LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
CHURCH REFORM OR CHURCH DLSESTABLISHMENT ?
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE SPECTATOR:1
Sin,—You state the case very fairly, and I go a long way with your argument. The question resolves itself into a choice of difficulties. I am " fatalist " enough to believe that the wrong "choice cannot escape the penalty, but I do not think the alterna- tive so devoid of resources as you suppose. Let us define our point of difference. We are agreed that nothing but mischief can come of the Public Worship Act as the Rubrics stand, and that Convocation can do nothing by revising them. The Revision you want is not to expel Dean Stanley nor Archdeacon Denison (or any one else), though I quite agree with you that "the obvious sense of the formularies would seem to render both their positions quite untenable." You go so far as to add that "there is no pro- posal by any reasonable person to make the Church less comprehen- sive." Reasonable or not, however, this and nothing else is the very object of the Public Worship Act, and of the Rubrical Revision desired to make that Act practicable. The large majorities of Peers and Commoners did avowedly mean to make one of those two positions legally untenable inthe Established Church, and not a few voted on the assurance that some others would be found in the same category. Such was the lay mind as represented in Parliament. If we turn to Convocation, what sort of revision .could be honestly expected from the representatives of the 'clergy? You complain that the obvious sense of their formu- laries is too little considered by theologians ; "what the English people want is to see less intellectual shuffling on the part of the "clergy." What else, then, could be desired from Convocation than to pronounce in favour of the "obvious sense," and make the extreme positions on every side more untenable than at present? And what could follow, but either the expulsion of the two digni- taries you have named (with a good many more), or a fresh exhi- bition of "intellectual shuffling" to maintain their footing under a revision expressly designed to exclude them ?
But Dean Stanley and Archdeacon Denison are Members of Convocation themselves, and I am not. My humbler class, though vastly larger than theirs, is far less represented in the Jerusalem Chamber. With their talents, and the ad- -vantage of a seat for life, they might, perchance, snap a majority, and instead of being turned out of the Church, turn the Church out of Convocation ! Parliament could set that right by suppressing Convocation, but what can be the use of a revi- silon of which you know beforehand that it must be either restric- tive or nugatory? So far, I claim you on my side.
You further admit that the English people do not want a new Church. "There is no proposal," you say, "by any reasonable ,person to make the Church less comprehensive. But there is a very real wish on the part of all straightforward men to make it as comprehensive in form as it is in fact." Here you bring the question into a nutshell. The revision you desire is not to bring the Church back to the "obvious sense" of the Rubrics, but to accommodate the rubrics to the present practice of the Church. This is a very clear and definite proposal, and one that does not at all stand in treed of a lay element to obtain con- sideration. In fact it is diametrical*, opposed to the lay mind, as declared in the Public Worship Act, while it is favoured by the Clergy to an extent you may hardly suppose. A meeting last week of the Rural Deanery to which I belong was almost equally divided on a proposition to this very effect, and it was only by a single vote that I carried a majority for leaving the rubrics un- touched. We were unanimous for keeping the present comprehen- sion in fact, and those who were for also keeping the farm were only afraid to lose the substance in catching at the shadow. There is nothing especially clerical, I hope, in that. To tell you the truth, 1 thought I was maintaining a common-sense lay view against an exaggerated clerical scruple.
You see, however, "something humiliating and prepos- terous," not in theologians of differing views ministering in the same Church, but in their subscribing the same formularies in different senses. But surely, no other course is possible, if there is to be any subscription with comprehension at all. If the Bible, and the Bible only, were proposed for acceptance, it must be accepted in different senses, or there would be no comprehension. When the Church propounds something more, it can be only her view of revealed truth, and to propose this in terms as an open
question would, indeed, be "humiliating and preposterous." The way to leave a question open is to propound nothing about it. Say what you will, as all language is liable to ambiguity, " Revision " is only another word for "interpretation," and when people differ and do not want to separate, the less they interpret the better. You want "a moderate and real comprehension enforced by the law." Now, " moderate" is an epithet which every one appropriates to himself. When you put your points on paper, you are surprised to find how little they are approved by other " moderate " men. "Real," I suppose, means agreement in a certain sense of words that may be open to other senses ; and if that is to be enforced by law, where is your" comprehension "? Your dogmas, of course, would be few (and therefore to many inadequate to express the Christian faith), but if you had only one, you could not escape the " humiliation " of its being subscribed in dif- ferent senses. If you only said, "I believe in God," or, "I believe in Jesus Christ," there are theologians who would subscribe to either, or both, in senses far more opposed than any now held in the Established Church.
Then for matters of Ritual ; it is a common assertion, and one that is often pressed on the conscience of the clergy, that the pre- sent Rubrics are not and cannotbe observed, and either the Rubrics ought to be reformed to the present practice, or the practice strictly conformed to the Rubrics; the existing diversity is declared to be "immoral." Now after a long and varied experience, I venture to deny this assertion in tote. Of course, there are cases of negligence, perversity, or disobedience, which no ritual can escape, and the tribunals must correct when necessary. But by the bulk of the clergy, as a rule, I affirm that the Rubrics are observed, not only as well, but a great deal better than most other laws, ancient or modern. The spirit of them is universally observed to the best of our knowledge, and the very letter much more closely than in generally supposed. The neglect or partial observance of a ceremony indifferent in itself with the Bishop's sanction, ex- pressed or tacit, is not, I submit, a violation of the law. It is not only no offence in foro conscientite, but it is not an offence for which a conviction could be obtained at a legal tri- bunal. On the whole, I suppose the Rubrics were never so generally observed as they are now. The complaint of the laity, indeed, is that we are too rubrical. All the present commotion is produced by a comparatively few cases of what the police magistrates call "excess of zeal," degenerating in some rare instances into undutiful resistance to Episcopal authority. These are much to be blamed, but excess of zeal is not so common an infirmity of human nature as to call for abnormal legislation. This sort of thing should be left to the moral weight of the Bishops and the clerical profession. There must be always the tribunals in the last resort, but whatever Bishops may think of it, you may depend upon it, Sir, that even a little litigation is worse for the Established Church than a good deal of irregularity and some "defiance."
' On the whole, I hold it to be the wiser course to retain this great mass of living religion, with all its inconsistencies, irregularities, and contradictions, its elasticity here, and its immo- bility there, within the National Establishment, under rubrics universally accepted, and variously interpreted, than to substitute new rubrics, which are certain to be only partially received, and may very soon be as diversely interpreted. I do not wish. to stereotype the average practice of the present moment for future generations. I do not want the Church to be prohibited from rising above the present average, where she can, or front falling below it, where she must. I should hold it a -victory of form over fact ; of the letter against the spirit.
If this is illogical and unsystematic, so is a good deal more in our English Constitution of Church and State, but so long as it answers our purpose we are not fond of doctrinaire reforms. The English are a religious people; they like an Estab- lished Church, their good old Prayer-book, a decorous worship not too different from what they are used to, and a good preacher, even when the sermon is very much above their heads. But they abhor ecclesiastical prosecutions, and do not want to be worried with the parson's rubrics. If the Bishops and clergy cannot pro- vide for their religious needs under the oontrol of Parliament, they will hardly see the good of an Established Church at all.
I want no other argument against Revision at the present time than your own acknowledgment that it requires a new represen- tation of the Church to effect it. In fetching a precedent from Scotland, you go to a country as opposed to our own in all reli- gious arrangements as Ireland is. Neither Scotland nor Ireland ever had a National Church. One is Presbyterian and the other Roman Catholic, but both forms of religion were imported from
abroad, and have never acquired a truly national organisation The distinction is noted by Von Doilinger in his lectures on the reunion of Churches. The Scotch are included with the Swiss and other Continental populations in the Reformed or Calvinistic communion. With the English he observes, "religion and nationality are so completely identified, that the one covers and sustains the other, and neither can exist apart." This is certainly true of our Established Church. The Church was the parent of the English State, and became so thoroughly incorporated with it that it was National before it was Protestant. In Scotland it was quite otherwise. The Kirk was taken into alliance, rather than union, with an unsympathis. ing State at the Revolution ; but the alliance was political more than religious, and proved a cause of division, not of unity. At the present moment, Scotch Presbyterianism is represented in three General Assemblies, of which the Established is spiritually (I suppose) the weakest. These assemblies have each a lay representation, pre- cisely because neither is National. It is a Presbyterian element, not a national one, and (as in all other times and countries) the lay element is found more dogmatic, intolerant, and schismatical than the clerical. For all these reasons, and many more, its in- troduction seems to me impossible, in a Church which is to remain episcopal, national, and comprehensive.
I have already troubled you at too great a length, but as Lord Lyttelton writes to the Guardian, where I cannot answer him, that I "make no attempt to deny the nnchangeableness of the Church in all respects," to which he thinks my view practically leads, I must ask your kind permission to give my reply in another letter.—I am, Sir, &c.,
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