. They would 
 make out that Cranmer and his brethren were very great rogues, for 
 that they suppressed half their real opinions in hopes of conciliating the 
 Romanists of their times, and that they, the moderns, who have— 
 heaven knows how they got it—some intuitive knowledge of what was 
 the real mind of the Reformers, are gradually developing their true sen¬ 
 timents and the actual doctrines of the Church. 
 
 Now I do not believe that the Reformers were so dishonest; I have 
 no reason to suppose they were, and I consider it a libel to call even a 
 dead man a rogue, unless I can prove him to have been one. But 
 even if I did believe it, what becomes of the two revisions at the 
 Hampton Court and the Savoy, at about a hundred years apart from 
 each other, when that same Prayer Book was so severely sifted and 
 tried, and no sort of development had taken place, but the same doc¬ 
 trines in the same form were again put forth by the clergy, and ac¬ 
 cepted by the laity ? 
 
 It is for this reason that I say that our present Prayer Book contains 
 unaltered the doctrines of the Reformation, and that the doctrines of 
 the English Reformation are the doctrines of Chkist’s Church. 
 
 Now see this. Are we going to be led to Rome by pinning our faith 
 on the doctrines of the Reformation ? Are Cranmer, Ridley, and Lati¬ 
 mer, leading us to Rome ? Is it a proof that we are aiming at Rome, 
 because we treasure their book and their doctrines ? Hid you ever 
 hear of people intending to go to a foreign country, and as a prepara¬ 
 tion exhibiting in an open basket goods which they knew to be con¬ 
 traband in that country ? Ho you suppose that the Prayer Book of 
 the Reformation is not contraband at Rome P Lead us to Rome ! why 
 it is your safeguard : and what better safeguard can you have against 
 Rome ? 
 
64 
 
 My second reason is, that in proportion as we bring into light the 
 plain doctrines and requirements of the Prayer Book, in that very same 
 proportion we must accelerate the union of the Evangelical and Trac- 
 taiian elements, against their common enemy, IndifFerentism. 
 
 Meie noisy partisans, of course, this will not affect in any way, ex¬ 
 cept with anger and jealousy that their opportunity of disturbing the 
 Church is gone: but mere noisy partisans are the plague and disgrace 
 of every movement. We do not want them; we had rather not have 
 them ; perhaps we might spare them one or two of our own, and be all 
 the better for it. But the honest and conscientious must in the end 
 be brought together. There stands the Prayer Book, the silent but 
 constant remembrancer to both, of what really are those doctrines which 
 both schools equally profess as members of the Church of England. 
 As they look at them they cannot help seeing those points in which 
 each has deviated from his common rule. 
 
 Why do you, it was asked of Mr. Close, “ deny Baptismal Re¬ 
 generation, and then, whenever you read the service for Baptism, thank 
 God that He has in this office regenerated this child?” The contra¬ 
 diction was glaring q it was like a ribbon of two foot six inches applied 
 to a yaid measure; it was evidently six inches short, and what was 
 woise, it had to be applied every Sunday, and before heaps of witnesses. 
 
 Well, at first, men, old men who had gone on all their lives in this 
 inconsistency—without thinking of it, perhaps, or noticing it, at a time 
 when these things were done in a corner, now that they are brought out 
 against them, do not like to say honestly and openly, {t We have been 
 wrong all our lives; we made a mistake; we are very sorry for it: we 
 will do better for the future.” You cannot expect an old man to do 
 this ; he would fancy it was lowering him in the eyes of his parishioners, 
 and diminishing his influence : besides, there is always a certain degree 
 of obstinacy in human nature ; a man holds an opinion because he has 
 held it. 
 
 It is most natural then that these men should invent all sorts of in¬ 
 genious theories, in order to avoid owning themselves wrong; and this 
 is the origin of charitable hypothesis, and prevenient grace, and half a 
 hundred other schemes, excusable enough under the circumstances. 
 But the mischief is, that those people do not above half believe the 
 truth of their own argument; they have a secret misgiving that they 
 are humbugging themselves, and a slight suspicion that they are deceiv¬ 
 ing no one else, and so they get angry and abuse us, because we will 
 keep shoving these unpleasant things before their eyes. It is not us 
 they are angry with, but their own consciences, that will not let them 
 rest in peace, with that irritating contradiction always sticking in them. 
 
65 
 
 How can they help being out of temper ? Their consciences have got 
 a thorn in them ; they have not the energy to pick it out, so it is always 
 making itself to be felt whenever they move. 
 
 We are not going to gain those people, but we do not blame them, 
 neither do we laugh at them; we are sorry for them, we think that 
 under their peculiar circumstances they are deserving of great con¬ 
 sideration. 
 
 Well, but the younger men, they who are not committed by any 
 previously expressed opinions, who, never having been leaders' are not 
 ashamed of confessing that they have not understood the doctrines of 
 the Church, they who are obliged to see their Prayer Book, and read 
 their Prayer Book, and understand their Prayer Book, ay, and if they 
 mean to be clergymen, to be examined in their Prayer Book before they 
 declare their unfeigned assent and consent to it—they have their con¬ 
 sciences, and will neither teach against it, nor prevaricate with it. Be¬ 
 sides, these things are so much talked about that the laity are beginning 
 to read and inquire for themselves, and many of them are quite able to 
 see the difference between their parson’s teaching and the prayers he 
 is obliged to read. 
 
 All this the younger men will not face ; and any examining chaplain 
 will tell you, that year after year the candidates of the lax school are 
 becoming fewer and fewer. Men whose consciences actually will not 
 allow them to teach the Church’s doctrine, will not enter into the 
 Church’s ministry ; but these are very few, and the consequence is, that 
 those who do not enter the Church’s ministry, are drawn nearer and 
 nearer every day to the common point of union. 
 
 Before I take up the next question, let me say a few words about 
 Honesty, and its effect on the English mind, for my attention has been 
 especially called to this subject by the public prints. All nations have 
 their characteristics, and one great feature of the English character is 
 honesty. Plain downright John Bull; he detests a humbug, he hates 
 equivocation, he hates a Jesuit, not so much for his doctrines, of which 
 he knows nothing, as for his want of straightforwardness. John is 
 rather short in the temper, and a little prejudiced withal; he is subject 
 to periodical fits of passion, which, as we learn from that high authority, 
 the Latin grammar, is a short madness. His mind, at such a time, is 
 very like the needle of a boat-compass in the race of the Lizard. If 
 you have never been in the Lizard race during a squall, lucky for you. 
 I have. While the squalls of popular madness, and the cross tides of 
 partizanship, and the undertow of prejudice are knocking up such a 
 bubble of a sea, that you do not know what to hold on by, the needle 
 spins round and round, and runs to every point of the compass. But 
 
 g 2 
 
66 
 
 no sooner does the sea go down, than back, and back, and back it 
 vibrates, till at last it settles down to the old magnetic north of the 
 English character—Truthfulness and Honesty. 
 
 There was nothing that damaged us quite so much as when one of 
 our writers, hard run and pressed into w corner about some practices, 
 which he ought never to have entertained, talked about holding doc¬ 
 trines “ in a non-natural sense.” The public stormed at him, the press 
 ridiculed him, our opponents exulted over him, and we repudiated him, 
 and he deserved it all. But for a long while that non-natural sense 
 stuck by us. And I firmly believe, that, innocent as we were of it, it 
 injured us more than all our secessions to Borne put together, because 
 it offended directly against the national character. 
 
 . Again, there was nothing that damaged the Bishop of Worcester and 
 his party more, than when he in his turn was run into a corner, and 
 finding a difficulty in squeezing his principles down to his practice, gave 
 it as his opinion that the solemn engagements of our Induction need 
 not be kept with Chinese exactness. He has not yet heard the last 
 of his Chinese exactness, and I suppose never will in the course of his 
 natural life. 
 
 And so it is when men put a non-natural sense on the words of the 
 Prayer Book, either in discipline or in doctrine, either in the rubrics or 
 in the prayers themselves, besides grating against their own consciences, 
 this shifty method is beginning to grate upon the consciences of the 
 laity who are looking on. Men cannot stand it, and so some of them, 
 who cannot abide the absurdity of reading one thing in the Prayer Book 
 and preaching another in the pulpit, take to leaving out bits of the service 
 and changing the lessons,—but that does not much improve matters, 
 because they know that they are bound down to a particular service, 
 and particular lessons. And here comes in John Bull’s old honest 
 nature.. Why do you give your unfeigned assent and consent, says he, 
 to a thing that you mean to alter ? I do not understand mental reser¬ 
 vations ; if the services of the Church do not suit your fancy, who 
 asked you to undertake them ?—if you undertook them willingly, why 
 do you not do them ? 
 
 This is the way people begin to reason, and matters are beginning 
 to get a little dangerous. Since I have been engagedin the Manchester 
 and Salford education controversy, in which Canon Stowell and I have 
 taken opposite sides, I have had more than one letter from Manchester, 
 urging me to expose him, for leaving out and changing parts of the 
 service. I do not want to expose Canon Stowell, it is no business of 
 mine, it has nothing to do with the Manchester and Salford Education 
 Scheme; but these people will soon begin to find out that instead of 
 
67 
 
 writing to me they can help themselves. There is a great deal of virtue 
 in the £5 penalty : I am inclined to think that Honesty is the best 
 Policy. 
 
 In common fairness, however, I should say that it is not among the 
 Low Church only that the Prayer Book is of use. Many a wild colt 
 of ours that would have bolted into all Romanizing doctrines and prac¬ 
 tices—if not into Rome itself, has been tripped up by that excellent 
 lunging rein the Prayer Book, and thus brought to his senses. I wish 
 you would read a chapter in a little book by my friend Mr. Gresley, 
 called “ Bernard Leslie, or a tale of the last ten years,” (while you are 
 about it you may as well read the whole book) but at all events read 
 that chapter where Leslie pulls up his High Church Curate Mr. Monk- 
 ton, curate of High Kirkstall, (the name alone is worth something) and 
 then you will see of what use the Prayer Book is as a lunging rein for 
 impetuous young clergymen. I mean to quote from that chapter by- 
 and-by, but T first want to give you my third reason for making so 
 much of the Prayer Book. 
 
 If it is our bond of union, this explains the reason why, with all the 
 appearance of a party to those who are without, we are not a party, 
 and do not work under the conditions of a party. I told you, in mv 
 last lecture, that neither in the Vice-Chancellor’s Court, where the 
 question was asked, nor anywhere else could people define what they 
 meant by Puseyites and Tractarians. Of course they cannot; in order 
 to define a party you must be able to point out its leader and to desig¬ 
 nate its doctrines. 
 
 Well then, you ask, where is your leader P We have no leader. 
 What are your doctrines P We have no doctrines ; we have doctrines 
 as Churchmen. You will find them in the Prayer Book; and those 
 are your doctrines too, or ought to be ; you are Churchmen too. Those 
 doctrines we stand up for gallantly and firmly, and so should you; but 
 as Tractarians we have no doctrines. 
 
 What, no doctrines ?—no leader ?—then you are not a party. To 
 be sure we are not, any more than all Christian Churchmen are a party. 
 We have all the same object before us; the restoration of the English 
 Church, and we have all the same road to it, the ordinances and doc¬ 
 trines of the Prayer Book. 
 
 Now see here—when a great number of men are going towards the 
 same object, and travelling by the same road and at the same time, they 
 look like a party though they are not a party necessarily. Their only 
 connection may be their object and the road that leads" to it; and if 
 they are all moving independently, though one may seem to be first, or 
 another may seem to be first, yet there is no leader. The common aim 
 
68 
 
 or object is the leader. Suppose the man who seems to be first in this 
 movement should lose sight of his object, which you will recollect in 
 our case is the restoration of the English Church. Suppose instead 
 he goes star-gazing after some Ideal Church in the clouds; he edges 
 out of his way and very naturally falls into the ditch, and perhaps, 
 covered with mud, he scrambles out on the farther or Romish side of 
 it. Oh! oh ! say the spectators, they have lost their leader: they 
 must fall to pieces now and lose their way. Not a bit—there is not even 
 a check in the movement; he was no leader of ours, he had only been 
 going along our road, till his wits went wool-gathering and then he 
 wandered out of it: but what does it signify—we were not steering by 
 him, but by our object, we are very sorry for our lost man,—we hope 
 he has got a soft seat on the other side of the ditch, and has found 
 what I think is technically called “ Rest in Rome we trust that he 
 will soon be able to scrape off his clothes the mud that he has picked 
 up in getting there, but his loss does not hinder us, whether we be 
 many or few, there is our object,—and there is our road just the same. 
 
 And now look at those honest worthy conscientious people who have 
 come up by the Evangelical turning. Why they have the very same 
 object before them,—the very same restoration of the English Church, 
 —they have the same road to walk in now, the practices and principles 
 of the Prayer Book, and as we are all travelling at the same time, our 
 party looks twice as large as it was. Not at all; there are only a 
 greater number of travellers, they are not at all more a party, but those 
 who have the same road, and the same object, cannot long be kept 
 asunder. 
 
 Did you ever hear how it was that the celebrated Dr. Woolf turned 
 Puseyite ? I did not hear the story from his own lips certainly, but 
 I heard it from one who did. 
 
 You all know Woolf, the great missionary, many of you no doubt 
 have seen him; well, Dr. Woolf was travelling in some out-of-the-way 
 place in the far East, I forget the name of it, but that does not greatly 
 signify, most likely I could not pronounce it if I remembered it. How¬ 
 ever it was in the diocese of one of the Bishops of the Eastern Church, 
 and in the course of his wanderings Woolf fell in with the Bishop. 
 
 “ Who are you ?” said his Lordship, looking at him oversuspiciously. 
 
 “ A poor missionary,” said the Doctor. 
 
 “ A what ?” said the Bishop. 
 
 “A missionary,” said Dr. Woolf, pulling out his little black Bible. 
 Any one who has ever seen Woolf fingering his Bible, will remember 
 how it seems always to open of itself at the precise text he wants. “ I 
 am come to preach salvation to these poor people. How shall they 
 
69 
 
 call on Him in Whom they have not believed ? and how shall they believe 
 in Him of Whom they have not heard ? and how shall they hear without 
 a preacher ?” 
 
 “ That is al1 y ery well,” said the Bishop, “ but why don’t you finish 
 the text, 1 ‘ How shall they preach except they be sent ?’ Who sent 
 you ?” 
 
 “Sent?” said Woolf. 
 
 “ Yes 5 sent >” sai( l the Bishop. “ My Metropolitan sent me, and his 
 predecessors sent him, and I send my priests and deacons. Now, who 
 sent you ?” 
 
 “ ^he Spirit of the Lord,” said Woolf boldly, for he was not a man 
 to be put out of countenance. “ I hope you do not deny that Christ 
 is able to send His own messengers without human intervention?” 
 
 God forbid that I should doubt it for one moment,” said the 
 Bishop ; “ I know that He can. I know that He sent Moses and Aaron 
 without human intervention to establish the Aaronic priesthood, and I 
 know that He superseded this very priesthood of His own ordination, 
 by sending also without human intervention, the apostolic priesthood • 
 and wiiat He did once, of course He can do again. God forbid that 
 X should doubt that: X should be a Jew if I did. Still I do observe, 
 that whenever God sends any one directly from Himself and without 
 human intervention, He is always graciously pleased to confirm His 
 own appointment to the minds of His faithful servants by signs and 
 wonders. Moses called down bread from heaven. He and° Aaron 
 brought forth waters from the rock. And so also when God 
 was pleased to supersede their priesthood, many wonders and sioms 
 were wrought by the hands of the Apostles. They did not go upon 
 their own testimony, but appealed to these as witnesses; as in the 
 case of their Master Himself, the works that they did testified of 
 them. Now,” continued his lordship, “without at all doubting the 
 possibility that a Woolfish succession may be commissioned to super¬ 
 sede that of the Apostles, where are your witnesses ? I suppose you 
 do not expect us to take your word for it: what supernatural powers 
 do you appeal to in proof of your heavenly mission?” 
 
 This was a puzzler; it had been a puzzler to Mohammed several 
 hundred years before. The prophet, however, got out of it cleverly, 
 by saying that he had written the Koran, which, as every one could 
 see, was a miracle in itself; but poor Woolf could not‘say he had 
 written the Bible, so he fell a-thinking. 
 
 1 By the way, Evangelicals very seldom do finish that text, and it is sin¬ 
 gular they do not too, because that text would tell them of a doctrine which 
 they generally know very little about—the Apostolical Succession. 
 
70 
 
 The result was, that he came home, I will not say a better man, for 
 a most excellent man he was always, but by many shades a wiser man. 
 He settled in England, he got a living, and the last time I saw him, 
 he was preaching a tolerably High Church sermon in Archdeacon 
 Denison’s church at East Brent, while the Archdeacon himself was 
 at the reading-desk, looking at him with a patronising and fatherly 
 air, nodding his head occasionally at any particularly orthodox passage, 
 as if he were saying to himself, “ Come, for a young hand that is not 
 so bad.” 1 
 
 This is a very fair specimen of the way in which this fusion between 
 these two sects of reformers, the Evangelicals and Tractarians, is 
 taking place every day. It is not by any overt act, not by meetings, 
 and concordats, and concessions, and drawing up of articles; that 
 would be impossible, because as we have no party nor leader, we have 
 no one^o act for the whole body. The process is much more simple. 
 It is merely this: a number of zealous, earnest-minded people are 
 searching after truth. Truth is one, and the nearer they all get to it, 
 the nearer they get to one another. 
 
 Of course, in this process of fusion, numbers will shatter off on 
 every side, for this plain reason, that in every school of opinion, be¬ 
 sides those zealous, earnest-minded people who adorn it, and direct it, 
 and give weight to it by their character, and life to it by their energies, 
 there will always be a number of noisy declaimers, and riotous par- 
 tizans, and feather-headed enthusiasts, and not a few downright hypo¬ 
 crites too, who make their profit by their partizanship; that mixed 
 multitude, in fact, which we read of in the Bible that went up with 
 Israel, but were not Israel, the camp followers of every army, which 
 swell its numbers and add to its embarrassments at the same time. 
 These we must expect to lose from both sides, but especially from the 
 Evangelicals, whose broad shallow system has so slight a parapet of 
 distinctive doctrine between themselves and the Protestant dissenters. 
 Numbers of them are continually falling over at every movement. We 
 are sorry no doubt to lose any one, we admit that in the Church’s 
 battle against the World we want every hand we can muster, but after 
 all, camp followers are not the strength of an army. The Church can 
 very well spare them. 
 
 When I speak of the camp followers in that great army, the Church, 
 those who swell her numbers while they diminish from her strength, do 
 
 1 It is right to say that the author has received a very characteristic letter 
 from Dr. Woolf, disclaiming all right to he styled a Puseyite. The author is 
 very happy to state his perfect conviction that Dr. Woolf is no more a 
 Puseyite than he is himself. 
 
71 
 
 not imagine that I am speaking of the Evangelicals only; plenty of them 
 they have no doubt, and very angry I made some of them in my neigh¬ 
 bourhood, by comparing them in a little pamphlet of mine, to the 
 froth on a quart pot, which is sure to come to the top and thrust 
 itself into sight, but which is good for nothing but to be blown off, in 
 order to get at the good sound liquor below. It is inconceivable what 
 a savage answer they wrote; the wonder is how I survived it. 
 
 And now I suppose I shall draw another Leviathan with my hook 
 from the other side of the question, when I say that I have sometimes 
 seen a little froth on the top of our quart pot too: men who deceive 
 themselves into the idea that they are clothing themselves with all 
 Pusey’s piety, when they are only putting on Pusey’s dirty surplice. 1 
 Of all the enemies we Tractarians ever had, and we have had enough 
 of them in all conscience, there is none that 1 dread like the High 
 Church dilettante, who is so very High Church that he gets fairly into 
 the steeple. 
 
 These men we have, and must have. Thankful am I that they are 
 much less numerous than they were. The breed is fast wearing out, 
 but whenever we find them, we neither defend nor spare them. Hear 
 what Paget says of them, and no one who has ever read the Warden 
 of Berkingholt, or the Tales of the Village, will suspect Paget of 
 Evangelical tendencies. 
 
 “ Churchmen,” says he, “ have been now and then distressed of late 
 years by the intolerable folly of disciples of the Tractarian school, 
 who, in their vanity and love of notoriety, have made it the apparent 
 object of their lives, to render themselves as unlike their neighbours as 
 possible, not in holiness, self-devotion, and secret acts of self-denial, 
 but by making themselves conspicuous in externals, bowing and cross¬ 
 ing, and performing all manner of notable antics, and thereby dis¬ 
 tracting their neighbours’ attention instead of aiding their devotions; 
 writing notes to their tailor or greengrocer, and dating them S. Ethel- 
 burga’s day, or the morrow of the Translation of the bones of S. 
 Symphorosa, hitting upon every conceivable singularity that seems to 
 savour of Popery, and at the same time is likely to direct attention to 
 themselves.” 
 
 These, and there are many more of them, are not the words of the 
 Record. They are the words of a very celebrated writer among our¬ 
 selves, one to whom we Tractarians owe much; and I quote them to 
 show you that we do not spare our own party when they deserve censure. 
 
 And this is not a solitary instance. I wish I had time to quote 
 
 1 Horace tells us of a similar delusion in his times with respect to the toga 
 of Cato. 
 
72 
 
 from a chapter of that book of Mr. Gresley’s, to which I before 
 alluded, in order to show you how an experienced Hector ought to deal, 
 ay, and to my own knowledge, does deal, for Bernard Leslie has many 
 a living parallel, with an earnest but ill-judging young man, whose 
 zeal outruns his discretion. 
 
 But why should I take instances of fiction ? Who is there among 
 ourselves so high or so esteemed, that we pass over his errors ? Does 
 any admiiation, does any sympathy, which we profess for any indi¬ 
 vidual, blind our judgment with regard to any particular acts of that 
 individual ? I need not select instances ; they are to be found in all 
 our papers, some of them so remarkable that they cannot fail to occur 
 to every one of us. 
 
 I ask you to look back through the pages of the Becord, and I 
 challenge you to find anything at all similar to this. Do their eminent 
 
 men never commit errors in judgment, that the Becord never chronicles 
 them ? 
 
 Now let me intreat you to mark this difference, and to draw your 
 own inferences from it. TV hy is it that we can afford to judge and 
 condemn, and do condemn most severely, any one among ourselves 
 who is in error, however eminent he may be, but that the Evangelicals 
 do not and cannot ? 
 
 Is it not that they have no rule to measure themselves by, and 
 therefore cannot tell whether, in any particular act or sentiment, they 
 aie in oidei or out of order, faithful or unfaithful? And thus having 
 no rule, they have no confidence in pronouncing upon individual acts 
 on theii own merits, but are obliged to take up things in the aggregate 
 as a matte] of partizanship, not that such a thing is right because it 
 is according to the standard rule, but that it must be according to the 
 rule, because Mr. Close or Mr. Somebody else has said it. 
 
 We, on the other hand, who take the Prayer Book of the English 
 Church for our guide, censure at once and unsparingly any dereliction 
 fiom that Prayer Book, and that as well in ourselves as in our adver¬ 
 saries. I have myself been corrected by a brother Tractarian and 
 member of our Union, for a deviation from the ritual which I had 
 heedlessly committed, and I was thankful for the correction, and altered 
 it immediately. 
 
 I said just now, that every day we had fewer and fewer extravagant 
 High Churchmen. Is there not a reason for this, when every one of 
 them has before him every day of his life, a rule of interpretation to 
 be tried by, and is tried by that rule ? 
 
 Can the Evangelicals say as much ? 
 
 Is it not evident therefore, (as Mr. Gresley observes,) that though 
 
73 
 
 there are extravagancies and errors on both sides, yet that the errors 
 of the Evangelicals are the errors of their system, whereas the errors 
 of Churchmen are the errors of individuals. 
 
 Call us unfaithful to the Church of England! how can we be 
 unfaithful to the Church of England, when our leading principle is 
 faithfulness to the book of the Church of England ? It we are un¬ 
 faithful to that, it is not to the Church only that we are unfaithful, 
 but to our own party and our own principles; and our own party 
 repudiate us and cast us off. 
 
 I gave you in my last lecture our Confession of Eaith, from Arch¬ 
 deacon Denison. I will give you to-day our rule of conduct from 
 Mr. Gresley. 
 
 “ Our only safe course,” he says, “ is to keep strictly to our Church, 
 without turning to the right hand or to the left. If we think one 
 ordinance a petty ceremony, and begin to neglect it, we shall soon give 
 up another, and another. 
 
 “ Why should we allow ourselves to go to extremes in one way or 
 the other ? why not keep to our own Church ? Aristotle tells of a 
 baker who asked his employer whether he liked his meat overdone or 
 underdone. Why cannot you do it right ? said the man. So why 
 cannot we by God’s grace, keep right; why not keep to our Church ? 
 Why go off to either extreme? If we keep to what is written we 
 are safe ; but once let us suffer ourselves to depart from the prescribed 
 ordinance, and we know not to what lengths we may be carried.” 
 
 Now let me cap this by the authority of Bishop Bedell. So far 
 from falling in with the lax and convenient interpretation of the great 
 repudiator of Chinese exactness, he said that for his part, he would 
 never depart from the rule of observing the conformity prescribed by 
 the law of the Church; for he thought that conformity was an exact 
 adhering to the Rubric, and that adding any new rite or ceremony 
 was as much nonconformity, as the passing over of those which were 
 prescribed. And he said they were as much nonconformists who 
 added of their own, as they that came short of what was enjoined, 
 just as he who adds an inch to a measure disoions it for a rule , just as 
 much as he who cuts an inch from it. This was Bishop Bedell s rule, 
 and I beg you to lay it to heart. 
 
 And now to return to my quotation. “ Long time and persevering 
 exertion will be required to accustom men’s minds again to the true 
 system of the Church as received from Apostolic ages. But the 
 difficulties are not insurmountable, because through God’s merciful 
 providence we have our English Prayer Book as a standard to refer 
 to. It is on that mainly that our preservation as a Church has hitherto 
 
 H 
 
74 
 
 depended, and that must be our chief instrument in effecting the 
 restoration which is needed. If our Prayer Book be tampered with 
 by any party, the glory of the English Church will have departed. 
 But as long as we maintain that treasure inviolate, it will still afford 
 a basis on which to rebuild our solemn worship and invigorate our 
 languishing system with the spirit of purer and holier ages.” 
 
 LECTURE III. 
 
 The last time I lectured here, I quoted a favourite maxim among us 
 Tractarians about “ everything at its proper time, everything in its 
 proper place, and everything to its proper use.” It is astonishing 
 how much difficulty people experience in putting this maxim into 
 practice, even so far as to enable them to distinguish what subjects 
 are proper for a lecture-room, and what are not. The last time I 
 addressed you I. was obliged to begin my lecture with protesting 
 against the irreverence of making the market-place a place of prayer. 
 I now protest against that of making it a place for handling holy 
 subjects. 
 
 Matters of Church discipline we are ready enough to handle, ques¬ 
 tions concerning this we are ready enough to answer. We are ready 
 enough to prove that we are faithful followers of the Church of Eng¬ 
 land ; that our practices and teaching are ruled by our Church ; that 
 we never wilfully depart, either from her laws, or our engagements. 
 Much more than this we are able both to explain and to prove; and 
 not able only, but willing and ready: but this is not the place for it. 
 If you want further explanation, read our books, consult us in private, 
 write to us with proper authentication of your names, that we may be 
 sure our correspondents are not Gawthornes : above all, follow us to 
 our churches,—not for the purpose of finding out faults, but with the 
 wish to ascertain the true nature of our teaching. We invite you. 
 Like our Master, we speak openly to the people, in secret we do no¬ 
 thing. If you do this, you will soon find out that the teaching of the 
 Church is the teaching of the Bible. All that we can venture to do in 
 such a place as this, is to show you that our teaching is the teaching 
 of the Church. 
 
 Take these lectures for no more than for what they are intended. I 
 do not attempt to explain the doctrines of the Church of England: 
 that for the present I leave to other hands; that I would wish to see 
 
75 
 
 treated of in anotlier and a holier place, and in another and a graver 
 style. Do you suppose that I would mix up the deep and mysterious 
 truths of our religion with jokes and stories for popular amusement ? 
 
 I have spoken of those truths at a proper time and place,—when I was 
 preparing my flock for Confirmation, when I was in my pulpit, or my 
 own study : these are the places for such subjects. As soon as I have 
 finished these lectures to you, I shall get my Confirmation Lectures to 
 my own flock ready for the press. You have seen how I speak to 
 those who come to me for amusement; you may then, if you please, 
 see how I speak to those who come for instruction and improvement of 
 their means of grace. All I undertake to do now and here is, to show 
 that we are faithful to our own engagements ; that we teach that which at 
 our Ordination we promised to teach; that we follow the practices we 
 engaged to follow, and submit to the discipline to which we bound 
 ourselves to submit. 
 
 As I came into the room last time, a paper was put into my hands 
 about the Sacramental System of the English Church; and alter the 
 lecture, when we permitted questions to be asked, a string of interro¬ 
 gatories were put forward about the Leal Presence. The Record, I 
 understand, abuses me for my levity in treating of such matters. If I 
 treated of them at all, in such a place, the Record would be quite 
 right; but I never did; I never would. And as for you, we cannot 
 permit any one at our lectures to bring forward subjects that we do 
 not venture to touch upon ourselves. When and where have we ever 
 entered into discussions on these high mysteries ? What could any 
 one have seen in us, to warrant him in imagining for one moment that, 
 we who are appointed by God as the stewards of these mysteries, 
 should be so unfaithful to * our trust, as to permit them to be exposed 
 to the multitude, and desecrated in the lecture-room ? Such matters 
 as these, be assured, we do not ourselves approach without deep and 
 earnest prayer. We treat of them either in the quiet of our retirement, 
 or in the House of God ; never in places of worldly resort: and we 
 should consider ourselves unfaithful to our other office—that of Am¬ 
 bassadors of Christ —did we permit you to do so. Be it then, 
 understood, we are not concerned now to prove that the Church of 
 England is a true branch of Christ’s Holy Catholic Church: we 
 believe it, as we would believe a thing on which our salvation depends; 
 but this is not the place to prove it. If there are any who wish to 
 attack their own Church,—if there are any who would cast her down 
 from her high place among the Churches of God, and degrade her into 
 an Establishment of the State, or an Institution of man,—let them do 
 it: they are welcome to try their best, and do their worst. We, on 
 
76 
 
 our parts, are ready and willing,—ay, and by God’s grace able, too,— 
 to defend her: but not here. 
 
 About what concerns ourselves we may speak, and speak here; and 
 therefore, as far as these points go, I will take notice of the printed 
 paper which I alluded to before. 
 
 Upon what ground of common honesty can our system be said to 
 bring forward a book of minor importance—meaning the Prayer Book 
 '—in opposition to the Bible, when according to the teaching of that 
 Prayer Book we bind ourselves to read openly in the ears of the people 
 the whole of the Old Testament once, and the whole of the New Tes¬ 
 tament three times in every year, besides drawing their attention more 
 particularly on each successive Sunday to some remarkable series of 
 passages conveying in its proper order some special doctrine appro¬ 
 priate to the season P Ay, and not only bind ourselves to do so, but 
 we Tractarians act up to our engagements, and do it. 
 
 I am not acquainted with the writer of that paper. I hope he is in 
 the room now, that he may hear me ask him publicly whether if he is a 
 Clergyman, he has done this himself, and whether if he is a layman, 
 he has attended to this himself during the last year. If he has not, and 
 I have, I ask him which of us two makes the Bible his Book,—which 
 of us two is faithful to his engagements and which is not ? 
 
 I will tell you what was once said to me by a Boman Catholic 
 Priest. “ You Clergy of the Establishment,” so he had the impudence 
 to call our Church, “ are very excellent men, very learned men, very 
 hard-working men, very pious men : it is a great pity you have three 
 faults, for without these you would be perfect.” 
 
 Come, thought I, pricking up my ears, this is a pretty fair admission 
 from an enemy. “ And what may these three faults be?” 
 
 “Why,” said he, “ you don’t say your Creeds ; you don’t read your 
 Bible; and you don’t say your prayers.” 
 
 “ Whew !” said I, “ what can you possibly mean ?” 
 
 “ Why,” said he, “ is it not so P I have often heard the Athanasian 
 Creed left out at all events; as for the Bible, you are told, no doubt, 
 to read some of it every day; but that is not the question: the ques¬ 
 tion is, do you read the Bible which is appointed for you to read ? 
 As for your prayers, you have a Common Prayer, no doubt, which you 
 are told to say morning and evening throughout the year. I do not 
 deny that; what I say is, that you do not say it, and we do say it.” 
 
 “ But, my good sir,” said I, “you are wrong; I do.” 
 
 “You !” said he, “what, are you the type of all the Clergy of Eng¬ 
 land ? will you venture to say that there is one in a hundred of them 
 that does these things?” 
 
77 
 
 Now what could I say ? Is there ? Is my friend the writer of the 
 paper one of them? I do not think he is. 
 
 Now you see how much he knows about us. See what he says. 
 “ The Tractarians will tell you so to run that you may obtain the 
 prize; but it must be in their way, Baptism the starting-point, and 
 receiving the Sacrament the obtaining the prize—Sacramental Salva¬ 
 tion !!” 
 
 The Tractarians tell him this ! Why there is not a child m a Trac- 
 tarian National School who would not tell him that Baptism is the 
 starting-point, no doubt—he is right enough there—but that liis in¬ 
 heritance in heaven is the prize, and that the Communion is the 
 nourishment or food appointed to strengthen his soul for the race. 
 Bless your teacher’s innocence, he does not know a great deal about 
 Tractarianism. And that is the way with all these Evangelicals : they 
 paint a Tractarian according to their own ideas of what a Tractarian 
 is, and then they proceed to demolish him, which they do not find a 
 difficult job at all. The only thing is, that the original is not much 
 like the painting. 
 
 Mr. Neale was explaining to you in his lecture how they had con¬ 
 trived a bracketed Prayer Book, the bracketed passages to be left out 
 by people of tender consciences. I have never seen the book; do any 
 of you know whether there is a bracket over the ninth commandment ? 
 it would be an uncommonly useful one to some people. 1 
 
 By the way, while you are about it, what do you say to a bracketed 
 Bible ? there are some very awkward texts in it, that pinch the con¬ 
 science in a most uncomfortable way; if these ingenious Evangelicals 
 would only take that in hand, they would be conferring a public benefit. 
 There was either a Bible or a Prayer Book, if I recollect right, with 
 the word [not] bracketed out of the seventh commandment; a few such 
 brackets would make the Bible quite another book: it would not hurt 
 the tenderest of consciences, and it would do very well for our modern 
 houses of Parliament,—for Jew, Turk, Infidel, and Heretic, might use 
 
 1 Since this lecture was delivered, a friend of mine happening to pass by 
 the Roman Catholic Chapel at Bath while the Priest was catechising the chil¬ 
 dren, went in to see how such things were done in that Church. The Priest 
 was not very long before he found out the heretic, and framed his questions 
 accordingly. 
 
 “How many Sacraments have we in the Holy Church?” 
 
 “ Seven,” was the ready answer. 
 
 “ And how many have they in the Church of England ?” 
 
 “ Two only.” 
 
 “ O no, my boy,” said the Priest, “ they had two, but the Privy Council 
 has cut out one of them. They have only one left now.” 
 
 H 2 
 
78 
 
 it alike. Think of this, some of you Evangelicals; turn it over in 
 your minds; your party may find it useful. 
 
 And now let me explain to you how it was that I became a Trac- 
 tarian. 
 
 I must, however, here ask you to call to mind what I said in my 
 first lecture, that I answer to this name, not because it is my name, but 
 because you please to call me by it. Miss Edgeworth says, if I 
 choose to call my hat a cadwallader, and explain to you that I do call 
 it so, my hat, for all practical purposes, is a cadwallader. Whenever 
 I use the word, after having explained it to you, you would know 
 that I meant by it the thing that I put upon my head. I have a per¬ 
 fect right to call my hat or your hat a cadwallader; the only objec¬ 
 tion to my doing so is, that I should have to explain the word a good 
 many times; in fact, pretty nearly as often as I used it. And this is 
 the only objection to a great many words, all of which will suit me 
 very well. Are you a Catholic P say you : yes, that I am; but I do 
 not blurt this out in all societies, because it would give me continually 
 the trouble of explaining that I have no connection with the people 
 over the way. Are you a Protestant ? Yes, O yes ; I am not at all 
 ashamed of calling myself a Protestant, only I do not want to have 
 the trouble of telling people that I have no connection with that coat 
 of many colours, the Protestant Alliance. Thus, also, I certainly am 
 an Evangelical; perhaps I have a greater title to call myself so than 
 some folk who rejoice in that name—for I not only carry to my people 
 the glad tidings of salvation, but I do not shun to declare to them the 
 whole counsel of God : still there is a long explanation to be gone 
 through, which makes it very inconvenient to call myself an Evan¬ 
 gelical, and so I don’t call myself one. 1 
 
 1 Some of tbe old inhabitants of Brighton may possibly recollect my old 
 Rector, Mr. Ferryman, whose family resided here; no one who had ever seen 
 his herculean frame, his firm determined countenance, that looked as if it had 
 been cast in iron, with his long white hair flowing over his shoulders, could 
 ever forget him. When I got my present appointment to Westbourne and 
 left his curacy, he was about ninety, and looked still as if he could and will¬ 
 ingly would play Entellus to any one’s Dares. 
 
 When I went to take leave of him he was in conversation with my intended 
 successor, a smart, well-dressed, self-satisfied looking youth, with an immense 
 display of white shirt and black whisker. 
 
 “ It may not exactly please you,” said the young fellow, with an affected, 
 mincing tone, “ I do not think it will; but' I think it right to tell you never¬ 
 theless, that I am an Evangelical preacher, and that I expect to be allowed to 
 preach full Evangelical doctrines.” 
 
 “ Sir,” said the old man, in his deep, firm tones, “ what then am I ? what 
 doctrines do I preach ? Have you the conceit and impertinence to imagine 
 
79 
 
 Thus, also, if you like to call me a Tractarian, I am a Tractarian, 
 and I answer to the name : but I do not like the name, nor call my¬ 
 self so, because it gives me the trouble of repeating so often that I do 
 not feel myself bound to believe or to defend all that is written in the 
 Tracts for the Times. 
 
 I will show you the sort of inconvenience I mean. Some years ago, 
 at one of the Bishop’s public dinners, there was a pertinacious little 
 gentleman who fixed a piercing gaze full in my face from a pair of 
 truculent-looking spectacles, and kept pegging into me across the table 
 with “ What have you got to say about the Doctrine of Beserve P 
 How can you look us in the face after Tract No. 90 ?” till at last I lost 
 all patience, and electrified them all by bursting out, “ My good friend, 
 my name is not Newman, but New land. I never wrote one word of 
 all those tracts ; and what is more, I never read them. I have sins 
 enough to answer for of my own, and I won’t be made to answer for the 
 sins of other people.” 
 
 Now then, call me Tractarian if you like, and I will be answerable 
 for my own writings; but don’t make me answerable for everything 
 that everybody has written whom you choose to call by the same 
 name,—for that I will not stand. 
 
 Well, but if I think it a trouble to answer to the name of Catholic, 
 and Protestant, and Evangelical, and Tractarian, what are you to call 
 me, what name will I call myself? 
 
 Call me an English Churchman : that is what I am, and there can 
 be no mistake about that. As for my being baptized and an English¬ 
 man, there is my baptismal register at S. James’, Westminster, for any 
 one who likes to pay a shilling to see it; and as for my being a 
 Churchman, I hold by the Apostles’ doctrine in my Creed; I remain 
 in the Apostles’ fellowship under my Bishop; T abide by the Breaking 
 of the Bread ; and I am perfectly satisfied with the prayers. This is 
 the way the Bible defines a Churchman, and that definition will do 
 for me. 
 
 I am an English Churchman. 
 
 Having laid down this as the title by which I designate myself, I 
 have no objection to tell you how it was I came to be a Tractarian. 
 Not that I mean you to infer from this, that at any known time of my 
 life I began to embrace the doctrines held by the Tractarians; theirs 
 
 that you and your sect are the only people who preach Evangelical doctrines ? 
 You have been badly taught, sir, and worse brought up. Your youth may 
 be some excuse perhaps for your ignorance and presumption now, but it will 
 be no excuse five or six years hence. Go home, sir, and read your Bible, and 
 learn your own duty as a Christian before you presume to teach other people.” 
 
80 
 
 are tlie doctrines of the English Church, and I cannot tell you when 
 and how I learnt them. I always held them ; they grew with me. I 
 understood them better as I grew older, and read more, no doubt: but 
 there never was a time in my life when I had them not. 
 
 Some of you may recollect Mathews and his exquisite readings ; at 
 the end of one of them an enthusiastic admirer rushed up to him, “ O, 
 Mr. Mathews,” said he, “ I will give you a hundred pounds if you 
 will tell me who taught you to read.” “ I won’t take your hundred 
 pounds,” said Mathews, “but I will tell you for nothing if you like. 
 It was my mother .” So say I. My spiritual Mother is the Church of 
 England: and I can no more tell you how I learnt her doctrines, than 
 I can tell you how I learnt to breathe. 
 
 But how to apply her discipline I did learn; and I will tell you 
 where, and when, and how I learnt it: at least, I will tell you how it 
 was my thoughts were first turned that way, and how it was I came to 
 see the shortcomings of myself and my brethren in the Ministiy, and 
 how I found that we did not act up to our own engagements, and that 
 we had got into slack habits and slovenly practices, and had never 
 found it out, because we were all one as bad as the other; and thus, 
 too, did I find out what was the moral effect of all this upon our 
 people. I wanted no Tracts for the Times to tell me this, neither did 
 I read them. I found it out for myself; and I will tell you how T 
 did it. 
 
 It is now a good many years ago since I was visiting a friend, who 
 lived about two miles from the town of Geneva: my friend’s establish¬ 
 ment was a pretty large one, and contained a good many servants, 
 some of whom were Bomanist, and some Protestant. As for being 
 honest or dishonest, good or bad, I suppose they were all very like 
 other servants; but in one respect there was a very marked difference 
 between the Romanists and the Protestants. Geneva, as a canton, is 
 Protestant of some sort, no doubt; but though there is an octroi at 
 the gates of the town about bread and meat, and cheese and butter, 
 though they are terrible protectionists in provisions, there is quite free 
 trade in religion. The canton is divided into communes, who meet 
 every year, and vote what religion they will be of for the next twelve 
 months ; and though most of these communes do like to be Protestant 
 of some sort—and that is a pretty wide term, taking in, like your 
 Alliance, everything, from Calvin to Socinus inclusive—yet now and 
 then it happens, for all that, that the Pope gets the majority; upon 
 which the minority are expected to conform,—something in this way. 
 My friend was painting a boat. One day the painter was missing. 
 “ What became of you yesterday ?” said my friend. “ Pardonnez-moi, 
 
81 
 
 monsieur, I was keeping the feast of Saint Somebody.” “ Keeping 
 the feast of Saint Somebody!—why, you are a Protestant!” “ C’est 
 vrai, monsieur; but my commune last Tuesday was a week, voted the 
 other way; so I am obliged to keep the feast; but as for the Saint,” 
 shrugging his shoulders, “ Bah!” This is a digression ; it is merely 
 to account for the servants being a mixed establishment, and for 
 there being a Roman Catholic chapel in a Protestant canton ; in fact 
 there was one about a mile from the house. 
 
 In all those places there is daily service at a very early hour : one 
 and all the Romanist servants used to get up to attend this service 
 and to say their prayers ; getting back to the house just as their Pro¬ 
 testant brethren and sisters were coming down from their bedrooms. 
 Here was something to think about; both Papists and Protestants 
 were told to say their prayers, and to assemble themselves in God’s 
 house. Both trees were to be judged by their fruits, and here were 
 the Papists doing it, and the Protestants neglecting it. There must 
 be some reason for this. Again, on Sunday where were the Roman¬ 
 ists ?—one and all gone to Mass, which I need hardly tell you is the 
 name they give to the Ploly Communion. Where were the Protestants ? 
 They certainly went to church sometimes ; but as for the Holy Commu¬ 
 nion, they never thought of such a thing. Now this was singular; 
 both these people had been told that “ except they ate the flesh of the 
 Son of Man, and drank His Blood, they had no life in themand the 
 Protestants had the additional advantage of being able to read it in 
 their own Bibles. Why did the one act up to it, and the other not P 
 
 Now it is quite true that the Protestants of Geneva are a very long 
 way indeed from the Church of England, but T had had a little expe¬ 
 rience in parish matters too, and could not help recollecting that the 
 practice among the uneducated classes of my parishioners was very 
 much more like that of the Protestants of Geneva, than it was like 
 that of the Roman Catholics ; there was the very same difficulty in 
 getting them to church, and the very same difficulty in getting them 
 to act as if they believed the Holy Communion to be a means of grace. 
 
 Another Sunday came; and as we went to church, the whole road to 
 Geneva was blocked up by men, women, and children, and horses, and 
 carriages. The whole town was turned out of doors, and every one 
 was marching on foot or on horseback to a place about four miles off, 
 from which a continual peppering of musketry was heard all the day 
 long; while a placard on the gates of the deserted city told me that 
 the State, out of its fatherly considerateness for its children, and its 
 unwillingness to interfere with their work, had selected that and the 
 next three Sundays, for light infantry drill and practice with ball cart- 
 
82 
 
 ridge for all its male population between the ages of fifteen and forty ; 
 and as a necessary consequence, for a holiday for all its female popu¬ 
 lation between those ages. After service at the English Church—the 
 Genevan were of course shut up—I strolled out into the next country. 
 Geneva is not a very large State, and I had not to go very far. 
 
 Half an hour brought me to the boundaries of Savoy, and to a 
 pretty little town belonging to that kingdom. There were the churches, 
 two or three of them, and all full. I must say, that as evening closed 
 in, there was a good deal more fiddling and dancing than my English 
 feelings exactly approved of; but still, every man of all those dancers, 
 and every woman too, had been to church at least twice that day,— 
 which was more than could be said for the light infantry gentlemen 
 and ladies on the other side. 
 
 Again my thoughts went back to England. I am happy to say, 
 that I could" not find a parallel for the drilling and the State desecra¬ 
 tion of the Lord’s day; but I had seen Gravesend steamers and Sun¬ 
 day excursion trains, and I am afraid that the worship of God had 
 very little to do with either of them. 
 
 Here, again, was a subject for thought; it was a matter in which 
 there could be no doubt; there could be no doubt that the Lord’s day 
 was a day of worship, or that the Protestant had been taught that it 
 was, at least as much as the Roman Catholic. Why did the one re¬ 
 gard it and the other disregard it ? 
 
 There are many other points that I mean, as I go on, to illustrate 
 in the same manner, showing you from facts which came under my 
 own observation, where real undeniable Christian duties are taught 
 and practised by other Churches, which either are not taught in our 
 Church at all, or are taught so imperfectly as to fail in taking hold of 
 the hearts of our people, and leading to any practical results. I show 
 you the facts as they struck me, and give you the inferences I drew 
 from them. But lest you should set me down in the number of those 
 factious and unfaithful men, whose sole pleasure seems to be to depre¬ 
 ciate their own Church by magnifying that of Rome, I will tell you 
 now a conclusion that I did arrive at at last, though as you will see 
 from the nature of it, it was not till after a good deal of subsequent 
 observation and experience. 
 
 You will observe that in speaking of the devotedness so remarkable 
 in the Church of Rome, my instances have been drawn from the lower 
 and uneducated classes. As we go on, you will observe that al¬ 
 most all my instances will be drawn from the same classes. In fact, 
 with the sole exception of Belgium, in every Roman Catholic coun¬ 
 try with which I am acquainted, the religious are the uneducated or the 
 
83 
 
 imperfectly educated. Of course you will understand that I am speak¬ 
 ing of classes. It would be absurd to say that there is no such thing 
 as a well educated and religious Roman Catholic layman. I have no 
 doubt that there are many; but for all that, what I say is true gene¬ 
 rally —devout as the lower classes are, among their intellectual supe¬ 
 riors there are comparatively few who comply with the ordinances of 
 their Church. There are many who do not go to church at all; many 
 who speak openly against it and ridicule it; while not a few are ab¬ 
 solute Atheists and Infidels. It may be another reason why I am not 
 particularly ambitious of the name of Protestant, that these last are 
 in the habit of calling themselves Prodestanti. I must say I am a 
 little suspicious of a Protestant Alliance, which if I belonged to it, 
 would make it necessary for me to fraternize with such people as 
 those. 
 
 Now let us, as before, compare this state of things with what we 
 see in the Church of England. I will venture to say, as far as can be 
 judged by outward actions, that this assertion will be found true ; the 
 most religious men among us are the best educated ; and, as generally 
 speaking, the best educated are the upper classes, the upper classes of 
 England are, at all events outwardly (which is all we can judge from,) 
 more religious than the lower. How many of our poorer parishioners 
 are non-communicants ! While among the upper classes the non¬ 
 communicant is the exception. The same holds good about going to 
 church ; the same with regard to the outward respect shown to the 
 Lord’s day; the same in numerous other particulars. So that it 
 would appear, as a general rule, that the strength of religion in the 
 Church of England lies in the upper or educated classes; in that of 
 Rome in the lower or uneducated. 
 
 Now, I would ask you, what inference wopld you yourselves draw 
 from this difference between the two Churches ? I would have you 
 consider why, under the one, religion and education for the most part 
 go together; why in the other, irreligion and education. And when 
 vou come to the poorer and uneducated classes, why is this exactly 
 reversed ? There is a reason for this. There is a reason for every¬ 
 thing, if we could only find it out. 
 
 I will tell you what conclusion I myself arrived at from these obser¬ 
 vations, and I will leave you to judge for yourselves how near it comes 
 to the truth. I should say this;—the more the doctrines of the 
 English Church are examined by the light of learning and reading, the 
 more they are tested by history, and sifted by reasoning and compari¬ 
 son, the more strongly they are impressed on the heart—the doctrines 
 are pure and true, therefore they stand the test, therefore those who 
 
84 
 
 are best able to subject them to the test (that is to say, the most edu¬ 
 cated,) are also the most religious. 
 
 Whereas on the other hand, the more the distinctive doctrines of the 
 Church of Eome, that is to say, those doctrines in which she differs 
 from the English Church, are proved by history, and brought into 
 light by learning, the more mixed and vitiated do they appear. So 
 that the educated, by whom alone they can be subjected to these 
 tests, in despair of separating the false from the true, reject both, and 
 thus become secret or open infidels. 
 
 I think this is clear enough; but then, on the other hand, why are 
 the poor and ignorant more religious and more devout in the Church 
 of Eome, where the doctrines have been corrupted, than they are in 
 the Church of England, where they have not been corrupted ? This 
 seems a paradox.—Because the Eomish Church, with all its cor¬ 
 rupted and interpolated doctrines, has a far better system of teaching 
 them. Because the Church of Eome speaks to the comprehension of 
 the poor, and we speak above it. The poor are taught by what they 
 see, rather than by what they hear; for this very reason, that their 
 senses are as keen as ours, but their understandings are not. This is 
 where the Eoman Catholics get the advantage over us. They act 
 openly, as if they believed their religion, and were very proud of their 
 religion; we act as if we did not believe ours, or were ashamed of it : 
 they display theirs and put it before them; we conceal ours and put it 
 behind us. Eor years and years had we possessed an empire in India, 
 before the inhabitants found out that we had any religion at all; while 
 the way in which the Spaniards colonised California was by building 
 churches, and drawing the Indians round them. 
 
 The real fact of the matter is, that we are selfish in our religion; 
 that is to say, we consider ourselves alone, and how such and such 
 things strike us, and never reflect how they may appear to other 
 people. We say that we are able to understand religion without 
 its accessories, therefore it shall have none; we can abstract our 
 thoughts and pray in a barn as well as in an ornamented church, 
 therefore an ornamented church is unnecessary; we can pray without 
 opening our lips in the public service, therefore we will not open our 
 lips; we do not want sacred music to rivet our attention or warm our 
 feelings, therefore there shall be no sacred music; we can understand 
 all the doctrines of our religion without appointing stated times for 
 teaching them, therefore we will esteem one day as another, Lent and 
 Easter, Advent and Christmastide, Holy Hays, and Eerial Hays, shall 
 be all the same to us; we understand all about the Incarnation, and 
 Atonement, and Penitence, and Judgment to come, without that non- 
 
85 
 
 sense: and that which will do for us educated people, is quite enough 
 for the poor. This is the way in which we act; we forget that as the 
 child is taught by the picture book, so the uneducated man is taught 
 bv the eye & and \he ear, rather than by the reasoning faculties; we 
 have fancied that we ourselves are able to do without these helps, and 
 therefore we have insisted that he should do without them too; till 
 we find that with the fast of Lent he has lost all idea of true repent¬ 
 ance with the season of Advent all just notion of a judgment to 
 come, that in forgetting Christ’s holy days he has forgotten the doc¬ 
 trines of the Christian religion, and that, together with those of the 
 Apostles, he has put aside the duties the Apostles taught So proud 
 are we of our reasoning faculties, that we despise that old wise pun- 
 nino- maxim, that majesty when stripped of its externals is a jest We 
 have stripped the majesty of religion of its externals, and call this 
 Protestant ^simplicity ; what wonder if the illiterate man is enable to 
 annreciate it ? The Bishop of London was once rash enough to call 
 these things histrionic. If histrionic means suiting the outward be¬ 
 haviour and act to the idea and inward feeling we wish to convey, de¬ 
 corating our churches to show our sense of veneration for Him Whose 
 houses they are, and kneeling and bending before Him to Whom we 
 would show our veneration, I say we must be histrionic or we must be 
 content that all those who are taught through the eye and ear, that is to 
 sav, nine-tenths of all our people, should be unable to profit by our teach- 
 If you want to show an unlettered man, and still moie a chi d, 
 
 J i _ i_ ^^^4-4- -iTTT+V* -foolinfr rlp.vnilT, VOUT*- 
 
 inO\ J_I YOU \VclIIt bU OUUVV CAll umvi/wx J 
 
 how to be devout, you must not be content with feeling devout your¬ 
 self, you must act as if you were so, or he will not believe what you 
 sav’ ^ The parson who shuts up his morocco-bound quarto Bible, gets 
 w] from his easy chair which has cost, him fourteen or fifteen pounds, 
 h aves liis study, every corner of which is decorated with expensive 
 pictures and ornaments, gets into his carriage furnished with every 
 comfort, and goes into a church streaming with green damp, and offi¬ 
 ciates from a reading-desk not quite so expensive as Ins own kitchen- 
 dresser or from an altar, whose cloth he would be ashamed to see o 
 his own hall table, really may all this time put God before all things 
 far be it from me to doubt him; but the poor man will, he is tau n 
 by the eve rather than the reasoning faculties, he goes by what he sees, 
 and certainly what he does see does not show him that the parson puts 
 God before himself,or the blessings of the next world before the comforts 
 of this. And what I say of the parson I say of the squire also; the extreme 
 luxuriousness of our houses, contrasted with the slovenly neglect of 
 our churches, is not productive of religious feelings; nor is the cold 
 slovenly performance of our public worship, productive of religious 
 
86 
 
 / 
 
 feelings : nor is the infrequency of our services productive of religious 
 feelings ; men learn to feel from what they see. That saying of the 
 Bishop of London’s, heedless as it was, and repented, as I have no 
 doubt it has been, I feel convinced has been the loss of many a soul. 
 
 These are the sort of things that make the Koman Catholic poor 
 Churchman more devout than the English poor Churchman. Our 
 Saviour says that the children of this world are, in their generation, 
 wiser than the children of light; and so it is with the Church of Borne. 
 They who have chosen their distinctive doctrines like fools, follow 
 them up like wise men; we who have chosen ours like wise men, follow 
 them up like fools. 
 
 ^Neither have we much to boast ourselves about our superior re¬ 
 ligion ; the doctrines of our Church are superior, but we are not supe¬ 
 rior, at all events we are deficient in this: we have been neglecting the 
 spiritual wants of Christ’s poor; as the Apostle would say, we°have 
 been attempting to feed them with strong meats, which they are un¬ 
 able to take in, and denying them the only nutriment which in their 
 weak state they are capable of profiting by. 
 
 This is why I became a Tractarian. I felt convinced that the 
 Church was losing her position and her hold upon the minds of her 
 poor, by neglecting to teach within their comprehension. I resolved 
 to do so myself, and I joined myself cordially to those persons who I 
 saw were doing so. It is not that I attach an undue weight to form 
 and ceremonial, but that I believe form and ceremonial the only 
 method of conveying doctrine to the uneducated. As for this being 
 the mode of teaching in use among the Koman Catholics, that is 
 nothing to me; if such teaching will cause even their doctrine to be 
 received, what will it not do to ours ? I am not above being taught 
 by an adversary. I may reject Komish practices because they are 
 wrong, and if I find them wrong, or if I find them contrary to those of 
 my own Church, but I do not reject practices merely because they are 
 Komish : the man who will not fast on Friday for no* better reason than 
 because the Koman Catholics fast, must upon the same principle refuse 
 to eat his dinner on Sunday when the Koman Catholics feast; or, like 
 the Scotch, quarrel with his bread and butter, and refuse to eat mince- 
 pies at Christmas, because the Koman Catholics eat them then. 
 
 This is my position, and now I mean to illustrate it by examples 
 which have come before my eyes. In these I mean to show you the 
 poor Koman Catholics exercising what you must admit to be Christian 
 graces, but to which, Christian graces as they are, you can produce 
 no parallel in Protestant England. And mind you, how many soever 
 examples I may show you, this by no means proves the superiority of 
 
87 
 
 the Romish doctrines ; it only proves that those people have a better and 
 more practical way of teaching those things which we hold as well as they. 
 
 We, for instance, as well as Rome, would teach our people the 
 Christian privilege of mating our wants known to God by piayer in 
 His house, and the duty of expressing our gratitude to Him for tem¬ 
 poral blessings. Show me if you can, a Protestant paiallel to this 
 anecdote, to the truth of which I can vouch. 
 
 One day, as I was about leaving Heidelberg by the early train, I 
 went to see a church that I had omitted to look oyer the day before; 
 it was as early as six in the morning, yet, early as it was, the congie- 
 gation was just dispersing, and I had no difficulty in finding the sa¬ 
 cristan, who showed me over it. As we were passing and lepassing, 
 examining the windows and other peculiarities of the architecture, T 
 was struck with the singular appearance of a woman, evidently of the 
 lower orders, who was kneeling near one of the pillars with a number 
 of children, also kneeling, behind her; much such a group as we some¬ 
 times see carved in stone on some of our ancient tombs. 
 
 “ What was that woman doing there?” I asked him. 
 
 He answered just as if it was a matter of ordinary occurrence, 
 
 “ Some woman, I suppose, who has something to ask of God. 
 
 I have seen many such things since, but they were strange to me 
 then, and I could hardly take my eyes off the motionless figures ; at 
 last I sent the sexton to find out all about her. He came back shortly 
 afterwards, and told me that it was the wife of a mason, who had 
 been hurt by a fall two or three days before, that the family was quite 
 destitute, and that they had come to ask help of God. Now observe, 
 this was no mendicant trick, for it was six o clock in the morning, 
 and visitors could hardly be expected at that time. Without inter¬ 
 rupting her devotions, I laid down some trifle by the base of the pil¬ 
 lar; upon which, without thanking me, except by a short inclination 
 of the head, she went up to the high altar, followed by her children, 
 to return thanks to God. Now all this might be very ignorant re¬ 
 ligion, but it was true religion as far as it went; and, what is more, 
 sincere faith. She trusted that God would supply what she wanted ; 
 she knew what He had said about Plis house being the place of prayer, 
 and she came to that house in faith to ask Him : and when she got 
 what she wanted, she evidently believed that her prayer had been heard, 
 and therefore did not thank me, whom she considered merely the in¬ 
 strument, but God AVho had sent me. Now a Piotestant would say, 
 could she not pray just as well at home ? Very true, so she could ; the 
 question is, would she ? Practically a Protestant under such circum¬ 
 stances would have asked me , and thanked me , and very likely would 
 
88 
 
 have forgotten God altogether. This is a sort of thing I, as a parish 
 priest, am more accustomed to. 
 
 Take another case. We all believe in the eighth commandment. 
 My next shall be an instance of that. 
 
 I had come down on foot from the high Alps, and was passing 
 through the little city of Aosta, the cathedral of which is well worth 
 seeing; but I had my knapsack on my back, and my alpenstock in 
 my hand, and was not altogether the figure for the inside of a church. 
 
 “ What shall I do with these things ?” said I to my guide. 
 
 “Put them down here on the church steps,” said he. 
 
 Now these church steps projected into the market-place, which at 
 that time was full of all sorts of rough-looking people. I laughed and 
 said, “ I had much rather not put such a temptation in the way of 
 Italian honesty.” 
 
 “ Well,” said my guide, “there is no doubt but that the people of 
 Aosta are the greatest rogues unhung ” (he belonged himself to an¬ 
 other valley, and, like all members of little communities, was narrow¬ 
 minded enough to hate his neighbours cordially,) “ your excellency is 
 perfectly right; they are the greatest rogues unhung. But not so bad 
 either as to steal from God.” 
 
 I put down my knapsack and alpenstock on those steps, and on 
 those steps after the lapse of two hours I found them, and along with 
 them some eight or ten baskets of fruit and vegetables, which the mar¬ 
 ket people had deposited there while they went to say their prayers, 
 all ol which though looking very tempting, though perfectly unguarded, 
 except by the unseen presence of God, were as safe as if they had 
 been under lock and key. You will say, perhaps, if these people had 
 been thorough Christians they would not have broken the eighth Com¬ 
 mandment anywhere, they would not have confined their honesty to the 
 church. Very true; they were not thorough Christians. They were very 
 imperfectly taught Christians, but, as far as they were taught, they were 
 taught practically, and they showed by their conduct that they believed 
 what they had been taught, and, so far, were better than their Protes¬ 
 tant fellow Christians of England ; for though a basket of fruit would 
 not be safer if left in the middle of any street in Brighton than it would 
 in Aosta, yet I am afraid there is not a church in Brighton whose sanc¬ 
 tity would afford it protection either. 
 
 Would you know how these things are taught, so as to have their 
 influence on the rudest and most depraved minds ? The answer is 
 easy—by teaching practically. You want to teach the reverence due 
 to God’s house, and the abhorrence of God to a certain crime; act as 
 you would act if God were present, treat as you would treat in that 
 
89 
 
 Presence the crime that He abhors. If you think God superior to 
 yourself, don’t make His house inferior to yours j if you think your 
 Heavenly Sovereign superior to your earthly Sovereign, don t pull off 
 your hat to the latter and forget to bow at the name of the former. 
 These things, and a great many like them, are of little consequence 
 in themselves, but they are of some consequence even to your own 
 religious feelings, philosophical as you may think yourselves ; and of im¬ 
 mense consequence to those of the poor ignorant man, who, though he 
 cannot reason, can see and can. feel as well as you. 
 
 We spoke of the eighth commandment just now, let us take our in¬ 
 stance next from the sixth. We all, I suppose, maintain equally that 
 suicide is a crime. 
 
 Some few years ago, a man, not more eccentric than wicked, got up 
 into the gallery of S. Paul’s, and committed suicide by throwing him¬ 
 self down. The blood was wiped up, the body was carried away, the 
 story made a “ curious fact ” in the next day’s newspapers, and there 
 was an end of it. 
 
 The very same thing happened in the cathedral of Strasbourg. The 
 cathedral was shut up, the bells were rung backwards, the place was 
 pronounced desecrated, all service was stopped, till the Bishop and 
 clergy of the diocese were collected for a solemn re-consecration, and 
 then the first service performed was a deprecation of God’s wrath for 
 the crime committed in His house. 
 
 No doubt an educated Bomanist and an educated Protestant alike 
 know that suicide is forbidden by God. No doubt the Bishop of 
 London and the Archbishop of Strasbourg were equally anxious that 
 the people should be taught this Christian truth: but my question is, 
 which spoke the language most intelligible to the multitude ? which of 
 these two proceedings was most likely to have effect on the minds of 
 the illiterate P 
 
 My next illustration has been already appropriated by my friend Mr. 
 Greslev; it appears in one of his books, called Colton Green, but, as I 
 am myself the travelling Englishman he speaks of, I may as well re¬ 
 claim my own story and tell it you in my own way, and draw my own 
 moral from it. It will be a very appropriate story here in Brighton, 
 for indirectly you have something to do with it. 
 
 I was travelling, as is my custom, on foot and with my knapsack on 
 my back, and was entering one of the valleys of the Higher Alps of 
 Savoy called the Yalorsine. The little village, which takes its name 
 from'the valley, some six weeks before I passed that way had been 
 overwhelmed by an avalanche, which had destroyed every house in it, 
 and had seriously shaken the church itself, which, though protected by 
 
90 
 
 a strong ravelin of masonry from actual contact with the falling ice, 
 had been exposed to the wind of it, which, strange as it may seem, 
 is hardly less destructive. As for the houses, not one of them was 
 standing. 
 
 When I came down the valley, the whole people, men, women, and 
 even children, were congregated like bees around their church, some 
 chipping stones, some carrying lime, some mixing mortar, some pulling 
 down the shaken walls, some splitting pine shingles for the roof, some 
 strengthening the sprung beams. Everybody was busy about their 
 church, and not one was engaged about any of the houses. 
 
 A sudden shower drove me, as well as the labourers, into the church 
 for shelter, and I got into conversation there with a man who turned 
 out to be the priest, but not being quite so good a bricklayer as I 
 doubt not he was a theologian, he was then serving as hodman to his 
 own clerk, or sexton, the mason of the place. It had so happened, 
 when I was at Geneva a fortnight before, that I had been reading in 
 the English papers one of those periodical squabbles about church- 
 rates, in which you Brighton people stand up for the liberty of the sub¬ 
 ject to the great edification of all Europe, and as I wished to know 
 how these benighted Papists managed such matters, I took the oppor¬ 
 tunity of asking the reverend hodman how all these people were paid. 
 
 “ Paid ?” said he; “ why they all belong to this parish, except the 
 architect the Bishop has sent us, he pays him.” 
 
 “Yes,” said I, “but how do you pay your own people?—I mean,” 
 continued I, hesitating and turning over in my mind what was Erench 
 for church-rates, “ how do you raise the money to pay these people 
 their day’s wages ?” 
 
 His reverence laughed. “Why,” said he, “you do not pay people 
 for doing their own work. It is their own church that they are build¬ 
 ing, and they know well enough that they will get no prayers till they 
 have finished it. I’ll engage the rogues will not do a stroke of other 
 work till they have done that.” 
 
 Now, my dear friends, you must see that there is a good deal of 
 difference between the sentiments of a Yalorsine vestry and a Brighton 
 one; yet, in good truth, there is not so very great a difference in the 
 fact itself: if working on their own parish church was doing their own 
 work, and I suppose it was; it is just as undeniably true that work¬ 
 ing on your parish church is doing your own work. 
 
 Is it not so? Is it not your parish church? Are you not the 
 parishioners? And if it is not your church, just as much as the 
 church of Yalorsine was their church, whose church is it? 
 
 And yet in good truth I cannot blame you for what you do and 
 
91 
 
 say, and put in the papers about it, and for all your agitation about 
 church-rates. It is not very honest to be sure, 1 but leaving the honesty 
 of the business out the question, I do really think, both that what you 
 do is quite natural, and also that there is a great deal of truth in what 
 you say; and though I will not exactly take upon myself to affirm that 
 you are honest, yet I do not know who has any business to blame you 
 for not being so. 
 
 Beyond a doubt your parish church is yours in law, but what is it in 
 fact P Those Valorsinois could make use of their church when they 
 had built it, and did make use of it every day. Not a day did those 
 people go to their work till they had said their prayers in that church, 
 with their bricklayer parson to lead them. Not a time did they start 
 on a dangerous expedition after the chamois, or anything else, without 
 first receiving the Holy Communion in that church of theirs. Yes, 
 and many a time too, when the sky looked leaden and lowering, and 
 the wind roared up the valley, and the white snowflakes flitted past 
 the porch, or filled up the little arrow slits of windows, might you 
 see an anxious wife, or a trembling mother, kneeling in some dark 
 corner of that church, who had stolen away from the noise and bustle 
 of her home, and had entered that ever open door to pray for the safe 
 return of the travellers. Why their church was of as much use to 
 them as their sleeping room or their kitchen, and was used as much. 
 When it was thrown down they felt the want of it as much as they did 
 that of their own houses. There was no need of a churchwarden or a 
 vestry to levy a rate, the facts were before their own eyes, and their 
 want was in their own hearts. 
 
 Now you go and try to do the same. Go to your own church to 
 say your prayers before you go to work in the morning, and you will 
 find the door locked against you. Go to receive the strengthening 
 1 grace of the Lord’s Supper before you undertake a dangerous voyage, 
 and you will be told that it is not Communion Sunday. Enter the 
 church : it is Sunday, the doors are open now ; enter your own church, 
 and you will see your own property parcelled out into so many private 
 holdings. If you have any doubt about the fact of ownership, take 
 your seat in one of them and see the reception you will meet with. 
 As for your wives and mothers praying for you when the winds rise, 
 and the snowflakes fall, and the seas break upon this dangerous coast, 
 
 1 Baron Gfurney, himself a dissenter, remarks : “ I bought my house, or I 
 rented my house, with a charge upon it called a church-rate. I paid less for 
 my house, because there was that charge. I do not like to pay that particular 
 charge, because I am a dissenter, but I do pay it because I do not want to put 
 into my pocket that which does not honestly belong to me.” 
 
92 
 
 they may pray in the street, but their house of prayer, theirs though it 
 be, is shut against them. Blame you for forgetting that your parish 
 church is your own church?—Not I. How should you remember it? 
 Blame you for forgetting your morning service to Him Who strengthens 
 you for your daily work?—Not I. How can you pay it? Before I 
 blame you for not paying your just dues, I should like to know 
 whether you are to get your money’s worth for the money that is 
 asked of you ? x 
 
 This accounts for the difference between the Romanist and the 
 Establishment man. This is the reason why the one is devout and the 
 other is not devout. That of which a man has been long deprived he 
 forgets the use of. Try it if you like with your body; tie up your 
 right hand, and you will lose the use of it. There is no such great 
 difference between body and soul. You have been stinted in the legiti¬ 
 mate use of your church, till you forget, not only the use of your 
 church, but the use of those prayers which should have been said in it, 
 and were not. 
 
 Now let me tell you that these facts and these comparisons, (and I 
 have plenty more of them for you) did make me think very seriously 
 about the state of our own English Church. They made me a Trac- 
 tarian. They did not shake my faith in its doctrines; no! not for 
 one moment. I had been far too well grounded in them to have the 
 smallest doubts, and if I had not been so grounded, that other set of 
 facts, of which I told you before, about the condition of the rich and 
 educated of the Romish Church, would have been quite sufficient cor¬ 
 roborative evidence; the two sets of facts lay side by side. 
 
 But if I did think that the doctrines of the English Church required 
 no reformation, I could not say so much of its practice. If I was in 
 no way dissatisfied with the doctrines themselves, at any rate I was 
 dissatisfied with the way in which those doctrines were laid before the 
 people. So far as the illiterate were concerned, I could see no such 
 great practical difference between withholding the Scriptures, and 
 withholding the means by which those Scriptures were carried into 
 practical effect in daily life. Nay, the Romanist had the advantage, 
 lie was taught imperfect doctrines, he was taught corrupted doctrines, 
 it might be, but he was taught. The Englishman had pure doctrines 
 put before him, but he was not taught them in any way that he could 
 understand, and so he put them aside altogether. There was the gold, 
 
 1 Since this lecture was delivered, I understand the people of Brighton have 
 met and for the first time these eight years have voted a church-rate. This is 
 very right and very honest, but it only makes their case the stronger; they 
 have now done their parts, let them demand that their parsons do theirs. 
 
93 
 
 I was satisfied of that, but to all practical purposes it was useless,— 
 more useless than the tinsel by which it was counterfeited. 
 
 This is why I was dissatisfied with the English Church: most un¬ 
 justly too, for I had hardly taken up my Prayer Book to examine into 
 these supposed deficiencies, when I found that, in a great measure the 
 fault did not lie in the English Church, but in me; that many of these 
 things the Church had provided for, but that we her ministers had not 
 acted up to her requirements. She had told us all what to do, both 
 clergy and laity, and we had not done it, we had substituted our private 
 judgment for her commands, and because we had done so, had shut 
 our eyes to the fact that the Church had commanded it; and that the 
 question really was not how far the Prayer Book had departed from the 
 law of Christ, but how far we had departed from the law of the 
 Prayer Book. 
 
 This is how I came to be a Tractarian. I aimed at reforming the 
 Church, and I began with that part of it which I could reform—my¬ 
 self. I wished to sweep the whole street and I began by sweeping be¬ 
 fore my own door. No one has a right to say that his church is 
 defective in any way, till he has himself fulfilled all that she requires 
 him to do: no one can tell what the Church is capable of effecting, 
 while he himself, her sworn servant, is neglecting the means by which 
 she works. 
 
 The poor of the Church of Borne are more devout than the poor of 
 the Church of England. Why P Obviously because the Church 
 doors are shut against them in England, and stand open night and day 
 in Borne. Obviously, because the daily sacrifice of prayer and praise 
 has ceased in England, and has not ceased in Borne. It is all very 
 well for the rich, but who is to abstract himself either to pray or to 
 meditate on the Scriptures in the crowded rooms in which our poorer 
 brethren live? who is to collect his thoughts among the bustle of 
 household work that is going on around him? 
 
 Well, but why blame the Church of England for this ? it is not her 
 fault, but the fault of her self-willed minister, who chooses to think 
 for himself against her commands, and when she tells him to open his 
 church for daily prayer, and to pray in that church every day, pre¬ 
 sumes to mistake prayer for instruction, and to shut his church, because 
 he is pleased to think that if he opens it there will be no congregation 
 to pray in it. What has he to do with a congregation ? it is very well 
 if a congregation comes, but in his Prayer Book there is not one word 
 about a congregation at all; nay, in one case it is expressed in so 
 many words that there may be no congregation, the word used is “ pri¬ 
 vately.” This is what the Church says: “ All Priests and Deacons,” 
 
94 
 
 —all—whether they have a congregation or not, nay, whether they have 
 a church or not, are to say “ daily, the morning prayer in the morning, 
 and the evening prayer in the evening, either privately or openly, not 
 being let by sickness or other urgent cause.” Here is the command 
 plain enough to understand, easy enough to perform, and requiring no 
 one’s consent but their own. But in case that Priest or Deacon has a 
 church, then the Curate, that is to say, he who has the care of the 
 church, “ being at home , and not being otherwise reasonably hindered , 
 shall say the same in the parish church, or chapel where he ministereth, 
 and shall cause a bell to be tolled thereunto, a convenient time before 
 he begin, that the people may come to hear God’s Word and to pray 
 with him.” There is not a word here about the congregation as a 
 necessary step to saying the prayers ; they may come if they please 
 when they hear the bell tolled. If they want to pray or have leisure 
 from their necessary work to be able to pray, or if they want to hear 
 God’s Word read and have no means of reading it for themselves, 
 they are at liberty to go to the church and to avail themselves of their 
 parson’s services, but he is to do it whether they come or not. 
 
 Now whose fault is it that the English poor are not devout, but the 
 fault of the self-willed minister, who chooses to transgress the plain 
 letter of his Church’s directions ? But if the people did not come 
 they would not learn to be more devout; very possibly, people cannot 
 be expected to become devout by word of command, but what has that 
 to do with it ? he engages to do it, what business has he to say the 
 people will not come ? The Church of England, as well as the Church 
 of Pome, says there shall be daily prayer; the Pomish Clergy obey 
 their Church, and their people are devout. The English Clergy dis¬ 
 obey their Church, and their people are not devout. Here is cause and 
 effect plain enough. Let the Parsons at all events do their plain duty, 
 and let them trust in God that the people will do theirs. How do they 
 know that they will not ? they cannot come if the church is shut; no par¬ 
 son on earth has a right to say, Let my congregation do their duty first, 
 and then I will see about my doing mine ; he is put there to lead them. 
 
 But I say it is a libel on the English people to assert they are natu¬ 
 rally incapable of devoutness, and that it is impossible to teach them 
 reverence for holy places. No doubt it is difficult to do it in the face 
 of National Clubs and Protestant Defence Societies and godless news¬ 
 papers, and “ truly pious” busybodies; but it is to be done. I 
 appeal to my own churchwardens’ accounts and ask whether Trac- 
 tarianism has not been a considerable saving to the parish in the article 
 of broken church-windows. Why, for the last seven years I have had 
 two painted windows looking upon the road absolutely without protec- 
 
95 
 
 tion, positively at the mercy of any boy who likes to throw a stone, 
 and there they are to speak for themselves; for quite as long my 
 church has not only been open night and day, but has not had so much 
 as a locJc upon it; and so it would be to this very time, had not the 
 Bishop found it out and ordered it to be locked. All the time that 
 church was open I never missed so much as a hymn-book, and what 
 was there to protect it except its own sanctity P People may be 
 brought to a reverence for holy places, but not when they hear you 
 preach it and see you neglect it. The Bomanists cast in our teeth, 
 that with all our boasted purity of doctrine we dare not leave our 
 churches open as they do. It is true, 
 
 “ Pudet hsec opprobria nobis 
 Et dici potuisse et non potuisse refelli 
 
 but whether the fault lies on the English Church or on the teaching of 
 her ministers is a matter which might be questioned. 
 
 Now I will show you how we Tractarians manage such things. A 
 well-known clergyman recently appointed to a living in a populous 
 town, found that at six o’clock in the morning it was the custom of 
 the parish to ring one of the church bells for five minutes. He asked 
 what was the meaning of this ; no one could tell him, it was beyond the 
 memory of that respectable personage the oldest inhabitant. “ Well,” 
 said he, “ bells do not ring for nothing, and whether you can remem¬ 
 ber it or not there certainly must have been a service for the benefit of 
 those poor fellows who have to begin their work early in the morning, 
 and there shall be one as long as I am vicar of the parish.” You 
 have heard of that parish before and of that vicar too, the names are 
 very familiar to the public papers ; the parish is Erome, the vicar is 
 Mr. Bennett, late of S. Barnabas’. 1 
 
 This is Tractarian practice; let us now see a Protestant Divine 
 under similar circumstances. The Church of England has not a great 
 many better or more faithful parish priests than the late Gr. H. Lang- 
 don, Vicar of Oving; it is unnecessary for me to add that the services 
 appointed by the Church were duly performed in his parish, had they 
 not been so I do not know how I could have called him faithful; but 
 perhaps it will not be superfluous to observe that in this particular 
 case there was the more reason why they should be so performed, 
 because there were a number of almshouses attached to the church, 
 the inmates of which, old and infirm persons, were more likely to have 
 leisure for the week-day services. In the beginning of the present 
 
 1 Since the delivery of this lecture, I have discovered that the anecdote of 
 the bell on which the morning service at Frome is founded is not a fact. 
 
96 
 
 year Mr. Langdon died, but the regular services were very properly 
 and conscientiously maintained by the curate appointed by the church¬ 
 wardens, until the newly-appointed vicar came to reside, when the 
 parishioners were perplexed by the Mowing- annwnce- 
 
 ment made by the curate at the end of the Nicene Gree • Y 
 
 next, being the Festival of S. Philip and S. James, is appointed to be 
 kept holy. But there will be no service, the vicar having dnected 
 me to give notice that there will be no more service at this church on 
 
 any day except Sunday.” 1 2 . ^ 
 
 It is hardly necessary to observe that the new vicar was not a Trac- 
 
 tarian. Perhaps he considered Daily Service the badge of a party; 
 that it is so considered the following anecdote may show. 
 
 A friend of mine having read my observation m page 16, that 
 “ without venturing any opinion about fasting and praying, at a 
 events they are better things than drunkenness and debauchery sen 
 me the following story to show that this assertion, which I really hacl 
 considered absolutely‘incontrovertible, was by no means taken as sue 
 by a living Bishop ; I may add that I have myself made inquiries re¬ 
 specting the facts and believe them to be substantially true. 
 
 1 The Bishop of .... had some time since a district incumbency to 
 give away within the sphere of the South Church Union. He came to 
 the conclusion that Mr. A., a hard-working, zealous clergyman would 
 make a very good incumbent. Mr. A. was summoned, came, heard ol 
 his lordship’s intentions, and in the fulness of his heart began tc ) talk 
 about what he should do when put in charge of his cure. In the Daily 
 Service, my lord,” he said, “ I shall-” “ The what, sir ? interrupted 
 the Bishop. “ I was merely observing,” said Mr. A., ‘that when I have 
 established the Daily Service—” “ I am sorry to tell you, broke m 
 the Bishop, “ that in this case it will be my duty not to present you, 
 Daily Service is a party badge, and as such I must discourage it 
 
 So Mr. A. went home without the living, and Mr. B. was instituted 
 instead. He did not trouble himself with Daily Service, but m place 
 of it he set his parishioners an example of daily intemperance. 
 
 No doubt the Bishop considered this wrong, but probably he had 
 not a great many to choose from; at any rate this man was not a 
 Puseyite, only a drunkard; and he most likely thought that of two 
 evils‘it was the part of a prudent Bishop to choose the least. 
 
 1 This matter has been brought before the Bishop by one of the par is hioners, 
 and as one of these days was Ascension Day, winch he is very pr^ly parti 
 cular about, we shall possibly hear something more about it. L^ote to the 
 
 4.tli priition Feb. 15* 1855—A/Ve never did/] it a 
 
 2 Note to the 4th edition.—This story was too monstrous to be believe , 
 
97 
 
 I once pointed out this matter of the Daily Service to an eminent 
 Evangelical clergyman, and asked him how he read that part of his 
 Prayer Book. What do you think his answer was P “Yes,” said he, 
 “ that is very true, but you overlooked the clause about being reason¬ 
 ably let or hindered. Now I am let and hindered from Daily Service 
 by going to visit my parishioners, which you must admit is a very 
 proper thing to do; and therefore it may be called a reasonable hind¬ 
 rance. I cannot be in two places at once.” What do you think of 
 that for a Protestant Jesuit ? These are the people who call us un¬ 
 faithful. What I tell you is a plain fact. Certainly if that man was 
 out visiting his parishioners at eight in the morning, at which time at 
 the latest he ought to have had his morning service ; why, all I will 
 say of him is, that he was one of the Early Christians. 
 
 Now let us take another doctrine held by the Church of Rome, held 
 also by the Church of England, and undeniably a Christian doctrine, I 
 mean the absolute equality of all Christians in the sight of God, irre¬ 
 spective of their station in society. In the town of—never mind where 
 it was—where I lived when I was a boy, the parson’s house was on 
 the side of the street opposite to the west door of the church, and 
 about that church there lingered still some reminiscences of its ancient 
 daily piety, for though the daily sacrifice itself had ceased, there was a 
 late morning service on Wednesdays and Fridays. This parson cer¬ 
 tainly was not one of the early Christians, for he seldom got out of his 
 bed before nine or ten o’clock, and many a time has his half-shaven 
 face appeared at his dressing-room window, as the bell rang out 
 for morning service, with “ Clerk, clerk, have you any congregation 
 this morning ?” 
 
 “No, sir, only two or three women in red cloaks.” 
 
 “ O, nonsense; I am not going to do the service for two or three 
 women in red cloaks. Tell them to go away; say there is no con¬ 
 gregation.” 
 
 This is the way in which—not the English Church, but certainly 
 one of her ministers, taught that there is no respect of persons before 
 God. I do not say the English Church is guiltless in this, any more 
 than I say that Eli was guiltless in the matter of Hophni and Phi- 
 nehas, but I do say that she wants a different sort of Reformation 
 from what is commonly supposed. She wants a proper authority over 
 her Priests. 
 
 and I hesitated to put it in. I have, however, since ascertained its absolute 
 truth by personal inquiry ; and also that a church, in my own neighbourhood, 
 is unconsecrated, and has remained so for some years, because the same 
 Bishop considers the weekly offertory a party badge. 
 
 K 
 
98 
 
 I do not mean to tell you that that is the way in which the English 
 Clergy in general teach that doctrine, though I might possibly have 
 given you another instance or two, if I pleased ; but I do mean to say 
 that that is the way in which almost all the laity teach it. Go into 
 any one of your town churches, except where we Tractarians have been 
 at work, and see where the rich pray, and see where the poor pray, and 
 then write over the chancel-arch of that church, if you dare, this text: 
 “ The rich and the poor meet together, and God is the Maker of them 
 all.” A friend of mine had finished just such a church as I am speak¬ 
 ing of. There were the green-baized high-walled seats for those who 
 could pay for them, and there were behind them benches for the poor 
 who could not. Proud was my friend of his handiwork, and tho¬ 
 roughly disgusted was he when a wicked Tractarian asked him if he 
 was not going to dedicate his church to S. Dives and S. Lazarus, who 
 are the real patron saints of all proprietary chapels and of a good many 
 parish churches into the bargain. 
 
 You have a few such in Brighton ; the Bishop of London calls them 
 five per cent. Speculations. I wish you would find out for me what 
 their parsons do when in the usual course of evening lessons they come 
 to the second chapter of S. James—do they read it, or are they in the 
 habit of exchanging it, like Mr. Stowell, 1 for “ more edifying les¬ 
 sons?” These are S. James’ words, and very awkward words they 
 are, in their natural sense at least. “ If there come into your assembly 
 a man with a gold ring in goodly apparel, and there come in also a 
 poor man in vile raiment; and ye have respect to him that weareth 
 the gay clothing, and say unto him, Sit thou here in a good place; 
 and say to the poor, Stand thou there, or sit here under my foot¬ 
 stool ; are ye not then partial in yourselves, and are become judges of evil 
 thoughts ? Hearken, my beloved brethren, hath not God chosen the 
 poor of this world ? . . . but ye have despised the poor. ... If ye have 
 respect to persons, ye commit sin, and are convinced of the law as 
 transgressors.” 
 
 We were talking some time ago about a bracketed Bible. Uncom¬ 
 monly convenient would the bracketed Bible be here. In fact I do 
 not know what place these verses are fit for, except a Tractarian church 
 with open seats. 
 
 This doctrine of the absolute equality of all baptized Christians, rich 
 and poor, in the sight of God, is one of those true doctrines which the 
 Church of England holds in common with the Church of Borne. I 
 
 1 Mr. Stowell, I understand, has denied this in a letter to Mr. Herford. I 
 can only say, that I have a letter in his handwriting admitting it, and justify¬ 
 ing it into the bargain. 
 
99 
 
 have shown you how the Church of England teaches it in practice. 
 Now I will show you how the Church of Borne teaches it. 
 
 Some years ago one of my parishioners was attending High Mass on 
 some solemn occasion at Brussels. What business she had there is 
 more than I can tell you: it was not with my consent or approbation. 
 Much as 1 have travelled in Popish countries, I never went to High 
 Mass or Mass of any sort in my life. However, business or no busi¬ 
 ness, there she was, and, to her unbounded astonishment, the person 
 who knelt alongside of her was the Queen of the Belgians. This is 
 talking in language which poor people and ignorant people can under¬ 
 stand. You may depend upon it that doctrine of the Christian reli¬ 
 gion, the equality of Christians before God, is better understood in 
 Brussels than it is in Brighton. And in all countries there will always 
 be a great many people who cannot make out the difference between 
 “dulia” and “latria,” but who for all that understand very well when 
 a Church says one thing and does another. 
 
 Now do not let any one say that I am crying up the Church of 
 Borne at the expense of the Church of England. I am not saying one 
 word about the doctrines of Borne. I am speaking of her way of 
 teaching all doctrines,—the true doctrines of Christ’s Church, such 
 as I have been speaking of, as well as those which she has corrupted. 
 What I say is that she understands the art of teaching the poor better 
 than we do. People may call this priestcraft—very likely it is, but 
 priestcraft was a very good word once, like Knave, or Jesuit, or Pro¬ 
 testant—but, like them, it has lost its character by keeping bad com¬ 
 pany. What the word really means is, the science or knowledge requi¬ 
 site to fit a priest for the proper discharge of his office. Now if this 
 science be applied to teaching corrupt doctrines (and I am sure I am 
 not going to say that it has not been so applied in Borne,) then the 
 end desecrates the means, and the word becomes a term of reproach; 
 but if the Priest’s science or knowledge of his business be applied ex¬ 
 clusively to teaching the true doctrines of Christ’s Church, and it 
 must be so applied in the Church of England, because those are true 
 doctrines which that Church teaches, then I say that it is the want of 
 priestcraft that is the cause of all our troubles and all our shortcomings. 
 The fact is that so many of our Church’s ministers, deacons, and priests, 
 and pre-eminently bishops, are appointed to their several offices with¬ 
 out any sort of training; that in nine cases out of ten they commence 
 under a total ignorance of every duty belonging to them. An Irish 
 curate that I had once, by an apt bull described the state of the Eng¬ 
 lish Church far better than I could do it. “ The misfortune is,” said 
 he, “that in the Church itself, as well as in its ministers, all ourpre- 
 
100 
 
 parations are made afterwards .” That is the point: when the Church 
 of Rome has an office to fill, she takes care to have a man to fill it. 
 
 If we imagine that our Church gains ground, or even holds her own 
 under such a system of discipline as this, we are grievously mistaken; 
 we cannot mark her advance or recession any more than we can mark 
 the advancing or receding of the tide, but if we take any fixed object 
 we shall soon see whether the tide has advanced or receded. On the 
 evening before the battle of Blenheim every regiment was paraded for 
 divine service, for every regiment had then its chaplain to perform it, 
 and afterwards Marlborough assembled all the officers who could be 
 spared from duty to receive the Holy Communion with their general, 
 as men who were about to die. This took place about fifteen years 
 before the suppression of Convocation. 
 
 Just one hundred and ten years after this, and about a hundred 
 years after the suppression of Convocation, one of Lord Hill’s staff 
 was regretting the prevalence of Methodism in the division. “ Poor 
 fellows !” said the general. “ Poor fellows ! Well, I am very glad of 
 it; it is the only chance of religion they have.” And it was true; 
 there was not a chaplain in the division : it is true still; half a dozen 
 chaplains represent the whole of the English Church in our army now. 
 If there is any religion in the 100,000 men who compose it, this may 
 be owing to Methodism, or to the voluntary principle, or to chance, or 
 to Providence,—not to the English Church. And this is but one ex¬ 
 ample out of many. What is the use of the pure doctrines of the 
 English Church if there are hundreds of thousands within her pale to 
 whom they never come home ? Rome does not act thus. 
 
 Now, mind you, do not say that I can find no good in the Church 
 of England, and that all my comparisons are to her disadvantage. I 
 say there is good in the Church of England, but the Church of Eng¬ 
 land has no fair play. I am now comparing the Church of England 
 with herself: the Church of England free with the Church of England 
 in captivity to the State. I am not going to pre-reformation times in 
 speaking of Marlborough, or even to pre-revolution times. I am 
 merely comparing the Church now, with the Church before those days 
 in which Convocation was suppressed. What right has the Marquis 
 of Blandford to speak of the inefficiency of the Church, or any part 
 of the Church? We are but what he, and such as he, our State 
 legislators, have made us. Why does he call our Cathedral establish¬ 
 ments useless? They are—but is it our fault that a rich London 
 rector is made more inefficient by having a rich Bristol canonry heaped 
 upon him? Let him learn his lesson from the days of his great 
 ancestor. 
 
101 
 
 Who ever thinks of a religious soldier ? Now the epithet seems 
 incongruous, inapplicable,—and perhaps it is. How, indeed, could 
 things be otherwise? What provision do you suppose is made by 
 this most Christian Government for the souls of all the hundred thou¬ 
 sand men who fight its battles ? A guinea a week is assigned to any 
 poor curate picked up anywhere near their barracks to preach one 
 sermon a Sunday to men whom he has never seen before, and will 
 never see again after their twelvemonth is out. If soldiers are without 
 religion, whose fault is that when they have no one to teach them ? 
 If they have no one to teach them, whose fault is that, when the 
 regimental chaplains had become so dissolute, idle, and worthless, that 
 their suppression was a positive gain to the army? If regimental 
 chaplains had become dissolute, idle, and worthless, if they had no one 
 to look after them, whose fault was that, when Government had sup¬ 
 pressed the Church’s parliament, and had undertaken to legislate for 
 her themselves ? 
 
 Now I do not mean to tell you that Convocation did actually rule 
 and govern the army chaplains, and that when Convocation was sup¬ 
 pressed they immediately went wrong. What I do mean to say is, 
 that at that time there still existed the remains of Church discipline, of 
 which Convocation, very much impaired, no doubt, but not yet ex¬ 
 tinct, was the main-spring; that fifteen years afterwards that main¬ 
 spring was removed, and that from that time the bands of all discipline 
 began to be relaxed: that the whole Church suffered by it, but that 
 those portions of the Church which were less under the control of 
 public opinion became so bad as to be worse than useless. 
 
 I have described the religious state of the army now, but let the 
 Marquis of Blandford look to the state of things in the army before 
 that suppression had taken place; let him look at the pages of Arch¬ 
 deacon Coxe. The Archdeacon knew very well what he wrote about, 
 for he had himself served in those armies that he speaks of: his lord- 
 ship will find there not only “ that Marlborough discouraged all intem¬ 
 perance and licentiousness in his soldiers, and constantly laboured to 
 impress them with a sense of moral duty and Supreme Superinten¬ 
 dence,” but he will find also how he did it; he will see that divine 
 service was regularly performed in all his camps, both morning and 
 evening; (who can imagine soldiers at daily morning and evening ser¬ 
 vice now ?) that previous to a battle prayers were read at the head of 
 every regiment, and that the first act after a victory was a solemn 
 thanksgiving. “By these means,” says the Archdeacon, “his camp 
 resembled a quiet, well-governed city; cursing and swearing were 
 seldom heard among the officers; a drunkard was an object of scorn; 
 
 k 2 
 
102 
 
 and even the soldiers, many of them the refuse and dregs of the na¬ 
 tion, became, at the close of one or two campaigns, tractable, civil, 
 sensible and clean, and had an air and spirit above the vulgar.” 
 
 I am very glad to have it in my power to make such a comparison 
 as this, when I have been drawing so many comparisons between the 
 Churches of Eome and England, to the disadvantage of the latter; 
 because it throws a very strong probability over my assertion, that 
 wherever such disadvantage and inferiority exists, it is not that the 
 Church of Eome is in any way superior to the Church of England, but 
 that in all these matters the Church of Eome has had fair play, and 
 the Church of England has not. 
 
 You talk about the frightful increase of Eomanism all over the 
 country, and turn up your Protestant eyes and hands at the Eomish 
 Bishops and Eomish Cathedrals, and Eomish doctrines, and Eomish 
 converts. Whenever the Eecord can detect a stray sheep slinking over 
 to Eome, it catches him up, and parades him in its columns all over 
 England in a sort of triumph, just as the Chinamen do their prisoners 
 in their wooden cages. It would seem as if these people imagined it a 
 very creditable thing to the Church of England, that all her children 
 were leaving her and going to Eome,—a something to be made the 
 most of,—a something to be proud of. 
 
 Do you not see that all this cuts two ways ? Do you not see that if 
 it were true—which it is not—that such a great quantity of converts 
 are flocking to Eome, it would be incumbent upon you to show why 
 they went to Eome, because the prima facie evidence would be against 
 the Church of England ? When the people of Ireland by shipfuls go 
 to America, and nobody comes from America to Ireland, the prima 
 facie appearance is, that America is a better country to settle in than 
 Ireland. And so any one would think, until you took the trouble of 
 finding out and explaining some rational cause for this continual emi¬ 
 gration, besides the comparative eligibility of the two countries. 
 
 And pray, why is not this just as true with respect to religion ? If 
 what the Eecord says were true; if hundreds of people of all classes 
 were leaving you and going to Eome, what is the inference ? If you 
 cannot show some other cause, it must be that the Church of Eome is 
 better than the Church of England. 
 
 You ought to be very much obliged to me: you ought to consider 
 it a great confirmation of your faith, a great service that I am doing to 
 the Church, when I point out to you that there is a sufficient cause— 
 when I show you that, be the secession much or little, the doctrines of 
 the Church may have nothing whatever to do with it; that it may be 
 traced, and fairly traced, to the teaching, the system, the discipline. 
 
103 
 
 and the science of the two Churches, and to the skill and experience 
 and faithfulness of their respective ministers, and to the domination of 
 their respective governments. One of these two solutions you must 
 take, if you acknowledge the fact at all. To what other cause can you 
 trace it ? 
 
 “ To you Tractarians,” some bold Protestant will say. Well, for 
 argument’s sake be it so. And what draws us Tractarians ? If we 
 lead our flocks to Koine, what leads us ? You have still got the same 
 difficulty: and you have another difficulty into the bargain,—that it is 
 not the fact; our flocks do not go to Kome. I will show you pre¬ 
 sently, and from facts which you will not deny, whose flocks do go to 
 Kome, and what it is that leads them, or drives them: it is not our 
 teaching. 
 
 I have been called the Pope of Westbourne for as long as I can re¬ 
 member. The Hampshire Telegraph every now and then is kind 
 enough to turn its attention to me, and once made me a personage of 
 such consequence as to devote to my special benefit two whole columns 
 of abuse, for six or eight weeks ou end, when it did not give the pro¬ 
 tectionists above half a one. Why, during the Popish Aggression 
 riots, which those religious and Christian people the National Club got 
 up in most of our parishes last year, one witty scoundrel numbered 
 my house No. 666, which I dare say you will remember is the number 
 of the Beast in the Kevelation. And here have I been going on for 
 these ten or twelve years, teaching those very same pestilent doctrines, 
 preaching them, not on Sundays only, but on week-days too, chanting 
 psalms, intoning prayers every day of my life. And how many do 
 you suppose these Komanizing practices have led to Kome? Not a 
 man; not a boy; not a baby; and I am not such a very unpopular 
 character either. Surely these doctrines and practices cannot be so 
 very dangerous. 
 
 But you have only my word for it, and Westbourne is a long way 
 off. Well, verify it for yourselves. If Westbourne is a long way off, 
 Shoreham is within a walk. You all know the parson there : the 
 Brighton papers have served him pretty much as the Portsmouth have 
 served me; and, to the best of my belief, he deserves it quite as much. 
 Now how many Papists have you got at Shoreham ? 
 
 And here, in Brighton itself, where you have got a very large and 
 very handsome church, after the most approved Tractarian pattern, 
 well supplied, too, with Tractarian Clergy, after the most approved 
 pattern also,—little collars, and long coat tails, “ and eight or ten 
 choristers, dear little souls,” not exactly in “stoles,” as Ingoldsby 
 said, when he was in want of a rhyme, and did not know precisely 
 
104 
 
 what stoles meant, but in garments which men call white round frocks, 
 but the gods “ white albs plain,” and all the pomp and circumstance 
 of glorious Tractarianism—where there is a great big town, too, in 
 which one might suppose there were people enough to afford’converts 
 to anything whatever. Even here, you are so hard run for the article 
 that the Brighton Herald is obliged to manufacture converts to order, 
 and to make an April fool of the Record. We make converts to Rome ! 
 No, no, Rome knows better than that. 
 
 Yes, Rome knows much better than that; and if she knew it from 
 no other ground, I will tell you what could not fail to show it her. 
 You know that several of our clergy have left us, and have joined that 
 Church. Rome, no doubt, rejoiced thereat, and made the most of it, 
 and suffered the Protestant Defence and the National Club that were 
 blindly fighting their battles to make the most of it too, but they had 
 wisdom enough to conceal that which to them was a matter of bitterest 
 disappointment, though these zealous Protestants overlooked it. How 
 many of their flocks did these seceding Clergy take with them ? Here 
 and there one, and that was all; yet these were men who had laboured 
 among their people without ceasing; these were men beloved by them 
 to a degree you cannot conceive. The Romish Church is directed by 
 many men who are in the habit of tracing effect up to its cause. They 
 could not help seeing from this, if they found it out in no other way, 
 that these converts had not joined them because they preferred the 
 doctrines of the Romish Church, but because there was some one par¬ 
 ticular subject in the English Church which thev could not reconcile to 
 theii consciences, and which forced them to leave it. Even when they 
 left the English Church, they preferred its doctrines; up to the very 
 time of their quitting it, they taught those doctrines faithfully. There¬ 
 fore it is that, when they do leave it—and this they do on some intel¬ 
 lectual or historical point, which their flocks are not able to understand 
 
 they go alone : for their flocks, well trained by their full and faithful 
 exposition of the doctrines of their own Church, have become more 
 attached to it than ever ; and, instead of following their teacher, stand 
 aghast in wondeiment that anything could have induced him to leave a 
 Church, which he had taught them to love so well. 
 
 Do you suppose the Romish prelates are ignorant of this ? They 
 know well enough that such a man as Archdeacon Manning, who could 
 
 if he pleased have, turned half the diocese round his finger,_who had 
 
 moie peisonal friends, more attached dependants, more people who 
 looked up to him for guidance and direction, more who would have 
 followed him in implicit faith, than any man in England, would never 
 have joined them alone, had it been the doctrines of the English Church 
 
105 
 
 that lie was dissatisfied about. He went to Home, and his curate went 
 to Rome ; and the parish in which they had been ministering faith¬ 
 fully and unweariedly for so many years, has not furnished Rome with 
 a single convert. Why? One little anecdote will explain it all. As 
 soon as he declared that his conscience forced him to ieave us, which 
 he did upon the conviction that the supremacy claimed by the crown of 
 England was incompatible with the law of Christ, one of his most 
 attached parishioners asked his advice about leaving also. “ No,” he 
 said, “ you cannot understand the point upon which I find it impossible 
 to remain in the Church of England. You can remain in it with a 
 safe conscience. Remain.” 
 
 It is not among the parishes of such men as these that Rome finds, 
 or expects to find her converts; still less does she expect them from 
 those who, though they fully coincide with them even in their protest 
 against the usurpations of the State, the matter of Episcopal appoint¬ 
 ments, and appeal on doctrinal points, do yet, to use Dr. Pusey’s 
 words, “ conceive it their duty to abide in the ship, in the firm faith 
 that Almighty God is conducting her, and that our Lord is in her.” 
 
 I will show you where Rome seeks her converts, and I will show 
 it you from a statement which was not drawn up by Tractarians. 
 
 No one, I suppose, will suspect the Clergy of Hastings and S. 
 Leonard’s of Tractarianism. I think it must be well known to most 
 of you, that there are few places in this diocese so blessed with a tho¬ 
 roughly Protestant Clergy; few places where sound Protestant doc¬ 
 trine is more faithfully preached. One of these sent me a pamphlet 
 some time ago, which, if it did not convert me, as no doubt it was 
 intended to do, certainly did electrify me, to think that a man could 
 write it, and then go to Church and read the services of his Prayer 
 Book. At or about the same time was sent me a letter, part of which 
 I am going to read you; and none of you will suspect it of being a 
 Tractarian production. 
 
 “The parish of S. Mary Magdalen, near Hastings, was literally 
 without any population, until the town of S. Leonard’s-on-Sea (com¬ 
 menced in 1828,) was built; which town now contains considerably 
 over 3000 inhabitants, of whom upwards of 2000 depend for subsist¬ 
 ence on the casual employment of residents and visitors. The only 
 place of worship in connection with the Established Church of Eng¬ 
 land for the whole population, is a Proprietary Chapel, called the 
 Chapel of S. Leonard’s, built under the provisions of a private Act of 
 Parliament; this Chapel contains sittings for 800 persons, 200 of 
 which are appropriated to the poor; but these sittings being at the 
 extreme end of the church, under and at the back of the west gallery, 
 
106 
 
 are almost useless; the invariable complaint of the poor is, that they 
 cannot hear the Minister.” In fact, a regular S. Dives’ and S. 
 Lazarus’ church. 
 
 “ The consequences of this spiritual destitution are, as might be 
 expected, lamentable in the extreme. Large numbers of the poor 
 attend no place of worship whatever, and (it is to be feared) are 
 acquiring habits of utter disregard to all religion. Many, though not 
 Dissenters from education or leeling, attend a chapel belonging to the 
 Wesleyan Methodists, and are thus lost to the communion of the 
 Church. 
 
 “ But not only is the church accommodation for the locality in 
 question thus utterly inadequate to the wants of the existing popula¬ 
 tion, but it is likely within a very short time to become much more so : 
 new houses are in course of erection, the town is extending on all 
 sides, but no extension of church accommodation has yet taken place. 
 
 “ Moreover, in the very centre of the district thus spiritually desti¬ 
 tute, there has been erected within the last few years a Eoman Catholic 
 Establishment, in connection with the order of Jesuits, whose avowed 
 object is that of proselytism and aggression on the reformed Church of 
 England. Its members are most active among the poor, inducing 
 them to attend the services in their chapel, exhorting them to send 
 their children to the schools which they have opened for gratuitous 
 education, and in every way influencing them to join the Bomish com¬ 
 munion. They have lately commenced the erection of a magnificent 
 church ; have built large schoolrooms ; and in fine, the whole establish¬ 
 ment is avowedly the centre of an extended sphere of proselytizing 
 operations, embracing not only this immediate neighbourhood, but a 
 considerable part of the south coast of England.” 
 
 In order adequately to estimate the effect of this centre of pro¬ 
 selytizing operations, let us put ourselves into the place of one of these 
 neglected representatives of a neglected Saviour, and look at the 
 whole transaction from the point of view in which he would see it. 
 
 Within the short space ot twenty years, a town has risen into life ; 
 he sees streets, shops, hotels, libraries, markets; all the signs of life 
 and prosperity springing up around him; three thousand people are 
 congregated together, whose business is pleasure, and among these, he, 
 with two thousand others, is called upon to minister to its votaries. 
 There is no want of wealth; its signs are everywhere evident; well 
 appointed equipages are seen on its parades; its shops rival those of 
 the metropolis; its houses are palaces: temples of Belial, the god of 
 pleasure ; temples of Mammon, the god of gain; but where is the 
 house of God ? where is the provision for Christ’s poor P A Pro- 
 
107 
 
 prietary Chapel is built, which is said to contain sittings for 800 per¬ 
 sons, and of these nominally 200 are appropriated to the 2000 poor ; 
 but they are situated “ under and at the back of the west gallery, in a 
 place where they are almost useless,” where these, the most ignorant 
 members of the flock, those whose worship has most need of instruction, 
 are altogether unable to hear the minister. “ Inasmuch as ye did it 
 not to one of the least of these My brethren, ye did it not unto Me.” 
 
 In the midst of this spiritual destitution springs up “ a magnificent 
 church,” which I will venture to say is not only magnificent, as God’s 
 palace ought to be, but has not a single private pew in it to shut out 
 the poor man, and has daily prayers for his daily sanctification; “ large 
 schoolrooms” grow around it : these are opened for “ gratuitous educa¬ 
 tion;” while among those who, having hitherto “possessed no place 
 of worship whatever, had been acquiring habits of utter disregard to all 
 religion” active members are circulating, “inducing them to attend 
 the services in their chapel,” and “ exhorting them to send their child¬ 
 ren to school.” 
 
 And where do the funds come from, that provide this magnificent 
 establishment, that spread this table in the wilderness of spiritual desti¬ 
 tution ? Not from S. Leonard’s, S. Leonard’s is Protestant, and calls 
 it “ an aggression upon the reformed Church in England.” To all 
 outward appearance, as far as that poor man can see, this is a poor 
 but devoted missionary college; it asks of its Protestant neighbour¬ 
 hood none of its wealth; it sends out no circulars through the diocese; 
 it spares not to take of its own flock and its own herd to dress for the 
 wayfaring man; whatever it appears to possess of this world’s goods, 
 are devoted to the service of Christ and of His poor. 
 
 I do not say that there may not be many ways of accounting for this, 
 and explaining it and qualifying it; I say that this is the aspect Ro¬ 
 manism bears to any one of the neglected two thousand of S. Mary 
 Magdalen’s. A man such as we have been imagining, is incapable of 
 reasoning, he will have no very nice discrimination in Christian doc¬ 
 trine, but he is perfectly able to appreciate Christian practice, and to 
 understand the meaning of brotherly kindness and charity. 
 
 Hoes not this, in some measure, account for the increase of Ro¬ 
 manism in England P The authors of the circular seem to think so, 
 for they say, (though they protest they do it in no spirit of bitterness,) 
 that their chance of success, (that of the Roman Catholics at S. 
 Leonard’s) is greatly enhanced by the practical exclusion of the poor 
 from the services of their own church, “ owing to the total want of 
 church accommodation beforementioned, large numbers having on the 
 Sabbath no place of worship of their own communion to which they 
 
108 
 
 can repair, are the more easily induced to attend the services of the 
 Homan Catholic Church, to which they are so eagerly and nerseverin°'lv 
 invited during the w 7 eek.” 
 
 Does not this give to the appeal of Cardinal Wiseman a sting and a 
 ti uthfulness which in his own particular case is little deserved, but 
 which comes in appositely enough here, especially when they are told 
 that after appealing to the Bishop, the parson of the parish, the adjoin¬ 
 ing neighbourhood, and numbers of others, myself among others, to 
 none of whom they had the smallest right to appeal, the liberality of 
 those who have congregated these two thousand churchless and god¬ 
 less individuals is entirely exhausted ? Might not these last with some 
 show of truth borrow their Cardinal’s words, and say, “If the wealth 
 of the town be stagnant and not diffusive for spiritual purposes, if it in 
 no w 7 ay rescue the neighbouring population from the depths in which 
 it is sunk, let there be no jealousy of any one, who, by whatever name, 
 is ready to make the latter his care without interfering with the 
 former ?” & 
 
 Now let me ask you, do you not think it possible that when these 
 people were setting about building their “ magnificent church,” and their 
 “large schoolrooms,” and their establishment of priests and subordinates, 
 which was to be the centre of proselytising operations for the south coast, 
 they looked out for some locality, where they had reason to believe that 
 theii seed would strike root ? They did not choose Brighton or the 
 neighbourhood of S. Paul’s : I dare say if one could only find it out, they 
 had some reason for this. And they did choose the ground which had 
 been tilled by Mr. Vores and Mr. Jenkinson ; perhaps they had some rea¬ 
 son for that too. I cannot tell, of course, because I am not in their secret, 
 but I should think it not altogether impossible that when they saw the 
 Chuich s saci aments systematically put aside, the prayer of consecra¬ 
 tion in Baptism habitually omitted, when they heard that at least one 
 family in that toAvn had entered their communion upon those very 
 giounds, namely, that under such circumstances they could not be sure 
 that their children had rightly received Holy Baptism at all, they 
 might possibly imagine, and the event proves that their ideas were not 
 very incorrect, that a door was opened to them. I will not take it 
 upon myself to say that these things did influence them, but I know 
 this much, that that Church does not set up her establishments at ran¬ 
 dom, and does reckon up the elements of success before she plants 
 them : and this the following anecdote will show. 
 
 Some eight or ten years ago, I used to keep a little yacht, in which 
 I visited a good deal of the southern and western coasts of England. 
 
 I cannot tell you the precise year when I first landed at Penzance, but it 
 
109 
 
 was before the building of its second church. This town, which de¬ 
 pends much for its prosperity on the success of its fisheries, was then 
 apparently in a flourishing condition, and the villages of Newlyn and 
 Mousehole, which line the western shores of its bay, had grown almost 
 into towns, and bore at that time a clean and thriving appearance. 
 The fruits of industry are not quite so rapid in their growth as those of 
 fashion and caprice, and therefore the increase of Penzance had not 
 quite kept pace with that of S. Leonard’s. Still, however, at the 
 time I speak of, it numbered between eight and nine thousand inhabi¬ 
 tants ; and, as to meet the wants of these, a single church endowed 
 with a stipend of £150 a year was considered sufficient, it is pretty 
 evident that the religious condition of the place would have been 
 veiy like that of S. Leonard’s had it not been for the dissenters. 
 Thanks to their exertions, Penzance was, when I knew it, a very 
 religious place after its fashion,—certainly a very Protestant place— 
 but for the reason I mentioned, Church doctrines were comparatively 
 unknown. 
 
 As the yacht stood in across Mount’s Bay our attention had been 
 drawn to a group of buildings on a rising ground just outside the 
 town, about which a number of workmen were employed. The build¬ 
 ings were still unfinished, but had been ably designed, and were at 
 that time sufficiently advanced towards completion to procure a pic¬ 
 turesque and churchlike effect. They proved to be the locality of a 
 Roman Catholic colony, similar to that of S. Leonard’s, and which, 
 like that, consisted of a church, schools, and houses, for the accommoda¬ 
 tion of those employed about them. I soon found my way there, and 
 entered into conversation with a man, who, dressed like a working 
 man, seemed to be directing the labours of the rest, but who, as he 
 afterwards informed me, was the priest in charge of the mission. This 
 union of offices is by no means uncommon in the Romish Church. 
 Most of their regular clergy are brought up to some trade, architecture 
 as often as any. My Valorsinois priest, you remember, had taken the 
 first step in the noble science—he carried a hod. 
 
 My first expression, after speaking of the architectural merits of the 
 building, was an expression of surprise to find them at Penzance at all. 
 Where did the funds come from ? Who supplied the money ? 
 
 “ When God has work for us to do He always finds the means,” 
 was the somewhat evasive answer. 
 
 Who had sent him ? His superior, the Bishop of some impossible 
 place in partibus injidelium , for this was before the days of the Popish 
 Aggression. 
 
 “But was there a large Romanist population there?” I had never 
 
 L 
 
110 
 
 heard of such a thing, but really the church did look as if it were the 
 centre of a rich and populous neighbourhood: it almost deserved the 
 title of magnificent. 
 
 “ No,” he said, “ there was no Roman Catholic population at all to 
 speak of; here and there a family it might be, but not what could be 
 called a population.” 
 
 Then what could have brought him there ? 
 
 His superiors had considered that the people were as sheep not 
 having a shepherd (they did not seem to make much account of our 
 dissenting brethren,) and they imagined that the poverty-stricken 
 condition of the Church of England in that place had opened them 
 a door. 
 
 You will observe that the door was considered to be opened to them, 
 because the discipline of the Church of England was not carried out; 
 not because there was no religious teaching in the place, for there was, 
 but because that religious teaching was not Church teaching. Perhaps 
 the converse of this proposition will suggest to you the reason why, 
 when the discipline of the Church of England is carried out, the Ho¬ 
 man Catholics do not consider the door opened. And then perhaps it 
 may show you who it is that stands in the breach in Brighton, and 
 why it is that you have no magnificent Roman Catholic Church, no 
 large Roman Catholic schools, and no numerous proselytizing Roman 
 Catholic establishments here ? The growth of the fungus marks the 
 previous rottenness of the place. 
 
 In the last two examples I have shown you a probable cause and a 
 subsequent effect. I have not taken upon me to say consequent. I 
 leave others to say that; but I will proceed to show you how these 
 things do act on the minds of religious but untaught people. In this 
 instance I am happy to be able to take my example from a Church in 
 communion with our own. It was a grand idea in a Church so poor, 
 so desolate as that of Scotland, to attempt to build a cathedral. It 
 was an offering to God, like that of the widow’s mite; but, like the 
 widow’s mite, though precious as an offering of faith, it is poor in 
 worldly wealth. You must not imagine the Dean and Canons of S. 
 Ninian’s at all like the richly endowed Dean and Canons of an English 
 Cathedral; but if they are not like them in endowment, neither are 
 they like them in their works. They are none of them rich rectors, 
 with canonries superadded, visiting their Cathedral for three months in 
 the year; they are Canons performing the duties of Canons ; one pre¬ 
 sides over the Mission, one takes charge of the Choral arrangements, 
 one superintends the Schools, and one manages the internal economy 
 of the College. S. Ninian’s is what our Cathedrals were once, before 
 
Ill 
 
 their revenues became an object of political or private patronage, and 
 what they must be, and will be again. 
 
 The story I am going to tell you, happened since my visit there last 
 summer, and therefore I will not vouch for the accuracy of all the de¬ 
 tails ; the main facts are as I state them. 
 
 For several days the members of S. Ninian’s College had observed 
 three or four strange men, very regular at their morning and evening 
 services; who they were nobody knew, but they were evidently 
 countrymen, and not over well dressed; they appeared ignorant, or at 
 least unaccustomed to what they saw, but were very attentive and 
 respectful. One evening the Canons, on entering the choir, remarked 
 that the whole nave was filled with strangers, not one of whom seemed 
 ever to have been at church before; they did not know when to stand, 
 or when to kneel, or when to sit, but they were trying their best, and 
 watching what the regular congregation were doing; while among 
 them, these three or four strangers, who had by this time learnt 
 something of cathedral worship, were seen directing the movements of 
 the rest. 
 
 In the evening a deputation waited upon the Dean: “ They were 
 people living at a distance, employed, they said, upon some public 
 works (to the best of my recollection they were quarriers ;) there were 
 as many as two thousand of them, and as they had no minister, or 
 indeed any form of religion whatever, they had determined to send 
 some of their number to Perth, to see (as they expressed it,) what sort 
 of religion was best for them; they had visited, they said, the Presby¬ 
 terian places of worship, both free and established, and did not much 
 like them : they had visited an Episcopalian Church, of which I, hav¬ 
 ing visited it also, can testify that the service was performed in a very 
 high and dry way indeed, and they did not like that much better; and 
 that now they had visited the Cathedral. They had not, they said, 
 the smallest difficulty in making up their minds about which looked 
 most like the worship of God, and now, having brought their friends 
 to confirm their choice, they had on deliberation, determined that a 
 deputation should be sent to the Dean, begging him to send one of his 
 Canons to organize them a Church.” 
 
 Now recollect, What was it that attracted these men in the first 
 instance ? Those very externals of divine worship which so many of 
 our unthinking, selfish religioners call mummery, and which the Bishop 
 of London, chiming in with the popular cry, denounces as histrionic. 
 What was it that confirmed their choice ? for these, you will not forget, 
 were hard-headed Scotchmen, the very last men in the whole world to be 
 hurried away by the impression of the moment, or any sudden outbreak 
 
112 
 
 of enthusiasm—it was the regular, constant, quiet work of the Canons, 
 their scrupulous fulfilment of their engagements, the Spiritual autho¬ 
 rity which attached to them, and the weight which always accompanies 
 a body of men acting together under discipline, the reality in short 
 of the whole thing. 
 
 I do not know, I cannot say for certain that the reason why the 
 Romish Establishment at S. Leonard’s had succeeded, and why that 
 at Penzance hopes to succeed, has anything to do with this, but I 
 think it has; and I think also that unless there is some such correc¬ 
 tive as the church of S. Paul’s, to show people what the Church of 
 England is capable of, the result will in all cases be the same: when¬ 
 ever the disciplined Church of Rome is brought fairly into contact with 
 the undisciplined Church of England, the latter will invariably lose 
 her hold on the poor and ignorant, and perhaps on some who are 
 neither the one nor the other. 
 
 It is evident therefore, that the weakness of the English Church 
 does not lie in her doctrines, these are as sound as ever they were in 
 the purest days of Christianity; nor even in her means of teaching 
 them, when they are taught: clipped and curtailed and maimed as 
 these means are, they are yet sufficient, if rightly carried out by faith¬ 
 ful men. She has yet resources enough to withstand dissent on the 
 one hand and Romanism on the other; but they are not so carried out 
 everywhere, therefore she has no discipline. She has no means of 
 restraining her own sons within the bounds of either her doctrine or 
 her practice ; her laity may wander into every conceivable form of 
 schism, without check or control, without forfeiting one of their privi¬ 
 leges as Churchmen, and her priests may hold any sort of doctrine, 
 under the protection of the Committee of Council. 
 
 We want no new powers, no new system, no fresh authority. We 
 would introduce no doctrines that are not already in the Prayer Book, 
 and no practices that are not already in the Church. All we stand 
 up for are the rights of the Church as secured to us by the 14th of 
 Charles II. Por these we are Tractarians, or Unionists, or what¬ 
 ever you may please to call us. If we had not first reformed our¬ 
 selves, if we had not, so far as lay in our power, ruled our own lives 
 and conduct and Church practices by those laws which we desire 
 to restore, we might very fairly be twitted with the accusation of bind¬ 
 ing burthens grievous to be borne, and laying them upon others with¬ 
 out ourselves touching them with our fingers. But we first show the 
 deficiencies under which the Church is labouring, we prove our sin¬ 
 cerity by labouring, singly and unsupported, to make them good, and, 
 having done so, we call upon the Church to vindicate her own laws. 
 
113 
 
 upon the State to give us the same liberty which the dissenter claims 
 as matter of right. 
 
 Until we have effected this we do not stand on an equality with 
 Borne. We see that our doctrines do not take the same hold of our 
 people that the doctrines of that Church do upon theirs. We see the 
 reason of it, and we endeavour to remedy it. How have we succeeded ? 
 In single instances admirably. Many a wanderer have we replaced in 
 the old paths, where is the good way, where they have found rest for 
 their souls. But as a National Church, no ! our efforts hitherto have 
 been single and unsupported, our successes are single and individual 
 also. Quite enough has been done to show the truth of the system, 
 but not enough to give it a general hold on the minds of the people. 
 
 And what is necessary to give it this hold P The restoration of 
 the Church’s deliberative and legislative functions. How can the 
 Church be fairly twitted with the sin of Eli, when she has no power to 
 restrain her children P Our doctrines take no hold on the affections 
 of our people, because we have no common system of teaching, no 
 common principle of action. Why have we not? because we have no 
 Church authority ; because we have nothing to which we can appeal for 
 enforcing that authority, or even for asserting it. 
 
 Since the suppression of our Synodical action, the Church has been 
 gradually sinking deeper and deeper into lethargy, and wandering 
 wider and wider into irregularity ; every one of her parish Priests stands 
 singly, each does that which is right in his own eyes, and therefore each 
 rests on his own unsupported authority. 
 
 Not so the Church of Borne. The Bomanist may stand alone in 
 the place where he finds himself, but he is still one of a great com¬ 
 pany ; he may be opposed by his whole neighbourhood, but he is sus¬ 
 tained by his brethren. He speaks with authority, because the doc¬ 
 trine which he teaches is not his own, but the doctrine of his Church. 
 On her part, that Church supports him in his authority, by casting 
 out all who refuse to listen, while at the very same time she maintains 
 her own authority, by casting him out if he departs from the teaching 
 which she commands. He has no difficulty in enforcing salutary dis¬ 
 cipline, because the discipline which he enforces is that of his Church, 
 and she confirms it with her sentence; but at the very same time she 
 effectually prevents him from giving grounds for scandal, in deviat¬ 
 ing from her recorded ritual, by rejecting him, and withdrawing her 
 protection from him, as soon as he attempts himself to go beyond her 
 rules. 
 
 And what do we ? connected with each other by name and by po¬ 
 sition, and by neighbourhood, we are, indeed and in truth, discon- 
 
114 
 
 nected for want of a central authority; we may see our needs, we 
 may attempt a reformation, but our reformation is a thing of shreds 
 and patches ; here and there we may urge a point of stricter discipline, 
 but it is no part of a regular system, its pressure is unequal, it chafes 
 and irritates, but it cannot amend. Here and there a solitary indi¬ 
 vidual will raise his voice against the universal laxity, and labour 
 hopelessly and thanklessly to overcome the effects of his predecessor’s 
 sloth or self-will; strive for a time, remain on earth just long enough 
 to prove that Christ has not yet cast off His Church, then die and 
 be forgotten; while his spirit, if still sentient of things upon the 
 earth, sees his plans reversed, his system set at nought, his people 
 sinking again into their former spiritual sloth, and irreverence and 
 irreligion again closing round them. 
 
 To fix and consolidate our work we must have united action, our 
 convocation and our synods. We admit that during the dark times 
 of sloth and ignorance through which we have been passing God has 
 dealt mercifully with us in depriving us of what we might easily have 
 misused, and should have misused, but we conceive that we shall best 
 show our fitness for freedom, and obtain the restoration of it from 
 God, by carrying out in our own persons, so far as in our power lies, 
 the existing privileges, customs, and practices, of the Church, and by 
 maintaining her rights against all opposition and all unpopularity. 
 
 And now let me sum up :— 
 
 By showing you how it was that I myself became a Tractarian, 
 that is to say, by showing you how and by what means my attention 
 was directed to the deficiencies of the English Church, T have shown 
 you that Tractarianism, or, to speak more intelligibly, Reform is abso¬ 
 lutely necessary. 
 
 And in working out my experiences, I think that I have shown 
 you also, that this reform, which we so much need, is not one of doc¬ 
 trine but of discipline ; and beyond this, that it is not a legislative 
 reform, but a practical reform that we want, not new laws, but the 
 power of using those we have; that the Church has already all the 
 laws and all the customs necessary for putting her at least on a par 
 with Rome; that if her doctrines are not conveyed to her poorer 
 classes, it is not the fault of her laws but of her supineness. In short, 
 that as far as a captive can be said to have any responsibility, her sin 
 is the sin of Eli, her sons make themselves vile, and she restraineth 
 them not. 
 
 But this would seem to cast blame upon our Bishops, who are 
 appointed to govern the Church. Let me not be supposed to allude 
 to our own Bishop, who is rather the exception to my rule than the 
 
115 
 
 exemplification of it, or to any particular Bishop, but to the Bishops 
 as a class, when I say that no one can see the irregularities committed 
 in the English Church and persisted in without reproof or correction, 
 and can pronounce her governors blameless. 
 
 They plead that they have no power to put the Church’s laws into 
 execution. Of course they have no power without their Synod; how 
 should they have power ? who ever out of Borne heard of an auto¬ 
 cratic Bishop ? In the old days, when the maxims “ no Bishop, no 
 Church,” “ without the Bishop do nothing,” were in all men’s mouths 
 as undeniable axioms, no Bishop thought of governing his diocese by 
 the law that came out of his own mouth. Still less did he rely on 
 acts of parliament to support his authority, still less did he “ who had 
 judgment of things pertaining to eternal life, set them to judge who 
 are least esteemed in the Church,” or if he did, there was not wanting 
 an Apostle to reprove him. Men now, some openly, but all more or 
 less practically, repudiate the idea of doing all things with the Bishop, 
 for the very evident reason that the Bishop has ceased to do all things 
 with them. 
 
 This subject, however, I mean to treat more at large in a subsequent 
 lecture. In the mean time, I would merely observe, that Bishops cannot 
 be greatly surprised that we pay but little attention to opinions, which 
 at the very best are their own private opinions, and not those of the 
 Church, but which generally are not even their own opinions at all, 
 but faint and uncertain echoes of a popular clamour, which is itself 
 both idle and irreligious. 
 
 They sit in Moses’ seat; all therefore of the laws of the Church that 
 they tell us to observe, that we shall observe and do; but we will 
 neither do after their acts, nor will we profess much respect for the pri¬ 
 vate judgments of men whom we see straining at such gnats as a 
 chanted psalm, a surplice, or a pair of candlesticks, and swallowing 
 such enormous camels as the wilful alteration of the Prayer Book, the 
 deprivation to their Church of six-sevenths of its allotted services, and 
 the exclusion of the poor from the house of their own God. 
 

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APPENDIX I. 
 
 (To the Editor of the English Churchman .) 
 
 “ Sir,—I have received from Mr. Gawthorne the letters which I enclose. 
 As he conceives that I have done him injustice in my observations on him, 
 I should feel much obliged if you would publish that portion of his letter 
 which relates to these matters, and my reply to it. The cause of complaint 
 lies in pages 39, 40, of my ‘ Lectures on Tractarianism.’ (Masters.) 
 
 “ Yours faithfully, 
 
 “Henry Newland. 
 
 “ Boveysand, Plymouth, July 1.” 
 
 “Millbank Street, Westminster, June 23, 1852. 
 
 “ Rev. Sir,—A friend has just called my attention to your statements 
 about me in your published Lecture on Tractarianism, which are so ex¬ 
 traordinary that I think it my duty to address you on the subject. I shall 
 pass over (what I must call) your uncharitable observations and insinua¬ 
 tions with regard to me, and proceed at once to notice—which I regret 
 that I can only do by denying —the statements to which I allude. And I 
 think that, on reflection, you will admit that they are as incorrect as your 
 uncharitableness is certainly unjustifiable. I regret the latter very much, 
 as I cannot but remember that you wrote to me very kindly (though a 
 stranger to you) at the time to which you refer. Should you publish an¬ 
 other Lecture of this series, I trust you will at least do me the justice to 
 insert in a note the substance of this communication. 
 
 “ Allow me to inform you that you are entirely under a misapprehension 
 in supposing that 1 ever set a ‘ trap’ for the Protestant Bishop of Chiches¬ 
 ter; that you are mistaken in thinking that you * examined me as to my 
 attainments’ on the occasion to which you allude (unless you refer to your 
 asking me if I understood music , which—so far as I can remember—was 
 the only question that you put to me,) or interrogated me at all on the 
 subject of Baptism; also that I had ever been employed at the Anglican 
 College at Harrow Weald (though I have several times visited it, but never 
 slept there more than one or two nights at the most; also, that I said on 
 the occasion of my interview with you at the * Golden Cross’ that my 
 
118 
 
 short stay at the College was «accounted for by the fact that it was not 
 long since I had joined the [Anglican] Church;* and finally (and above 
 all) that you are entirely mistaken in your estimate of my motives in first 
 joining the Anglican Communion, and at length (after several years’ mem¬ 
 bership with the former, during which time I enjoyed the respect and con¬ 
 fidence of many of its ministers and members) submitting myself to that 
 Church Catholic, of which your own Communion claims to be a * branch.* 
 I may add that I related what passed at our interview to several Protestant 
 friends, and that not one of them recollects my saying that anything at all 
 answering to your statements was spoken on that occasion. 
 
 “ As you have alluded to Mr. Manning, allow me to say that I had no 
 communication with him respecting the mastership of your school, and 
 that I do not know him even now, though I certainly saw him at the Car¬ 
 dinal s soiree yesterday evening. 
 
 “ I remain. Rev. Sir, 
 
 “ Your faithful servant and sincere wellwisher, 
 
 “ W. R. Francis Mary Gawthorne.” 
 
 The remainder of this letter, which is much too long for insertion, refers 
 to a pamphlet written by Mr. Gawthorne on the subject of his corres¬ 
 pondence with the Archbishop of Canterbury. 
 
 " Westbourne Vicarage, June 26. 
 
 Sir, 1 beg to acknowledge the receipt of a letter in which you deny 
 the accuracy of certain statements made concerning you in pages 39 and 
 40, of my ‘ Lectures on Tractarianism.’ 
 
 “ When you say that I never examined you as to your attainments or 
 religious opinions, I can easily believe that you are stating what you 
 imagine to be strictly true. You imagine that on the two occasions on 
 which I met you nothing passed between us but simple conversation. You 
 are quite right. I did not examine you formally. Nevertheless, it is 
 equally true that I went to town on purpose to have a conversation with 
 you; that in that conversation I did most strictly examine you; and that, 
 having examined you, I did reject you, and on the precise grounds which 
 1 stated in my Lectures—viz., that being a convert from Dissent, you had 
 no sufficient reason to assign for your conversion. I am delighted to hear 
 that you did not mean to set a trap for the Bishop of Chichester. 
 
 With respect to your other assertions, I dare say you may be quite as 
 correct as in this; they are not in any way material. It cannot signify 
 whether you were at Harrow Weald for two weeks or two days; the°only 
 material point is that you gave me a reference to Mr. Monro, and that he 
 knew little or nothing about you. Neither can it signify whether you are 
 recommended to me by the Archdeacon of Chichester, as I said, or, as I 
 believe really was the case, by the Dean of Chichester. The point is, that 
 
 you were recommended by one of my friends who was a Dignitary of the 
 Church. J 
 
 “ With respect to your conduct towards the Archbishop of Canterbury, 
 

 119 
 
 I have nothing to do, beyond declining to enter into any correspondence 
 or communication whatever with a man who could commit such an act! 
 I must decline also to read your pamphlet on the subject. With regard 
 to the Archbishop s letter in answer to yours, I have already expressed my 
 sentiments publicly, and I see no reason to alter those sentiments. Stilf 
 as our Church does not hold that the end sanctifies the means, and as I can 
 
 nf e \T° t T m A a r m o a P ° mt ° f vieW between y°ur conduct and that 
 of Mr. Spurred or Mr. Horsman, you must excuse me if I decline having 
 
 any sort of communication with you beyond this letter. I reply to vou 
 now only because, as you conceived I had misrepresented you in my Lee- 
 ture, I nnagmed that you were in some sort entitled to an explanation. 
 
 ,f. d f 0 n ® t . vvish t0 hurt y° ur feelings unnecessarily—you would give me 
 credit for this were you aware how much about your past life I know: but 
 if your religious versatility will ‘ point a moral or adorn a tale,’ no one shall 
 
 pubHc character!* ^ We '‘ eamed distinction of bein S considered a 
 
 “ Your obedient servant, 
 
 “ To Mr. Francis Gawthorne ” “ HENRY NeWLAND - 
 
 « A /T ™ -D n , 4/ ’ Mlllbank Str eet, Westminster, June 30, 1852. 
 
 Mr W. K. Gawthorne presents his compliments to Mr. Newland. As 
 Mr. G. has not heard from Mr. Newland on the subject of his recent com- 
 mumcation, he of course concludes that Mr. Newland declines to accede 
 to Mr. G. s request. He will not, therefore, feel surprised should he find 
 his misstatements corrected in several Catholic papers, and other publica- 
 tmns, both English and foreign, and in a manner certainly not favourable 
 to Mr. Newland s reputation as a Protestant Minister and Lecturer.” 
 
 <( 
 
 (< c . v „ , , Boveysand, Plymouth, July 4. 
 
 • 1 bir ’~ You are Perfectly welcome to speak of me in what way you 
 think proper. J : 
 
 “ Your obedient servant, 
 
 «T n M w d u . ~ , „ “Henry Newland. 
 
 io Mr. W. R. Francis Gawthorne. 
 
 APPENDIX II. 
 
 If ever I had my doubts about the propriety or success of these lectures 
 and 1have already confessed that I had, since their publication these doubts 
 have been completely removed by the numbers of letters I have received 
 irom all parts of England, and indeed I may add Scotland and Ireland also • 
 some asking advice, some relating anecdotes corroborating this or that 
 
120 
 
 statement which I had made, some giving me farther information on points 
 that I had only touched upon: in two instances these writers request me 
 to recommend to them some Clergyman holding Tractarian” opinions 
 within their reach. One wishes that I would “ communicate with him on 
 the best way in which he could be of service to the Church, thinking it to 
 be the duty of every Churchman to use his efforts to rescue her from the 
 position in which she is now placed.” These are cheering signs. As 
 faithful reformers of Christ’s Church, nay, even as faithful Churchmen, 
 we cannot expect to be popular, or to escape misrepresentations and 
 calumny : “ if they have called the Master of the house Beelzebub, how 
 much more shall they call them of His household ?” We neither expect 
 popularity nor wish for it; it is enough for us that we be as our Master : 
 still these are cheering signs, for these things show that men’s minds are 
 awake, that Truth is great and will prevail, that the Church’s doctrines are 
 “ running to and fro like sparks in the stubble,” that we are “ finding 
 again after many days our bread which we have cast on the waters,” that 
 “ though we went on our way weeping and bearing good seed, we shall 
 doubtless come again with joy and bring our sheaves with us.” If ever a 
 faithless fear has come over us, like that which in the depths of his perse¬ 
 cution once shook even the firm trust of Elijah, these things will show us 
 that there are yet “ seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to 
 Baal.” “ If I am asked,” said Archdeacon Denison, “ at what date since 
 the Reformation the Church of England has stood firmest, and has had the 
 strongest hold on the hearts of her members, I say that date is this day 
 and this hour on which I am now addressiug you.” 
 
 It is obviously impossible for me to publish the letters of which I speak ; 
 most of them indeed from their very nature are of a private and confiden¬ 
 tial character, many are almost duplicates of anecdotes which I have re¬ 
 lated ; and these, though valuable as corroborations, would weary by their 
 sameness. For instance, the rebuilding of the church destroyed by earth¬ 
 quake in the Azores, mentioned by one of my correspondents, is a perfect 
 repetition of my own anecdote of the Valorsine; it is not the less valuable 
 for that, nay, it is more valuable, for it shows that the teaching of the 
 Romish Church produces precisely the same effect among people of totally 
 different habits, manners, customs, and climate; yet to the reader the ab¬ 
 solute repetition of the same fact would be simply wearying. 
 
 One letter however I will publish, having received the permission of its 
 writer, or rather, as it is a long letter, I will select from it those extracts 
 which bear upon my subject, reserving the remainder for some future op¬ 
 portunity. The writer is a man well known in the Church as one of its 
 most zealous and faithful ministers ; he is known also to me by name, but 
 personally I have not the pleasure of his acquaintance. 
 
 “ Gyllyngdune, Falmouth, July 6, 1852. 
 
 “ Rev. and Dear Sir,—The lecture on ‘ Tractarianism,’ which you de¬ 
 livered in Brighton, has reminded me of one or two incidents which have 
 happened to fall under my own observation. I hope you will not deem it 
 
121 
 
 impertinent to be troubled with them by one who has no right to intrude 
 on } our attention, other than an interest in the righteous cause you have 
 been so ably advocating. On some other occasion, w'hen you are similarly 
 they may possibly be made available for varying your illustra¬ 
 tions, or for confirming them by the testimony of another witness. Cer¬ 
 tainly, at the time, not only did they interest me greatly as not unfavour¬ 
 able indications of the practical working of the Roman Church ; but, as 
 you have stated was the case on your mind, I was often compelled to ask 
 myself, ‘ Why are the poor and ignorant more religious and more devout 
 in the Church of Rome, where the doctrines have been corrupted, than 
 they are in the Church of England, where they have not been corrupted?’ 
 and like your own, the answer in very frequent instances could only be, 
 ‘ Because the Church of Rome speaks to the comprehension of the poor, 
 and we speak above it.’ 
 
 “ About nine years ago, I was travelling by the Simplon route, and 
 while our horses were baiting at Sion, I ascended with some of my children 
 one of those precipitous hills, on which stand the ruins of the fortress- 
 palaces of her former Bishops. While we were in the church, which if 
 you have travelled that road you will remember is equally dilapidated 
 and desolate as the rest of the buildings, our attention was attracted by 
 the faint wail of an infant. It was some time before we could discover 
 from what part of the edifice the cry proceeded, but at last it guided us 
 towards a heavy oaken door, just hanging on its rust-eaten hinges, which 
 on opening, not without difficulty, admitted us into the Lady chapel. 
 Here we saw stretched out on a rug as wretched a little infant as ever ex¬ 
 cited pity, emaciated and squalid with disease and poverty. The poor 
 child had been deposited on the lower step of what had been the altar, (for, 
 if I remember rightly, there was no outward token of its sanctity remain¬ 
 ing,) and a few' feet from it knelt a peasant woman, its mother. Struck 
 by so remarkable a spectacle amidst so much desolation, I waited until a 
 movement on the part of the woman assured me I should not disturb the 
 prayers she was engaged in, before I ventured to question her as to the 
 motive of bringing her apparently expiring child to the deserted chapel. 
 
 I shall never forget the answer of that poor creature. ‘ Doctors and 
 nurses,’ said she, ‘ have told me they can do nothing to save it, I have 
 brought it to Jesus and His Blessed Mother, and I wait to see their will;’ 
 and again she resumed her prayers. How sublime was that woman in her 
 poverty, her ignorance, and her rags, as a spectacle of Christian faith! 
 No habitation near, the ascent long and steep, the church in ruins, no out¬ 
 ward symbol of its sanctity, left unused for years, nothing but the memory 
 of the house of God. Where could I find a similar spectacle of faith, not 
 in its sentiments, but in its practice? She had indeed been taught to 
 encumber truth with error, but would to God our Church taught the 
 truth without error as effectually. 
 
 “ lou speak of the unostentatious piety and humility of the late Queen 
 of the Belgians as illustrative of the ‘ equality of all baptized Christians.’ 
 A similar instance occurred to my daughters visiting with their governess 
 
 M 
 
122 
 
 a church in Florence. I had taught them never to go through a church 
 for the gratification of curiosity, until they had first remembered it as a 
 house of prayer. They were once so engaged, when they became aware 
 that a party of ladies had come to the same spot, and were kneeling on 
 the bare pavement immediately by their side. When my children left the 
 church, they recognized at the portico two carriages as those of the Grand 
 Duke, and wishing to see some of the members of the Royal Family, they 
 remained a few minutes in the street. I need hardly add, the ladies who 
 had been kneeling on the pavement in the church for private prayer (there 
 was no service,) were the Grand Duchess, the sister of the Grand Duke, 
 the children, and some of the ladies of the household. 
 
 “ Did you ever ascend at night-fall any of the hill sides surrounding 
 the Piano of Sorrento ? It is a glorious sight, as the fiery sun sinks 
 behind Ischia, and in the brief twilight myriads of fire-flies begin to whirl 
 about you. But pleasanter than all, is the religious aspect of the scene. 
 The peasant families are home from their orange groves and maize fields, 
 the cares of the silkworm are over for the day, the children have been 
 called in and prepared for bed. Listen now as you pass any cottage win¬ 
 dow. Yes, do not fear to look in, for none will notice you; all areftoo 
 busily, too solemnly engaged. There is not a hovel wherein at this time 
 of the evening the Vesper Prayers are neglected, or the ‘ Ave * forgotten. 
 It is rudely and discordantly sung indeed, for the Sorrentines do not ex¬ 
 cel as tenori or soprani, but still it is sung. Down in the town, just below 
 you, are, if the night be fine, groups of young women gathered at a sta¬ 
 tion, led by a matron or an elder girl, and these too are in prayer often all 
 on their knees literally in the dust. In your own words, * they act openly, 
 as if they believed their religion, and were very proud of their religion.’ 
 And why ? because the system of the Church is open; they who teach 
 them act as if they ‘ were proud of their religion.’ I was once in a long 
 discussion with the learned and amiable ecclesiastic, who was at that time 
 the Principal of the Seminary at Bourg : we were in his cell in the estab¬ 
 lishment, and a third person, I believe a deacon only, was present; in the 
 heat of our argument a bell began to toll. In an instant the Principal 
 rose from his seat, made the sign of the cross, and stooped down for a few 
 minutes in prayer. ‘ What,’ said he afterwards (observing that I had not 
 imitated his example,) ‘ do you think it superstitious for all men at a 
 stated hour to be reminded by the Angelus of the duty of prayer? Are 
 you in England ashamed to obey it?’ 
 
 “Your observations on Penzance are open to misapprehension, and 
 might give pain to the Clergy who have laboured there faithfully and un¬ 
 sparingly within the time to which you allude. Mr. Shuttleworth and 
 Mr. Batten have not deserved that distant sons of the Church should 
 think, that the Church system has not been so fully carried out as the 
 strength of two men and their curates would allow. The second church, 
 which is internally a handsome structure, was built at the expense of the 
 last gentleman, and since its completion, there have been daily prayers in 
 it. The Romanists have felt the effect. They began their ‘cathedral* 
 
 
123 
 
 with great pretensions, designing it, with the aid of funds from Marseilles, 
 as the head quarters of the Western Missions, whence, under episcopal 
 direction, they were to sally forth and proselytize the west of England. 
 
 At one time, as an offset from this institution, I had a legion of 
 Priests, as many as six at one time, outposted just on the borders of mv 
 parish- iou will remember, their church was designed upon rather a nre- 
 tending scale, the end walls and lateral arches being temporarily stoned 
 up, with the intention of extending the building from time to time. I was 
 
 en !.l St Ti lth ’ and> far as 1 could see ’ the y have been content 
 th e edifice on its first very limited scale, and its missionary 
 prospects are abandoned. They have made no way. The six Priests have 
 dwindled to one, the rest are removed to Clapham, and the Bishop may be 
 in parhbus mfidehum for what the people of Penzance know of him The 
 "boleaffair languishes, and I think that the funds are failing 
 
 T^v l K t f eW °!l haS Preferment, and Mr. Batten has succeeded him. 
 Ihey are both good Churchmen, and you will be doing them no more than 
 justice, if on any future occasion you relieve them from the imputation of 
 
 vnnr C in ry r g , ° U P nnci P les a ”d practices, which unintentionally 
 
 your illustration may have cast on them. 
 
 “ I have brought this letter to a most unconscionable length, and will 
 e °” he ? rt y g°°d wishes for your success in the advocacy you are 
 
 of duty dlSCharglDg ’ and f ° r GoD S bIessin S u P on your immediate sphere 
 
 “ I have the honour to be, 
 
 “ Rev. and dear Sir, 
 
 “ Your faithful brother in Christ, 
 
 “ W. J. Coope, 
 
 “ Rector of Falmouth.” 
 
 Grieved indeed should I be, had I, even by implication, done injustice 
 to a man who has deserved so well of the Church as Mr. Shuttleworth, 
 but m point of fact I have not done so. Mr. Coope has overlooked the 
 date ol my anecdote. A good many years have elapsed since my yachting 
 y y have neither time nor opportunity for such amusements now” 
 When I visited Penzance, Mr. Batten’s church was but just beo-un I 
 perfectly remember sitting on the walls of it, in conversation with the 
 man w ho gave me that information on the religious statistics of the place 
 
 been Mr h ^ r fH° rde( !i in i my 1 w tUI S!! and wh ° 1 have n0 doubt must have 
 been Mr. Shuttleworth himself. Tbe state of Penzance which I describe, 
 
 erefore, is not its state under Mr. Shuttleworth’s administration, but its 
 previous condition; the condition from which he raised it. Mr. Coope 
 however, has done good service in calling the attention of the public to this 
 tact, and in relating the continuation of that history of which I, having 
 never seen the place since, was able to speak of the beginning only. This 
 continuation is not only highly creditable to the zeal and energy of Mr. 
 
 “ W T°r h aud Mr ’ ? atten ’ but R is aIso eminently corrobative of the 
 p ition I have assumed in my lecture, concerning the causes which have 
 
 
124 
 
 produced the recent increase of Romanism in England. My words are, 
 “ the growth of the fungus marks the rottenness of the place.” It is very re¬ 
 markable to my purpose, that this place was not selected by the Roman 
 Catholics because there was no religion there, for as Dissenters, the men of 
 the west are rather remarkable for their strictness. I spent a Sunday at 
 Penzance, and I well remember the Sabbath stillness of the place ; it was 
 because there was no Church. Dissent was flourishing, but the action 
 of the Church was weak and crippled ; her principles were not carried out, 
 and this it seems is what is considered by the Roman Catholics a promis¬ 
 ing field for their exertions— the fungus takes root. 
 
 I now take up Mr. Coope’s continuation. A church is built by Mr. 
 Batten ; Church principles are carried out, and the fungus dies away for 
 want of nourishment. The Grand Missionary Establishment, which was 
 not at all inferior to that of S. Leonard’s, dwindles down to a single 
 Priest, and the mission is transferred—where? Why, to Clapham ; and I 
 need not say what sort of pabulum the fungus would find there to feed upon. 
 If I have undesignedly done injustice to Mr. Shuttleworth—if I have led 
 any one to doubt his zeal, his earnestness, or the success of his labours, I 
 am very sorry for any inadvertence of mine which may have caused such a 
 mistake : the real fact being that Mr. Shuttleworth has, almost single- 
 handed, done that which the S. Leonard’s people neither have done nor 
 will do, till they have sent for some of us to help them; that is to say, he 
 has encountered the Romish mission, which had already occupied the 
 ground, and has defeated it. 
 
 APPENDIX III. 
 
 I have received letters from several persons totally independent of each 
 other, but all alike requesting me to come and lecture in their respective 
 towns. “ They are quite sure it would undeceive so many people, and do 
 so much good.” This is no doubt extremely flattering, extremely compli¬ 
 mentary, and I do feel flattered and complimented by it. Moreover, I am 
 quite certain they are right: it would do a great deal of good. Neverthe¬ 
 less, what my worthy friends ask is a little unreasonable. This delivering 
 of lectures is a resolution of the South Church Union, and I, as a member 
 of that union, am carrying out to the best of my abilities the resolution I 
 have myself concurred in, therefore I give these lectures. I do not repent 
 having done so. I have every reason to be satisfied with the success of 
 our undertaking. Next winter, moreover, I mean to go on with it, but it 
 must be within the sphere of my own Union. 
 
 I can, however, assure my good friends, speaking from experience, that 
 the exhibition of oneself upon a platform is an extremely disagreeable 
 situation, one in which no gentleman would place himself voluntarily. I 
 
125 
 
 never expected it would be anything else. I believe also that no amount 
 of success can make it less disagreeable, and I am sure, speaking for my¬ 
 self, I hope it never may. But I believe that circumstances have rendered 
 this, or something of the kind, necessary, and if so, disagreeable or not, 
 some one must do the duty. 
 
 Now I never would ask another to do that which I would not do my¬ 
 self, but having led into action, I do conceive that I have thereby acquired 
 a full right to call upon others to follow me, more especially as I happen 
 to know that they hold the same sentiments as I do myself. 
 
 The invitations which I have received have come from towns lying within 
 the range of the London, the Bristol, and the Exeter Unions. Now I call 
 upon those Unions to come forward and answer them. I do not mean to 
 tell them that it will not be unpleasant, but if they think it ought to be 
 done, valet consequentia, they ought to do it. 
 
 J. MASTERS AND SON PRINTERS, ALDERSG-ATE STREET. 
 
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