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 THE CHARGE 
 
 OF THE 
 
 ARCHDEACON OF TAUNTON, 
 
 APRIL, 1883. 
 
 1. Church and State, 
 
 2. Establishment. 
 
 3. Dis-Establishment. 
 (a.) Progressive. 
 (d.) Final. 
 
 4. Some principal steps of Progress, 
 
 proposed for a.d. 1883. 
 (a.) " Deceased Wife's Sister's Bill." 
 {/>.) "Affirmation Bill," &:c., &;c. 
 
 IParhcr anb Co. 
 
 OXFORD, AND 6 SOUTHAMPTON-STREET, 
 STRAND, LONDON. 
 
 1883.
 
 " The Lord is risen, as all things tell : 
 Good Christians, see ye rise as well." 
 
 Easter Hymn^J. M. Neale.
 
 From the Author,
 
 ^ Cljar0£, ^t. 
 
 n^HE Church of Christ in England is, by Gift 
 of God, an integral part of the Kingdom of 
 England : not only an integral part, but the primary 
 part. This is evidenced, among other evidences, 
 by the public, formal, legal phraseology of England 
 down to this day. It is not "State and Church :" 
 it is "Church and State." It is not "this Realm 
 and Church :" it is " This Church and Realm." 
 
 The thing which has been here from the first 
 times of Christianity, prior to, and independent of 
 all law. Common or Statute : a thing of God's Gift, 
 not of man's making : the thinof around which all 
 successive conditions of human government in Eng- 
 land have grown up and flourished, has suffered, 
 and is suffering, as all Gifts of God do suffer, in 
 and at the hands of man ; and, though mercifully 
 preserved in its own essence, has come to be called 
 by a name indicating the human, rather than The 
 Divine, hand — 
 
 " The Establishment." 
 
 The Establishment of what ? of The Church of 
 "^"^ Christ. But The Church of Christ was here al- 
 
 t ready, and remains here, by The Law Divine. " Es- 
 tablishment" then means something else. What 
 ^v. does it mean ? 
 
 -— It means " State and Church," instead of " Church 
 
 r> 2
 
 and State." It means The Divine Element : but 
 this overlaid by the human element ^ 
 
 It paves the way for " dis-Establishment," pro- 
 gressively^ and finally, by the same power that 
 *' established." 
 
 In our day dis-Establishment, with its neces- 
 sary accompaniment dis-Endowment, is more widely, 
 more openly, more definitely proclaimed as a pri- 
 mary object and purpose of large masses of the 
 English People — some within the Church : many 
 more without the Church. 
 
 And the question is commonly dismissed as rather 
 "a party question than anything else." A question 
 of social and political and economical adjustment : 
 instead of being, what it is, a question of substi- 
 tuting a human thing for a Divine : a false and 
 irreligious conception for the true. 
 
 One word here about " Party ;" that is, the com- 
 bination of men for the promotion of a given real 
 or supposed principle or system. There is a 
 highest, as a lowest, sense of the word. It is, I 
 suppose, in both senses as old as Society itself 
 We know it in its highest sense as old as the time 
 of Moses, see Exodus xxxii. : a place, the whole 
 burden of which is the unshrinking combined up- 
 holding and vindication, at any cost, of the Law 
 Divine ; and which is therefore directly applicable 
 in its nature and substance, to the matter of up- 
 holding "Church and State." I cite one verse. 
 I refer to the whole chapter. 
 
 ' Principal instances — 
 
 Submission of Clergy, 25 Hen. VIII., 1534. 
 
 Conge d'es lire, 25 Hen. VIII., 1534. 
 ** For principal instances see below, pp. 19 — 23. ^u^^Sr
 
 " Then Moses stood in the gate of the Camp, 
 " and said, Who is on The Lord's side ? Let him 
 " come unto me. And all the sons of Levi gathered 
 " themselves toofether unto him." v. 26. 
 
 I put then " Church and State," as, by the Law 
 Divine, on one side. 
 
 Establishment, with its sequel, dis-Establishment, 
 as by the World's law, on the other. 
 
 And I note, further, that the increasing clamour 
 for dis-Establishment is coincident in point of time 
 with the great uprearing of Democracy in England : 
 the least stable and the shallowest of all characters 
 of Government ; but, by every sign, on the point of 
 becoming the predominant character of the Govern- 
 .ment of England. Already men are heard every- 
 where talking of "the omnipotence of Parliament." 
 This is essentially a democratic figure of speech. 
 What it means is the omnipotence of democracy to 
 do what it likes with the rights and the property 
 of all other people who are not of its mind. Al- 
 ready there is amongst us little public faith in, 
 and less obedience to, the Law Divine. Already 
 first principles of the Religion of Christ are as 
 nothing, when weighed against some, so called, 
 exigency ; or even against some minor social or 
 political convenience ; and, as a crowning instance 
 of this temper and method, it is now assumed easily 
 and complacently that a thing which the Civil 
 Power neither made nor gave, but found made 
 and given for it of God — a thing the heart and 
 centre of the National Life — made and given many 
 hundred years before any such thing as an " Act
 
 of Parliament," or a Parliament itself, was heard of, 
 a thing maimed indeed in Cent. XVI., and down 
 to our own day, in respect of its true position, but, 
 in respect of its essential parts, abiding, is a thing 
 which may be got rid of any day by " the wisdom 
 of Parliament :" got rid of, with much spoliation 
 private and public, by "the wisdom of Parliament" 
 in Century XIX.— the question being, it is said, 
 only a question of dis-Establishment and dis-En- 
 dowment : in other words, as I should put it, of 
 ultimate rejection of The Law Divine ; and of rob- 
 bing God's people of the remains of a great inherit- 
 ance and sacred Trust, which the Power urged to 
 lay hands upon it, and to apply it to secular uses, 
 did neither create nor bestow. 
 
 I Sam. To dis-Establish is to reject God. To dis-Endow 
 
 viii. 7. 
 
 Maiachi is to rob GoD. Both go together always ; progres- 
 
 111. 8. gj^g ^^^ final. But the first is easier, and less 
 
 troubled with scruples about amount of robbery 
 
 than the last. It is one thing to lop off limb by 
 
 limb : it is another thing to kill. 
 
 Whether such " wisdom of Parliament " would 
 ^ not issue in as great a sin as England can commit, 
 does not appear to be much taken thought about 
 either by Legislature or People. 
 
 Dis-Establishment and dis-Endowment are indeed 
 spoken of here and there in terms of utter abhor- 
 rence and condemnation. But how far this is for 
 "the Church's" sake; how far for the sake of the 
 adjuncts of the "Establishment;" how far for 
 the harm and loss sake, religious and social, to 
 the entire People of England, it is not easy to say.
 
 On the other side both are spoken of by many 
 as things simply right and good to do. The grounds 
 are various, and here and there is a futile attempt 
 to distinofuish between dis-Establishment and dis- 
 Endowment, as if the first does not necessarily 
 involve the last. Sometimes, it is the good of 
 Religion generally. Sometimes, particularly, the 
 injury inflicted upon the faithfulness of Church 
 People through connexion of a close and intimate 
 kind, as inherent in the position, with words and 
 acts of a Civil Power, which has become unmis- 
 takeably in the last 50 years a Power of Indiffer- 
 entism, — the thing next door to Scepticism and un- 
 Belief. More commonly it is the impatience of any 
 authority or judgment in matters of Religion except 
 individual authority and private judgment. More 
 commonly still it is resistance to the law of all 
 special property — position — privilege. This last is 
 the lowest, because the Communistic, form of thought 
 and speech in this matter. Being the lowest, I sup- 
 pose it is fast becoming the most powerful. 
 
 But, as yet, the matter cannot be said to be " con- 
 sidered " at all by English People, Churchmen, or 
 not Churchmen. If coming up from time to time, 
 it is put aside, either as matter of "party politics" 
 only, and, as such, better left alone by Churchmen ; 
 which is a confusion of thought : or as a thing not 
 likely to have any issue in the present generation. 
 There is a concentrated selfishness and indifference 
 about this last way of looking at the matter which 
 is, in itself, a sure index of an unsound and un- 
 worthy estimate of it. 
 
 For, as matter of fact, the question we are upon 
 is the first and chiefest of all questions committed
 
 8 
 
 of God to the deepest consideration of the whole 
 English People. 
 
 For it is, throughout all time, the Prophecy, 
 the Teaching and the Testimony of the Old and the 
 New Scriptures, that the greatest Gift of God to a 
 People is the Gift of the Church of Christ. 
 
 Let me try to set this out by way of Question 
 and Answer. 
 
 Q. Do you believe in The Lord Jesus Christ, 
 King of Kings, and Lord of Lords ? 
 
 A. I do. 
 
 Q. What is Christ's Kingdom upon Earth ? 
 s. John A. It is The Kingdom of The Truth. 
 
 Prayero?' Q' Into whose hauds has This Kingdom been 
 s^osSm!" committed ? 
 S.Luke A. Into the hands of The Church, through the 
 
 xxii. 29. . - 
 
 Apostles. 
 
 Q. What is The Church called in Holy Scripture ? 
 Ephes. i. A. It is Called "The Body of Christ," and is 
 Coioss. i. that Body into which we are Baptized. It is called 
 I'cor. xii. 3-lso '* The pillar and ground of The Truth." 
 I Tim. iii. Q- What are the "essential parts" of The Church ? 
 »5- A. The Orders ; The Sacraments ; The Creeds. 
 
 Wheresoever these are, there is The Church : 
 Wheresoever they are not, there The Church is not. 
 Q. You would say then that The Church has had 
 The Kingdom of "The Truth" committed to its 
 keeping by Ordinance and Gift of God, together 
 with the means of Grace and Salvation ? 
 A. I should say so absolutely. 
 ^. Is there any other thing in the world of which 
 the same can be said ? 
 A. There is not.
 
 Q. You conclude then that The Church is there- 
 fore the greatest Gift of God to a People ? 
 
 A. I do. 
 
 Q. What is the difference between The World and 
 The Church ? 
 
 A, The World has The Truth offered to it, and 
 rejects It. The Church has The Truth given to 
 It, and keeps and delivers It. The World is 
 always asking with Pilate, " What is Truth ?" The 
 Church is always saying with the Prophet, " This Isaiah xxx. 
 is the way ; walk ye in it." 
 
 It was the conclusion arrived at by the mental 
 process indicated by the above Questions and An- 
 swers which made me some five years ago finally 
 withdraw myself from the number of those who look 
 to dis-Establishment as a legitimate remicdy for the 
 great present distress come, and coming continually 
 upon The Church out of the aggression and usurpa- 
 tion on the part of the Civil Power for the last 50 
 years. I found that I was, so to speak, proposing 
 to lay unbidden hands upon an ordinance of The 
 Law Divine. I found myself to be inventing a 
 Providence, rather than submitting to the Provi- 
 dence of God. If it should be the Decree of His 
 Providence that "Church and State" in its phase 
 of " Establishment," that is the phase still remain- 
 ing to us, should cease to be — whether for retri- 
 bution upon unfaithfulness to Trust ; or for cor- 
 rection, amendment, and recovery, I found that it 
 was not for man to go about to anticipate Provi- 
 dence by a remedy of his own ; a remedy not only 
 not advised of God, but contrary to the letter and 
 the spirit of an ordinance of The Law Divine. 
 
 But, having made this confession of error more 
 
 B ^
 
 lO 
 
 than once publickly, I will not take up your time 
 upon it further. 
 
 I have now stated the Position of Church and 
 State as by The Law Divine ; and as contrasted 
 with the Position by Establishment. More of this 
 further on. 
 
 But as in the case of all Gifts of God, primary 
 and subordinate, as it was with the Jew, so has 
 it been with the Christian. Every gift is marred 
 and defaced in its use by passing through the hands 
 of man. Hence heresies, schisms, wars, divisions, 
 multiplied and multiplying religions. We need look 
 no further than the experience of S. Paul himself 
 to be taught how soon man's infirmity, doing despite 
 to the Spirit of Grace, and so growing into sin, 
 begins to do the work of division, heresy, schism. 
 
 It was A.D. 54 that S. Paul founded The Church 
 in Corinth. For its condition five years later 
 see I Cor. i. 
 
 For the same infirmities within the Church, al- 
 lowed to grow into sins, which have made three 
 Churches of Christ out of one — Greek, Roman, 
 Anglican — each one of them a Church because of 
 the Orders, the Sacraments, the Creeds (for, I re- 
 peat it, wheresoever these are there is the Church), 
 but each separated from other, if each not excluding 
 and denouncing other — these same infirmities and 
 sins have not been slow to shew themselves in and 
 about the three Churches in their separation ; and 
 have issued in Communities or Congregations of 
 men beginning with and growing up under man's 
 authority side by side with the several Churches
 
 1 1 
 
 themselves, and within the Hmits of their several di- 
 vided jurisdictions ; each claiming to be " a Church ;" 
 but rejecting Orders, Sacraments, Creeds ; and thus 
 each one unchurching itself, and yet proclaiming 
 itself to be the one true way of serving God — found 
 out then for the first time since the days of Christ 
 and His Apostles — the one way of serving God 
 in Christ, or without Christ. I say ' without 
 Christ ;' for it is a fact never to be forgotten that 
 it is in these Communities or Congregations — which 
 have broken off from The Church, and have no 
 foundation upon which to rest and build but man's 
 foundation only — that the denial of The Godhead 
 of The Son is most widely found to prevail. 
 
 The wisdom of the World, always presumptuous 
 in proportion to its shallowness and helplessness, 
 contends that the claim and title of the Church 
 cannot be, in fact and truth as I have put it, be- 
 cause the Church at large has done so little in 
 1 800 years to bring the World unto Christ. 
 
 Men who talk and write upon the lines of the 
 World's wisdom "professing themselves to be wise Rom. i. 22. 
 become fools." 
 
 If they were "wise," they would be taught of 
 God that it is man's unfaithfulness and unBelief 
 that mars in and for themselves and others the 
 Work of God. The work of God is Belief ins. John vi. 
 
 29: "This 
 
 Christ. is the 
 
 It is with Christendom as it was with Israel, god that 
 "He could do there no mighty works," S. Mark yf/j|||^^'^ 
 vi. 5, "because of their unBelief," S. Matt. xiii. 58. whom He 
 
 ^ _ ^ _ hath sent. 
 
 The work of God for the savins of the World is 
 hindered and defeated by the sin of the Baptized 
 into Christ. 
 
 B 4
 
 12 
 
 This is the fact and truth of the case. The 
 
 World lauofhs, and will not receive it, because this 
 
 would be to condemn itself. The World laughs. 
 
 s. Luke " Woe unto you that laugh now, for ye shall mourn 
 
 I Cor.'xi. and weep." If the World is not taught of Grace, 
 
 ^^' how should it be taught of argument, even though 
 
 it can in nowise answer, much less refute it ? 
 
 The World does not worship God. It worships 
 itself. Naturally it worships most those things of 
 itself which are the highest it has any perception 
 of — things in themselves excellent ; but according 
 to their use or abuse powerful for good or for evil. 
 Intellect, Science, Learning, Scholarship (fast de- 
 generating in England into the pedantry of Phi- 
 lology), Critical power. Invention, Philosophy''. In 
 three words, the Reasoning Faculty ; the chief Gift 
 of God to each one of us, most powerful for good 
 when used with and for God, most powerful for 
 evil when used without and against God ; and so 
 abused and debased into " the Pride of Life." 
 
 The World puts ' reason ' above * faith.' The 
 World does not know — how should it know ? — 
 that the highest and most ennobling use of reason 
 is to possess the mind with its own incapacity, and 
 finite power of perception and conclusion ; and so 
 to learn the lesson of Christ to His Church — • 
 humbleness, self-abasement, patience, waiting upon 
 God ; in one word, faith. 
 
 The World is not taught of God. It does not 
 know God. It thinks it is its own teacher. It is 
 
 Coloss. ii. " The term "philosophy" is found only once in Holy Scripture. 
 It is there coupled with " vain deceit," and with a warning against 
 both ahke. So "philosophers" once, Acts xvii. i8.
 
 not even this. The World is taught of the Prince 
 of the World. It waits for another teacher whose 
 teaching it cannot escape. It waits for Death, to 
 tell it, when it is too late, what that Truth is about 
 which it has speculated, doubted, reasoned. If 
 indeed any such speculation and doubt can, even 
 in a secondary sense, be called reasoning. 
 
 Meantime the business of the World, doine the 
 Work of its Prince, is, consciously and uncon- 
 sciously, to corrupt the Church, and degrade it to 
 its own level. This it does principally by seducing 
 Churchmen of all orders into sanction, or quasi 
 sanction, of what is contrary to the Law of Christ. 
 For the World finds it convenient to be respect- 
 able ; and if it can prevail upon Churchmen upon 
 plausible grounds, always ready to its hand, to so 
 much as connive at its proceedings, still more to 
 be a party to them by act, especially public and 
 formal act, this encourages it much. 
 
 On the other hand, the harm and loss to the 
 faithfulness of Church People by any such conni- 
 vance ; aye, even by shrinking for conventionality's 
 sake from lifting up its voice, crying aloud and 
 sparing not, is too great for any words to express. 
 Much more then when the Church can be repre- 
 sented, in the persons of Churchmen, as having 
 either directly or indirectly, become a party to 
 wrong done to her Trust. 
 
 In the last 50 years dis-Establishment has been 
 brought much nearer to the thoughts of men. 
 
 There have been considerations, besides those 
 of love and reverence for the Church, which have
 
 14 
 
 interposed hitherto between the threat and its con- 
 summation ; and it is my behef that considerations 
 of a Hke nature will continue to interpose. Any 
 Minister proposing dis-Establishment in England, 
 as things are now, would not remain Minister long ; 
 and this consideration may probably prevail, until 
 some new element of general disturbance be im- 
 ported into the National Life. Then I believe 
 " Establishment," the comparatively modern sub- 
 stitute for " Church and State," would be the first 
 thing to disappear from our history. 
 
 But, sometimes, these things come very suddenly. 
 In 1866, the prime mover in 1868 of dis-Establish- 
 ment in Ireland represented it as a thing so remote, 
 as hardly to require to be considered. In 1868 he 
 carried dis-Establishment. 
 
 I note the fact only. I say nothing about the 
 why and wherefore. 
 
 The history of Ireland for many centuries, up to 
 the close of Cent. XVIII., in connection with Eng- 
 lish rule and administration, is so dark a history, 
 that I shrink from touching it : whether in view of 
 offence or of retribution : saying only here that, as 
 has been the offence, so is the retribution ; and 
 praying, for all our sakes, that the thought of this 
 may help, God guiding us, to make men on both 
 sides something less unmerciful. 
 
 Meantime many minds in England and out of 
 England are pondering, day by day, night by night, 
 which part of the Constitution of England, as now 
 existing, will be the first to fall : and those of us 
 who care above all things for the " Depositum 
 Fidei," and therein for Unity of faith, are praying 
 that the Revolution may not begin with " dis-Es-
 
 tablishment cum dis-Endowment." One thing is 
 certain, that, if it does so begin, it will not end 
 with it : but will rapidly extend to the other chief 
 parts of the Kingdom of England. 
 
 Well — is it said in reply — there is a thing on 
 the other side even more certain — for it is a fact ; 
 and that is that " Church and State " under any of 
 its phases, has not done much for a great many 
 years for Unity of faith. 
 
 Alas ! it is true enough : but abuse of a Divine 
 Gift cannot be pleaded as against the Gift itself. 
 What would have to be said about the Gift of life 
 to every one of us ? 
 
 It is here ao;ain as I said above. Man has 
 marred the work of God. Infirmities allowed to 
 Sfrow into sins both within and without the Church 
 have had the issue alleged. Unity of faith, with 
 its true fruits, implicit belief in, and unquestioning 
 obedience to. Divine Law, is not a common thing 
 in England. 
 
 But is it to be so for ever? Is the great prob- 
 lem of our life here, combination of "civil" — aye, 
 and if you will, of " religious liberty," in the only 
 true sense of the words — is the problem of the 
 combination of this liberty with Religious Obe- 
 dience, never to receive a solution ? Are both to 
 be among God's chiefest and priceless Gifts, but 
 nowhere hitherto upon Earth to be found at one 
 and the same time in one and the same people } 
 Is Obedience always to degenerate into Formalism 
 — Liberty into Licentiousness — Toleration into In- 
 differentism ? Let it be granted freely that this 
 is no inexact account of much of our Religious and 
 non- Religious history. Is it to be so for ever "?
 
 i6 
 
 We are hearing always of the improving and per- 
 fecting of human Institutions. Is there to be no 
 improving and perfecting — not of a Divine Institu- 
 tion itself — for that cannot be but — of our use of, 
 and profiting by It, under the God Who has 
 given It ? 
 
 It is one worst practical consequence of putting 
 "Church and State" upon the "Establishment" 
 basis that most men, of all orders and degrees and 
 beliefs, even among Church People, fall very easily 
 into the habit of taking for granted that what the 
 Temporal Power says or does in respect of ques- 
 tions arising about the Church is the one right 
 thing to be said or done. The " Church " element 
 vanishes out of «their mind and life. The " State " 
 element keeps its own place to the fullest legitimate 
 extent ; and, nowadays, very far outside of, and in 
 excess of this. 
 
 Now certainly, " See what they say in Parlia- 
 ment," when said in reference to Church interests 
 and duties, is, especially when regard is had to the 
 composition of Parliament for some 54 years, about 
 as big and delusive and damaging a fallacy as can 
 be invented. 
 
 And it is for this reason that I, for one, have 
 all along contended against any manner of inviting 
 legislation for the Church. To resist assaults upon 
 the Church in Parliament, whether from within or 
 from without — and there is about as much of as- 
 sault from within as there is from without — is one 
 thing. That is a duty. To invite legislation is 
 another thing. That, I submit respectfully, is a 
 folly ; and when involving the carrying of the 
 Prayer-Book into Parliament — inasmuch as it would
 
 17 
 
 come out of Parliament mutilated and defaced — 
 worse than a folly. It is practical treachery. 
 
 I have tried to set down as plainly as I can what 
 " Church and State" is : what " Establishment" is : 
 what " dis-Establishment cum dis-Endowment" is. 
 Let me sum up so far. 
 
 "Church and State" is of The Law Divine: 
 " Establishment " and ** dis-Establishment cum dis- 
 Endowment" are of man's law. "Church and 
 State " is the greatest Gift of God to a People ; 
 because the means ordained of God to Unity of 
 Faith. The means being of God are one and the 
 same thing always : and with the means the one 
 true manner of use. Abuse and perversion of them 
 by man is another thing always. To hold fast to 
 "Church and State" is to be "on the Lord's side." 
 To impair, and finally destroy " Church and State " 
 is to be on the World's side. One is to be the 
 faithful Servant of God, the other is to " rob God." Maiachi 
 
 iii. 7 — lo. 
 
 Oh but, says the World, you are resting upon 
 the Scriptures and upon the old Scriptures. Of 
 course I am. What else have I, or any other 
 Christian man, to "rest upon, save only The Holy 
 Scriptures, as delivered by The Church Catholic ?" 
 If you do not believe the Scriptures of The Old 
 and The New Testament, I am sorry for you; but 
 that is all I can say to you, or about you. I do be- 
 lieve them : There is nothing else for me, or for 
 any man, to " believe." I do believe them, and 
 try, however imperfectly, to live by them. 
 
 Let us leave the World to talk to itself. We see 
 what "dis-Establishment cum dis-Endowment" is.
 
 iS 
 
 or even without " dis-Endowment " if that were pos- 
 sible, which it is not. When was it born ? when 
 did it begin ? It was born and began to grow the 
 same day as " Establishment " was born and began 
 to decay ; the day when man's law was put into the 
 place of God's Law. 
 
 There is in Hook's Life of Becket a remarkable 
 place, which puts the truth I am stating in very 
 few forcible words. He says, — 
 
 " Becket contended for a principle ; devoted his 
 " life to maintain it ; and willingly died to support 
 "it. His principle was to maintain the liberty of 
 " the Church : but alas ! while he would contend 
 " for the liberty of the Church against the King, 
 " he was prepared to deliver her, bound hand and 
 " foot, to a foreign prince and prelate, the Bishop 
 " of Rome. Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer, con- 
 " tended for the Church's liberty against the Pope, 
 " but delivered her up a slave to the State. While 
 " they defied the fulminations of the Court of Rome, 
 " at a time when they had begun to lose their 
 "terrors, they succumbed to a tyrant like Henry 
 "VHL, armed with despotic powers." 
 
 It was from the time that the Church was first 
 " delivered up a slave to the State," that dis-Es- 
 tablishment dates its birth. When Establishment 
 by man came into the place of Church and State by 
 the Law Divine, the seed of dis-Establishment was 
 sown, coupled with the precedent and example of 
 dis-Endowment, by the same hand which invented 
 and carried out Establishment, and at the same 
 time.
 
 19 
 
 Henry VIII. was the first " Establishcr," and 
 the first "dis-Estabhsher cum dis-Endower." His 
 memory is coupled, in point of time, with the Re- 
 Formation of much that needed Re-Formation, and 
 with that of the vindication of independence of the 
 Church of England, as free to govern itself under 
 Christ The Head'^ : but not in point of anything 
 else in itself good. He laid violent hands upon 
 *' Church and State," and, so far as it was possible 
 then, turned it into "State and Church ^" He 
 found no true and worthy resistance to his relent- 
 less despotism. He pleased himself and his crea- 
 tures by wholesale plunder of Church possessions. 
 All this he did for the gratification of licentious 
 passion. And so the sacrilege was begun. King, 
 Bishops, Priests, People cannot commit sacrilege, 
 or connive at it, and not suffer for it. 
 
 Bit by bit the new building of Cent. XVI. has 
 come into the place of the old. And, after some 
 350 years, we, or our children, are coming, if not 
 formally come, in Cent. XIX. to see it disappear 
 by process of self-inherited decay. I cannot trace 
 this, except in outline, within the limits of a Charge. 
 
 The 350 years may be conveniently divided into 
 two periods, 1533 — 1829; 1829 — 1883. 
 
 1533—^829, 296 years. 
 1829 — 1883, 54 years. 
 
 '' Act of Supremacy, 1533, 24 Hen. VIII. c. 12. 
 * Act of Submission of Clergy, 1534, 25 Hen. VIII. 
 Conge d'eslire, 1534, 25 Hen. VIII.
 
 The first shows EstabHshment for a Century and 
 more, interrupted only by the reign of Mar3^ 
 
 Then some 12 years of The Great RebelHon, mur- 
 der of Charles I., and overthrow of Establishment. 
 
 Then Restoration of King and Church : with 
 many things not comforting to remember. 
 
 Then the Revolution of 1688 : with its "civil and 
 religious liberty," and the abuses of it. 
 
 Then the suppression of the Provincial Synods 
 of the Church by the Crown (continued 135 years 
 down to 1852) under pretext of unseemly discords 
 between the two Houses of the Province of Can- 
 terbury. The real reason being that the Upper 
 House went with the Crown and the Whio-s for 
 looseness in Religion, or worse : the Lower House 
 contending steadfastly for The Faith. Then the 
 general decay — in the earlier half of Cent. XV HI. 
 — of Christ's Religion, until the struggle for life 
 begun by Wesley ; and towards the close of the 
 Century continued by the " Evangelical " party 
 down to 1832. 
 
 The year 1829, the year of Roman Catholic 
 Emancipation, marks the approach of combined 
 religious, political, social, economical action in con- 
 centrated hostility to "Church and State," in guise 
 of "Establishment," under the new Parliamentary 
 Status, enacted in 1832. 
 
 Progressive dis-Establishment and dis-Endow- 
 ment general and particular — what in common con- 
 versation goes by the name of "bit by bit dis- 
 Establishment" — is becoming universally accepted 
 as a chief fact of our National Life. It has taken
 
 2 I 
 
 time to make people see that, however much they 
 deprecated dis-Estabhshment prospective and final, 
 their deprecation of it did not come to much so 
 long as they carefully eschewed the fact that they 
 were being dis-Established cum dis-Endowed many 
 times, bit by bit, every year. And if any will not 
 see this, I know of nothing that I or anybody else 
 can say to them which will open their eyes ; till 
 one day they wake and find the whole thing settled, 
 done, consummated. 
 
 The process has been very rapid and exhaus- 
 tive, as it might be expected to be, during the last 
 53 years. There are not many Church heritages, 
 rights, possessions, which remain not as yet touched 
 by it, directly or indirectly. Some very high and 
 precious have been already swamped ; and are 
 gone ; gone irrecoverably : for in such things, there 
 seems to be no room for National repentance, 
 
 I subjoin eleven instances of " bit by bit dis- 
 Establishment cum dis- Endowment" in the last 
 fifty-three years, 1829 — 1882. 
 
 1. "Church Rate" abolished. Fiction of "Vo- 
 luntary Rate " in its room. " Voluntary Rate " a 
 theoretical and practical absurdity. 
 
 The ancient national provision, both by " Church 
 and State" and under "Establishment," for main- 
 tenance and repair of Churches and Churchyards 
 abolished by law at the bidding of those who claim 
 and possess the right of use, but do not like paying 
 for it. The Church, so far, reduced by law to the 
 position of a Sect. 
 
 2. "Church School" destroyed 1839 — 1870. I
 
 22 
 
 would, if I could, use another term instead of 
 " destroyed ;" but I cannot, 
 
 " Church School" first invaded " unostentatiously," 
 with much profession and parade of sympathy and 
 assistance; 1839-40 down to 1852: destroyed os- 
 tentatiously and finally 1870. "State School" put 
 into its room. The plea of respect for Conscience, 
 worked vigorously up to 1870 : then, having culmi- 
 nated in "Time-table Conscience Clause" (which 
 violates the Priest's Office, Commission and Trust), 
 thrown overboard in 1870 to clear the decks for a 
 machine for violating all men's consciences — " Com- 
 pulsory education :" every parent of the poorer 
 classes being compelled under penalty, to send his 
 child to school, however much against his " Reli- 
 gious Conscience " to have to do it. Steps further 
 developing ultimate purpose of Act of 1870— that 
 purpose the destruction of the (so called) "volun- 
 tary or denominational " School, the poor dying 
 remnant of " Church School," before the irreligious 
 march of" Board School." 
 
 The basis taken for all this in Cent. XIX. is that 
 secular knowledge is a necessity of English life ; 
 but religious knowledge is not ; and that, as The 
 Church of Christ has failed to regenerate the 
 World, an attempt be made to regenerate the 
 World by secular " Education :" with, it may be, in 
 some measure, the religion of Indifferentism ; the 
 religion of the World : but without the Relieion of 
 the " One Faith ;" the Religion of Christ. A re- 
 production, Cent. XIX., of Julian the Apostate. 
 
 3. Divorce Act. 
 
 4. Proceedings of Court of Final Appeal in mat-
 
 ters of Doctrine and Ceremonial, belonging, under 
 purview of Establishment \ to cognisance of, and 
 decision by, the Spiritualty of The Church. 
 
 5. Public Worship Regulation Act. 
 
 6. Burial Act. 
 
 7. Secularization of Church Foundation and En- 
 dowment. 
 
 8. Destruction of Church character — Academical 
 and Colleofiate — of Universities of Oxford and 
 Cambridgfe. 
 
 9. Nominal and theoretical revival of Provincial 
 Synods (Convocations) 1852, after suppression by 
 Civil Power for 135 years. Something very like 
 practical dis-Establishment of the same. 
 
 10. Assault upon use of Athanasian Creed; in 
 larofe measure successful °. 
 
 11. Church of Ireland dis-Established and dis- 
 Endowed formally and finally. Surplus applied to 
 secular uses. 
 
 ' 24 Hen. VIII. c. 12, 1533. Royal Declaration prefixed to Articles 
 of Religion, Charles I., 1628. 
 
 K See " Shortened Services " Act, with Schedule providing for use 
 of Apostles' Creed only upon days of " Shortened Service." If then 
 any such day be one of the 13 days specified in Rubric prefixed to 
 Athanasian Creed, not being a day upon which Shortened Service 
 is not to be used, a question might be raised as between authority 
 of Act and of The Rubric ; and Athanasian Creed not said or sung 
 on 7 out of 13 days named in Rubric. But the Rubric says expressly 
 for all the 13 days "instead of The Apostles' Creed," and is, as in 
 other cases, a safeguard against modern law-making about Prayer- 
 Book.
 
 24 
 
 It has to be added, what is worse than all eleven 
 instances put together, that all these things have 
 been done, Bishops, Clergy, People accepting : 
 more than accepting, welcoming : more than wel- 
 coming, promoting. 
 
 So true is It of Cent. XIX,— what I have cited 
 above of Cent. XVI. from Hook's Life of Becket — 
 that, under Establishment, " the Church has been 
 " delivered up of her own children a slave to the 
 " State." 
 
 Well, it has often been said to me, and will be 
 said again, it is the duty of Bishops, Clergy, People 
 to make the best they can of a bad thing. 
 
 I shrink from this proposition with shrinking 
 inexpressible. 
 
 The plea is unsound : It Is not a true plea, either 
 in respect of the subject matter, or of those in whose 
 behalf and defence it is made. 
 
 You cannot, in Religion, " make the best of a bad 
 thing " — that is, of a thing, in its nature, contrary to 
 Religion. 
 
 In human affairs what is commonly called "com- 
 promise ;" that is, if it mean anything, terms equal 
 on both sides, may be admissible ; because the sub- 
 ject matter Is human arrangements, and, therefore, 
 on which side the truth lies is not certain. It is, 
 however, even here, a dangerous thing ; as is proved 
 by the issue being, so to speak, always, the sacrifice 
 of the better side to the worse side. 
 
 In Religion, compromise, when touching The 
 Truth directly or indirectly, is a sin. S. Paul says, 
 " I am made all things to all men, that I might by
 
 25 
 
 all means save some." i Cor. ix. 22. But where is 
 there a word of S. Paul which can be twisted into 
 avowal of compromise of The Truth ? 
 
 Now the compromises I am deploring are, each 
 one and all of them compromise, that is sacrifice, 
 of The Truth to the World's wisdom, pride, con- 
 venience, policy. 
 
 So much for the subject matter of the plea. 
 
 Then for those, in whose behalf and defence the 
 plea is made. 
 
 These are Trustees of The Truth — a thing- Di- 
 vine, not human — not any man's to touch : espe- 
 cially not the Trustees of it. 
 
 It would be well for Cent. XIX. if it would read 
 and ponder upon — more by a good deal than it 
 does — Ecclesiasticus ii. Teaching to be found no- 
 where in the World, save only in The Book of 
 Life ; and as derived from the eternal Well-spring 
 of The Book. 
 
 It would be ridiculous if it were not painful to 
 hear, as I have heard, subtlety of very powerful 
 intellect propounding, that, when everything which 
 people not of The Church do not like in the Church 
 has been surrendered to them, they will become so 
 fond of The Church that they will all want it back 
 again as the National Church. 
 
 But, in that case, granted the whimsical hypothesis, 
 what will there be worth having to bring back ? 
 
 These are principal issues of the National policy 
 of the last 53 years. No doubt there are many 
 good people who satisfy their consciences about 
 them more or less. I put them down because to
 
 26 
 
 me every one of them is an "abomination of deso- 
 lation." 
 
 I see in the "Guardian" of March 28, 1883, Mr. 
 Cowen, M.P., speaking at a Meeting of the Libera- 
 tion Society at Newcastle, reported as saying that 
 "the Educational phase of dis-Establishment had 
 " concluded ;" and that all they had now " to do was 
 "to make the dis-Establishment and dis-Endow- 
 " ment question, as a whole, one of the pressing 
 " measures to be first adopted by the Government." 
 
 This shows two things : i. The primary import- 
 ance to " Liberationists " of what has been con- 
 summated, 1870, in respect of Church Schools. 
 2. That progressive dis - Establishment cum dis- 
 Endowment is looked upon by them as having 
 done its work ; and that all that remains is to carry 
 the citadel by assault ; with all that is left of the 
 National position of the Church. 
 
 Meantime there are two special progressions of 
 unlimited magnitude and extent proposed for 1883 ; 
 with other minor things which have no true Church 
 character about them, and are only dangerous to 
 handle in Parliament. 
 
 1. Deceased Wife's Sister's Bill. 
 
 2. Affirmation Bill. 
 
 The first of these has been largely discussed. 
 I have one thing only to say upon it, which is, I 
 believe, in its measure, new. Premising that the 
 Bill sets aside the Law of God as delivered Leviticus 
 xviii. 6, which verse is the foundation of the whole 
 matter —
 
 27 
 
 " None of you shall approach to any that is near 
 " of kin * to him to uncover their nakedness. I am *Heb. re- 
 " The Lord," I would observe that — liis%7h. 
 
 Kindred created by marriage is expressed in our 
 ordinary use of the English language, from the 
 earliest times, by the two words — " in law ;" — so in 
 many places of the English Bible, " father in law," 
 " mother in law," " daughter in law," " sister in law," 
 " son in law." 
 
 In what law ? 
 
 The only answer that can be given is, in God's 
 Law. The sister therefore of a wife is the sister 
 of that wife's husband in God's Law. She is "near 
 of kin" to him. 
 
 The attempt therefore to change the Law of 
 God — the law of the Church therein always, and, 
 hitherto, the law of the State also — resolves itself 
 into this. 
 
 An attempt to make a sister in God's Law, a wife 
 In man's law. 
 
 For the second, the Bill takes out, as it needs 
 must, considering its object, the words " so help me 
 God." But it leaves in the word " solemnly." 
 Now this makes the Bill an absurdity, and, worse 
 than this, a mockery. 
 
 For "solemnly" — whether considered in its pri- 
 mary, or in its derivative sense — has never been 
 used, nor can legitimately or even colourably be 
 used, except as recognising the Presence of God, 
 and appealing to It. 
 
 Wherefore the Bill both discards and proclaims 
 that Presence and the Appeal to It. 
 
 The absurdity and the mockery are not — as you
 
 28 
 
 will doubtless have understood — the reason why the 
 Bill should be cast out. But they serve to show 
 into what stultifications cleverest men fall when they 
 presume to deal with things Sacred from the World's 
 standpoint, and by the World's rule.- 
 
 Let us bear in mind, God helping us, that we are 
 even now standing, in respect of this matter, upon 
 the last round of the ladder but one. This Bill 
 takes us down to the last round. 
 
 There is nothing left of it typical of any ascent 
 from the things of earth to the things of Heaven. 
 There is nothing left but Affirmation imposed by 
 .the World's authority upon every body alike, Chris- 
 tian or un-Believer ; with the words "So help me 
 God" and "solemnly" taken out; after the pattern 
 of France. 
 
 A few words about Indifferentism, one chief and 
 fatal failing of the English mind. It may be called 
 the plague spot of it. It is the natural child begot- 
 ten by civil of religious liberty^ wheresoever every 
 thought of the ' civil and religious liberty man ' is 
 not brought to the obedience of Christ. 
 
 Indifferentism, careless of, conniving at, and 
 stimulating every manner of licence and profanity, 
 is more than all other things intolerant and perse- 
 cuting of one thing; and that thing is not far to 
 seek. 
 
 It is intolerant and persecuting to the last degree 
 of The Catholic Faith and the Catholic life. These 
 are thinors of the Law Divine. Indifferentism is 
 a thing of the World's Law only, and therefore the 
 deadly enemy of The Law Divine : see Rev. iii. 
 14, 22.
 
 29 
 
 Who are children of Cent. X\'I. ? The Calvinist, 
 the Lutheran, the Zuinglian, the Erastian, the Pres- 
 byterian, the Independent, the Baptist. Who of 
 Cent. XVII. ? The Deist and the Atheist. Who 
 of Cent. XVIII.? The moralist rather than the 
 believer. Who of Cent. XIX. ? The Indifferentist 
 and the Secularist : i.e. any religion you please : 
 provided always, it be not " The Catholic Faith :" 
 or, if you prefer it, no religion at all. " When The 
 " Son of Man cometh, shall He find faith upon the 
 " earth ?" S. Luke xviii. 8. 
 
 And now let me say one word for myself, and 
 another for us all. 
 
 For myself, I have never known any temptation 
 — with all my depth of feeling and trouble about 
 the character of the time, in respect of its depre- 
 ciation of, and hostility to, the Church — any temp- 
 tation to desert the Church of England. I have 
 neither known it, nor can I understand it. 
 
 If I had known it, I hope it would have been 
 presented to my heart and mind that there was no, 
 even colourable, ground for allowing it any resting 
 place in heart and mind, till there had been first 
 a patient, honest, persevering, stedfast attempt to 
 find the remedy for, and the antidote to, the temp- 
 tation, in living more and more, as best I could, up 
 to the Order and the Teaching of The Prayer- Book 
 of the Church of England : that is. till I had made 
 a real trial of what the Church of England has to 
 give to all her children, to the satisfaction of their 
 souls. I can never doubt as to what would have 
 been the issue. 
 
 What is wanted is not alteration of Prayer- Book
 
 30 
 
 on either side : much less " learned criticism " of 
 Prayer- Book. What is wanted is obedience to 
 Prayer-Book on both sides : loving, single-minded, 
 faithful. 
 
 In like manner let me say that the one remedy 
 against the taking of any part by the son or the 
 daughter of The Church in promoting dis-Estab- 
 lishment is the enduring remembrance that " Church 
 and State " is a thing, in its own proper nature, not 
 of man's Establishment, but of The Law Divine ; 
 and that though man's Establishment has imported 
 into it excess of the human element, its essential 
 character, as the means ordained of God to Unity 
 of faith, remains the same : and that therefore, upon 
 it, or upon any phase of it, however marred and 
 defaced by the sins, the offences, the shortcomings, 
 the neglect, the presumption, the questioning rather 
 than the obeying, the tempting rather than the 
 trusting, the substituting man's will and work for 
 The Will and The Work of God ; in sum, by the 
 " Pride of life " of its own children — whatever the 
 World may say, or persuade, or do — it is not for 
 the sons and daughters of The Church to lay 
 their hand. 
 
 If we may not triumph here ; if we may not be 
 " at ease ;" Isaiah xxxii. 9, 1 1 : if we may not say — 
 " I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need 
 " of nothing ; and know not that we are wretched, 
 " and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked," 
 Rev. iii. 17; If w^e may not say such things of 
 ourselves, and be safe ; we may be safe " suffering," 
 and " overcoming." The promises are to him that 
 suffereth, Rom. viii. 17, and to him that overcometh. 
 Rev. ii., iii.
 
 31 
 
 There is a Victory, from first to last, unlike any- 
 one of the World's victories. The Victory of suf- 
 fering, loving, forgiving. The Victory of the Cross. 
 The Victory of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. 
 The Victory of faith. 
 
 "In the World ye shall have tribulation : but, 
 " be of good cheer. I have overcome the World." 
 S. John xvi. 13. 
 
 " This is the Victory that overcometh the World ; 
 " even our faith." i S. John v. 4. 
 
 "Establishment" may become " dis- Establish- 
 ment :" Church and State may not be again vouch- 
 safed to the English People : 
 
 But The Church of England, in " The Truth," 
 and in her faithfulness, abideth for ever. 
 
 Collect for Easter Even. 
 
 Grant, O Lord, that as we are baptized into 
 the death of Thy Blessed Son, our Saviour, Jesus 
 Christ, so by continual mortifying our corrupt af- 
 fections we may be buried with Him ; and through 
 the grave, and gate of death, we may pass to our 
 joyful resurrection ; for His merits Who died and 
 was buried, and rose again for us. Thy Son, Jesus 
 Christ, our Lord. Amen. 
 
 Collect for tJie day of S. Thomas tfie Apostle. 
 
 Almighty and everliving God, Who for the more 
 confirmation of The Faith, didst suffer Thy holy 
 Apostle Thomas to be doubtful in Thy Son's Re- 
 surrection, Grant us so perfectly and without all
 
 doubt to believe in Thy Son Jesus Christ, that our 
 faith in Thy sight may never be reproved. Hear 
 us, O Lord, through the same Jesus Christ, to 
 Whom with Thee and the Holy Ghost, be all 
 honour and glory, now and for evermore. Amen. 
 
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