{6} Second Letter, p. 4.
{8} The above was written several weeks before Mr. Maskell took the
final step which he has since taken. Possibly many will point to this,
and wonder at my blind credulity, as it will seem to them. But, I
neither cancel, nor wish to cancel, any part of my remarks. All I will
venture to do, is to add (and I trust I shall have Mr. Maskell’s
forgiveness, under these peculiar circumstances, for quoting from a
private letter) one or two extracts which may perhaps help to justify
what I have said, and do him at the same time no wrong. In a letter to
me, bearing date, “Easter Eve, 1850,” not long before the publication of
the “Second Letter,” he says—“I wish, for my own present comfort, that I
had your _now_ faith, hope, trust and determination; but I have _not_—yet
let me think that we may yet be, as we ever have been, true friends; you
will not repudiate me, even if I do find that for a while we must be
separate in communion; for you will know, surely, that I am not one who
‘would change his faith like a garment unsuited to the clime in which he
dwells.’ . . . All this is sad enough—sad for it will break up many ties
near and very dear. . . . Well! it is God’s will—now one, now another;
here a few; there many: as He sees fit, so He calls, and so we _ought_ to
obey. . . . I am very, very sad: sad especially, because of seeming to
desert and forsake one acting so nobly and so bravely as my Bishop. _He_
has no doubt about the Church of England: yet _I_ know that, at whatever
cost and pain, God’s truth alone must be fought for. Yet for all this,
do not conclude that I have _decided_:—only, you will be prepared to know
that the first step has been taken, I mean resignation—and with it my
second letter. . . . Pray do not judge me harshly. . . . What an
Easter! yet one day there will be the rising of the morning of the
resurrection: may God grant to you and me, and all whom we love, so to do
our duty here towards him, and to his Church, and to the faith, that we
may be _glad_ to look upon the brightness of those beams. Here all seems
trouble and anxiety and fear; sorrows, and regret, and parting. I have
had sorrows before this: scarcely any, nay NONE, (_can_ it be true?) more
bitter. There is now responsibility; before, endurance only. God ever
bless you, my dear Friend, ever yours affectionately—W. M.” And in a
letter somewhat later, written I believe on my first intimating my
intention to publish a second letter to him: he says—“Clear up these
doubts; not one or two, but generally the subject of the dogmatic
teaching; say, especially, with reference to justification and the Holy
Eucharist, and no man will bless you more fervently than I shall.” Those
who do not know Mr. Maskell may judge him hardly. I trust I shall never
have that guilt upon my conscience, however I differ from him, or combat
his conclusions. And perhaps some even of those who may have been least
indulgent to him heretofore, will not now so much question my remarks,
and may possibly believe I know him at least as well as they do.
{10} Second Letter, p., 77.
{12} Second Letter, App., p., 85.
{13} Second Letter, App., pp., 85, 86.
{14a} Letter to Maskell, p. 7.
{14b} Ibid. pp. 14, 15.
{15} See Appendix A.
{18} Second Letter, pp. 78, 79.
{20} Second Letter, p. 19, note; p. 75.
{21} Judgment of the Privy Council, p. 18.
{22a} Judgment of the Privy Council, p. 18.
{22b} Appendix B.
{23} Lord Campbell’s first letter to Miss Sellon, Guardian, April 17th.
{24} Lord Campbell in his second letter to Miss Sellon, (Guardian, Ap.
17,) has these words, which are likewise remarkable. “No reproach can be
brought upon her (the Church of England) by a misconstruction of her
articles and formularies; and it must be a very slight reproach to her if
she has omitted to denounce one false doctrine as heretical, considering
that no Christian Church has professed to settle dogmatically all points
of doctrine.” The beginning of this sentence is a tolerably bold
assumption, I think, unless Lord Campbell will allow a few words to be
supplied, to explain what I trust he will feel to be an omission; that no
reproach will come upon her, by a misconstruction of her formularies, by
that court, _if only with all her heart and soul_, _she set herself to
correct it_, _and cast the misconstruction from her_: but the latter part
of the above quotation seems to admit of no palliation by any possible
addition, and is surely a most marvellous slip for a mind of any
acuteness to have made. “_A very slight reproach_,” Lord Campbell says
it must be, “_to have omitted to denounce one false doctrine as
heretical_;” without apparently a single thought as to _what_ the
doctrine in question may be. That it is an article of the creed which is
expunged, and therefore denied, appears never to have crossed his
Lordship’s mind, as worthy of the slightest consideration. “It is _but
one_ doctrine out of many:—reckon them up by tale, and you will never
miss _one_:—no Churches settle _everything_:—why then so uneasy?” What
hope, what possible chance that a mind constituted so as to be _able_ to
write such a sentence, can ever have appreciated, or believed, or
understood, the meaning or importance of dogmatic teaching at all. Had
he lived in the time of the Arian controversy, could the writer of the
above sentence have believed it was possible any matter of moment was, or
could be, involved in so minute a distinction as in the two letters of
the ὁμοούσιον, that it _could_ be worth the toil of Athanasius’s life, to
contend for so slight a point? and repay all the labours and persecutions
of a host of saints to win it? and in truth Lord Campbell’s method of
arguing, or consolation to an afflicted Church, would apply just as much,
had it been the doctrine of the atonement, or of the divinity of the Son
of God, which had been brought in question by Mr. Gorham’s examination.
“No need to settle every thing. So _one_ open question can be no great
matter, and no great reproach!”
{27a} Judgment, p. 8.
{27b} Judgment, p. 9.
{28a} Bp. of Exeter’s Letter, p. 52.
{28b} Efficacy of Baptism, p. 85.
{28c} P. 88.
{28d} P. 112.
{28e} P. 113.
{29} P. 197.
{30a} Judgment, p. 14.
{30b} Ibid. 14.
{31} A letter in the Guardian, of March 13th, signed “Solicitus,” has
placed this statement in a very intelligible point of view. As it is
brief I will venture to quote it.
“It has been asserted by the Privy Council that the baptismal and
burial offices are parallel cases:—we _hope_ that the child is
regenerate: we _hope_ the dead brother is to rise to eternal life?
“But are the cases parallel? Is it not a notorious fact, that at the
Savoy Conference in consequence of the Puritan objections, the words
‘in sure and certain hope of resurrection to eternal life’ were
altered into ‘in sure and certain hope of _the_’ (i.e. the general)
‘resurrection to eternal life.’ And on the other hand when the words
‘it hath pleased thee to regenerate this infant by thy Holy Spirit,’
were objected to by the same parties (on the ground that the
‘regeneration of every child that is baptised,’ is at least’ a
‘disputable point,’) no alteration was made. How came this to pass?
Surely the Church of England wanted to show that her language with
regard to the dead was only that of charitable hope; but that she
held the doctrine of regeneration in baptism absolutely and without
qualification.—Yours, faithfully,
“SOLICITUS.”
As I have said, the notion of the general resurrection being the object
of the hope alluded to, appears never to have presented itself to the
mind of the Court. If it did not; where was their ability? If it did;
where their honesty; so entirely to suppress all mention of it, and
_force_ this service to one construction only, in order to open the door
to many constructions in another?
{33} Faery Queen, Book I. C. IX. St. 43.
{34a} See Appendix C.
{34b} Judgment of Sir H. J. Fust, p. 48.
{34c} Office for Private Baptism of Infants.
{35a} Office for Private Baptism of Infants. See also Appendix D.
{35b} Badeley’s Speech, pp. 58, 59.
{36a} Judgment, p. 16.
{36b} Ibid.
{37a} See Bishop of Exeter’s Letter, p. 88.
{37b} Judgment, p. 17.
{38} Judgment, p. 17.
{40} Rubric in Office for private Baptism.
{42} It is obvious, _sanctified_, or _hath sanctified_ would not express
the sense intended; just as the Holy Ghost who _comforted_, or _hath
comforted_, would not convey the meaning of the words “_The Holy Ghost_”
(who is,) “_the Comforter_.”
{46} “In any ordinary set of circumstances, in the case of an enclosure,
of a railway or matter of property, we should have no question whatever
that the doubt of any one on the bench would have made further enquiry
desirable. I should instantly have agreed, &c.” Lord Denman’s judgement
in the Hampden case; Report of the Case of the Right Rev. R. D. Hampden,
D.D. by R. Jebb, Esq. p. 495. See also Appendix E.
{48} Appendix F.
{50} Maskell on Absolution, p. 49.
{51} Maskell’s Doctrine of Absolution, pp. 49, 50.
{52} Maskell’s Doctrine of Absolution, pp. 50, 51.
{54} Maskell’s Second Letter, pp. 41, 42.
{59a} It may be worth while to observe here also how entirely this
principle is acknowledged in the foundations of English law. I should
indeed soon get beyond my depth, were I to attempt an analysis of this
part of the subject; but I gladly avail myself of the labours of another
whose pen and legal knowledge the present crisis has put in motion, to
bring into juxtaposition with my own observations, one or two of the
acknowledged maxims by which the construction of legal documents among us
is governed. Mr. Chambers, {59b} in his recent letter to the Bishop of
Salisbury, has several times referred to this subject. Thus he quotes
Mr. Dwarris (himself quoting Lord Coke):—
“To know what the common law was before the making of a statute,
whereby it may be seen whether the statute be introductory of a new
law, or only affirmatory of the common law, is the very lock and key
to open the windows of the statute. For it is not to be presumed
that the Legislature intended to make any innovation upon the common
law further than the case absolutely required; the law rather infers
_that the act did not intend to make any alteration other than what
is specified_, _and beside what has been plainly pronounced_: for if
the Parliament had had that design, _it is naturally said they would
have expressed it_.” {60a}
It appears to me that in some sense, i.e. in reference, at any rate, to
posterior legislation, _the pre-reformation doctrines_ may be called the
_common law_ of our Church; and if so, we shall readily see the analogy
of the civil law, and the authoritative declaration of its rule of
construction of statutes, is, that no alteration is made by subsequent
enactments, _but what is specified_, or _beside what is plainly
pronounced_;—that is to say, what is not “openly, plainly, and
dogmatically” altered, remains as it was before. To the same purpose
exactly Mr. Chambers adds another passage, stating again “the canon of
construction appropriate to statutes,” and again quoting Mr. Dwarris:—
“Affirmative words do not take away the common law, former custom, or
a former statute.” {60b}