Part 2

And certain passages in your ministerial career had led us to hope and to infer that you had come to that conclusion, that having unburthened your mind, you were at rest. For in 1836, you presented a second petition to the House of Lords, but from that time, as far at least as we could judge from your proceedings, you seemed to have given up your pursuit, at all events, it appears that you rested upon your oars till 1840. And in the interim, in the year 1837, after having abstained for some years, and in consequence as it was supposed of your scruples, we saw you again _voluntarily_ coming forward, and in your character of a Presbyter, officiating at the ceremony of the _Imposition of Hands_, co-operating with the Bishop during the recital of the very words at which your conscience had taken such alarm, and with respect to which in your former petition, “you had humbly and earnestly prayed that such steps might be taken as should seem good to their Lordships, in order to effect those alterations in the Liturgy which would relieve the conscience of their petitioner.” {14a} And we had also subsequently read the resolution you had come to, and _deliberately_ published in 1838. In a note to a sermon which you published in that year, you say, “In the absence of all authoritative censure, I conclude as many others do, that a silent change has taken place, ‘from the diversity of times and men’s manners.’ In that conclusion I abide, repeating what I have often said, that _whenever_ I am pronounced wrong on _authority_, I am ready to meet the consequences.” {14b}

I can myself say, and I am sure that all who have had any opportunity of knowing you, will say it with the same sincerity, in that conclusion we most heartily wish that you _would_ abide—that you would continue to discharge your pastoral duties, your deliberate and solemnly accepted engagements to the “Chief Shepherd” in the same exemplary manner that has marked your hitherto career, _until_ you are pronounced wrong _on authority_—or called from your stewardship to render up your account with joy. In what estimation you may hold the opinions of your brother petitioners, the _Messrs. Hull_, I know not, but they say, “Our clergy _cannot_ leave the Church—their _ordination vows are upon them_.” And besides, my dear sir, to rush upon martyrdom in the absence of all persecution, or, as far as the public can see, any apparent necessity, will at best obtain for you but an Empedoclean sort of fame. And as nothing has occurred since you published your resolution in 1838, to affect your situation differently from what it had been for nine or ten years before, save the failure of another petition; should you resign in consequence of that circumstance, it would look almost as if you resigned merely to spite the Archbishop.

But under the little difficulty that exists of ascertaining with any certainty what your intentions have been, or even now are, we earnestly trust they may not result in the alternative of a resignation, to which in the course of your correspondence you have made such frequent allusions. “An alternative,” which as Bishop Heber says, “it is easy to suggest in the case of a brother, but which every man in his own case receives with difficulty.” {15a}

A few days before the presentation of the last petition you wrote to his Grace thus, “If I fail on this occasion . . . I consider myself pledged to resign my preferment.” {15b} The result of that petition was unfavourable. But ten months afterwards, that is, in your last publication, you call upon his Grace to pronounce that judgment which he had told you he “was _unwilling_ to pronounce on scruples which he hoped time might remove,” {15c}—“and _should_ that judgment require such a step, you will with God’s permission resign next December, _unless_ a clear expression of public opinion should intervene appealing against the judgment pronounced.” {15d}

Let us hope then that you will abide in this your _latest_ resolution, for I think from the evidence with which you have furnished us, we may venture to conclude that no such judgment will be pronounced as shall call for any expression of public opinion.

I shall now proceed to hazard a few observations on the reasons assigned by the Bishop of Norwich in favour of an _Expansion_ of Subscription, seeing that they are considered by many so strongly to confirm the correctness of your own views, and as you have told us that you cannot consistently with _truth and honesty_ make the required Subscription, we cannot but apprehend that in the proportion that those views are believed to be substantial and correct, the character of the clergy must be prejudiced, at all events in the eyes of those, who unwilling or unable to investigate the matter for themselves, take up the opinions of others, and arriving through them at a corollary of their own, hesitate not to go as far as to declare that “_all_ the clergy are _perjured_.”

As I can devise no better, I shall pursue the plan you have adopted with respect to the speech of the Bishop of London, that is, giving such extracts from his Lordship’s speech as bear upon the subject of Subscription, with a running comment of my own. I will not however, introduce my remarks with the preface you have affixed to your “plain story,”—giving us to understand that it is intended to be “a refutation of almost every statement in the Bishop of London’s speech.” {16} Lest having led my readers to exclaim

Quid dignum tanto feret hic promissor hiatu.

I should leave them to conclude that I had been labouring under what the faculty, I believe, term “a false conception.”

His Lordship’s first reason for wishing for a more expanded Subscription, is that—

“IF _it be true that there is anything approaching to the appearance of insincerity on the part of those making the Subscription_, _if we seem to confess with our lips that we do not confess and believe in our hearts we give our opponents a vantage ground of which they will not be slow to avail themselves_.”

There is said to be much virtue in an IF, and _eâ virtute nos involvissemus_, had not his Lordship torn the covering away, and “left us naked to our enemies,”—self-convicted of “confessing with our lips that we do not confess and believe in our hearts.” For says his Lordship—

“IN FACT, _with respect to Subscription_, _I have never yet met with a single clergyman_ (_and I have spoken with almost numberless individuals on the subject_), _who ever allowed that he agreed in every point_, _in every iota to the Subscription which he took at ordination_.”

It would not be treating his Lordship with candour to give to his observation an offensive meaning, which it was not intended to convey. It is more with reference to the mal-construction and malicious use of it by our opponents, that we are led to wish that it had not been made. Since his Lordship’s subsequent pamphlet, from which we collect the sense in which he was viewing Subscription, when he made the observation, a sense in which, for instance with reference to those clauses of the Athanasian Creed, which are commonly, and unjustly, called _damnatory_, few I suspect do subscribe, being, in my opinion, in no wise bound to an application of the clauses, so manifestly at variance with the spirit in which the formulary was imposed on us by our Reformers;—since I say, this pamphlet can obtain but a very small part of the circulation of the speech itself, where the observation stands _unqualified_; the general impression of his Lordship’s meaning must be that the clergy subscribe _ex animo_, to that which _ex animo_ they do not believe.

At the same time I have never seen the necessity of responding to those appeals through which the clergy of this Diocese have been called upon to take some public step, to repel the observation as an implied libel upon them. I would rather it should be remembered that his Lordship, comparatively speaking, has been but a short time amongst us, and that for anything we can tell, the enquiries of which he speaks may have been chiefly made amongst the clergy of another Diocese, (indeed, considering that it is not a likely question for a Bishop to put to candidates for Orders, or his clergy generally, the inference must be that they were), and if their “withers should be galled,” let them respond to these appeals, “ours are unwrung.”

It must, however, be admitted that any _insincerity_ in the matter of Subscription, would deservedly expose us to the contempt of our opponents.—But a generous mind would shrink instinctively from inferring insincerity from any thing _approaching only to its appearance_. _Decipimur specie_ ought to hold with respect to _evil_ not less than _good_. Still, alas! to the jaundiced eye every object presents itself in colours not its own. And I fear that the opinion which his Lordship would seem to entertain of the actuating spirit of our opponents, is but too well founded, and amply justifies his apprehension that _they_ would not be slow to avail themselves of the _appearance_, caring little to dissipate the “mentis gratissimus error,” by ascertaining themselves of the non-existence of the _reality_. That accomplished, but embittered infidel, the historian Gibbon, did not scruple to declare that the clergy, one and all of them, made their Subscription either “with a sigh or a smile;” but I trust that the clergy, as a body, can afford to leave such opponents in the unmolested possession of their imaginary vantage ground. Until _Mordecai_ was removed from his seat at the gate, the soul of _Haman_ could not be quieted within him—nor will the souls of our opponents, until the Church is brought down to a level with their own sects.

“_If it_ (_Subscription_) _is to be understood in the literal_, _most strict_, _and most stringent sense_, _it would create difficulties_, _which must weigh heavily upon scrupulous and tender consciences_.”

But even supposing this—where there is no compulsion, there no violence can be done to the conscience, and no one is compelled to “enter the church,” and in using the expression, I confess I cannot perceive with the _Messrs. Hull_, that it is redolent “of a very popish error,” it certainly means, as they observe, “taking orders;” and I should think that the last persons likely to present themselves to a Bishop for that purpose, would be those whose consciences were already overborne by the pressure of their scruples.

“Tenderness of conscience,” says _Bishop Jeremy Taylor_, “is an equivocal term, and does not always signify in a good sense.” {19} I am far from meaning to impeach the sincerity of the petitioners, but if his Lordship applied the term in any other than a _good sense_, he might seem to have paid them but an equivocal compliment, and if he used it in a good sense with respect to _them_, the great body of the clergy who have subscribed, and felt no pang, might suspect his Lordship of meaning to imply that they were gifted with consciences of a somewhat tougher texture than is altogether to be envied. Some have chosen to draw this inference; I will not however believe that they have done his Lordship’s deliberate sentiments justice in so doing.

“_And by continuing these difficulties_ (_of Subscription_) _we should leave the way open only to those whose consciences have no scruples_, _and who would enter the Church only with a view to the profits and secular advantages_.”

I would submit that a man may enter the Church with _a_ view to its _secular_ advantages, without being justly involved in the suspicion of _insincerity_, or of necessity, laying himself open to the imputation of entering it _only_ with a view to its profits. For instance, should a gentleman have in his gift what is commonly called a _family living_, he may design it as a provision for a younger son, who enters upon a course of study and trains himself for the ministry, and that without necessarily discarding all view to the _secular_ advantages of his profession, knowing that “they which preach the gospel should live of the gospel:” but so far from its following that he enters the Church with _no other_ or higher motive; how frequently do we find it the case with those whose lot has thus been cast, as it were, for them, that they prove not merely exemplary parish priests, but eventually rise to adorn the _Episcopal Bench_. His Lordship will not object to my adducing his own successful career as a case in point.

But if such characters as his Lordship speaks of, can even _now_ in the teeth of all the imputed difficulties, enter the church, if they be so disposed, I do not clearly see how removing these difficulties will mitigate the evil—how widening the portal will tend to obstruct the entrance. Nor, although it stands so recorded in his Lordship’s speech, will I believe it to be, his deliberate opinion, that by leaving the matter of Subscription as it _now_ stands, we leave the way open _only_ to those whose consciences can feel _no scruples_. If these expressions of his Lordship are to be taken only in a good sense, I trust for the credit of the Church that his Lordship is not the only exception to the general rule. The _Messrs. Hull_, in their animadversions on the Bishop of London’s speech, draw a nice distinction between “opening the door,” and “leaving it open.” In cases of burglary I believe the distinction involves a difference; we may venture therefore to hazard a guess to which of the brothers, the lawyer or the divine, we may attribute that contribution to the joint stock pamphlet. {21}

“_But there is an answer commonly given_, _and a weighty one_, _to this objection_. _The Church has a sort of elasticity which allows and graduates the differences that exist_.”

Yet on the use of the word “elasticity” by the Bishop of London, you say, “I confess myself entirely unable to distinguish between the ‘expansion’ of the one prelate or the ‘elasticity’ of the other.” {22a} If there is no difference between the existing elasticity and the expansion pleaded for, for what boon did the petitioners pray? I anticipate your answer, and will reply to it presently.

“_It does not become the Church of England_, _a Church founded on liberty of conscience and the right of private judgment_, _to say that there shall not be a certain latitude of opinion_.”

This observation has been the theme for much discussion. It has been pretty roundly insinuated that his Lordship’s meaning had been wilfully misapprehended by the Bishop of London. I see myself but little ground for the insinuation. It will at all events be admitted that his Lordship did not qualify or define the sense in which he used the observation. He has however explained his meaning and the extent to which he applied it in his pamphlet, or as you term it “brief defence” of his speech.

After quoting the “passing remarks of a country newspaper,” as elucidatory of his Lordship’s meaning, you say, “I cannot believe the Bishop of London could be blind to a distinction so obvious.” {22b} For the present, be it so. In the same page in which this expression of your incredulity as to his Lordship’s blindness occurs, you quote another passage from his speech, that in which he observes of Subscription,—“it is not required from all members of the Church, but only from the ministers of the Church, as a security against a greater evil, &c.” Upon which you exclaim, “can we forget that _all_ graduates at the universities are required to subscribe, that these are all _laymen_?” Not very easily, I admit. And which would you wish us to suppose? That his Lordship had forgotten it, or that he was ignorant of it, or that he intended to palm upon the audience before which he spake such an assertion as a _literal_ fact? As I am inclined to think that _you_ suppose neither one nor the other, I must say, “I cannot believe that you could be blind to his Lordship’s meaning,” and could not help exclaiming on reading your ready imputation against the Bishop of London—“Physician! heal thyself.”

But whilst so many explanations have since been given of the meaning in which this observation was made by the Bishop of Norwich, and so many insinuations levelled at the Bishop of London for not choosing to see it, I am disposed to think that his Lordship did not feel himself called upon to dive into the thoughts of the Bishop of Norwich, but intending to give a direct negative to an unqualified affirmative, meant to re-repudiate the notion that “the church of England, _was_ founded on liberty of conscience, and the right of private judgment,” and to assert with reference to the well-known _fruits_ of such a principle, that the Church was founded on “truth.” But the Bishop of Norwich contends that the expression is an “incorrect” one, and that had he been speaking of “the only true foundation of the true Catholic Church itself,” he should have said that it was “founded on the Apostles and Prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone.” {24a} The Bishop of London could scarcely have thought the _periphrasis_ necessary, considering before whom he was speaking, he would probably reply to the imputed incorrectness of the expression, that he always considered the foundation of which the Bishop of Norwich here speaks, to be “truth,” and that the Church was the interpreter of the _Apostles_, and _Prophets_, and _Jesus Christ_, or in other words of the _Gospel of Christ_. He meant also I should suppose, to repudiate the notion, that _the Reformation of the Church_ proceeded on such a principle, and in effect to affirm that from the days of Archbishop Cranmer to these of Archbishop Howley, no such principle had ever been recognized by the _Church_, as that of admitting “liberty of conscience and the right of private judgment,” to have any _directive_ influence in Church affairs; a fact, which if not sufficiently proved by the mandate of Edward the Sixth, enforcing under the penalties of “sequestration, suspension, excommunication, and such _other coercion_, as to ordinaries or others having ecclesiastical jurisdiction, shall seem convenient, straitly charging and commanding his loving subjects to observe the injunctions of 1547,” {24b}—would be amply established by your own observations respecting _Bishop Hooper_, for the sending of the good old man to prison in the matter of the vestments, and that by the _Reformers_ themselves, would seem but little to favour the notion that our reformed Church was founded on “liberty of conscience and the right of private judgment.”

But that I may not also be accused of misapprehending his Lordship’s meaning, I will here quote his explanation of the sense in which the observation was made—

“_It is of course plain that I was neither speaking of the Catholic Church at all_, _nor even of the Church of England_, _except in its character of a Reformed Church_, _founded as such on the principles of the Reformation_, _which I again deliberately assert to be liberty of conscience and the right of private judgment_, _in opposition to that Church from whence it separated_, _in which the authority of Popes_, _Councils_, _and Priests_, _superseded all appeal to the scriptures themselves_, _and by which of course freedom of judgment was strictly prohibited_.” {25a}

Not that it bears upon his Lordship’s argument, still I would respectfully submit whether our alleged _separation_ here from the Church of Rome be strictly correct; we threw off our allegiance to the _usurped_ authority, temporal and spiritual, of the Pope; we reformed the abuses of _our own Church_, but we _separated_ from no mother Church. The episcopal Church in England existed long before the Pope cast his eye upon it.—“In the acts of the Council of Arles, which was held A.D. 314, we find the Subscriptions of three British Bishops.” {25b}

But I would further question whether in his Lordship’s _qualified_ sense of the observation it can with any strictness be said, that our _reformed_ Church was founded on the principle he contends for.

It will, I think, be admitted that whatever was done with reference to the Church by that “Postilion of the Reformation,” as Burnet calls him, the _Papist_ Henry, was done by him more with a view “to cudgel the Pope into a compliance with what he desired,” {26a} than from any desire to reform our religion. At all events, we must give up any attempt to reconcile his “six acts” with “liberty of conscience.”

The reformation of our _religion_ had its commencement in the reign of his successor. Here, if any where, we must look for the principle in question. But can it be said that our religion was reformed “in _opposition_ to the authority of Popes and Councils,” when it is so well known, that “the Bishop of Rome’s usurped power and jurisdiction was of most just causes taken away and _abolished_,” {26b} in the preceding reign? Neither can it, I think, in strictness be said, _of that time_, that the _Priests_ superseded all appeal to the scriptures, seeing that it was by the Bishops themselves that the scriptures were chiefly caused to be circulated. I am speaking not of the German Protestant Church, but that of which his Lordship speaks, “the Church of England, in its character of a reformed Church.” And I have before shewn on your own authority in the matter of _Hooper_, that she recognised nothing so little as the principle of “liberty of conscience.” That sectarism or separation _from_ the Church is founded on this principle, will be admitted.

It has always appeared to me, that the hacknied phrase, “liberty of conscience and the right of private judgment,” applied to an associated body, is a pure fallacy, I had almost said, a cobweb to catch the fly popularity, quite as valuable as an appeal, “_ad captandum vulgus_,” as the cry—“_Nolumus leges Angliæ mutari_,” to which “catch-word,” his Lordship attributes the defeat of the attempt to revise the Liturgy in 1689. You also attribute this defeat to “the violence of party;” but there are those, and the late pious and excellent _Bishop Jebb_ amongst the number, who ascribe it to the “_special interference of Providence_.” “But the special interference of Providence did not terminate with the first establishment of our Liturgy . . . Even within the Church itself, some were found whose integrity cannot be impeached, who were on the point of introducing alterations which could not have failed to prove equally injurious to the cause of truth and piety.” {27a} Even Bishop Burnet, one of the Commissioners, with reference to the probable result of those contemplated alterations of 1689, imputes the failure of the attempt to a “very happy direction of the providence of God observed in the matter.” {27b}

The Church, however, coerces the conscience of no man, every one is at liberty to take his own religious course, and I confess I cannot see why that which is conceded to all other societies should be denied to the Church—the right of being governed by her own constitutions, and the right also of judging what constitutions are most conducive to the welfare and good order of her community.