Memorial to such a body as the Royal Commission. I believe there are
some who think it improper to memorialize the Commissioners, as if it
were like petitioning a judge to convict or acquit a prisoner placed upon
his trial before him. Of course, if the cases were parallel, it would be
most improper and indecent. But a moment’s reflection will shew the
difference. The Commission is not a court of justice at all. It has no
judicial functions at all. There is no more objection to memorializing
it than there is to petitioning Parliament. It is a body of men
appointed to collect evidence, and afterwards to give an opinion as to
what is expedient. It is then in the very nature of things, of high
moment and importance that these Commissioners should know and understand
what large masses of earnest Churchmen are thinking and feeling, whilst
they are finding their way to their recommendations. It is a duty upon
us to let them know what these feelings are, and what consequences are
likely to result to the Church, when we see their tendency, nay, _more
than tendency_, to lead an assault upon the Prayer Book. It is not only
not improper, but it is a part of high and holy duty, which we owe to
ourselves, to our Book of Common Prayer, to our faith, to the Church of
England, to Christendom at large—nay, to God, our Maker, Redeemer, and
Sanctifier, to say openly and plainly, solemnly and earnestly, “We will
have no tampering with our faith; we will have no altering our Prayer
Book; we will have no legislation in this matter of Ritual;” and this all
the more; all the more deeply felt, the more strongly urged, _became_ we
see that this is a wholly one-sided movement. We hear of no restraint or
restriction, no new Canons or new enactments, when men fall short of the
requirements of the Church and the Church’s law; when churches are closed
from Sunday to Sunday; when Christ’s people are starved and stinted of
their spiritual food and sustenance by few and far-distant communions;
when Services and Lessons are altered, and Services garbled and curtailed
at the will of this or that priest. Nay, we hear of no “simple and
positive enactments,” even when men within the Church’s pale deny the
inspiration of the Holy Scriptures; impute absolute ignorance to Christ
our Lord, the ever-blessed Son of God; as, that He did not know as much
about the authorship of the Pentateuch, or the date of certain of the
Psalms, or other facts concerning the Holy Scriptures, as modern doctors
could tell Him; none, when we hear denied the possibility of miracles;
none, when we find explained away and rejected the duration without end
of Hell; none, when it is maintained that we ought not to pray to the Son
of God. I say that upon these subjects we hear of no Royal commissions,
no Bishop’s charges recommending new enactments; no impending legislation
to place such teaching under the disability of “_abeyance_” even “until
further order be taken;” but here, where the law of the Church as to
ceremonies and vestments (things no doubt important, because no doubt
representing doctrine and connected with it, but certainly not more
important than those other subjects to which I have alluded), but here,
where these ceremonies and vestments, are the objects of ignorant clamour
and brutal violence, the Prayer Book is to be altered, and new law is to
be made, actually to put a penalty on those who have been guilty only of
the crime of obeying it as it is.
And here I must say a word as to such alteration of the law, if made,
being what one of the resolutions passed at St. James’s Hall termed it,
_ex post facto_ legislation. A good deal has been said upon this topic,
and we are told that if you call such legislation _ex post facto_, then
all legislation is such, when it forbids for the future what has been
permitted in the past; and we are reminded that the true sense of _ex
__post facto_ legislation is when a penalty is placed, by a new law, upon
acts done before the law was altered. Now first let me remark that, even
without coming exactly up to the definition, you yet draw very near to
the substance of _ex post facto_ legislation if you make a one-sided
change to catch only one side or one party whom you make offenders under
the new law, and when it is a law framed expressly and on purpose to
catch the men on one side and let the others go free. Whether this be
technically _ex post facto_ or not, it comes exactly to that which, in a
passage already quoted from the Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol’s
Charge, is described by him as likely to cause “rankling bitterness, from
the thus greatly increased conviction that the law is really in favour of
those to be restrained; and being so, is overridden by an _unjust Act of
Parliament_.” But, secondly, there is another way in which such an
enactment would come very near indeed to _ex post facto_ legislation—I
mean where it disturbs a great settlement of many years’ standing, which
has induced men to enter into numerous and weighty engagements, from
which you cannot free them if you would, when you change their _status_
in relation to their obligations. To take an illustration. The country
has entered into such a kind of contract with the fundholder. Millions
are embarked in the Funds upon the faith of a great settlement the
principles of which shall never be departed from; and to depart from
which would be _ex post facto_ legislation, practically putting a penalty
upon those who had come under voluntary obligations upon the strength of
those principles and that settlement. But it may be said, nevertheless,
the country does sometimes vary the contracts and alter the rate of
interest towards its creditors. Yes! but what would be thought of the
minister who proposed to do this, without offering, as the alternative,
to pay the lender off in full; to replace him in the position in which he
stood originally? And if, without offering this, he proposed to alter
his _status_, who would not feel there was an unjust _ex post facto_
alteration of the law? Now, upon such a great, just, and deliberate
settlement, have men entered into relations with the established Church
of this country. And here the State _cannot_ set them free, or replace
them in the position in which they stood before they accepted the cure of
souls within her pale. The Legislature _cannot_ give them the
alternative offer: and therefore, again, such a change as alters the
Catholic standing of the Church of England must come very near indeed to
being _ex post facto_ legislation. But yet further, thirdly, there is
another consideration which brings this case exactly within the strictest
definition of _ex post facto_ legislation. I mean the affixing a penalty
by new enactment upon acts done before the law was changed. Observe, all
penalty is not material; not restricted to fine or suspension. There is
the penalty of stigma and imputed dishonesty, as real and as hard to bear
in many cases as other punishment. Now, it needs no great foresight or
wisdom to perceive that if the law of Ritual shall be altered in the
sense and mode proposed, this very thing will be used as a stigma and
brand of disloyalty to the Church of England against those men who have
been High Ritualists. It is true it might be, and in my judgment, ought
to be, read the other way. It ought to be taken as a proof that the
existing law being in their favour, those who could not endure the law
got it altered. But, from the whole tone and temper of the objectors, it
is clear this would not be their line. They tell us even now, over and
over again, with the outstretched throat of clamour, and with the utmost
violence of passion, that all such are false to the principles of the
Reformation; are dishonest and disloyal to their Church; are not to be
endured in a Protestant Establishment. It is clear, then, that they
would proclaim the new legislation to be merely _declaratory of_ the
existing law; not admit that it _changed_ it; and so the enactment would
be used as a fresh ground of obloquy and reproach against those whom
their opponents could not convict of any crime, but whom they would thus
be allowed, nevertheless to condemn. Such a stigma, such a penalty
placed by legislation upon acts done before the change of law, and upon
the persons who had done them, would bring such change of law under the
definition, in the strictest sense, of _ex post facto_ legislation.
But now to return. Let me explain the position which I am throughout
maintaining. I have not been speaking as the advocate of high Ritual. I
do not understand the aim of the great meeting held last week in St.
James’s Hall to be this advocacy; nor do I so understand the Memorial to
be laid before the Commissioners. It is not to defend high Ritual in
itself, however incidentally Ritual may be affected; but it is to defend
the Prayer Book. It is to preserve our present _status_. It is to allow
no door to be shut upon the Catholic side, whilst all are left open on
the Latitudinarian. It is to preserve an outwork which defends
doctrine—dearer than life to many among us. It is to keep all which
God’s providence has given us in our Reformation and subsequent
Revisions. It is to preserve our character and place in the face of
Christendom; it is to shew our loving memory and gratitude for all which
our blessed Lord has done for us, and is still doing at the right hand of
God, that we will not consent to have this our heritage mutilated or
taken from us. And surely in this all Churchmen who believe the ancient
Catholic Faith are interested with us, Ritualist or non-Ritualist. I am
not myself a Ritualist in the sense of using any of the higher forms of
ritual, ceremonial, or vesture. I believe indeed, and who that believes
the doctrine so represented, but _must_ believe, that England would be in
a higher, holier, and happier state, if, not neglecting one other point
of holiness, humility, repentance, or faith, yet, I say, if all among us
longed for and delighted in the higher and fuller expression of the
faith. But I do not think this fuller expression is to be forced on
those who are unprepared for it. I believe in many cases this would
hinder rather than help the doctrine. And I have been accustomed to
consider that the _abeyance_ of much of the usage (I take the term in its
true sense of a practical discontinuance, not of a legal forbidding,
which is the repeal or extinction of a thing), that such abeyance may
well justify us in not harshly shocking prejudices or wounding feelings;
and, therefore, certainly it is not as a mere movement in support of the
higher forms of ritual that I am addressing you:—but I ask this;—What is
the object of our opponents? Assuredly not merely to put down vestments,
or put out candles, or extinguish incense; but to drive out of the Church
of England the whole doctrine which those things represent; to expel
every one, whether Ritualist or not, who holds and teaches it; to run
riot in the destruction of every vestige of faith in the Real Presence,
in the Priesthood, the Altar, and the Sacrifice. The papers of the
Church Association (_passim_), the writings of the whole anti-Ritualistic
world, who are also the anti-Sacerdotal party, from the well-known noisy
and ignorant correspondents of the _Times_ to the miserable man who so
lately has shocked every feeling of decency in his, at first, most
impertinent, and, at last, most blasphemous, correspondence with and
concerning the late revered Bishop of Lichfield; all such proclaim this
as their aim and end, with open mouth and outstretched throat. If you
ask for an example, take the following brief passage brought before the
English Church Union at its anniversary meeting in June last, by Mr.
Charles Wood in his excellent speech on that occasion. He said—“In an
article that appeared in one of the periodicals, which is most
conspicuous in its attacks upon Ritual—I mean _Frazer’s Magazine_—I
found, in one of its last year’s numbers, this, ‘There is no use in
taking half-measures. As long as the Ordination Service remains as it
is, Ritualism will always be cropping up. The real remedy is to alter a
single rubric. Forbid the imposition of hands, and then we shall get rid
of Ritualism once and for all.’” {41} Surely such language as this, and
it is the very staple of the fierce opponents of Ritual, should open the
eyes of all Churchmen as to what it is, (that it is really vital
doctrine,) for which we have to contend. I say, then, that the present
contest and crisis touches every Churchman, Ritualist or not, who
believes the higher doctrine. Nay, it touches every one, Ritualist or
not, who does not desire to see the comprehensive character of the Church
of England narrowed, in a party sense, and for a party purpose. It
touches all who agree with what the Dean of Norwich lately said at
Wolverhampton, that it would be an immense and incalculable evil if one
great school of thought in the Church of England were to drive the other
out of her (though, by the way, I think he did not note what surely in
justice he should have noted, that it is only on the one side that this
desire for expulsion has been expressed). It touches in short all who
desire to let law and reason have fair play against clamour and violence;
all who will stand _by_ and _for_ the Prayer Book as it is. Let us all
join hand and heart in averting the present danger, and in defending our
heritage. Oh! if I may say it, believe me, friends, there has been no
such crisis as now is in our Church, in our day at least.
Bear with me a few moments longer whilst I confirm what I have said by a
better warrant than any word of mine. In the year 1865, he whose name is
perhaps more revered among us than any name of at least this century—he
whose memory is “as galbanum, and onyx, and sweet storax, and as the fume
of frankincense in the tabernacle,” the “sweet singer” of our
Israel—wrote and published some thoughts upon Ritual, and the doctrine
represented by it, and the growing opposition to it. In almost, as it
seems, a spirit of prophecy, speaking of the very matter now in
question—a proposal for legislation, touching thereby the integrity of
the Prayer Book—he said:—“It professes, indeed, to meddle with one rubric
only, but it involves the same prerogative over all, and that which it
specifies is one of the most important and comprehensive, bearing
directly on one vital doctrine, and through that, as theologians know,
upon the whole Creed of the Church. And what is more, those who promote
the movement openly avow that their object is thus comprehensive . . .
They frankly own their purpose to be, not simple reformation of that one
rubric, but the discomfiture at all points of a rival section in the
Church.” He adds:—“It is well perhaps that they have declared themselves
so openly. It may put many on their guard who might otherwise have
supported them at least passively, as not liking the special usages
complained of, or as fearful of their being revived where they would
cause disturbance. Whoever after this their plain speaking shall join in
their movement must be aware that he is committing himself to a one-sided
policy, which ultimately displacing those who are called Tractarians or
the like, will quite overthrow the sort of equilibrium which for many
years has providentially subsisted among us.” {43a}
So clearly did John Keble see that the attempt to alter that one rubric
on ornaments was a matter of most vital importance to Sacramental
doctrine. And if he spoke thus when the plan referred to was but in its
infancy, and the danger more remote, need anyone be told what he would
advise now? Truly, “he being dead yet speaketh.” Who is there that will
not hear? {43b}
He adds this yet further, well worthy of our most heartfelt
contemplation:—“And if we look beyond our own country, as surely we are
bound to do, certain it is that such a decree” (_i.e._, an Act of
Parliament altering the rubric), “not only submitted to but promoted and
solicited by the Convocation of the Province of Canterbury, would
effectually quench, for the time at least, all the fond hopes of reunion
among Christians which just now appear to be dawning on us in various
quarters. For, undoubtedly of all doctrines, that of the Eucharistic
Sacrifice is the one on which in the eyes both of East and West our
Catholicity would appear most questionable. A _hair’s-breadth_ more of
wavering on that point would seem to them, I fear, an entire forfeiture
of our position.” Oh, how noble and catholic an aspiration after a
reunion with East and West, and how just an appreciation of what would
vitally affect, adversely, the hope and prospect of it! How different
from the narrow sectarianism which would boast of our isolation, and,
cavilling at everything, can see only an overture to Rome in an
“Eirenicon” to Christendom. O that our Convocations may hear and heed
such warning words, and stand firm, whatever trial comes! Let me hope,
let me pray, that all true Churchmen, Ritualists or not, will here throw
themselves into the gap, and raise a bulwark against tampering with our
Prayer Book. The outwork may be the rubric on ornaments, but, “as
theologians know,” it is the Creed which is really at stake, through an
altered Book of Common Prayer. We must defend the outwork to defend the
citadel. We must one and all make our voice heard against change here,
either directly or indirectly, either explicitly or implicitly, either by
Convocation or by Parliament, or by both together. Better our
Convocations were silenced again for a hundred years, if any minister of
the Crown would venture to silence them (which I shall not believe until
I see it), than that they should lend themselves to alter our Prayer Book
and impair its catholicity. But to strengthen the hands of all who have
power or influence herein, we must be prompt, energetic, valiant, wise.
Believe me it is not a question of shapes or colours. It is not a
question of supporting the Ritualists, though incidentally their position
may be supported. But it is the question of not losing one jot or tittle
of what God’s providence has given us. And to preserve what we have is
essential to our work at home and to our place in Christendom. We cannot
afford to give away our birthright. We cannot afford to be diverted by
any _bye_ enquiries or cavils. The real question is the preservation
intact in its integrity of our Book of Common Prayer, and with it of
Catholic doctrine and truth among us.
I have used the term—our place in Christendom. Let me add a word or two
more upon this. English Churchmen, I fear, are too apt to overlook that
we are but a small part of the Church Universal, and that our aspirations
should ever be that “the unhappy divisions” which now prevail in it may
be healed, and the Church again be _one_ (according to our Blessed Lord’s
Prayer), that indeed “the world may believe that God hath sent Him.”
Now, with this feeling and this hope in our hearts, we must never allow
ourselves to forget that there is such a thing as an Œcumenical Council
of Christendom, and whatever the difficulties may be in the way of its
assembling, I believe to it all true hearts should turn. Certainly, for
myself, I can say that this, as the great remedy for all our troubles and
distractions, and “not for ours only,” but for those of Christendom at
large, has been constantly present to my mind for many years. That God
in His mercy, and in His own good time, would grant us a true General
Council to ease and compose our differences, and to restore the unity of
Christendom,—and, if it come, grant us all the due mind of submission to
it,—has been for nearly or quite a quarter of a century, a portion of my
daily prayer; and I think there is no ground to decry the petition as
either fanciful or wrong. At least we have the warrant of some of great
name among us who have not thought so. “That I might live to see the
reunion of Christendom,” says Archbishop Bramhall, “is a thing for which
I shall always bow the knees of my heart to the Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ . . . Howsoever it be,” he adds, “I submit myself and my poor
endeavours first to the judgment of the Catholic Œcumenical essential
Church, which, if some of late days have endeavoured to hiss out of the
schools, as a fancy, I cannot help it. From the beginning it was not so.
. . . Likewise I submit myself to the representative Church—that is, a
free General Council, or so general as can be procured; and until then to
the Church of England, wherein I was baptized, or to a National English
Synod.” {45}
It may be supposed, indeed, that a general or Œcumenical Council is at
present hopeless, and therefore that all mention or thought of an appeal
to it is out of place; but I do not think this, for two reasons—first,
that there are certain points of doctrine which have been so definitely
ruled by General Councils and consent of Christendom that we know upon
them there could be no diverse judgment; and, secondly, that I see no
cause to despair of another such Council in God’s good time being called
together. Even in the meanwhile the thought of, and habitual mental
reference to, such a Council is neither impertinent nor unpractical; for
the remembrance and sense of its authority, and the even mental
submission of the will to its rule, has the strongest tendency to keep a
man wholly catholic in heart and act. An English Churchman should _live_
in the thought and in the hope of the voice of Christendom being again
uttered with no uncertain sound as to matters of perplexity and doubt.
Even “though it tarry, he will wait for it,” and in the meanwhile the
thought of it will bear its fruit. Thus, whatever he does, and is
obliged to do, without the actual presence of such a guide, will be done,
not on the mere impulse of his own will, or the bent of his own mind, but
always in relation to what Christendom has definitely ruled, and in
implicit submission to what she will again say when she may meet once
more in a free and General Council. Anyone so living, trusting,
believing, acting, will never be a schismatic, and cannot be a heretic.
But I do believe we shall never, till we get to look out of ourselves to
Christendom at large; never, till we remember our due place in it; never,
till we are ready to accept its decrees (when God sees Christendom fit to
give them); never till then, shall we be in that right mind and heart
which is waiting duly for the Bridegroom’s call.
I am quite prepared to have such remarks called visionary and unreal, and
all dependance upon, nay, all reference to, the Universal Church,
unpractical and absurd. But none of these things move me, and I am
(though, I trust, no fanatic) yet hopeful of the help of God for those
who will try to help themselves. As I have said, I cannot think the
expectation of a General Council is chimerical. I cannot believe, if it
come, it will be useless. We have no right, of course, to expect any
supernatural interposition or handwriting visibly on the wall to direct
us in our difficulties. But I have faith enough in miracles, if that be
one, to believe that God may grant us the miracle of Christendom again in
Council, and make it the means to heal all our distempers and bind up all
our wounds. Of this faith and this hope no man shall deprive me by the
mere calculations of human policy, or by the perverse promptings of an
uncatholic despair. But let us all watch and pray, and work with the
help of God, to preserve our true catholic heritage and place, lest, when
it meet, it should meet to condemn us. But this we will never believe
can come upon us until we see, which God forbid, our Church faithless to
God and to herself in the face of Christendom.
Our immediate work, our present duty, is indeed on a narrower scale and
in a smaller sphere, yet not without an eye to these further
consequences. It is to maintain our catholic _status_; and in order to
this, to make it plain to all, friends and foes alike, that we will stand
by our Prayer Book, and never consent to alter in an uncatholic direction
one jot or tittle of that which it contains.
* * * * *
FINIS.
* * * * *
Printed by the Church Press Company, 13, Burleigh-street, Strand.
FOOTNOTES.
{6} _Charge_, p. 75.
{7} _Report_, p. vii.
{13} See _History of Savoy Conference_: Collier, Vol. ii. pp. 876–886.
{15} _Report_, p. vii.
{16} If the Commissioners should justify their thus reporting on things
not essential, in the face of the very letter of their instructions, by
saying that they understand the term essential to be _relative_;
essential, not necessarily to the _Being_, but to the _well-being_ of the
Church, and that the repression of the vestments is, in their mind, thus
relatively essential; it occurs immediately to ask, why, if they were
thus so quickwitted to perceive this sense of relative essentiality on
their own side, were they so obtuse in seeing that the same construction
should equally be allowed to the witnesses examined, in their use of the
word essential on the other side?