THE NEW METHOD WITH HERETICS.
THE Bishops, of course, love us all dearly, even those of us who are " erring" brothers. It was quite evident the other day that they loved the Sunday excursionists, and only wished to do unto the poor townspeople as they would that the poor townspeople would do unto them. But their love has never shone out in so sweet and holy a flame as in the address to one of their own brethren. Sweet as are the ties of human fellowship and Christian fellowship, the ties of " brotherly anxiety " are deeper still. A soft and solemn harmony of love breathes out in the letter from the Arch- bishops and Bishops to their Right Reverend Brother of Natal, from which we do not wonder that Dr. Hampden, Bishop of Hereford, could not bear to be excluded, while even the only really eminent scholar in the episcopal ranks, the Bishop of St. David's, must have felt it something of an effort to withhold his voice. But it was a pity that Dr. Hampden, in pressing rudely into that chorus of mellow voices, should have struck a discord in his impetuous haste. He wishes his name to be included, " though,' says his lordship, " the address is not so condem- natory as I could have wished it to have been." Condemna- tory ! Why, the tone of it was a low whisper of episcopal love and sorrow—a musical plaint of prayer and pathos, entreating the Bishop of Natal to subdue his selfish will, and return into harmony with the other rulers of the Church, " heart to heart, as lute to lute." Dr. Hampden should not have broken the impression of this tender and subduing strain by such a jarring note as that. The Bishops had realized something of the spiritual grief and sweet candour of that great man who said to his opponent, " You have beaten me with a stick that I have every reason to believe has knobs on it, but I am not angry ; " and Dr. Hampden spoils it all by saying that he is angry, and wishes they had been angry too.
But the Bishops who thus gently return a kiss for a blow will reap their reward. Such a spirit as theirs immediately infects the whole Church under their rule. And, though Dr. Colenso himself repels their overtures, it must, we think, have been the affectionate and unselfish tone of the Episcopal letter which suggested to Dr. Pusey on the following day the fourth great head of his refutation of Mr. Maurice. He will no longer appeal to the mere right of the Church to exclude heretics ; he appeals, like the Bishops, to the best and most unselfish side of heretics' nature. He exhorts them, as the Bishops exhort Dr. Colenso, to take account for others to think less of themselves, and more of the scandals and the stumbling-blocks which they put in the way of others,—to sacrifice themselves with heroic unselfishness
for the interests of the people. This is so new a line with Dr. Posey, and so unlike the rigorous ecclesiastical severity of his ordinary demeanour towards heretics, that we cannot help ascribing the change of tone to the blessed influence of the episcopal example. "It seems to me strange," he says, "that Mr. Maurice dees not see that this claim for unbounded liberty on the part of the clergy is a claim on behalf of clerical selfishness. The clergy exist not for themselves, but for the people. Unlimited freedom of the clergy is oppression to the people. We are members of one body expressing a common faith. The people do not want to be taught a different faith, else they would go elsewhere." From which Dr. Pusey argues, as we understand him, first, that the wish of constituents is the true basis of a church--a strange doctrine, perhaps, for the leader of the high Anglican movement of 1833 ;- next, that the wish of constituents is to be tested by the -old formulas drawn up three hundred years ago simply because the popular voice has never positively demanded their revision or abolition ; and, finally, that on this ground the Liberals of 1863 are bound to cast away all selfish thoughts, and to immolate themselves for a people who are so -attached the formulas of 1563. There is something novel and striking, no doubt, in this appeal to the nice feelings of heretics, but we are a little afraid that even Dr. Pusey is losing his hold in this matter of solid ecclesiastical ground. There is this difficulty, that if it be admitted that the people are to choose for themselves what doctrine they will have,—which seems to us uncommonly like a Congre- gationalist's or Independent's view, and very unlike Dr. Pusey's on any other occasion but the present,—then you may have a much better than any inferential test of this asserted " selfishness " of the Liberal party—a direct test. Do the young men, or the parents of the young men who are under Mr. Iowett's teaching at Oxford, wish to get rid of him or not? Surely if it is the violence to the people which Dr. Pusey has so suddenly taken to heart, that is, the injury to their feelings caused by inflicting on them or their -children a teacher who cannot teach them " what they -want to be taught," it is easy to ascertain this by somewhat more direct processes than Dr. Pusey's curious argument. He reasons, " The University has always been committed to Church principles,—the Church three hundred years ago adopted the Thirty-nine Articles; —therefore, the English who send their sons to the University are anxious that every tutor of that University should hold those Articles in any sense which a court of law would now put upon them." No one will deny that this is precarious reasoning. No one can deny that if Dr. Pusey really has at heart to give effect to the present wishes of the English people, it might be done in some more explicit manner—say by an appeal to the House of Commons. Will Dr. Pusey assert that the House of Commons could now be made to enforce rigidly on all Oxford tutors and professors the -elaborate doctrinal tests of the sixteenth century ? If not, it can scarcely be by this new-found passion for the right of the English people to be taught " what they want to be taught," that Dr. Pusey really justifies his protest against any catho- licity of comprehension in the University of Oxford as well as in the Church of England.
But the principle goes further. In the case of the Univer- sity, the test of popular wish could scarcely be applied, except through the House of Commons. But in the case of the Church, we do not see how Dr. Pusey could evade the logic of any one who infers from his principle that individual con- gregations are oppressed if they, too, are not taught " what they want to he taught." Were not Mr. Macnaught's con- gregation at Liverpool oppressed because, when he became rationalist, and they had become rationalists with him, and wished to be taught rationalism, he was constrained to leave them? We never heard that Mr. Heath's people, or Dr. Williams's people, or even Mr. Wilson's people, complained that they were oppressed by not being taught what they wanted to be taught. We generally find that heretical clergy- men, if very much in earnest, contrive to get a large part of their flock to follow them, and sometimes when gifted with great powers like the late Mr. Robertson, of Brighton, contrive to teach what people " want to be taught" a good deal more effectively than Dr. Pusey or Archdeacon Denison. If this mere wish of the people, then, is to be the test,—and we are ourselves far from thinking it the true test,—for the clerical conscience, then we fear that no eloquence of Dr.
Pusey's will be effective in convincing the heretical pastors and still less the heretical tutors, that they are very selfish oppressors of the nation in remaining where they are. Eng- lish common sense is not often like Dr. Pusey's ; it does not find out what living people " want to be taught," by travel- ling back to formulae three hundred years old, and arguing from their non-repeal that they represent the popular wish still ;—at least, to most men this method would seem clumsy in the presence of ample direct evidence.
The truth is, that the friends of the narrowing policy have a dim sense that directly exclusive measures are--,-,ot at all popular, and that if they can edge the b without seeming to do so, that would be thi °Wet policy. So they appeal to the better feelings—to the honour and disinterestedness—of the enemy, instead of giving open battle. The Bishops tenderly suggest to Dr. Colenso that it is want of humility and an inattention to prayer which have probably led him wrong, or, at least, they say unequivocally that " deeper study" and " earnest prayer" would be sure to bring him right again,—a hint which, coming as it does from men, many of whom are, like the Bishop of Rochester, confessedly quite incompetent to study the Hebrew of the Pentateuch even as deeply as Dr. Colenso, must clearly refer more to the prayer than to the study. Dr. Piney has not yet gone so far. His better taste forbade him to say that if Mr. Jowett would pray a little more, he would come to agree with Dr. Pusey ; but he is embarking on the same parallel of argument, when he assures Mr. Maurice that if the clergy would only cast away all sel- fishness they would see that they ought, out of love to the people, to accept cheerfully the narrowest interpretation of the Articles.
For ourselves, though agreeing neither with Mr. Jowett nor Dr. Colenso, we are very sure that the Church of Eng- land ought to include them both, if it is to be as large as the wants of the English people. The Church of Christ must rest upon the personal life and presence of Christ, and no one who does not hesitate to proclaim that, should be excluded simply for getting into difficulties about early Hebrew history, or accepting a theory of mediatorial efficacy which is not that of the sixteenth century. As for the " scandals" of which the Bishops talk,—or the oppression to the feelings of the people not taught what " they want to be taught," of which Dr. Piney talks,—these things must be. But the greatest of all hindrances to the real grasp of Truth,—the greatest of all scandals,—the greatest of all oppressions, is to give the people teachers who do not and cannot honestly work out their own convictions,—who suppress the temporary phases of their own intellectual growth for the sake of uniformity,—who are untrue for the sake of what others call Truth. The clergy are less and less trusted every day by the people as sincere teachers : and the feminine, not to say feline tender- ness of the episcopal speeches and epistles on heresy, justly increases that distrust. If they are to become once more masculine teachers of men, let them feel once more the novel sensation of Christian freedom.
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