The Satanic doctrine that a church may employ force in aid of its dogma is
supposed to be obsolete in England, except as an individual paradox; but
this is difficult to settle. Opinions are much divided as to what the Roman
Church would do in England, if she could: any one who doubts that she
claims the right does not deserve an answer. When the hopes of the
Tractarian section of the High Church were in bloom, before the most
conspicuous intellects among them had _transgressed_ their ministry, that
they might go to their own place, I had the curiosity to see how far it
could be ascertained whether they held the only doctrine which makes me the
personal enemy of a sect. I found in one of their tracts the assumption of
a right to persecute, modified by an asserted conviction that force was not
efficient. I cannot now say that this tract was one of the celebrated
ninety; and on looking at the collection I find it so poorly furnished with
contents, etc., that nothing but searching through three thick volumes
would decide. In these volumes I find, augmenting as we go on, declarations
about the character and power of "the Church" which have a suspicious
appearance. The suspicion is increased by that curious piece of sophistry,
No. 87, on religious reserve. The queer paradoxes of that tract leave us in
doubt as to everything but this, that the church(man) is not bound to give
his whole counsel in all things, and not bound to say what the things are
in which he does not give it. It is likely enough that some of the "rights
and liberties" are but scantily described. There is now no fear; but the
time was when, if not fear, there might be a looking for of fear to come;
nobody could then be so {63} sure as we now are that the lion was only
asleep. There was every appearance of a harder fight at hand than was
really found needful.
Among other exquisite quirks of interpretation in the No. 87 above
mentioned is the following. God himself employs reserve; he is said to be
decked with light as with a garment (the old or prayer-book version of
Psalm civ. 2). To an ordinary apprehension this would be a strong image of
display, manifestation, revelation; but there is something more. "Does not
a garment veil in some measure that which it clothes? Is not that very
light concealment?"
This No. 87, admitted into a series, fixes upon the managers of the series,
who permitted its introduction, a strong presumption of that underhand
intent with which they were charged. At the same time it is honorable to
our liberty that this series could be published: though its promoters were
greatly shocked when the Essayists and Bishop Colenso[74] took a swing on
the other side. When No. 90 was under discussion, Dr. Maitland,[75] the
librarian at Lambeth, asked Archbishop Howley[76] a question about No. 89.
"I did not so much as know there _was_ a No. 89," was the answer. I am
almost sure I have seen this in print, and quite sure that Dr. Maitland
told it to me. It is creditable that there was so much freedom; but No. 90
was _too bad_, and was stopped.
The Tractarian mania has now (October 1866) settled down into a chronic
vestment disease, complicated with fits of transubstantiation, which has
taken the name of {64} _Ritualism_. The common sense of our national
character will not put up with a continuance of this grotesque folly;
millinery in all its branches will at last be advertised only over the
proper shops. I am told that the Ritualists give short and practical
sermons; if so, they may do good in the end. The English Establishment has
always contained those who want an excitement; the New Testament, in its
plain meaning, can do little for them. Since the Revolution, Jacobitism,
Wesleyanism, Evangelicism, Puseyism,[77] and Ritualism, have come on in
turn, and have furnished hot water for those who could not wash without it.
If the Ritualists should succeed in substituting short and practical
teaching for the high-spiced lectures of the doctrinalists, they will be
remembered with praise. John the Baptist would perhaps not have brought all
Jerusalem out into the wilderness by his plain and good sermons: it was the
camel's hair and the locusts which got him a congregation, and which,
perhaps, added force to his precepts. When at school I heard a dialogue,
between an usher and the man who cleaned the shoes, about Mr. ----, a
minister, a very corporate body with due area of waistcoat. "He is a man of
great erudition," said the first. "Ah, yes sir," said Joe; "any one can see
that who looks at that silk waistcoat."]