Part 2

Here, however, I wish merely to observe, that my former letter did not deal with this extension of the subject; did not go into the general principle of the dogmatic teaching, or want of dogmatic teaching, in the Church of England, because this was not a point embraced or discussed in your first letter; and mine of course was not an answer by anticipation to your second, but merely a brief argument as to the one point of the Catholic doctrine of baptism, and the way in which the (then) expected judgment of the Committee of Privy Council, should it impugn that doctrine, would affect our Church’s position: and I think I am justified in saying (even upon your own showing since {18}) that _had that point alone_ been brought in question, my argument would have been sufficient; at any rate, so far sufficient and satisfactory, that you would have felt with me we might one and all remain at our posts, and that the Church of England would not be involved in the heresy of that sentence, upon the very grounds which I enforced, namely, that her mind and heart were not proved to be unsound, and therefore that we _have time_ to strive earnestly to clear her from the ambiguity of her words (so considered), and to vindicate her character for Catholic truth. But it is your feeling, now since enunciated, that there are other points of equal importance less clearly defined; that, in fact, baptism was the very _best_ ground for our Church to stand upon in her conflict with the liberalizing spirit of the day; and if she could not maintain herself there, what chance has she elsewhere:—it is this, which supplies the fuel to your despondency, and almost despair of her. I say again, to this argument I propose to come in the sequel, and would only here explain, what perhaps I ought to have stated, something more definitely, in my former letter, (though it is a point on which I think you will make no quarrel with me for “amending the record,”) that when I say, if “the Church intended to include two such opposite doctrines,” I mean, of course, “_intended to include_” and _did include_. I should not be shaken in my persuasion of her innocency of heresy, either as to baptism, or any other doctrine, merely by being convinced, if so it were, that there was an evil intention of an unlawful comprehension by the Church of England of the sixteenth century, if yet, in God’s mercy, it were frustrated in the actual settlement of her rule of faith. I hold that both parts must combine to place us in a dilemma now, that is to say, both the heretical intention, (so that it is not merely an inadvertence,) and the actual ambiguity, (so that the heresy _is_ permitted). If the latter be not found, she will stand upon her formularies, in God’s providence, enunciating the truth; if the former be not found, then, as I have already said, I think she is not so hastily to be pronounced guilty, as not to be allowed the reasonable time (so she do but begin to use it) to vindicate or re-affirm her faith.

There is a second preliminary matter on which I must likewise ask leave to make some remark before I proceed further. It is obvious that any man’s view of the catholicity of our Church’s mind on baptism, will be much affected by the force he may attribute to the argument, and his general opinion of the soundness of the judgment, of the Privy Council in point of fact. It is true, even one of the Judges themselves might say, “I believe our decision to be the only correct one; the one we were obliged to come to upon the wording of the formularies and articles minutely scanned; but I do not believe it represents the mind of the Church;” and if this were so, (supposing, that is, the words to have this ambiguity really inherent in them, and the Court skilfully to have detected it,) the judgment might be called in this sense “able,” or “probably correct,” as you have called it, {20} and yet the whole argument of my former letter still remain intact. But if anywhere it be thought that the late judgment is sound or probably correct as a true representation of the Church’s mind, then in so far is the force of my letter and its argument diminished or destroyed. Of course, just in so much on the other hand, if it be thought or proved that it is not “an able judgment,” or “a probably correct” one, the position I have maintained is strengthened, because it is, a priori, to a certain extent probable that the _intention_ is, as _the sound interpretation_ of the words is; and consequently that if the words cannot, without straining them, or an ignorance of their subject-matter be made to include heresy, then the animus of the Church must not be supposed to be heretical. Therefore, although, if upon mere technical grounds of legal construction, the late judgment be “able,” and “probably correct,” my argument remains still, as I think, tenable and sound; yet much more weighty and conclusive is it, if that judgment can be shown to be neither able nor acute, neither well considered, nor fairly apprehensive of the points at issue. On this subject therefore I will ask you to bear with me for a few words.

I am persuaded that such is the case:—that the judgment is not sound; nor able; nor probably right; regarded merely as an exposition of the documents which the court had before it, independently of all consideration of the abstract truth or falsehood of the theology involved. I do not indeed mean to go into this subject at large, or to test the decision throughout in its several parts, but I do desire to direct your attention to two or three particulars, in the hope even these may make you re-consider your verdict as to its being “probably a right decision.” If in that expression you meant “probably right,” not merely on the technical ground of verbal criticism, but as I certainly imagine you mean us to understand, “_right_” according to your present view of the likely aim and intention of those who put forth our articles and formularies, and of the Church of England of the sixteenth century which sanctioned them; “_right_” therefore as to a real intention of leaving baptismal regeneration an open question, then it becomes all the more important to subject some few points of the judgment to a careful scrutiny, that we may see on what foundation such an opinion rests.

In the first place then, we find the following declaration of the judges, presenting their own view of their powers. “The Court,” they tell us, “has no jurisdiction or authority to settle matters of faith:” {21} that is, they give us to understand it was by no means its province, and as little its desire, to invade the precincts of the Church’s sanctuary and “determine what ought in any particular to be the doctrine of the Church of England.” {22a} Of course the latter part of this sentence is true. Their duty was to declare, (so far as any jurisdiction they had might enable them to declare,) not what _ought_ to be, but what _was_ the doctrine of the English Church. If they only meant therefore to say, it was not their business or their wish to enact any new canon on baptism, one is almost tempted to smile at their simplicity in thinking it necessary so solemnly to enunciate such a truism, or thus to magnify themselves upon such moderation and forbearance; but if they thought or meant to disclaim settling any thing concerning doctrine by the powers of interpretation, which they could not avoid exercising, one is tempted again to smile, only more bitterly, to think of any persons, and especially judges in so solemn a cause, entertaining so chimerical a notion as this disclaimer evinces. What! did they imagine they could escape “settling doctrine” by the judgment they gave, merely by leaving every man to teach what he pleased? Did they forget that interpretation itself _is_ a power that settles what it interprets? {22b} Did they suppose a translator assigns no sense to the book which he translates? Did they, or could they for a single moment lose sight of the fact, that they _must_ “settle” whether Mr. Gorham were to be instituted to the living of Bramford Speke or not; and in so doing must determine that “the doctrine held by him” was, or “was not, contrary or repugnant to the declared doctrine of the Church of England?” One can hardly believe they could lose sight of or misunderstand such a point, and therefore we seem driven rather to let them take refuge in the truism, than chase them into the paradox, however the latter may be the more natural suggestion of their words. But even so, it must I think be allowed that the diction of what ought to have been a most carefully considered document is very clumsily obscure; as is evident from the number of persons since its publication who keep continually quoting upon us those words of the judgment, and assuring us that by the showing and declaration of the Committee of Privy Council itself, “doctrine is not affected.” And this obscurity is darkened even more by the aid of the published comment upon, or perhaps I should say reiteration of, the same view, given since by an eminent member of the court. Lord Campbell in one of his letters to Miss Sellon says, “I assure you we have given no opinion contrary to yours upon the doctrine of baptismal regeneration. _We had no jurisdiction to decide any doctrinal question_, and we studiously abstained from doing so. We were _only called upon to construe the articles and formularies of the Church_, (!) and to say whether they be so framed as to condemn certain opinions expressed by Mr. Gorham.” {23} If Lord Campbell individually, or the judges generally, mean merely that their own personal faith being in agreement or disagreement with Mr. Gorham’s opinions, is not a point decided by their sentence, I most entirely allow this; but if they mean, as certainly a large portion of the world has understood them to mean, that to admit Mr. Gorham to a benefice with cure of souls, and to say the doctrine held and published by him is “not contrary or repugnant to the declared doctrine of the Church of England,” does not “settle doctrine,” so far as that Church’s teaching is concerned, (and so far as they have authority,) this certainly strikes me as a most marvellous inaccuracy, bespeaking any thing rather than ability or judicial clearness. Yet if they did not mean this, (though to speak of a matter of personal faith might be in point, as far merely as regarded Lord Campbell’s clearing himself with Miss Sellon,) how should their judgment tend, as they seem to have hoped it would, to peace:—“to heal,” as Lord Campbell expresses it, {24} “the wounds from which the Church of England has lately suffered?” “What hast thou to do with peace,” surely we may demand of the judgment itself, unless something real is to be made of this profession of not settling doctrine? By such a mode of writing, the judges appear to have thought peace could be preserved; nothing being settled, but the latitude of interpretation which might, as they supposed, include all, and let every man do “that which was right in his own eyes:”—a scheme that might possibly have answered if the points in question had been mere matters of human opinion, or if there had been none in the Church who believed them to be God’s truth which they had no right to give away: none also who were sharp-sighted enough to see that to make any doctrine an open question, _is_ to rule that there is no dogmatic teaching upon it at all. Not to have observed these things more distinctly, and not more distinctly to have expressed themselves as to what they really thought their office was, appears to me, in the very outset, to be _not_ indicative of ability or acuteness in the Court.

Secondly, I see no marks of an able view of the subject in the Court’s extraction and representation of the peculiarities of Mr. Gorham’s opinions. On the contrary, the Committee of Council appear to me (I trust I shall stand excused in speaking very plainly; the matter is of too much importance to permit soft words merely for fashion’s sake;) to have been absolutely unable to master the sense of what he wrote. It is so _manifest_ they have not accurately represented it, in their summary, that if I _did_ think they really understood his book, I should be _compelled_ to believe they knowingly softened down, and _mis_represented his doctrine, to be able the more easily to pronounce _for_ his institution, without daring absolutely to say the Church did not condemn his heresy; that they made his doctrine into something which it is _not_, something, at any rate, less glaringly heretical than it is, in order to satisfy his partizans, by giving judgment in his and their favour, at the same time that they trusted to escape the direct assertion of his real opinions being admissible in the Church of England, by altering them knowingly themselves. But I certainly do not make any such charge against the Committee; only, I have no alternative but to believe they did not rightly apprehend his book at all. They took it, in fact, with many (perhaps not unnatural) complaints, that they should be expected to find out its meaning; {27a} and then, even with all the help of counsel, and all the advantage of the really able judgment of the Court below, (which, however, as has been pointed out by the Bishop of Exeter, they appear wholly to have ignored, and thought unworthy of consideration,) they set down sundry propositions as those maintained by him, which not only are _not_ in his book, but which do not even represent what _is_ in it. Thus they say, “The doctrine held by Mr. Gorham appears to us to be this: . . . that the grace of regeneration does not so necessarily accompany the act of baptism that regeneration invariably takes place in baptism: that the grace may be granted before, in, or after baptism: . . . that infants baptized, and dying before actual sin, are undoubtedly saved, but that in no case is regeneration in baptism unconditional;” {27b} statements not found in his answers, though perhaps he may hold some of them; while some of them are actually inconsistent with what he does maintain. Thus, the Committee of Privy Council say, Mr. Gorham holds the grace of regeneration may be granted “before, in, or after baptism,” apparently never having perceived at all his own words, which exclude, as the Bishop of Exeter has most justly pointed out, the possibility, in his (Mr. Gorham’s) real view, of justification _in_ baptism, except by a miracle; the miracle of one coming to baptism hypocritically, but being converted at the very moment, and so receiving the benefit concomitantly with the Sacrament. {28a} But the Privy Council appear never to have seen, or seeing, not to have weighed, those passages in Mr. Gorham’s answers in which he positively asserts that all the benefits which we ascribe to baptism, through God’s gift and mercy, are given neither _in_ nor _by_ baptism, but in all cases _before_ it, where baptism is rightly received at all. Thus he says, “That they (i.e. infants) must have been regenerated by an act of grace prevenient to baptism, in order to make them worthy recipients of that Sacrament.” {28b} Again, “The new nature must have been possessed by those who receive baptism rightly, and therefore possessed before the seal was affixed.” {28c} Again, “As the stipulation of faith goes before baptism, and as the condition of being ‘the child of God’ is a blessing conferred by faith, hence the blessing of adoption also precedes baptism in its essence.” {28d} Again, “The blessing is, ‘adoption to be the sons of God;’ that blessing is undoubtedly to be ‘ascribed to God.’ For faith is ‘not of ourselves: it is the gift of God:’ and to such as possess faith, to them giveth He (Jesus Christ) power to become the sons of God. But that faith and that filial state, though clearly to be ‘ascribed to God,’ was given to the worthy recipient (for we are all along assuming this worthiness) _before_ baptism, and not _in_ baptism” {28e} (sic). Again, “As faith must precede beneficial baptism, and as justification is invariably consequent on faith, therefore justification also precedes beneficial baptism, and cannot be equivalent to it.” {29} Thus Mr. Gorham, when heard for himself, plainly declares that the gifts of regeneration, adoption, remission of sins, and justification, so far from being ever given to any one _in_ baptism, must have been possessed before it, if it be not hurtful; and so far from being ever given _by_ baptism, are always given, if given at all, by prevenient grace. I cite these passages here, however, not in the least to argue upon the amount of their error or heresy; but merely to show how very superficially the Committee of Privy Council have regarded them; how very inadequately they have represented them in their summary of Mr. Gorham’s opinions. And I must own here again, I am unable to discover any marks of ability or acumen; of discrimination or accuracy. This unreadiness and slowness to throw their minds into abstruse points of theology, may be very explainable, by considerations of the want of previous training; by the naturally untheological character of their mental habits; and by a certain very imaginable ignorance of the subjects with which they were compelled to deal. These things may be their personal excuse; may show it was, in great measure, their misfortune, and not their fault to err; but yet must necessarily be taken into consideration in determining the moral weight and importance of their judgment.

Thirdly, I am unable to find any acuteness or probable approximation to a right decision in the manner in which the Committee of Council examine, compare, and draw conclusions from the various services of the Church.

And first, as to the burial service:—They say {30a}—“In every case in the burial service, as the earth is cast upon the dead body, the priest is directed to say, and doth say, ‘Forasmuch as it hath pleased Almighty God of his great mercy to take unto himself the soul of our dear brother here departed; we therefore commit his body to the ground, earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, in sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life;’ and thanks are afterwards given—‘for that it hath pleased Almighty God to deliver this our brother out of the miseries of this sinful world;’ and this is followed by a collect in which it is prayed that ‘when we shall depart this life, we may rest in God, as our hope is that this our brother doth.’ The hope here expressed,” (continues the judgment) “is the same ‘sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life,’ which is stated immediately after the expression—‘it hath pleased Almighty God of his great mercy to take to himself the soul of our brother here departed.’ In this service, therefore, there are absolute expressions implying positive assertions, which must” (the Court tells us) “be construed in a qualified or charitable sense.” {30b} Thus it will be seen, not only is “_a hope_” declared to be “an absolute expression implying a positive assertion;” (I thought there was good authority to say that hope, however confident or well founded, is always to be distinguished from, not made identical with, certainty: “Hope that is seen is not hope:”) but even beyond this, the Court seems never to have entertained the notion at all; never to have weighed the matter; never to have grasped the idea; never to have had it occur to their minds, that any one else thought or could think otherwise than they did; never to have supposed it possible, that there _could_ be any difference in the _object_ of the hope mentioned in these two places; that “the sure and certain hope of the resurrection,” might perhaps mean, the _general resurrection_ (a topic not unsuitable to be introduced one would think) whilst the hope of the other passage might be the hope of the individual’s welfare. However, in each place, the Committee of Privy Council unhesitatingly assure us, the hope _is the same_, and _that_, the hope of the individual’s resurrection to eternal life. They are dogmatic enough in their own teaching, in the construction of the service to suit the conclusion to which they are coming (this hope _is_ the same as the one before-mentioned); but, alas! all this, only in order to make away with dogmatic teaching, of a higher prestige surely than theirs;—to evolve a charitable hypothesis out of the most definite expressions! and these used in a most solemn religious office! Again, I say, and know not how to avoid saying, I cannot see herein the mark of ability or acumen. {31}

Further, it seems as if the judges had never even heard of any other meaning being given to the “thanks, that it hath pleased Almighty God to deliver this our brother out of the miseries of this sinful world,” than that thereby a thanksgiving must be intended that the dead person is taken to heaven. They appear never even for a moment to have entertained the thought that there might be a cause for thankfulness, even in the cutting off of a soul unprepared, if this were the cutting off a life of longer and deeper sin, so that by a further time, the man would only have plunged himself deeper in misery, and have “received greater damnation.” They perhaps had never contemplated such things as possible in the depths of the counsels and mercies of God; never thought of any as being possibly so past salvation, that the only remaining mercy which could be shown them was to cut short a life whose daily continuance was an increase of crime; whose daily walk a progress, farther and farther into the wrath of God. Yet had Lord Campbell been as well read in another great poet, as he seems to have been in Milton, he might perhaps have been reminded of these things:—

“The longer life, I wot, the greater sin; The greater sin, the greater punishment: All those great battles which thou boast’st to win, Through strife and bloodshed and avengëment, Now prais’d, hereafter dear thou shalt repent: For life must life, and blood must blood repay. Is not enough thy evil life forespent? For he that once hath missed the right way, The further he doth go, the further he doth stray!” {33}

God forbid, indeed, that we should say this of a man, because he “once hath missed the right way;” (nor is Spenser answerable as implying that doctrine, as the context will show:) but at least the thought is suggested which might have assisted the Committee of Council in considering whether there may not be a time when it will be lawful and reasonable to give thanks to God, if the removal of a man unprepared, has yet removed him from only fresh sins, and saved a soul from greater punishment. Neither, let it be observed, is it in the least necessary to this view to suppose that we are either called upon, or able, to determine _who_ among the departed have so fallen past grace, that an immediate death was the only mercy left for them. It is sufficient that such an explanation can be given, if perplexity should appear to be involved in the fact that for every one for whom our burial service is used, thanks are given “that it hath pleased Almighty God to take unto himself,” or “to deliver, this our brother out of the miseries of this sinful world.” {34a}

Again: there is the treatment of the service for private baptism. In one or two respects this service is unquestionably stronger in its wording than the office for public baptism, as to regeneration being the gift of baptism, which made a careful examination of it very important. Let us therefore see how the Committee of Privy Council have dealt with it.