A BISHOPS ADVICE TO THE CLERGY.
THE Bishop of Carlisle has published a volume of addresses delivered to ordination candidates, for which the Anglican laity owe him a debt of gratitude (" Quiet Hours with the Ordinal," Longmans and Co., 2s. net). The Bishop speaks of "the tranquil genius of our Church of England." His exhortations are in harmony with this genius, and breathe the .very spirit of devotion and modera-
tion. If the clergy could conform • to the Bishop's standard, we might see an increase of sympathy between them and their congregations such as would put the Establishment out of danger. First of all, he makes the doctrinal door of the Church as wide as the Prayer-book will allow, dwelling far more seriously upon the reality of his hearers' vocation than upon the uniformity of their conviction. • He solemnly adjures them not to enter the Church unless they truly believe that they are entering with a religious motive, and not for ambition, or even for bread. At the same time, be assures his hearers that the Church of England requires no evidence of sudden conversion, and no declarations such as spring to the lips of fanatical zealots. "You will notice," he says, "that the questions in the Ordinal are not, Are you certain ? Are you sure ?' but Do you trust ? do you think in your heart' that you are truly called to this office, inwardly moved to this ministry? " The desire to take Orders arises in different minds from different impulses. The Bishop enumerates many reasons and experi- ences which might have led his audience to their decision, not forgetting the one perhaps commonest in the present day, the impulse of pity and love towards humanity. Some among them, be says, may haw been moved by "a sympathetic glimpse of the world with its sins and remorse, its laughter and tears, its failures and aspirations; its griefs and joys, its hopes and despairs, its obvious need of redemption, yet its amazing ignorance of God."
As to the intellectual position of his hearers, the Bishop leaves them all the latitude he can. They will during their ministry, be reminds them, have many bard problems to face, " unless, creeping into a dark and motionless shell, and with- drawing yourselves from learning, thinking people, you cease to learn and to think, and as a consequence drop into cyphers without coefficients." The Bishop does not prophesy smooth things for those who have the courage to think for themselves. They will have to consider, he warns them, "the authenticity and authority of the Bible, its penmen and chronology, its revelations, its inspiration, its interpretation, the Canonical and extra-Canonical writings, the relation of the Bible to the Church, and of both to tradition, the connection of the development of morals and doctrine to the immutable deposit of God, and the progressive apprehensions of men ; the various values of reason and faith, of research and authority."
On all these subjects, the preacher implies, they can at present have but begun to think, and be refuses to go into any one of them at length. "This much, however," we read, " I think I may and ought to say. The English branch of the Catholic Church, whose priests and prophets you desire to be, leaves you a large, wise, and copious liberty touching these questions. None of her authoritative pronouncements bind you down to any narrow or unenlightened views about the Bible. You may thankfully rejoice in this liberty." Perhaps some of our readers will think the words of the Ordination Service will hardly bear so liberal an interpretation, and, indeed, it is not possible to argue that the question, "Do you unfeignedly believe all the Canonical Scriptures of the Old and New Testament ? " was originally framed to allow of such speculation. But a Bishop can only offer to his clergy the explanations and interpretations which satisfy himself. The policy of_the Church of England all through her history hail been to refuse to be bound by the letter of her own forms; and it is a significant fact that a petition for the republication of these addresses of the Bishop of Carlisle was signed by no less a pillar of Anglican orthodoxy than Bishop Gore. Again, our author insists upon no hard-and- fast interpretation of the sentences which are supposed by some to confer the power of forgiving sins upon all those who have Apostolic succession. "Differences of opinion," he admits, "may be reasonably entertained as to the measure of the meaning of these words in relation to absolution and discipline " ; but whatever conclusion they may come to intel- lectually, he urges his hearers to remember the practical fact that those clergy who, through ignorance, negligence, or bad example, lead their parishioners to do wrong, or omit to assist them to do better, are in a very real sense responsible for the retention of their sins.
There is no duty which the Bishop of Carlisle urges upon his clergy more fervently than that of study. He will not admit that a hard-worked clergyman has no time,—an excuse which seems valid enough to the lay mind. Too many clergymen, he laments, "regard their final examination on paper by appointed experts as their emancipation from study." The day of examination is never over, he assures them. "If an examining chaplain ' plucks' you, you may try again; but when your parish has once plucked' you, you will have not a. single feather left." " lfy brothers," he continues in a still more serious strain, "it is altogether impossible for me to express the misery I feel at the thought of the non- studious , clergyman, and especially in an age like ours, when knowledge is increasing on every hand, when an un- enlightened and uninformed ministry is unavoidably a laughing-stock." In view of this duty of study, the preacher advises the clergy to give up some of their less important activities, and not to imagine that no good work can go on without them. "Take stock of your limitations," he says, "and never do anything secular in the parish which you can get some one else to do for you." Do not fancy, he continues, " that you are the only capable person on the planet, or even in the parish." All clerical assumptions of manner he deprecates. Why should an unnatural voice be considered appropriate to the pulpit ? We want " less of the separation of separateness, more separation of sanctity." He condemns without mercy all that professionalism which sometimes makes the clergy exalt ecclesiastical observances above the weightier matters of the law. Such men, he says, "strongly insist on forms and ordinances, but are strangely silent about godly living," and " suffer worship to do duty for work," prescribing "receipts for a righteous death in which a righteous life is not a necessary ingredient." It is the duty, he says, of every clergyman to promote peace and charity among all Christian people, and he points out an instance or two in which a very valuable lesson may be gained from the procedure of Non- conformists in the sphere of religious teaching. In the matter of controversy the Bishop's advice is admirable. The peace of stagnation must not be preferred, he says, to strife against error, but quarrelsomeness must at all costs be avoided. "Live on the best and most friendly terms you can," be says, " with those who differ from you and from whom you differ. Keep no companionships, join no associations, nurse no thoughts, read no journals or books which tend to set men against one another, instead of with one another." " The real peril of controversy," as he truly says, "generally lies in the littleness of the things controverted."
It is surely a sign of vitality in a Church when men in authority press the duty of thought so earnestly upon their subordinates, and strive so hard to make it possible for those to whom thought is a necessity rather than a duty to enter the Church's doors. It is significant, too, how completely the Bishop's requirements coincide with the ideal of the laity, who desire, to put it shortly, that the clergy should be like them- selves, but better than they are,—more spiritual, more moral, not less well informed, and not less industrious. It is a great deal to demand ; but the laity of the Church of England do demand it, and in doing eo they pay the highest possible compliment to their clergy. If they ever despair of getting what they ask, the' days of the Church of England will be numbered. We are a Protestant nation with an instinct for moderation in all things. If a clergyman's mind and chaincter command reverence, he can have what sacerdotal prejudices he pleases, so far as the parish will care: but we shall never give to the average clergyman a sacerdotal pedestal to lift him a head and shoulders above the people. Be must gain ascendency, if he wants it, by the methods pointed out by the Bishop of Carlisle.
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