And here it may not be amiss to say one word upon the principle of a Memorial to such a body as the Royal Commission. I believe there are some who think it improper to memorialize the Commissioners, as if it were like petitioning a judge to convict or acquit a prisoner placed upon his trial before him. Of course, if the cases were parallel, it would be most improper and indecent. But a moment’s reflection will shew the difference. The Commission is not a court of justice at all. It has no judicial functions at all. There is no more objection to memorializing it than there is to petitioning Parliament. It is a body of men appointed to collect evidence, and afterwards to give an opinion as to what is expedient. It is then in the very nature of things, of high moment and importance that these Commissioners should know and understand what large masses of earnest Churchmen are thinking and feeling, whilst they are finding their way to their recommendations. It is a duty upon us to let them know what these feelings are, and what consequences are likely to result to the Church, when we see their tendency, nay,more than tendency, to lead an assault upon the Prayer Book. It is not only not improper, but it is a part of high and holy duty, which we owe to ourselves, to our Book of Common Prayer, to our faith, to the Church of England, to Christendom at large—nay, to God, our Maker, Redeemer, and Sanctifier, to say openly and plainly, solemnly and earnestly, “We will have no tampering with our faith; we will have no altering our Prayer Book; we will have no legislation in this matter of Ritual;” and this all the more; all the more deeply felt, the more strongly urged,becamewe see that this is a wholly one-sided movement. Wehear of no restraint or restriction, no new Canons or new enactments, when men fall short of the requirements of the Church and the Church’s law; when churches are closed from Sunday to Sunday; when Christ’s people are starved and stinted of their spiritual food and sustenance by few and far-distant communions; when Services and Lessons are altered, and Services garbled and curtailed at the will of this or that priest. Nay, we hear of no “simple and positive enactments,” even when men within the Church’s pale deny the inspiration of the Holy Scriptures; impute absolute ignorance to Christ our Lord, the ever-blessed Son of God; as, that He did not know as much about the authorship of the Pentateuch, or the date of certain of the Psalms, or other facts concerning the Holy Scriptures, as modern doctors could tell Him; none, when we hear denied the possibility of miracles; none, when we find explained away and rejected the duration without end of Hell; none, when it is maintained that we ought not to pray to the Son of God. I say that upon these subjects we hear of no Royal commissions, no Bishop’s charges recommending new enactments; no impending legislation to place such teaching under the disability of “abeyance” even “until further order be taken;” but here, where the law of the Church as to ceremonies and vestments (things no doubt important, because no doubt representing doctrine and connected with it, but certainly not more important than those other subjects to which I have alluded), but here, where these ceremonies and vestments, are the objects of ignorant clamour and brutal violence, the Prayer Book is to be altered, and new law is to be made, actually to put a penalty on those who have been guilty only of the crime of obeying it as it is.
And here I must say a word as to such alteration of the law, if made, being what one of the resolutions passed at St. James’s Hall termed it,ex post factolegislation. A good deal has been said upon this topic, and we are told that if you call such legislationex post facto, then all legislation is such, when it forbids for the future what has been permitted in the past; and we are reminded that the true sense ofexpost factolegislation is when a penalty is placed, by a new law, upon acts done before the law was altered. Now first let me remark that, even without coming exactly up to the definition, you yet draw very near to the substance ofex post factolegislation if you make a one-sided change to catch only one side or one party whom you make offenders under the new law, and when it is a law framed expressly and on purpose to catch the men on one side and let the others go free. Whether this be technicallyex post factoor not, it comes exactly to that which, in a passage already quoted from the Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol’s Charge, is described by him as likely to cause “rankling bitterness, from the thus greatly increased conviction that the law is really in favour of those to be restrained; and being so, is overridden by anunjust Act of Parliament.” But, secondly, there is another way in which such an enactment would come very near indeed toex post factolegislation—I mean where it disturbs a great settlement of many years’ standing, which has induced men to enter into numerous and weighty engagements, from which you cannot free them if you would, when you change theirstatusin relation to their obligations. To take an illustration. The country has entered into such a kind of contract with the fundholder. Millions are embarked in the Funds upon the faith of a great settlement the principles of which shall never be departed from; and to depart from which would beex post factolegislation, practically putting a penalty upon those who had come under voluntary obligations upon the strength of those principles and that settlement. But it may be said, nevertheless, the country does sometimes vary the contracts and alter the rate of interest towards its creditors. Yes! but what would be thought of the minister who proposed to do this, without offering, as the alternative, to pay the lender off in full; to replace him in the position in which he stood originally? And if, without offering this, he proposed to alter hisstatus, who would not feel there was an unjustex post factoalteration of the law? Now, upon such a great, just, and deliberate settlement, have menentered into relations with the established Church of this country. And here the Statecannotset them free, or replace them in the position in which they stood before they accepted the cure of souls within her pale. The Legislaturecannotgive them the alternative offer: and therefore, again, such a change as alters the Catholic standing of the Church of England must come very near indeed to beingex post factolegislation. But yet further, thirdly, there is another consideration which brings this case exactly within the strictest definition ofex post factolegislation. I mean the affixing a penalty by new enactment upon acts done before the law was changed. Observe, all penalty is not material; not restricted to fine or suspension. There is the penalty of stigma and imputed dishonesty, as real and as hard to bear in many cases as other punishment. Now, it needs no great foresight or wisdom to perceive that if the law of Ritual shall be altered in the sense and mode proposed, this very thing will be used as a stigma and brand of disloyalty to the Church of England against those men who have been High Ritualists. It is true it might be, and in my judgment, ought to be, read the other way. It ought to be taken as a proof that the existing law being in their favour, those who could not endure the law got it altered. But, from the whole tone and temper of the objectors, it is clear this would not be their line. They tell us even now, over and over again, with the outstretched throat of clamour, and with the utmost violence of passion, that all such are false to the principles of the Reformation; are dishonest and disloyal to their Church; are not to be endured in a Protestant Establishment. It is clear, then, that they would proclaim the new legislation to be merelydeclaratory ofthe existing law; not admit that itchangedit; and so the enactment would be used as a fresh ground of obloquy and reproach against those whom their opponents could not convict of any crime, but whom they would thus be allowed, nevertheless to condemn. Such a stigma, such a penalty placed by legislation upon acts done before the change of law, and upon the persons who had done them,would bring such change of law under the definition, in the strictest sense, ofex post factolegislation.
But now to return. Let me explain the position which I am throughout maintaining. I have not been speaking as the advocate of high Ritual. I do not understand the aim of the great meeting held last week in St. James’s Hall to be this advocacy; nor do I so understand the Memorial to be laid before the Commissioners. It is not to defend high Ritual in itself, however incidentally Ritual may be affected; but it is to defend the Prayer Book. It is to preserve our presentstatus. It is to allow no door to be shut upon the Catholic side, whilst all are left open on the Latitudinarian. It is to preserve an outwork which defends doctrine—dearer than life to many among us. It is to keep all which God’s providence has given us in our Reformation and subsequent Revisions. It is to preserve our character and place in the face of Christendom; it is to shew our loving memory and gratitude for all which our blessed Lord has done for us, and is still doing at the right hand of God, that we will not consent to have this our heritage mutilated or taken from us. And surely in this all Churchmen who believe the ancient Catholic Faith are interested with us, Ritualist or non-Ritualist. I am not myself a Ritualist in the sense of using any of the higher forms of ritual, ceremonial, or vesture. I believe indeed, and who that believes the doctrine so represented, butmustbelieve, that England would be in a higher, holier, and happier state, if, not neglecting one other point of holiness, humility, repentance, or faith, yet, I say, if all among us longed for and delighted in the higher and fuller expression of the faith. But I do not think this fuller expression is to be forced on those who are unprepared for it. I believe in many cases this would hinder rather than help the doctrine. And I have been accustomed to consider that theabeyanceof much of the usage (I take the term in its true sense of a practical discontinuance, not of a legal forbidding, which is the repeal or extinction of a thing), that such abeyance may well justify us in not harshly shocking prejudices or woundingfeelings; and, therefore, certainly it is not as a mere movement in support of the higher forms of ritual that I am addressing you:—but I ask this;—What is the object of our opponents? Assuredly not merely to put down vestments, or put out candles, or extinguish incense; but to drive out of the Church of England the whole doctrine which those things represent; to expel every one, whether Ritualist or not, who holds and teaches it; to run riot in the destruction of every vestige of faith in the Real Presence, in the Priesthood, the Altar, and the Sacrifice. The papers of the Church Association (passim), the writings of the whole anti-Ritualistic world, who are also the anti-Sacerdotal party, from the well-known noisy and ignorant correspondents of theTimesto the miserable man who so lately has shocked every feeling of decency in his, at first, most impertinent, and, at last, most blasphemous, correspondence with and concerning the late revered Bishop of Lichfield; all such proclaim this as their aim and end, with open mouth and outstretched throat. If you ask for an example, take the following brief passage brought before the English Church Union at its anniversary meeting in June last, by Mr. Charles Wood in his excellent speech on that occasion. He said—“In an article that appeared in one of the periodicals, which is most conspicuous in its attacks upon Ritual—I meanFrazer’s Magazine—I found, in one of its last year’s numbers, this, ‘There is no use in taking half-measures. As long as the Ordination Service remains as it is, Ritualism will always be cropping up. The real remedy is to alter a single rubric. Forbid the imposition of hands, and then we shall get rid of Ritualism once and for all.’”[41]Surely such language as this, and it is the very staple of the fierce opponents of Ritual, should open the eyes of all Churchmen as to what it is, (that it is really vital doctrine,) for which we have to contend. I say, then, that the present contest and crisis touches every Churchman, Ritualist or not, who believes the higher doctrine. Nay, it touches every one, Ritualist or not, who doesnot desire to see the comprehensive character of the Church of England narrowed, in a party sense, and for a party purpose. It touches all who agree with what the Dean of Norwich lately said at Wolverhampton, that it would be an immense and incalculable evil if one great school of thought in the Church of England were to drive the other out of her (though, by the way, I think he did not note what surely in justice he should have noted, that it is only on the one side that this desire for expulsion has been expressed). It touches in short all who desire to let law and reason have fair play against clamour and violence; all who will standbyandforthe Prayer Book as it is. Let us all join hand and heart in averting the present danger, and in defending our heritage. Oh! if I may say it, believe me, friends, there has been no such crisis as now is in our Church, in our day at least.
Bear with me a few moments longer whilst I confirm what I have said by a better warrant than any word of mine. In the year 1865, he whose name is perhaps more revered among us than any name of at least this century—he whose memory is “as galbanum, and onyx, and sweet storax, and as the fume of frankincense in the tabernacle,” the “sweet singer” of our Israel—wrote and published some thoughts upon Ritual, and the doctrine represented by it, and the growing opposition to it. In almost, as it seems, a spirit of prophecy, speaking of the very matter now in question—a proposal for legislation, touching thereby the integrity of the Prayer Book—he said:—“It professes, indeed, to meddle with one rubric only, but it involves the same prerogative over all, and that which it specifies is one of the most important and comprehensive, bearing directly on one vital doctrine, and through that, as theologians know, upon the whole Creed of the Church. And what is more, those who promote the movement openly avow that their object is thus comprehensive . . . They frankly own their purpose to be, not simple reformation of that one rubric, but the discomfiture at all points of a rival section in the Church.” He adds:—“It is well perhaps that they have declared themselves so openly. Itmay put many on their guard who might otherwise have supported them at least passively, as not liking the special usages complained of, or as fearful of their being revived where they would cause disturbance. Whoever after this their plain speaking shall join in their movement must be aware that he is committing himself to a one-sided policy, which ultimately displacing those who are called Tractarians or the like, will quite overthrow the sort of equilibrium which for many years has providentially subsisted among us.”[43a]
So clearly did John Keble see that the attempt to alter that one rubric on ornaments was a matter of most vital importance to Sacramental doctrine. And if he spoke thus when the plan referred to was but in its infancy, and the danger more remote, need anyone be told what he would advise now? Truly, “he being dead yet speaketh.” Who is there that will not hear?[43b]
He adds this yet further, well worthy of our most heartfelt contemplation:—“And if we look beyond our own country, as surely we are bound to do, certain it is that such a decree” (i.e., an Act of Parliament altering the rubric), “not only submitted to but promoted and solicited by the Convocation of the Province of Canterbury, would effectually quench, for the time at least, all the fond hopes of reunion among Christians which just now appear to be dawning on us in various quarters. For, undoubtedly of all doctrines, that of the Eucharistic Sacrifice is the one on which in the eyes both of East and West our Catholicity wouldappear most questionable. Ahair’s-breadthmore of wavering on that point would seem to them, I fear, an entire forfeiture of our position.” Oh, how noble and catholic an aspiration after a reunion with East and West, and how just an appreciation of what would vitally affect, adversely, the hope and prospect of it! How different from the narrow sectarianism which would boast of our isolation, and, cavilling at everything, can see only an overture to Rome in an “Eirenicon” to Christendom. O that our Convocations may hear and heed such warning words, and stand firm, whatever trial comes! Let me hope, let me pray, that all true Churchmen, Ritualists or not, will here throw themselves into the gap, and raise a bulwark against tampering with our Prayer Book. The outwork may be the rubric on ornaments, but, “as theologians know,” it is the Creed which is really at stake, through an altered Book of Common Prayer. We must defend the outwork to defend the citadel. We must one and all make our voice heard against change here, either directly or indirectly, either explicitly or implicitly, either by Convocation or by Parliament, or by both together. Better our Convocations were silenced again for a hundred years, if any minister of the Crown would venture to silence them (which I shall not believe until I see it), than that they should lend themselves to alter our Prayer Book and impair its catholicity. But to strengthen the hands of all who have power or influence herein, we must be prompt, energetic, valiant, wise. Believe me it is not a question of shapes or colours. It is not a question of supporting the Ritualists, though incidentally their position may be supported. But it is the question of not losing one jot or tittle of what God’s providence has given us. And to preserve what we have is essential to our work at home and to our place in Christendom. We cannot afford to give away our birthright. We cannot afford to be diverted by anybyeenquiries or cavils. The real question is the preservation intact in its integrity of our Book of Common Prayer, and with it of Catholic doctrine and truth among us.
I have used the term—our place in Christendom. Letme add a word or two more upon this. English Churchmen, I fear, are too apt to overlook that we are but a small part of the Church Universal, and that our aspirations should ever be that “the unhappy divisions” which now prevail in it may be healed, and the Church again beone(according to our Blessed Lord’s Prayer), that indeed “the world may believe that God hath sent Him.”
Now, with this feeling and this hope in our hearts, we must never allow ourselves to forget that there is such a thing as an Œcumenical Council of Christendom, and whatever the difficulties may be in the way of its assembling, I believe to it all true hearts should turn. Certainly, for myself, I can say that this, as the great remedy for all our troubles and distractions, and “not for ours only,” but for those of Christendom at large, has been constantly present to my mind for many years. That God in His mercy, and in His own good time, would grant us a true General Council to ease and compose our differences, and to restore the unity of Christendom,—and, if it come, grant us all the due mind of submission to it,—has been for nearly or quite a quarter of a century, a portion of my daily prayer; and I think there is no ground to decry the petition as either fanciful or wrong. At least we have the warrant of some of great name among us who have not thought so. “That I might live to see the reunion of Christendom,” says Archbishop Bramhall, “is a thing for which I shall always bow the knees of my heart to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ . . . Howsoever it be,” he adds, “I submit myself and my poor endeavours first to the judgment of the Catholic Œcumenical essential Church, which, if some of late days have endeavoured to hiss out of the schools, as a fancy, I cannot help it. From the beginning it was not so. . . . Likewise I submit myself to the representative Church—that is, a free General Council, or so general as can be procured; and until then to the Church of England, wherein I was baptized, or to a National English Synod.”[45]
It may be supposed, indeed, that a general or ŒcumenicalCouncil is at present hopeless, and therefore that all mention or thought of an appeal to it is out of place; but I do not think this, for two reasons—first, that there are certain points of doctrine which have been so definitely ruled by General Councils and consent of Christendom that we know upon them there could be no diverse judgment; and, secondly, that I see no cause to despair of another such Council in God’s good time being called together. Even in the meanwhile the thought of, and habitual mental reference to, such a Council is neither impertinent nor unpractical; for the remembrance and sense of its authority, and the even mental submission of the will to its rule, has the strongest tendency to keep a man wholly catholic in heart and act. An English Churchman shouldlivein the thought and in the hope of the voice of Christendom being again uttered with no uncertain sound as to matters of perplexity and doubt. Even “though it tarry, he will wait for it,” and in the meanwhile the thought of it will bear its fruit. Thus, whatever he does, and is obliged to do, without the actual presence of such a guide, will be done, not on the mere impulse of his own will, or the bent of his own mind, but always in relation to what Christendom has definitely ruled, and in implicit submission to what she will again say when she may meet once more in a free and General Council. Anyone so living, trusting, believing, acting, will never be a schismatic, and cannot be a heretic. But I do believe we shall never, till we get to look out of ourselves to Christendom at large; never, till we remember our due place in it; never, till we are ready to accept its decrees (when God sees Christendom fit to give them); never till then, shall we be in that right mind and heart which is waiting duly for the Bridegroom’s call.
I am quite prepared to have such remarks called visionary and unreal, and all dependance upon, nay, all reference to, the Universal Church, unpractical and absurd. But none of these things move me, and I am (though, I trust, no fanatic) yet hopeful of the help of God for those who will try to help themselves. As I have said, I cannot think the expectation of a General Council is chimerical. I cannotbelieve, if it come, it will be useless. We have no right, of course, to expect any supernatural interposition or handwriting visibly on the wall to direct us in our difficulties. But I have faith enough in miracles, if that be one, to believe that God may grant us the miracle of Christendom again in Council, and make it the means to heal all our distempers and bind up all our wounds. Of this faith and this hope no man shall deprive me by the mere calculations of human policy, or by the perverse promptings of an uncatholic despair. But let us all watch and pray, and work with the help of God, to preserve our true catholic heritage and place, lest, when it meet, it should meet to condemn us. But this we will never believe can come upon us until we see, which God forbid, our Church faithless to God and to herself in the face of Christendom.
Our immediate work, our present duty, is indeed on a narrower scale and in a smaller sphere, yet not without an eye to these further consequences. It is to maintain our catholicstatus; and in order to this, to make it plain to all, friends and foes alike, that we will stand by our Prayer Book, and never consent to alter in an uncatholic direction one jot or tittle of that which it contains.
FINIS.
Printed by the Church Press Company, 13, Burleigh-street, Strand.
[6]Charge, p. 75.
[7]Report, p. vii.
[13]SeeHistory of Savoy Conference: Collier, Vol. ii. pp. 876–886.
[15]Report, p. vii.
[16]If the Commissioners should justify their thus reporting on things not essential, in the face of the very letter of their instructions, by saying that they understand the term essential to berelative; essential, not necessarily to theBeing, but to thewell-beingof the Church, and that the repression of the vestments is, in their mind, thus relatively essential; it occurs immediately to ask, why, if they were thus so quickwitted to perceive this sense of relative essentiality on their own side, were they so obtuse in seeing that the same construction should equally be allowed to the witnesses examined, in their use of the word essential on the other side?
Or, further, if they should plead that although the things themselves wereunessential, yet thelibertyto deal with them wasessential, (and in their mind essential on the side of repression,) and that thus their recommendation to restrain ceremonial is brought within the terms of their Commission; it must again be asked, why did they not award the same latitude of construction to the witnesses upon whose evidence they ground their sole recommendation; when it would be seen immediately that their inference and conclusion are wholly illogical and absurd. For their reasoning fully stated would then run thus:—“We find the vestments are by none regarded as essential to theBeing, though we are aware that by many they are considered essential to thewell-beingof the Church; andthereforewe come to the opinion that all variations in respect of vesture be restrained and abolished.” Or, (on the other view,) “We find the vestments are by none regarded as in themselves essential, though by many the liberty to use them is regarded as essential, andthereforewe recommend that they be repressed and disallowed.” What must be said of a Report the compilers of which can only present even the semblance of avoiding direct collision with the terms of their appointment by such treatment of the wordessential; who claim this latitude of interpretation on their own side, whilst they wholly overlook or deny the same to the witnesses whose evidence they desire to make responsible for their illogical conclusion? Truly if the Commissioners have taken such interpretations for themselves, and in the same breath deny them to the witnesses whom they quote, what words can be too strong to describe their blindness if they did not see this incongruity, or their unfairness if they did; whilst, if to escape such a dilemma, they repudiate both the above pleas, what defence can they make against the just rebuke of the trenchant Archdeacon of Taunton, when he said at Wolverhampton that “they had been appointed to report only upon thingsessential, and had reported only upon thingsnon-essential”?
[19]For this and the following quotations seeCharge of Bp. of Gloucester and Bristol, p. 57; also pp. 66–77.
[26]Report, p. 131.
[27a]Opinions will no doubt be different as to the accuracy of this account of what is Romanism. The passage is not cited to bind anyone’s judgment in this respect, but rather for its negative weighty shewing at least what in the judgment of such a man (one as it is evident withnobearings whichanyonecan call Popish) isnotRomanism.
[27b]Appendix to Report on Ritual, pp. 130–131.
[28a]Appendix, p. 130.
[28b]See p. 24.
[36]Times, Nov. 26, 1867.
[41]Speech of Hon. C. L. Wood,English Church Union Circular, July, 1867, p. 241.
[43a]Letter on “Ritual,” by Rev. John Keble, 1865.
[43b]The following, very recently published by the Dean of Norwich, is worthy of insertion as a note to Mr. Keble’s remarks:—“From the alteration of the Lectionary to that of the rubrics there is but one step; and from an alteration of the rubrics we shall pass by an easy transition to the rearrangement of prayers—the cancelling (or bracketing) of some and the insertion of others. Questions of this kind being once opened, the Prayer Book would become an arena of fierce and furious controversy, and the reconstruction of it in what would be called an improved form would be the dismemberment of the Church of England”—Preface to Two Sermons: A Word for the Old Lectionary. By E. M. Goulburn, D.D., Dean of Norwich. 1867.
[45]Bramhall’s Works, p. 141.