Transcribed from the 1841 J. S. Gowing edition by David Price.
A LETTER
TO THE
REV. CHARLES N. WODEHOUSE,
CANON OF NORWICH,
OCCASIONED BY HIS RECENT PUBLICATION,
ENTITLED,
“WHAT IS THE MEANING OF SUBSCRIPTION?”
WITH A FEW
OBSERVATIONS ON THE SPEECH
&c.
OF THE
LORD BISHOP OF NORWICH,
ON
SUBSCRIPTION.
BY THE REV. CHARLES CAMPBELL,
VICAR OF WEASENHAM.
* * * * *
LONDON:
J. G. AND F. RIVINGTON.
MATCHETT, STEVENSON, AND MATCHETT, NORWICH;
AND
J. S. GOWING, SWAFFHAM.
1841.
_Price Two Shillings_.
* * * * *
“The Liturgy of the Church of England hath advantages, so many and so
considerable, as not only to raise itself above the devotions of
other Churches, but to endear the affections of all good people to be
in love with Liturgies in general . . . The Rubrics of it were wrote
in the blood of some of the compilers, men famous in their
generation, whose reputation and glory of martyrdom, hath made it
immodest for the best of men now to compare themselves with them.
And its composure is so admirable, that the most industrious arts of
its enemies can scarce find out an objection of value enough to make
a doubt, or scarce a scruple in a serious spirit . . . There are also
in the Offices forms of solemn Absolution and Benediction, and if
they be not highly considerable, there is nothing sacred in the
Evangelical Ministry, but the Altars themselves are made of
unhallowed turf.”
_Bishop Jeremy Taylor_.
A LETTER,
ETC.
DEAR SIR,
It was hoped that the little excitement occasioned by the debate of last
Session on a petition to the House of Lords for some alteration of our
Articles and Liturgy, had been suffered to subside; and it was with
regret we received the announcement of your recent publication, entitled
“What is the meaning of Subscription?”
I am not aware that any of the clergy of this Diocese, during the last
nine years, that is from the date of your first publication on this
subject, namely, “_A Petition to the House of Lords for Ecclesiastical
Improvements with Explanations_,” have shewn any disposition to
intermeddle with your proceedings, or to “condemn you for doing the best
you could in your own cause,” singular as they may have thought, and
_singular_ as you admit to have been “the mode adopted by you to obtain
your object.” {1}
Whatever they may have thought, they have hitherto been silent,
influenced I am persuaded more by feelings of respect for your personal
character, than from conviction of the strength of your position and the
consequent weakness of their own. I can answer for myself, and I am
satisfied that I am speaking the general sense of the clergy of the
Diocese, in saying that they not only could, but had it been from any
circumstances necessary, would have borne their ready and willing
testimony to the truth and faithfulness of the eulogy pronounced by your
Diocesan on your “character and conduct as a clergyman and a gentleman.”
They must naturally therefore be the more inclined to wish that it had
consisted with your views to stop short of a public avowal that you could
not with any regard for “_truth and honesty_,” make the declaration to
which they hesitate not _ex animo_ to subscribe.
_Richard Baxter_ has said, “that many are apt to think that _this is
right_, because the best and strictest people are of this mind.” {2a}
With “many” therefore, your opinions will have their weight; and if the
Subscription of the clergy is to be judged by your views of it, their
situation would seem to be any thing but an enviable one.
And as these your views must seem to be strongly corroborated by the
congenial sentiments of our Diocesan; should I in the course of the
following observations, which I take the liberty of addressing to you,
hazard also a few remarks upon his Lordship’s reasons for deeming an
Expansion of Subscription desirable; I trust I shall find that I have not
been misled by your example, but that to me also, “it may be allowed to
differ from my superiors without disrespect or offence.” {2b}
Allow me then, to express my regret, that “res dura et regni _novitas_,”
as you may apply the royal excuse to your own _novel_ position, should
have compelled you to resort in your own case to a course you so
decidedly object to in others; more especially as you appear to have had
your misgivings, to have foreseen the possibility of “harm accruing from
it,” and very justly to have anticipated that the perusal of a
publication written with the object you appear to have had in view, would
“call forth a painful feeling in the minds of Christians and Churchmen.”
{3a}
“No one,” you say, “can object more decidedly than yourself to the common
practice of publishing correspondence between individuals on matters
relating merely to themselves.” {3b}
But the practice is usually resorted to by others, as it seems to have
been by yourself, under an impression that the publication is in some way
or other “important to their own defence.” {3c}
You would however, and naturally enough, persuade yourself that yours is
“a very different case,” a case “relating strictly to a _public
question_, one affecting the whole Church, and indeed all Christians in
the nation.” {3d}
I will not stay to enquire whether viewing it in this light, the voice of
the Church ought not to have been heard above your own. But I must think
that something more than you have advanced is requisite to constitute a
public question, and enable us to see the difference between your own
case and that of others, “who publish correspondence on matters _relating
merely to themselves_.”
It is true that your case has been publicly discussed in parliament, and
so has the case of many another individual; but I must think a
distinction is to be drawn between a person dragging his own affairs
before the public and a public affair; and any weight that you would
attach to the discussion you allude to, as giving to your case the
character and importance of a public question, may perhaps be lessened by
a consideration of the manner in which that discussion was brought about.
The Bishop of Lincoln rose, not to the question, but “at the particular
desire of the Rev. Mr. Wodehouse,” wishing to have his case brought into
notice; the Bishop of Norwich said that he “should not have risen, had
not the name of the Rev. Mr. Wodehouse been introduced;” and the Bishop
of London “would not have entered into the discussion, had it not been
for some observations which had escaped from the Bishop of Norwich.” _No
temporal Peer rose_. Strictly relating then as you would consider your
case to be a public question, there appeared but little indication of its
being so considered by the House of Lords, and as to the opinion of the
clergy, the Bishop of Lincoln observed, “I am not aware that any general
desire for such alterations exists, on the contrary, I believe, that
never did the great body of the clergy deprecate more strongly any change
in the Articles and Liturgy than at the present moment.”
The discussion however seems not a little to have disquieted you—but
having raised the whirlwind, though you have failed to guide it—ought you
not to have been less impatient of the storm?
Leniter ex merito quicquid patiare ferendum est.
It is difficult to believe that on calmer reflection, a mind like yours
will experience no uneasiness at the recollection of having endeavoured
to turn an _intended_ kindness to the prejudice of those who had
conferred it, and in that light all must view the evident wish on the
parts of the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Bishop of London, to
resolve your doubts, and as far as their private opinions could
avail—restore peace to your mind. I allude to the use you have made of
private conversations, I say _private_, for up to a certain time you
appear to have so considered the opinions that were then given you. “I
have been favoured,” you say in a letter to one of the Bishops, “with the
_private_ opinions of many persons I am _bound_ to respect.” {5a} I
admit that for your further satisfaction you received permission to
_mention_, or as you say “make known what passed at these
interviews.”—Still, although it would have made no difference as to the
permission granted, had they even contemplated such a circumstance; I
suspect that the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London, must
have felt a little surprised to find that their every word had straitly
been observed—
Set in a note book, conn’d and got by rote,
To cast into their teeth—_eleven years_ afterwards!
Yet, by the aid alone of these communications, you have endeavoured to
fix upon the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London the
following charge, namely, “that in the debate of the 26th of May, 1840,
his Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London more
decidedly endeavoured to crush the very idea of the _same latitude_,
which they had on other occasions most unequivocally allowed and
approved.” {5b}
I hesitate not for a moment to say that it is a charge unsupported even
by the shadow of a proof. And let us first examine your evidence as it
bears upon the Archbishop of Canterbury.
The points to which you direct our attention in substantiation of your
charge are these:—His Grace’s conversation in May, 1829—his letters of
May 12, 1830—and March 18, 1840—and his speech in the debate on the
Petition.
In his letter of March 18, 1840, his Grace says, “I shall be much
surprised if expressions are found in any letter of mine, which can be
_considered as an intended justification of your opinions_,” an
observation at variance, as you have persuaded yourself with his letter
of 1830, and his conversation with you in 1829.
In the first place I would submit that a distinction obtains between not
_condemning_ an opinion and _intending to justify_ it. It is possible
that his Grace may take higher views of the power committed to the
stewards of the mysteries of God than you do. But agreeing perhaps with
you that “the power of the keys” cannot as you have elsewhere observed,
be “_beyond a doubt_ defined.” {6a} His Grace might be unwilling to
condemn your lower views, but you could scarcely have construed this into
an _intended justification_ of them. He had besides told you “that the
absence of censure did not imply a tacit _acquiescence_ in your
opinions.” {6b}
But what was the latitude which his Grace thought fairly allowable, and
how far will it justify you in saying that in his speech he endeavoured
to crush the very idea of that _same_ latitude being allowed?
Your conversation with his Grace seems to have turned on the _three
points_ mentioned in your petition,—the Athanasian Creed, the Absolution,
and the words used in a part of the Ordination Service. Upon your
mentioning the different opinions given by various eminent writers of our
church as to the Athanasian Creed and its condemnatory clauses, his Grace
observed, “_Well_—_none of these opinions has been condemned_, _take
whichever suits your own views_, _and be satisfied_.” {7a} But you
cannot be satisfied, and although repeatedly told by his Grace, and also
by the Bishop of Lincoln, that you could not, so long as Convocation
remained in abeyance, obtain the _authoritative sense of the Church_ on
these points, you persist in pressing for it. To a request to this
effect conveyed in a letter to his Grace, you again refer to the subject
of your conversation. To this his Grace replies, “With respect to the
subject of your letter, I have only to refer you to our former
conversation, in which I expressed _an opinion_ that, on points where
writers of eminence have differed without slur on their orthodoxy, a
certain latitude of interpretation is fairly allowable. But with respect
to the _authoritative sense of the Church_ on the points mentioned in
your petition, no individual has a right to declare it, if it is a matter
of doubt: and if, during a long succession of years, some difference of
opinion is found among writers eminent for learning and piety, the
silence of the Church, under such circumstances, may be taken as an
indication of her unwillingness to abridge the liberty of her members on
_these points_.” {7b}
I can see nothing here like an _intended justification_ of your opinions.
His Grace would give you it appears _no decision_ in private, he nowhere
led you to infer that he even _approved_ of your opinions, and could
hardly have intended you to conclude that he meant to _justify_ them. He
tells you “he could not see how your position would be mended by an open
declaration of his opinion, _even if favourable_ to that exposition which
would suit your views,” {8} which seems at least to imply a doubt, and
where there is a doubt, the judge usually directs the jury to give the
prisoner the benefit of it, but this does not involve the judge’s
_approval_ or _intended justification_ of the prisoner’s case.
Yet this is all that his Grace admitted,—and to what had this admission a
reference? To a certain latitude of _interpretation_ allowable under
certain circumstances. And I think I can safely defy you to point out a
_solitary expression_ in his Grace’s speech on the 26th of May, 1840, in
which he attempts to evade this admission, or, in the language of your
accusation, “endeavours to crush the very idea of the _same_ latitude
which on other occasions he had unequivocally allowed and _approved_.”
His Grace’s _approval_ however is nowhere apparent.
His Grace addresses himself in his speech to the prayer of the petition,
“which he apprehends their Lordships will not countenance in the least
degree.” And what is the prayer? “It prays, amongst other things, your
Lordships to consider what measures ought to be adopted to make the
Prayer Book and the Subscription of the Liturgy consonant with the
_practice_ of the clergy, and the acknowledged meaning of the Articles of
the church.” And what is the imputed _practice_ of the clergy?
According to the statement of the petitioners it is their “general
practice to _deviate_ from the authorised _forms_ and _positive
obligations_ of the Church,”—when with reference to your own case, the
three points on which you consulted his Grace, you can prove that to
_deviate_ from or _omit_ the Athanasian Creed—the Absolution—and the
words used at the Imposition of Hands—is the _same_ latitude, which with
reference to their _interpretation_, he had thought fairly allowable.—You
may then boast that you have convicted the Spiritual Head of the Church
of inconsistency and duplicity, and no one will attempt to controvert
your insinuation that his Grace “has one opinion at Lambeth, and another
in the House of Lords.” {9a}
Your charge as it affects the Bishop of London, rests on similar
evidence. His Lordship’s conversation in 1829—a letter of 1830—and his
speech in 1840. You consulted his Lordship in 1829 on the same subjects,
and received in substance the same reply as had been given to you by the
Archbishop. And I can as confidently defy you to point out in his
Lordship’s speech in 1840, a passage that can give any colouring of
justice to your charge; unless you can shew that to deprecate an
_alteration_ of our Articles and Liturgy is the same thing as to admit
that certain parts of them may bear a difference of _interpretation_, or
show that there is no difference between an _existing_ “elasticity” and a
_further_ “expansion.”
Your evidence then, if anywhere, must be found in his Lordship’s letter
of 1830. The letter of which you complain to the Archbishop as “_unkind
and inconsistent with former advice_.” {9b}
But as you seem to me to have conversed with his Lordship on one subject,
and to have written to him, the following year, upon another, I do not
see how you make it appear that his Lordship’s letter was inconsistent
with his former advice.
It does not appear that you had asked his Lordship “in what sense you
would be expected to subscribe” _in future_, but whether _having
subscribed_, certain opinions which you had taken up, were consistent
with your Subscription. His Lordship thought that they were.
But nine months afterwards, on being called upon to _renew_ your
Subscription, you inform his Lordship that you had determined not to make
it again but with a sort of _protest_.—By Subscription, you are called
upon to declare that “the Book of Common Prayer and of ordering Bishops,
Priests, and Deacons, containeth in it nothing _contrary_ to the word of
God, and that the Articles are _agreeable_ to it:” but to this you will
not assent, unless you may at the same time be permitted to declare that
you do not believe it. You must explain, you tell his Lordship, the
sense in which you shall have no objection to subscribe, and that through
the medium of a petition to parliament. Now there appears nothing in
your report of the conversation to lead to the inference, nor can I
easily bring myself to think that his Lordship could have led you to
infer that a _qualified_ Subscription was admissible either from
candidates for orders, or other clergymen. A different exposition of the
general doctrine laid down in several of our Articles, may be fairly
allowable; the _letter_ of our Liturgy may in several parts admit of a
different interpretation, and if taking our own views of these points,
believing them not inconsistent with an allowable interpretation of the
words, we can _unreservedly_ subscribe, well and good—but for my own
part, I should scarcely expect it of a Bishop to receive a qualified
Subscription from me, the precedent I must think would be a bad one, and
the practice subversive of the very object of Subscription, independent
of the awkward acknowledgement it involves, that our Church exacts from
her members a form of Subscription, which cannot be made without a
_salvo_.
You scarcely could have inferred from his Lordship’s _advice_, that he
“unequivocally allowed and approved of _this_ latitude.” But as he had
told you that he thought your interpretation of certain points
admissible, and that you might openly hold your opinions, you _might_
have inferred that he also considered them consistent with an
“_unreserved_ Subscription, and that according to the literal sense of
the words”—for the question is, will not the literal sense of the words
bear a different _application_? You subscribe _unreservedly_, at least
you have given us no reason to suppose otherwise, to the Apostles’ Creed,
in which we are told that Christ sitteth at the _right hand_ of God, but
the _literal_ meaning of the words is at variance with the truth, that
“God is without body, parts, or passions.” {11} I must think that you
have conjured up a greater difficulty on the score of Subscription than
in reality obtains. At all events you must detail some further
particulars of his Lordship’s conversation, before you will enable us to
detect its discrepancy with the subject of his subsequent letter.
But if his Lordship’s private opinion on the allowable interpretation of
the points on which you consulted him, failed to remove your doubts and
scruples, and you were after all fully persuaded in your own mind that
the words in question could by no possibility bear the only
interpretation with which you could _conscientiously_ subscribe to them;
I cannot see how the _open sanction_ of the Church could affect you to
the “easing of your conscience.” For surely if the words will _not_ bear
a certain sense, the Church cannot make them—the sanction of all the
Bishops in Christendom could never make _black_ mean _white_. If you are
of opinion that it could, for a Protestant you must entertain rather high
views of the power of the Church—and yet such would seem to be your
opinion, for in the “Circular” which you sent a day or two before the
presentation of the petition last year, to “all the Peers whose London
residences could be ascertained;” after alluding to _these opinions_
which you had received from the Archbishop and the Bishop of London, you
say, “my answer was, if such be the case, let these statements be _openly
sanctioned_, and I am content. But I cannot with _truth and honesty_
subscribe, not according to the _literal_ meaning of the words, _unless_
such latitude _be authorised by the Church_.”
Now if the Subscription is still to be made to the same form of words, it
is very difficult to see how the _authority of the Church_ can impart to
them a meaning, to which without that authority _truth and honesty_ would
forbid you to subscribe. If you do not take care, the Editors of the
Oxford Tracts will mark you for their own, in spite of yourself.
But in what position do you now stand? You have _done_ what you informed
the Bishop of London, you could “not be comfortable without doing.” You
have made known to the world, and that by the means you proposed to
yourself, namely, a petition to parliament, what your opinions are, and
the world interferes not with them, nor does the Church condemn them; you
have only therefore to arrange the matter with your own conscience—if
that condemns you, your course is a clear one. But why should it condemn
you more for the next fourteen years, than it would seem to have done for
the last fourteen? During that time you have held your preferment with
your opinions, and why should you not continue to hold your opinions with
your preferment?
You tell us that your object was eleven years ago to “ascertain _with
certainty_ whether you held any opinion which the Church condemned.” {13}
You were informed that the _authoritative sense_ of the Church on the
points you wished for information _could not_ in the abeyance of
Convocation be obtained; but you were at the same time told, and that, by
many whose opinions probably would have had great weight in Convocation
had it been immediately convened for your satisfaction, that they
considered your opinions allowable, that the Church did not condemn them;
and I think it would have been a reasonable inference with which to have
quieted your conscience, that had the Convocation been assembled, the
authoritative sense of the Church would not have been against you.
And certain passages in your ministerial career had led us to hope and to
infer that you had come to that conclusion, that having unburthened your
mind, you were at rest. For in 1836, you presented a second petition to
the House of Lords, but from that time, as far at least as we could judge
from your proceedings, you seemed to have given up your pursuit, at all
events, it appears that you rested upon your oars till 1840. And in the
interim, in the year 1837, after having abstained for some years, and in
consequence as it was supposed of your scruples, we saw you again
_voluntarily_ coming forward, and in your character of a Presbyter,
officiating at the ceremony of the _Imposition of Hands_, co-operating
with the Bishop during the recital of the very words at which your
conscience had taken such alarm, and with respect to which in your former
petition, “you had humbly and earnestly prayed that such steps might be
taken as should seem good to their Lordships, in order to effect those
alterations in the Liturgy which would relieve the conscience of their
petitioner.” {14a} And we had also subsequently read the resolution you
had come to, and _deliberately_ published in 1838. In a note to a sermon
which you published in that year, you say, “In the absence of all
authoritative censure, I conclude as many others do, that a silent change
has taken place, ‘from the diversity of times and men’s manners.’ In
that conclusion I abide, repeating what I have often said, that
_whenever_ I am pronounced wrong on _authority_, I am ready to meet the
consequences.” {14b}
I can myself say, and I am sure that all who have had any opportunity of
knowing you, will say it with the same sincerity, in that conclusion we
most heartily wish that you _would_ abide—that you would continue to
discharge your pastoral duties, your deliberate and solemnly accepted
engagements to the “Chief Shepherd” in the same exemplary manner that has
marked your hitherto career, _until_ you are pronounced wrong _on
authority_—or called from your stewardship to render up your account with
joy. In what estimation you may hold the opinions of your brother
petitioners, the _Messrs. Hull_, I know not, but they say, “Our clergy
_cannot_ leave the Church—their _ordination vows are upon them_.” And
besides, my dear sir, to rush upon martyrdom in the absence of all
persecution, or, as far as the public can see, any apparent necessity,
will at best obtain for you but an Empedoclean sort of fame. And as
nothing has occurred since you published your resolution in 1838, to
affect your situation differently from what it had been for nine or ten
years before, save the failure of another petition; should you resign in
consequence of that circumstance, it would look almost as if you resigned
merely to spite the Archbishop.
But under the little difficulty that exists of ascertaining with any
certainty what your intentions have been, or even now are, we earnestly
trust they may not result in the alternative of a resignation, to which
in the course of your correspondence you have made such frequent
allusions. “An alternative,” which as Bishop Heber says, “it is easy to
suggest in the case of a brother, but which every man in his own case
receives with difficulty.” {15a}
A few days before the presentation of the last petition you wrote to his
Grace thus, “If I fail on this occasion . . . I consider myself pledged
to resign my preferment.” {15b} The result of that petition was
unfavourable. But ten months afterwards, that is, in your last
publication, you call upon his Grace to pronounce that judgment which he
had told you he “was _unwilling_ to pronounce on scruples which he hoped
time might remove,” {15c}—“and _should_ that judgment require such a
step, you will with God’s permission resign next December, _unless_ a
clear expression of public opinion should intervene appealing against the
judgment pronounced.” {15d}
Let us hope then that you will abide in this your _latest_ resolution,
for I think from the evidence with which you have furnished us, we may
venture to conclude that no such judgment will be pronounced as shall
call for any expression of public opinion.
I shall now proceed to hazard a few observations on the reasons assigned
by the Bishop of Norwich in favour of an _Expansion_ of Subscription,
seeing that they are considered by many so strongly to confirm the
correctness of your own views, and as you have told us that you cannot
consistently with _truth and honesty_ make the required Subscription, we
cannot but apprehend that in the proportion that those views are believed
to be substantial and correct, the character of the clergy must be
prejudiced, at all events in the eyes of those, who unwilling or unable
to investigate the matter for themselves, take up the opinions of others,
and arriving through them at a corollary of their own, hesitate not to go
as far as to declare that “_all_ the clergy are _perjured_.”
As I can devise no better, I shall pursue the plan you have adopted with
respect to the speech of the Bishop of London, that is, giving such
extracts from his Lordship’s speech as bear upon the subject of
Subscription, with a running comment of my own. I will not however,
introduce my remarks with the preface you have affixed to your “plain
story,”—giving us to understand that it is intended to be “a refutation
of almost every statement in the Bishop of London’s speech.” {16} Lest
having led my readers to exclaim
Quid dignum tanto feret hic promissor hiatu.
I should leave them to conclude that I had been labouring under what the
faculty, I believe, term “a false conception.”
His Lordship’s first reason for wishing for a more expanded Subscription,
is that—
“IF _it be true that there is anything approaching to the appearance
of insincerity on the part of those making the Subscription_, _if we
seem to confess with our lips that we do not confess and believe in
our hearts we give our opponents a vantage ground of which they will
not be slow to avail themselves_.”
There is said to be much virtue in an IF, and _eâ virtute nos
involvissemus_, had not his Lordship torn the covering away, and “left us
naked to our enemies,”—self-convicted of “confessing with our lips that
we do not confess and believe in our hearts.” For says his Lordship—
“IN FACT, _with respect to Subscription_, _I have never yet met with
a single clergyman_ (_and I have spoken with almost numberless
individuals on the subject_), _who ever allowed that he agreed in
every point_, _in every iota to the Subscription which he took at
ordination_.”
It would not be treating his Lordship with candour to give to his
observation an offensive meaning, which it was not intended to convey.
It is more with reference to the mal-construction and malicious use of it
by our opponents, that we are led to wish that it had not been made.
Since his Lordship’s subsequent pamphlet, from which we collect the sense
in which he was viewing Subscription, when he made the observation, a
sense in which, for instance with reference to those clauses of the
Athanasian Creed, which are commonly, and unjustly, called _damnatory_,
few I suspect do subscribe, being, in my opinion, in no wise bound to an
application of the clauses, so manifestly at variance with the spirit in
which the formulary was imposed on us by our Reformers;—since I say, this
pamphlet can obtain but a very small part of the circulation of the
speech itself, where the observation stands _unqualified_; the general
impression of his Lordship’s meaning must be that the clergy subscribe
_ex animo_, to that which _ex animo_ they do not believe.
At the same time I have never seen the necessity of responding to those
appeals through which the clergy of this Diocese have been called upon to
take some public step, to repel the observation as an implied libel upon
them. I would rather it should be remembered that his Lordship,
comparatively speaking, has been but a short time amongst us, and that
for anything we can tell, the enquiries of which he speaks may have been
chiefly made amongst the clergy of another Diocese, (indeed, considering
that it is not a likely question for a Bishop to put to candidates for
Orders, or his clergy generally, the inference must be that they were),
and if their “withers should be galled,” let them respond to these
appeals, “ours are unwrung.”
It must, however, be admitted that any _insincerity_ in the matter of
Subscription, would deservedly expose us to the contempt of our
opponents.—But a generous mind would shrink instinctively from inferring
insincerity from any thing _approaching only to its appearance_.
_Decipimur specie_ ought to hold with respect to _evil_ not less than
_good_. Still, alas! to the jaundiced eye every object presents itself
in colours not its own. And I fear that the opinion which his Lordship
would seem to entertain of the actuating spirit of our opponents, is but
too well founded, and amply justifies his apprehension that _they_ would
not be slow to avail themselves of the _appearance_, caring little to
dissipate the “mentis gratissimus error,” by ascertaining themselves of
the non-existence of the _reality_. That accomplished, but embittered
infidel, the historian Gibbon, did not scruple to declare that the
clergy, one and all of them, made their Subscription either “with a sigh
or a smile;” but I trust that the clergy, as a body, can afford to leave
such opponents in the unmolested possession of their imaginary vantage
ground. Until _Mordecai_ was removed from his seat at the gate, the soul
of _Haman_ could not be quieted within him—nor will the souls of our
opponents, until the Church is brought down to a level with their own
sects.
“_If it_ (_Subscription_) _is to be understood in the literal_, _most
strict_, _and most stringent sense_, _it would create difficulties_,
_which must weigh heavily upon scrupulous and tender consciences_.”
But even supposing this—where there is no compulsion, there no violence
can be done to the conscience, and no one is compelled to “enter the
church,” and in using the expression, I confess I cannot perceive with
the _Messrs. Hull_, that it is redolent “of a very popish error,” it
certainly means, as they observe, “taking orders;” and I should think
that the last persons likely to present themselves to a Bishop for that
purpose, would be those whose consciences were already overborne by the
pressure of their scruples.
“Tenderness of conscience,” says _Bishop Jeremy Taylor_, “is an equivocal
term, and does not always signify in a good sense.” {19} I am far from
meaning to impeach the sincerity of the petitioners, but if his Lordship
applied the term in any other than a _good sense_, he might seem to have
paid them but an equivocal compliment, and if he used it in a good sense
with respect to _them_, the great body of the clergy who have subscribed,
and felt no pang, might suspect his Lordship of meaning to imply that
they were gifted with consciences of a somewhat tougher texture than is
altogether to be envied. Some have chosen to draw this inference; I will
not however believe that they have done his Lordship’s deliberate
sentiments justice in so doing.
“_And by continuing these difficulties_ (_of Subscription_) _we
should leave the way open only to those whose consciences have no
scruples_, _and who would enter the Church only with a view to the
profits and secular advantages_.”
I would submit that a man may enter the Church with _a_ view to its
_secular_ advantages, without being justly involved in the suspicion of
_insincerity_, or of necessity, laying himself open to the imputation of
entering it _only_ with a view to its profits. For instance, should a
gentleman have in his gift what is commonly called a _family living_, he
may design it as a provision for a younger son, who enters upon a course
of study and trains himself for the ministry, and that without
necessarily discarding all view to the _secular_ advantages of his
profession, knowing that “they which preach the gospel should live of the
gospel:” but so far from its following that he enters the Church with _no
other_ or higher motive; how frequently do we find it the case with those
whose lot has thus been cast, as it were, for them, that they prove not
merely exemplary parish priests, but eventually rise to adorn the
_Episcopal Bench_. His Lordship will not object to my adducing his own
successful career as a case in point.
But if such characters as his Lordship speaks of, can even _now_ in the
teeth of all the imputed difficulties, enter the church, if they be so
disposed, I do not clearly see how removing these difficulties will
mitigate the evil—how widening the portal will tend to obstruct the
entrance. Nor, although it stands so recorded in his Lordship’s speech,
will I believe it to be, his deliberate opinion, that by leaving the
matter of Subscription as it _now_ stands, we leave the way open _only_
to those whose consciences can feel _no scruples_. If these expressions
of his Lordship are to be taken only in a good sense, I trust for the
credit of the Church that his Lordship is not the only exception to the
general rule. The _Messrs. Hull_, in their animadversions on the Bishop
of London’s speech, draw a nice distinction between “opening the door,”
and “leaving it open.” In cases of burglary I believe the distinction
involves a difference; we may venture therefore to hazard a guess to
which of the brothers, the lawyer or the divine, we may attribute that
contribution to the joint stock pamphlet. {21}
“_But there is an answer commonly given_, _and a weighty one_, _to
this objection_. _The Church has a sort of elasticity which allows
and graduates the differences that exist_.”
Yet on the use of the word “elasticity” by the Bishop of London, you say,
“I confess myself entirely unable to distinguish between the ‘expansion’
of the one prelate or the ‘elasticity’ of the other.” {22a} If there is
no difference between the existing elasticity and the expansion pleaded
for, for what boon did the petitioners pray? I anticipate your answer,
and will reply to it presently.
“_It does not become the Church of England_, _a Church founded on
liberty of conscience and the right of private judgment_, _to say
that there shall not be a certain latitude of opinion_.”
This observation has been the theme for much discussion. It has been
pretty roundly insinuated that his Lordship’s meaning had been wilfully
misapprehended by the Bishop of London. I see myself but little ground
for the insinuation. It will at all events be admitted that his Lordship
did not qualify or define the sense in which he used the observation. He
has however explained his meaning and the extent to which he applied it
in his pamphlet, or as you term it “brief defence” of his speech.
After quoting the “passing remarks of a country newspaper,” as
elucidatory of his Lordship’s meaning, you say, “I cannot believe the
Bishop of London could be blind to a distinction so obvious.” {22b} For
the present, be it so. In the same page in which this expression of your
incredulity as to his Lordship’s blindness occurs, you quote another
passage from his speech, that in which he observes of Subscription,—“it
is not required from all members of the Church, but only from the
ministers of the Church, as a security against a greater evil, &c.” Upon
which you exclaim, “can we forget that _all_ graduates at the
universities are required to subscribe, that these are all _laymen_?”
Not very easily, I admit. And which would you wish us to suppose? That
his Lordship had forgotten it, or that he was ignorant of it, or that he
intended to palm upon the audience before which he spake such an
assertion as a _literal_ fact? As I am inclined to think that _you_
suppose neither one nor the other, I must say, “I cannot believe that you
could be blind to his Lordship’s meaning,” and could not help exclaiming
on reading your ready imputation against the Bishop of London—“Physician!
heal thyself.”
But whilst so many explanations have since been given of the meaning in
which this observation was made by the Bishop of Norwich, and so many
insinuations levelled at the Bishop of London for not choosing to see it,
I am disposed to think that his Lordship did not feel himself called upon
to dive into the thoughts of the Bishop of Norwich, but intending to give
a direct negative to an unqualified affirmative, meant to re-repudiate
the notion that “the church of England, _was_ founded on liberty of
conscience, and the right of private judgment,” and to assert with
reference to the well-known _fruits_ of such a principle, that the Church
was founded on “truth.” But the Bishop of Norwich contends that the
expression is an “incorrect” one, and that had he been speaking of “the
only true foundation of the true Catholic Church itself,” he should have
said that it was “founded on the Apostles and Prophets, Jesus Christ
himself being the chief corner stone.” {24a} The Bishop of London could
scarcely have thought the _periphrasis_ necessary, considering before
whom he was speaking, he would probably reply to the imputed
incorrectness of the expression, that he always considered the foundation
of which the Bishop of Norwich here speaks, to be “truth,” and that the
Church was the interpreter of the _Apostles_, and _Prophets_, and _Jesus
Christ_, or in other words of the _Gospel of Christ_. He meant also I
should suppose, to repudiate the notion, that _the Reformation of the
Church_ proceeded on such a principle, and in effect to affirm that from
the days of Archbishop Cranmer to these of Archbishop Howley, no such
principle had ever been recognized by the _Church_, as that of admitting
“liberty of conscience and the right of private judgment,” to have any
_directive_ influence in Church affairs; a fact, which if not
sufficiently proved by the mandate of Edward the Sixth, enforcing under
the penalties of “sequestration, suspension, excommunication, and such
_other coercion_, as to ordinaries or others having ecclesiastical
jurisdiction, shall seem convenient, straitly charging and commanding his
loving subjects to observe the injunctions of 1547,” {24b}—would be amply
established by your own observations respecting _Bishop Hooper_, for the
sending of the good old man to prison in the matter of the vestments, and
that by the _Reformers_ themselves, would seem but little to favour the
notion that our reformed Church was founded on “liberty of conscience and
the right of private judgment.”
But that I may not also be accused of misapprehending his Lordship’s
meaning, I will here quote his explanation of the sense in which the
observation was made—
“_It is of course plain that I was neither speaking of the Catholic
Church at all_, _nor even of the Church of England_, _except in its
character of a Reformed Church_, _founded as such on the principles
of the Reformation_, _which I again deliberately assert to be liberty
of conscience and the right of private judgment_, _in opposition to
that Church from whence it separated_, _in which the authority of
Popes_, _Councils_, _and Priests_, _superseded all appeal to the
scriptures themselves_, _and by which of course freedom of judgment
was strictly prohibited_.” {25a}
Not that it bears upon his Lordship’s argument, still I would
respectfully submit whether our alleged _separation_ here from the Church
of Rome be strictly correct; we threw off our allegiance to the _usurped_
authority, temporal and spiritual, of the Pope; we reformed the abuses of
_our own Church_, but we _separated_ from no mother Church. The
episcopal Church in England existed long before the Pope cast his eye
upon it.—“In the acts of the Council of Arles, which was held A.D. 314,
we find the Subscriptions of three British Bishops.” {25b}
But I would further question whether in his Lordship’s _qualified_ sense
of the observation it can with any strictness be said, that our
_reformed_ Church was founded on the principle he contends for.
It will, I think, be admitted that whatever was done with reference to
the Church by that “Postilion of the Reformation,” as Burnet calls him,
the _Papist_ Henry, was done by him more with a view “to cudgel the Pope
into a compliance with what he desired,” {26a} than from any desire to
reform our religion. At all events, we must give up any attempt to
reconcile his “six acts” with “liberty of conscience.”
The reformation of our _religion_ had its commencement in the reign of
his successor. Here, if any where, we must look for the principle in
question. But can it be said that our religion was reformed “in
_opposition_ to the authority of Popes and Councils,” when it is so well
known, that “the Bishop of Rome’s usurped power and jurisdiction was of
most just causes taken away and _abolished_,” {26b} in the preceding
reign? Neither can it, I think, in strictness be said, _of that time_,
that the _Priests_ superseded all appeal to the scriptures, seeing that
it was by the Bishops themselves that the scriptures were chiefly caused
to be circulated. I am speaking not of the German Protestant Church, but
that of which his Lordship speaks, “the Church of England, in its
character of a reformed Church.” And I have before shewn on your own
authority in the matter of _Hooper_, that she recognised nothing so
little as the principle of “liberty of conscience.” That sectarism or
separation _from_ the Church is founded on this principle, will be
admitted.
It has always appeared to me, that the hacknied phrase, “liberty of
conscience and the right of private judgment,” applied to an associated
body, is a pure fallacy, I had almost said, a cobweb to catch the fly
popularity, quite as valuable as an appeal, “_ad captandum vulgus_,” as
the cry—“_Nolumus leges Angliæ mutari_,” to which “catch-word,” his
Lordship attributes the defeat of the attempt to revise the Liturgy in
1689. You also attribute this defeat to “the violence of party;” but
there are those, and the late pious and excellent _Bishop Jebb_ amongst
the number, who ascribe it to the “_special interference of Providence_.”
“But the special interference of Providence did not terminate with the
first establishment of our Liturgy . . . Even within the Church itself,
some were found whose integrity cannot be impeached, who were on the
point of introducing alterations which could not have failed to prove
equally injurious to the cause of truth and piety.” {27a} Even Bishop
Burnet, one of the Commissioners, with reference to the probable result
of those contemplated alterations of 1689, imputes the failure of the
attempt to a “very happy direction of the providence of God observed in
the matter.” {27b}
The Church, however, coerces the conscience of no man, every one is at
liberty to take his own religious course, and I confess I cannot see why
that which is conceded to all other societies should be denied to the
Church—the right of being governed by her own constitutions, and the
right also of judging what constitutions are most conducive to the
welfare and good order of her community.
If I could not conscientiously conform to the doctrines and discipline of
the _Baptist_ or the _Independent_, I question if they would allow me to
give my conscience the liberty to act amongst them according to its
dictates. They would no more deny than we do ourselves, the abstract
principle, neither would they “fine,” nor put me in “the pillory,” but I
suspect they would “exclude” me, and with very good reason, from their
ministry. To talk of conceding the abstract right of private judgment,
has always appeared to me a good deal like talking of conceding to a
person with sound lungs the privilege of breathing. But to contend for
the _principle_ and talk of certain latitudes and limits, seems to me to
involve a contradiction—once assign any _limits_ to the “right,” and you
destroy the principle. But although his Lordship pleads for the
principle being, as he contends, that on which our Church is founded, and
ought to be acted upon, he would circumscribe it within “a certain
latitude of opinion.” He would not have it trench upon “the
distinguishing features and essential doctrines of the Christian Church.”
But who is to be the judge of these doctrines? Two of the petitioners,
the _Messrs. Hull_, repudiate the very idea of the Church being the
authorized interpreter of the truth. “If,” say these brothers, in
allusion to a remark by the Bishop of London, “the word ‘authorised’ bear
its usual signification, such a remark would indeed be inconsistent with
liberty of conscience and the right of private judgment.” {28a}
Again, arguing from _the abuse_ of Subscription by “unconscientious and
unscrupulous men,” they say, “it is on that account that the simplest
Creed, and the truth to which the term ‘necessary’ is directly applied in
our bible, are enough to justify a call into the ministry.” {28b}