Part 1

Transcribed from the 1841 J. S. Gowing edition by David Price.

A LETTER TO THE REV. CHARLES N. WODEHOUSE, CANON OF NORWICH, OCCASIONED BY HIS RECENT PUBLICATION, ENTITLED, “WHAT IS THE MEANING OF SUBSCRIPTION?” WITH A FEW OBSERVATIONS ON THE SPEECH &c. OF THE LORD BISHOP OF NORWICH, ON SUBSCRIPTION.

BY THE REV. CHARLES CAMPBELL, VICAR OF WEASENHAM.

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LONDON: J. G. AND F. RIVINGTON. MATCHETT, STEVENSON, AND MATCHETT, NORWICH; AND J. S. GOWING, SWAFFHAM. 1841. _Price Two Shillings_.

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“The Liturgy of the Church of England hath advantages, so many and so considerable, as not only to raise itself above the devotions of other Churches, but to endear the affections of all good people to be in love with Liturgies in general . . . The Rubrics of it were wrote in the blood of some of the compilers, men famous in their generation, whose reputation and glory of martyrdom, hath made it immodest for the best of men now to compare themselves with them. And its composure is so admirable, that the most industrious arts of its enemies can scarce find out an objection of value enough to make a doubt, or scarce a scruple in a serious spirit . . . There are also in the Offices forms of solemn Absolution and Benediction, and if they be not highly considerable, there is nothing sacred in the Evangelical Ministry, but the Altars themselves are made of unhallowed turf.”

_Bishop Jeremy Taylor_.

A LETTER, ETC.

DEAR SIR,

It was hoped that the little excitement occasioned by the debate of last Session on a petition to the House of Lords for some alteration of our Articles and Liturgy, had been suffered to subside; and it was with regret we received the announcement of your recent publication, entitled “What is the meaning of Subscription?”

I am not aware that any of the clergy of this Diocese, during the last nine years, that is from the date of your first publication on this subject, namely, “_A Petition to the House of Lords for Ecclesiastical Improvements with Explanations_,” have shewn any disposition to intermeddle with your proceedings, or to “condemn you for doing the best you could in your own cause,” singular as they may have thought, and _singular_ as you admit to have been “the mode adopted by you to obtain your object.” {1}

Whatever they may have thought, they have hitherto been silent, influenced I am persuaded more by feelings of respect for your personal character, than from conviction of the strength of your position and the consequent weakness of their own. I can answer for myself, and I am satisfied that I am speaking the general sense of the clergy of the Diocese, in saying that they not only could, but had it been from any circumstances necessary, would have borne their ready and willing testimony to the truth and faithfulness of the eulogy pronounced by your Diocesan on your “character and conduct as a clergyman and a gentleman.”

They must naturally therefore be the more inclined to wish that it had consisted with your views to stop short of a public avowal that you could not with any regard for “_truth and honesty_,” make the declaration to which they hesitate not _ex animo_ to subscribe.

_Richard Baxter_ has said, “that many are apt to think that _this is right_, because the best and strictest people are of this mind.” {2a} With “many” therefore, your opinions will have their weight; and if the Subscription of the clergy is to be judged by your views of it, their situation would seem to be any thing but an enviable one.

And as these your views must seem to be strongly corroborated by the congenial sentiments of our Diocesan; should I in the course of the following observations, which I take the liberty of addressing to you, hazard also a few remarks upon his Lordship’s reasons for deeming an Expansion of Subscription desirable; I trust I shall find that I have not been misled by your example, but that to me also, “it may be allowed to differ from my superiors without disrespect or offence.” {2b}

Allow me then, to express my regret, that “res dura et regni _novitas_,” as you may apply the royal excuse to your own _novel_ position, should have compelled you to resort in your own case to a course you so decidedly object to in others; more especially as you appear to have had your misgivings, to have foreseen the possibility of “harm accruing from it,” and very justly to have anticipated that the perusal of a publication written with the object you appear to have had in view, would “call forth a painful feeling in the minds of Christians and Churchmen.” {3a}

“No one,” you say, “can object more decidedly than yourself to the common practice of publishing correspondence between individuals on matters relating merely to themselves.” {3b}

But the practice is usually resorted to by others, as it seems to have been by yourself, under an impression that the publication is in some way or other “important to their own defence.” {3c}

You would however, and naturally enough, persuade yourself that yours is “a very different case,” a case “relating strictly to a _public question_, one affecting the whole Church, and indeed all Christians in the nation.” {3d}

I will not stay to enquire whether viewing it in this light, the voice of the Church ought not to have been heard above your own. But I must think that something more than you have advanced is requisite to constitute a public question, and enable us to see the difference between your own case and that of others, “who publish correspondence on matters _relating merely to themselves_.”

It is true that your case has been publicly discussed in parliament, and so has the case of many another individual; but I must think a distinction is to be drawn between a person dragging his own affairs before the public and a public affair; and any weight that you would attach to the discussion you allude to, as giving to your case the character and importance of a public question, may perhaps be lessened by a consideration of the manner in which that discussion was brought about. The Bishop of Lincoln rose, not to the question, but “at the particular desire of the Rev. Mr. Wodehouse,” wishing to have his case brought into notice; the Bishop of Norwich said that he “should not have risen, had not the name of the Rev. Mr. Wodehouse been introduced;” and the Bishop of London “would not have entered into the discussion, had it not been for some observations which had escaped from the Bishop of Norwich.” _No temporal Peer rose_. Strictly relating then as you would consider your case to be a public question, there appeared but little indication of its being so considered by the House of Lords, and as to the opinion of the clergy, the Bishop of Lincoln observed, “I am not aware that any general desire for such alterations exists, on the contrary, I believe, that never did the great body of the clergy deprecate more strongly any change in the Articles and Liturgy than at the present moment.”

The discussion however seems not a little to have disquieted you—but having raised the whirlwind, though you have failed to guide it—ought you not to have been less impatient of the storm?

Leniter ex merito quicquid patiare ferendum est.

It is difficult to believe that on calmer reflection, a mind like yours will experience no uneasiness at the recollection of having endeavoured to turn an _intended_ kindness to the prejudice of those who had conferred it, and in that light all must view the evident wish on the parts of the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Bishop of London, to resolve your doubts, and as far as their private opinions could avail—restore peace to your mind. I allude to the use you have made of private conversations, I say _private_, for up to a certain time you appear to have so considered the opinions that were then given you. “I have been favoured,” you say in a letter to one of the Bishops, “with the _private_ opinions of many persons I am _bound_ to respect.” {5a} I admit that for your further satisfaction you received permission to _mention_, or as you say “make known what passed at these interviews.”—Still, although it would have made no difference as to the permission granted, had they even contemplated such a circumstance; I suspect that the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London, must have felt a little surprised to find that their every word had straitly been observed—

Set in a note book, conn’d and got by rote, To cast into their teeth—_eleven years_ afterwards!

Yet, by the aid alone of these communications, you have endeavoured to fix upon the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London the following charge, namely, “that in the debate of the 26th of May, 1840, his Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London more decidedly endeavoured to crush the very idea of the _same latitude_, which they had on other occasions most unequivocally allowed and approved.” {5b}

I hesitate not for a moment to say that it is a charge unsupported even by the shadow of a proof. And let us first examine your evidence as it bears upon the Archbishop of Canterbury.

The points to which you direct our attention in substantiation of your charge are these:—His Grace’s conversation in May, 1829—his letters of May 12, 1830—and March 18, 1840—and his speech in the debate on the Petition.

In his letter of March 18, 1840, his Grace says, “I shall be much surprised if expressions are found in any letter of mine, which can be _considered as an intended justification of your opinions_,” an observation at variance, as you have persuaded yourself with his letter of 1830, and his conversation with you in 1829.

In the first place I would submit that a distinction obtains between not _condemning_ an opinion and _intending to justify_ it. It is possible that his Grace may take higher views of the power committed to the stewards of the mysteries of God than you do. But agreeing perhaps with you that “the power of the keys” cannot as you have elsewhere observed, be “_beyond a doubt_ defined.” {6a} His Grace might be unwilling to condemn your lower views, but you could scarcely have construed this into an _intended justification_ of them. He had besides told you “that the absence of censure did not imply a tacit _acquiescence_ in your opinions.” {6b}

But what was the latitude which his Grace thought fairly allowable, and how far will it justify you in saying that in his speech he endeavoured to crush the very idea of that _same_ latitude being allowed?

Your conversation with his Grace seems to have turned on the _three points_ mentioned in your petition,—the Athanasian Creed, the Absolution, and the words used in a part of the Ordination Service. Upon your mentioning the different opinions given by various eminent writers of our church as to the Athanasian Creed and its condemnatory clauses, his Grace observed, “_Well_—_none of these opinions has been condemned_, _take whichever suits your own views_, _and be satisfied_.” {7a} But you cannot be satisfied, and although repeatedly told by his Grace, and also by the Bishop of Lincoln, that you could not, so long as Convocation remained in abeyance, obtain the _authoritative sense of the Church_ on these points, you persist in pressing for it. To a request to this effect conveyed in a letter to his Grace, you again refer to the subject of your conversation. To this his Grace replies, “With respect to the subject of your letter, I have only to refer you to our former conversation, in which I expressed _an opinion_ that, on points where writers of eminence have differed without slur on their orthodoxy, a certain latitude of interpretation is fairly allowable. But with respect to the _authoritative sense of the Church_ on the points mentioned in your petition, no individual has a right to declare it, if it is a matter of doubt: and if, during a long succession of years, some difference of opinion is found among writers eminent for learning and piety, the silence of the Church, under such circumstances, may be taken as an indication of her unwillingness to abridge the liberty of her members on _these points_.” {7b}

I can see nothing here like an _intended justification_ of your opinions. His Grace would give you it appears _no decision_ in private, he nowhere led you to infer that he even _approved_ of your opinions, and could hardly have intended you to conclude that he meant to _justify_ them. He tells you “he could not see how your position would be mended by an open declaration of his opinion, _even if favourable_ to that exposition which would suit your views,” {8} which seems at least to imply a doubt, and where there is a doubt, the judge usually directs the jury to give the prisoner the benefit of it, but this does not involve the judge’s _approval_ or _intended justification_ of the prisoner’s case.

Yet this is all that his Grace admitted,—and to what had this admission a reference? To a certain latitude of _interpretation_ allowable under certain circumstances. And I think I can safely defy you to point out a _solitary expression_ in his Grace’s speech on the 26th of May, 1840, in which he attempts to evade this admission, or, in the language of your accusation, “endeavours to crush the very idea of the _same_ latitude which on other occasions he had unequivocally allowed and _approved_.” His Grace’s _approval_ however is nowhere apparent.

His Grace addresses himself in his speech to the prayer of the petition, “which he apprehends their Lordships will not countenance in the least degree.” And what is the prayer? “It prays, amongst other things, your Lordships to consider what measures ought to be adopted to make the Prayer Book and the Subscription of the Liturgy consonant with the _practice_ of the clergy, and the acknowledged meaning of the Articles of the church.” And what is the imputed _practice_ of the clergy? According to the statement of the petitioners it is their “general practice to _deviate_ from the authorised _forms_ and _positive obligations_ of the Church,”—when with reference to your own case, the three points on which you consulted his Grace, you can prove that to _deviate_ from or _omit_ the Athanasian Creed—the Absolution—and the words used at the Imposition of Hands—is the _same_ latitude, which with reference to their _interpretation_, he had thought fairly allowable.—You may then boast that you have convicted the Spiritual Head of the Church of inconsistency and duplicity, and no one will attempt to controvert your insinuation that his Grace “has one opinion at Lambeth, and another in the House of Lords.” {9a}

Your charge as it affects the Bishop of London, rests on similar evidence. His Lordship’s conversation in 1829—a letter of 1830—and his speech in 1840. You consulted his Lordship in 1829 on the same subjects, and received in substance the same reply as had been given to you by the Archbishop. And I can as confidently defy you to point out in his Lordship’s speech in 1840, a passage that can give any colouring of justice to your charge; unless you can shew that to deprecate an _alteration_ of our Articles and Liturgy is the same thing as to admit that certain parts of them may bear a difference of _interpretation_, or show that there is no difference between an _existing_ “elasticity” and a _further_ “expansion.”

Your evidence then, if anywhere, must be found in his Lordship’s letter of 1830. The letter of which you complain to the Archbishop as “_unkind and inconsistent with former advice_.” {9b}

But as you seem to me to have conversed with his Lordship on one subject, and to have written to him, the following year, upon another, I do not see how you make it appear that his Lordship’s letter was inconsistent with his former advice.

It does not appear that you had asked his Lordship “in what sense you would be expected to subscribe” _in future_, but whether _having subscribed_, certain opinions which you had taken up, were consistent with your Subscription. His Lordship thought that they were.

But nine months afterwards, on being called upon to _renew_ your Subscription, you inform his Lordship that you had determined not to make it again but with a sort of _protest_.—By Subscription, you are called upon to declare that “the Book of Common Prayer and of ordering Bishops, Priests, and Deacons, containeth in it nothing _contrary_ to the word of God, and that the Articles are _agreeable_ to it:” but to this you will not assent, unless you may at the same time be permitted to declare that you do not believe it. You must explain, you tell his Lordship, the sense in which you shall have no objection to subscribe, and that through the medium of a petition to parliament. Now there appears nothing in your report of the conversation to lead to the inference, nor can I easily bring myself to think that his Lordship could have led you to infer that a _qualified_ Subscription was admissible either from candidates for orders, or other clergymen. A different exposition of the general doctrine laid down in several of our Articles, may be fairly allowable; the _letter_ of our Liturgy may in several parts admit of a different interpretation, and if taking our own views of these points, believing them not inconsistent with an allowable interpretation of the words, we can _unreservedly_ subscribe, well and good—but for my own part, I should scarcely expect it of a Bishop to receive a qualified Subscription from me, the precedent I must think would be a bad one, and the practice subversive of the very object of Subscription, independent of the awkward acknowledgement it involves, that our Church exacts from her members a form of Subscription, which cannot be made without a _salvo_.

You scarcely could have inferred from his Lordship’s _advice_, that he “unequivocally allowed and approved of _this_ latitude.” But as he had told you that he thought your interpretation of certain points admissible, and that you might openly hold your opinions, you _might_ have inferred that he also considered them consistent with an “_unreserved_ Subscription, and that according to the literal sense of the words”—for the question is, will not the literal sense of the words bear a different _application_? You subscribe _unreservedly_, at least you have given us no reason to suppose otherwise, to the Apostles’ Creed, in which we are told that Christ sitteth at the _right hand_ of God, but the _literal_ meaning of the words is at variance with the truth, that “God is without body, parts, or passions.” {11} I must think that you have conjured up a greater difficulty on the score of Subscription than in reality obtains. At all events you must detail some further particulars of his Lordship’s conversation, before you will enable us to detect its discrepancy with the subject of his subsequent letter.

But if his Lordship’s private opinion on the allowable interpretation of the points on which you consulted him, failed to remove your doubts and scruples, and you were after all fully persuaded in your own mind that the words in question could by no possibility bear the only interpretation with which you could _conscientiously_ subscribe to them; I cannot see how the _open sanction_ of the Church could affect you to the “easing of your conscience.” For surely if the words will _not_ bear a certain sense, the Church cannot make them—the sanction of all the Bishops in Christendom could never make _black_ mean _white_. If you are of opinion that it could, for a Protestant you must entertain rather high views of the power of the Church—and yet such would seem to be your opinion, for in the “Circular” which you sent a day or two before the presentation of the petition last year, to “all the Peers whose London residences could be ascertained;” after alluding to _these opinions_ which you had received from the Archbishop and the Bishop of London, you say, “my answer was, if such be the case, let these statements be _openly sanctioned_, and I am content. But I cannot with _truth and honesty_ subscribe, not according to the _literal_ meaning of the words, _unless_ such latitude _be authorised by the Church_.”

Now if the Subscription is still to be made to the same form of words, it is very difficult to see how the _authority of the Church_ can impart to them a meaning, to which without that authority _truth and honesty_ would forbid you to subscribe. If you do not take care, the Editors of the Oxford Tracts will mark you for their own, in spite of yourself.

But in what position do you now stand? You have _done_ what you informed the Bishop of London, you could “not be comfortable without doing.” You have made known to the world, and that by the means you proposed to yourself, namely, a petition to parliament, what your opinions are, and the world interferes not with them, nor does the Church condemn them; you have only therefore to arrange the matter with your own conscience—if that condemns you, your course is a clear one. But why should it condemn you more for the next fourteen years, than it would seem to have done for the last fourteen? During that time you have held your preferment with your opinions, and why should you not continue to hold your opinions with your preferment?

You tell us that your object was eleven years ago to “ascertain _with certainty_ whether you held any opinion which the Church condemned.” {13} You were informed that the _authoritative sense_ of the Church on the points you wished for information _could not_ in the abeyance of Convocation be obtained; but you were at the same time told, and that, by many whose opinions probably would have had great weight in Convocation had it been immediately convened for your satisfaction, that they considered your opinions allowable, that the Church did not condemn them; and I think it would have been a reasonable inference with which to have quieted your conscience, that had the Convocation been assembled, the authoritative sense of the Church would not have been against you.