=Source.=--_Hansard_, “Debates,” vol. 221, p. 78.
_Speech on Public Worship Regulation Bill._
I look upon the existence of parties in the Church as a necessary and
beneficial consequence. They have always existed even from Apostolic
times; they are a natural development of the religious sentiment in
man; and they represent fairly the different conclusions at which, upon
subjects that are the most precious to him, the mind of man arrives.
Ceremony, enthusiasm, and free speculation are the characteristics
of the three great parties in the Church, some of which have modern
names, and which the world is too apt to imagine are in their character
original. The truth is that they have always existed in different
forms or under different titles. Whether they are called High Church
or Low Church or Broad Church, they bear witness, in their legitimate
bounds, to the activity of the religious mind of the nation, and in
the course of our history this country is deeply indebted to the
exertions and the energy of all those parties. The High Church party,
totally irrespective of its religious sentiment, fills a noble page in
the history of England, for it has vindicated the liberties of this
country in a memorable manner; no language of mine can describe the
benefits which this country has experienced from the exertions of the
Evangelical school at the commencement of this century; and in the case
of the Broad Church it is well that a learned and highly disciplined
section of the clergy should show at the present day that they are
not afraid of speculative thought, or are appalled by the discoveries
of science. I hold that all these schools of religious feeling can
pursue their instincts consistently with a faithful adherence to
the principles and practices of the Reformation as exhibited and
represented in its fairest and most complete form--the Church of
England. I must ask myself, What then, sir, is the real object of the
Bill? and I will not attempt to conceal my impressions upon it, for I
do not think that our ability to arrive at a wise decision to-day will
be at all assisted by a mystical dissertation on the subject-matter
of it. I take the primary object of this Bill, whose powers, if it
be enacted, will be applied and extended impartially to all subjects
of Her Majesty, to be this--to put down Ritualism. The right hon.
gentleman the Member for Greenwich [Mr. Gladstone] says he does not
know what Ritualism is, but there I think the right hon. gentleman is
in an isolated position. That ignorance is not shared by the House of
Commons or by the country. What the House and the country understand by
Ritualism is--practices of a portion of the clergy, avowedly symbolic
of doctrines, which the same clergy are bound in the most solemn manner
to refute and repudiate. Therefore, I think there can be no mistake
among practical men as to what is meant when we say that it is our
desire to discourage Ritualism....
Believing as I do that those principles [those of the Reformation] were
never so completely and so powerfully represented as by the Church
of England; believing that without the authority, the learning, the
wealth, and the independence of the Church of England, the various
sects of the Reformation would by this time have dwindled into nothing,
I called the attention of the country, so far as I could, to the
importance of rallying around the institution of the Church of England,
based upon those principles of the Reformation which that Church
was called into being to represent.... I wish most sincerely that
all should understand that, if I make the slightest allusion to the
dogmas and ceremonies which are promulgated by the English Ritualists,
I am anxious not to make a single observation which could offend
the convictions of any hon. gentleman in this House. Whether those
doctrines which were quoted from authoritative writings apply to the
worship of the Virgin, to the Confessional, or to the various subjects
which were quoted by the hon. Member, so long as those doctrines are
held by Roman Catholics, I am prepared to treat them with reverence;
but what I object to is that they should be held by Ministers of our
Church, who, when they enter the Church, enter it at the same time with
a solemn contract with the nation that they will oppose those doctrines
and utterly resist them. What I do object to is Mass in masquerade.
To the solemn ceremonies of our Roman Catholic friends I am prepared
to extend that reverence which my mind and conscience always give to
religious ceremonies sincerely believed in; but the false position in
which we have been placed by, I believe, a small but a powerful and
well-organised body of those who call themselves English clergymen in
copying these ceremonies, is one which the country thinks intolerable,
and of which we ought to rid ourselves.