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CONSTITUTIONAL LOYALTY.

A SERMON,
PBEACHED BEFORE
THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
ON SATURDAY, JUNE 20, 1857,
BEING THE DAY ON WHICH HER MAJESTY BEGAN
HER HAPPY REIGN.

DKUMMOKD PEECY CHASE, M.A.,
PELLOW OP OBIEL COLLEGE; VIOE-PBINCIPAL OP BT. MABY HALL ; VIOAB OP
ST. MAEY-THE-VIBGIIT IS* OXPOBD.

OXPOED and LONDON:
JOHN HENRY- and JAMES PARKER.'
M DCCO LVII.

ERIHTED Br Messrs. parser, corh-market, oxford

A SERMON,

Psalm cxliv. 9, 10.
I will sing a new song unto Thee, 0 God: upon a psaltery
and an instrument often strings will I sing praises unto Thee:
It is He that giveth salvation, unto kings: who delivereth
David His servant from the fairtful sword.
It cannot be denied, and it seems useless to ignore
the fact, that the celebration of which this present
solemnity forms the academic complement, does not
command the respect or excite the interest which are
justly due to it.
The same, of course, may be said of many which
rest on far higher grounds. Even one of the highest
of our distinctively Christian festivals which annually
breaks in upon our work-day life, though peculiarly
fitted to arrest the stream of worldly thought and of
worldly business, passes, in general, almost unnoticed ;
while to pay due honour to the few commemorations
of saints which our Church in her moderate wisdom
retained at the Reformation has become almost impos
sible, — so engrossing to all is the battle of life.
But for the neglect of this one there are peculiar

4
causes. Some lie on the surface, recognized by all
thoughtful persons, though acknowledged perhaps by
few. Most thoughtful Churchmen feel that a right
thing is done in a wrong way : the thing is right, and
a real part of Christian duty, as we are well reminded
by the sentence of Scripture which opens the ser
vice of this morning : " I exhort, therefore," says St.
Paul, instructing, be it remembered, one of the first
Christian bishops, his legitimate son in faith, — "I
exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, interces
sions, and thanksgivings be made in behalf of all
men; in behalf of kings and all that are in sta
tions of eminence, in order that we may pass a quiet
and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty: for
this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our
Saviour." And it is felt to be one of the many excellences of
our Book of Common Prayer, that it provides so well
for the discharge of this duty : alike in our daily
prayers and in the most solemn of our services, earn
est and sober words are put in our mouths as forms
of intercession for our Sovereign. And it is felt to
be wisely ordered that once in each year we com
memorate with prayers and thanksgivings the acces
sion of the Sovereign to the seat of the first and most
influential empire on earth.
But it is felt also that the way in which this right
thing is done is not right. In a religious service
imposed simply by the Civil power, many see an in
trusion upon the legitimate province of Church autho-

rity. They contrast, not unnaturally, the excrescences
on our Book of Common Prayer commonly known as
"the State Services," (and the name itself indicates
the attitude of many minds towards them,) with the
Book itself, not merely as regards these Services in
themselves, — for there are real differences which sepa
rate one from another, — but as regards the tone in
which their acceptance is enforced. The Book itself
is presented to " all sober, peaceable, and truly con
scientious sons of the Church of England," to be by
them " well accepted and approved," because it " hath
been by the Convocations of both Provinces with
great diligence examined and approved51;" but these
other Services are annexed to the Book by the will
and pleasure of the Sovereign, announced, immediately
through the Civil Minister, at the commencement of
each reign b. This is justly felt to be an indication
that Church and State have not kept their original
relations, and that the change is against the former,
— the acquiescence of whose loyalty has been tacitly
attributed to the apathy of indifference.
Nor, again, can it be doubted that in many minds
the particular Service of this day suffers an undue de
preciation of its real merits from the mere fact of its
association with the other three.
For, not to speak of their defects in detail — a task
alien to the present purpose, and rendered unnecessary
by the general sense of those defects, — they have this
feature in common — not to be found in the Service of
a See note A, Appendix. b See note B.

this day. They express feelings and sentiments in
their very nature temporary, and in language which,
where not self-contradictory, (as it is in one of them),
could only be palliated by the real existence of such
feelings. We sympathise with the language of passion
only because we know it to be wrung forth by some
vehement emotion : we do not expect people always
to be in ecstasy, whether of joy, or sorrow, or anger ;
and we do not tolerate the simulation of such feelings
at any time, least of all in solemn addresses to the
Almighty. Hence the perpetuation, by an external
power, of the three Services alluded to is a constant
memorial of that jealousy of the State towards the
Church in this country, which has slumbered only
when it was superseded by a contemptuous indiffer
ence. The denial of all true liberty of action to the
Church of England has operated, and still operates,.
to preclude her from adapting herself to the altered
needs of those nominally within her pale ; it has issued,
and is daily issuing, in the almost irrecoverable aliena
tion of large sections of the community from her in
fluence. Had the Church been allowed the liberty
promised to her even by a Sovereign whose estimate
of his prerogative was very high0, we could not see
at the present day the ministers of that Church pre
sumed incapable of conscientious scruples4, or forbid
den to give effect to them; we could not see them
daily compelled, under penalty, to profane "the soothing
c Declaration prefixed to the Articles, paragraph 4.
<* See note C.

tones of hope, though faint and low," of her beautiful
Burial Service, by uttering them over the graves of the
avowed infidel, or the notoriously immoral; neither
should we see their Office degraded and brought into
contempt, (which, under the circumstances, we can
scarcely say is unmerited,) by the practical impossibility
of fitting discipline even over " evil ministers."
But apart from these incidental, though very real
grievances, which ought not, in a sober judgment, to
prejudice the claim of the Service itself upon our
hearty acceptance and approval, there is a deeper
cause yet which tends to rob this day's celebration of
its due honour.
Not, most assuredly, any decay of loyalty. We
cannot, indeed, assert that the accession of the Sove
reign to an undisputed and uncontested throne can
awaken those vivid sentiments which naturally fol
lowed on the restoration of monarchy in the person of
Charles the Second, or even on its abnormal con
tinuation in William and Mary. We cannot suppose
that Solomon heard the Psalm from which I have
quoted sung before him with the same vivid sense
of gratitude with which it gushed from his father's
heart, or which his father must have felt when,
as the day annually recurred, his thoughts travelled
back to the days of calm obscurity passed among the
sheepfolds, to the moment when he was awaiting the
advance of the gigantic Philistine, — over all his early
triumphs, dangers, and deliverances. " Thou hast
given victory unto kings, and hast delivered David Thy

8
servant from the peril of the sword," are words which
must have ever touched chords in his heart which
responded as they could in no other human breast.
True it is that the figment of the divine right of
kings, in the sense in which it was once held, — rather
as a chivalrous sentiment of the heart than as a sober
judgment of the understanding, — vanished at the Revo
lution of 1688. Explicitly since that time, as always
in the nature of things implicitly, the Crown of Eng
land has been held upon a distinct and solemn cove
nant ; and the mutual recognition of rights and duties
by the Sovereign and the people has placed the throne
on a basis, humanly speaking, far more secure, because
it is one which the sober judgment of the nation can
and does thoroughly accept. The " passive impression"
of loyalty may have grown weaker, but by its unin
terrupted repetition "the active habit" has undoubt
edly strengthened.
There is nothing that in a very striking manner
excites our feelings in the operation of a simple con
stitutional maxim unquestioned and self-acting, by
which, in the language of our laws, the Sovereign
never dies, because the rights, duties, and privileges of
the Crown pass at once without interval to the suc
cessor; and hence it is that we fail to appreciate
duly the import of this day's thanksgiving. We are
not called upon, I apprehend, to give thanks for the
accession of the individual Monarch, however greatly1
and however justly honoured ; nor even, primarily, for
the many blessings which during the last twenty years

9
the Almighty has permitted us as a nation to enjoy ;
but for the great and comprehensive blessing of a
settled form of polity, — a blessing whose magnitude
is, in truth, proportioned, like so many of our other
blessings, to the noiseless, equable, and therefore too
often unmarked, simplicity of its operation. It is
in the body politic as in our physical frame, — in
both perfect health is best proved by the perfect
unconsciousness of those many wonderful processes
which must combine harmoniously to produce it ; yet
we doubtless are in both cases tempted to view with
greater gratitude the exceptional, than the constant
and regular, action of Providence. Yet, as Bishop
Butler has observed upon a kindred subject, we must
not deny (or I may say, forget) that God does things
at all because He does them constantly. It is surely
not a less but a greater mercy, that the happiness and
well-being of this great empire is preserved and con
tinued by the silent operation of deep and true princi
ples, which make its polity appear to be self-acting.
When, twenty years ago, at an early hour of the
day in the dawn of which the soul of our last Sove
reign passed into eternity, a fair young girl met the
wise, and great, and honoured of her land as their
acknowledged Queen, there was nothing externally to
mark the greatness of the occasion : a natural sym
pathy for her age and sex of course there was, and
could not but be, but excitement there was none ; — a
settled and undisputed principle of law had found
occasion to operate — it did operate — and that was all.

10

Compare with the majestic simplicity of this occasion
the burst of tumultuous joy which hailed the acces
sion of Elizabeth, or the Restoration of Charles the
Second, and no doubt it appears tame in comparison :
and yet at which of these times had the nation most
cause to rejoice ? which of these three Sovereigns as
cended the firmer and steadier throne ?
But although it is the chief ground of our thank
fulness to-day, that we commemorate the peaceful
operation of constitutional law — grand in its very sim
plicity, — it is but natural to recur also with deep thank
fulness to signal proofs which the present reign has
afforded of the real strength of our free polity. I well
remember that the preacher" on this day, ten years ago,
commented on the words of Hezekiah, — " Is it not good
if peace and truth be in my days ?" Ere that day again
came round, what scenes of confusion had not the
whole Continent of Europe witnessed ! What English
man could be other than deeply thankful for the im
munity which these kingdoms enjoyed from such
calamities ? Who but remembers how the wave of
civil tumult, rolling in from the troubled ocean of
European politics, broke harmlessly upon the bulwarks
of constitutional freedom, and consequent loyalty and
soundness of heart ? Eor one day in that year the
eyes of the whole kingdom were turned on our me
tropolis, as we waited with pardonable anxiety (I say
anxiety, for fear there was little or none,) the issue of
a great so-called popular movement; and deep, I
e The Rev. W. Jacobson, now Eegius Professor of Divinity.

11
trust, in many a heart was the thankfulness when
the issue of that day proved the staunch loyalty to
Queen and law, of all persons of all classes.
But peace is not merely peace domestic, but peace
abroad. How little likely ten years ago did it seem
that we should ever again be engaged in a struggle,
not for national supremacy only, but possibly for
national existence ! The extraordinary development
of our commerce, we were told, rendered war an
impossibility. But the gigantic contest through which
we have so lately past has left so many scars in so
many households, that we are not likely soon to re
lapse into that dream. Enough is it for us now to
remember gratefully how that war, exhausting as it
was, left us only just braced for the contest when all
contest was over .• and the point on which gratitude
may most fittingly dwell is this — that the /3/aioy 81-
8do-Ka\os served chiefly to shew the soundness of
the national heart, and to bring out in strong relief
a nobleness of spirit in high and low, which, but for its
stern lessons, we might never have known of. Spe
cially, despite the ridicule of a semi-infidel Press, shall
we be thankful that from first to last the God of
battles was humbly, and therefore manfully, appealed
to. Ere a sword was drawn the nation bowed before
its God; in the depth of disaster it knelt again, —
in the moment of victory, Non nobis Domine sed
Nomini tuo was the song that arose from every
church in our island. May it be given us to re
member in peace and quietness the lessons which we

12
learned in and by war, as nothing else probably could
have taught them.
And to what do all these lessons point ?
Why, humanly speaking, were we tranquil within,
while throughout Europe thrones were tottering and
peoples being troubled ?
Because with us the struggle had been and gone ;
the injustice and anomalies of bygone times had been
frankly acknowledged, and an honest remedy applied ;
we worked no longer in a system at war with our
constitutional theory. Great numbers of our country
men had been admitted to their just rights, and there
fore they were ready to bleed and die in defence of
the country which secured them.
Surely it was wisely and mercifully ordered that
our youthful Queen succeeded not to her power till
the domestic battle had been fought and won, till
" the winter of our discontent" was over. Nor this
alone — but, in prospect of a still further admission
to political power, great and earnest endeavours had
been -made to fit the recipients for its honest and
intelligent exercise. In one sense, no doubt, de
mocracy is gaining, and will continue to gain ; but
the sting of the term will be found to be extracted
if the democracy in name be an aristocracy in the
highest and truest sense — if every Englishman who
is admitted to political power be first trained to know
and feel its deep responsibilities.
Both in politics and in religion, the spirit of the
age is eminently sceptical, — apt to enquire, prove, and

13
investigate ; but sceptical is a term of fear to those
only who have what they fain would hide and shelter,
because they cannot heartily defend it. Stem the
current we cannot, — direct, concentrate, and control it
to useful purposes we may and ought to. Intelligence
cannot be generally spread without an increase of
the spirit of enquiry ; but that spirit may be wisely
trained to be free without being irreverent, and the
danger of its results indefinitely lessened by a timely
reform of the institutions which are its subject.
We are reminded to-day, not, perhaps, in a way
wholly unobjectionable, of the union between Church
and State. Let the lessons we have learned as mem
bers of the State be fearlessly acted on as regards
the Church. Let all needless restriction, all factitious
mystery, be thrown to the winds; let us labour so
to act up to our trust as Churchmen, that the spirit of
free enquiry may lead men to hearty loyalty ; let us
endeavour, (and if we endeavour honestly we shall
succeed,) — let us endeavour to exchange the exclusive
spirit of a dominant caste for the free, but not there
fore licentious or latitudinarian, spirit of a compre
hensive charity. But for the shortcomings, in prac
tical administration, of our Church, we should have
within our walls very many who now stand envious
and suspicious without them. How are men to
recognize the banner of the Cross, if it be not freely
and fearlessly unfolded ?
One especially threatening danger there is which yet
may be converted into an element of strength'. The

14
Press of this country practically controls even our
Legislature. But the Press derives its power, partly
indeed from its commercial organization but, princi
pally from the educated ability which it is thereby
enabled to retain and to wield. The more the high
est ability can be leavened 'with sound principles in
politics and in religion, the greater will be our security
against a force irresistible in its nature, and too often
reckless and despotic in its exercise. Why may we not
hope for a time when that very force may be enlisted*
on the side, not of temporary expedience or party ad
vocacy but, of those principles which have made, and
which alone can conserve, our national greatness ?
And on whom does this duty more immediately de
volve, than on ourselves in this and similar educational
institutions ? Every village curate, every town pastor,
every country gentleman, every merchant or profes-.
sional man, whom we send out/must be doing his part
towards forming the national character, by the silent
but sure influence of personal example ; oIkos first,
and then ttoKis is the law of national growth.
I will offer but one reflection more, which it would
scarcely be right on this day to omit.
To descend, or to presume (for both terms are ap
propriate) to any panegyric upon the reigning Sove
reign is happily as alien to the moral sense and the
taste of the age in which we live, as it is unworthy the
office of a Christian minister. Yet, reminded as we
this day must be, of times in our history when loyalty
and patriotism have been mutually exclusive one of

15
the other, or when both have had to contend with
conscientious convictions of the personal unworthiness
of the wearer of the crown, — when we remember Sove
reigns who were religious but not gracious, or gracious
but not religious, or of whom both were but official
titles of courtesy, — we cannot but gratefully acknow
ledge as a mercy of the Most High, that, after
twenty years' experience of a Court of unsullied
purity, and a Royal Household from which the poorest
family may be happy to learn, loyalty, patriotism, and
religion conspire to-day to kindle our devotion, and
make our thanksgiving earnest.
In the recently-spoken words of one who might
well have been pardoned had he for a moment for
gotten the name of Queen in the tenderer titles of
Wife and Mother, "Where loyalty and attachment
to the Sovereign as the representative of the institu
tions of the country are linked to an earnest love of
progress founded on self-reliance and self-improve
ment, a country cannot fail to prosper, under the
favour of the Almighty." Amen.

APPENDIX.

Note A  "We have good hope that what is here presented,
and hath been by the Convocations of both Provinces with great
diligence examined and approved, will be also well accepted and
approved by all sober, peaceable, and truly conscientious sons of
the Church of England." — Preface to ihe Prayer-book.
Note B— " VlCTOEIA R.
" Our will and pleasure is that these four Forms of Prayer
and Service * * be forthwith printed and published, and annexed
to the Book of Common Prayer, and Liturgy of 0\e United Church
of England and Ireland, &c, &c."
"Given, &c," "By her Majesty's command,""J. RUSSELL."
Note C. — See the Lords' Debates on the " Divorce and Matri
monial Causes Bill," passim.
But as a striking specimen of the animus towards the clergy
of the Civil authorities, take the following extract from the debate
of June 23 : —
"Eaei, Nelson* moved an amendment upon the 54th clause,
providing that in ease of the re-marriage of divorced persons such
marriage should take place in the office of the registrar, or in
some building registered under the Marriage and Registration
Act, and according to the form and provisions of that Act. The
object of this amendment was to provide that, as this matter had
been argued on purely civil grounds, so the re-marriage, if it took
place, should be only a civil marriage. Unless this amendment
were agreed to, the clergy of the Established Church, who believed
that marriage was indissoluble, and that the marriage of the
adulterer and adultress was sinful, would be obliged to perform

1 8 APPENDIX.
that marriage, and to read the solemn service established for that
ceremony by the Church of England. There had been some
question as to whether the law of the Church was opposed to
this legislation ; but, be that as it might, there occurred in one
of the prayers for the Marriage Service these words, — ' that it
should never be lawful to put asunder those whom Thou by ma
trimony hast made one.' Could any conscientious clergyman, who
believed that this legislation was contrary to the law of God,
celebrate such a marriage ; or could he pronounce God's blessing
over the parties, and thus confirm them in their adultery ? The
clergy had entered into a contract with the State, — they had
signed the Thirty-nine Articles ; and yet the State, without con
sulting the clergy, broke that, imposed a 40th Article without
obtaining their assent to it, and demanded from them the dis
charge of a duty which they had not contracted to perform.
"Those who put the conscience of the registrar in comparison
with the consciences of the clergy, clearly did not understand the
position in which the clergy were placed by this Bill. The
registrar had merely to perform an official duty of registering
certain names in a book ; he had not to pronounce the Church' s
blessing over the parties, nor to do anything which gave a reli
gious character to the ceremony. Besides, if he objected to per
forming these marriages, he was not obliged to be a registrar, —
all the other professions were open to him ; but a clergyman,
if he had such objections, and acted on them, must starve. It
was said that this amendment would endanger the union between
Church and State ; but the only union which it would endanger
would be that which would give us a clergy without a conscience.
The union between Church and State might be kept up by doing
justice to the Church, and by the Church obeying where she was
pledged to obey ; but by this Bill the State was proposing to do
that towards the Church which would be looked upon as dis
honest in transactions between man and man. He contended
that if they did away with an ecclesiastical statute on merely civil
grounds, by which marriages not hitherto legal were made so,
they were bound to relieve clergymen from the performance of
such marriages."
"The Loed Chancellor said this question was now before
them for the third time. The point was, that there were con
scientious clergymen who thought it inconsistent with their duty

APPENDIX. 19
to celebrate a marriage between two persons one of whom had
been divorced. Now, he should like to know where these consci
entious scruples were to end. A somewhat similar objection had
been urged two or three years since, in a debate which took place
upon the subject of reading the Burial Service over the bodies of
certain persons, but it was me% by the reply that clergymen were
bound by the law of the land, and must obey it. So if the law of
the land declared that it was proper to allow certain parties to
be married, it was a law that must be obeyed. He hoped their
Lordships would reject the amendment."
Is it too much to say that the clergy are the only class of her
Majesty's subjects who are presumed to be incapable of conscien
tious scruples, or forbidden to give effect to them ?
In both cases referred to by the Lord Chancellor the real
question is whether the clergy shall be permitted to carry out
the laws under which they are placed by their ordination, and
his Lordship's answer is "No."

YALE UNIVERSITY L

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