of Mr. Gladstone’s talents. The truth is, that every man is, to a great
extent, the creature of the age. It is to no purpose that he resists the
influence which the vast mass, in which he is but an atom, must exercise
on him. He may try to be a man of the tenth century: but he cannot.
Whether he will or not, he must be a man of the nineteenth century. He
shares in the motion of the moral as well as in that of the physical
world. He can no more be as intolerant as he would have been in the days
of the Tudors than he can stand in the evening exactly where he stood
in the morning. The globe goes round from west to east; and he must go
round with it. When he says that he is where he was, he means only that
he has moved at the same rate with all around him. When he says that he
has gone a good way to the westward, he means only that he has not gone
to the eastward quite so rapidly as his neighbours. Mr. Gladstone’s book
is, in this respect, a very gratifying performance. It is the measure
of what a man can do to be left behind by the world. It is the strenuous
effort of a very vigorous mind to keep as far in the rear of the general
progress as possible. And yet, with the most intense exertion Mr.
Gladstone cannot help being, on some important points, greatly in
advance of Locke himself; and, with whatever admiration he may regard
Laud, it is well for him, we can tell him, that he did not write in
the days of that zealous primate, who would certainly have refuted the
expositions of Scripture which we have quoted, by one of the keenest
arguments that can be addressed to human ears.
This is not the only instance in which Mr. Gladstone has shrunk in a
very remarkable manner from the consequences of his own theory. If there
be in the whole world a state to which this theory is applicable, that
state is the British Empire in India. Even we, who detest paternal
governments in general, shall admit that the duties of the Government of
India are, to a considerable extent, paternal. There, the superiority
of the governors to the governed in moral science is unquestionable. The
conversion of the whole people to the worst form that Christianity
ever wore in the darkest ages would be a most happy event. It is not
necessary that a man should be a Christian to wish for the propagation
of Christianity in India. It is sufficient that he should be an European
not much below the ordinary European level of good sense and humanity.
Compared with the importance of the interests at stake, all those Scotch
and Irish questions which occupy so large a portion of Mr. Gladstone’s
book, sink into insignificance. In no part of the world since the
days of Theodosius has so large a heathen population been subject to a
Christian government. In no part of the world is heathenism more cruel,
more licentious, more fruitful of absurd rites and pernicious laws.
Surely, if it be the duty of Government to use its power and its
revenue in order to bring seven millions of Irish Catholics over to the
Protestant Church, it is a fortiori the duty of the Government to use
its power and its revenue in order to make seventy millions of idolaters
Christians. If it be a sin to suffer John Howard or William Penn to
hold any office in England because they are not in communion with the
Established Church, it must be a crying sin indeed to admit to high
situations men who bow down, in temples covered with emblems of vice, to
the hideous images of sensual or malevolent gods.
But no. Orthodoxy, it seems, is more shocked by the priests of Rome
than by the priests of Kalee. The plain red brick building, the Cave of
Adullam, or Ebenezer Chapel, where uneducated men hear a half-educated
man talk of the Christian law of love and the Christian hope of glory,
is unworthy of the indulgence which is reserved for the shrine where the
Thug suspends a portion of the spoils of murdered travellers, and
for the car which grinds its way through the bones of self-immolated
pilgrims. “It would be,” says Mr. Gladstone, “an absurd exaggeration to
maintain it as the part of such a Government as that of the British
in India to bring home to the door of every subject at once the
ministrations of a new and totally unknown religion.” The Government
ought indeed to desire to propagate Christianity. But the extent to
which they must do so must be “limited by the degree in which the people
are found willing to receive it.” He proposes no such limitation in the
case of Ireland. He would give the Irish a Protestant Church whether
they like it or not. “We believe,” says he, “that that which we place
before them is, whether they know it or not, calculated to be beneficial
to them; and that, if they know it not now, they will know it when it is
presented to them fairly. Shall we, then, purchase their applause at the
expense of their substantial, nay, their spiritual interests?”
And why does Mr. Gladstone allow to the Hindoo a privilege which he
denies to the Irishman? Why does he reserve his greatest liberality for
the most monstrous errors? Why does he pay most respect to the opinion
of the least enlightened people? Why does he withhold the right to
exercise paternal authority from that one Government which is fitter to
exercise paternal authority than any Government that ever existed in the
world? We will give the reason in his own words.
“In British India,” he says, “a small number of persons advanced to a
higher grade of civilisation, exercise the powers of government over an
immensely greater number of less cultivated persons, not by coercion,
but under free stipulation with the governed. Now, the rights of a
Government, in circumstances thus peculiar, obviously depend neither
upon the unrestricted theory of paternal principles, nor upon any
primordial or fictitious contract of indefinite powers, but upon an
express and known treaty, matter of positive agreement, not of natural
ordinance.”
Where Mr. Gladstone has seen this treaty we cannot guess for, though
he calls it a “known treaty,” we will stake our credit that it is quite
unknown both at Calcutta and Madras, both in Leadenhall Street and
Cannon Row, that it is not to be found in any of the enormous folios
of papers relating to India which fill the bookcases of members of
Parliament, that it has utterly escaped the researches of all the
historians of our Eastern empire, that, in the long and interesting
debates of 1813 on the admission of missionaries to India, debates of
which the most valuable part has been excellently preserved by the
care of the speakers, no allusion to this important instrument is to be
found. The truth is that this treaty is a nonentity. It is by coercion,
it is by the sword, and not by free stipulation with the governed, that
England rule India; nor is England bound by any contract whatever not to
deal with Bengal as she deals with Ireland. She may set up a Bishop of
Patna, and a Dean of Hoogley; she may grant away the public revenue for
the maintenance of prebendaries of Benares and canons of Moorshedabad;
she may divide the country into parishes, and place, a rector with
a stipend in every one of them; and all this without infringing any
positive agreement. If there be such a treaty, Mr. Gladstone can have
no difficulty in making known its date, its terms, and, above all the
precise extent of the territory within which we have sinfully bound
ourselves to be guilty of practical atheism. The last point is of great
importance. For, as the provinces of our Indian empire were acquired at
different times, and in very different ways, no single treaty, indeed no
ten treaties, will justify the system pursued by our Government there.
The plain state of the case is this. No man in his senses would dream
of applying Mr. Gladstone’s theory to India; because, if so applied,
it would inevitably destroy our empire, and, with our empire, the best
chance of spreading Christianity among the natives. This Mr. Gladstone
felt. In some way or other his theory was to be saved, and the monstrous
consequences avoided. Of intentional misrepresentation we are quite
sure that he is incapable. But we cannot acquit him of that unconscious
disingenuousness from which the most upright man, when strongly attached
to an opinion, is seldom wholly free. We believe that he recoiled from
the ruinous consequences which his system would produce, if tried in
India; but that he did not like to say so, lest he should lay himself
open to the charge of sacrificing principle to expediency, a word which
is held in the utmost abhorrence by all his school. Accordingly, he
caught at the notion of a treaty, a notion which must, we think, have
originated in some rhetorical expression which he has imperfectly
understood. There is one excellent way of avoiding the drawing of a
false conclusion from a false major; and that is by having a false
minor. Inaccurate history is an admirable corrective of unreasonable
theory. And thus it is in the present case. A bad general rule is laid
down, and obstinately maintained, wherever the consequences are not too
monstrous for human bigotry. But when they become so horrible that even
Christ Church shrinks, that even Oriel stands aghast, the rule is evaded
by means of a fictitious contract. One imaginary obligation is set up
against another. Mr. Gladstone first preaches to Governments the duty
of undertaking an enterprise just as rational as the Crusades, and
then dispenses them from it on the ground of a treaty which is just as
authentic as the donation of Constantine to Pope Sylvester. His system
resembles nothing so much as a forged bond with a forged release
indorsed on the back of it.
With more show of reason he rests the claims of the Scotch Church on a
contract. He considers that contract, however, as most unjustifiable,
and speaks of the setting up of the Kirk as a disgraceful blot on the
reign of William the Third. Surely it would be amusing, if it were not
melancholy, to see a man of virtue and abilities unsatisfied with
the calamities which one Church, constituted on false principles, has
brought upon the empire, and repining that Scotland is not in the
same state with Ireland, that no Scottish agitator is raising rent and
putting county members in and out, that no Presbyterian association
is dividing supreme power with the Government, that no meetings of
procursors and repealers are covering the side of the Calton Hill, that
twenty-five thousand troops are not required to maintain order on the
north of the Tweed, that the anniversary of the Battle of Bothwell
Bridge is not regularly celebrated by insult, riot, and murder. We could
hardly find a stronger argument against Mr. Gladstone’s system than that
which Scotland furnishes. The policy which has been followed in that
country has been directly opposed to the policy which he recommends. And
the consequence is that Scotland, having been one of the rudest, one of
the poorest, one of the most turbulent countries in Europe, has become
one of the most highly civilised, one of the most flourishing, one of
the most tranquil. The atrocities which were of common occurrence:
while an unpopular Church was dominant are unknown, In spite of a mutual
aversion as bitter as ever separated one people from another, the
two kingdoms which compose our island have been indissolubly joined
together. Of the ancient national feeling there remains just enough to
be ornamental and useful; just enough to inspire the poet, and to kindle
a generous and friendly emulation in the bosom of the soldier. But for
all the ends of government the nations are one. And why are they so? The
answer is simple. The nations are one for all the ends of government,
because in their union the true ends of government alone were kept in
sight. The nations are one because the Churches are two.
Such is the union of England with Scotland, an union which resembles the
union of the limbs of one healthful and vigorous body, all moved by
one will, all co-operating for common ends. The system of Mr. Gladstone
would have produced an union which can be compared only to that which
is the subject of a wild Persian fable. King Zohak--we tell the story as
Mr. Southey tells it to us--gave the devil leave to kiss his shoulders.
Instantly two serpents sprang out, who, in the fury of hunger, attacked
his head, and attempted to get at his brain. Zohak pulled them away, and
tore them with his nails. But he found that they were inseparable parts
of himself, and that what he was lacerating was his own flesh. Perhaps
we might be able to find, if we looked round the world, some political
union like this, some hideous monster of a state, cursed with one
principle of sensation and two principles of volition, self-loathing and
self-torturing, made up of parts which are driven by a frantic impulse
to inflict mutual pain, yet are doomed to feel whatever they inflict,
which are divided by an irreconcileable hatred, Yet are blended in an
indissoluble identity. Mr. Gladstone, from his tender concern for Zohak,
is unsatisfied because the devil has as yet kissed only one shoulder,
because there is not a snake mangling and mangled on the left to keep in
countenance his brother on the right.
But we must proceed in our examination of his theory. Having, as he
conceives, proved that is the duty of every Government to profess some
religion or other, right or wrong, and to establish that religion, he
then comes to the question what religion a Government ought to prefer;
and he decides this question in favour of the form of Christianity
established in England. The Church of England is, according to him,
the pure Catholic Church of Christ, which possesses the apostolical
succession of ministers, and within whose pale is to be found that unity
which is essential to truth. For her decisions he claims a degree of
reverence far beyond what she has ever, in any of her formularies,
claimed for herself; far beyond what the moderate school of Bossuet
demands for the Pope; and scarcely short of what that school would
ascribe to Pope and General Council together. To separate from her
communion is schism. To reject her traditions or interpretations of
Scripture is sinful presumption.
Mr. Gladstone pronounces the right of private judgment, as it is
generally understood throughout Protestant Europe, to be a monstrous
abuse. He declares himself favourable, indeed, to the exercise of
private judgment, after a fashion of his own. We have, according to him,
a right to judge all the doctrines of the Church of England to be sound,
but not to judge any of them to be unsound. He has no objection, he
assures us, to active inquiry into religious questions. On the contrary,
he thinks such inquiry highly desirable, as long as it does not lead
to diversity of opinion; which is much the same thing as if he were to
recommend the use of fire that will not burn down houses, or of brandy
that will not make men drunk. He conceives it to be perfectly possible
for mankind to exercise their intellects vigorously and freely on
theological subjects, and yet to come to exactly the same conclusions
with each other and with the Church of England. And for this opinion
he gives, as far as we have been able to discover, no reason whatever,
except that everybody who vigorously and freely exercises his
understanding on Euclid’s Theorems assents to them. “The activity of
private judgment,” he truly observes, “and the unity and strength
of conviction in mathematics vary directly as each other.” On this
unquestionable fact he constructs a somewhat questionable argument.
Everybody who freely inquires agrees, he says, with Euclid. But the
Church is as much in the right as Euclid. Why, then, should not
every free inquirer agree with the Church? We could put many similar
questions. Either the affirmative or the negative of the proposition
that King Charles wrote the Icon Basilike is as true as that two
sides of a triangle are greater than the third side. Why, then, do Dr.
Wordsworth and Mr. Hallam agree in thinking two sides of a triangle
greater than the third side, and yet differ about the genuineness of
the Icon Basilike? The state of the exact sciences proves, says Mr.
Gladstone, that, as respects religion, “the association of these two
ideas, activity of inquiry, and variety of conclusion, is a fallacious
one.” We might just as well turn the argument the other way, and infer
from the variety of religious opinions that there must necessarily be
hostile mathematical sects, some affirming, and some denying, that the
square of the hypothenuse is equal to the squares of the sides. But we
do not think either the one analogy or the other of the smallest value.
Our way of ascertaining the tendency of free inquiry is simply to open
our eyes and look at the world in which we live; and there we see that
free inquiry on mathematical subjects produces unity, and that free
inquiry on moral subjects produces discrepancy. There would undoubtedly
be less discrepancy if inquiries were more diligent and candid. But
discrepancy there will be among the most diligent and candid, as long
as the constitution of the human mind, and the nature of moral evidence,
continue unchanged. That we have not freedom and unity together is a
very sad thing; and so it is that we have not wings. But we are just
as likely to see the one defect removed as the other. It is not only in
religion that this discrepancy is found. It is the same with all matters
which depend on moral evidence, with judicial questions, for example,
and with political questions. All the judges will work a sum in the rule
of three on the same principle, and bring out the same conclusion. But
it does not follow that, however honest and laborious they may be, they
will all be of one mind on the Douglas case. So it is vain to hope that
there may be a free constitution under which every representative will
be unanimously elected, and every law unanimously passed; and it would
be ridiculous for a statesman to stand wondering and bemoaning himself
because people who agree in thinking that two and two make four cannot
agree about the new poor law, or the administration of Canada.
There are two intelligible and consistent courses which may be followed
with respect to the exercise of private judgment; the course of the
Romanist, who interdicts private judgment because of its inevitable
inconveniences; and the course of the Protestant, who permits private
judgment in spite of its inevitable inconveniences. Both are more
reasonable than Mr. Gladstone, who would have private judgment without
its inevitable inconveniences. The Romanist produces repose by means of
stupefaction. The Protestant encourages activity, though he knows
that where there is much activity there will be some aberration. Mr.
Gladstone wishes for the unity of the fifteenth century with the active
and searching spirit of the sixteenth. He might as well wish to be in
two places at once.
When Mr. Gladstone says that we “actually require discrepancy of
opinion--require and demand error, falsehood, blindness, and plume
ourselves on such discrepancy as attesting a freedom which is only
valuable when used for unity in the truth,” he expresses himself with
more energy than precision. Nobody loves discrepancy for the sake of
discrepancy. But a person who conscientiously believes that free inquiry
is, on the whole, beneficial to the interests of truth, and that, from
the imperfection of the human faculties, wherever there is much free
inquiry there will be some discrepancy, may, without impropriety,
consider such discrepancy, though in itself an evil, as a sign of good.
That there are ten thousand thieves in London is a very melancholy fact.
But, looked at in one point of view, it is a reason for exultation. For
what other city could maintain ten thousand thieves? What must be the
mass of wealth, where the fragments gleaned by lawless pilfering rise to
so large an amount? St. Kilda would not support a single pickpocket. The
quantity of theft is, to a certain extent, an index of the quantity of
useful industry and judicious speculation. And just as we may, from the
great number of rogues in a town, infer that much honest gain is made
there; so may we often, from the quantity of error in a community, draw
a cheering inference as to the degree in which the public mind is turned
to those inquiries which alone can lead to rational convictions of
truth.
Mr. Gladstone seems to imagine that most Protestants think it possible
for the same doctrine to be at once true and false; or that they think
it immaterial whether, on a religious question, a man comes to a true
or a false conclusion. If there be any Protestants who hold notions so
absurd, we abandon them to his censure.
The Protestant doctrine touching the right of private judgment, that
doctrine which is the common foundation of the Anglican, the Lutheran,
and the Calvinistic Churches, that doctrine by which every sect of
Dissenters vindicates its separation, we conceive not to be this, that
opposite opinions rue; nor this, that truth and falsehood are both may
both be true; equally good; nor yet this, that all speculative error is
necessarily innocent; but this, that there is on the face of the earth
no visible body to whose decrees men are bound to submit their private
judgment on points of faith.
Is there always such a visible body? Was there such a visible body in
the year 1500? If not, why are we to believe that there is such a body
in the year 1839? If there was such a body in the year 1500, what was
it? Was it the Church of Rome? And how can the Church of England be
orthodox now, if the Church of Rome was orthodox then?
“In England,” says Mr. Gladstone, “the case was widely different from
that of the Continent. Her reformation did not destroy, but successfully
maintained, the unity and succession of the Church in her apostolical
ministry. We have, therefore, still among us the ordained hereditary
witnesses of the truth, conveying it to us through an unbroken series
from our Lord Jesus Christ and His Apostles. This is to us the ordinary
voice of authority; of authority equally reasonable and equally true,
whether we will hear, or whether we will forbear.”
Mr. Gladstone’s reasoning is not so clear as might be desired. We have
among us, he says, ordained hereditary witnesses of the truth, and their
voice is to us the voice of authority. Undoubtedly, if they are witness
of the truth, their voice is the voice of authority. But this is little
more than saying that the truth is the truth. Nor is truth more true
because it comes in an unbroken series from the Apostles. The Nicene
faith is not more true in the mouth of the Archbishop of Canterbury,
than in that of a Moderator of the General Assembly. If our respect for
the authority of the Church is to be only consequent upon our conviction
of the truth of her doctrines, we come at once to that monstrous abuse,
the Protestant exercise of private judgment. But if Mr. Gladstone means
that we ought to believe that the Church of England speaks the truth
because she has the apostolical succession, we greatly doubt whether
such a doctrine can be maintained. In the first place, what proof have
we of the fact? We have, indeed, heard it said that Providence would
certainly have interfered to preserve the apostolical succession in
the true Church. But this is an argument fitted for understandings of
a different kind from Mr. Gladstone’s. He will hardly tell us that the
Church of England is the true Church because she has the succession; and
that she has the succession because she is the true Church.
What evidence, then, have we for the fact of the apostolical succession?
And here we may easily defend the truth against Oxford with the same
arguments with which, in old times, the truth was defended by Oxford
against Rome. In this stage of our combat with Mr. Gladstone, we
need few weapons except those which we find in the well-furnished and
well-ordered armoury of Chillingworth.
The transmission of orders from the Apostles to an English clergyman
of the present day must have been through a very great number of
intermediate persons. Now, it is probable that no clergyman in the
Church of England can trace up his spiritual genealogy from bishop
to bishop so far back as the time of the Conquest. There remain many
centuries during which the history of the transmission of his orders is
buried in utter darkness. And whether he be a priest by succession from
the Apostles depends on the question, whether during that long period,
some thousands of events took place, any one of which may, without any
gross improbability, be supposed not to have taken place. We have not a
tittle of evidence for any one of these events. We do not even know the
names or countries of the men to whom it is taken for granted that these
events happened. We do not know whether the spiritual ancestors of any
one of our contemporaries were Spanish or Armenian, Arian or Orthodox.
In the utter absence of all particular evidence, we are surely entitled
to require that there should be very strong evidence indeed that
the strictest regularity was observed in every generation, and that
episcopal functions were exercised by none who were not bishops by
succession from the Apostles. But we have no such evidence. In the first
place, we have not full and accurate information touching the polity of
the Church during the century which followed the persecution of Nero.
That, during this period, the overseers of all the little Christian
societies scattered through the Roman empire held their spiritual
authority by virtue of holy orders derived from the Apostles, cannot
be proved by contemporary testimony, or by any testimony which can be
regarded as decisive. The question, whether the primitive ecclesiastical
constitution bore a greater resemblance to the Anglican or to the
Calvinistic model, has been fiercely disputed. It is a question on which
men of eminent parts, learning, and piety have differed, and do to this
day differ very widely. It is a question on which at least a full half
of the ability and erudition of Protestant Europe has ever since the
Reformation, been opposed to the Anglican pretensions. Mr. Gladstone
himself, we are persuaded, would have the candour to allow that, if
no evidence were admitted but that which is furnished by the genuine
Christian literature of the first two centuries, judgment would not go
in favour of prelacy. And if he looked at the subject as calmly as
he would look at a controversy respecting the Roman Comitia or the
Anglo-Saxon Witenagemote, he would probably think that the absence of
contemporary evidence during so long a period was a defect which later
attestations, however numerous, could but very imperfectly supply. It
is surely impolitic to rest the doctrines of the English Church on a
historical theory which, to ninety-nine Protestants out of a hundred,
would seem much more questionable than any of those doctrines. Nor is
this all. Extreme obscurity overhangs the history of the middle ages;
and the facts which are discernible through that obscurity prove that
the Church was exceedingly ill regulated. We read of sees of the highest
dignity openly sold, transferred backwards and forwards by popular
tumult, bestowed sometimes by a profligate woman on her paramour,
sometimes by a warlike baron on a kinsman still a stripling. We read of
bishops of ten years old, of bishops of five years old, of many popes
who were mere boys, and who rivalled the frantic dissoluteness of
Caligula, nay, of a female pope. And though this last story, once
believed throughout all Europe, has been disproved by the strict
researches of modern criticism, the most discerning of those who reject
it have admitted that it is not intrinsically improbable. In our own
island, it was the complaint of Alfred that not a single priest south
of the Thames, and very few on the north, could read either Latin or
English. And this illiterate clergy exercised their ministry amidst a
rude and half-heathen population, in which Danish pirates, unchristened,
or christened by the hundred on a field of battle, were mingled with
a Saxon peasantry scarcely better instructed in religion. The state of
Ireland was still worse. “Tota illa per universam Hiberniam dissolutio,
ecclesiasticae disciplinae, illa ubique pro consuetudine Christiana
saeva subintroducta barbaries,” are the expressions of St. Bernard.
We are, therefore, at a loss to conceive how any clergyman can feel
confident that his orders have come down correctly. Whether he be
really a successor of the Apostles depends on an immense number of such
contingencies as these; whether, under King Ethelwolf, a stupid priest
might not, while baptizing several scores of Danish prisoners who had
just made their option between the font and the gallows, inadvertently
omit to perform the rite on one of these graceless proselytes;
whether, in the seventh century, an impostor, who had never received
consecration, might not have passed himself off as a bishop on a rude
tribe of Scots; whether a lad of twelve did really, by a ceremony
huddled over when he was too drunk to know what he was about, convey the
episcopal character to a lad of ten.
Since the first century, not less, in all probability, than a hundred
thousand persons have exercised the functions of bishops. That many of
these have not been bishops by apostolical succession is quite certain.
Hooker admits that deviations from the general rule have been frequent,
and with a boldness worthy of his high and statesmanlike intellect,
pronounces them to have been often justifiable. “There may be,” says
he, “sometimes very just and sufficient reason to allow ordination made
without a bishop. Where the Church must needs have some ordained, and
neither hath nor can have possibly a bishop to ordain, in case of such
necessity the ordinary institution of God hath given oftentimes, and may
give place. And therefore we are not simply without exception to urge
a lineal descent of power from the Apostles by continued succession of
bishops in every effectual ordination.” There can be little doubt,
we think, that the succession, if it ever existed, has often been
interrupted in ways much less respectable. For example, let us suppose,
and we are sure that no well-informed person will think the supposition
by any means improbable, that, in the third century, a man of no
principle and some parts, who has, in the course of a roving and
discreditable life, been a catechumen at Antioch, and has there become
familiar with Christian usages and doctrines afterwards rambles to
Marseilles, where he finds a Christian society, rich, liberal, and
simple-hearted. He pretends to be a Christian, attracts notice by his
abilities and affected zeal, and is raised to the episcopal dignity
without having ever been baptized. That such an event might happen, nay,
was very likely to happen, cannot well be disputed by any one who
has read the Life of Peregrinus. The very virtues, indeed, which
distinguished the early Christians, seem to have laid them open to those
arts which deceived=
```“Uriel, though Regent of the Sun, and held
```The sharpest-sighted spirit of all in Heaven.”=
Now this unbaptized impostor is evidently no successor of the Apostles.
He is not even a Christian; and all orders derived through such a
pretended bishop are altogether invalid. Do we know enough of the state
of the world and of the Church in the third century to be able to say
with confidence that there were not at that time twenty such pretended
bishops? Every such case makes a break in the apostolical succession.
Now, suppose that a break, such as Hooker admits to have been both
common and justifiable, or such as we have supposed to be produced by
hypocrisy and cupidity, were found in the chain which connected the
Apostles with any of the missionaries who first spread Christianity in
the wilder parts of Europe, who can say how extensive the effect of
this single break may be? Suppose that St. Patrick, for example, if
ever there was such a man, or Theodore of Tarsus, who is said to have
consecrated in the seventh century the first bishops of many English
sees, had not the true apostolical orders, is it not conceivable that
such a circumstance may affect the orders of many clergymen now living?
Even if it were possible, which it assuredly is not, to prove that the
Church had the apostolical orders in the third century, it would be
impossible to prove that those orders were not in the twelfth century so
far lost that no ecclesiastic could be certain of the legitimate descent
of his own spiritual character. And if this were so, no subsequent
precautions could repair the evil.
Chillingworth states the conclusion at which he had arrived on this
subject in these very remarkable words: “That of ten thousand probables
no one should be false; that of ten thousand requisites, whereof any one
may fail, not one should be wanting, this to me is extremely improbable,
and even cousin-german to impossible. So that the assurance hereof is
like a machine composed of an innumerable multitude of pieces, of which
it is strangely unlikely but some will be out of order; and yet, if any
one be so, the whole fabric falls of necessity to the ground: and he
that shall put them together, and maturely consider all the possible
ways of lapsing and nullifying a priesthood in the Church of Rome, will
be very inclinable to think that it is a hundred to one, that among a
hundred seeming priests, there is not one true one; nay, that it is not
a thing very improbable that, amongst those many millions which make up
the Romish hierarchy, there are not twenty true.” We do not pretend to
know to what precise extent the canonists of Oxford agree with those
of Rome as to the circumstances which nullify orders. We will not,
therefore, go so far as Chillingworth. We only say that we see no
satisfactory proof of the fact, that the Church of England possesses the
apostolical succession. And, after all, if Mr. Gladstone could prove the
apostolical succession, what would the apostolical succession prove?
He says that “we have among us the ordained hereditary witnesses of the
truth, conveying it to us through an unbroken series from our Lord Jesus
Christ and his Apostles.” Is this the fact? Is there any doubt that the
orders of the Church of England are generally derived from the Church
of Rome? Does not the Church of England declare, does not Mr. Gladstone
himself admit, that the Church of Rome teaches much error and condemns
much truth? And is it not quite clear, that as far as the doctrines of
the Church of England differ from those of the Church of Rome, so far
the Church of England conveys the truth through a broken series?
That the founders, lay and clerical, of the Church of England, corrected
all that required correction in the doctrines of the Church of Rome, and
nothing more, may be quite true. But we never can admit the circumstance
that the Church of England possesses the apostolical succession as
a proof that she is thus perfect. No stream can rise higher than its
fountain. The succession of ministers in the Church of England, derived
as it is through the Church of Rome, can never prove more for the Church
of England than it proves for the Church of Rome. But this is not
all. The Arian Churches which once predominated in the kingdoms of
the Ostrogoths, the Visigoths, the Burgundians, the Vandals, and the
Lombards, were all episcopal Churches, and all had a fairer claim than
that of England to the apostolical succession, as being much nearer
to the apostolical times. In the East, the Greek Church, which is at
variance on points of faith with all the Western Churches, has an equal
claim to this succession. The Nestorian, the Eutychian, the Jacobite
Churches, all heretical, all condemned by councils, of which even
Protestant divines have generally spoken with respect, had an equal
claim to the apostolical succession. Now if, of teachers having
apostolical orders, a vast majority have taught much error, if a large
proportion have taught deadly heresy, if on the other hand, as Mr.
Gladstone himself admits, Churches not having apostolical orders, that
of Scotland for example, have been nearer to the standard of orthodoxy
than the majority of teachers who have had apostolical orders, how can
he possibly call upon us to submit our private judgment to the authority
of a Church on the ground that she has these orders?
Mr. Gladstone dwells much on the importance of unity in doctrine. Unity
he tells us, is essential to truth. And this is most unquestionable. But
when he goes on to tell us that this unity is the characteristic of
the Church of England, that she is one in body and in spirit, we are
compelled to differ from him widely. The apostolical succession she may
or may not have. But unity she most certainly has not, and never has
had. It is a matter of perfect notoriety, that her formularies are
framed in such a manner as to admit to her highest offices men who
differ from each other more widely than a very high Churchman differs
from a Catholic, or a very low Churchman from a Presbyterian; and
that the general leaning of the Church, with respect to some important
questions, has been sometimes one way and sometimes another. Take,
for example, the questions agitated between the Calvinists and the
Arminians. Do we find in the Church of England, with respect to those
questions, that unity which is essential to truth? Was it ever found in
the Church? Is it not certain that, at the end of the sixteenth century,
the rulers of the Church held doctrines as Calvinistic as ever were held
by any Cameronian, and not only held them, but persecuted every body who
did not hold them? And is it not equally certain, that the rulers of
the Church have, in very recent times, considered Calvinism as a
disqualification for high preferment, if not for holy orders? Look at
the questions which Archbishop Whitgift propounded to Barret, questions
framed in the very spirit of William Huntington, S. S. [One question
was, whether God had from eternity reprobated certain persons; and why?
The answer which contented the Archbishop was “Affirmative, et quia
voluit.”] And then look at the eighty-seven questions which Bishop
Marsh, within our own memory, propounded to candidates for ordination.
We should be loth to say that either of these celebrated prelates had
intruded himself into a Church whose doctrines he abhorred, and that he
deserved to be stripped of his gown. Yet it is quite certain that one or
other of them must have been very greatly in error. John Wesley again,
and Cowper’s friend, John Newton, were both Presbyters of this Church.
Both were men of ability. Both we believe to have been men of rigid
integrity, men who would not have subscribed a Confession of Faith which
they disbelieved for the richest bishopric in the empire. Yet, on the
subject of predestination, Newton was strongly attached to doctrines
which Wesley designated as “blasphemy, which might make the ears of a
Christian to tingle.” Indeed it will not be disputed that the clergy of
the Established Church are divided as to these questions, and that
her formularies are not found practically to exclude even scrupulously
honest men of both sides from her altars. It is notorious that some
of her most distinguished rulers think this latitude a good thing, and
would be sorry to see it restricted in favour of either opinion. And
herein we most cordially agree with them. But what becomes of the
unity of the Church, and of that truth to which unity is essential?
Mr. Gladstone tells us that the Regium Donum was given originally to
orthodox Presbyterian ministers, but that part of it is now received by
their heterodox successors. “This,” he says, “serves to illustrate the
difficulty in which governments entangle themselves, when they covenant
with arbitrary systems of opinions, and not with the Church alone. The
opinion passes away, but the gift remains.” But is it not clear, that
if a strong Supralapsarian had, under Whitgift’s primacy, left a large
estate at the disposal of the bishops for ecclesiastical purposes,
in the hope that the rulers of the Church would abide by Whitgift’s
theology, he would really have been giving his substance for the support
of doctrines which he detested? The opinion would have passed away, and
the gift would have remained.
This is only a single instance. What wide differences of opinion
respecting the operation of the sacraments are held by bishops, doctors,
presbyters of the Church of England, all men who have conscientiously
declared their assent to her articles, all men who are, according to
Mr. Gladstone, ordained hereditary witnesses of the truth, all men whose
voices make up what, he tells us, is the voice of true and reasonable
authority! Here, again, the Church has not unity; and as unity is the
essential condition of truth, the Church has not the truth.
Nay, take the very question which we are discussing with Mr. Gladstone.
To what extent does the Church of England allow of the right of private
judgment? What degree of authority does she claim for herself in virtue
of the apostolical succession of her ministers? Mr. Gladstone, a very
able and a very honest man, takes a view of this matter widely differing
from the view taken by others whom he will admit to be as able and
as honest as himself. People who altogether dissent from him on this
subject eat the bread of the Church, preach in her pulpits, dispense her
sacraments, confer her orders, and carry on that apostolical succession,
the nature and importance of which, according to him, they do not
comprehend. Is this unity? Is this truth?
It will be observed that we are not putting cases of dishonest men who,
for the sake of lucre, falsely pretend to believe in the doctrines of
an establishment. We are putting cases of men as upright as ever lived,
differing on theological questions of the highest importance and avowing
that difference, are yet priests and prelates of the same church. We
therefore say, that on some points which Mr. Gladstone himself thinks of
vital importance, the Church has either not spoken at all, or, what is
for all practical purposes the same thing, has not spoken in language to
be understood even by honest and sagacious divines. The religion of the
Church of England is so far from exhibiting that unity of doctrine which
Mr. Gladstone represents as her distinguishing glory, that it is, in
fact, a bundle of religious systems without number. It comprises the
religious system of Bishop Tomline, and the religious system of John
Newton, and all the religious systems which lie between them. It
comprises the religious system of Mr. Newman, and the religious system
of the Archbishop of Dublin, and all the religious systems which lie
between them. All these different opinions are held, avowed, preached,
printed, within the pale of the Church, by men of unquestioned integrity
and understanding.
Do we make this diversity a topic of reproach to the Church of England?
Far from it. We would oppose with all our power every attempt to narrow
her basis? Would to God that, a hundred and fifty years ago, a good king
and a good primate had possessed the power as well as the will to widen
it! It was a noble enterprise, worthy of William and of Tillotson. But
what becomes of all Mr. Gladstone’s eloquent exhortations to unity? Is
it not mere mockery to attach so much importance to unity in form and
name, where there is so little in substance, to shudder at the thought
of two Churches in alliance with one State, and to endure with patience
the spectacle of a hundred sects battling within one Church? And is it
not clear that Mr. Gladstone is bound, on all his own principles, to
abandon the defence of a Church in which unity is not found? Is it not
clear that he is bound to divide the House of Commons against every
grant of money which may be proposed for the clergy of the Established
Church in the colonies? He objects to the vote for Maynooth, because it
is monstrous to pay one man to teach truth, and another to denounce that
truth as falsehood. But it is a mere chance whether any sum which he
votes for the English Church in any colony will go to the maintenance of
an Arminian or a Calvinist, of a man like Mr. Froude, or of a man
like Dr. Arnold. It is a mere chance, therefore, whether it will go
to support a teacher of truth, or one who will denounce that truth as
falsehood.
This argument seems to us at once to dispose of all that part of Mr.
Gladstone’s book which respects grants of public money to dissenting
bodies. All such grants he condemns. But surely, if it be wrong to give
the money of the public for the support of those who teach any false
doctrine, it is wrong to give that money for the support of the
ministers of the Established Church. For it is quite certain that,
whether Calvin or Arminius be in the right, whether Laud or Burnet be in
the right, a great deal of false doctrine is taught by the ministers
of the Established Church. If it be said that the points on which the
clergy of the Church of England differ ought to be passed over, for the
sake of the many important points on which they agree, why may not the
same argument be maintained with respect to the other sects which hold,
in common with the Church of England, the fundamental doctrines of
Christianity? The principle that a ruler is bound in conscience to
propagate religious truth, and to propagate no religious doctrine which
is untrue, is abandoned as soon as it is admitted that a gentleman
of Mr. Gladstone’s opinions may lawfully vote the public money to a
chaplain whose opinions are those of Paley or of Simeon. The whole
question then becomes one of degree. Of course no individual and no
government can justifiably propagate error for the sake of propagating
error. But both individuals and governments must work with such
machinery as they have; and no human machinery is to be found which will
impart truth without some alloy of error. We have shown irrefragably, as
we think, that the Church of England does not afford such a machinery.
The question then is this; with what degree of imperfection in our
machinery must we put up? And to this question we do not see how any
general answer can be given. We must be guided by circumstances. It
would, for example, be very criminal in a Protestant to contribute to
the sending of Jesuit missionaries among a Protestant population. But
we do not conceive that a Protestant would be to blame for giving
assistance to Jesuit missionaries who might be engaged in converting the
Siamese to Christianity. That tares are mixed with the wheat is matter
of regret; but it is better that wheat and tares should grow together
than that the promise of the year should be blighted.
Mr. Gladstone, we see with deep regret, censures the British Government
in India for distributing a small sum among the Catholic priests who
minister to the spiritual wants of our Irish soldiers. Now, let us put
a case to him. A Protestant gentleman is attended by a Catholic servant,
in a part of the country where there is no Catholic congregation within
many miles. The servant is taken ill, and is given over. He desires, in
great trouble of mind, to receive the last sacraments of his Church. His
master sends off a messenger in a chaise and four, with orders to bring
a confessor from a town at a considerable distance. Here a Protestant
lays out money for the purpose of causing religious instruction and
consolation to be given by a Catholic priest. Has he committed a sin?
Has he not acted like a good master and a good Christian? Would Mr.
Gladstone accuse him of “laxity of religious principle,” of “confounding
truth with falsehood,” of “considering the support of religion as a boon
to an individual, not as a homage to truth?” But how if this servant
had, for the sake of his master, undertaken a journey which removed him
from the place where he might easily have obtained religious attendance?
How if his death were occasioned by a wound received in defending his
master? Should we not then say that the master had only fulfilled a
sacred obligation of duty? Now, Mr. Gladstone himself owns that “nobody
can think that the personality of the State is more stringent, or
entails stronger obligations, than that of the individual.” How then
stands the case of the Indian Government? Here is a poor fellow enlisted
in Clare or Kerry, sent over fifteen thousand miles of sea, quartered in
a depressing and pestilential climate. He fights for the Government; he
conquers for it; he is wounded; he is laid on his pallet, withering away
with fever, under that terrible sun, without a friend near him. He pines
for the consolations of that religion which, neglected perhaps in the
season of health and vigour, now comes back to his mind, associated with
all the overpowering recollections of his earlier days, and of the home
which he is never to see again. And because the State for which he dies
sends a priest of his own faith to stand at his bedside, and to tell
him, in language which at once commands his love and confidence, of
the common Father, of the common Redeemer, of the common hope of
immortality, because the State for which he dies does not abandon him in
his last moments to the care of heathen attendants, or employ a chaplain
of a different creed to vex his departing spirit with a controversy
about the Council of Trent, Mr. Gladstone finds that India presents
“a melancholy picture,” and that there is “a large allowance of false
principle” in the system pursued there. Most earnestly do we hope that
our remarks may induce Mr. Gladstone to reconsider this part of his
work, and may prevent him from expressing in that high assembly, in
which he must always be heard with attention, opinions so unworthy of
his character.
We have now said almost all that we think it necessary to say respecting
Mr. Gladstone’s theory. And perhaps it would be safest for us to stop
here. It is much easier to pull down than to build up. Yet, that we may
give Mr. Gladstone his revenge, we will state concisely our own views
respecting the alliance of Church and State.
We set out in company with Warburton, and remain with him pretty
sociably till we come to his contract; a contract which Mr. Gladstone
very properly designates as a fiction. We consider the primary end of
Government as a purely temporal end, the protection of the persons and
property of men.
We think that Government, like every other contrivance of human wisdom,
from the highest to the lowest, is likely to answer its main end best
when it is constructed with a single view to that end. Mr. Gladstone,
who loves Plato, will not quarrel with us for illustrating our
proposition, after Plato’s fashion, from the most familiar objects. Take
cutlery, for example. A blade which is designed both to shave and to
carve, will certainly not shave so well as a razor, or carve so well as
a carving-knife. An academy of painting, which should also be a bank,
would, in all probability, exhibit very bad pictures and discount very
bad bills. A gas company, which should also be an infant school society,
would, we apprehend, light the streets ill, and teach the children ill.
On this principle, we think that Government should be organised solely
with a view to its main end; and that no part of its efficiency for
that end should be sacrificed in order to promote any other end however
excellent.
But does it follow from hence that Governments ought never to pursue any
end other than their main end? In no wise. Though it is desirable that
every institution should have a main end, and should be so formed as to
be in the highest degree efficient for that main end; yet if, without
any sacrifice of its efficiency for that end, it can pursue any other
good end, it ought to do so. Thus, the end for which a hospital is
built is the relief of the sick, not the beautifying of the street. To
sacrifice the health of the sick to splendour of architectural effect,
to place the building in a bad air only that it may present a more
commanding front to a great public place, to make the wards hotter or
cooler than they ought to be, in order that the columns and windows
of the exterior may please the passers-by would be monstrous. But if,
without any sacrifice of the chief object, the hospital can be made an
ornament to the metropolis, it would be absurd not to make it so.
In the same manner, if a Government can, without any sacrifice of
its main end, promote any other good work, it ought to do so. The
encouragement of the fine arts, for example, is by no means the main end
of Government; and it would be absurd, in constituting a Government,
to bestow a thought on the question, whether it would be a Government
likely to train Raphaels or Domenichinos. But it by no means follows
that it is improper for a Government to form a national gallery of
pictures. The same may be said of patronage bestowed on learned men, of
the publication of archives, of the collecting of libraries, menageries,
plants, fossils, antiques, of journeys and voyages for purposes of
geographical discovery or astronomical observation. It is not for these
ends that Government is constituted. But it may well happen that a
Government may have at its command resources which will enable it,
without any injury to its main end, to pursue these collateral ends far
more effectually than any individual or any voluntary association could
do. If so, Government ought to pursue these collateral ends.
It is still more evidently the duty of Government to promote, always in
subordination to its main end, everything which is useful as a means for
the attaining of that main end. The improvement of steam navigation,
for example, is by no means a primary object of Government. But as steam
vessels are useful for the purpose of national defence, and for the
purpose of facilitating intercourse between distant provinces, and of
thereby consolidating the force of the empire, it may be the bounden
duty of Government to encourage ingenious men to perfect an invention
which so directly tends to make the State more efficient for its great
primary end.
Now on both these grounds, the instruction of the people may with
propriety engage the care of the Government. That the people should be
well educated, is in itself a good thing; and the State ought therefore
to promote this object, if it can do so without any sacrifice of
its primary object. The education of the people, conducted on
those principles of morality which are common to all the forms of
Christianity, is highly valuable as a means of promoting the main object
for which Government exists, and is on this ground well deserving the
attention of rulers. We will not at present go into the general question
of education; but will confine our remarks to the subject which is more
immediately before us, namely, the religious instruction of the people.
We may illustrate our view of the policy which Governments ought to
pursue with respect to religious instruction, by recurring to the
analogy of a hospital. Religious instruction is not the main end
for which a hospital is built; and to introduce into a hospital any
regulations prejudicial to the health of the patients, on the plea of
promoting their spiritual improvement, to send a ranting preacher to a
man who has just been ordered by the physician to lie quiet and try
to get a little sleep, to impose a strict observance of Lent on a
convalescent who has been advised to eat heartily of nourishing food,
to direct, as the bigoted Pius the Fifth actually did, that no medical
assistance should be given to any person who declined spiritual
attendance, would be the most extravagant folly. Yet it by no means
follows that it would not be right to have a chaplain to attend the
sick, and to pay such a chaplain out of the hospital funds. Whether it
will be proper to have such a chaplain at all, and of what religious
persuasion such a chaplain ought to be, must depend on circumstances.
There may be a town in which it would be impossible to set up a good
hospital without the help of people of different opinions: and religious
parties may run so high that, though people of different opinions are
willing to contribute for the relief of the sick, they will not concur
in the choice of any one chaplain. The High Churchmen insist that, if
there is a paid chaplain, he shall be a High Churchman. The Evangelicals
stickle for an Evangelical. Here it would evidently be absurd and cruel
to let an useful and humane design, about which we are all agreed,
fall to the ground, because all cannot agree about something else. The
governors must either appoint two chaplains and pay them both; or
they must appoint none; and every one of them must, in his individual
capacity, do what he can for the purpose of providing the sick with such
religious instruction and consolation as will, in his opinion, be most
useful to them.
We should say the same of Government. Government is not an institution
for the propagation of religion, any more than St. George’s Hospital is
an institution for the propagation of religion: and the most absurd and
pernicious consequences would follow, if Government should pursue, as
its primary end, that which can never be more than its secondary
end, though intrinsically more important than its primary end. But a
Government which considers the religious instruction of the people as
a secondary end, and follows out that principle faithfully, will, we
think, be likely to do much good and little harm.
We will rapidly run over some of the consequences to which this
principle leads, and point out how it solves some problems which, on Mr.
Gladstone’s hypothesis, admit of no satisfactory solution.
All persecution directed against the persons or property of men is,
on our principle, obviously indefensible. For, the protection of the
persons and property of men being the primary end of Government and
religious instruction only a secondary end, to secure the people from
heresy by making their lives, their limbs, or their estates insecure,
would be to sacrifice the primary end to the secondary end. It would be
as absurd as it would be in the governors of a hospital to direct that
the wounds of all Arian and Socinian patients should be dressed in such
a way as to make them fester.
Again, on our principles, all civil disabilities on account of religious
opinions are indefensible. For all such disabilities make Government
less efficient for its main end: they limit its choice of able men for
the administration and defence of the State; they alienate from it the
hearts of the sufferers; they deprive it of a part of its effective
strength in all contests with foreign nations. Such a course is as
absurd as it would be in the governors of a hospital to reject an able
surgeon because he is an Universal Restitutionist, and to send a bungler
to operate because he is perfectly orthodox.
Again, on our principles, no Government ought to press on the people
religious instruction, however sound, in such a manner as to excite
among them discontents dangerous to public order. For here again
Government would sacrifice its primary end to an end intrinsically
indeed of the highest importance, but still only a secondary end of
Government, as Government. This rule at once disposes of the difficulty
about India, a difficulty of which Mr. Gladstone can get rid only by
putting in an imaginary discharge in order to set aside an imaginary
obligation. There is assuredly no country where it is more desirable
that Christianity should be propagated. But there is no country in which
the Government is so completely disqualified for the task. By using our
power in order to make proselytes, we should produce the dissolution of
society, and bring utter ruin on all those interests for the protection
of which Government exists. Here the secondary end is, at present,
inconsistent with the primary end, and must therefore be abandoned.
Christian instruction given by individuals and voluntary societies may
do much good. Given by the Government it would do unmixed harm. At
the same time, we quite agree with Mr. Gladstone in thinking that the
English authorities in India ought not to participate in any idolatrous
rite; and indeed we are fully satisfied that all such participation is
not only unchristian, but also unwise and most undignified.
Supposing the circumstances of a country to be such, that the Government
may with propriety, on our principles, give religious instruction to a
people; we have next to inquire, what religion shall be taught. Bishop
Warburton answers, the religion of the majority. And we so far agree
with him, that we can scarcely conceive any circumstances in which
it would be proper to establish, as the one exclusive religion of the
State, the religion of the minority. Such a preference could hardly be
given without exciting most serious discontent, and endangering those
interests, the protection of which is the first object of Government.
But we never can admit that a ruler can be justified in helping to
spread a system of opinions solely because that system is pleasing to
the majority. On the other hand, we cannot agree with Mr. Gladstone,
who would of course answer that the only religion which a ruler ought
to propagate is the religion of his own conscience. In truth, this is an
impossibility. And as we have shown, Mr. Gladstone himself, whenever he
supports a grant of money to the Church of England, is really assisting
to propagate not the precise religion of his own conscience, but
some one or more, he knows not how many or which, of the innumerable
religions which lie between the confines of Pelagianism and those
of Antinomianism, and between the confines of Popery and those of
Presbyterianism. In our opinion, that religious instruction which the
ruler ought, in his public capacity, to patronise, is the instruction
from which he, in his conscience, believes that the people will
learn most good with the smallest mixture of evil. And thus it is not
necessarily his own religion that he will select. He will, of course,
believe that his own religion is unmixedly good. But the question which
he has to consider is, not how much good his religion contains, but how
much good the people will learn, if instruction is given them in that
religion. He may prefer the doctrines and government of the Church
of England to those of the Church of Scotland. But if he knows that a
Scotch congregation will listen with deep attention and respect while
an Erskine or a Chalmers sets before them the fundamental doctrines of
Christianity, and that a glimpse of a surplice or a single line of a
liturgy would be the signal for hooting and riot and would probably
bring stools and brickbats about the ears of the minister, he acts
wisely if he conveys religious knowledge to the Scotch rather by means
of that imperfect Church, as he may think it, from which they will learn
much, than by means of that perfect Church from which they will learn
nothing. The only end of teaching is, that men may learn; and it is idle
to talk of the duty of teaching truth in ways which only cause men to
cling more firmly to falsehood.
On these principles we conceive that a statesman, who might be far
indeed from regarding the Church of England with the reverence which Mr.
Gladstone feels for her, might yet firmly oppose all attempts to destroy
her. Such a statesman may be too well acquainted with her origin to
look upon her with superstitious awe. He may know that she sprang from
a compromise huddled up between the eager zeal of reformers and the
selfishness of greedy, ambitious, and time-serving politicians. He may
find in every page of her annals ample cause for censure. He may feel
that he could not, with ease to his conscience, subscribe all her
articles. He may regret that all the attempts which have been made to
open her gates to large classes of nonconformists should have failed.
Her episcopal polity he may consider as of purely human institution.
He cannot defend her on the ground that she possesses the apostolical
succession; for he does not know whether that succession may not be
altogether a fable. He cannot defend her on the ground of her unity; for
he knows that her frontier sects are much more remote from each other,
than one frontier is from the Church of Rome, or the other from the
Church of Geneva. But he may think that she teaches more truth with
less alloy of error than would be taught by those who, if she were
swept away, would occupy the vacant space. He may think that the effect
produced by her beautiful services and by her pulpits on the national
mind, is, on the whole, highly beneficial. He may think that her
civilising influence is usefully felt in remote districts. He may think
that, if she were destroyed, a large portion of those who now compose
her congregations would neglect all religious duties, and that a still
larger portion would fall under the influence of spiritual mountebanks,
hungry for gain, or drunk with fanaticism. While he would with pleasure
admit that all the qualities of Christian pastors are to be found in
large measure within the existing body of Dissenting ministers, he would
perhaps be inclined to think that the standard of intellectual and moral
character among that exemplary class of men may have been raised to its
present high point and maintained there by the indirect influence of the
Establishment. And he may be by no means satisfied that, if the Church
were at once swept away, the place of our Sumners and Whatelys would be
supplied by Doddridges and Halls. He may think that the advantages which
we have described are obtained, or might, if the existing system were
slightly modified, be obtained, without any sacrifice of the paramount
objects which all Governments ought to have chiefly in view. Nay, he
may be of opinion that an institution, so deeply fixed in the hearts and
minds of millions, could not be subverted without loosening and shaking
all the foundations of civil society. With at least equal ease he would
find reasons for supporting the Church of Scotland. Nor would he
be under the necessity of resorting to any contract to justify the
connection of two religious establishments with one Government. He would
think scruples on that head frivolous in any person who is zealous for a
Church, of which both Dr. Herbert Marsh and Dr. Daniel Wilson have been
bishops. Indeed he would gladly follow out his principles much further.
He would have been willing to vote in 1825 for Lord Francis Egerton’s
resolution, that it is expedient to give a public maintenance to the
Catholic clergy of Ireland: and he would deeply regret that no such
measure was adopted in 1829.
In this way, we conceive, a statesman might on our principles satisfy
himself that it would be in the highest degree inexpedient to abolish
the Church, either of England or of Scotland.
But if there were, in any part of the world, a national Church regarded
as heretical by four-fifths of the nation committed to its care, a
Church established and maintained by the sword, a Church producing twice
as many riots as conversions, a Church which, though possessing great
wealth and power, and though long backed by persecuting laws, had,
in the course of many generations, been found unable to propagate its
doctrines, and barely able to maintain its ground, a Church so odious,
that fraud and violence, when used against its clear rights of property,
were generally regarded as fair play, a Church, whose ministers were
preaching to desolate walls, and with difficulty obtaining their lawful
subsistence by the help of bayonets, such a Church, on our principles,
could not, we must own, be defended. We should say that the State which
allied itself with such a Church postponed the primary end of Government
to the secondary: and that the consequences had been such as any
sagacious observer would have predicted. Neither the primary nor the
secondary end is attained. The temporal and spiritual interests of the
people suffer alike. The minds of men, instead of being drawn to the
Church, are alienated from the State. The magistrate, after sacrificing
order, peace, union, all the interests which it is his first duty to
protect, for the purpose of promoting pure religion, is forced, after
the experience of centuries, to admit that he has really been promoting
error. The sounder the doctrines of such a Church, the more absurd
and noxious the superstition by which those doctrines are opposed, the
stronger are the arguments against the policy which has deprived a good
cause of its natural advantages. Those who preach to rulers the duty
of employing power to propagate truth would do well to remember that
falsehood, though no match for truth alone, has often been found more
than a match for truth and power together.
A statesman, judging on our principles, would pronounce without
hesitation that a Church, such as we have last described, never ought
to have been set up. Further than this we will not venture to speak for
him. He would doubtless remember that the world is full of institutions
which, though they never ought to have been set up, yet, having been
set up, ought not to be rudely pulled down; and that it is often wise in
practice to be content with the mitigation of an abuse which, looking at
it in the abstract, we might feel impatient to destroy.
We have done; and nothing remains but that we part from Mr. Gladstone
with the courtesy of antagonists who bear no malice. We dissent from
his opinions, but we admire his talents; we respect his integrity and
benevolence; and we hope that he will not suffer political avocations so
entirely to engross him, as to leave him no leisure for literature and
philosophy.