Pusey

Mh(j52 1 8 37
P9

X

CHURCHES IN LONDON.

AN A|>PENDIX

CONTAINING

ANSWERS TO OBJECTIONS

BY THE " RECORD" AND OTHERS

TO THE PLAN OF THE

METROPOLIS CHURCHES' FUND,

BY THE REV. E. B. PUSEY, D.D.

OXFORD,
PKINTID liY W. BAXTER.
SOLD BY J. H. PARKER: AND BY MESSRS. RIVINGTON, LONDON,
1837.

PAST'AND PRESENT
EXERTIONS OF THE CHURCH,
AND HER
PRESENT NEEDS.
Reprinted from tlie Britisli Magazine for Novemher, 18S5.

IT is a trite saying, that we are readily imposed upon by
names and words ; and it is because it is so trite, that it is of
iniportance to take heed to it ; for we begin to think, that,
because we know our liability to be so deceived, we are safe ;
whereas, when we think that we are safe, then we begin to be
in peril. We see one portion of the deceit, and forthwith
think that we see the whole, and so fall the more readily into
the error laid for us. This, again, is trite, i. e. it is an ob
servation which we have often had occasion to use, and so are
the more likely ofteii to need it again.
We see, for instance, one portion of the error of the so-
called voluntary system. It is, indeed, a strange perversion,
that men should regard that only, as " voluntarily done,"
which they do themselves ; that all which their fathers, or
their fathers' fathers, have done, should cease to be " volun
tary," because they have now fallen asleep ; and so nothing
is to be voluntary, but what is as yet undone, since, of course,
when we have done a thing, it is no longer in our own power
or will to undo it. This is all very true ; and if we define
" voluntary" to be " that which it is at any given time in
our own power to do or not to do," such charitable purposes
only can be said to be supported by " voluntary contribu
tions" which have no capital, no settled income, and depend
entirely upon their annual appeals to public benevolence.
A 2

Yet, unhappily, popular language never adheres to any such
rigid rules; and the word " voluntary" has been probably
chosen in opposition, not to that which was so once, though
it has ceased to be so because it has been done, but to
"compulsory:" and those who have chosen it have been
" wise in their generation :" for the ordinary mind stops at
no such refinements, as to what is or has been, but at once
attaches to the " voluntary system" all the popularity of
freedom, generosity, nobleness, and all those characters with
which people invest " voluntary" exertions of their own, and
load the opposite system with all the odium which men's
natural self-will attaches to the word " compulsory .'' It has,
indeed, been shewn over and over again, until people are
weary and ashamed of repeating' it, that the church system is
not " compulsory ;" that the property of the church was a
free gift, — were the " voluntary" contributions of the piety
of many generations to the honour of Almighty God. But
all this labour, and all the learning which could be bestowed,
would be outweighed by the possession of a single popular
term, " voluntary." It is useless to repeat, to demonstrate,
to ask persons to listen to facts ; men, as has been often said,
are governed by their feelings and impulses, not by their
understandings. The word " voluntary" resumes its sway;
and, by its magic sound, disperses proofs, facts, argu
ments, to the four winds. It is then time, I think, that
churchmen should invent some new name, which should
break the spell of this word " voluntary ;" vindicating the
character of the church to have been the " voluntary," the
system of the dissenters to be the " pseudo-voluntary." It
were wise, I think, — and we are called upon by the piety due
to those good men, whether kings or barons, clergy or laymen,
who built and endowed, out of their own, the glorious piles
of our cathedrals, or the humble, but hallowing, village
church, — to assert, that ours is the voluntary church. For,
as to votes of parliament some time past, first, it does not
follow that raoney so raised is not " voluntary," although
not exactly in the same sense as that given out of one's own
purse ; but, in truth, compared to the piety of former times,
it was so trifling, that it might well be left out of the ac
count. And this is another, and far greater, evil of the abuse of
this word " voluntary" — that we are in much dano-er of
forgetting that we are the "voluntary cfiurcti ;" that our
cathedrals, our churches, our chapels, were raised by the
sacrifices, in some cases enormous sacrifices, of individuals 

in others, by bodies of men, but in almost all by the volun
tary exertions of individuals, whether singly or united, — not
by the state. And if we think in how many cases our present
fabrics are " but as nothing, in comparison of the glory of
the forraer house," as, to take the characteristic language of
Anthony Wood, with regard to those of Oxford, " these (the
former cathedral and friery churches in Oxford) excelled
what are left standing, as much as the best church now in
being does the meanest in that city ; and this, our ancient
cathedral of Oxford, consisted of as much building as the
present cathedral or any two parochial churches in Oxford,
except St. Mary's," we may forra some little idea of the
exertions of our ancestors. It is humiliating to gaze at one
of the least of the noble fabrics which they raised to their
Maker's praise, and to ask. Where are the descendants of such
an ancestry ? Where is the Lord God of Elijah ?
Their spirit is fled : we have come to the dregs of time ;
or, (on authority which men of this day will trust,) " to the
declining age of our state;" at least, those things are
flourishing araong us which Bacon marked as the symptoms
of its declining age "; and we make our boast of that which is
our sharae, " Grey hairs are here and there upon hira, yet
he knoweth not." (Hos. vii. 9.) Our old towns and cities
are recognised frora far by their towers and spires, hallowing
all the landscape, — a continual meraorial of things unseen,
infusing holy thoughts which ascend directly to their Author,
and reminding us that we are every where standing on God's
earth, on a Christian land, on " holy ground." And who
shall calculate the powers of their often-renewed influence
upon his own raind .' Who can tell how many holy resolves,
and pure thoughts, and earnest aspirations to the heavens,
whither they ascend, he has not owed to thera, and con
sequently how much of his future glory ? and then, calculate
the tens of thousands in each generation since they were
raised who have felt the like, or " count the starsof heaven!"
And what do we.'' Our modern towns have tfieir character
istics — the chiraneys of our manufactories, and the smoke of
our furnaces. And we " boast ourselves in the multitude of
our riches," and our wisdom, and our enlightening, and our
skill in the mechanical arts, and our knowledge in physical
sciences, and the Bibles which we print ; while the only true
wisdom we have not known. For, which of these exhibits
the picture of a " wise and understanding people ?"
" " In the youth of a state, arms do flourish; iu the middle age of a state,
learning ; and then, both of them together for a time ; in the declining age of a
state, mechanical arts and merchandize." — Eisay on Ihe Vicissitudes of States.

It is easy to speak of the superstition of our ancestors, of
their belief that they might purchase heaven by building
edifices to God — of their consecrating temples instead of
themselves — of their buying the church's pardon on their
death-beds. Doubtless, there were (nay, perhaps were many)
such cases ; as there are many cases now of persons who hope
to attain to heaven, though they live the same lives as those
did whom they condemn, are guilty of the same sins, and yet
do not repent after the same sort — do not " break ofl' their
.sins by righteousness, and their iniquities by shewing mercy
to the poor," (Dan. iv. 27.) A corrupt system prevaihng
more or less in the church, (for it had not then received
the sanction of any portion of the church,) ttien led men
oftentimes to ascribe a false and lying efficacy to these actions ;
and bad or misguided clergy may have availed themselves of
it. But so tbe world's corrupt and paralyzing system now,
hiding itself under the garb of protestantism, teaches men to
neglect these duties; or, at least, dulls their consciences, by
representing them as a part of popery. And do not we
tamper with the world, as well as those of old, by purchasing
supports to the church, through the concealment of the
requisitions of the Gospel, as they of old did by their per
version .'' I do not wish to defend any errors of old times,
although I am, indeed, speaking of the old times, before the
corruption had developed itself, in its subsequent grossness,
"There were then, as there are now, many abuses of the
prevailing systera of religion. Carnal men will abuse every
system, " will turn the grace of God into lasciviousness,"
or will " raake their liberty an occasion to the flesh," "a cloak
of maliciousness." Carnal men now, also, will call Christ, Lord,
Lord ! and do not the things which He has said. And yet,
after all, was there not much truth in what many men of old
times did 'i Is there not reality when a man, repenting of
heinous sins, makes great sacrifices, looks out anxiously for
means of promoting the glory of that holy Name which he
had before caused to be blasphemed .? Had not the church
more ground to hope that such an one was in earnest -in his
repentance .? Had he not himself.'' And is not the difference,
at the end, this, that men now say they repent (and I trust
that many do), and then they shewed their repentance in
their deeds .? And did not God, by His holy prophet Daniel
sanction the value of such testimony of repentance .P And
when Zacchasus repented of his extortions, and professed
his fixed purpose to " give Half his goods to the poor,
and return four-fold whatever he had wrongfully gained "
was it not accepted .'' Hear our Saviour's own words :—

" This day is salvation come to this house, forsomucli as he
also is a son of Abraham." He also had begun to " walk in
the steps of the faith; of our father Abrahara," and " by
works was his faith made perfect." And so the holy fathers,
carrying on the teaching of Holy Scripture, when they
enumerate the parts and acts of true repentance, never omit
abundant alms-giving. " After intense prayer," says St.
Chrysostom, (he had already dwelt upon " conderanation of
our sins, and confession, and great humility, and endurance
of inj ury — ' since that which is bruised doth not rise up to
resistance' — and lowliness of raind, and raany tears night and
day,") " after prayer thus intense, there is need of much
mercifulness. For this is it which imparteth the greatest
strength to the medicine of repentance ; and as, in medicinal
appliances, one medicine comprehendeth raany herbs, yet one
of chiefest efficacy, so also is this the chiefest ingredient of
repentance; yea, it might well coraprise the whole. And so
the rest of the pure church ; only by alms they did not
understand an occasional pittance doled out, or some petty
contribution to some vast almshouse, or hospital, or religious
association, but as they say, " abundant mercifulness." And
would that, in every exhortation to repentance or charity,
they to whom God has shewn so great mercy in bringing
them back to His house after they had " spent their substance
in riotous living," were now also especially exhorted to shew
their sense of their Father's greater mercies by a proportionate
mercifulness to their brethren !
This, however, is a large subject. Leaving, then, such cases
as these, or any ignorance or superstition, out of the question,
or rather calculating them as high as they please, let men
consider what remains ; let them count up the endowments of
the church such as it was before it was despoiled ; let them
imagine the cost of the Minster of York, or Durham, or Ely,
or Lincoln ; let them multiply these with all the rest which
they can think of, and then say, whether they think that all,
or the greater part, of this was the fruit of superstition.
Truly, if they did, we should only have one proof raore how
deeply we were abased ; that we not only could not do the
deeds of our forefathers, but could not eiven understand the
frame of heroic pietj; which prorapted them.
Ours is, then, eminently a " voluntary church;" " volun
tary," because " the princes of the people, heads over the
house of their fathers, each in bis day, freely offered" for the
service of their God; " voluntary," because in those days " the
" people brought more than enough for the service of the
work, which the Lord commanded to make ;" (Ex. xxxvi. 5.)

8
*' voluntary," because it was for the most part bestowed,
before the times of popish corruption, out of an earnest reve
rence for God's great Name, And when many thought that
they should thereby benefit their own souls, and looked to
those deeds, which God had enabled them to do, as a source
of joy to them in the day of the Lord, who would say that
they were wrong.? who, recollecting our blessed Saviour's
own words on that great day, " Well done, good and faithful
servant .''" or, who ever did any deed really out of love to
his Saviour, and did not feel an instinctive joy that he had
done it for his Lord's sake .'' or, unless he had been schooled,
and the impulses of his heart restrained and contracted with
in the channel which God assigned them, by the narrow
limits of some school of theology, did not joy that the deed
done in secret for his Saviour's sake, should by Him be
acknowledged openly before His Father and the holy angels .''
And one need not quite add, in this sense, ours was a
voluntary church ; for there are still some signs of life among
us, although by our boastfulness and self-gratulation we are
going well nigh to extinguish them ; or rather, we are pro
voking God signally to humble us, and break in pieces the
work in which we engage thus proudly. Yet it seems to me,
on the other hand, that when insisting on the duty and
absolute necessity that the nation, as a nation, should relieve
the spiritual destitution of the poor among us, we are some
times unjust to what has actually been of late years done ;
and we have spoken as if of late all which had been " volun
tarily" done, had been done by the dissenters, and that the
episcopal church had only been enlarged by parliamentary
grants. True it is, that what has been done by us has been
miserably inadequate; true also, that the additional hght
thus spread has helped to discover to us the thick oppressive
darkness which men seeraed before too much inured to
to feel; true also, that it would be a very miserable thing if
the church had not done much more to relieve the spiritual
starvation of her own children than dissenters. But still
something has been done ; we have in a degree maintained
our character of a " voluntary" church ; fresh endowments
have been made, not indeed with the noble munificence of
our forefathers, but still according to the measure of the
present day. As far as there is any " voluntary" church in
the present day, ours is one — or, rather, is " the voluntary
church,'''' except so far as " voluntary" means, that we are to
abandon all that holy men, in better days, consecrated to
God's service, and then to see how much those of this day
will restore ; strip the " doors of the temple of the Lord's

house of the gold, and give it to Assyria," " take the sea
from off the brazen oxen that were under it, and put it upon
a paTement of stones," (2 Kings xvi. 17,) and then essay how
we can replace it ; first commit sacrilege, and then make a
free-will offering, and boast of the largeness of our munifi
cence in the dole which would succeed it. This is the
wickedness, the hypocrisy, the TrgioTov ^eudo$ of the " pseudo-
voluntary" system ; for if it meant only that the church, as
well as the several sects of dissenters, was to have no grants
from the state, this is but what we have arrived at already,
our only accession from the state now being (as it is a great
one) the recommendation from his Majesty to contribute our
selves to the several religious objects of our church. Setting,
then, this abuse of the word " voluntary" aside, ours still, in
some degree, retains its character of a " voluntary" church.
Nay, it would, as I said, be very sad, if, with the abundant
means possessed by her raembers, she were not doing more
than all the several sects of dissentients from her, even
including the funds which they derive from churchmen.
But setting aside all comparison with sects, or with times
iraraediately preceding, or all vindication in man's sight, the
one real question is. How stand we in the sight of God? Are
we making such earnest exertions in extending His kingdora,
in withstanding the inroads of His and our eneray, in " giving
light to thera araong us who sit in darkness," in Christianizing
our land, as vvould make us hope that He will lift up the
light of His countenance upon us, and bless us, that He will
not move our candlestick out of its place .'' t dare not so
anticipate the judgraent of God, as to say that we are not ;
but who will dare to say or think that we are ? I raean not
that, in any case, our deeds could stand the righteous judg
ment of God ; yet still there are deeds, there are " works,
and charity, and services, and faith, and patience" which he
commandeth (Rev, ii. 19), for which he alloweth a church to
stand; and for the absence of which he removeth them ; have
we these .'' Was it not the very curse of restored Judah —
" Is it time for you, O ye, to dwell in your ceiled houses, and
this fiouse lie waste f Now, therefore, thus saith the Lord of
Hosts, Consider YOUR ways. Ye looked for rauch, and, lo,
it came to little ; and when ye brought it home, I did blow it
away. Why ? saith the Lord of Hosts. Because of mine
house that is waste ; and ye run, every man to his own
house," And shall we, then, accustom ourselves (to take
one instance only) to count by tens of thousands those
who, in our metropolis alone, live by " profaning the temple
of the Holy Ghost.''" Shall we inure ourselves, as to a thrice-

10
told tale, to hear of the myriads who subsist by breaking the
Seventh or the Eighth Commandment ; of quarters of our
metropolis which are " sinks of iniquity ;" of " hells" in our
Christian city ; of the innuraerable multitude to whom the
weekly sabbath is a day of rest from labour that they raay
labour only in serving sin, whora each Lord's-day is leading
down nearer to hell, instead of lifting up to heaven.'' Shall we
hear, day by day, of drunkenness, debauchery, brutality, pro
faneness, reigning araong those who were once raade " merabers
of Christ and heirs of heaven," and " turn on the other side"
as if it concerned not us.'' Is all this utterly irreraediable .'' Did
not Christ die for them ? Did not Christ come to seek and
save such as thera ? And wills He not that even they should
yet " call upon the name of the Lord, and be saved .P" Does
he not yet " continue to them life and time of repentance, that
they may be saved .?" " But how shall they call on Him, in
whom they have not believed ? And how believe in Him of
whom they have not heard .' And how hear, without a
preacher? And how shall they preach unless they be sent .''
As it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach
the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things !"
It is the most grievous curse of negligence and sin, that we
become inured to it; speak of it as though it were a necessary
evil — as if it did not concern raen's souls — as if all this life and
another, God's proraises and His threatenings, heaven and hell,
were a dream, and all unreal, except the comforts and indul
gences to which we are accustomed ! For do we believe that
" they who turn many to righteousness shall shine as the stars
for ever and ever ?" Do we believe that " he who soweth
sparingly, shall reap also sparingly ; and he which soweth
BOUNTIFULLY, SHALL IIE.4P ALSO BOUNTIFULLY.''" HaVe WC
heard our Saviour's bidding, " sell that ye have, and give
alms: provide yourself bags which wax not old, a treasure
IN THE HEAVENS THAT PAILETH NOT.?" And do we grudge
ourselves all this reward ? Are we so bound down to the
things, and custoras, and measures of this world, as to have no
longing for this greater glory which Christ has promised to
the greater sacrifices? Shall we act as if we, too, purposed to
reverse our Saviour's teaching, and to " lay up for ourselves
treasures on earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and
where thieves break through and steal ;" and not " lay up for
ourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust
doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor
steal .'"' Is it nothing to " shine as the stars for ever and ever;"
nothing " to reap bountifully ;" nothing to have a treasure,
which, when these few years are over, still shall never fail '

II
nothing to have the blessings of those, to whom our bounty
has been blessed to their everlasting salvation ; nothing to
have our Saviour's praise ? And yet all this must be as nothing
to us, vte must coUnt all this as nothing, — if we be not induced
to sacrifice of what God has lent us, largely, bountifully, to
our own inconvenience, like the blessed Apostles, (for so only
were it a sacrifice,) to attain it.
I cannot believe that men would be so dujl, so unbelieving ;
that we should have so few instances of self-devoting charity ;
that men would think our Saviour's precepts so impracticable ;
that we should be giving hundreds instead of thousands,
thousands for tens of thousands ; that we should so shut up all
the bowels of compassion to our poor brethren, who, untaught,
unrecalled, without (as far as we are concerned) one warning
voice, have fallen back into the dominion of Sattin ; that we
should fall so far short of the ages which we call "dark," in
self-denying Christian charity, did we, the clergy, more faith
fully, more explicitly, more uncompromisingly demand for our
God what is his due, and, from our fellow-Christians, what
would be their everlasting reward.
We are afraid of seeming to exalt human merit ; we speak
of pardon, acceptance, reconciliation ; but we shrink from
speaking of what is one great end and object of our pardon,
acceptance, reconciliation — viz., God's glory in our acceptable
labour and service through His great strength, and — reward
proportionate. The very name " reward" sounds strangely to
us ; and yet it is our blessed Saviour's proraise, " Great is
your reward in heaven." And thus, since we have lost sight
of one raain-spring to noble Christian action, which God has
placed within the heart of man, can we marvel at the poorness
of our attainments ? Yet they are not our works, but God's,
" who worketh in us to will and to do of his good pleasure."
Why, then, should we shrink, or rather is it not ungrateful to
shrink, from declaring that they are good works, because
wrought in Him and by Him, by the strength which He
supplies us as being members of His Son ; and that He will
reward us openly ?
By some great effort alone can the ground, which we have
lost to Satan, be recovered; the souls, which we have given over
to his kingdom, be set free. It is not by petty insulated efforts
here and there, by making up a breach here and there in the
shattered walls of our Zion, while the enemy is pouring in
like a flood through other avenues which we have allowed to
decay, that we can now be saved. The wall must be built
(as in the days of Nehemiah) " so that there was no breach
left therein." Then shall " oUr enemies be much cast down.

12
for they shall perceive that the work is the work of God."
(Neh. vi. 1, 16.) So also shall " the good hand of the Lord
our God be upon us."
Would, then, (to take this one case only,) we might profit
by the calculations already made of the hundreds of thousands
who, in London, cannot, if they would, hear the word of God,
that we would " count the cost," not content with reducing a
parish of 120,000 souls to 50,000; but really examine what
would be needed, in order to provide every one (not already
provided) with a place in the house of God, and with one who
should and could care for his soul. It will be a mighty
undertaking; but the saying of a heathen has become a
proverb — " Possunt, quia posse videntur." Much more then,
when the strength and ability is not ours, but of God. The
more arduous the task, the more apparently hopeless, the less
one can calculate upon any human means, so much the more
full of hope, yea, so much the more certain would it be of
accomplishment, because it must be begun, continued, ended,
in dependence upon God. It becoraes possible, because, in
human sight, it is irapossible. Be the sum required what it may,
if the work be but begun, with faith in God, and an earnest
desire for His glory, it will be accomplished. It concerns us all.
London, as the heart of our social system, must be, and is, day
by day more manifestly, circulating health or disease, religion
or profaneness, the fear of God or atheism, in every corner of
our land. It is felt also by many to be the concern of all.
There are thousands who would gladly contribute to the
great work, as soon as it should be set about in earnest.
As long as mere palliatives are adopted, — a church or chapel
erected here and there, — it is not our concern ; we have
labours like this, each in our own neighbourhood, to look to ;
but when the clergy of the Metropolis shall set themselves
indeed, under the authority of the heads of the church, to
remedy this crying evil as a whole, " to lengthen thy cords
and strengthen thy stakes, and enlarge the borders of thy
tents," then it will be, and will be felt to be, the concern of
all. It is the very will of God that we should take a deeper
interest, make gladder, readier sacrifices, exert greater energies,
nay, and have greater strength to exert, in great undertakings :
for He has planted the impulse in our hearts ; we are carried
beyond ourselves by a power which we feel not to be our own,
with a feeling, and a longing, and an energy, which masters
all petty calculations, overwhelms the sense of self, overpowers
our natural misgivings and despondencies, forbids us to con-
teraplate obstacles, (which, because not contemplated, sink
into nothing,) gives us strength which removes mountains.

13
because it is the strength of faith — strength which, because
we know not whence it cometh or whither it goeth, we know
to be of God. God has shewn us a little type of this in the
natural world, in mere human excitement and human feelings.
How often have heights been gained, whereat those who
gained them wondered how they carae up thither ? And if
this be so, for things of sense, for perishing interests, for some
petty object in this fleetifig world, how much more, when the
question is about things which shall last for ever, about
rescuing men's souls from hell, abput peopling the bright
courts of heaven with immortal and happy souls to praise and
bless God for ever and ever, yea, and in God and for God to
bless us also, who have been His instruments in bringing back
to Christ's fold the sheep for which He, the Good Shepherd,
shed His precious blood ?
The details of such a plan can best be given by those in
authority ; but they ought to know that there are those who
would gladly " lay up treasures in heaven" by parting with
their treasure here, who would make sacrifices, who look with
sickening hearts at the undisputed reign of Satan in portions
of our metropolis, at the spiritual starvation of myriads
" baptized into the same Body" with themselves, who would
gladlycontributetheirshare,if they were but directed. I would
not say any thing disputable upon such a subject as this; yet
this raight be said without offence, that while we have been
circulating the Bible in foreign tongues, sending forth
missionaries into the isles ofthe sea, educating slaves, assaying
the conversion of the Jews, we have fearfully neglected a
domestic duty. And it is idle, and worse than idle, to
speak — I will not say boastfully, (although this also were
probably very true,) but — exultingly, of the hunclred or fifty
thousands annually collected for the one or the other religious
purpose abroad, while our own homes are left desolate. At
all events, this we should have done, and not left the other
undone. But it is not such objects as these which interfere, except so
far that they satisfy us that we are doing soraething, that
people go to hear of the result of raissionary exertions in the
one place, or the increased study of God's word in another,
until they live in this atraosphere of exciteraent frora without,
and forget that, within a few yards of the fair streets through
which they go to hear of these glad tidings frora foreign lands,
there are tens of thousands whora that word never reached,
who never, perhaps, were within the house of God, except
perhaps when at baptism " they received the seal which now
(in St. Augustine's language) convicts them to be deserters,

14
but avails not to their crown." " The diseased have ye not
strengthened ; neither have ye healed that which was sick ;
neither have ye bound up that which was broken ; neither
have ye brought again that which was driven away ; neither
have ye sought that which was lost. And they are scattered
because there is no shepherd ; and they betome meat to all the
beasts of the field when they are scattered. My sheep wander
through all the mountains, and upon every high hill, yea,
My flock is scattered upon all the face of the earth, and none
doth search nor seek after them." — (Ezek, xxxiv, 4 — 6.)
But for such objects as these, there would be enough, and
more than enough ; they would hinder no good work ; such
scattering increaseth. The real hindrance is, that we are
accustomed to such petty measures of giving, that we make
comforts of luxuries, and necessaries of comforts, and necessity
of " what is becoming in our station," and a gospel-rule of the
world's standard, until we have no room left for any but petty
contributions ; and then, because a mighty stream has been
formed out of the 100,000 little rivulets which have been
poured into it, thete we mirror ourselves and our contributions
in that vast tide, and forget how mean and contemptible they
in themselves were. Our whole system of alms-giving and
religious contributions is one vast system of self-deceit, in
which we magnify ourselves in our own sight ; and, in the
bustle of what is being done around us, contrive to forget the
poorness of our own share, as well as that Great Day wherein
we shall have to give account, not of what was done in our day,
but of what we did, gave, sacrificed, abandoned, denied
ourselves for His sake, who for our sakes became poor. God
give us all grace to answer this to ourselves, that so we may
be able to answer it to our endless glory, and receive His
rewatd in the presence of His holy angels !
Oxford, Seiptember, 1835.

Since the above paper was written, the Right Reverend the
Bishop of London has (as was hoped) been enabled, in some
degree, to mature a plan, whereby — not all, but — a portion ofthe
evil, which immediately affects London and its vicinity, might
be relieved.

15
It had been to bo wished, that he could have been entitled so
to calculate on the Christian feeling of tiiat great metropolis,
that he could have claimed at once out of its enormous wealth,
its comforts, its luxury, its vanities, its nodiingnesses, — from the
amusement or the show, or the animal gratifications of an hour, —
what might have regenerated a Christian city, and converted the
abodes of discord and misery, and lust, and strife, and blas
phemy, — the types of hell — into joy, peace, and love, the ante-
pasts of heaven. Fearful of asking too much, he applies but for
something less than one-sixth of what is needed for the entire
removal of the actual destitution — for 50 new Churches, where
310 would be required, if one Church, on an average, were pro
vided for each 3000 persons. It remains for us to shew, that we
are in sorae degree alive to what is the common concern of us
all, the spiritual provision for our metropolis, " that great city , "and
its million five hundred thousand souls. Should such support be
ofliered, as might encourage the Bishop to undertake the whole
of this great task, besides the incalculable blessing to the metro
polis itself, (a blessing, which would be felt through the whole
land,) there would be set an example and a pattern, which might
increase the efficiency of our whole Church, beyond even the
farthest hopes of those, now most sanguine. Would that persons
in this their day could see, what they will one day see, and
what, in the abstract, they are ready to acknowledge, the utter
insipidity and worthlessness of those momentary things wherein
they employ the money committed to them, compared to the
contributing the means, whereby one human soul may be restored
to, or preserved in, our Redeemer's fold.
" For the accomplishment of this object," says the Right Rev.
the Bishop, " a great effort is required ; great, as men are now
" accustomed to measure the requirements of Christian charity; and
" yet are there not hundreds of persons who could give to the cause
" of Christ and of His Church their thousand pounds each, without
" sacrificing one of their comforts or enjoyments ? and are there not
" multitudes whom we have a right to call upon, even for such a
" sacrifice, if it be requisite, in order to rescue so many of their fellow-
" creatures from the miseries of irreligion and vice, and to prevent
" the further growth of an evil, which threatens our national peace
" and safety ?"
The following facts and plans are abstracted from the *' Pro
posals" published bythe Right Rev. the Bishop: only it must
be borne in mind (what one is apt to forget in these tabular
statements), that each unit represents a human soul; that one is
not even speaking of the religious destitution of oue generation,
but of what has been, and what must (hut for timely aid) be, and
must increase — the continually repeated cycle of the spiritual
starvation of so many thousand distinct, undying, human souls.
(These statements include only parishes, exceeding 7000 souls.)

16

Spiritual destitution of London.
Popnlation. Church Room

Propor tion.

4
21 9
34

lfi6,000
739,000
232,000
1,137.000 380,046

8,200
66,15527,327

Unprovided"! for in 34 > 3/756,954
parishes J
Sittings re-\

Prop;
tarypel; out

roprie-*^ cure. J

not A

Clergy men. 11
45 19

Proportion.
not 1 for 15,000
not 1 for 16,400
1 for 12,300

Total 75 Total 1
average J

1 for 15,100

126,682 3

Calculating necessary
Church-room at \

quired.

P.irishcs. 10

252,318

380,046 whole number provided for.

East and North-East of London.

Population.
I 353,460

churches it Chapels.
18 I

Proportion.
1 for 19,000 I

Clergymen. 22

Proportion.
1 for 14,000

General outline of the plan as agreed upon.
1. To build or purchase and partly endow at least 50 new
Churches. 2. Districts to be assigned to each Church, within the limits of
which the Minister thereof may exercise pastoral care, except in
special cases, in which it maybe deemed advisable to provide Chapels
of Ease, to be under the care of the Incumbents of parishes ; but that
such Chapels have, in every case, their own officiating Clergymen.
3. Nomination to Churches and Chapels not heing Chapels of
Ease (as generally desired) in the Bishop of the diocese.
4. In single cases (if desirable) patronage to be vested in the
Patron of the Living, or official trustees, to be named by the
Committee. 5. Sums q/'£100 and upwards may be paid in equal instalments
in four years, or individuals may subscribe annually for four
years. (Thus e. g. one who could only contribute £25 in any one year, might be a
subscriber of £100, one who could give £50 only in a single year, £200.)
6. Endowment, in many cases, to be provided by means of the
minor stalls of St. Paul's.
(St. Paul's was founded, as a sort of Missionary establishment for the vicinity
when Heathen ; it accomplished the end assigned it ; and now, again, after
centuries, through our negligence, its work has again to be performed ; only,
in the midst of a country professedly Christian. And, by God's mercy, it still
exists; and may again be the means of evangelizing the yet worse Heathen
ism, which has been allowed to gather round it, and to carry into the
darkest " streets and lanes ofthe city" the Cross which its dome uprears.
On a large plan, it would be desirable to raise at least £600,000.
The present Subscriptions do not much exceed £116,000.

ANSWERS TO OBJECTIONS
P.AISED
BY THE " RECORD" AND OTHERS
TO THE PLAN OF TIIE
METROPOLIS CHURCHES' FUND.
BY THE
Rev. E. B. PUSEY, D.D,

When objections are made to any work of charity, they
have far more effect than is intended. For as men's notions of
charity now are, it seems as if our Lord had said, " it is more
blessed to receive than to give," or " lay up for yourselves
treasures upon earth ;" only, out of your abundance, cast a
little into God's treasury, yet so that it dirainish not any of
your comforts, enjoyments, ease, or luxury. Objections may
be in some minds the reason for not giving : for the raost
part, they are only the excuses of selfishness. At least, for one,
who is really prevented by conscience from giving to a work
of charity, and who evinces that conscientiousness by giving to
some other object to which he can conscientiously, whatever
he would, had conscience perraitted, have sacrificed for this
forraer object, there will be hundreds to whora it will be a mere
excuse for keeping to themselves money, which they would
have been compelled to oflFer to God. For these objections
generally grow in proportion to the greatness of the cost;
on the scale on which societies are for the most part sup
ported, it were mockery to speak of sacrifice at all.
This, of course, only shews, that persons ought to be very
cautious in raising objections, since to so many they will be
a mere doke for covetousness. For there are and will
probably (where Church principles are so little understood)
Idb more and more associations started, with which a Church
man can have nothing to do. If we object, with an en
lightened conscience, put not ourselves forward beyond our
measure, intrude not into things of which we are no judges,
are submissive to lawful authority, take not to ourselves the
B

18
highest places, then we shall for tbe most part be echoing
only the objections raade by those who bave authority to
make them," and if any abuse them to their own hurt, we
" are free from tbeir blood ;" if we object rashly and self-
confidently, then whatever consequences result, whether of
opposing the work of God, or of furnishing an occasion to sin,
will be on our heads.
The following pages were written, not as if there were any
valid or plausible excuse for not aiding in the gigantic work
of diminishing (if it might be, in sorae sensible .degree) the
spiritual destitution of the Metropolis, (unless indeed a
person were eraploying all whereof God had made him
steward in like works elsewhere,) but to remove excuses from
such as do not desire to have excuses. And let not people
think (as many seem inclined) that the very existence of ob
jections is a sufficient objection. Especially, when they whom
God has made overseers of His Church not only join insti
tutions, but themselves come forward, and ask for the Chris
tian support of their people in relieving those committed
to their charge, a man had need have very weighty reasons,
beyond private caprice, or a notion that it might be done
better some other way, to stand excused before God.
Of the objections here considered, the only one put promi
nently forward, with a view to deter people frora joining in
this great work, was that relating to the appointment of the
Ministers ; and the question really is, Do people indeed think
the circurastance, that the appointment of the Ministers is
with the Bishop of the Diocese, a suflScient reason for with
holding the payment of their debt to these their fellow-
Christians, or shutting up the bowels of their compassion
frora them ? Do they, — whose usual argument, when sorae
irregular project is set on foot, is, " Are we to leave so many
thousands to perish ?" do they mean to withhold their aid from
the greatest plan, which in the meraory of man has been de
vised to relieve them ? to check also the Christian charity of
those who were disposed to aid them ? to divide the Church
or to leave a portion of it to do what is the duty of all .'
is it really come to this, that the work of building Churches
cannot be carried on unaniraously by the members of the
Church, because the appointment to those Churches is to be
with the Bishop of the Diocese, to which these Churchmen
belong, and in which the Churches are to be built ? or still
further, — since they equally reject any other plan of official
trustees, (for this is provided for,) — unless the nomination be
with individuals of their own choosing, and their nominees
after them ? One is persuaded that some mistake must

19
have blinded men's eyes, else could they not mean any thing
so monstrous. And to remove this wrortg impression was the
original object of the following pages.
The question, however, has further bearings ; and, as prin
ciples become more developed, the mode of acting, resulting
from this and the opposite view, will probably characterize
still more decisively large component portions of the Church.
The one, the Dissenting principle, as it looks upon every thing
individually, and upon the Church only as an aggregate of
individuals, so in the Church, or what they esteem such, it
looks exclusively to individual character, and would trust to
individuals of the present day to select others who shall faith
fully represent their principles, and these others, and so on ;
they look to a succession of doctrine or principles, independ
ently of any external constitution; and expect the body, to
which they attach themselves, always to continue such as the
present generation is. The other view looks to the Church as a
whole, and while they receive with thankfulness those eminent
saints, whom God from time to, time forms in His Church,
yet expect the chief stability and perpetuity through the
Church itself, as being the institution of God, and the succes
sion of Ministers, as being appointed by God. The one will
look to individual effort, would contract itself into societies,
draw into these all it thought like-minded, whether within or
without the Church, while, what it calls the visible Church,
it abandons as something of necessity dead and cold, except
accidentally (so to say), or so far as it should be acted upon
through these external bodies ; the other looks upon the
Church, as the instrument of God for man's salvation, that
whatever is done soundly must be done through the Church
as a whole ; that what is so done, has God's blessing upon it,
more than those other self-chosen modes of exertion ; that so
cieties are but a very imperfect meansof compassing an end; that
they may be necessary, in certain emergencies, on account of the
crippled state of the Church, but that after a time they will
certainly decay ; and that, therefore, the more we commit to
the Church, and the less to individuals or societies, the safer
it will be for our posterity. Any society less in extent than
the Church, or formed upon any other principles than the
Churcb, whatever teraporary ends it may serve, will at last
probably be mischievous, because perverted. And therefore
it seems our wisdom, when we are compelled to form such, to
entrust them with as little power as may be, to make them
wholly subservient to the Church, as channels for her nourish
ment, but with no power to overflow her at will. According
to the turn which things have been taking during this present
B 2

20
century, we should be governed by societies, not by Bishops.
In the following paper, however, the question has been consi
dered as a matter of fact, (as the urgency of the particular case
required,) not with any detail of argument. Only so much, it
was thought, might be premised to account for a controversia]
tone, which would otherwise have been avoided. It should be
recollected, that the question was not of our seeking; that the
plan of vesting the patronage in the Bishop of the Diocese
was that originally proposed, but that some, not content with
declining to subscribe, have, through their organ, endeavoured
to deter others, who have confidence in that organ, from con
tributing. The line taken was that of self-defence ; and if,
in pursuing it, it was impossible to avoid expressing appre
hensions of the tendencies of certain principles, this is done
with all real respect for individuals, who mistakenly hold
them, and who probably may be startled by the facts con
nected with them.

Letter reprinted from the British Magazine,
November, 1836, and the following.
When we have considered a subject for some time, we are
apt to forget the process by which we arrived at our result,
and the difficulties which we had to surmount in coming to it.
And this is natural ; for the end of all consideration being-
action, when we have reached the point we wanted, we need
no longer the scaffolding by which we reached it, and it con
cerns us no longer to recollect how much difliculty we had in
fixing and constructing it. We have arrived at what we
wanted to attain to, a result. And this done, we are apt to
discard our scaffolding as no longer of any use, and unsightly
and cumbersome. Now this were all very well, if we were
auragxeif, and could manage things by ourselves ; but since
such is the case in nothing which concerns a common good,
this habit of ours has its inconveniences ; for, if we want to
help up others to the same point, we must be content to keep
in raind the process by which we arrived there ; since unless
we have strength, and the long arm of authority and influence,
to bring people up by the short road of unreasoning convic
tion, (which, though an excellent, is now a disused way,) we
must content ourselves with pointing out the circuitous track
which we took ourselves.
In plain words, it is astonishing how soon, after we have
made up our minds upon any practical matter, we forget all
the difficulties, doubts, misgivings, which we had during the
process, and are even surprised to find that others are held

21
back by difficulties, not unlike those which we have just
surmounted. We have reached the eminence, and so have
attained a survey of the surrounding country, and, having its
length and breadth clearly before us, forget that it was not so
with ourselves on our way thither, that we could see far less
distinctly a little while before.
I do not raake these observations so rauch for the sake of
what I am immediately going to say, as that in these days
of division and perplexity, in which so many of us are
gradually feeling back our way after old truths and the old
paths, it will be a great evil and mistake, if, when any of us
have found them, we are impatient at the slowness of others
to enter upon them, who have been brought up perhaps in
prejudices opposed to them. In these days we have probably
come to some of our own principles slowly, and so raust not
forget our slowness, or be grieved if others be slower still.
'To turn, however, to the subject in hand. Some persons,
it is understood, decline to contribute to the great plan of
building Churches in London, because the patronage is to be
vested in the Bishop, and the " Record" has been advising
them to hold back. Now, one must (as things now are)
confess that there is real and great difficulty in all patronage,
so much so, that it is a special instance of God's Providence
over His Church that, out of materials so unpromising, He
has yet brought out a degree of order so little disharmonized
by men's wilfulness. Thus, we have private patronage
tending to bring in younger sons and brothers " into the
priest's office', for the sake of a morsel of bread" only ; — we
have crown patronage invaded and seized upon by the
ministers of state, and prostituted to political purposes ; — we
have corporate patronage,where thedivided responsibility ^enrfs
to make the several patrons less regardful of the character of
their united acts, and the patronage, although nominally cor
porate, has often alraost degenerated into a system of virtual
self-nomination (as in colleges), or of individual appointment,
without its responsibility, which is a compound evil ; — we
have popular election, which brings into the house of God
all the evils of secular canvassing, and its attendant pro
fanations ;— we have episcopal patronage, which, as bping
individual, raay have the evils of private patronage, and
those, in this case, aggravated (if they do ever occur) by the
additional scandal which they occasion in consequence of the
high dignity of the parties; — lastly, we have of late had
a The temptations among the Dissenters to enter upon the office of
preacher, from secular motives, appear (from the account of an eminent
person among them to myself) to be rauch greater .¦

22
trustee-patronage, which some seem inclined to prefer, because,
on account of its recent introduction into the ChUrch, there
bas not been time for its evils to be developed among us,
although (by means of the presbyterian body) it has been
the main-stay of Socinianism'', and, but for it, that soul-
destroying heresy might never have obtained any footing in
this country. So flagrant are the evils in some of these cases,
(e. g., private or crown patronage,) that, if people allow their
minds to dwell exclusively upon them, they are tempted to
ascribe all the evils of the church to these single causes. And
yet, through the good providence of our God, unpromising
as are all these things in their tendencies, and although some
of them might unquestionably be corrected by regulations
which the church could make or enforce without interfering
with any just rights; the church is, as a whole, in a state,
as far as these causes are concerned, fairly flourishing, and,
" our enemies themselves being judges," more spiritually
flourishing, than any dissenting body. Still, one must be
ready to admit that there is evil in the administration of
patronage, and that, as to crown patronage (and episcopal
patronage, as affected by it), the risk has been aggravated
by the admissibility of persons, aliens from or enemies to the
church, to those offices of state which have usurped the
patronage of the crown. It is contemplated, on all hands, as
possible, that in a few years, the government might, for a
time, pass into the hands of these men. Should then the
selection of our bishops remain, virtually, uncontrolled, in the
hands of persons who employ that power for political ends, the
patronage of bishops might become a curse of the church,
and they themselves her corrupters. It is inexpressibly
degrading to have to speak the truth on this point, but we
must not withhold it. The power of the crown having
virtually passed out of the hands of the king (the supreme
governor of the church) into those of his ministers, we must
admit the possibility of the church's being corrupted through
its bishops, and that a time might come when they who most
reverence episcopacy, as an ordinance of God, might (as during
'' As an instance of the importance attached to Lady Hewley's charity,
whichjthroughthe trustee-system, became the foster-mother of Socinianism,
instead of furnishing " godly ministers of Christ Jesus" — the well-known
Eichhorn, the founder of a peculiar species of rationalism, asked the
writer of these lines, eleven years ago, with especial interest, after the
Socinian College at (or near) York. It was the only then-existing
English institutioh about which he felt any interest ; but about this he
had full information, and evidently looked to it as the channel whereby
rationalism might be introduced into this country.

23
the Arian persecutions) mourn over every exercise of the
functions of thera who were thrust into this high office. But
in what case .? Why, if every thing were to stand para
lyzed, — if the then monarch should remain bound hand and
foot in the thraldom of an ungodly ministry, — if the chapters
(to take the next step) were to accept and elect any persons
proposed to them, — if, when the individual so elected was
proposed to the people, no one should be found to protest
against it, and then, lastly, if bishops should be found to
consecrate one notoriously disqualified ; — then, certainly, we
might again have such bishops as Hoadley or worse, in every
see ; we might have not one, but a whole bench of Hoadleys.
And, it is true, one should wish to have no patronage in the
hands of a Hoadley. But people, while they speculate thus,
do, as is often the case, entirely forget the greater evil in the
less. They fix their eyes on some small spot immediately
before them, (as in this case, on the fifty, or sixty, or a
hundred additional district churches, which, by God's blessing,
may be built in the metropolis,) and forget all which lies
beyond, all the patronage (in itself infinitely more influential)
which already belongs to the see of London, and the in
calculable influence which a Hoadley might exert in that see
(in times favourable to such designs) upon the character
of the whole church. All this is accounted as a mere raatter
of course, as already fixed, as an evil which is certainly
coming ; men cower under it like animals before the gathering
thunder-cloud; no effort is to be made to prevent it,~but we
are to direct our whole attention (so to speak) on some pawn
in the vast stake, as if this alone was of any moment. And
so people exaggerate its importance in proportion to their
undervaluing the greater evil. They raake up for their
apathy in the welfare of the whole church by their anxiety
about what is, in proportion, but as "mint, anise, and
cummin." For, even should Almighty God so bless the efforts
of the present bishop, that one hundred new churches and
chapels were obtained, people forget altogether that, when
these are once filled up, the change in them is not ordinarily
very rapid ; that a bishop, for the most part, is already in
the middle period of life when he is advanced to so high a
station as the see of London, and that there is one yet more
important to which he may be removed ; so that, even
supposing the case that every barrier is broken through, and
a Hoadley again, in these more wakeful days, appointed,
not many of these new appointments would fall to his lot.
And what would these appointments be ? Probably but very
poor, and very laborious, cures, which no one could covet

24
but for the sake of advancing his Master's kingdom. Such,
then, is the contingent, the possible evil, for fear of which
Christian charity is to be checked until some safer channel can
be found through which it may flow. The streams of Christian
charity have been turned more copiously than heretofore upon
our neglected metropolis ; some attempt has been made to
diminish the spiritual destitution of parishes, where the des
titution is counted by hundreds of thousands of Christian
souls ; and this is to be stopped, and men's natural and
Christian impulses are to be chilled, and their bowels of
mercy restrained ! — Why .' Because, if tlie whole church,
in its temporal head and its members, neglect their duty, an
individual may hereafter be appointed to the office of London,
unfit for the office of a bishop, and may, if fifty churches are
built, have some five — if one hundred, sorae ten — laborious
and ill-requited cures to dispose of. Surely this is gnat-
straining. If the evil were actually present, if we had such a
bishop as those whom men's fears look to, something were to
be said, and some additional precautions might be to be taken,
now that, in the first instance, all the new district churches
are to be provided with ministers at once. And yet the
precaution is taken, that, in any case which is considered
desirable by the committee, " witli consent of the bishop,"
the nomination may be vested in " official trustees, to be
named by the coramittee." (Rule 9.) Now, however,
although all profess to be satisfied with the appoint
ments likely to be made by the present bishop, although
the work is of magnitude enough to require the united efforts
of all who love our church or men's souls, we are to bc
divided, and misgivings are to be raised, and an excuse to
be furnished to those who wish to hoard " the unrighteous
Mammon," on account of this possible evil ! And to prevent
this far greater evil, nothing is done. As was said, one
should be sorry to see our cures filled up by a Hoadley ;
but what is this, compared to having bishoprics filled by
Hoadleys ? Yet raen are content to see the desolation which
they expect, pour in hke a tide ; they neither " raark the
bulwarks nor tell the towers," nor make up the breaches in
the wall, and think only that, when all is desolate, their own
petty machinery may save a residue. If these evils do
threaten us, (and 1 do not say that they do not, only I trust
in God, and believe that He will give our spiritual rulers
and ourselves wisdom and energy in the hour of trial,) if, or
since, these evils do threaten us, why do not the clergy, why
does not the church, for once, anticipate or prepare for the
pvil, — petition the King to take the recommendation to

25
bishoprics, or the appointment of other ecclesiastical offices
in the gift of the crown, into his own hands, as heretofore ?
Why sit still, and endure the degradation and mischief of
political trafficking with the pffices of the sanctuary ? Why
not tell his Majesty, that the responsibility of recommending
our bishops belongs to him individually, not to his ministers,
— that God, ' whose minister he is,' has laid it upon him, and
that he cannot transfer it to others, — that it is to God that
he has to give account of his care of His Church, not to the
state, — that the ministers of state had, in times pasf, and
ought to have, no voice in this matter — that it depends
solely on his Majesty, and that the Church wishes to have no
one to interpose between his Majesty and herself — that this
transference of the prerogative of the crown to his temporal
ministers has been but a gradual'' usurpation, scarcely a
century old — that it is no part of the civil constitution of the
country, (to take the very lowest ground,) but that the
ministers of the house of Hanover took advantage of a
disputed succession, to interfere more and more with the
royal prerogative. Let the Church urge these and the like
topics, respectfully but earnestly, like those who feel the
sound state of the Church to be at stake, and will it be said
that, in these days, when every complaint of every 'sect is
attended to, this righteous requisition of the Church, that she
may not have persons whom she mistrusts thrust into her
highest offices by those who have no, even constitutional,
right to meddle with her altars, would not be listened to .''
Or, again, if, in these days of religious toleration, she
petitioned for the repeal of the " praemunire," — an act more
arbitrary and inhuraan than any which .men have held up to
reproach, and which yet they leave undisturbed, because it
simply keeps down tbe Church, — what could the " friends
of civil and religious liberty" dare to say in its defence ? But
if men are prepared to do none of these things, and are
¦: See a series of interesting papers in the British Magazine, containing
facts on this subject, from Henry VIII. and onwards. They begin in the
Feb. Number, 1837.
¦1 It is, however, not yet complete. It is a well-known fact, that
Mr, Pitt wished to advance his former tutor; the late Bishop Tomline, to
the see of Canterbury; King George the Third declined: Mr. Pitt
tendered his resignation ; " he had engaged that Bishop Tomline should
be the Archbishop, and the refusal would imply that he no longer
possessed the confidence of his royal master ; he must, therefore, in that
case, resign his office." The King accepted the resignation — " Mr. Pitt
might cease to be minister-, but he could not cease to be king." The
King being thus deterrained, Mr. Pitt said he could press the subject
no farther.

26
determined listlessly to await the evil day, and to allow the
Church gradually to be corrupted, without stirring one
hand to save her, it is idle to talk of one petty consequence
of having such Bishops, as they thus carelessly anticipate.
What is it but mockery, gravely to speak of the great
evil of trusting some ten or fifteen appointments, in a series
of years, to such a Bishop, when they w^holly neglect
the real overwhelming evil of having such Bishops at all ?
Such persons must either have strangely miscalculated the
additional influence which this new patronage would give
any single Bishop, or they must be self-deceived ; and,
whatever they may persuade theraselves, their real, although
unconscious, anxiety raust be, not that such Bishops may not
have it, but that they themselves, or their friends, may.
And this it is no want of charity to think, inasmuch as they
are decidedly averse to any plan of " official trustees," — to
any plan, in short, except that of having trustees of their own
choosing, who shall in their turn choose others, — as to that of
leaving the nomination altogether with the Bishop of the
diocese. Having thus fairly owned the evils which might result
from episcopal patronage, if nothing be done to prevent the
corruption of our Bishoprics, I may be allowed to state some
of those of the self-perpetuating trustee system. 1st, It is
virtually a corporation, and so exposed to all the evils of one.
In theory, the patronage of our colleges and chapters is very
beautiful, far superior to any lay corporation. Yet men see
the evils incidental to it! 2d, On the scale upon which it is
proposed, it is evidently un-episcopal, A board of trustees,
or a system of trustees, acting together, with the patronage
of fifty or a hundred Churches in London, would leave
episcopacy a name only. The influence of an united com
pact body is proverbial. 3d, There is no guarantee whatever
that such a board of non-official trustees should retain the
character which it had at first. No body of men ever did.
The state even of the English Church has been essentially
different in every century of her existence before and since
the Reformation. Any one would instantly see that her
state in the 16th, l7th, 18th, and 19th centuries has been
different. And if there has been such variation in a Church,
confined within certain limits by Creeds, Liturgy, and Articles,
how much more with a lay and irresponsible board ? Lady
Hewley's Charity should never be forgotten. Thanking God
that it was not our Church which so suffered, we may profit
by the experience. The trustees who were entrusted with
providing " pious and godly ministers of Christ Jesus,"

27
themselves Socinians, and appointing persons to preach the
God-denying apostacy ! It was briefly, but well said, " This
had not been the case, had Lady Hewley made the Arch
bishops of York her trustees," Yet there is no more security
in the case of lay-trustees of the Church than in that of
presbytenans, that they should not lapse into Socinianism ;
many of those who now are so anxious for lay-trustees, would,
at other tiraes, eagerly decrjr, as exclusive and bigotted, the
very notion that there was even more hope in the case of the
Church than of Dissenters, The question, be it observed,
is not whether either plan is absolutely secure, — nothing
administered by men can he; — but simply whether Bishops
or lay-trustees yield the most security. Bishops (setting aside
every thing else) are bound by their habits, by their religious
and theological education, by their ofiice, by the articles and
creeds of the Church ; laymen have not, necessarily, any of
these ties, and yet, with the case of Lady Hewley's Charity
before their eyes, people will contend that a system of self-
electing trusteeship (with no limitation that the members be
clerical) is a better safeguard than one, of official clerical
trustees, or than episcopal nomination !
And yet, if this one flagrant instance sufficed not, in which,
for a long series of years, an institution founded to maintain
" godly Ministers of Christ Jesus," became the propagator
of the heresy, which blasphemes Him ; there is yet another,
and, as yet, unremedied. The " Society" or " Company for the
propagation of the Gospel in New England" was chartered
in 1662, and the celebrated and Christian Robert Boyle was
its first president; its first members appear to have been
selected with care, and they were empowered to fill up their
number by the election of " discreet and fit persons ;" they
were laymen also, it appears, of the Church ; and yet
although the Society for Propagating the Gospel in foreign
parts was chartered, not 40 years later, by King William III.,
the one has remained in the hands to which it was first con
fided, the other has long lapsed into the hands of Socinians.
Why ? because the one was vested in oflicial clerical trustees,
and at the head thereof, the Archbishops and some Bishops
of the Church, and by the Bishops mainly its affairs have
been conducted ; the other was committed to irresponsible
lay-trustees, respectable or valuable men in the first instance,
but who, having no official responsibility, allowed the Society
to sink into the hands of Socinians. Such have been the
fruits of the two systems as we see them side by side ; such
tlie results of irresponsible trustees.
From this and similar experience, some Dissenters have

28
objected to any, or any but very small, endowments, on the
ground of the tendency of all [their] endowments to fall into
the hands of Socinians — i. e. on this very system, which is by
these persons recommended as the only safe one, that of irre
sponsible trustees.
There is, however, a still more painful part of the subject
upon which it is yet right to speak — viz. whether there be not
especial reason to dread unsoundness hereafter, in that very
portion of the Church which now holds itself alone to be
sound, and alone to preach' the Gospel. This is said, not
from any inclination to depreciate individuals now living — far
otherwise — but from dread of the results of the system which
they have adopted. No one would doubt the identity of the
peculiar system of theology embraced by the party, which is
now every where anxious for the self-perpetuating trusteeships,
with the Genevan. And then it is startling to find, that it
was out of Geneva that Socinianism sprung; that the Genevan
reformation is every where prostrate, except where it had been
connected with, and embalmed by, the vicinity ofthe Anglican
Church. Its horae, Switzerland, desolated by rationalisra ;
France in an unsatisfactory state, by its own confession ; and
the first seeds of rationalism carried into Germany, through
Prussia, by the French Protestant refugees ; Holland, like
Germany, a prey to rationalism, and taking the same course ;
the presbyterians, even in England, Socinians, and, to some
extent, in the north of Ireland : — a raelancholy picture this of
the fruits of Zuingli's and Calvin's departure from the true
catholic doctrine of the sacraments ! And would that this were
all ! But now, even the Araerican bodies connected with the
Swiss reforraation — i. e. the whole of the religious bodies of the
United States, excepting the Anglican Church — seem threat
ened with the like scourge. (The Romanist Church has, of
course, its own separate history.) I will only insert here the
boding observations of one, not ofour own Church and country,
well-acquainted with, and bound b}' many ties of friendship
to, the American bodies in question. The reraarks were imrae
diately called forth by a discussion of the doctrine of original
sin, by one who is the oracle of the present un-Socinianized
theology in the religious bodies of the United States, external
to the Church, Professor Moses Stuart. Professor Stuart,
namely, brings forward a number of physical objections to the
anti-Pelagian doctrine of original sin, and remarks, " The
whole subject needs, in this country, an investigation and
review de novo, such as it has not yet received." ." To this
review de novo^"" observes the deep-thinking and far-sighted

29
reviewer ¦", " M. Stuart has himself contributed. When,
now, one observes how he conducts his examination of the
doctrine of original sin, free and independent of honoured
names and confessions of faith, and how he, in part, brings
forward the same objections which the rationalist theologians
among ourselves set up against the letter of the Church's
doctrine- — and when one anticipates further, that, among the
younger theological race of America, this mode of proceeding
will continually spread, (and that, caUing to aid our rationalist
German books,) one cannot but already anticipate that North
America must go through the same crisis into which Germany
has been brought." Such are Professor Tholuck's fears,
founded on the mode in which one doctrine has been handled
by a teacher, whose unwearied labour and diligent study of
the modern scientific works of Germany, have made hira an
oracle for a large portion of the theology of the United States.
But if one takes into account that this individual, thus in
fluential as a writer and teacher, is erabarrassed on other
points also ; that he directly attacks the catholic doctrine of
the Trinity ; that he rejects every thing which, even on the
mysteries of the Gospel, does not " convey intelligible ideas,"
and, among these, " the eternal generation of the Son," and
" the procession of the Holy Ghost ;" that he has avowed
himself a Sabelhan, that is, an Unitarian ; that the title, " Son
pf God," according to him, relates in its highest sense to the
miraculous conception of our Lord, sometimes to his dignity
as the Christ, but generally to his lifceness to God, because
the Logos appeared in him ; that, in the words of the writer
already quoted, " he leaves the paths marked out by those of
"his confession, and bythe doctrinal expositors in his church,
and seeks out new paths, partly because doubts, to vvhich
they were strangers, have found their way into his mind ;"
that, again, (to take a different point, but one which involves
the whole question of the inspiration of the Bible,) his views
on the citations of the Old Testament in the New are vacil
lating and unsatisfactory, and tampering with rationalism, —
any one who has the least acquaintance with the course which
Gerraan theology took in its decline, cannot but be " horribly
afraid" for the unepiscopal bodies of the United States. This
alarm is aggravated by the circurastance, that the individual
in question and his adherents are (like Michaelis, and corre
sponding individuals among the Germans of the last century,)
standing over against others who have departed more widely
from the faith. In the highest doctrines, they still conceive
•' Prof. Tholuck, Litter.,arisclier Anzeiger, April 7th, 1834.

30
themselves opposed to the common-place Unitarians ; and on
the doctrine of original sin we are told, that " the theologians
of New England, and especially Dr. Wood at Andover,"
have " adopted the Zuinglian notion, that ' original sin'
means only ' hereditary evil,' man being born with a dispo
sition to evil, for which he is not responsible, till he gives way
to it by actual transgression ;" i. e. they have adopted the
Pelagian heresy. So that this influential body has the addi
tional disadvantage of being the " middle party ;" conceding
doctrinal truth without misgiving, because it seems for the
present to stand opposed to a party which has conceded yet
more, although, in fact, it is only paving the way for them.
So it was in Germany ; so it will ever be. The seeds of
German rationalisra are sown ; the soil seems altogether like
that which in Germany produced such a harvest of death ;
the ground has been broken up, ploughed, harrowed ; the first
signs of the death-crop are there ; God grant that she may
yet know, in this her day, the things which belong unto her
peace !
Bat for us, — and the question comes home to us, — are we in
a sound, understanding state, when, because of some peculiar
language, some occasional warmth of expression, and a good
deal of defensive tone, works of this and the like kind are
circulated among" ourselves, with recommendations from in-
fluential individuals, whether within or without the Church,
who belong, more or less, to the same Genevan school from
which so much rationalism has elsewhere sprung .-' Let any
one consider by whom Jacob Abbott's books have been re
printed and recommended^; how his " Corner-Stone" (the
writer of which, whether he as yet know it or not, must dis
believe the divinity of our Blessed Lord) has been recom
mended, and with what approbation it has by a peculiar
school been received, and say whether we are not in danger
of being Socinianized unawares'? Our state is very preca
rious ; the crisis is now at hand ; and although there is good
ground to hope that we may escape, (yet so as by fire,) that
hope rests solely on the great mercy of God, who has been
warning us to escape — not certainly in the discrimination of
that portion of the Church who thinks itself in the exclusive
e One grieves, and can hardly understand, how the " Corner-Stone"
should have been reprinted and recommended by Rev. H. Blunt, even
though some very offensive passages were omitted. The whole was re
printed, with a sort of apology, by the most learned, and moderate, and
influential, of the Dissenting teachers.
f See a most valuable essay " On the Introduction of Rationalist Prin
ciples into Religion." — Tracts of the Times, No. 73.

31
possession of the preaching of the Gospel. This is said in
sorrow, not, God forbid ! from rivalry or boast. " Would that
all the Lord's people were prophets !" It is not, I repeat, the
individuals whom we mistrust, but the system which they
have admitted, lest, when they are fallen asleep, it produce, in
England also, the fruits which it has borne every where
besides. While people are contemplating and acting upon
possible evils which may result from the appointments to our
Bishoprics, if the Church venture to expose to the storm her
" nudum reraigio latus," which, in the hours of calm, involved
no such apparent danger, let them be consistent, and consider,
in their own case also, the probable results of things, and not,
like children, persuade themselves that their little bark will
ride safely, although every one constructed like it lie pros
trate. Let men trust themselves less, and God more ! — trust
less their own contrivances, and trust more in the constitution
ofthe Church, which is the ordinance of God, and His pro-.
vidence in upholding His own ordinance, and correcting and
overruling man's abuses of it. It is part of the self-idolizing
ofthe day, to look to ourselves and our own plans, and to seek
for shelter in our own petty houses of clay, and not to look to
that majestic temple into which we are built up, " whose
builder and maker is God," This looking to ourselves, and
despising the organization which God has provided for us in
the Church, threatens to turn our designs for good into
centres of evil.
II. There is yet another class, who, although they would
and do build Churches where themselves are plainly respon
sible, yet engage in the work with a heavy heart, as fearing,
on some such grounds as the above, thatthe " Establishment
itself may cease to be an orthodox catholic Establishment,"
These, too, one must admit as before, have had their grounds
of fear, although, God be praised, better days appear to be
dawning, "and better hopes. The mania for amalgamating
the Church, on the score of charity, with the one or other
body of Dissenters, has apparently subsided ; the hopes of
conciliating them, by the abandonment of doctrine, or of
the expression of doctrine, has been given up ; people who
slumbered, rather than slept, have been awakened to a
higher estimate of truths which they held before, but were
discouraged from avowing ; the misgivings about the Atha
nasian Creed have been, in the minds of others, removed ;
and a fuller historical knowledge has .shewn, that, whatever
might have been expected beforehand, that Creed has heen
the great bulwark against heresy and doctrinal apostacy ;

32
others have come to see its actual doctrinal value f^; late dis
cussions, again, have brought to the knowledge qf many,
who might otherwise have been ignorant of it, that the
prayers in our Liturgy, to which some objected as containing
most explicitly the doctrine that " all infants are regenerated
in baptism," were actually composed by the very persons,
" martyrs, confessors, and distinguished divines," whom this
school is disposed even unduly to magnify, at the expense
of the ancient Church — ^our Reformers ; and this must have
its weight : others, again, are beginning to feel, that the
Sacraments of our Lord have been disparaged, and their
value and efficacy, as His gifts, been forgotten or thrown
into the shade ; that no part of the Gospel can be omitted
without detriment to the rest ; and that, therefore, what has
taken the title of " evangelic preaching" must have exhi
bited a defective system, inasmuch as it took little or no
account of the Sacraments of the Gospel,
All these things are producing their efifect, and the Church
is beginning more to feel that her strength lies in trust in
God, and adherence to the form which He has given her — not
in any outward alliances ; and the political character which
Dissenters have assumed, having injured their religious
character, has diminished the temptation of attempting to
join any body of them in the way of compromise, as well as
the probability of success. But were it otherwise, and were
there the same fears for the integrity of the Church, which
many felt a few years past — and were there ever so much
ground to apprehend that our Churches might at some
future time pass into other hands — this seems no reason why
we should not build them now. Exemption from abuse is a
privilege which Almighty God has granted to nothing in a
corrupted wprld ; it had come too near to the character of
Divinity. Even in the Old Testament, things hply, formed
after the very directions of God, and which God in some
cases interposed more visibly to preserve, were subjected to
vanity, and fpr a time, pr even permanently, corrupted.
The brazen serpent became an object of idolatry; yet it did
not the less cure those who first looked at it, pr ever after
wards image forth the Savipur pf the wprld. The very

E The descendant of a celebrated American missionary, who lately heard
that Creed forthe first time, said, in answer to some apology of a Church
man, to this effect : " It seems to me an invaluable Creed : it is what I
have thought I believed all my life long, and now, for the first time, I find
my belief embodied in words."

33
" holy place" was to be defiled with images of Ashtaroth
(2 Kings xxiii. 6.) and the vessels of Baal ; and the horses
of the sun were to be kept in its precincts, and strange altars
in its courts, and the worst heathen abominations hard by
it ; and Moses must have looked onward with a heavy heart
to the time, when his people should " utterly corrupt them
selves, and evil befal them in the latter days," (Deut. xxxi. 29.)
yet he did not the less make every thing " according to the
pattern which was shewed him." And so the Churches,
wherein many of us now worship God, were, subsequent to
their erection, defiled by Romish superstition, and yet are
now for the time restpred tp their primitive uses. The site
pf the Jewish temple became the seat pf heathen idolatry :
the Churches pf the East have become the mosques of the
impostor. Prudens, futuri temporis exitum Caliginosa nocte
premit Deus : if we tpok all this anxious care for the mor
row, we never could perform the duties of the day. It is
surely enough for us to Ipok that what we do, we do after
God's ordinance and in order, and so that it should have no
tendency, direct or indirect, to advance the evil which we
dread ; and then let us commend our work to God, who, we
hope, began and will end it, trusting that, whatever becomes
of it, " He will remeraber us concerning this, and spare us
according to the greatness of his mercy." (Neh. xiii. 22.)
But if our Saxon ancestors, from anticipation of growing
corruptions, had stopped their hands — or if, since the
Reformation, men had paused on account of the gathering
storm of puritanism — where had been many of the houses of
Gpd wherein we now take shelter ? This exercise of faith
is easier, in our Church at least, than in other portions of
the Christian body, since God has as yet preserved us from
defection ; and in the catholic character, wliich we alone
bear of all the Churches of the West, He has given us a sort
of pledge of His continued mercy towards us.
One is really ashamed to urge upon men such as those
who feel these misgivings, tppics so obvious ; yet there is
one other cpnsideration — the unhealthiness of our present
state is in part owing to the excitement occasioned by the
inadequacy of our means for the great ends to be accom
plished ; we have started, as out of a dream, (awakened by
God, and under Him by the excellent men who formed the
Church Building Society,) and find on all sides over-much
to do ; the condition of every great town excites those whom
it does not confound ; and so, men, bewildered, as in a sudden
conflagration, take the first measures which occur, and risk
injuring much, and impede one another by their precipi-
p

34
tancy. But let any persons of commanding mind and sta
tion take the lead, and propose plans which may employ all
this wasted or mischievous energy, and a calm time will
ensue. Let the Bishops but propose to us large schemes,
instead of following in the wake of plans suggested by
others, and this ferment, which is at present occasioned by
a number of ill-digested schemes traversing one another, will
subside. The very existence of definite plans, however
large, has something calming and absorbing. Men gaze at
the stately building- as it rises, and the busy feeling of self
is subdued. The Bishop of London's plan appears to me
eminently of this sort. It proposes to remedy one tremen
dous evil by exertions proportionate. The simplicity of the
plan has a tendency to concentrate men's mind,s uppn it, and
within it. Sp, again, a spciety for endowing new Churches,
under the direction of the Bishops, will be tangible, and
relieve people's minds by a continual progress towards a
definite end, as well as much facilitate church-building.
(On the other hand, a board, like the Pastoral Aid Society,
for supplying lay teachers and curates, besides its obvious
anti-episcopal character and tendency to produce a far worse
and deeper schism than the Wesleyan, is distracting, from
its very vagueness — manifestly belonging rather to a mis
sionary establishment, than to a settled church.) It is the
being cumbered about many things — our manifold guinea,
or half-guinea, subscriptions, to a number of unorganized,
undigested, indefinite objects — which keep up our restless,
unquiet, spirit; and therefore this plan pf the Bishop of
London seems so much to be hailed, because (beyond the
enormous benefit which, under God's blessing, it may convey
to the metropolis) it seems a dawn of a more ordered and
calmer state of things. And should our Churches be built,
and our parishes subdivided, then one great source of excite
ment will be withdrawn, and we may go about our work
more calmly, and so receive and digest the truths of the
Gpspel more fully and more deeply.
A comraencement of this has now been made by the
" Additional Curates' fund," which begins from above, not
from below, comes recoraraended in the first instance by the
Primate, at the headbf other Bishops, so that time only seems
wanting to obtain for it the sanction of all. And with this,
the order observed in it corresponds ; it creates no new
machinery, has no irresponsible central board sending forth
into other Dioceses irresponsible agents, leaves every thing to
follow the course already provided by the constitution of the
Church ; unfelt in its mode of acting and felt only in its

35
effects, in that, avaihng itself of the existing channels, it
seeks only to replenish what bas of late been choked up by
our want of efibrt. In a word, its mode of acting will be
by the restoration ofthe Parochial system, through the pro
vision of additional Curates to carry our Church's system into
effect; those who have now the charge of excessive cures,
will, it is hoped, feel the relief, by being able to seek out
additional help for themselves; the Society will provide the
means only ; and the presence of the respective Bishops will
secure to each its due portion of aid. In these busy times, it
is a happy omen, to see a great additional power, whose
blessings raay be untold, taking a noiseless and natural
course, claiming no power, and innovating in nothing.
III. It may be right briefly to allude to another objection;
that raised against the proposed plan of endowing the new
Churches, by aid of the non-residentiary prebends of
St. Paul's. The objection is founded upon a mistake.
The Committee did not mean, by their resolution, to express
any wish that the Cathedral of St. Paul's should be despoiled,
or that the Churches should be endowed out of its spoils.
Of course I do not mean to say absolutely, that no one indi vid ual
member thought the recommendations of the so-called Church
Commission justifiable ; there may or raay not have been ;
but ihe Committee did not mean, in the most distant way, to
sanction any such measure as the abolition of the prebends of
St. Paul's, and the confiscation of their revenues to a general
fund. The only principle raeant to be raaintained in the reso
lution was, that the funds given for the benefit of London
should be employed for the benefit of London, and not
transferred e. g. to Lancashire. Of course, a body, whose
president was a commissioner, could not choose that time and
place to make a protest against the coraraission, and ask their
president to head their conderanation of it. But (which is
the charge brought against thera) they did not sanction it.
No change in the cathedral was wished for ; no diminution
of its grandeur, no suppression of its offices ; they wished
only for annexation of stalls non-residentiary ,- and no
one will say that any principle is wronged by annexing
to the prebends of St. Paul's, cure of souls in the irarae
diate dependencies of St. Paul's, the very sphere which
St. Paul's was intended to infiuence, and for which more
immediately it was in part a sort of missionary foundation ;
or, (if necessary to this end.) by re-distributing the property
of the prebends within the Cathedral itself, so as to equalize
them, as is the case of the more recent Cathedrals. This,
if done by the lawful authorities, no one could object to,

36
It was in this way that the original commission acted, (for it
has since changed hands and character,) and no one, I
believe, has objected to the annexing the spiritual cure of
St. John's and St. Margaret's, Westminster, to two of the
prebends of Westminster.
Annexation of cure of souls to the prebends of St. Paul's
was all which was in the minds of most, at all events, of the
members of the Committee, when that resolution was agreed
to ; and they hoped, and still hope, that the feelings ex
pressed elsewhere might still induce the commissioners to
reconsider their recommendations, and to adopt the plan of
annexation, which they are persuaded would be far more
efficient; and that thus, without any compromise of principle,
or rather by acting up to the original principles on which
St, Paul's was founded, the beauty and majesty of our
cathedrals might be kept unimpaired — the will of the founder
re-enforced — the rights of testamentary property respected
— and St. Paul's become again the source and centre
of religion throughout the districts over which its dome
presides. It should be yet further observed, that all wliich was
prayed for, and all which is wished for, the Prebends them-
selve.s have a right already to do of themselves ; for by what
is commonly called " the Archbishop's Act" (2 Gul. IV.
c. 46.), they have been invested with the right of endow
ing Churches and Chapels, (as, indeed, they are respon
sible to the Church for the care of the places connected
with their endow^ments,) and also they have power to grant
sites fpr the Churches ; and such as hare been applied tp,
1 y virtue of this resolution, have already done so.
But again, (as in the first case,) one must ask, why do not
the Clergy, who see that a dangerous principle is involved in
the appropriation of the funds of cathedrals to other purposes,
(whereas the same object raight be safely attained by annexa
tion,) take the legitimate course of making known their
sentiments through their Archdeacons, instead of discouraging
a work of charity, and furnishing an excuse to men for
withholding their contributions, and employing them on the
pomps and vanities of the world ? The commissioners wish to
satisfy as well as (according to their views) to benefit the
Church ; but if the Clergy remain silent, or leave it entirely
to the cathedral Clergy, whom the lay-commissioners (the de
cided majority), as the tone now i.^, suspect to be interested,
what hope is there ? They are ready to receive representa
tions, — why not raake them ? If they are not made, those who
think they see the evil, and speak not, have as large a share of

37
the blarae, " si quid detrimenti ecclesia capiat," perhaps more
than the coraraissioners, inasrauch as they have not the sarae
difficulties which beset those placed in the highest offices of
the Church,
IV, There is yet another class, who say, " What have we
to do with London ? London raay take care of itself. We
have each our own neighbourhood or diocese to look to."
This is, in raany cases, said well and conscientiously. And,
certainly, if any one were, for the tirae, denying himself in
order to reheve the spiritual wants of his own diocese and
neighbourhood, one could only wish that others, or one's self,
were doing likewise, or to a like degree. But it is often
said, also, with a very inadequate notion of our real con
nexion with, or interest in, the metropolis. Have the ex
tremities nothing to do with the heart .'' Are they not chilled
or fevered, according to its beatings .'' And if it be per
manently diseased, are not all their functions disturbed, and
their motions distressed .'' And can a deep-rooted disease have
now been fixed, for above a century, in the heart of our
Christian country, a disease spreading like a canker, year
by year, and not been felt in almost ever}' extremity thereof ?
Again, where is our court raainly, the seat of our governraent,
our public offices and institutions, our bank and banking-
houses, the nursery of our physicians, our courts of law, our
houses of Parliaraent, the centre of our coraraerce, and our
trading companies, our merchants, our colonies, our religious
societies ? Is not the population of London swelled for our
service ? Have we not, many of us, year by year, resorted
thither.' Do we not- ultimately obtain thence very raany of
our articles of expenditure, the very books we read, and the
raiment we put on ? On the very merest principles of justice,
are we not (so to employ the apostle's argument) bound to
minister to the spiritual necessities of those who minister to
our earthly comforts ? Do we derive no benefit frora, or are we
not concerned with, the place where our public institutions are
concentrated ? Or can such a mass of population be brought
together without seriously affecting the character of the
whole country, of which it is itself one-ninth ? We are far
more concerned than, at first sight, we should have supposed.
We are far more influenced by that which we witness around
us, than we like to own. We are all mutually acting upon,
and acted upon by, one another. No one, probably, is exempt
from the influence of others ; and all, probably, feel that
influence from persons from whom we little imagine it. God
has not made us independent. Let any one compare his own
tone of mind, in retirement, or, the peace of the country, with

38
that which he bears in a crowded city, such as cities for the
most part are ; or, in the same city, amid the worldliness and
profaneness of a market-day, and the sereneness (if he be
happy enough to enjoy it) of the day of rest ; or, again, let
one who is but seldom called to London recal the impression
which, after a long interval, it makes upon him, how he is
sickened with its ostentation, its emptiness, its ungodliness,
and then think what it is, to become inured to all this, to be
forced to consider all this as a coramon thing, to have the
standard, placed before one's eyes, constantly at open variance
with that ofthe Gospel, and to be tempted to think it hopeless
to raise men to it. And if these things have the tendency to
produce this effect on those who, by their office, should, above
others, be the " salt of the earth," how much more upon the
laity .'' Each mutually lowering the standard of the other !
The buyer of luxuries lowering that of the seller of luxuries,
and the seller that of the buyer : the seller tempting the
buyer to vanity, and the buyer teaching the seller to regard
these vanities as objects intrinsically important ; the luxury
and ostentation of the rich raising the envy and increasing
the worldliness of the poor, and the rich encouraged in their
somewhat veiled ungodliness by the contrast of the coarser
sins of the poor ; the frivolity of the master and mistress
corrupting the servants, and the servants oftentiraes fostering
the vanities of their employers. These, and the like, will
be said to be the worst cases. But would that what is
infinitely worse were not enacted over and over again, in
cases which must be numbered by hundreds of thousands !
But be it so, that such were the worst cases, will then any one
say, that the constant presence of all that ungodliness, which
is concentrated in the midst of the mother city of our country,
has not an evil effect upon the raost, frora the highest to the
lowest, — that the very living amid such constant unmitigated
abominations and profaneness is not a detriment ; — that many
of our very Clergy are not rendered timid by the presence
of such a counterpoise of evil, so as either not to dare " speak
boldly, as they ought to speak," or if they have been led to
speak somewhat more plainly and strongly than usual, not to
be afraid of the very strength of what they have said, and
begin to qualify and retract it.' Is it, then, " nothing to us,"
that our relations, our flocks, our pupils, our children, any
of those whom we have laboured for, may be absorbed into
this vast vortex.' Is it nothing, that the duties of our
senate, our religious societies, and all the other institutions
which relate to our whole state, are to be carried on under
the influence of these and the hke evils, and the very ferment,

39
and distraction, and excitement, or lowering tone which they
engender ? Is this nothing, even on the miserable reckoning
which would regard nothing as of moment to us but what
relates to ourselves ? i mean not that there are not tens of
thousands of exeraplary persons in our metropolis, of many of
whom the world knows nothing ; but the face of things
presented is far worse than I have said, and what is a very
little below the surface is horribly far worse than what is
above it. Regard only the weekly tide of Sabbath desecra
tion, which the metropolis, neglected at home, is continually
pouring, by land and water, upon the neighbourhood ; and
this, through the increasing means of communication, in a
circle perpetually widening. " Is this nothing to you, all
ye who pass by ?" When God made a mother-city. He
ordered that all who carae up thither, should be benefited
thereby : " Thither the tribes went up, the tribes of the
Lord, to testify unto Israel, and to give thanks unto the
name of the Lord ;" and, therefore, " Jerusalera was a city,
which was at unity with itself," " the joy of the whole earth ;"
(Ps. xlviii.) they who went up thither, " went frora strength
to strength," (Ps. Ixxxiv.) and they returned to their houses
refreshed. The raother-city must be the " mother of her
people," or " the mother of abominations." (Rev. xvii. 5.)
" As is the rtiother," says Holy Scripture of Judah, " so is
the daughter." (Ezek. xvi, 44!.) Which is ours .'
Yet neither are things so hopeless as, at first sight, they might
seem ; they who have visited portions of this neglected mass
aver that, i^ the midst of heathenism, — children unbaptized,
mothers who never gave thanks for God's mercy in their
children's birth, — there is yet a latent transmitted feeling of
value for the ordinances of the Church, and a desire to partake
in its worship, which might be, and is, readily awakened into
life ; that, rough or repulsive often in their exterior and habits,
because they have been left in a state of virtual, unmerited,
excommunication, and been excluded from the privileges of
the Body of Christ, as never any ought to have been in a
Christian land, they still retain an inherited wish to be, as it
were, reunited to it, and have its blessings restored to them ;
that, overlooked by sectarians, as well as despaired of by the
Church, they still look to their Mother for help. And shall
they call to us " to come and help them," and we refuse .'
And while we have sent help to every corner of the earth,
unasked for, and undirected by God's Providence,— to New
Zealand or Sierra Leone,— forget « our own mother's
children," simply because they are hard by, and so to relieve
them appears a common thing .'

40

As some indication of what the Committee are preparing to do,
the following tables may serve.

The Crown .
Archbishop of Canterbury
Lord Southampton
H. C. Sturt, Esq. M.P. .
Mercers' Company

Sites

given

Five.

KensingtonLarabeth St. Pancras
Shoreditch
Stepney

Popnlation. 13,803
55,983
103.548 33,000 51,200

Diocese,
London Winchester
London

Sites purchased, Four.
Stepney . —
Stepney
Whitechapel
{St. Margatet'sl
WestminsterJ

30,000 25,334

Three others given by Prebendaries of St. Paul's, but arrangements
not made with lessees.

Churches to be built by aid of the fund on sites obtained by others.

3. at
2. 1.

Islington

17,237

Rotherhilhe

12.875

Chelsea

33,371

Winchester
London

Assistance is promised to two others when sites can be procured.
" The Committee have carefully studied economy in the choice of
plans, and have endeavoured to combine a substantial character of
building with an architectural style appropfiate to Churches.
They propose, as a general rule, varying liowever in some measure
according to circumstances, to build Churches, each capable of
holding from 1000 to 1200 persons. The larger proportion of sittings
being let at low rents or wholly free, as the case may require. The
funds hitherto placed at their disposal are quite inadequate to
accomplish the object proposed in the Bishop of London's Circular,
but they confidently rely on the exertions of the friends of the
Church to supply them with increased means for carrying into effect
this most important work."

BAXTER, PRINTEH, OXcCRt).

YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

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