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 L I B RARY 
 
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 7 
 
 Is Mr. Gladstone inconsistent with his former 
 profession ? 
 
 A QUESTION 
 
 RE&PEOl'FULLY SUGGESTED TO 
 
 THE MEMBERS OF CONVOCATION. 
 
 BY 
 
 HENRY ARTHUR WOODGATE, B.D. 
 
 HONORABT CANON OB' WOECESTER ; RECTOR OF BELBROUGHTON ; 
 LATE FELLOW OF ST. JOHN's COLLEGE. 
 
 OXFORD, 
 JOHN HENRY PARKER; 
 
 AND 377, STRAND, LONDON. 
 
 185g.
 
 ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 In publishing the following remarks, the Author thinks 
 it right to mention, that they are written without any com- 
 munication with Mr. Gladstone, nor is that Gentleman to be 
 held in any way responsible for what is here advanced. 
 Having heard much of Mr. Gladstone's alleged incon- 
 sistency, the Author was induced to read carefully the two 
 Pamphlets (Mr. Gladstone's, and Mr. Wordsworth's) on 
 which that charge has been founded. The result he has 
 attempted to exhibit in the following remarks. Whether 
 he has correctly represented either Mr. Gladstone's present 
 or past sentiments, he knows not. At all events, he has 
 endeavoured to do so faithfully ; and, as his only object has 
 been to draw attention to the truth, and to prevent, if 
 possible, disagreement when it is uncalled for, he earnestly 
 hopes that these remarks, the object of which is peace, will 
 be received in the spirit in which they are offered.
 
 UK.C
 
 The objections alleged against Mr. Gladstone by those 
 who are now endeavouring to prevent his re-election for the 
 University of Oxford, are mainly these : 
 
 1. That he has departed, generally, from the principles 
 which he held in 1847. 
 
 2. In particular, that he advocates the separation of the 
 State from the Church. 
 
 To which may be added, his votes on the admission of 
 Jews to the Legislature, and on the Ecclesiastical Titles' 
 Assumption Bill ; which, though not alleged to be a 
 departure on his part from any implied pledge under which 
 he was originally elected, are now said, by his opponents, to 
 be at variance with the sentiments of the majority of his 
 constituents. 
 
 The first of these charges is of too vague a character to 
 admit of any reply beyond that of a general denial, having 
 been supported by no specific allegations beyond those 
 contained in the other charges ; while, of the latter, that of 
 advocating the separation of Church and State, is referred 
 to as a logical consequence from other principles he is said 
 to have laid down, not as resting on any direct statements of 
 his own. 
 
 The Work in which the principles referred to are said 
 to be maintained, is a I^etter addressed to the Bishop of 
 Aberdeen, " On the Functions of Laymen in the Church ;" 
 in which Mr. Gladstone is led, in the course of his argu- 
 ment, to speak of Religious Freedom in terms alleged to 
 be at variance with his former published statements, and 
 leading, in their logical consequence, to a separation of 
 Church and State.
 
 It is idle to deny that, whatever may be the ostensible 
 grounds of opposition to Mr. Gladstone, the real one is to 
 be found in those causes, which, in the present day, divide 
 men on religious and ecclesiastical matters, and which lead 
 to their being respectively called by names, which it were 
 better now to avoid. In popular language, Mr. Gladstone 
 has long been classed with one of these parties ; and 
 on this ground the opposition to his election in 1847 ex- 
 clusively rested. On the present occasion, the opposition 
 has originated with the same class as before ; and it is espe- 
 cially to be borne in mind, that, whatever form it may have 
 since assumed, it emanated in the first instance, not from 
 those who before supported him, and who, had he since 
 changed his views, had a right (and they alone, consistently 
 with ancient usage) to make a question of his re-election ; 
 but from those who opposed him in 1 847, and who have no 
 reason for doing so now, that they did not equally possess 
 then. It is well known, that the present opposition ori- 
 ginated with what is termed the Exeter Hall party, who 
 were for several weeks secretly engaged in canvassing for 
 votes, with a view to displace Mr. Gladstone, and to elect, 
 instead, one of their own body. This attempt having failed, 
 in consequence of many, even of those who objected to 
 Mr. Gladstone, refusing to be represented by one not in 
 strict communion with the Church of England, overtures 
 were then made to those who objected to Mr. Gladstone on 
 very different grounds, with whom the original promoters 
 had nothing in common beyond the negative bond of a 
 common objection. To these, what may be called (to use a 
 familiar illustration) the good-will of the concern, was made 
 over, together with many of the votes, and a combination 
 formed accordingly. This change, however, in the opposing 
 body, involved the necessity of seeking for a new ground 
 for d'sturbing the representation of the University ; and 
 this was found in the change which it was alleged had taken 
 place in Mr. Gladstone's ecclesiastical and political prin- 
 ciples since 1847. 
 
 In aid of this new ground of objection, there came
 
 Mr. Wordswortli's Letter to Mr. Gladstone (on the Pam- 
 phlet before spoken of) — a Letter of which it is only 
 justice to say, that it is written in a tone worthy oi its 
 excellent and gifted author, but at the same time abounding 
 in fallacies; the author having altogether lost sight of the main 
 scope of the Pamphlet against which it is directed, and its chief 
 remarks being for the most part beside the question at issue. 
 
 As regards Mr. Gladstone's Pamphlet, I have met with 
 very few who have read it, among those who found their 
 opposition on the deductions erroneously drawn from it. Nor 
 of this would I judge harshly. In large bodies of men, it is 
 not to be expected that all, or even the greater number, will 
 find time to read for themselves. It arises out of the very 
 nature of the case, that a large proportion take their opinion 
 from others, on whose judgment they have good reason to 
 place reliance; especially where it would be wrong even for 
 a moment to suspect an intention to mislead ; and where 
 references are given for every position advanced, to which 
 every one has fvill liberty to turn, if necessary, for his indi- 
 vidual satisfaction. In the present instance, Mr. Wordsworth 
 has overlooked the circumstances under which, and the 
 purpose for which, Mr. Gladstone's Pamphlet was written ; 
 and without this key, it was the less unnatural that he 
 should have taken the view of it which he has. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone, in his Letter to Mr. Greswell, empha- 
 tically denies that his views on the relations of the Church 
 to the State have undergone any change since 1847; or that 
 the abandonment of the Church's connexion with the State 
 is involved in the legitimate development of the principles 
 he now advocates. He maintains, that " the principles, of 
 which he is now the advocate, are the very same that he avowed, 
 and for the avowal of which he was not sparingly assailed, in 
 184<7; that he is aware of no incompatibility between the 
 principles of full religious freedom, and the maintenance of 
 the National Church in connection with the State; to both 
 of which he is now as ever cordially attached ; . . . that 
 whether the question be or be not an open one for others, 
 it can, in his judgment, be no open qviestion for one who
 
 8 
 
 aspires to the representation of the University of Oxford ; — 
 that, in short, he disowns and repudiates both these allega- 
 tions, emphatically and in all their parts." 
 
 This simple and emphatic declaration ought to be sufficient 
 to satisfy any reasonable person. But since Mr. Wordsworth, 
 and others, taking their cue from him, have drawn different 
 conclusions from Mr. Gladstone's Pamphlet; and since there 
 is, in that Pamphlet, what might appear at first sight at 
 variance with the views Mr. Gladstone had so powerfully 
 advocated, not five, but fourteen years ago, it may not be 
 deemed altogether superfluous, to those who value con- 
 sistency in public men, (though they may not deem it 
 necessary, that the views of the matured practical Statesman 
 should entirely accord with the ardent aspirations of the 
 days of youth,) to trace briefly the coherence of these 
 alleged opposite systems. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone, at the commencement of his public life, 
 contended for the identity, in every well-regulated Christian 
 community, of the Church with the State : and this he 
 advocated \^4th all the energy inspired by a commanding 
 intellect, and a truly religious mind, deeply imbued \\-ith, 
 and earnestly devoted to, Catholic truth. 
 
 It is important to observe, however, that in doing this, 
 he did not take the low Erastian view of the connexieij, — 
 that the Church was a mere creature and appendage oi he 
 State — nor the faithless temporising view of men of the 
 world, that the Church needed the protection of the Civil 
 power for the due development and proper application of 
 her powers. But he took at once the lofty and only true 
 viev>-, that it was alike the duty and the interest of the 
 State to unite itself, if it could, with the Church. The 
 point of vision from which he took his view of this all- 
 important subject, was not from the side of the Church, but 
 from that of the State ; not that the Church should seek to 
 be supported by the State, but that the State should seek 
 to be sanctified by an union with the Church. And this, 
 it may be observed, is the only true theory of the con- 
 nexion ; and is the fulfilmerit of the prophecy, so much
 
 9 
 
 perverted, of " Kings and Queens being the nursing fathers 
 and mothers of the Church." Persons have treated this 
 prophecy as though it intimated that Kings and Queens 
 were to be the nurses of the Church itself; the Church as 
 a body being under the protection of the State, instead of 
 her children as individuals. Whereas, if any one will at- 
 tentively read the passage and those parallel to it, he will 
 see that the drift is very different : — that Kings and Queens 
 should be so sensible of the blessedness of having their 
 children in communion with the Church, that they would 
 bring them to her to educate ; that they would themselves 
 wait on the Church, and, using a familiar image, carry the 
 Church's children in their arnis as servants. So that the 
 whole prophecy would represent the Church iii the relation of 
 mistress, and the State in the relation of attendant, waiting 
 on the Church's children. 
 
 It may be further observed, that this question is antecedent 
 to any revelation on the subject. It is taught by the light of 
 nature. Heathen statesmen would have been the first to have 
 acknowledged the duty of bringing up their subjects in moral 
 and religious truth, as far as it was attainable ; but would 
 not thereby have assumed, that truth was a Lesbian rule to 
 be moulded according to the interest or caprice of the State; 
 but that, truth being one and eternal, the State would 
 endeavour to make its children conform to it and wait 
 iipon it, as far as an imperfect state of society, devoid of 
 the motives and sanctions which Revelation alone supplies, 
 would allow. This conscience, analogous to that of the 
 individual, Mr. Gladstone contended that the State ought 
 to have. And doubtless this is the true theory of the 
 connexion of Church and State. A necessary consequence, 
 however, of the practical adoption of this theory, is the 
 suppression, on the part of the State, of all heresy. When- 
 ever the Church and State are completely identical, false 
 doctrinal teaching is prohibited ; but then this is done, not 
 on the part of the Church, but on that of the State; the State 
 being bound to take care of the moral and spiritual interests of 
 her members; on the same principle, in fact, as that by which,
 
 10 
 
 even at tliis day, the State prosecutes for hlaspliemous 
 publications, or on any other subject on which there yet 
 remains a consensus among- the various branches of the 
 community; and if the Cliurch appears to be the prosecutor, 
 it is only accidentally so, inasmuch as, under the supposed 
 theory, the Church and State are identical. The Church, 
 as the Church, does not resort to the arm of flesh for 
 assistance. 
 
 This " conscience," however, which Mr. Gladstone speaks 
 of in his earlier work, the English State has long since 
 repudiated ; first, in the Toleration Acts ; next, in the admis- 
 sion of Dissenters to the Legislature. Whether she is right 
 or wrong in doing so, is immaterial to the present point. 
 But this being the case, is the practical Statesman, in 
 Mr. Gladstone's position, to decline conducting the govern- 
 ment of the country on those principles which the State will 
 admit? Is he to be accused of inconsistency or renunciation 
 of his original principles, because, finding them inapplicable 
 in the present state of civil society, he is compelled to act on 
 those principles which society will tolerate; or because he 
 carries out, to what he conceives to be their legitimate 
 result, the principles which, though in theory he objects to 
 them, the State has long adopted in her domestic policy ? 
 For my own part, I can well understand how a man may, 
 with perfect honesty, contend for that rigid identity of 
 Church and State which would proscribe by law all false 
 teaching; and yet, finding the State will not do this, con- 
 tend that the privileges and forms which she professes, on 
 principle, to bestow on Dissent, shovdd be made to apply to 
 all classes alike; that the principle, in fact, if admitted at 
 all, should be fairly carried out. It is on this principle 
 that I account for Mr. Gladstone's vote on the Jewish Bill. 
 I can understand a man saying, " exclude all error from 
 participating in civil power: but if you refuse to do so, and 
 if you maintain that religious error is no disqualification, 
 extend the principle to all alike ; unless you can shew, that 
 this is met by some other counteracting or limifing prin- 
 ciple." T am aware that it is commonly alleged, that this
 
 11 
 
 limiting principle is provided, in the present case, by the 
 assumed Christianity of the Legislature, which, it is main- 
 tained, the admission of the Jew would go to repudiate. 
 But it must be remembered, that a very high Churchman 
 regards the Legislature as already unchristianized, by the 
 admission of those who deny our Blessed Lord's Divinity 
 and almost every essential article of the Christian faith ; and 
 that to make common Christianity with such men involves 
 him in the sin of virtually betraying that faith. This, 
 I conceive, is what Mr. Gladstone means by a " bastard and 
 deceptive consistency," leading to " the mutilation, under 
 the seal of civil authority, of the Christian religion itself." 
 
 Now a man who finds that he cannot exclude the Jews 
 from the Legislature on the ground that it would un- 
 christianize it, is led next to measure the question by 
 considerations of political expediency or justice ; and this 
 I conceive Mr. Gladstone to have done. I do not agree 
 with him in that vote — (I should have excluded them by my 
 vote had I been possessed of one) — nor am I defending it. 
 1 am only endeavouring to shew, that it does not involve 
 any repudiation of his former principles. Had he been 
 a less high Churchman — had he taken less high views of the 
 Christian faith, and of the duty of the State in relation to it — 
 he would probably have voted against the Jew Bill, on the 
 ground that it unchristianized the State; and have admitted, 
 that the denial of every essential article of the Christian faith 
 does not unchristianize it. 
 
 I have now to offer a few remarks on the subject of 
 Mr. Gladstone's advocacy of religious liberty, which, it has 
 been said, involves, as a consequence, the separation of 
 Church and State. After the gratuitous insults heaped 
 upon the Church by the late Government, I apprehend 
 that there are very few among us who will not contend 
 for the principle of religious liberty, so far at least as that 
 the Church may not be again exposed to treatment which 
 the Government would not have dared to offer to any class 
 of Dissenters, (if to any body of men at all,) and to which no 
 one had before imas^ined that the Church was liable.
 
 \2 
 
 But to understand aright Mr. Gladstone's late advocacy 
 of religious liberty, we must transport ourselves to Scotland, 
 where that letter was written, and to which country alone 
 it applies. 
 
 It must be remembered, that the Scotch Episcopal 
 Church, of which Mr. Gladstone is a member, though in 
 communion with the Established Church here, yet there 
 is a Dissenting Church, and that Mr. Gladstone himself, as 
 regards the State religion, is a Dissenter, as every English 
 Churchman necessarily must be in Scotland. Now this 
 Church had recently narrowly escaped proscription, through 
 the Ecclesiastical Titles' Assumption Bill. That Bill, as 
 originally worded, would have rendered the assumption of 
 their ancient titles by the Scotch Bishops illegal. It might 
 not have been so intended by its framers ; but such was its 
 provision ; and, moreover, a certain party within the Kirk 
 actually petitioned Parliament, that this provision might be 
 carried into effect ; a petition backed by a portion of the 
 English press. Although the offensive clause was afterwards 
 so far modified as to fall short of declaring the Scotch 
 Episcopal Titles positively illegal, yet it was done with a 
 very bad grace, and pains were taken, somewhat offensively, 
 in the subsequent wording, that nothing should be so con- 
 strued as to give to those ancient titles the slightest claim 
 to legality. It was shortly after these events that Mr. Glad- 
 stone wrote his Letter to the Bishop of Aberdeen, in which 
 he proposes to strengthen the Church by an infusion of 
 lay-communicants into her councils. Writing, then, as a 
 Dissenter, to the head of a communion which had narrowly 
 escaped proscription by law, it was not unnatural that he 
 should contend for the principle of religious freedom in 
 strong terms. I admit, that in doing this he has given 
 expression to sentiments which sound somewhat strange to 
 the ear of aii English Churchman, as coming from one of 
 his brethren. But though, in his ecclesiastical relation, he 
 writes as a Churchman, it is as a Churchman under a 
 recently threatened proscription ; and, in his political 
 relation, as a Dissenter. His words are, " What then we
 
 13 
 
 (I mean the members of all independent religious bodies, in 
 which capacity only, and as one connected 7vifh Scotland, 
 I now tvrife) have to desire, is, g-enerally, to be let alone." 
 His advocacy for this has, I think, carried him too far : it is 
 a fault to which all advocates are liable ; but great allow- 
 ance is to be made for the circumstances under which the 
 members of the Church in Scotland were then placed ; and 
 the seeming, and partly unavoidable, inconsistency in this, 
 on the part of an English Churchman, arises out of the 
 inconsistency of the British State in establishing two oppo- 
 site and incompatible systems in different portions of the 
 empire, by which the members of the established religion 
 in one portion become Dissenters the instant they cross the 
 border, and vice versa. 
 
 I am not now censuring the system, which may be, for 
 aught I know, unavoidable ; but I refer to it, to account 
 for that apparent inconsistency which has been so strongly 
 and unjustly alleged against Mr. Gladstone. A case might 
 be supposed, in which the most bigoted Presbyterian Esta- 
 blishmentarian, nay, even one of those who recently peti- 
 tioned Parliament to proscribe Episcopacy in Scotland, 
 might, on this side of the Tweed, under the apprehension 
 of a like danger, become the most clamorous-atesiBtt for 
 religious liberty : but he would deem it an unfair inference 
 to be told, that this involved the wish to dis-establish his 
 own communion over the border. 
 
 It would be beside the object of the present remarks, to 
 advert at any length to Mr. Gladstone's past eminent ser- 
 vices, especially on behalf of the Church in the Colonies, 
 both in his public and private capacity. But they must not 
 be lost sight of; neither ought we to forget his most noble 
 and almost single-handed defence of the Bishop of Bath 
 and Wells against the most unconstitutional and most dan- 
 gerous proceeding which has been witnessed within the 
 walls of Parliament for a long period ; the attempt to super- 
 sede the ordinary Courts of Justice by a vote of the House 
 of Commons; an attempt which no party would have dared 
 to make, were not the Church or the University the 
 subject of the attack.
 
 14 
 
 Many years have now elapsed since the general consent of 
 our Academic body pointed to Mr. Gladstone as their future 
 Representative; and those who are noAv endeavouring to 
 remove him from that post, are incurring no small degree of 
 responsibility. With the clouds that are gathering around the 
 Church and the University — with the University Commission, 
 set on foot by her bitterest and implacable enemy, carried out 
 in far too great subservience to his views, and now about to be 
 backed by a spurious and misdirected pviblic opinion — those 
 will have much to answer for, who endeavour to deprive us 
 of that claim on Mr. Gladstone's services which is involved 
 in his being our Representative. Who is to take his place 
 in the arduous contest which is approaching? It is no 
 disparagement to my most estimable friend, the Warden of 
 Merton, for whom I entertain the highest respect and 
 esteem, to say that he is not the man. Nor do I consider 
 that those are his true friends, whose zeal has led them to 
 draw him from his dignified retirement, (for so it may be 
 called in comparison,) where he is discharging the duties of 
 his important office with honour to himself and benefit to 
 otljers, surrounded by every domestic blessing, and are 
 endeavouring to thrust him into the cares and turmoils of 
 public life, at an age when most men contemplate retiring 
 from it. Does he possess the Parliamentary connexion, the 
 Parliamentary experience, which time alone can give, to 
 enable him to cope with those relentless and untiring foes, 
 with whom the Church and University have to contend; and, 
 above all, does he possess the ear of the House of Commons, 
 so essential to the practical usefulness of a Statesman? It 
 is because Mr. Gladstone possesses these subsidiary qualifi- 
 cations in an eminent degree, (I am instituting no com- 
 parison between their personal ones,) which confer the power 
 of carrying into effect what the interests of his constituents 
 require, that he has claims that no competitor can possess. 
 Nor can I imagine any course more suicidal than that pur- 
 sued by those who are endeavouring, however unsuccessfully, 
 to prevent his re-election. 
 
 I hope the da)^ will never arrive, when the University will 
 follow in the train of a mere Statesman, however distin-
 
 15 
 
 guished: still more unwillingly would 1 .see it the blind 
 worshipper of mere talent and intellect, ho\vever great. 
 But when talent of this kind, fostered and developed within 
 our walls, has, during a public life of no inconsiderable 
 duration, and in eventful times, been consecrated to the 
 cause of Christ's Church Militant, it doubtless does acquire 
 claims of the highest nature. 
 
 So completely does our present Representative seem 
 formed, both by nature and by circumstances, for the place 
 he now fills, that if in an evil hour the Constituency should 
 be led to terminate the relation, I will not say that the loss 
 would be ours alone, for of no man living will I admit, that 
 he would not derive honour from that office ; — still, to 
 borrow the figure of the Roman historian, so remarkable 
 would be his absence from the pedestal he has hitherto 
 occupied in our Academic Temple, that he would henceforth 
 be the more conspicuous from being no longer found there — 
 prsefulgebat eo ipso quod effigies ejus non visebatur^. 
 
 * Tac. Ann. iii. c. 76. 
 Belbrouffhton, July 1, 1852.
 
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