alteration; they would have a difficulty in imagining a law which was a
law in theory but not a law in practice, which no one would alter in word
and no one enforce in reality. But the English are very practised in this
sort of arrangement—they have a kind of genius for the compensation of
errors. For many years we had probably the worst and most bloody penal
law in Europe; it is awful to read the old statutes which fix death
as the penalty for minor acts altogether undeserving of it. But these
statutes did not work nearly so much evil as might have been expected.
There was besides a complex system of indictments which let off very
many culprits upon trifling flaws, and there was also an absurd system
of incessant remissions and pardons; the worst evils of an excessively
bad law were exceedingly mitigated by a very bad mode of applying it.
Speaking roughly, and subject to minor criticism, the history has been
the same in the Church; in it, too, an imperfect law has been remedied by
an imperfect mode of procedure. The Church has been allowed to change
in this and that because it has been exceedingly difficult to interfere
with it. The legal penalty against change has been distant, costly,
and uncertain; and therefore it has not been applied. Change has been
possible because the punishment of change was difficult. But the essence
of the ‘Public Worship Regulation Bill’ is to make that punishment easy.
‘If the Rubric says so,’ say its supporters, ‘the Rubric ought to be
enforced.’ This is as if Sir Samuel Romilly had attacked, not our bad
penal code, but our bad penal procedure. If, by the historical growth of
approximate equivalents, _A_ mitigates _B_, you will deteriorate, not
improve the world, if you change _A_ without changing _B_, though both
may be evils.
The analogy, indeed, very imperfectly expresses the truth. In the recent
history of the Church, the English have conspicuously shown another of
their predominant peculiarities—indifference to abstract truth. When a
quarter of a century ago English lawyers in the Court of Privy Council
were first required to decide theological questions, they did so in a
way which astonished theologians. They declined to supply any abstract
proposition. If the enacted formularies contained such and such words,
no clergyman of the Church could, according to them, contradict those
words, but they allowed the clergy to say anything else. We cannot
use theological terms here; but suppose, by an economical analogy,
the formulary had said that ‘Free trade was beneficial to mankind,’
the lawyers would have decided that no clergyman could say that free
trade was not beneficial; but they would have allowed him to say that
‘Commercial liberty was inexpressibly disastrous to mankind,’ because as
lawyers they would not undertake to say that ‘free trade’ and ‘commercial
liberty’ meant the same thing, or that in an abstract subject the two
phrases might not in some way and to some minds seem consistent. In mere
description this kind of decision may not seem very sensible, and it is
utterly contrary to any which a theologian would ever have adopted; but
in practice it preserved the Church Establishment. It was first applied
in the Gorham case, and retained the Evangelical clergy in the Church;
then, in the _Essays and Reviews_ case, it retained the Broad Church;
and lastly, in Mr. Bennett’s case, it retained the High Church. If the
Establishment was to be maintained, it was necessary that all these
parties should be kept side by side within it, and by this system of
interpretation they were thus kept.
Unfortunately, the courts of law have not been able to apply the same
sort of judicial decision to the practical directions for the public
worship of the Church which they applied to her theoretical teachings.
There is inevitably something more distinct and clear about acts which
are required to be done at a given time and place, than in statements of
abstract doctrine. When the courts have been appealed to, it has not been
possible to apply to ritual the same comprehensiveness which has had such
excellent political effects in the case of doctrine. But, nevertheless,
there is exactly the same necessity for it. Almost every party in the
Church is harassed by some of her rules, just as it is hampered by
some of her words. The Broad Church dislikes the Athanasian creed, and
avoids the use of it. The Low Church and the High Church are in vital
and necessary opposition as to the mode of conducting the Sacramental
services. In every characteristic Church every party thinks probably
something is done which the strict Rubric would forbid, or something
omitted which it would prescribe. Until now this difficulty has not been
very acutely felt. As we have explained, the imperfection of the law was
cured by the imperfection of the procedure. No doubt the rubrics were
framed in other days; no doubt they took no notice of the wants of the
present day; no doubt a strict adherence to them would expel from the
Church very many whose doctrines had been decided to be consistent with
hers. But then, to enforce the observance of the Rubric was difficult,
costly, and dubious, and so the natural evil did not happen. The wants
of various minds were variously met by various deviations from the law,
which in theory were liable to penalties, but which in practice were
unpunished.
The scope of the ‘Public Worship Regulation Bill’ is to destroy this
variety. It is a new Act of Uniformity as far as ‘public worship’ is
concerned. A short and simple process—which has been so often stated that
we need not here describe it—is prescribed which will enable objectors to
enforce any rubric, and which no doubt will cause them to be so enforced.
The proposers of the Bill have not enough considered the applicability of
this primary assumption: no Church can have only a single form of public
worship unless it has also a single creed. An apparent uniformity may
be maintained in specified details; but in spirit, in feeling, in its
deepest consequences on those who habitually hear and see, the effect
will be different. A service conducted by a Broad Churchman, explained in
his sermon, and commented upon in his manner, will be very unlike what it
would be if that service is conducted by a _bonâ fide_ dogmatic believer.
No mere Act of Uniformity can prevent this. Still less can it efface the
inevitable difference between a Sacramental service in the hands of a
High Church clergyman and in those of a Low Church. The two belong to
separate and unlike species. The one believes that the service contains a
supernatural act, the other that it is an edifying rite; the one regards
it as an invisible miracle, the other as a conspicuous exhortation.
Make what laws you like, how can the two perform these services with
the same tone of mind, the same kind of thought, the same effect on the
congregation? You may dress two men up in the same clothes, but they
will be two men for all that. If once you permit two or more faiths in a
Church, you in truth permit two or more Rituals. The various feelings and
the various creeds will somehow find a means of bringing themselves into
contact with the minds with which they wish to be in contact. You have
‘swallowed the camel’ when you permitted the creed, and it is useless to
strain at the gnat and forbid the expression of it.
This is to be especially borne in mind by those who think that there
is a party in the Church that desires to introduce Romanism, and who
approve of this Bill because they think it will counteract that party.
The essence of Romanism is not in its ceremonies, but in its doctrines.
As was explained to the House of Commons on Wednesday, nothing could be
simpler than the mode in which Mr. Newman used to conduct his services
at Oxford; and yet he then held ‘Roman’ doctrine, and penetrated half
the young men about him with a deep faith in the highest sacramental
principle. Unless you reverse the decision in the Bennett case, a
doctrine which no common person will distinguish from Romanism will
continue to be, and must be, taught in the Church of England. We do not
believe it will lose in strength by being denied this or that form of
Ritual. It will attract in any case the minds to whom it is congenial,
and it will rather gain than lose in _éclat_ by seeming to be persecuted.
We shall be told that this argument proves too much; for that it proves
that this Bill will do nothing at all, and that therefore at least it
will do no harm. But it will, we think, do great harm—at least, if it be
good to keep the Establishment, and if it does harm to weaken it. The
real danger of the Establishment is from within, not from without. The
manner in which its sections have been retained within its limits has in
part developed, and as time goes on is still developing more largely,
a great evil. Specially the Low Church, specially the Broad Church,
and specially the High Church, have all been kept in her communion
because the judges refused to draw certain logical inferences from her
formularies; as lawyers they declined to draw them. But intellectual
young men, who are thinking of becoming clergymen, do not like this
reasoning. They say: ‘The courts of law may not like to draw these
inferences, but I must. I have spent my youth in a mental training which
has prepared me to draw them, and which compels me to do so. Educated as
I have been, I cannot take half an argument and leave it; I must work
it out to the end. That end seems to me inconsistent with this or that
of the formularies of the Church. Others say it is not, but I am not
sure that it is not; at any rate, I do not like to risk the happiness of
my life upon its being consistent. If in after years my investigation
should run counter to a vast collection of assertions framed by various
men, in various ages, of various minds, what will be my fate? I must
either sacrifice the profession by which I live, or the creed in which
I believe. The lawyers probably might not turn me out indeed; but my
conscience was not made by lawyers—I shall have to turn myself out.’
This is the sort of thought which more and more prevents intellectual
young men from taking orders, and we are beginning to see the effect.
The moral excellence and the practical piety of the clergy are as good
as ever; but they want individuality of thought and originality of mind.
They have too universal a conformity to commonplace opinion. They are
not only conscientious, but indecisive; more and more they belong to
the most puzzling class to argue with, for more and more they ‘candidly
confess’ that they must admit your premises, but, on ‘account of the
obscurity of the subject,’ must decline to draw the inevitable inference.
Already this intellectual poorness is beginning to be felt; and if it
should augment, it will destroy the Establishment. She will not have in
her ranks arguers who can maintain her position either against those
who believe more or against those who believe less. Scepticism sends
trained and logical minds to the intellectual conflict; Romanism does
so also; but the Established Church refuses them—refuses them silently
and indirectly, but still effectually. The Public Worship Bill will, we
conceive, augment this difficulty almost at the very point at which its
being augmented will be most calamitous. Many young men who are acutely
conscious of the restraints of the Establishment in speculation, are
attracted by its freedom in practice. ‘I may be cramped in metaphysics,’
they think at heart, ‘but I shall be free in action.’ But this Bill will
be a measure—for aught young men can tell, the first of a series—which
will limit the freedom of their lives, and cramp them on the side of
practice as they already are on the side of thought. The most malevolent
enemy of the Established Church could deal her no acuter wound.
Upon the whole, we can conceive nothing clearer than that this Bill
should not pass this year. We are certain that members of Parliament have
not considered the necessary arguments, and that the nation has not done
so either.
THE END.
PRINTED BY
SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE
LONDON
FOOTNOTES
[1] _The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire._ By Edward
Gibbon, Esq. With Notes by Dean Milman and M. Guizot. Edited, with
additional Notes, by William Smith, LL.D. In Eight Volumes. London, 1855.
Murray.
[2] _Some Remains (hitherto unpublished) of Joseph Butler, LL.D., some
time Lord Bishop of Durham._
_Encyclopædia Britannica, Vol. VI. Part II. Article, Joseph Butler._ By
Henry Rogers, Author of the ‘Eclipse of Faith.’ Eighth edition.
[3] Trench, _On the Synonyms of the New Testament_ (p. 191).
[4] Trench, _ubi supra_.
[5] _The Prospective Review._
[6] Professor Rogers’s _Defence of the ‘Eclipse of Faith’_, p. 43. It
is to be observed, we are not at all speaking of the facts of the Old
Testament; we are but limiting the considerations on which the above
writer has rested its defence. These refined reasonings but weaken the
case they are brought to support. ‘I did not know,’ said George the
Third, ‘that the Bible needed an apology.’
[7] We doubt, however, if Butler would at all have accepted Mr.
Rogers’s statement of his view, though it is perhaps the most common
interpretation of him. Probably, he really meant no more than what we
contend for, though his language is not always so limited in terms.
[8] _The Life of Laurence Sterne._ By Percy Fitzgerald, M.A., M.R.I.A. In
two volumes. Chapman and Hall.
_Thackeray the Humourist and the Man of Letters._ By Theodore Taylor,
Esq. London: John Camden Hotten.
[9] _Library Edition._ Illustrated by upwards of Two Hundred Engravings
on Steel, after Drawings by Turner, Landseer, Wilkie, Stanfield, Roberts,
&c. including Portraits of the Historical Personages described in the
Novels. 25 vols. demy 8vo.
_Abbotsford Edition._ With One Hundred and Twenty Engravings on Steel,
and nearly Two Thousand on Wood. 12 vols. super-royal 8vo.
_Author’s favourite Edition._ 48 vols. post 8vo.
_Cabinet Edition._ 25 vols. foolscap 8vo.
_Railway Edition._ Now publishing, and to be completed in 25 portable
volumes, large type.
_People’s Edition._ 5 large volumes royal 8vo.
[10] _Cheap Edition of the Works of Mr. Charles Dickens. The Pickwick
Papers, Nicholas Nickleby, &c._ London, 1857-8. Chapman and Hall.
[11] _The History of England from the Accession of James the Second._ By
Thomas Babington Macaulay. Longmans.
[12] _Œuvres complètes de_ C.-J. de Béranger. _Nouvelle édition revue par
l’Auteur, contenant les Dix Chansons nouvelles, le facsimile d’une Lettre
de_ Béranger; _illustrée de cinquante-deux gravures sur acier, d’après_
Charlet, D’Aubigny, Johannot Grenier, De Lemud, Pauquet, Penguilly,
Raffet, Sandoz, _exécutées par les artistes les plus distingués, et d’un
beau portrait d’après nature par_ Sandoz. 2 vols. 8vo. 1855.
[13] We have been obliged to abridge the above extract, and in so doing
have left out the humour of it.
[14] _Poems._ By Arthur Hugh Clough, sometime Fellow of Oriel College,
Oxford. With a Memoir. Macmillan.
[15]
‘——domus Albuneæ resonantis,
Et præceps Anio, et Tiburni lucus, et uda
Mobilibus pomaria rivis.’
[16] _Diary, Reminiscences, and Correspondence of Henry Crabb Robinson,
Barrister-at-Law, F.S.A._ Selected and Edited by Thomas Sadler, Ph.D. In
Three Volumes. London, 1869.
[17] ‘Since writing the above, Baron Rolfe has verified my prediction
more strikingly by being created a peer, by the title of Lord Cranworth,
and appointed a Vice-Chancellor. Soon after his appointment, he called
on me, and I dined with him. I related to Lady Cranworth the anecdote
given above, of my conversation with my brother, with which she was
evidently pleased. Lady Cranworth was the daughter of Mr. Carr, Solicitor
to the Excise, whom I formerly used to visit, and ought soon to find some
mention of in my journals. Lord Cranworth continues to enjoy universal
respect.—H. C. R. 1851.’
[18] _Enoch Arden, &c._ By Alfred Tennyson, D.C.L., Poet Laureate.
_Dramatis Personæ._ By Robert Browning.
[19] The first words in Lord Jeffrey’s celebrated review of the
_Excursion_ were, ‘This will never do.’
[20] ‘A curious physiologico-botanical theory by Goethe, which appears to
be entirely unknown in this country: though several eminent continental
botanists have noticed it with commendation. It is explained at
considerable length, in this same _Morphologie_.’
[21] _The Poems and Prose Remains of Arthur Hugh Clough_, vol. ii. p. 472.
[22] _Science in Theology._ Sermons preached before the University of
Oxford. By the Rev. Adam S. Farrar. Longmans.
[23] _Contemporary Review_ for April 1871.
[24] It should be stated that this essay was originally read as a paper
before a society which discusses subjects of a metaphysical nature.
[25] _Contemporary Review_ for April 1874.
[26] [This paper originally appeared in the _Economist_ on the occasion
of the adoption by the Government of the late Mr. Russell Gurney’s Public
Worship Regulation Bill. It is here included as a telling practical
illustration of the teaching of the previous essay.—EDITOR.]