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 CHUECH MATTERS IN 1850. 
 
 11. A CALL TO SPEAK OUT. 
 
 The thing which we greatly feared has come 
 upon us. A Court, not of the Church, but 
 of the State, has hcensed the denial of Sacra- 
 mental Grace ; the Archbishops and some of 
 the Bishops have sanctioned the decision ; and 
 the English Prelacy in general, being earnestly 
 called on to disavow it, at least by re-affirm- 
 ing the truth, has declined to do so. The 
 House of Lords, with no small tokens of scorn, 
 has refused even to take into consideration the 
 Bishops' Bill for amendment of the anomalous 
 Court, substantially on the very ground that 
 it might prove a security against like dis- 
 turbance of the Church's doctrine in future. 
 And (that which, more than anything else, 
 would seem to bring matters to a point) the 
 Primate has signified his willingness to institute 
 the Clerk condemned by his own Court for 
 denial of Sacramental Grace ; thereby setting 
 
 B
 
 2 CHURCH MATTERS IN 1850. 
 
 his official seal both to the Court's authority 
 and to the venial nature of the false doctrine, 
 and committing the Church by law established 
 to both, so far as he can commit it hy any 
 single ministerial act of his own: a sad thought 
 for those who are compelled to regard the 
 Court as a profane though unconscious usur- 
 pation of sacred functions, and the doctrine 
 as not only false but heretical. And this last 
 grievous judgment will fall on us, in all pro- 
 bability, in the course of a very few weeks. 
 
 The first and most pressing question raised 
 by this state of things is, of course. Whether 
 and how far the faithful Clergy and Laity are 
 called upon to break or suspend communion 
 v^^ith a Bishop so far implicated in heresy? 
 Many will ignore this at once — *' What have 
 we in Cumberland, or Ireland, or the Colonies, 
 to do with the matter ? it is too far off from 
 us." But no one will do so, who really lays 
 to heart, either the true doctrine of Church 
 Membership, or (if he be a Priest) the force 
 of his ordination vows. '* If one member 
 suffer, all the members suffer with it ;" much 
 more such a principal member as the chief 
 Metropolitan in our communion. And again, 
 as Priests, we are not free to "pass by on
 
 A CALL TO SPEAK OUT. 3 
 
 the other side," seeing we are sworn to *' ba- 
 nish and drive away all erroneous doctrines 
 contrary to God's word." It is better, on every 
 account, to think the whole matter fairly over, 
 and settle it, if one may, with one's own con- 
 science, once for all. 
 
 The duty of breaking communion, when it 
 exists, rests, in some cases, on purely moral 
 grounds; in some, also, on grounds which may 
 be called sacramental. The first, set forth in 
 such passages as Rom. xvi. 17 ; 2 Tim. iii. 5 ; 
 2 John, 10. Now this is what moralists call 
 a " duty of imperfect obligation :" i.e. though 
 it is always binding as a principle, the manner 
 and degree of its action must be modified by 
 each man's circumstances ; it is like the duty 
 of avoiding bad company in general. It is 
 not this with which our present argument is 
 concerned. 
 
 The other, the sacramental aspect of the 
 case, is brought before the contemplation of 
 Christians by our Lord's sentence on those 
 who neglect to hear the Church, as illustrated 
 by the case of the incestuous Corinthian ; and 
 by the injunction to Titus to reject a heretic 
 after the first and second admonition. The 
 Church has always understood this part of
 
 4 CHURCH MATTERS IN 1850. 
 
 her discipline to imply, that persons know- 
 ingly communicating with those who are 
 under her formal censures for heresy, contract 
 the heretical taint themselves. And this it 
 is which we naturally begin to apprehend, in 
 our present unhappy circumstances : especially 
 since we find in Church history that it was 
 no unusual thing, in former days, for the or- 
 thodox of a .town or diocese at once to sus- 
 pend communion with a Bishop or other 
 Teacher, when they were satisfied, on suffi- 
 cient moral evidence, that he was really com- 
 mitted to any grave heresy. 
 
 Now it may appear at first sight, as if Mr. 
 Gorham were under the formal censure of the 
 Church, seeing that the Archbishop's Court 
 has declared him unfit to be instituted by 
 reason of false doctrine. But, first, the Court, 
 most wrongfully as we believe, yet effectually 
 in point of form, will have revoked its own 
 sentence, if it issue a mandate for institution ; 
 therefore it cannot be strictly said that he is 
 under the formal censure of the Church : and 
 as a general rule, no person not under such 
 censure communicates the taint of heresy to 
 those continuing in fellowship with him. In 
 the next place, though the doctrine virtually
 
 A CALL TO SPEAK OUT. 5 
 
 sentenced by the Court of Arches, and acquitted 
 by the Judicial Committee, is undoubted he- 
 resy by ancient Church Law, and we are 
 ready to prove it such before a lawful Synod, 
 yet it was not in the sentence condemned as 
 heresy, cutting off from the Church, but only 
 as false doctrine, causing unfitness for insti- 
 tution. For these two reasons I should say, 
 that no man can as yet contract the stain of 
 heresy, in a formal, ritual, or sacramental 
 sense, by communicating with those whom 
 the present question relates to : although of 
 the moral guilt and scandal, possibly incurred 
 by such communion, any one of us, according 
 to his opportunities of knowing better, and 
 other responsibilities, may be partaker to an 
 indefinite degree. But of this each person 
 must be left to judge for himself. The rule 
 of charity in such matters verges sometimes 
 nearer upon severity, sometimes upon leniency. 
 As far as formal and legal proceedings go, it 
 was a Canon in the very severest times, *' Not 
 to punish any as a Heretic, except he be ad- 
 judged such by the Bishop or some Eccle- 
 siastical Authority."* 
 
 * In a Council at Toulouse, a.d. 1129. Hafd. vi. part 2, 
 p. 1150, E.
 
 6 CHURCH MATTERS IN 1850. 
 
 As to voluntary suspension or indulgence of 
 Communion, we have instances of the former 
 in the case of the clergy and people of Con- 
 stantinople, when they withdrew themselves 
 from Nestorius on his first broaching his 
 heresy ; and in the Monks of Nazianzum, 
 rejecting the elder Gregory on his signing 
 the confession of Ariminum : of the latter, 
 in St. Athanasius and St. Basil, dealing with 
 Semi-Arians as with certain brethren, though 
 they scrupled owning the Son to be " of 
 One Substance" with the Father : St. Chry- 
 sostom too, in the time of the Meletian schism 
 at Antioch, preached most earnestly against 
 individuals taking on themselves to anathe- 
 matize false teachers. Moreover, it is evi- 
 dent that in the proceedings above referred 
 to, both at Constantinople and at Nazianzum, 
 the denial of Communion was personal to Nes- 
 torius and Gregory respectively: it did not in- 
 volve all who communicated with them. Not 
 in the former case ; for St. Cyril and all the 
 orthodox Bishops at Ephesus treated those in 
 communion with Nestorius, until he was con- 
 demned, as part of their own number. Not 
 in the latter; for the younger and more re- 
 nowned Gregory, as continuing apparently in
 
 A CALL TO SPEAK OUT. 7 
 
 communion with each, became after some 
 years the instrument of reconcihation between 
 his father and his flock. And the controversy 
 in each of these cases touched more or less 
 directly the very foundation of the Faith. 
 
 I conclude, therefore, that in spite of cer- 
 tain appearances, we need not fear being as 
 yet formally committed to the heresy which 
 causes our alarm, either as individuals or as a 
 Church, by continuing in communion with 
 Prelates or others who favour it ; but that 
 there is very great danger of our being morally 
 committed to it. 
 
 If we at all connive at it, we sin ourselves : 
 as far as in us lies, we cause the Church of 
 England to sin ; we draw down God's judg- 
 ments upon her ; and we prepare the way for 
 her to become, in no very long time, formally 
 heretical, i. e. to cease from being a Church 
 altogether. There is need, then, of anxious 
 deliberation and of prompt action : but there 
 is no need of hurry or excitement. Let no 
 man's heart fail, as if perchance he w-ere al- 
 ready out of the Church, but let each man 
 pray in his heart, and calmly consider what he 
 ought to do, in order that he and his children 
 may continue in it.
 
 8 CHURCH MATTERS IN 1850. 
 
 Upon such sober consideration, I think we 
 shall all of us come more and more to perceive, 
 that this present grievance ought no longer to 
 be taken by itself; that the time is passed for 
 remedying it (if even it could have been re- 
 medied) by simple re-affirmation, however au- 
 thoritative, of the portion of Christian doc- 
 trine to which it does violence : rather it must 
 be taken as the *^ comhle de mnlheur" the 
 drop which was to make the waters of bitter- 
 ness overflow. Combining it with all its cir- 
 cumstances, we may and ought to regard it 
 as a providential call to examine at large the 
 present relations of the Church to the State in 
 England, and see whether it be possible for us 
 to acquiesce in them any longer without very 
 grievous sin. 
 
 With a heavy heart I will state my reasons 
 for thinkins: so. 
 
 Redress in such a wrong as we have suf- 
 fered, and security against its recmTence, can 
 only be had (humanly speaking) by one of 
 two processes : either the governing power in 
 the State must allow the objectionable decision 
 to be reviewed by proper authority, and the 
 usurpation to be abated for the future ; or the 
 governing powder in the Church must at all
 
 A CALL TO SPEAK OUT. 9 
 
 hazards demur to the State's interference, and 
 disregard its enactments. But what chance is 
 there of right being done by the State, seeing 
 that in the House of Lords, the most favour- 
 able tribunal (as we may assume it to be) for 
 such a purpose, nearly two-thirds have de- 
 clined even taking into consideration the al- 
 lowed anomalies in the constitution of the 
 Court of Appeal, expressly because it might 
 lead to a revision of the sentence 9 What 
 chance of relief from the other quarter al- 
 luded to, since it is understood that the Bi- 
 shops of England have separated, after four 
 meetings, with the avowed determination to 
 make no declaration of doctrine ; to ignore 
 men's scruples, and let matters take their 
 course ? And some even of those who have 
 spoken most strongly against the false doc- 
 trine, have acknowledged " legal respect" to 
 be " due to the judgment recently delivered :" 
 which can hardly mean less, than that they 
 are not prepared to contravene it, in the only 
 effectual way, by refusing institution. 
 
 I advert to these things, it will be observed, 
 merely as to matters of fact — not to draw 
 down blame upon those to whom I refer, but 
 simply to help myself and others in judging 
 
 b2
 
 10 CHURCH MATTERS IN 1850. 
 
 how fiir we may reasonably hope for their aid, 
 in regard of this especial grievance. Many 
 more particulars might be added, but these 
 appear to me so significant, that I will go on 
 at once to the next question : What is to be 
 done, failing both the Parliament and the 
 Episcopate ? And this I should answer by an- 
 other question : What has been the course of 
 constitutional Reformers in this country, when 
 their (seemingly) just demands have been dog- 
 gedly refused by the Government of the time? 
 What has been their course, and how has it 
 answered ? On some grievance of detail, some 
 point of jurisprudence or finance, or some 
 case which, like the present, appeared to touch 
 *' religious liberty," they found a lack of jus- 
 tice in the existing Courts or Parliaments ; 
 and this set them on examining the whole 
 theory and system of those institutions, and if 
 they had, or seemed to have, a good moral 
 case, a fair appeal to the equity and good 
 sense of their countrymen, and were able to 
 point out what it was in the framework of the 
 bodies then trusted with authority which baf- 
 fied all their just pleas; they have in general, 
 sooner or later, carried the mind of their 
 countrv with them, not only for redress of the
 
 A CALL TO SPEAK OUT. 11 
 
 special wrong, but (if need were) for the ge- 
 neral re-modelling of the institution which 
 seemed committed to the wrong. I propose 
 that English Churchmen, who feel aggrieved 
 by the late proceedings, should adopt a course 
 analogous to this. 
 
 The object, apparently, of those who bear 
 sway in these matters, is either to force us into 
 a nonjuring movement, or to make us acqui- 
 esce in what has been done, as a less evil than 
 leaving our folds to the wolf, and separating 
 ourselves from our erring but not heretical 
 brethren. Our Prime Ministers and our Chief 
 Justices, with their Acts of Parliament, are deal- 
 ing with us and our parishes as a tyrant might, 
 who should get a man*s wife and children into 
 his power, and say, " Come into my terms, or I 
 butcher them." I dare say they mean nothing 
 of the kind, but this is what their proceedings 
 really come to. One may hope, however, 
 that there is yet an alternative remaining. It 
 is possible, that when the whole case of the 
 Church, not in regard of this doctrine, nor of 
 this tribunal, only, but in all its relations to 
 the State and Law of England, is fairly and 
 fully set before the people of England, we 
 shall carry them with us, in our demand of
 
 12 CHURCH MATTERS IN 1850. 
 
 redress ; especially since one material clause of 
 any such demand would be, that the Church's 
 prerogatives (so called), as well as her re- 
 straints, should be considered with a view to 
 re-adjustment, as the real necessities of her 
 people may require. Fairness and reverence 
 cannot be quite extinguished in our country ; 
 the plain tale we have to tell must win a cer- 
 tain degree of attention. 
 
 We shall not, of course, be simple enough to 
 begin with anything so obsolete as Magna Charta 
 and the Coronation Oath ; how that by the one 
 it is acknowledged as the first principle of our 
 Law, that " the Church of England shall have 
 all her rights and privileges without diminu- 
 tion or disturbance ;" and by the other, all 
 our Sovereigns successively pledge themselves 
 " to maintain the Laws of God and the true 
 profession of the Gospel." We know better, 
 in our time, than to advance such topics as 
 these, either in or out of Parliament. But 
 what we do think hard and complain of is this: 
 that the age makes an exception in our dis- 
 favour to the received principles of English 
 Toleration. We are the one religious body 
 in the Queen's dominions, to which the fol- 
 lowing privileges are expressly denied : — To
 
 A CALL TO SPEAK OUT. 13 
 
 declare our own Doctrines ; to confirm, vary, 
 and repeal our own Canons ; to have a voice 
 in the nomination of our own chief Pastors ; 
 to grant or withhold our own Sacraments, ac- 
 cording to our own proper rule as a religious 
 body. 
 
 Our case is, in short, — 1. That we are de- 
 nied these four privileges, which all other reli- 
 gionists have : 2. That there is no sufficient 
 reason in the fact of our Church being " Esta- 
 blished" (whatever the word Establishment 
 means) to justify such denial : but, 3. That 
 if it should appear, on further consideration, 
 that "Establishment" is, in our case, incom- 
 patible with these liberties, we earnestly im- 
 plore that measures may be speedily taken for 
 relieving us of such painful support : and that 
 for this obvious reason ; that we had rather 
 be a Church in Earnest separate from the 
 State, than a Counterfeit Church in professed 
 Union with the State. This is our case, in 
 brief. The several portions of it will require 
 separate and detailed consideration. 
 
 To confine myself at present to that which 
 is most immediately distressing : we say, that 
 our being a religious body implies our settling 
 and declaring our own Doctrines by some au-
 
 14 CHURCH MATTERS IN 1850. 
 
 thority within ourselves. For how can another 
 man settle and declare what I believe ? The 
 very notion is monstrous and self-contradict- 
 ory. And if one individual cannot do this for 
 another, how can it be done for the Church 
 by a body which is not of the Church ? 
 
 Two replies will be made to this : 1. That 
 the present Court of Appeal does not claim 
 to decide on doctrine ; 2. That it is not alien 
 to the Church. 
 
 Now it is all very well to say that our doc- 
 trines remain as they were ; that the " Judg- 
 ment" was merely the application of legal skill 
 to the interpretation of certain documents. 
 But some of those who are most forward in 
 that argument seem hardly to be in earnest. 
 For thus it is with them — thus it was {e, g.) 
 with Lord Lansdowne in the debate on the 
 Bishops' Bill. When he spoke of the power 
 now assigned to the Judicial Committee, he 
 said it was merely to decide facts, not to settle 
 questions of doctrine. But when he spoke of 
 the same power as proposed to be transferred 
 to the Bishops, then it would be " letting loose 
 all the winds of doctrine." Both statements, 
 obviously, cannot stand. 
 
 But, not to waste time upon the subtleties
 
 A CALL TO SPEAK OUT. 15 
 
 of advocates, let us see what will be the issue 
 in practice ; what the effect must be upon 
 parochial teaching. And I know not how to 
 exhibit this so effectually as by inserting here 
 the substance of a correspondence relating to 
 a Parochial Petition on the subject. 
 
 The Petition was as follows, addressed to 
 the Bishop of the Diocese : — 
 
 " Right Reverend Father in God, 
 
 " We, your dutiful children in Christ, Com- 
 municants worshipping in the Church of , 
 
 most humbly implore your fatherly aid in a serious 
 matter of religion and conscience. 
 
 ** We have been informed, and believe, that in a 
 certain cause relating to the Doctrine of Holy Bap- 
 tism, lately tried within this realm, it has been finally 
 decreed to be lawful for a Clergyman to teach, that 
 not all Infants admitted to Holy Baptism receive 
 therein remission of sins by spiiitual Regeneration, 
 but only some favoured ones, on whom an act of 
 special grace has previously passed. 
 
 ** We beg leave to represent to your Lordship, 
 that it altojiether confounds and amazes. us to hear 
 that there is any doubt in the matter ; we having 
 been always taught and accustomed to receive the 
 solemn words of the Prayer-book in their plain and 
 natural sense. 
 
 "And as, being so instructed by the Church, we
 
 16 CHURCH MATTERS IN 1850. 
 
 Iiave come away from the Burial Service in more or 
 Jess Hope, that our departed brethren rest in peace ; 
 so, in obedience to the same instruction, we have re- 
 turned from the Baptismal Service in undoubting 
 and earnest Faith, tliat our little ones are in a state 
 of salvation by the grace given them in that Holy 
 Sacran)ent. 
 
 "We have not doubted, butearnestly believed, that, 
 inasmuch as they have now received the one Baptism 
 for the remission of sins, the sin in which they were 
 born is for Christ's sake remitted unto them ; so that, 
 being now made members of Christ, children of God, 
 and inheritors of the kingdom of Heaven, they are 
 free to believe and do, by God's grace, all that is 
 needful for their continuance in that state of sal- 
 vation. 
 
 " All this we have been used to believe, and do 
 believe; and, God enabling us, we will live and die 
 in that faith, and will do what we can to secure the 
 sume to our children. In which purpose, as we hope 
 for vour Lordship's approval and blessing, so we 
 enrnestly implore you to aid us, by such means as 
 the Chief Shepherd shall put into your heart, for 
 removing any doubt which may have arisen on this 
 point, namely, — 
 
 " W/f ether or no the Church holds it needful to he 
 believed, that, by the Blood and Merits of our Saviour 
 Christ, Original Sin is remitted to all Infants in 
 Holy Baptism ? 
 
 " We humbly ask your Lordship's blessing, and
 
 A CALL TO SPEAK OUT. 17 
 
 also your forgiveness, if we have erred in this our 
 Petition, or in anything contained therein : being al- 
 ways, 
 
 *' Right Reverend Father in God, 
 ** Your Lordship's very dutiful children and 
 " servants in Christ, 
 
 It was accompanied by a letter, of which 
 the following are extracts : — 
 
 " I should not be doing justice to my flock, were 
 1 not to add that I am convinced, by actual inquiry 
 and conversation, that they have not been putting 
 their names down for form's sake, nor to please 
 their betters, but with intelligence and hearty good- 
 will. My Lord, may I venture, in their name and 
 in my own (that I add not Another, the most sacred 
 of all names), very seriously to implore your Lord- 
 ship to take their case into consideration, and in 
 some way to give them, for themselves and their 
 children, that security which they so earnestly de- 
 sire, and which none but their Bishop can give them, 
 against being hereafter tanght by authority tliat the 
 foundation of their Faith and Hope, their ingrafting 
 into Christ by His Holy Baptism, is an uncertainty, 
 and their sins, peradventure, only as the sins of the 
 heathen, requiring no such very deep or special 
 
 repentance You may judge how anxiously we 
 
 wait, both they and 1, for something to reassure our 
 minds, and to satisfy us that, whatever the State may
 
 18 CHURCH MATTERS IN 1850. 
 
 decree, the Bishops of the Church of England will 
 not suffer our Faith in so great a doctrine to be 
 disturbed. I can truly avouch to your Lordship, 
 that the plain, simple, devout spirits, those who have 
 been most tried by suffering, and who seem most to 
 long after goodness — those of my flock who have 
 never heard before of controversy — are not the least 
 deeply impressed with the importance of this matter. 
 How, then, can it be thought to be a matter of subtle 
 disputation, or of mere temporary excitement? Nay, 
 my Lord, it is a matter of life and death .... The 
 amount of distress and perplexity, I fear of unbelief 
 also, is daily increasing : our advj^rsarieson both sides 
 rejoice, and all the while (as I verily believe) .... 
 we are nearly all of one mind as against the extreme 
 doctrine which has been advanced and sanctioned. 
 If all who repudiate that enor would but join us in 
 saying so, and in strengthening the hands of your 
 Lordship and the rest of our Fathers, the Church's 
 doctrine would soon be vindicated, so far as it may 
 have been impugned, and we should be relieved from 
 the open scorn and shame, before all Christendom, 
 of having to obey such a Court as now overrules our 
 Church Courts, even in questions of the Faith ; for 
 surely no Government could resist the united appli- 
 cation of both the great sections of the Church. 
 Thus Truth and Peace might both, through God's 
 niercy, be cared for. But 1 see no other way.* 
 
 * Among the many sorrows and disappointments of the 
 time, not the least is the way in which those who are called
 
 A CALL TO SPEAK OUT. 19 
 
 What I anticipate, if this may not be, I will not. 
 trouble your Lordship with detailing. You know as 
 well as I do the ways in which earnest minds are 
 likely to be affected, when the Faith appears to them 
 to be touched, and those to whom they look for its 
 assertion take no notice .... I do not love antici- 
 pating difficulties. I am sure (please God) the 
 Church of England will never deny the Faith ; nor 
 can it ever become a man's duty to leave that 
 Church. But, my Lord, in saying this I mean the 
 Old Church of England, such as I was baptized and 
 bred in, — not such as the established body will be- 
 come, if it really, by speech or by silence, accept the 
 doctrine set forth in this judgment. In such case 
 the Church of England will be to me the protesting 
 minority, not the society recognised, if any be still 
 recognised, by the State. I do not say that such a 
 sad consummation could take place in a short time, 
 though a short time might make it, humanly speak- 
 ing, inevitable. But our dutiful feelings of every 
 
 kind would make us slow to acknowledge it 
 
 But what 1 meant to convey to your Lordship is the 
 undoubting conviction of myself and many others, 
 that if this sad disturbance of doctrine continue, 
 sooner or later we shall be visited either with a very 
 
 moderate Low Churchmen have hitherto seemed to receive 
 every proposal of this kind : I mean the proposal that we should 
 unite in a sort of Formula Concordice^ affirming Regeneration 
 m Baptism, but guarding against disparagement of the further 
 grace of Conversion where needed.
 
 20 CHURCH MATTERS IN 1850. 
 
 distressing separation from the Establishment (be- 
 sides very many fallings away on both sides) or with 
 an effort, hardly to be resisted, for an entirely new 
 arrangement of the Church's relations with the State. 
 There are many grievances besides this, which I need 
 not detail to your Lordship, the least of which might 
 well warrant a certain degree of boldness in seeking 
 a remedy ; and I cannot believe that our country- 
 . men will refuse their sympathy when the case is 
 fairly brought before them. But it will be a fearful 
 step, and I will hope that it may never become our 
 duty to try it." 
 
 The Petition and Letter were shown to a 
 person, who, looking at them with all kind- 
 ness, was yet unable to sympathise with the 
 alarm of the Petitioners ; alleging, what has 
 been so often stated, that the Doctrine of the 
 Church does in fact remain unaffected by the 
 decision. 
 
 To his remarks it was replied, in substance, 
 as follows : — 
 
 " I observe, that neither in your letter, nor in any 
 other of the statements similar to it which I have 
 met with in various quarters, of more or less autho- 
 rity, is it affirmed that we have mistaken the real 
 state of the case at present. At this moment, 'as I 
 suppose, it is fully open to myself, for instance, to 
 alter, if I saw fit, the whole course of my teaching on
 
 A CALL TO SPEAK OUT. 21 
 
 Holy Baptism, and tell the people that it is quite un- 
 certain whether or no their infants have any spiritual 
 benefit thereby, and whether their own sins are not 
 as the sins of the heathen, committed against no 
 special grace. The same course is equally free to 
 any curate or schoolmaster teaching in our parish. 
 We could none of us be checked in so doing by any 
 ecclesiastical authority. Am I wrong in imagining 
 this to be the real state of the case at present ? I 
 shall be too happy to be told that I am. 
 
 " But if I am not wrong, this is our people's 
 grievance. It would be a great inconvenience, a 
 sore grievance, to be open to two contradictory ways 
 of teaching on «wy serious practical point of religion. 
 But when the point so left open is of the very sub- 
 stance of the Faith, the grievance, to those who hold 
 the Faith, is, in the strict sense of the word, into- 
 lerable. We cannot and we must not be easy, until 
 by God's mercy we have obtained deliverance from 
 it. 
 
 '* If it be as you state, that the Judicial Committee 
 have left the doctrine of the Church what they found 
 it, and if that docti-ine concerning Baptism be at 
 present liable to such contradictory expositions as I 
 have above indicated, all we can say is, that we have 
 hitherto lived and been at peace in a mistaken view 
 of that doctiiue ; but that now it has been explained 
 to us, we can no longer be at peace. Hitherto we 
 thought ourselves protected by the law of our Eng- 
 lish Church against denial of Sacramental Grace, as
 
 22 CHURCH MATTERS IN 1850. 
 
 against deninl of the Trinity, or Incarnation, or any 
 other vital doctrine of the Gospel. If this judgment 
 stands, we are not so protected. Whether we were 
 right or wrong before, the loss to our feelings is just 
 the same. We cannot be as we were until tliis great 
 article is (as I should say) re-affirmed, or (as you 
 would say) affirmed, by competent authority. Such 
 is, of course, the feeling of all those who hold the 
 doctrine, and hold it as fundamental ; as every one 
 must, I conceive, who in reality holds it at all. 
 
 " But even more earnestly than for them, would 
 I wish to plead for the thousands and tens of thou- 
 sands who know nothing of it, or know it only to 
 scorn it — who are going on lightly in grievous sin, 
 because, not being aware of the high and superna- 
 tural state to which they have been called, they 
 have not a conception how grievous their sins are. 
 Sadly do I feel that the doctrine which has now- 
 been sanctioned is the very doctrine by which, ac- 
 cording to all my parochial and other experience, 
 the Evil One has his own way with our lost sheep. 
 As he said to Eve by the tree of knowledge, ' Ye 
 shall not surely die,' so he says to us beside the tree 
 of life, * Ye have not surely lived again;' and the 
 practical conclusion is the same : ' You need not be 
 so much afraid of this or that dangerous liberty.' 
 
 ** This is the reason, and not simply for our love 
 of antiquity, nor in order to complete a theological 
 system, why we cling so earnestly to the literal 
 meaning of what we have been taught concerning
 
 A CALL TO SPEAK OUT. 23 
 
 Holy Baptism, and why it so breaks our hearts to 
 see the contrary allowed and prevailing. Our own 
 consciences inform us but too clearly, how ruinous 
 it is for a careless Christian to be told, that, in re- 
 spect of profaning special grace, his sins are but as 
 the sins of the heathen ; which thing, when it came 
 into the mind of the Jews, they were told that it 
 could not be at all ; * and if not with them, much 
 less, surely, with us. 
 
 ** If then one could persuade one's self that the 
 late decision (supposing it a decision of the Church) 
 had not altered our Anglican doctrine, it would be 
 no comfort, but only the additional sorrow, that our 
 Church had for so many years given up a funda- 
 mental truth, most necessary as a safeguard of souls. 
 But I hope and trust that the assumption is er- 
 roneous. I cannot think that such entire denial 
 of all real Sacramental Grace, as I find in the writ- 
 ings of Mr. Gorham and Mr. Goode, was ever toler- 
 ated by our Church as a Church. I think there is 
 a clear and broad distinction to be drawn between 
 their teaching and that of the school which has been 
 usuallv called Calvinistic — that of Whito^ift, for ex- 
 ample, and ofUssher; and the distinction is this: 
 that our Calvinists, whether logically or no, ac- 
 knowledged Baptism to be the ordinary channel of 
 Regeneration ; whereas the school of Zuinglius, to 
 which belono; the two livino; writers whom I have 
 named, will not allow it to be the channel of any 
 
 * Ezekiel, xx. 32.
 
 24 CHURCH MATTERS IN 1850. 
 
 grace, but merely the * formal making over,' — the 
 outward sign and evidence, that when the condition 
 is accomplished, then such and such a mercy will 
 be given : just as the sign of the cross on the fore- 
 head, or the sight of a cross on a church-gable, is 
 an edifying and comfortable sign to those who be- 
 lieve what it reminds them of. This is what we 
 apprehend, and would guard against the teaching 
 people to believe, — that they are unregenerate, in the 
 sense of their not being so united to Christ, as to 
 be transferred into a state really supernatural, in 
 which, as their blessings and privileges are immea- 
 surably greater, so their sins are immeasurably 
 worse, than in their natural condition. The old 
 Calvinists, as a school within the Church, never, 
 that I know of, denied this. Their feeling was with 
 the Reformer Bradford, that ' we ought to believe 
 of ourselves that we are regenerate by our Baptism, 
 the Sacrament thereof requiring no less faith.'* The 
 difficulty about Perseverance might cause them at 
 times to use sayings seemingly inconsistent with 
 this, as sometimes did also the Schoolmen, perhaps 
 even St. Augustine himself. But as a school, I have 
 no doubt that they held, or meant to hold. Bap- 
 tismal Regeneration, even as St. Augustine did. 
 But this modern school denies it on a totallv different 
 ground — a oround common to them with Socinians : 
 That inward grace can in no real sense be conferred 
 by outward signs, nor made dependent on man's 
 
 * As quoted in the " Christian Remembrancer," No. 67, p. 44.
 
 A CALL TO SPEAK OUT. 25 
 
 ministerial acts. Now, the denial of the remission 
 of sin to a baptized infant is an extreme, and, 
 I believe, an almost unprecedented, assertion of 
 this modern doctrine. Therefore it may be con- 
 demned without inclusively condemning the Eliza- 
 bethan school of Calvinistical divines ; and also, 
 confessedly, without touching the great majority of 
 those who may be supposed to represent that school 
 at present. They whom such condemnation would 
 really touch are, for the most part, of a different 
 cast, such as Hoadly and others of the eighteenth 
 century. 
 
 *' All this, I suppose, would be part of our case, 
 were we allowed to bring this matter to a really 
 theological issue ; besides all the proofs from Scrip- 
 ture and antiquity, which the Judicial Committee 
 felt obliged simply to ignore: (although, by deciding 
 as they did on the meaning of the Elizabethan di- 
 vines, they in effect settled a much more intricate 
 question than the wider view would have brought 
 before them)- 
 
 *' Now as the simple ones in our flock cannot rest 
 while their portion in Christ is made doubtful, so 
 neither can those rest who have sworn to drive 
 away erroneous and strange doctrines, while the 
 whole Article of Sacramental Grace is, in their ap- 
 prehension, surrendered without a single reference 
 to Scripture, as interpreted by the whole Church, 
 and the Church of England in imminent danger of 
 material (I do not yet ssiy formal and deliberate) heresy.
 
 26 CHURCH MATTERS IN 1850. 
 
 "These our convictions are too deep and too sa- 
 cred to be given up in deference even to such autho- 
 rity as now calls on us to part with thetn. We, in 
 effect, are constrained to appeal from our immediate 
 superiors to a free and lawful synod; and until we 
 can obtain such a synod, we must consider ourselves 
 as going on under appeal, and in every dutiful and 
 charitable way must bring it before those who can 
 help us. 
 
 *' I need not say to you how painful and mournful 
 I feel this state of things to be. I feel that one is 
 placed, for an indefinite while to come — very likely 
 for the remainder of one's short life — in a state of 
 great danger and temptation, — in danger of real or 
 seeming undutifulness and strife. jNIay I ask your 
 forgiveness and kind interpretation beforehand, that 
 if I should seem to go beyond what is right, you 
 would believe that I do it in ignorance ?" 
 
 These extracts appear to me to bring out, 
 in a manner which cannot easily be explained 
 away, the true doctrinal force of the late de- 
 cision, as amounting at least to this : that 
 whereas hitherto the deniers of Sacramental 
 Grace, few or many, moderate or violent, have 
 been generally understood to go on in our 
 Church b7j sufferance, henceforth they will go 
 on under the known warrant and sanction of 
 the Law ; as if you had inadvertently allowed
 
 A CALL TO SPEAK OUT. 27 
 
 some mischievous neighbour to pass to and 
 fro though your garden, and found, to your 
 disgust, that he had estabhshed a right of 
 way. It would be small comfort, in such a 
 case, to tell you that the Law remained as it 
 was. 
 
 Or we may suppose an analogous case ; 
 that persons taking liberties on the other side 
 had been not only holding but teaching Tran- 
 substantiation, and that by some accident the 
 Judicial Committee had decided this to be 
 lawful ; could any one maintain that, if ad- 
 mitted, it left our system of doctrine on the 
 Sacraments unaffected ? 
 
 It. is too plain. A judicial sentence con- 
 trary to a prevailing construction, though its 
 force be short of legislation, cannot be denied 
 to be a practical change in the Law; and if 
 the Law involved an Article of Faith, the 
 change, to the believer, must be an intolerable 
 grievance : a religious grievance in any case, 
 but a political grievance also, if,, as in the 
 present instance, the decision be made by an 
 authority alien to the religious body whose 
 faith is in question. 
 
 That the deciding Court is in effect alien to 
 the Church, cannot fairly be doubted by those
 
 28 CHURCH MATTERS IN 1850. 
 
 who will consider, not merely the possible ac- 
 cident of its consisting of Dissenters and ene- 
 mies to the Church, but also the fact that it is 
 by no means a creature of the Royal Supre- 
 macy, but rather of Parliament restraining that 
 Supremacy ; and of what sort of Parliament ? 
 We may take its character from a writer who 
 clearly knows a great deal about it, and w^ishes 
 to make the best of it : — *' Every year, almost 
 every day that passes, more distinctly deve- 
 lopes and embodies a sentiment that does and 
 will resolutely, and on each occasion that may 
 offer, refuse to the members of the Church 
 and her ministers, except upon the condition 
 of disobedience to her laws, the commonest 
 and most vital privileges of religious freedom, 
 under the plea of her civil establishment."* 
 Now it is no use talking unrealities, especially 
 when they deceive nobody : we all know that in 
 these days the Supremacy of the Crown, toge- 
 ther with its other great functions, is virtually 
 put into commission, to be exercised by those 
 whom the permanent majority of the House 
 of Commons shall think fit to trust with it ; 
 and the sentence just quoted will enable us to 
 judge, whether a Court appointed under such 
 
 * " Quarterly Review," No. CLXXI. p. 63.
 
 A CALL TO SPEAK OUT. 29 
 
 control, without the slightest check from any 
 ecclesiastical authority, deserves to be called 
 an Alien Court or no. 
 
 And here — I will just mark it by the way — is 
 the broad distinction between what is now doing 
 among us, and what in former times, good or 
 bad, Roman Emperors or English Kings and 
 Parliaments, or other Civil Powers, have been 
 allowed to do, in the way of taking liberties with 
 Church Courts. The Sovereign in those cases 
 always professed to be Christian. The Parlia- 
 ments were in theory (as has been said) a sort 
 of " Lay Synods of the Church." The way 
 to make the cases parallel would be, for Her 
 Majesty, in the exercise of Her Supremacy, to 
 decline that Parliamentary control which, under 
 our present Constitution, she acknowledges in 
 all public matters, and to be advised, bondjide, 
 by Churchmen and Spiritual Men. I do not 
 see the impossibility of such a thing ; on the 
 contrary, it seems to me to combine itself in 
 theory well enough with other arrangements 
 which appear desirable : but at any rate, until 
 this take place, we shall not be as our fore- 
 fathers were, neither can we be fairly pressed 
 to submit ourselves on the ground of its being 
 no more than what they allowed, nor taunted
 
 r.O CHURCH MATTERS IN 1850. 
 
 by Roman Catholics, or others, as if we had 
 been pledged 300 years since to all we now 
 deprecate. 
 
 Whether it were right or wrong to allow 
 Justinian, Charlemagne, or Charles I. to ap- 
 point Judges of Doctrine, it was not the same 
 thing as allowing a modern Prime Minister to 
 do so. 
 
 Nor are there wanting clear signs of the 
 special danger incurred in our case, by every 
 year and every month of our continuing sub- 
 ject to such interference. The Prime Minister 
 (I speak not of him personally) is, of course, 
 the representative of the popular will, and 
 what the popular will is in matters of doctrine 
 we may judge by this — that the most popular 
 of our newspapers, commending the decision 
 in the Gorham Case, adopted for its own the 
 famous Letter of Constantine, deprecating pro- 
 ceedings against Arius ; in which letter he 
 calls the Controversy on the Divinity of our 
 Lord " a certain empty question, which ought 
 neither to have been asked nor answered : a 
 dispute about matters trifling to an excess of 
 insigniflcajice :" and tells the Bishops, " You 
 may keep up communion with each other, 
 however decidedly your opinions vary in some
 
 A CALL TO SPEAK OUT. 31 
 
 minute points of detail" And again, a noble 
 person, whom it is impossible to name without 
 respect, is reported to have said in the debate 
 on the Bishops' Bill, that "if a heresy were 
 such as could not be made patent to four or 
 five impartial judges accustomed to judicial 
 investigations, — if it required a practised^ pro- 
 fessed, theological eye to discover it, it had 
 better be left alone." Once more : on the 
 same occasion, a Prelate, to whom we are 
 all bound to look up, thought it necessary 
 to disclaim all concurrence in the doctrine, 
 " that there resided in the body of Bishops, 
 in their official character, any peculiar and 
 exclusive prerogative, or even any pre-emi- 
 nent or transcendant qualification, which ren- 
 dered them the only proper judges upon ques- 
 tions of doctrine arising in the Church."* 
 
 It is but too plain how the old dogmatic 
 theology, the Creeds of the Church, by which 
 we are sworn to live or die, would fare with a 
 generation, of which these are favourable spe- 
 cimens. 
 
 The whole argument concerning our first 
 grievance may be summed up in two short 
 questions. To all, calling themselves Church- 
 * Debate of June 5.
 
 32 CHURCH MATTERS IN 1850. 
 
 men, we may say, Is there not a treasure of 
 Sacred Truth, and a living Body entrusted 
 with that treasure ? and can it be right for any 
 consideration to make over the trust to those 
 who are not of the Body ? Again, to all 
 candid persons of every Creed we may say. 
 Is it not a part of Religious Liberty for a 
 Religious Body to declare its own doctrine ; 
 or, if its civil and social position equitably 
 interfere with its freedom in this respect, to 
 be allowed at least a choice, which of the two 
 it will forego ? 
 
 With these suggestions I take leave of the 
 subject for the present, hoping before long to 
 deal with another portion of it, and earnestly 
 desiring always so to speak of it, as to leave 
 the least possible excuse for impatient hearing. 
 
 July 20, 1850.
 
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