BISHOP ALEXANDER AND THE IRISH SYNOD.
THE Irish Synod has not carried through its revision of the Prayer-book without a rupture with one of its very ablest Bishops. The Bishop of Derry—perhaps, the ablest Bishop of the Irish Church—has delivered a strong and even severe piece of Conservative invective against the revisionists, partly for the alterations they have made, partly, as it seems to us, for making any alterations at all, but mostly for the new preface, by which the range of "interpretation,"—in other words, the freedom of clerical consciences,—is enlarged. Before we can discuss the Bishop of Derry's remarks with any advantage to our readers, we must just give briefly some conception of the nature of the alterations made by the revisionists, and of the com- ments by which they accompany those alterations. In the first place, the Athanasian Creed is left in the Prayer-book, but the Rubric directing its use on certain days is removed, so that while the Creed as a standard of faith is untouched, as an element of worship it is virtually banished. Next, the form of absolution used in the service for the Visitation of the Sick,—a peculiar form much more sacerdotal in effect than that used in the ordinary forms of public worship, the priest being made to say, by Christ's authority "committed to me, I absolve thee from all thy sins,"— is done away with, and the ordinary form of absolution used in the Communion Service is substituted. Farther, in the new preface a passage has been introduced declaring that, "save in the matter of ecclesiastical censures, no power or autho- rity is ascribed by our formularies to the Church or any of its ministers in respect of forgiveness of sins after baptism, other than that of declaring and pronouncing on God's part remission of sins to all that are truly penitent, to the quieting of their conscience and the removal of all doubt and scruple ; nor is it anywhere in our formularies taught or implied that confession to or absolution by a priest are any conditions of God's pardon ; but on the contrary, it is fully taught that all Christians who sincerely repent and unfeignedly believe the Gospel may draw nigh, as worthy communicants, to the Lord's table, without any such confession or absolution." Again, the Burial Service is still not to be used in the case of those who die unbaptised or excommunicate, but a special burial service is to be provided for xtnbaptised in- fants, and for adults who die after being prepared for baptism. Further, in relation to the words of the Com- munion Service, no change is made ; but the new canons prohibit any acts or gestures which imply that Christ is to be adored in the elements "under the veils of bread and wine," and the new preface declares that the posture of kneeling is not intended to sanction any such doctrine, but only to express pious gratitude for the sacrament. With re- gard to the doctrinal conceptions involved in baptism, the new preface affirms that that there is to be perfect liberty, and that "no minister of this Church is required to hold or teach any doctrine which has not been clearly determined by the Articles of Religion." These are the most important of the modifications. The preface ends, however, with a rather remarkable general conclusion :— enough, and that we should have taken this opportunity of making this book as perfect in all respects as they think it might be made, or if -others shall say that these changes have been unnecessary or excessive, and that what was already excellent has been impaired by doing that which, in their opinion, might well have been left undone, let them, on the one side or the other, consider that men's judgments of perfection are very various, and that what is imperfect, with peace, is often better than what is otherwise more excellent wit bout it."
Such are, in brief, the most important results of the very cautious and conservative revision at which Bishop Alexander has taken so much offence. We should add, that the first paragraph of the new preface, which stated that certain explanations were desirable, but that neither they nor the alterations themselves were meant to cast any censure on the unrevised book of Common Prayer, or to imply that it contains anything contrary to Scripture, was tarried by a vote of 133 clergy and 135 laymen, against only 20 clergy and 14 laymen, and that, as far as we know, similar majorities were obtained for most of the other changes.
And now, as to Bishop Alexander's stricture. The chief stricture is rather formidable, if only it were justified, but we do not think that it is justified. He declares that by the alterations made, and the comments on these alterations contained in the new preface, the meaning of the Prayer-book itself and of its services is so gravely altered, that even where the same words are retained you must understand them in a different and diminished sense. He illustrates this by the remark that M. Renan, whose pantheistic scepticism everybody is familiar with, has no objection to say of Christ, "our Lord is truly divine," and that M. Albert Reville, the great French theist and anti-supernaturalist, considers Christ to be truly -" the Son of God." Now, says the Bishop of Derry, the import- ance of words consists in the meaning they bear. If the same words are to be used by Anglicans and again by Renan and Revile to express such very different thoughts, the words, like a depreciated 'currency, lose their significance, and fail to convey the faith they were intended to express. The Bishop admits that there is no pretence for any loss of meaning on such a scale as this which he can ascribe to any of the interpretations which the new Rubrics and the new comments of the Irish Church have introduced into their revised Prayer-book ; but he - bolds that the changes made are of the same kind ; that the effect of them is to lower the meaning of the Liturgy in the direction of the evangelical, or at least anti-Sacramental - view ; and he maintains that in the closing sentence which we have already quoted, the ecclesiastical authorities of the Church had embodied "the sigh or smile of a higher intellect over -the imbecility of human speculations and the inadequacy of human 4anguage, and that seemed to him to be as unlike as anything -could to that spirit of true faith which removes mountains." We must say at once that in our opinion no one of these 'criticisms of the Bishop of Derry's can be sustained, unless, indeed, he either believes that the eucharistic elements ought to be adored,—in which case he cannot possibly receive ex animo -the latter part of the twenty-eighth Article, and the note at the end of the Communion Service,—or believes that certain sins are really remitted by the help of absolution which could not be forgiven without that rite,—or finally, holds that baptismal • regeneration is so clearly a part of the Anglican creed, that all the more conscientious Evangelical clergy who do not accept it ought to be compelled to leave the Church. In any 'one of these cases we can understand the Bishop's assertion that the-meaning of words has been definitely lowered,—that the colour, so to say, of the Liturgical forms has been blanched, so as to make them mean less than they meant before. But it is difficult to sup- pose that he holds any of these three opinions,—the first because, Its we said, it is expressly denied both by the Rubrics and the note to the Communion Service, and by the Twenty-eighth Article; the second, because the Romanising creed that while there is a degree of penitence which is sufficient to obtain pardon with- tut absolution, there are other lesser degrees which do not -obtain pardon without the 'appropriate ecclesiastical rite, is not, as far as we know, a common one among moderate High- 'Churchmen, and is almost inconsistent with everything in the Liturgy, except that curious Romanist "survival," the form of absolution in the Visitation of the Sick ; and as to the third opinion, we cannot conceive from the reverence which Bishop Alexander ex- presses in this very speech for the Evangelical clergy of older times, that he would wish in any way either to embarrass their consciences in the Church, or to exclude them from it. Yet if he really bolds none of these views, it is certainly a mistake, as it seems to us, to assert that the new preface lowers the meaning of anything And now, if some shall complain that these changes are not in the Prayer-book in any sense analogous to that in which non- natural explanations of the divinity of Christ lower the meaning of the term "divine," as applied to him.
Nor do we think the Irish Church mistaken in making these changes, so long as she does not thereby really diminish the scope and range of her comprehension, which, in spite of the Bishop's pro- test, it does not seem in the present case that she does do. The doc- trine of Transubstantiation is intelligible enough, and the doctrine of the Articles is intelligible enough, but the attempt to believe, at the same time, that the elements are both something in them- selves adorable, and also mere symbols of what is really adorable, is a pure mischief, a discipline in spiritual calisthenics. The sooner that is got rid of in any Church without running any risk of expelling from it a large class of hard-working and earnest clergy, the better. Now, in the only case where that risk would have been run,—the case of the language which seems to assume baptismal regeneration,—the Irish Church has very wisely left the matter just where it was, permitting the same sort of freedom which the Gorham judgment permits in England. To us, the doctrine of a specific change of nature in baptism seems as alien to the general belief of the Anglican Church, as it is clearly ger- mane to the particular formula of the baptismal service ; and if the clergy were not known to be so deeply divided on the sub. ject, we should have been glad to see that great ground of moral embarrassment removed. The fact being, as it is, however,—that the moderate High Churchmen would have been as certainly excluded by any change, as the Evangelicals would have been by any explicit adherence to the doctrine of regeneration in baptism, the Irish Church seems to us to have acted most wisely in leaving the indeterminate question undetermined still. It is only where the habit of encouraging paradoxes can be removed without narrowing the practical basis of the Church that any such course would be legitimate. And it is evident, both by the smallness of the numbers against change, and the hesitating character of the argu- ments by which change was opposed, that on the two po bats on which the Irish Church has ventured explicitly to put the ex- tinguisher, as it were, on the half-smouldering embers of a prac- tically-surrendered belief ,—the belief in the necessity of absolution in addition to penitence, to secure the forgiveness of sins, and the belief in transubstantiation,—there will be no real hardship to the consciences of the minority, and a very great addi- tion to the coherence of the modified forms of worship. Least of all can we understand the Bishop's objection to the very dignified and wise assertion of the fallibleness of human judg- ment with which the new preface concludes. If that is "the sigh or the smile of a higher intellect over the imbecility of human specu- lations and the inadequacy of human language," then assuredly St. Paul's statement that in the higher life prophecies shall fail and tongues shall cease and knowledge shall vanish away, is a very much more audible sigh, or a very much more visible smile of the same kind. Yet Bishop Alexander would hardly say of St. Paul that that statement of his was not the natural product of a faith that removes mountains. We have a great admiration for the Bishop of Derry, but we confess that in this instance it seems to us that the spirit of the Ecclesiastical Conservative has proved stronger than the spirit of the religious teacher. The Irish Church has been prudent. But to our minds, she will be all the simpler and stronger for the cautious simplifications she has made in her liturgy ; and not the less beloved for having made them with no undue arrogance and in no spirit of dictatorial infallibility.
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