THE CASE OF DR. ROWLAND WILLIAMS*
Mn. STEPHEN'S manly and learned argument for Dr. Rowland Wil- liams deserved longer life than the columns of a newspaper give. In itself, the Essay which he was called upon to defend is, perhaps, as indifferent a production as ever made its author notorious. But it has the merit which a blundering man's productions often have, of stating crudely and in a highly assailable form, views which are just now maturing or half-matured in many minds. We are probably about to pass through a time of great speculative ferment, when the thoroughness of our actual systems of thought will be roughly tested. Apart from the mere interest of curiosity that will always attach to the man who fires the first gun in a campaign, it is worth while to look out on the field of battle before friend and foe are inex- tricably involved. Mr. Stephen's speech gives one aspect, at least, and perhaps the most important, of the question, What liberty of thought is allowed to the clergy in the Church of England? The subject is far from being a simple one, but it seems naturally to fall under two main heads — the question of contract and the ques- tion of honour. The great interest of Mr. Stephen's speech, in fact, lies in this, that he has stripped his cause as much as possible of technicalities, and staked it on these broad issues.
The importance of the question of contract is a little apt to be overlooked. Yet, in reality, it is easy to see that neither conscience nor self-respect can exist in any society that is not based upon some- thing more permanent than the momentary opinion or whim of its governing body. If a clergyman is really to be bound by some vague unacknowledked creed that he has never subscribed, or to obey the orders of his superior like a soldier at drill, lie may still be a very valuable state servant to register births and deaths, or to dis- tribute clothing funds ; but his function as a spiritual guide is at an end. This is so well understood, practically, that Parliament, when it passed the Divorce Act, and found that a large body of the clergy had a conscientious objection to marry a divorced man or woman during the first partner's life, abstained from pressing its constitu- tional powers in the fear of doing violence to scrupulous consciences. In the same way Mr. Gorham was allowed to hold a highly peculiar form of belief about the sacrament of Baptism, because it did not violate any ecclesiastical provision to the contrary. Every party benefits in turn by this theory; and if a few dishonest men from time to time contrive by favour of it to maintain a position to which they have no right, their success is no more a scandal to the Church than the enlisting of a few rebels at heart would be to the army. We cannot invent tests which shall gau,ge a rogue's honesty of pur- pose. One of our bishops has, we believe, tried the plan of im- posing articles of faith of his own framing on candidates for orders in his diocese. The first man who had the courage to refuse to sign of course shattered the disgraceful conscience-trap irreparably. But conceive what the state of England would be if bishops, or any other set of men, were allowed to map out the country. in this way according to their peculiar convictions. Even as it is, men flock naturally into dioceses where they think that their special crotchets are favoured. But by the present system, rough as it may be, any man who thinks within certain limits may claim to be insti- tuted; and those limits vary between Pu.sey and Goode, between Maurice and Mansell. Increase the power of bishops, or of Convo- cation, or of the Privy Council, so as to make them legislate instead of administering law, and twenty years more would see the embryo deacon called upon to subscribe books instead of articles, and examined as the Loudon Missionaries are, whether he had been converted, and what are the special marks of a state of grace.
What, then, it may be said, constitutes the contract by which a cler- gyman is bound? The answer would not seem to be very difficult. As the framework of our Church was virtually reconstructed at the Reformation, it has no common-law, so to speak, for its doctrine, no unwritten principles to determine new points by their analogies. The statutable declaration of Anglican doctrine is contained in the Book of Common Prayer, and in the Thirty-nine Articles. Any one wanting further guidance must look for it in the ecclesiastical cases that have been 'decided from time to time. But if the point be altogether a new one, or at least have never been ventilated in the courts, he may still glean a kind of negative information from the unauthoritative opinions of standard Anglican divines. He can hardly go far wrong if he follow in the footsteps of Jewel, Hooker, or Butler. Here we reach a point at which Dr. Williams may be tested practically. One of the two chief charges against him states that the manifest tendency of his whole Essay is to reduce the Scriptures to the level of a mere human composition, denying their truth as histories, explaining away the miracles recorded in and denying that they contain prophecies of future events. Mr. Stephen comments forcibly from the legal point of view, on the loose wording of a charge which, without specifying words, imputes
• Defence of the Rev. Rowland William, AD., in the Arches Court of Canterbury. By James Fitajames Stephen, M.A., Recorder of Newark-on-Treat London: Smith, Elder, & Co. a tendency. Bat without regard to this the real question is, whether Dr. Williams was in any way bound by his ordination vow, to hold that Scripture was inspired as a record of fact, or that its narratives are to be interpreted in the supernatural rather than the natural sense. The Articles merely say, that "Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation," and seem studiously to avoid declaring that everything in Scripture is literally or equally true. It can hardly be said that this latitude was the result of accident, for the two great schools of opinion in the sixteenth century were divided on this very subject, Calvin declaring that the Bible was proved by the witness of the Spirit, and was superior to the Church in authority, while Luther went so lar in the opposite direction, as to assert that the Gospel was not to he found in the Gospels. Moreover, putting out of question extreme men like Servetus, there was a school of Biblical critics—" dogs" as Calvin gently terms them—who explained away the supernatural element in Scripture. Probably Zuingli, who classed Theseus and Hercules among the patriarchs, would not be considered sound in the present day. It is likely, therefore, that if the framers of the articles did not pronounce at length, and positively, on the full nature of Biblical inspiration, they did so advisedly, and in the belief that it was a question upon which moderate and Christian men might very well have various opinions. This theory will be strengthened if we look at the whole consensus of antiquity and the language of modern divines. Tertullian, Augustine, and Basil may be instanced as well- known Fathers who regarded the Bible as only one among several sources of faith, and as by no means the most certain. Throughout the middle ages the same feeling prevailed, and Abelard, who wrote a treatise on the contradictions of Scripture ; Occam, who called Job a Pagan; and Duns Scotus, who followed Augustine in declaring that he would not believe the Bible if it did not come to him from the Church, show, at least, that men who were bound by a strong Church system did not needlessly double their own fetters. Passing on to later centuries, we find Mr. Stephen quoting Hooker Chillingworth, Lowth, and Warburton, as having maintained implicitly or explicitly that the Bible was not infallible. It will be evident that he has exer- cised a wise discretion, and that if names less illustrious were needed, they could easily be found ; but the argument can dispense with such champions as Hurd and Middleton. Neither, it may be observed, is there any question in all this of the doctrine of literal inspiration, which we believe the late Mr. Haldane Stewart invented, and which no sensible man, in times when theology was a serious study, was ever likely to hold. Success or defeat are risked on the broad issue of his- torical inspiration. And lest it should be thought that a preeiser truth in these matters has been attained by modern thinkers, Mr. Stephen has taken peculiar pains to ascertain the opinions of the present bench of bishops. It is gratifying to find that our Primate has recorded in print his strong opinion against "the absurdity of supposing that the literal interpretation of terms in Scripture ought to interfere with the advancement of philosophical inquiry." The Bishop of London holds that the theological student has a right to inquire into "the relation between spiritual truth". . . "and those other departments of knowledge, not spiritual, with which it must be mixed up in the process of its transmission as physical science, ethnology, &c." Boldest of all is the Bishop of Hereford, who thinks "it would be nothing strange or objectionable in a revelation, were we to find em- bodied in its language much of the false ethical philosophy which systems may have established." Here, we confess, we hesitate to follow his lordship.
A right understanding of this whole question of Inspiration is eminently important at the present day. A party numbering many active and good, though, perhaps, no very able men, is adopting the old tactics of the Jesuits, "Rome or Infidelity," and tries to prove that there is no middle course between literal acceptance of the Bible and hopeless scepticism. In other words, religion is staked on the abjuration of the right to think. If this unfortunate position ever come to be tacitly conceded, we shall see every honest and thoughtful man going out from the camp of Christianity, as the angels left the ark when Jerusalem was doomed. We believe, how- ever, that the sound sense of the majority will save us from this monstrous extreme, and that it will be seen before long that the doctrine of partial inspiration is the only refuge from contradictions and moral impossibilities. There are many cases in life in which the half is greater than the whole. But the question of inspiration, although a prominent feature in the case of Dr. Williams, is scarcely the most important. The second main point that has been urged against him is that his writings imply an absolute disbelief in the supernatural element of religion. He is charged with denying or interpreting "by a meaning at variance with that of the Church the doctrines of Original Sin, of Infant Baptism, of Justification by Faith, Atonement, and Propitiation, by the Death of Our Saviour, and of the Incarnation of Our Saviour.' Here the general ground taken by the defence is, that Dr. Williams was only giving an appre- ciative statement of Baron Bunsen's peculiar theories. This argument may be perfectly good in point of law—of that we are nq judges—but it seems to us very insufficient if tried by the ordinary canons of honour. No one will, of course, deny that it is allowable for a theo- logian to present the last results of German inquiry, even though they be heterodox, for the consideration of his brother clergy, or that such men as Baron Bunsen and Strauss deserve to be spoken of with respect and sympathy. But if language has any meaning, Dr. Williams's essay implied something more than this—agreement, not, perhaps, on every minute point, but substantially. A politician, who should occupy himself with explaining in a popular manner andwith high praise the theories, let us say of Mr. Disraeli on government, would
certainly have no right to be astonished if the Liberal party refused to acknowledge him as a confederate. We are apt to suspect the soldier of a beleaguered garrison, who is perpetually straying into the enemies' camp, and can talk of nothing but their strength when he returns. In the present case Baron Bunsen explains the Incarna- tion to be Christ's union with God by the spirit of love ; justifica- tion by faith to mean the peace of mind consequent on a sense of moral responsibility; the baptismal waters to be a mere symbol of purity ; and the resurrection to be a spiritual quickening. Dr. Williams puts all these theories in the most favourable light, and does not, even hint a qualification ; contrasts them in a poetical effusion "with the fables strange our hirelings preach ;" and observes that it is, perhaps, no fatal objection—rather, if we understand him rightly, quite the contrary—that St. Paul, if he be understood in this way, is made to teach natural religion. It is not for us to limit religious thought, or to say that these views, different though they be from our own, are not true, but we do feel stronglythat they are in direct anta- gonism to the principles on which the English Church was founded. In fact, the defence does not dispute this ; it only claims for Dr. Williams the right of expounding tenets, which itpractierdly admits he is not at liberty to hold. It is of course a question of honour and conscience, with which a court of law ought not to deal, and we do not wish to see an Inquisition in England, which shall have the power of tying a man down to the logical consequences of his words. We should be sorry even to see any strong pressure of public opinion against Dr. Williams. There is such a thing as a precipitate honesty, and society gains nothing if its members substitute impulse for reflection. But we do regard him as in a position which cannot be maintained per- manently, except at the cost of moral genuineness ; he must either advance or recede. We speak the more strongly, because we know that many Liberals watch the multiplication of logical contradictions in the Church with the highest satisfaction, and pending the time when they think it may be reformed, desire to see a practical licence established, by which every test may be violated or evaded. It is the same feeling that leads Red Republicans to assist in aggra- vating the rottenness and oppressions of a tyranny, that it may crash the sooner. It is dishonest : and when we have said this, we have said all.
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