THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH AND SACERDOTALISM.
THE letter from Sir Edward Strachey which we publish in another column, presents a view of the attitude which the State ought to take in relation to Ritualism which is, we believe, shared by a considerable number of men who, while they are opposed to all intolerance towards the religious views of individuals, hold that the State ought to lend its authority to no typo of faith which does not contribute some- thing to the general stream of widening thought and pro- gress. That view is, we believe, in essentials something like this,—that so long as the somewhat anomalous constitution of the Church of England does not prevent a steady progress of thought within its borders in the right direction,—the right di- rection being assumed to be what is denoted by anti-Sacerdotal, —so long the State need not scruple to support it, even though there be much in it obviously tending in the Sacerdotal direction ; but if at any time evidence could be produced that the current was setting backwards,—towards a religion of a priestly type,—then the time would be come either to expel that section of retrogressive thought from the Church, or to dissolve the tie between the State and all sections of a Church infected by so malignant a virus.
Now, if what is called Sacerdotalism means, as we suppose it does, the acceptance of the principle that supernatural grace essential to the highest life and conduct is and can be conveyed to human beings only by the agency of a particular order of men, whose guarantee for this supernatural power is the accurate execution of the long series of transactions described as the due transmission of Orders from the time of the Apostles to our own, we heartily agree with Sir Edward Strachey that the doctrine is superstitious and spiritually dangerous, and makes the divine grace to depend on a succession of circumstantial accidents, of which no man can verify the historical regularity. The Catholic Church itself, as we think, was driven to protest against this doctrine when it decided that Christian Baptism was not dependent on any such order of men, but could be administered by any man, woman, or even by any heathen, if really administered in the due form, and with the right intention. But this is not the place to go into a discussion on the meaning and limits of sacerdotalism ; what we desire here to discuss is the true limit in modern times to the principle of an Established Church, and whether it is or is not possible to discri- minate a tenable from an untenable Establishment on Sir Edward Strachey's ground. We believe it to be a wholly untenable ground, though we would go with him so far as this :—We should say cordially that so far as it is a question whether or not an Establishment ought to be retained or done away with, every one who believes Sacerdotalism to be a misehief, must regard it as pro tanto an argument against the Establishment, if a steady current of Sacerdotalism is believed to be gaining strength in the National Church, and is receiving aid and fresh resources from the adkuitted inheritance of the whole nation. Every reasonable person would, of course, esti- mate the good or ill of an Establishment by the amount of good or ill which the teaching and practice of the Church diffuse. So far as any influence false and dan- gerous is on the increase, so far you have an argument for Disestablishment. So far as any influence for truth and virtue is on the increase, so far you have a reason against it. You must set the one influence against the other, and judge as you best can of the total result. But we do not apply this to false- hood tending towards Sacerdotalism alone. We apply it quite as much to falsehood tending in other directions. If we thought that a diluted Calvinism, such as many of our Thirty-nine Articles appear to favour, were on the increase, we should say just the same of that. If we thought, as we are somewhat inclined to think, that a faint and insincere Agnosticism were on the increase, we should say just the same of that. It is impossible, in such a day as the present, to limit our view of dangerous tendencies in any one direction. It is a time of intellectual fermentation, and all sorts of germs of both truth and falsehood are in the air, and all are producing great effects on the organism into which they are admitted. Why is Sacerdotalism alone, false as we think it, to be taken account of ? Is it more fascinating, or more danger- ous to national progress in the nineteenth century than Agnosticism ? Nay, is it half as dangerous ? Then, again, it seems to us an utter mistake to consider mere doctrinal teaching alone. We must consider also the effect produced by the "works " of the different Church schools, and if their national work is good in spite of false teaching, —be that teaching what is called Sacerdotal, or Calvinistic, or Rationalistic in tendency,—we must set that off against the mischief of their doctrine.
But what we cannot consent for a moment to allow is that any school of the Church, whether it seems to us false and dangerous, or true and beneficent, should, so long as it is legitimately there, have any but fair-play. Now, is the school, which Sir Edward Strachey calls Sacerdotal, legitimately within the Church ? Of course it is. The Reformation struck a heavy blow at the independence of the priest- hood of the Secular Government. But it not only did not strike at the principle of an Order in exclusive possession of the sources of a supernatural grace which no ,layman could dispense, but it left that principle in all its force. The reason, as Sir Edward Strachey well knows, of the Noncon- formist Secession in 1662 was precisely the inability of the Seceders to acquiesce in the Act of Uniformity, and especially to acquiesce in its demand of adhesion to the sacerdotal elements in the Prayer-book. These elements remain what they were. The form of Absolution in" The Visitation of the Sick" is well-nigh the most sacerdotal form in use in Christen- dom. For ourselves, we think it a most superstitious form, but it is still used, and necessarily used, by all clergymen who give absolution in the sick-room. In a milder sense, the principle that real supernatural grace is communi- cated by the laying-on of hands is probably held by the majority of our Bishops and nearly half our clergy. It is not a little thing that we have gained from the Judicature a legal recognition of the right of those who ignore this principle to maintain their places in the Established Church. If we are to begin expelling from the Established Church on the ground of sympathy with false- hood, we must be able to lay before Parliament a standard of theological truth, and gain its acceptance to that standard. Is that a statesmanlike proposal ? Would Sir Edward Strachey himself like to try and convince Parlia- ment, as Parliament is at present constituted, what ought to be the test of error disqualifying for a right to teach and work in the National Church ? No sane man would willingly contemplate such an enterprise. And for this reason ; if you are to measure the " advance " of thought, by its distance from
the real beliefs of the sixteenth century, you would have to com- mend Agnosticism and the blankest Rationalism, and to argue that the author of "Supernatural Religion" should be made a Bishop by acclamation, if you are to measure theological advance" by any other more positive standard, what is that standard ? No,—this is not the way in which now-a-days it is possible to promote the elimination of error from our own or any other Church. What we can do is this,—to insist on the strictest and most impartial justice in administering the law, and, if you please, on a moderate relaxation of the inter-
.protation of the law. Sir Edward Strachey was probably no worse pleased than we were, -when the decision of the Judicial Com- mittee on the" Essays and Review" case rendered it possible for clergymen who took a very lax view of the doctrine concerning eternal punishments for all who do not die in a state of grace, to remain in the Church, Well, all we insist on is this,—that the justice for one section shall be the justice for other sections of the Church. Do not let us be guilty of the ineffable mean- ness of trying to stretch the cord of judicial interpretation so as to include our friends, and then to tighten it so as to ex- clude our foes. If truth is the only object, go at it at once, and insist that only truth shall be established, or rather,—for that is now impossible,—that there shall be no establishment. But if you do not judge in that way, if you look at the matter feom the statesman's point of view, and regard the Established Church as a great historical institution deeply rooted in the social life of the land, which must be allowed to clevelope both the tares and, the wheat sown within it till the time for the harvest arrives, let at least our treatment of all be equal. Let us keep the right, if we can, for Broad Churchmen to teach freely within the Church ; but if we hold to that, let us not contest the equal, or, historically speaking, the still better right for the Sacerdotal party to teach within it. We venture to say that the whole tendency, both of statesmen and or Ecclesiastical Judges, of recent years, except as regards the miserable precedent of 187.1, has been to encourage all sections of the Church who can find a firm standing-ground at all, to see how far they can gain a hold over the lives of the people, and to leave truth and error, and oven intellectual indifferentism, all competing with each other for the hearts of the people, and all at liberty to do what they can to further the morality of the people. The attempt made in 1874
to brand one particular section of legitimate Church opinion, —and the Sacerdotal vein of opinion is perfectly legitimate in the historical sense, in our multiform Church,—as intoler- able, was a blunder of the first magnitude. And if it be not undone, it will be a blunder very likely to prove fatal to the Establishment. We hold it no light thing that a secure foot- ing for distinctly anti-Sacerdotal teaching has been gained in the Establishment. But to pretend that by any means short of a distinct appeal to Parliament to put down theological error, and establish theological truth, Sacerdotal teaching can fairly be expelled from the Establishment,—to hold that it can be expelled without gross injustice worse than any tolera- tion of falsehood, by any such side-wind as the action of the Judicature can set in motion,—seems to us an opinion so wild, that we have difficulty in understanding how so states- manlike a thinker as Sir Edward Strachey can have entertained it for a moment.
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