LIBRA FLY 
 
 OF THL 
 
 UNIVLRSITY 
 
 or ILLI NOIS
 
 The Conge d'Elire. 
 
 THE 
 
 CHUKCH 
 
 IX ITS 
 
 CIYIL RELATIOI^S 
 
 AND 
 
 SPIEITUAL CLAIMS. 
 
 
 >^1..^ 
 
 JAMES PARKER AND CO. 
 1877.
 
 TEE CONGU D'ELIBE, 
 
 VARIOUS are the forms of thought, and schemes of re- 
 formation or revolution at the present moment concen- 
 trated upon the National Church, in hostility or in discon- 
 tent; coinciding in some points, but opposed in principle and 
 in the results they aim at. Nonconformists, on the one hand, 
 are exhorting the hierarchy, as they are pleased to designate 
 the Clergy of the National Church, to come down from their 
 high estate, renounce "historical tradition" for the Order of 
 their ministry, and the advantages of a recognised alliance 
 with the State ; to cast themselves and the truth they are 
 commissioned to deliver naked upon the world, in the assur- 
 ance that the less of worldly privileges it enjoys the better 
 it will prevail ; and that all necessary maintenance will be 
 provided more satisfactorily and more affluently by voluntary 
 zeal than by State establishments. Appeals from the camp of the 
 Congregationalists assume the tone, now of brotherly entreaty, 
 now of angry jealousy. ''Free yourselves from slavery," they 
 cry; ''suffer us to shew you the way out of the house of bond- 
 age ; look to the congregation as the source of any spiritual 
 authority you may be called to exercise over them ; and for 
 your maintenance throw yourselves upon their good-will : you 
 will be repaid by liberation from interference by the State ; 
 your ministrations will gain in spirituality; and you will 
 enjoy more wealth than falls to the lot of the greater number 
 of Clergy under your present thraldom." 
 
 Thus the voice of the charmer adapts itself wisely to the 
 exigences of the times ; and at the moment when the yoke of 
 alliance with the State is more than ordinarily galling, it 
 proposes terms of fraternity and equality such as, if the pro- 
 mises of practical success could be trusted, might tempt un- 
 stable minds to sacriffce a theory, however venerable and 
 Scriptural, and advantages sometimes dearly bought, for the 
 
 a2
 
 4 The Church in its Civil Relations 
 
 sake of obtaining freedom from restraints of which they have 
 grown impatient ; to take a fresh start from the stand-point of 
 anti-State sects ; and hope to find the domination of an Assem- 
 bly or of a Congregational Council less irksome or meddlesome 
 than prosecutions under a Public Worship Act. 
 
 On the other hand are those who regard religion as an intel- 
 lectual problem, and the Church as a useful instrument of 
 policy and social morality. They acknowledge no spiritual 
 prerogatives, and are jealous of any influence acquired by 
 claims of that nature. The theological economy, including, as 
 it is represented, " a system of mediation, channels of grace, 
 magically-endowed men,'' is asserted to be the 'chief obstacle 
 which hinders the religious world from godly union and con- 
 cord. The Clergy are advised, in the name of honest men, 
 since the enlightened world no longer believes in it, to give up 
 the farce of pretending to any other commission than such as 
 the Crown is competent to bestow. The time is at last arrived, 
 they sa}^, when, in presence of a generation of intellectual phi- 
 losophers, "a spiritual masquerade" can no longer be played 
 with success. " Confess yourselves to be what you are, mere 
 officers of the State; do your work, and take your pay during 
 pleasure like the rest." 
 
 Qj neither party is it perceived or admitted that unalter- 
 able principles, more important than popularity which is fluc- 
 tuating, or apparent utility which may be deceptive, may be 
 involved both in the establishment of a National Church by 
 the Government of a country, and in the origin from whence 
 that Church derives its authorit}^ 
 
 Indeed, forgetfulness of princip les, more essential than those 
 of the polity of a National Church, is betrayed by one of the 
 leading advocates for disestablishing it, when he specifies, 
 among the advantages of an independent society, the liberty 
 of manufacturing, if they please, a new creed per week ; while, 
 in disparagement of the Church of England, he affirms that 
 not a clause in the Thirty-nine Articles could be modified 
 without devoting to the undertaking a month of the legis- 
 lature's precious time. 
 
 The Order of Bishops, and the method of their election and 
 consecration, has ever since the Reformation furnished matter of ,^- 
 
 /^
 
 and Spiritual Claims. 5 
 
 dissatisfaction to many within the Church, and of cavil and de- 
 rision to its enemies. Not always, perhaps, without justification. 
 The provisions of human wisdom have in this, as in other well- 
 devised schemes, sometimes failed; the hands in which, for the 
 intended benefit of the Church and Nation, power was placed, 
 have sometimes abused their trust. We find one of the most 
 eminent of the Episcopal Order in the last century, on his first 
 iDtroduction to his diocese, acknowledging that now '* the Clergy 
 were became little curious to know how or from whence their 
 Bishop had dropped down amongst them, and he as little dis- 
 posed to tell them a ridiculous or unedifying story. ^' But 
 however serious may be the defects of the present system, or 
 the abuses of it, the real objections and the irreverent sneers 
 arise for the most part out of misconceptions and mis-statements 
 of facts, the more culpable because an ordinary application 
 of diligence and sincerity w^ould have suj6B.ced to correct them. 
 
 Much of the indignation excited by the alleged arrogance 
 of our ecclesiastical position and pretensions, is directed against 
 prerogatives which the Church of England has not asserted ; 
 against assumption of powers w^hich she has never claimed, 
 and acts of impiety of which she is not guilty. 
 
 Writers of note are not ashamed to adopt popular preju- 
 dices, and with less enquiry than would be bestowed upon an 
 insignificant problem in natural science, have undertaken to 
 chastise the presumption, and hold up to contempt the " trans- 
 parent fiction" of the Order of Ordaining Ministers, and the 
 mode of electing and consecrating Bishops. The motion now 
 before the House of Commons for abolishing the Conge (Velirey 
 may not be in its intention, or if successful, in its results, in- 
 jurious to the Church, or to the order of the realm; but we 
 protest against attacks upon the established pollt}^, and pro- 
 posed changes for better or for worse, which are founded en- 
 tirely upon false charges, or upon crude and incorrect notions 
 of the principle and constitution of the Church. Conspicuous 
 among assailants of this class is the historian of Henry YIII. 
 and Elizabeth. He is the exponent of a school, whose ani- 
 piosity is directed against the whole system of clerical organ- 
 ization, which he calls upon all honest men to condemn as 
 *' a conscious imposture ;" and he represents the whole capitu- 
 
 a3
 
 6 The Church in Us Civil Relations 
 
 lar bodies of the kingdom, (amongst whom he would perhaps 
 admit there have been members of neither inferior capacity, 
 nor defective integrity,) as consenting to perpetrate *^ an act of 
 solemn profanity'' upon every occasion of the issue of a Conge 
 d'elire from the Crown. 
 
 If some indulgence of idiosyncrasy may be allowed to an 
 historian, whose prejudices are known, we may at least expect 
 him to inform his understanding and preserve his pages free 
 from vulgar errors, even though his judgment remain uncor- 
 rected. 
 
 Had the *' excellent Hooker " whom he admires, been studied 
 instead of eulogised ; if the system of which that judicious 
 divine was the expounder, and not, as is wrongly asserted, the 
 constructor, had been mastered, he would have been better 
 informed as to facts which he has misstated, and doctrines 
 he has misconceived. When writers of critical ability lend 
 their authority to such mischievous fables, it is not surprising 
 that the prejudices of the ignorant are confirmed ; and discon- 
 tented Churchmen in furtherance of private schemes, some of 
 imaginative temperaments, in pursuit of a pre - reformation 
 ideal, not regarding the danger of a double edge, avail them- 
 selves of weapons supplied from a hostile armoury. 
 
 Since, however, he has ventured, not less boldly than incon- 
 siderately, to give distinct utterance to notions that are floating' 
 obscurely in the minds of the ill-informed and the dissatisfied, 
 and since an impulse at least has thus been given to the present 
 movement for abolishing the Conge d'elire^ let the author be 
 heard in his own words. He is speaking of the time-serving cha- 
 racter of the Bishops of Elizabeth's appointment. " They made 
 it impossible for the Protestants to respect or care for them. The 
 very method in which the Bishops were appointed, the Conge d'elire, 
 the Deans and Chapters meeting with a * prcBmunire' round their 
 necks, and going through the farce of an invocation of the^ Holy 
 Ghost, appeared a horror and a blasphemy to every one who be- 
 lieved that God was really alive There is one point .... 
 
 where the framers of the constitution of the Church went manifestly 
 wrong , , . we have a right to expect from those who take the charge 
 of the State' s fortunes upon them, that they shall have no dealings 
 with conscious imposture .... The method of episcopal appointments
 
 and Spiritual Claims. 7 
 
 instituted hy Henry VIII. as a temporary expedient, and abolished 
 under Edward as an unreality^ ivas re-estahlished hy Elizabeth : 
 not^ certainly, because she believed that the invocation of the Holy 
 Ghost was required for the completeness of an election which her 
 otvn choice had already determined; not because the Bishops ob- 
 tained any gifts or grace in their consecration which she herself 
 respected, but because the shadowy form of an election, ivith a re- 
 ligious ceremony following it, gave them the semblance of spiritual 
 
 independence We have a right to regret, that being officers of 
 
 the Crotvn, as much appointed by the Croivn as the Lord Chan- 
 cellor, the Bishops should not have worn openly their real character, 
 and have received their appointme^it immediately by letters patent 
 without farther ceremony. To an episcopacy so constituted, the 
 most extreme Presbyterian would not long have objected.'' 
 
 Again, *' The invocation of the Holy Spirit either meant nothing, 
 and was a taking of sacred names in vain, or it implied that the 
 Third Person of the Trinity was, as a matter of course, to register 
 the already declared decision of the British Sovereign^' 
 
 Now the whole of this scandalous indictment, together with 
 the injurious reflections based upon it, recoils with shameful 
 condemnation upon the hand that wrote it, upon the produc- 
 tion of sufficient proof that not one word of it is true. No 
 religious ceremony, no such prayer or invocation as is alleged, 
 is used in the Chapters when they assemble to elect a Bishop 
 by mandate from the Crown. The ^' farce" supposed to be 
 enacted by an appeal to the Spirit, " to direct the electors to 
 an issue already pre-determined," is merely imaginary. The 
 " fiction '' is of the author's own contrivance. 
 
 The proceedings, varying in unimportant details, are nearly 
 the same in every Chapter in the kingdom ; they are conducted 
 as a matter of business, without any religious ceremony. After 
 the usual morning prayer in the cathedral, the Chapter meet 
 by summons : the form called Conge d'elire is read, and is 
 what its title implies, a permission under the great seal to elect 
 a Bishop. At the same time a letter missive or mandate from 
 the Crown is produced, recommending a proper person to be 
 elected "for the glory of God, and the good of His Church." 
 In some cathedrals the business is concluded by the chaunting 
 of the "Te Deum" in the choir. What may be passing in
 
 8 The Church in its Civil Relations 
 
 the minds of members of the Chapter, or what is discussed 
 in their deliberations, is known only to themselTes. Under 
 a legal disability to refuse a mandate from the Crown, without 
 placing themselves personally, and the Church in its relations 
 with the State in a perilous predicament, the strain upon their 
 freedom of election amounts almost to an irresistible command ; 
 but there is no "fiction" in the matter: it is accepted and 
 acknowledged as such ; no pretensions to a free choice of action 
 are made, except such as every subject may assert at his own 
 peril; that, namely, of resisting what may seem to him in 
 foro conscientice an unjustifiable constraint, or of throwing him- 
 self upon the courts of law, if the particular case is so urgent 
 as to justify the unequal contest. So far from any affectation 
 of such liberty of choice as might leave room for an appeal 
 to Heaven for direction in the use of it, a proclamation is made 
 publicly after the election, in these terms: "Be it knoion unto 
 all men, that tve the Dean and Chapter of this Cathedral Church 
 have, in obedience to Her Majestifs licence, chosen, ^cJ^ 
 
 The retaining of the title. Conge d^elire, under these cir- 
 cumstances, when the Crown both calls upon its subjects to 
 perform a duty, and prescribes the mode and limit of its per- 
 formance, may be regarded as a legal anomaly ; yet the title 
 is not altogether inappropriate. There are members of Chapters 
 who willingly elect the nominee of the Crown, under a persua- 
 sion that they could not, on their own more circumscribed 
 judgment, venture to propose a better substitute. At the 
 same time, there is nothing in the proceedings to forbid the 
 Chapter collectively, or individual members of it, to seek 
 the Divine guidance, in the event of a question arising as to 
 the unfitness of the person recommended, and a consequent 
 moral obligation to resist the royal will. That such resist- 
 ance might be unavailing, or ruinous to themselves, would 
 scarcely in such case deter them from discharging a para- 
 mount obligation. But before provoking such a crisis, danger- 
 ous both to the State and the Church, it is conceivable that 
 the Chapter would in all sincerity have recourse to those re- 
 ligious acts for which they are, on the mere supposition of 
 them, branded as hypocrites and impostors. A nomination by 
 the Crown might possibly be so generally offensive, that a
 
 and Spiritual Claima, 9 
 
 Chapter would deliberately resolve to disobey, assured of being 
 supported by the main body of the Church. It would thea 
 be seen that the royal mandate does not absolutely prohibit 
 the exercise of a veto upon nominations of the Crown, and 
 that the term Conge d'elire is not altogether without a mean- 
 ing. Crown appointments have sometimes been obnoxious to 
 certain parties in the Church, and to individuals in the Chapter, 
 provoking a partial resistance; but the opponents have yielded 
 on the consideration that a nomination, not generally con- 
 demned, might not prove on the whole injurious. Whether 
 they have sought the aid of the Holy Spirit or not, to deter- 
 mine them to this course of action, they have no doubt decided 
 wisely, in admitting the larger experience and mixed motives 
 of a responsible adviser of the Crown to take precedence of 
 their own limited and probably partial predilections. 
 
 From these reckless, if not malicious charges, the Chapters 
 are, we hope, fully cleared. With regard to the question to 
 whose hands shall be entrusted the prerogative of nominating 
 a person (out of many already chosen and ordained by the 
 Church), who shall not only be consecrated to a higher mi- 
 nisterial office, but be designated to the occupation of a par- 
 ticular see, with the enjoyment of certain immunities and 
 temporalities at the disposal of the Crown, — as it must be 
 exercised by human agents, so in the absence of a divine com- 
 mand, with due consideration for ancient precedent and his- 
 torical experience, it is a matter for human policy to deter- 
 mine. The placing it under certain restrictions in the power 
 of the Crown, is the answer given by the collective wisdom of 
 the nation to the problem. How shall we secure the best ap- 
 pointments, with the least excitement of jealousies and popu- 
 lar passion ? how avoid the scandals that in former periods 
 have distracted the Church, and brought the sacred office into 
 contempt. The compromise adopted in England since the 
 Reformation may be thought judicious, or it may be deemed 
 impolitic ; at all events, it is not a matter of conscience, but 
 of convenience ; neither in the principle, nor in the manner 
 of applying it, is there anything fictitious or profane, nothing 
 to justify against any of the parties concerned the calumnious 
 charge of " enacting a solemn farce/'
 
 10 The Church in its Civil Relations 
 
 Advocates within the Church for its emancipation from in- 
 terference by the State, shocked at the Erastian principles of 
 the philosophic school, would claim for it the exclusive privi- 
 lege of electing its own officers. But whatever may be the 
 defects of the present arrangement, history forbids us to look 
 with greater favour on other modes of election, whether by 
 popular, clerical, or capitular vote. Justinian had good reason 
 to restrain the common people from having any voice in it; 
 and before him the Emperor had been compelled to assume 
 the nomination to himself. '' The episcopal chair was solicited ; 
 selfish passions, interested views, and secret corruption, too 
 often silenced the voice of reason, and influenced the choice 
 of the successor of the Apostles." 
 
 '' The canons, secular or regular, in Cathedral Churches were 
 to choose the Bishops, and the election was to be confirmed 
 at Rome; yet princes in most places got some hold of those 
 elections, so that they still went as they had a mind they 
 should ; which was often complained of as a great slavery on 
 the Church, and would have been more universally condemned, 
 if the world had not been convinced that the matter would not 
 be much better, if there should have been set up either the 
 popular or synodical elections, in which faction was likely to 
 sway all\" 
 
 The Episcopal dignity, it is true, has of late been deprived of 
 a large portion of its wealth and power. Sufficient, however, 
 remains, to make even the invidious elevation of a bishopric an 
 object of ambition. Electors would support rival candidates 
 from theological sympathies, or from less worthy regards to 
 patronage ; and an electioneering spirit would be revived, 
 keeping up a continual agitation, and disturbing unity and 
 peace. 
 
 Between lamentations on the one hand over lost independ- 
 ence, and demands on the other that Bishops should become 
 State officers, and, like the Lord Chancellor, receive their appoint- 
 ments by letters patent, without further ceremony, the English 
 Constitution may seem to have chosen a happy medium ; and 
 the Church to have done wisely for maintaining the authority 
 of the Bishops, and securing their independent position among 
 " Buinet, " Eeformation."
 
 and Spiritual Claims. 11 
 
 the Clergy ; acknowledging the royal supremacy 'over causes 
 ecclesiastical by receiving the Conge d'elire, and avoiding 
 jealousies and contests by accepting a designation from the 
 Crown, so long as the person designated may be elected with, 
 the general concurrence of the Church. 
 
 It is related of George lY. that, notwithstanding all endea- 
 vours to set him right, he was fond of asserting, that, as head 
 of the Church, he was capable in his own person of exercising 
 all ecclesiastical and sacred functions. If we are to believe 
 that Bishops, and a fortiori inferior orders, can be created by 
 the same process as any secular officer of State, the king was 
 not far wrong in his assumptions. Possibly he may have had 
 more knowledge of history than of theology, and founded his 
 pretensions on the precedent of Constantino, who, after his con- 
 version, regarded the pontifical and imperial functions as still 
 vested in himself. But the distinction (to be more fully exhi- 
 bited in a following page) between the power of conferring 
 sacred Orders, and the licence from the Government in any 
 country to discharge publicly the duties of that commission, as 
 it is essential, so it was well understood and marked in the 
 primitive Church. Nor were the reformers of the Church of 
 England ignorant, or unobservant of it. Henry VIII. and 
 Edward YI. may have stretched the royal supremacy beyond 
 its legitimate bounds, and in the confusion of religious and poli- 
 tical revolutions may have sometimes invaded the proper pri- 
 vileges of the Clergy, but they never went to the length of 
 pretending to invest a man with the spiritual power of Order. 
 In the commissions of the Bishops under Edward, amid con- 
 fused notions of the nature and extent of the Church's claims 
 as a spiritual society, and the limitation of its powers as brought 
 into new relations with the State by its recent repudiation of 
 Papal Supremacy, a Divine authority was nevertheless dis- 
 tinctly recognised. ^^ Ter et ultra ea quce tihi et sacris Uteris 
 divinitus commissa esse dignoscuntur ^J* Elizabeth comprehended 
 
 •» There appears to be an unaccountable blundering about the Bill passed 
 in 1545, abolishing the Conge cVelire. The Bishops were to le admitted to their 
 sees by the king's letters patent ; after which they were to be consecrated to their 
 sacred office as before. In the Erastian temper of the hour, the designation 
 by the Crown was made absolute as to the person. 
 
 a4.
 
 12 The Church in its Civil Relatiom 
 
 clearly the limits of her prerogative ; and though in her impe- 
 rious temper she may have threatened to unfrock a Bishop, she 
 knew well enough that her power extended no farther than his 
 personal freedom and temporalities, and the withdrawal of her 
 licence to exercise his functions within her dominions. The 
 sacred Order which she knew herself incompetent to bestow, 
 she was also powerless to take away. 
 
 There was no doubt a difficulty to men who had been accus- 
 tomed to the simplicity of subordination to Rome, and to the 
 Spiritual Courts in causes ecclesiastical, in apprehending the 
 complex relations created by the emancipation of the Church 
 from Papal sovereignty, and its establishment on new prin- 
 ciples of alliance with the State. The Court of Rome anathe- 
 matized every fair and liberal exposition of the reformed polity, 
 and her subjects, as in the case of the expatriated Courayer, 
 have ever been perplexed in their attempts to reconcile the 
 claims of a royal supremacy with \h.QJus ditnnum of the Church. 
 It answered the purpose of Romanists to confound the civil 
 jurisdiction over all persons, civil and ecclesiastical, with the 
 spiritual " power of Order ;" in other words, with the Com- 
 mission conveyed through the Church from its Divine Founder ; 
 and to represent the reformed Church as resigning both pre- 
 rogatives into the hands of the secular authority. In speaking 
 of the state of the Church under Elizabeth, regardless of the 
 pains that were taken to explain " no other thing is intended 
 (by the oath of supremacy) but that no foreign power hath any 
 superiority here," they persisted in asserting " Mulier qucedam 
 est pontifex.^' 
 
 With regard to the charge against Cranmer, that he was 
 prepared to abolish and cancel all tenure of the sacred office, 
 except such as might be granted by the Crown, we fail to dis- 
 cover any ground for it, except in the confusion in the accu- 
 ser's own mind of two distinct processes^ — the selection of the 
 person, and the conferring of the power. The words of Cran- 
 mer, so strangely misinterpreted, refer evidently to the tem- 
 poralities annexed to the title, which he, consecrated to his 
 office by the Church, acknowledged himself to hold only of the 
 king. " / acknowledge myself to hold my hishopric of you onhjy 
 heseeching you of restitution of the temporalities of the same : and
 
 and Spiritual Claims. 13 
 
 the services and other things due to your Highness for the resti- 
 tution of the temporalities of the said bishopric^ I shall do and 
 ohediently perform." The word "bishopric" may, it is true, be 
 used in two senses : to express the sacred office itself, or the 
 see, as of Ely or Canterbury, within whose limits licence is 
 granted for the exercise of jurisdiction. To a bishopric in the 
 first sense, no temporalities attach : it was therefore the see, 
 and that alone, which he acknowledged himself to hold of the 
 king. Possibly one or more of the newly-appointed Bishops, 
 in the agitation of men's minds, and desire to conciliate both, 
 the Crown and nation, may have insisted less upon that spi- 
 ritual title which the Romanists denied them, and the Puritans 
 professed to hold in no esteem, though they did not scruple to 
 make use of an alleged break in the continuity of descent, as 
 a reproach against the reformed Church. So far from the re- 
 nunciation of every divine right and claim being, as we are 
 told, the one infallible expedient which would have satisfied 
 the Catholics, and gained the good-will of the most extreme 
 Presbyterians, it was this very accusation, though false, of 
 having no better title to the office they held, than what they 
 had received from the royal hands, that exposed the Bishops 
 to many hard names, and much contemptuous sneering from 
 Papists and Puritans. 
 
 With regard to Papists, the Church's dependence upon the 
 Crown, misrepresented and exaggerated, was one of the chief 
 objections which baffled every attempt at reconciliation. Not 
 the adoption of the first Prayer-book of Edward YI. with 
 lighted candles on the altar, not the acceptance of the dogma 
 of transubstantiation itself, would have satisfied the Roman 
 Court, if the Bishops had consented to abandon their " Apo- 
 stolic pedigree," and had accepted a new creation by the State. 
 
 The scandal of a suspected blemish in the succession, though 
 on no better basis than the *' Nag's Head" story, was enough to 
 forbid any compromise which did not provide for the re-con- 
 secration of the tainted Bishops. At a later and calmer period, 
 when near approaches had been made to a union of the 
 English and Gallican Churches, under the auspices of Arch- 
 bishop Wake and moderate men on the other side, after mutual 
 concessions, the negociation terminated upon the unsubstan-
 
 14 The Church in its Civil Relations 
 
 tiated suspicion attaching to our Orders, through an alleged 
 failure in the channel of their transmission, together with the 
 subordination of the Church to the civil power. 
 
 On the other hand, it is the strangest misconception of the 
 sentiments of the Puritans, and of their modern representatives, 
 to imagine that they would have been drawn nearer to the 
 Established Church, by its more essential incorporation with 
 the State. Puritan pretences to evangelic reform, have ever 
 been tinged with a spirit of political communism, and they 
 would have made short work with any proposition of union 
 which would subject them to the civil magistrate. To a limited 
 episcopacy, neither the continental reformers nor learned and 
 moderate men at home entertained any deep antipathy. 
 
 It was the attitude prelacy had assumed that roused indig- 
 nation and resistance. ^' The spiritual lords (one of the Pres- 
 byterian party complained) have become too temporal and prag- 
 matical.'' Even they, in the hope of an accommodation with 
 Charles, were ready to withdraw their opposition to Bishops, 
 provided the coercive jurisdiction were abolished or restrained. 
 The contempt of the Puritans for the Elizabethan Bishops in 
 particular, was not directed against their office as such, but 
 against what they asserted to be a spurious assumption of 
 spiritual authority, enforced by civil penalties, by men who 
 (they affected lo believe) had no better title than what was 
 pedantically termed the hippocephalic consecration of Parker. 
 
 The Puritans, indeed, were the last who could venture to 
 discredit spiritual claims. The special power, the " power of 
 Order,'^ which the Church professes to receive through an 
 appointed mean, and for a definite purpose, they assumed to 
 themselves at will, in unregulated measure, for all kinds of 
 purposes, and by a divine afflatus. Fairfax's chaplain, Dell, 
 thus exposed before the Commons the causes of Presbyterian 
 discontent : " Because you have not settled the government 
 which they have studied out for you as jus divinum, and as the 
 certain and unchangeable will of God; though they can neither 
 make it out to yourselves, nor to anybody else by the Word that 
 it is so." 
 
 The course followed by the Continental Reformers was de- 
 termined by the necessity of the case, and political exigences.
 
 and Spiritual Claims, 15 
 
 With the best dispositions towards legitimate episcopacy, it 
 would have been difficult in the confusion of re-action to pre- 
 serve the ancient tradition of holy Orders : for Rome had 
 almost a monopoly of the higher dignitaries. *' Necessitas est 
 lege,'' they said : and contented themselves with such substi- 
 tutes as the time would admit. But not without misgiving 
 and reluctance did the wise heads among them consent to 
 desert the ancient paths, and exchange tradition for expediency. 
 Grotius recommended the Dutch remonstrants to take ad- 
 vantage of the presence of an Irish Archbishop in Holland, 
 and to appoint some fit persons, who might receive from him 
 imposition of hands. At a later period the Church of Geneva 
 wrote apologetically : " Eos ritus qiiidem habemus quales rei- 
 piibliccB gubernatio et necessitas postuldrunt.'^ Being once impli- 
 cated in the violent abolition of episcopacy, it was natural that 
 the Puritans, smarting under the sufferings they had endured, 
 should look about for pleas to fortify their position. The more 
 unscrupulous found their account in turning into ridicule the 
 " Apostolic Pedigree :^' not without the displeasure and re- 
 monstrance of the more learned and honourable men of their 
 own party. ^^ Although the corriq)tions of episcopacy (said one of 
 their preachers before the Commons) made it justly odious, yet 
 it would have been better it had continued, rather than that it should 
 be jested down?' A rebuke administered to some of that sort by 
 Calvin, is not less required in these days, when increase of 
 knowledge, in correcting the evils of superstition, has banished 
 also the kindred virtue of reverence. " In time of changes there are 
 many of Lucian's temper ^ icho, by jesting against all received rites, 
 insensibly lose all sense and awe of religion : and by scoffing at 
 false gods, come the less to dread the true. Consider if the former 
 liberty of tongues and pens hath not begotten the present irreve- 
 rence and fearlessness that is in the spirits of men, against things 
 that are undoubtedly of God" 
 
 It was not, then, the " phantom dignity '' of the Bishops, 
 nor the claim of their office to Apostolic descent, that called 
 forth Cromwell's sword from its sheath, and provoked the civil 
 war. It was the assumption by the Crown of a kind and 
 degree of supremacy in civil and ecclesiastical causes which 
 never of right belonged to it; it was the dispensing power
 
 16 The Church m its Civil Relations 
 
 which had been adopted by the Popes into their code out of the 
 Roman imperial laws, and was supposed to be transferred at 
 the Reformation, as a part of his recovered prerogative, to the 
 king. This arbitrary claim it was, in an undefined and there- 
 fore dangerous exercise of it, that invaded the national liber- 
 ties, and involved the throne, the Church, and the nation in 
 a common ruin. 
 
 The lesson to be learned from that sad page of history ex- 
 tends beyond the single point on which disciples of the *' ad- 
 vanced school'^ concentrate their hatred and their fears. Su- 
 perstition is not the only direction in which the human mind 
 is liable to wander from reason and truth. There is a super- 
 stition of unbelief; a spirit of self-assertion, an assumed intel- 
 lectual superiority, not less dogmatic, not less unreasonable, 
 than the arrogance of spiritual pretensions. Every sect is 
 intolerant. "Every eldership would be perfect papacy." 
 Among religious societies there are none less intolerant than 
 our reformed Church, where a strong security for liberty is 
 given, in tbe effective recognition by the State of a society in- 
 dependent in its origin and in its terms of association ; yet in 
 its action regulated by the laws, owning a primary respon- 
 sibility to a higher tribunal than the sovereignties of this 
 world, yet mindful of the practical purposes for which it was 
 instituted, and therefore devoted with single-mindedness to the 
 maintaining among the people (what by its calumniators is 
 admitted to be the sole purpose of religion) " an attitude of rever- 
 ence towards the unknown Power, a religion which is the sanctifica- 
 tion of their actions and acquirements, lohich gives to man his special 
 elevation and dignity ;" and, it may be added, more than repays 
 the benefit it derives from a State connection, by tbe salutary 
 influence it exerts in the cause of virtue, and obedience to 
 the laws. 
 
 "We are at a loss, then, to guess from wbat quarter we are to 
 expect the promised accession of " dignity and reality " to the 
 position of a Bishop, if he were reduced to the level of a poli- 
 tical officer, liable, of course, to be deprived of his ecclesiastical 
 character (if under such circumstances he could claim any) by 
 the same act which would suspend him from the exercise of his 
 functions. It is not beyond hope that a Nonconformist, who
 
 and Spiritual Claims. 17 
 
 has imbibed false notions of the relations between Church and 
 State, particularly through, scandalous misrepresentations of 
 the process of electing Bishops, may be disabused of his preju- 
 dices. But it would be contrary to the experience of history, 
 as well as to the avowed sentiments of Nonconformists, to 
 imagine that they would be more willing to respect the Order, 
 if Bishops received their commission, like colonels from the 
 War Office, without spiritual ordination or consecration, such 
 as, in some form. Dissenting societies require in the appoint- 
 ment of their Ministers. 
 
 Suspicious, on the other hand, is the urgency of pretended 
 friends, in commending advantages to be obtained upon our 
 surrender (if it were in our power to make it) of our standing- 
 ground of '^ historic continuity ;" in other words, of the tradi- 
 tion which gives to the succession of our Ministry the authority 
 of an Apostolic origin. We have only to discard all reference 
 to primitive authority and precedent, to admit Church govern- 
 ment to be a mere open question of expediency ; above all, to 
 disencumber ourselves of political chains, and such " invidious 
 2)rivileges as belong to the selection and endowment of one Church to 
 the disparagement of all others ;" on these terms, we are as- 
 sured that " there would not he a Nonconformist who ivould not 
 then regard us as a sister Church, possessing a validity and eccle- 
 siastical rights equal to his oicn." 
 
 The bait seems scarcely tempting enough to persuade us to 
 the sacrifice of substantial advantages and inalienable rights 
 and duties, though we should add the acquisition of a ques- 
 tionable liberty of altering at pleasure our doctrinal standards 
 and ritual. In these blandishments, we may ask pardon for de- 
 tecting something like the craftiness of the fox who had lost 
 his tail, and would persuade his companions also to resign that 
 invidious ornament^. We cannot forget, that for 800 years 
 before Rome succeeded in bringing the Church into subjection. 
 Episcopacy had in this country, as elsewhere, a subsistence 
 independent of any foreign power, and derived from a tradi- 
 tional Apostolic source. Governed by her Bishops, canonically 
 
 * '• These lesser differences," says Burnet, '* were craftily managed by some 
 who intended to improve them so far, that they might have the Chmrch 
 lands divided among them."
 
 18 The Church in its Civil Relations 
 
 consecrated, she enjoyed a constitutional freedom ; while the 
 sovereign, from the time of the first penal law against Pagan- 
 ism, exercised an almost unquestioned right of nominating to 
 sees, appointing areas of jurisdiction, calling of councils, grants 
 of patronage, erecting bishoprics, and framing codes of eccle- 
 siastical laws. 
 
 Under an increasing libertinism, and jealousy of ecclesi- 
 astical independence, the jurisdiction of the Church has of 
 late years been curtailed, and her courts secularised. Undue 
 scandal has by this means been given to many, who do not 
 sufficiently consider that Courts are bound to decide questions 
 not by private judgment, but according to Law. Nor would 
 the offence necessarily cease if the Church were to accept the 
 freedom, such as it is, of unestablished societies, and resign 
 the advantages of alliance. Dissenting communities have not 
 been found insensible to the benefits of endowments; and 
 appeals to secular courts have not been unfrequent to decide 
 disputes that arise on this ground, involving questions of or- 
 thodoxy, according to the tenets of the sect, which must be 
 determined by lay judges not included in its pale ^. 
 
 In those religious societies, which either from necessity or 
 choice are unencumbered with endowments, or any specific 
 legal restraints, the subserviency of ministers to their congre- 
 gations exceeds the pitiable subjection of the parochial clergy 
 of the Church of Rome. If our discontented friends could 
 try the experiment, they would find the jurisdiction and pre- 
 rogative exercised by the Crown, and courts of judicature, 
 to be perfect freedom, in comparison with the irresponsible 
 domination of a congregational tribunal. It would be an un- 
 happy day, not for England alone, but for Christendom, if 
 the liberation so ardently pressed in some quarters, and co- 
 quetted with, more or less seriously, in others, should set the 
 teachers of ]N^ational Heligion free from the venerable restraint 
 of laws that have grown out of the wisdom and experience of 
 ages, or should expose them to the perilous temptation of de- 
 
 ^ In the episcopal Church of the United States, the civil power may be called 
 in to enforce an ecclesiastical sentence : or to give judgment in questions of 
 doctrine, whether the law has been rightly interpreted. The judge may or 
 may not be a member of the Church.
 
 and Spiritual Claims. 19 
 
 pending for their maintenance upon tickling the ears, and 
 gaining the precarious favour of their congregation, or of 
 the deacons who lord it over the ministers with inquisitorial 
 tyranny. 
 
 It is the boast of Congregationalists, [well deserving the 
 consideration of Churchmen, who advocate disestablishment 
 with a view of recovering the clerical supremacy of pre-re- 
 formation times,] that none so much as themselves have waged 
 an uncompromising war against clerical rule. *' It is their 
 strength and their glory, that the laity of the society are its ul- 
 timate authority ; that the clergy exercise only a delegated and 
 respo7isible power." 
 
 Those members, then, of the Church of England who are 
 ambitious of greater freedom, and imagine they would find 
 it in disestablishment^ are dreaming of an Utopian ecclesias- 
 ticism, which has had no place in Christendom. Should the 
 bond be dissevered which operates on the whole for the ad- 
 vantage of both Church and State, it would probably lead to 
 the dissolution of the various atoms now cohering, partly by 
 force of pressure from without, partly from a sense of the 
 value of religious institutions possessing at least the sanction 
 of ancient descent, and claiming a divine origin and unchang- 
 ing truth, in the preservation and tradition of which the State 
 has had no small share. Or, driven to seek some other centre 
 of unity and stability, many would be seduced by the attrac- 
 tions Rome is still able to display ; the cry for liberty would 
 be extinguished under her more than imperial despotism. 
 
 The experiment now on trial in Ireland, is perhaps too 
 recent to justify conclusions as to its results; in so far as it 
 has gone, it has shewn that disestablishment of the Church 
 neither promotes its unity nor increases its influence. 
 
 We watch in anxiety and uncertainty the bearing of Bishops 
 and Churches in Catholic countries, in relation to the Govern- 
 ment, now that Rome has ceased to be an independent sovereign 
 state. As we acknowledge the absoluteness of the truths which 
 the Gospel has established, and look for no new revelation, no 
 material change or development ; so durable, we believe, will be 
 the principles of the polity, ordained at the first for securing 
 those truths to the world, and for the universal application of
 
 20 The Church in its Civil Relations 
 
 thera. The Clergy will continue to form a separate Order; 
 not separate in religious or social interests, not singular in 
 their attitude towards truth of whatever kind, but at the same 
 time as recipients of a special commission, and stewards of 
 a final dispensation. 
 
 Another fruitful source of misrepresentation, is the inability 
 to perceive, or unwillingness to admit, an essential distinction, 
 carefully marked and guarded by the Church, between a power 
 to bestow a sacred office, of which the Church claims to be 
 the sole legitimate channel from its Divine source ; and a power 
 to impart the graces required for the due discharge of the 
 office, to which she makes no pretension. It would be scarcely 
 less gratuitously absurd to assert, that in receiving a general's 
 commission from the War Office, a man becomes endowed with 
 the virtue of courage and the art of strategy. The Giver of 
 both, it is true, the ministerial and the moral grace, is the 
 same Divine Person ; and the Church continues to use the 
 same terms in which Christ originally " sent '' forth the Apo- 
 stles. On this account she is charged with presumption and 
 profaneness, in daring to apply such solemn words, when mani- 
 festations of the Spirit no longer attend the ordinance, and 
 the discerning of hearts is limited to the natural sagacity and 
 prudence of the judge. But it must be remembered, theology 
 is a science, and claims to have her technical expressions in- 
 terpreted according to her own understanding and intention. 
 "Receive the Holy Ghost," has a definite and restricted sense 
 when used by the Church, as it had in the meaning of Him 
 who first justified the use of it in " sending '' ministers to 
 preach the Gospel. It was not the inward moral or saving 
 graces of the Holy Spirit that He at that moment was con- 
 cerned with; neither the ordinary nor extraordinary gifts of 
 the Spirit were then formally conferred, but that commission 
 only which on His authority is acknowledged to be specifically 
 a gift of the Holy Ghost. Together with a gift so originating 
 and so conferred, the Holy Spirit may well be believed to be 
 present, in other gracious influences; and indeed these are in 
 the same service specifically applied for through the appro- 
 priate and appointed means : viz.. Prayer, and the Holy Com- 
 munion. This sacred Order may of course be assumed, in
 
 and Spiritual Claims. 21 
 
 so far as its functions are concerned, under warrants from 
 the Crown, or by other unauthorised intrusions ; but as a 
 learned critic, himself no adherent of episcopacy, writes, it 
 may be done "^^/^^s/ce quiclem, sed non moraliter ; id est non 
 rede, non decore, non modo in sacris Uteris expresso." Against 
 misrepresentation or misunderstanding it might be thought 
 the Church had sufficiently guarded in the ritual itself, 
 where the meaning of the sentence, " Receive ye the Holy 
 Ghost," is immediately limited and defined by the words, 
 " for the office and work of a Priest, &c." Then the candidate 
 is directed to apply himself to those intellectual and moral 
 means by which Divine grace is ordinarily conferred, and by 
 which he may sustain the character of a wise and faithful 
 steward. 
 
 We can only attribute it to inattention, which on such a sub- 
 ject is without excuse, or to wilful misrepresentation, that in 
 the face of such distinctions, so reasonable and so Scriptural, 
 *' a magical theory of the priesthood " is assumed to be a tenet 
 of the Church, and is affirmed to be the chief cause of hostility 
 between the teaching of the Church and modern science. In 
 the heat of their resentment against this imaginary imposition, 
 its assailants are pursuing a phantom as unreal as Don Quix- 
 ote's giants ; and seem to be equally blind to the substantial 
 fabric against which they break their lance in vain. 
 
 Long since had Hooker, and others of the reformers, re- 
 opening the long-closed avenues to the study of antiquity, ex- 
 plained that though language may fail adequately to express 
 the exalted position and responsibilities of an Order of Divine 
 institution, yet neither the words nor the act of consecration 
 pretend to convey any moral graces, or to effect any intellectual 
 change in the person who receives the gift. " The term Kohj 
 Ghost/^ writes Hooker, ^Unay he used to signify not the pier son alone, 
 hut the gifts of the Holy Ghost ; and ice know that spiritual gifts 
 are not only abilities to do things miraculous, hut the authority 
 and power given men in the Church to he ministers of holy tilings'* 
 But there was no need to await the arrival of Hooker to con- 
 struct, as is pretended, an ecclesiastical fabric. Erected in 
 primitive times upon the foundation of the Apostles, it pre-
 
 22 The Church in its Civil Relations 
 
 served always their traditional Order, and rightly interpreted 
 their doctrine. 
 
 " Munus Sancti Spiritus,*^ wrote Ambrose, " est offieiiim sacer- 
 dotis." And Augustin, — " Neque enim aliquis discipulorum dedit 
 Spiritum Sanctum ; orahant quippe ut veniret in eos qiiihus manum 
 imponebant, non ipsi emu dahant ; quem morem in suis prwpositis 
 etiam nunc servat ecclesia'^ 
 
 If, then, there be any fiction or imposture, it has been learned 
 in following in the steps of the Apostles ; and the great body 
 of the Church in all ages have been either dupes or accomplices 
 in it. But if intellectual disdain would condescend to bestow 
 upon this not unworthy subject as much patient enquiry as 
 upon the unravelling a cipher, or the properties of a new gas, 
 it would be found that religious creeds and formularies, the 
 favourite topics of its contempt, have been framed for the most 
 part, not without the concurrence of reason ; of reason applied 
 to the most exalted and momentous subjects that can warm 
 and correct the imagination, while they engage the understand- 
 ing of men. 
 
 The theory of " spiritual propagation" has, under that phrase, 
 supplied a fund of witticism to Gibbon and his followers ; but 
 the truth, which is better expressed by the more familiar title 
 of ** Apostolic succession," cannot be explained or jested away 
 as a mere sentiment, nor safely overlooked for the sake even of 
 political convenience. It is a *' determinate reason" for every 
 spiritual authority. It would be an act of tyranny hitherto 
 unheard of, to compel the heads of the Church to exercise 
 a power so solemnly committed to them, and for the use of 
 which they are in an eminent degree responsible to a higher 
 tribunal than temporal Courts, at the dictation of the Crown, 
 without an opportunity of refusal or remonstrance. If the 
 Conge d^elire is, under ordinary circumstances, as they assert, 
 a mere shadow, yet shadows have relation to substance ; and as 
 we have shewn, the tangible form may sometimes assert itself. 
 An apprehension of arousing opposition to the royal mandate 
 at the election itself, or subsequentl}'' at the ceremony of con- 
 firming the election, may operate as a check upon the Crown 
 in making ecclesiastical preferments ; but there is every pro-
 
 and Spiritual Claims, 23 
 
 bability in these days, that a Minister of State will be influenced 
 by motives and considerations as practically successful in his 
 appointments, as those which would prevail with the members 
 of a Chapter, or any other body of electors ^. 
 
 With what ulterior design the motion for abolishing the 
 Conge cVelire has been made, and with what arguments it is 
 intended to support it, we are as yet in ignorance. If it is 
 proposed to relieve the consciences of Deans and Chapters, 
 by taking from them all responsibility in the election of Bishops, 
 and leaving them simply the duty of obedience to the royal 
 command, it has been shewn that such relief is not wanteds 
 certainly would not be afforded by a measure which would 
 make the restraint, that is now partial and occasional, absolute 
 and perpetual. 
 
 If the complaints of narrow-mindedness and other accusations 
 against the Clergy are just, the remedy proposed, of degradi ng 
 the Church from its position as a spiritual society, cutting it 
 adrift from its ancient and stable moorings, and casting it as 
 a mere secular institution upon the will of a changing legis- 
 lature, or the caprice of a congregation, is as eccentric, as the 
 source to which their failings are attributed is manifestly false. 
 A blind affection for paradox could alone have suggested the 
 incubus of sacred Orders as the cause that retains the Clergy 
 in alleged intellectual inferiority, exposes them to contempt, and 
 " prevents them from carrying the weight in the councils of 
 the nation, which has been commanded by men of no greater 
 intrinsic eminence in other professions." There have been 
 times when ecclesiastics have occupied the highest ofiices of 
 State : it was never yet found that the act of consecration, and 
 the fullest sense of the spiritual character conferred by it, 
 hindered them from rising above the level of their age, and 
 administering affairs with advantage to the nation and ho- 
 nour to themselves. Ecclesiastics, it is true, have receded 
 from the position they once held in the political world. Ex- 
 cept from necessity of circumstances, they had perhaps better 
 never have held it ; the more devoted and conscientious they 
 
 ' In more than one instance, the Prime Minister has apphed to the heads of 
 the Church to recommend two or three ehgible persons, from whom the Crown 
 might select one.
 
 24 The Church in its Civil Relations 
 
 are in their own sphere of duty solemnly committed to their 
 trust, the less likely are they to attain distinction in what does 
 not properly belong to it. There can be little leisure for 
 voluntary excursions into the novel tracks which human inge- 
 nuity and curiosity are ever opening afresh, except as they 
 may tend more or less in the direction of their specific minis- 
 trations. A comparison in this respect of the clerical with 
 other professions would be invidious. It reniains yet to be 
 shewn, that the Order of Clergy has been deficient in its fair 
 proportion of works for the progress and future well-being of 
 mankind. Some certainly there have been, whose erudition 
 has commanded the respect of all who are capable of appre- 
 ciating it ; others, of whose attainments the annals of polite 
 literature and science have no reason to be ashamed. 
 
 But far above all this; the world, and England in particular, 
 must not be suflTered to forget the debt of gratitude it owes to 
 men whose Apostolic descent in the office committed to them 
 by the imposition of hands was felt and acknowledged to be 
 a living principle, animating them to endurance, and to noble 
 acts, to which ordinary men have rarely attained. We grudge 
 none of the praise bestowed upon Drake and kindred heroes 
 for their part in the strife which terminated in the emancipa- 
 tion of Europe; but it is unjust to omit the less ostentatious 
 achievements of those pioneers in the cause of truth and free- 
 dom, who with other weapons waged a more unequal and pain- 
 ful contest against spiritual wickedness in high places ; who by 
 a rare combination of zeal with knowledge and discretion, laid 
 on surer foundations than that of conquest by the sword, the 
 principles of religious freedom, while our gallant sailors un- 
 consciously to themselves, and free from the mental agitations 
 attendant on the pursuit of truth, sealed the victory by their 
 triumph over Spain. To the great men of the Reformation 
 it is due that ** Catholic England — England of a dominant 
 Church, monasteries and pilgrimages," was transmuted into 
 the England of progressive intelligence. They gained the 
 cause, not amid the excitement of the battle, but by laborious 
 patience and anxious thought ; by endurance of imprisonment, 
 exile, and the lingering * agony of the fire. Some of these 
 were Bishops — consecrated Bishops — appointed under the Act
 
 and Spiritual Claims, 25 
 
 of Conge d'elire; manj of inferior rank had received Holy- 
 Orders at their hands. Yet we never hear of one who, in the 
 most awful moments of the supreme hour, betraj^ed any con- 
 sciousness of imposture in the sacred title which he carried 
 with him before his Judge; or any symptoms that the Divine 
 Ordinance had in any degree impaired his faculties, or cor- 
 rupted his integrity. 
 
 With such splendid examples before us, fruits of that Divinely- 
 planted tree, for whose increase Bishops and Priests, age after 
 age, have mingled their blood with that of the first holy mar- 
 tyrs, it would be unwise, on account of some eccentricities of 
 growth which may here and there distort a branch, to tear 
 from its foundation the pleasant plant ; and expect the rootless 
 trunk to take fresh hold, and flourish again in uncongenial 
 soil. The fatal loss of vitality in such a divorce could not be 
 compensated by compelling a clergy to adopt a meaner view 
 of their calling, and accept the degradation of a mere political 
 appointment, instead of holding their title by legitimate descent 
 from that kingdom and from the Lord of it, where Learning, 
 accompanied by Faith and her kindred band of active virtues, 
 has its promise of reward. In these days, learning in the less 
 attractive branches of morals and theology holds out scanty 
 promise of material recompense, especially to those whose office 
 it is to make it subservient to the future welfare of men, rather 
 than to the rendering them successful in this world. No mere 
 utilitarian motives could supply the absence of a sense of 
 solemn engagements contracted with Heaven at the entrance 
 into the ministry : no other could be so powerful, Bishop 
 Warburton insists, in urging men '^to the pursuits of such 
 parts of human wisdom as are most fitted to enlarge the un- 
 derstanding, and enrich the mind with a knowledge of the 
 Divine nature, and of its own." 
 
 The opposition by the Church of Rome to advance in phi- 
 losophy and science, as it is daily becoming more intolerable 
 even to her own bond-children, is utterly irrelevant as a jus- 
 tification for ihe libel upon our Clergy, as being, through their 
 incorporation into a spiritual society, enemies to intellectual 
 progress. It can be no disadvantage to the cause of Truth 
 that such an Order should exist, pledged to reveal her to the
 
 26 The Church in its Civil Melatious, 8fc. 
 
 world in the celestial form she assumed when she appeared 
 on earth as the Life and the Light of men. 
 
 Nor can the Clergy be justly blamed if, mindful of the maxim 
 in Religion and Morals, that whatever is certainly new is pro- 
 bably false, they are unwilling to relax the firm hold they have 
 upon Truth in one province at least, in the speculative hope 
 of extending their grasp. When time may have reduced into 
 order wild excursions of the imagination, and reverence has 
 resumed the place whence intellectual pride has for a while 
 expelled it ; when larger comparison of discoveries shall enable 
 us to exhibit the facts of science in more perfect connection, 
 and assign to them their due significance ; when experience 
 has marked the relative bearings, and the fluctuating basis 
 has become consolidated, — then, on looking back upon a long 
 series of discarded conjectures and exploded theories, some 
 merit may at length be allowed to an obstructiveness, which 
 persists in distinguishing between arrogant assumptions of 
 a too curious scepticism, and modest deductions of sober reason; 
 which has neither the power nor the wish to impede such 
 advances in knowledge as open to our view more of the in- 
 tellectual and physical world, but refuses in the meanwhile 
 to be led too fast and too far upon ground which it deems 
 unsafe. 
 
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