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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/49114-0.txt b/49114-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a26dd79 --- /dev/null +++ b/49114-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1462 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Proposed Surrender of the Prayer-Book and +Articles of the Church of England, by William J. Irons + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most +other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of +the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have +to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. + + + + +Title: Proposed Surrender of the Prayer-Book and Articles of the Church of England + A letter to the Lord Bishop of London + + +Author: William J. Irons + + + +Release Date: June 5, 2015 [eBook #49114] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PROPOSED SURRENDER OF THE +PRAYER-BOOK AND ARTICLES OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND*** + + +Transcribed from the 1863 Rivingtons edition by David Price, email +ccx074@pglaf.org + + + + + + PROPOSED SURRENDER OF THE PRAYER-BOOK AND + ARTICLES OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. + + + A LETTER + TO THE + LORD BISHOP OF LONDON, + ON + PROFESSOR STANLEY’S VIEWS + OF + CLERICAL AND UNIVERSITY “SUBSCRIPTION.” + + * * * * * + + BY + WILLIAM J. IRONS, D.D. + PREBENDARY OF ST. PAUL’S, AND INCUMBENT OF BROMPTON, MIDDLESEX. + + * * * * * + + LONDON: + THEODORE WRIGHT, 188, STRAND; + RIVINGTONS, WATERLOO PLACE; AND PARKERS, 377, STRAND, AND OXFORD. + 1863. + + * * * * * + + LONDON: + SAVILL AND EDWARDS, PRINTERS, CHANDOS STREET, + COVENT GARDEN. + + * * * * * + + + + +A LETTER, +ETC. + + + BROMPTON, _Whitsuntide_, 1863. + +MY DEAR LORD, + +IF twenty years ago, soon after a few of the clergy had asserted their +“claim to hold all Roman doctrine,” {3} a proposal had been made to +abolish Subscription to the English Formularies, it would surely have +been thought to indicate very grave disloyalty to our Church. And now, +when others have asserted the right to unfettered “free-thinking” within +her pale, and endeavoured to vindicate that right in our Courts of Law, +can we help being struck at the intrepidity of the demand to sweep away +at once the sober restraints of orthodoxy to which Churchmen have been so +long accustomed? + +Your Lordship has been openly addressed, as we are all aware, in behalf +of this “Relaxation of Subscription;” but as our Bishop—so deeply +interested in the welfare of the whole Church—I venture to believe that +you will do justice to opposite views, and in offering them to your +attention, I rely on that broad-minded charity to various schools among +us, which has marked your Lordship’s administration of this diocese. + + + +Dr. Stanley’s position. {4a} + + +The eloquent advocacy of Dr. STANLEY on the other side is, indeed, no +slight advantage to the cause of those who would now supersede the +Prayer-book by “modern thought.” In urging the surrender of all +Subscription to our Formularies, he can speak, in his position, with a +_prestige_ and power to which I can have no claim. His testimony as to +the tone of mind now prevailing in Oxford, or among the younger clergy of +the last few years, it is not for me to impeach,—I must leave that to the +Bishop of Oxford; {4b} but certain of his deductions from very limited +facts, I may be permitted, I think, to call in question at once. As one +who, without belonging to any party, has had the happiness of much +friendship with all—as a Churchman, I may add, who has kept steadily to +the old Prayer-book from very early childhood till now—I have had large +opportunities for many years of knowing the heart and mind of my brethren +the clergy, ten thousand of whom not long since responded to an appeal +which I and others had been invited to make to them; and I confess that I +am amazed at Dr. STANLEY’S supposition that Subscription is regarded as a +“grievance” (p. 23), a “perjury” (p. 24), an “absurdity” (p. 20), or an +“imposition” (p. 7) by any considerable number among us. Allowing for +some irritable minds here and there, the generality have seemed to me to +have the deepest appreciation of the “quietness and confidence” which +have been, in the main, secured for our Church by the present laws, which +simply bind the clergy to say that they _believe_ the Prayers which they +use, and the Articles which they adopt as their “standard.” + +Thus much I have felt compelled to say at the outset, because the +opposers of Subscription assume that their clients are so numerous that +to refuse their demands may be to endanger the Church herself. True, +they generously disclaim all designs “to revolutionize the Church of +England” (p. 6 of _The Letter_). This is well; but I am far more assured +by the belief that their power, as yet, is not so formidable as their +intentions. And with this preface, I would pass to the subject-matter of +Dr. STANLEY’S _Letter_. + + + + +Scheme of Comprehension. + + +The point of departure taken for the discussion is the REVOLUTION of +1688, and the attempt then made at what was called “Comprehension.” It +is even suggested that the “High Churchmen” of those days agreed that the +“very being of our Church was concerned” in abolishing “Subscription,” +and substituting for it a general declaration of conformity. The several +attempts at “Comprehension” almost seem to be referred to as +substantially one, and are recommended to us as if originated by enlarged +and exemplary views of the Church’s calling. But, equivocations apart, +(which would be wholly unworthy here), will this be gravely maintained? +Did the “Comprehension Scheme” of 1674 receive no opposition from the +Church? or will not every one own that it was frustrated by the +resistance of the Bishops? Would Dr. STANLEY really say that the Scheme +(not “Act”) of 1689 was founded on a philosophy which would now command +assent? I suppose that he must say it, or how could he refer to it as +our rebuke and pattern? Yet it was, as he will not deny, a political +effort directed against the Roman Catholics; and the reluctance of the +clergy (even under all the pressure of the occasion) to fraternize with +Nonconformists, defeated the measure,—some of the principal Commissioners +who had to manage it, such as the Vice-Chancellor of Oxford, the +Prolocutor of Convocation, and the Bishop of Rochester, openly +withdrawing from it. I really can hardly conceive of a more unfortunate +appeal to history. To represent the clergy of all parties, and +especially “High Churchmen” (p. 33), as approving, on liberal principles, +of the proposed “Comprehension,” and covertly to suggest that +“Subscription” was alien from the spirit of those enlightened days, is, +to speak gently of it, quite “unhistorical”—(if I may so apply a now +familiar term); nor can I forbear to point to the fact that even +Dissenters were required, by the Act of 1 William and Mary, cap. 18, to +“subscribe” a declaration that “the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New +Testament were given by Divine Inspiration.” The parallel breaks down at +every point. Of course, if any one really thinks that England is now in +great danger (as in Sancroft’s days) from the Popish encroachments of the +CROWN, such an one is free to argue as Dr. STANLEY does. If any suppose +that a Papal reaction among the populace is the present peril (as it was +thought to be in Burnet’s days), let them by all means fly to the +“remedial” measures of that era. But for a philosophical historian to +quote, with admiration, Halifax or Nottingham, or refer to certain “High +Churchmen” with approval, can but cause a smile. {7} + +It was a popular beginning of this subject, doubtless, to invoke the +memories of 1688 and the “Toleration Act,” in order to recommend to +English people this proposal to destroy “Subscription;” yet it was +dangerous. For to have pursued the subject fairly from this point would +hardly have assisted the views of the abolitionists. The course of +history would very soon have brought them to the great _Arian_ conspiracy +of 1772, the next noticeable effort to set aside the Articles of the +Church. This, however, is altogether avoided, as if it were unknown to +Dr. STANLEY; and he quickly goes back to the Reformation, and even to the +times of the Primitive Church, to find arguments against “Subscription” +in the abstract, (as well as against our special Anglican form of +it,)—and, must I not say, to get out of the way of WHISTON, and the +“Feathers’ Tavern”? Let us, then, be generous, and forgive the allusions +to 1688, and forget all that followed, and endeavour to examine on its +merits the substance of the “_Letter_.” + + + +“Relaxation” a preliminary movement. + + +The object, my Lord, of the rising movement against “Subscription,” here +appears to be of a purely _preliminary_ character. It is expressly +cleared of all connexion with special grievances. “Revisions” are to +stand over. These are understood to be reserved for future treatment (p. +4). Meanwhile, it is not against the “Articles” only that the feeling is +to be stirred, but “Subscription” to the whole Prayer-book, and even to +the Bible (p. 51), is gently deprecated. Indeed, it seems to be +maintained that our present “Subscription” to the Articles does not +include, as we had supposed, Subscription to the Bible at all. The +objection, however, is scarcely raised in that form. It is to +“Subscribing” _per se_ that the repugnance is felt, as though there were +a morbid dread of “putting the hand to paper,”—such as we sometimes find +in the uneducated classes. And now it is not so much “do not sign +_these_ forms,” as “do not sign _any_ thing;” and Dr. Whately, and +Archdeacon Denison, and the friends of Mr. Gorham, Dr. Rowland Williams, +and Mr. Bristowe Wilson, and Mr. Heath are, as I understand, urged for +once to agree to “relax all subscriptions,” that they may so be set at +more liberty to fight their mutual battles without hindrance. Thus it +is, wonderfully, to be claimed for members of a Christian Church, that +they should be positively pledged to nothing! + + + + +Revision of Prayer-book. + + +Lord EBURY’S measure in the House of Lords did not go this length, +because he had “Revision” more definitely in view; but his arguments +against one form of Subscription are equally valid against all, so that +its entire abrogation is, on his principles, only a question of time. +There is, however, substantial agreement. + +It is most important that this should be understood, and that no false +issue be raised: and this is why I speak of the present proposal as one +for the Surrender of the Prayer-book. Dr. STANLEY would ask nothing so +small as _altering_ Articles or Liturgy; a far simpler way he would show +us. Revision would be mere ‘nibbling’ while Subscription remained. An +Act of the Legislature might just “prohibit,” he says, (p. 32) all +“Subscription.”—Are men, then, so eager for it, that prohibition must be +resorted to? He would not even leave it open to any one to sign; for +thus he triumphantly proceeds:—“_Not a word_ of the Articles need be +touched. They would still be left as the exposition of the Faith of the +_Church of England in the eighteenth century_!—as the _standard_ of its +faith at the present day. _Not a word_ of the Liturgy need be touched. +There are, no doubt, changes which would be acceptable to many, but THEY +MUST BE EFFECTED BY OTHER MEANS,” (p. 33.)—Surely, said the wise man, “in +vain is the net spread in the sight of any bird.” To tell us beforehand +that we are to be coaxed into a general movement to get rid of +Subscription, and, that being done, we must reckon on the subsequent +change of the Prayer-book “by OTHER MEANS,” seems so very like an insult +to the understanding of men of all parties who believe anything, that I +can only explain it by calling to mind the proverbial blindness of genius +when hotly hastening to its own object, and forgetting how it looks to +all around. + +But it may be said that I am overlooking that the Articles and +Prayer-book, though not “signed” or “subscribed,” might still remain—at +least, for a time—as what is called the “standard” of our doctrine. Let +us inquire, then, what this means; for, unless we look it steadily in the +face, we shall be deluding ourselves again by an ambiguous word. It is +suggested by the passage quoted from Burnet (p. 7), and in the argument +of Dr. STANLEY, that we English are generally governed in other matters +by Acts of Parliament,—and why not in religion? We are not expected to +“subscribe” the law of the land, but simply to acquiesce, and submit to +it. It is not binding on the conscience, but only on external obedience. +A man may stand up and read a Statute to others—and then argue against +it. While it exists as law, he must be judged and ruled by it; but he is +free to dislike it, and may labour to change it. This is the parallel +suggested, or if it be not, I have no idea of what is intended; and I +must say, that when thus nakedly looked at, it is the most unveiled +Erastianism avowed in our times, if we except Mr. BRISTOWE WILSON’S in +his Essay. It is what we might expect of Burnet, but scarcely of Dr. +STANLEY, to make the Prayer-book “a legal standard,” but not a matter of +belief: it simply astonishes us. When a great statesman of the last age +told us that our religion was but a “schedule of an Act of Parliament,” +we could at least reply that “ex animo” Subscription makes it _our own_; +but to ask us now to take away even this, seems almost to sever all +connexion between the Church of England and the moral agency of her +Ministers. The Act of 1662, and its “schedule,” the Prayer-book, might +be our “standard” till the next session, and might claim as much +reverence as any other old Act of Parliament,—but no more. Put the whole +proposal, then, of Dr. STANLEY, and of Mr. WILSON, and others into plain +English, and it is this—(and I ask to be corrected if I misinterpret +it)—“_Let the clergy in future sign_ NOTHING, _but let them consent to +adopt and use what the_ PARLIAMENT _may from time to time authorise_.” + +The object, then, being thus simplified, we need not here pause to +estimate the excellences or defects of any of the formularies which we +all alike have thought to be good enough to _sign_. With more than +judicial fairness, Dr. STANLEY admits that the whole Thirty-nine Articles +are “incomparably superior” to the “Nine Articles of the Evangelical +Alliance” (p. 11), or any that would be drawn up by “the dominant +factions” of our Church, _or Commonwealth_. But this kind of criticism +may well be postponed till the prior question is disposed of—whether we +should “sign” _any_ thing? When the Articles and Prayer-book come to be +hereafter discussed, these details may have interest with some, as parts +of the literature of the “_Eighteenth Century_;” but at present might it +not be disrespectful merely to glance at them in a sketchy way, to give +pungency and interest to a somewhat barren subject? I do not say that +the highly rhetorical sentences in which praise and blame are judiciously +administered by Dr. STANLEY to Article 1, 5, 9, or 34, contribute nothing +to the effectiveness of the pamphlet with the “general reader;” but it is +obvious that with the argument, strictly speaking, they have nothing to +do. + + + +Dr. Stanley’s Three Arguments. + + +The Relaxation of Subscription appears, as far as I can gather, to be +urged by three arguments,—the first founded the _origin_ of the +“Subscriptions” among us after the Reformation; the second, on the +alleged absence of “Subscription” in the Primitive Church; and the third +on the practical evils of the present state of “Subscription” in the +Church and in the Universities. If I examine each of these, I shall not, +I think, have omitted any point hitherto prominently alleged in this +controversy. + +I. “The Church of England, as such, recognises absolutely no +Subscriptions.” Such is Dr. STANLEY’S proposition (p. 38). The tests of +membership are “incorporated in the Services to the exclusion, as it +would seem, of all besides.” It is added (p. 39)—“These other +obligations were, in fact, _not contemplated_ at the time of the first +compilation of the Prayer-book and Articles, and have grown up as a mere +excrescence through the pressure of political and ecclesiastical parties. +The Articles were not subscribed (by anything like general usage) till +the 12th year of Elizabeth; they were then, after much hesitation and +opposition, ordered to be subscribed for a special purpose,” &c. + + +The Reformation. + + +Is it possible to suppose that Dr. STANLEY means this for a fair +representation of the spirit and design of the Church of England, from +the beginning of the Reformation to the 12th year of Elizabeth? He +writes as though the Articles were all really to be signed, and the +Prayer-book all settled, and that the Church during all that time +deliberately intended to leave her members such freedom of opinion as he +and others would now restore. If he does not mean this, his argument +falls to the ground. But what are the facts of the case? + +Elizabeth ascended the throne at the close of the year 1558. Every +position of trust throughout the country was then held by Roman +Catholics. The bishops and the clergy were generally devoted to Rome. +The Convocation met, in two months, and drew up Articles presented to +Parliament, which are described as “flat against Reformation, and +_subscribed_ by most of the University.” Even Cambridge is said to have +given her approval. At such a crisis, it was evident that some years +must elapse before any such Revision of Edward VI.’s Articles could be +hoped for, as would obtain general consent. But to represent this pause +as a kind of freedom from “Subscription” enjoyed in earlier and more +liberal times, to say that “the Church,” at least, was ignorant of this +device, when “Subscription” to certain “Articles” was the first step +which the Convocation and the Universities naturally took, immediately +Elizabeth came to the throne, surprises me beyond what I like to express. +The “general reader” is entirely at the mercy of so eloquent a writer as +Dr. STANLEY, and it is not too much to ask that he use his power with a +little generosity; or if he will not, it becomes imperative that his +representations be translated into a humbler style, that the world may +judge how they look. The facts of the case are, in truth, opposed to all +that Dr. STANLEY’S argument requires. Instead of the twenty years and +more, which preceded Elizabeth’s 12th year, being years in which the +Church of the Reformation adopted laxity as its principle, the whole of +the period, from the beginning of the reign of Edward to the year 1571 +(with the exception of the brief interval of Mary’s government), was +occupied in a careful effort on the part of the Reformers to tie down +both clergy and laity by the strictest body of ecclesiastical law, +perhaps, ever attempted to be enacted in the Christian world. + + +The Reformatio Legum. + + +I refer, of course, to the “Reformatio Legum.” The Archbishop of +Canterbury, the subsequently-elect Archbishop of York, and certain +suffragans; great Reformers, such as Peter Martyr and Rowland Taylour; +known scholars, such as Sir John Cheke and Dr. Haddon, were engaged in +this business, which was looked to as the crowning act of the Reformation +of Religion. Archbishop Parker took up the work which Cranmer had begun, +and even pressed it on the reluctant Queen as far as he dared. + + +Subscription demanded in 1553. + + +The connexion of the _Reformatio Legum_ with the Articles of our Church, +and the light which they throw on each other, I need not point out to any +who are acquainted with the history of our Church at that time. The +Forty-two Articles, from which our Thirty-nine were, ten years +afterwards, derived, were first published in 1553. In the November of +the preceding year, Cranmer proposed that the bishops should have them at +once _subscribed_ throughout their dioceses. The death of King Edward +prevented this from being accomplished. They were revised and subscribed +by Convocation in 1563, in the name of the whole clergy of England. The +early chapters of the _Reformatio Legum_ contain the doctrine of the +Articles, and were, no doubt, intended to be an authorized exposition of +them. How strict a system was meant to be inaugurated by the Reformers +may be judged by even a superficial perusal of that Book. Heresy and +blasphemy were to be punishable by death. Adultery was to be visited +with imprisonment and even banishment. Impenitent persons were to be +“handed over to the civil power.” All this was the sort of Discipline +which was waiting to be put in force as soon as the Reformers could +persuade the nation to bear it;—and yet this is the supposed time when +Subscription was alien from the mind of the Reformed Church! + + +Temporary restriction of the Clergy. +Subscription in 1564. + + +But during this interval of twelve years, while the bishops were doing +their best to bring the clergy and people to Uniformity, and preparing +them for the “Discipline” which was openly clamoured for, we find that +immediately after the Articles were published, “advertisements” came out +by authority further to restrain the liberty of the preachers. In 1564, +the clergy, who had by their proctors subscribed the Articles in +Convocation, were required “to protest and _subscribe_” that they would +not preach at all without special license from the bishop, but “only read +that which is appointed by public authority:” and further, that they +would “observe, keep, and maintain, all the rites, ceremonies, good +usages and order” set forth by the Act of Uniformity. Here then was +“Subscription” to the whole Prayer-book as it then stood. And, indeed, +even three years before, the “readers” in Churches were obliged, by +“Subscriptions” to certain injunctions, to execute their office within +prescribed and narrow limits. The state of things doubtless was still +felt on all hands to be but provisional. The great Roman Catholic party +waited, without separating formally. The Puritans were stirring +themselves in the cause of “Discipline:” it was hoped by both parties +that some change might, from the lapse of a few years, better their +position. The latter reckoned on the more aged of the old Popish Clergy +dying out; the former were encouraged by a fanatical prophecy to expect +the death of the Queen herself in the twelfth year of her reign; but +after that time the Puritan and Popish parties became openly defined, +while the Church had as yet no such “Discipline” as could hold her +members together at all, except by the Court of Commissioners. It was to +restrain both parties, then, that recourse was once more had to +“Subscription.” + +Can there be need, my Lord, to pursue any further an inquiry into so well +known a piece of history as this? I should not have said so much, had +not the Ecclesiastical History Professor declared that Subscriptions and +Declarations of Faith were “not in fact _contemplated_ at the time of the +first compilation of the Prayer Book and Articles;” that Subscription is +“superfluous,” “needless,” “capricious,” “extrinsic,” and “accidental,” +(pp. 38, 39), “and that the Church of England, as such, recognises +absolutely no Subscriptions!” I submit to your Lordship, that the Church +of England “at the time of the first compilation of the Articles and +Prayer Book,” encouraged no freedom whatever to diverge from the one or +the other—demanded Subscription (by Cranmer) in 1553—_obtained_ it from +all the bishops and representatives of the clergy in Convocation in +1563—and laboured to restrain both Papists and Puritans within more and +more rigid limits year by year, till by the thirteenth of Elizabeth +“Subscription” was universally enforced, as the only practical substitute +for that Ecclesiastical Discipline which was refused. + +I have purposely abstained from here noticing minor inaccuracies which +singularly abound in the learned Professor’s letter, and have kept to the +main point. His position is that since the twelfth year of Elizabeth, a +stern and gradual growth of Subscription has superseded the liberal +system of the earlier years in which the tolerant Church “knew +_absolutely nothing_ of Subscription!” Without this, again I say, his +argument comes utterly to an end. It will be useless to weigh syllables, +and retreat upon the _ipsissima verba_ of the Letter. The broad +representation means this, or it is _nihil ad rem_. And the whole +history of the period is again, directly the reverse of the +representation given by Dr. STANLEY. {18} + + + +The Primitive Church. + + +II. I pass, then, to the next point—the alleged absence of Subscription +in the primitive age. Not content with the reference to the history of +our own Church, Dr. STANLEY says:—“I will not confine myself to these +isolated instances, but examine the history of Subscription from the +first. For the first three centuries the Church was _entirely without +it_.” “The first Subscription to a series of dogmatical propositions as +such was that enforced by Constantine at the Council of Nicæa. It was +the natural, but rude, expedient of a half-educated soldier to enforce +unanimity in the Church as he had by the sword enforced it in the +empire.” (p. 35). Again, I am painfully compelled to meet the statements +of Dr. STANLEY with a direct negative. The case is _not_ as he states +it. A “rude soldier,” in those days—(when comparatively few people +_wrote_ at all)—would not, I think, have been likely to invent this +“expedient:” but, in fact, he _did not_ invent it. + + +Council against Paulus Samosatemus. + + +I do not suppose for a moment that Dr. STANLEY could care to make a +merely _technical_ statement as to the mode in which adhesion was +signified to a dogmatic series of propositions. No merely formal +position of that kind could serve the argument. The position which he +lays down must be that, before the time of Constantine, there was that +_freedom_ allowed which is demanded by those who object to Subscription +now,—that people were not, in those days, called on to profess their +belief in any set of “dogmatical” statements as tests of orthodoxy. If, +then, he will look back sixty-six years before the Council of Nicæa, to +the Council of Antioch (of which Constantine was quite innocent), against +Paul of Samosata, there he will find the copy of a letter from certain +orthodox bishops, Hymenæus, Theophilus, Theoctenus, Maximus, Proclus, and +Bolanus, setting forth a series of dogmatical propositions, more minute +and lengthened than those of Nicæa, and concluding with these words—Ταῦτα +ἀπὸ πλείστων ὀλίγα σημειωσάμενοι, Βουλόμεθα μαθεῖν, εἰ τὰ αὐτὰ φρονεῖς +ἡμῖν καὶ διδάσκεις, καὶ ὑποσημειώσασθαι σε, εἰ ἀρέσκη, τοῖς +προγεγραμμένοις, ῆ οὐ. If he would not write, he must make his mark—give +some sign, at all events—whether he “held and taught” as there set forth +in writing (προγεγραμμένοις)—yes or no; or submit to lose his office in +the Church—(καθαιρεθῆναι.)—_Routh’s Rel._ ii. p. 465, &c. + + +Council against Noetus. + + +A few years earlier, the case of Noetus was treated in a similar way. +The assembled Presbyters, after confessing the orthodox faith, cast out +the heretic for _not submitting to it_. The Council of Eliberis, in +Spain (before the Nicene Council), put out eighty-one canons, or +chapters, of a mixed kind, dogmatical and disciplinary, “et Post +_Subscriptiones_ Episcoporum in vetusto codice Urgelensi leguntur +sequentes presbyterorum,” &c.—_Routh_, iv. 44. Doctrine of Novatian +severity is there put forth: I refer to it not for any other purpose than +to adduce the _fact_ of Subscription—(and Subscription, too, in the +presence of the laity),—or at least the fact, that there was no +authorized laxity in those days, such as Dr. STANLEY’S argument requires. + + +Discipline in the Church. + + +And here I would remark, my Lord, on the obvious difference between a +state of the Church in which there was a system of DISCIPLINE holding +together the whole body, and a condition like our own, when Discipline is +acknowledged to be extinct among us. When bishops met together +periodically, as they then did, to regulate the affairs of the +Church,—and stood in mutual awe of each other’s spiritual powers;—when +dismissal from Communion was a chastisement shrunk from, by laity and +clergy, with terror,—it might have been easy to do without such +Subscriptions as now attempt to guard the orthodoxy of our people. So +again in the Pre-Reformation Church; the organization of the hierarchy, +and the necessary submission of the people, might often render +Subscriptions more than superfluous—unintelligible. Let those who would +take away the present Subscription to our Prayer-book, restore to us, in +a fair measure, the active Discipline of the Apostolic and post Apostolic +times, and I for one will thankfully hail the change. But to ask to +return to the “first three centuries,”—bristling as they do with canons, +synodical and episcopal letters, and declarations,—because a volume was +not then presented for the signature of every candidate for Orders,—is as +reasonable as it would be to propose now to abolish printing, and go back +to the simplicity and “freedom” of oral instruction and the scantiest of +manuscript literature. There is no fallacy more glittering, but none +more unworthy, illogical, and self-condemning than that of false +historical parallel. And I again must ask your Lordship, whether Dr. +STANLEY’S appeal to the Primitive History has not wholly failed?—I have +briefly shown that Constantine was not the originator of Subscriptions to +creeds or canons, but that subscribing or professing dogmatic assent was +a Christian custom of the earlier ages. It is plain to every one who +knows the history, _e.g._, of a great bishop like St. Cyprian or St. +Irenæus, or of a great writer like Tertullian or Origen, that to guard +dogmatically against heresy, by every means in their power, was the +predominating idea of their whole course, however imperfectly attained; +and they would have been utterly astounded if any one had foretold that +in a future age of the Church, when all Discipline had been destroyed +among CHRIST’S people, a Professor of History would appeal to _their_ +example as a justification of the proposal to excuse all ministers of +Christ from signing any Articles of Faith! + + +Roman Catholic Subscription. + + +But when we are even told by Dr. STANLEY (p. 36, n.) that, “from the +clergy of the Roman Catholic Church no _declaration of belief_ is +required at their Ordination,” we almost cease to be surprised at his +allegations respecting the ante-Nicene age. One would have thought it +very little trouble to look into the present Roman Pontifical, and see +the service for Ordination of Priests, before making any such statement. +Unless Dr. STANLEY’S copy is very different from mine—(Antverpiæ +_Ex-officina Plantiniana_ Balthasaris Moreti, 1663)—he will read thus:— + + “Pontifex, accepta mitra, vertit se ad presbyteros ordinatos qui ante + altare coram ipso stantes _profitentur Fidem_ quam prædicaturi sunt, + dicentes CREDO, &c., &c.” + + + +Protestant Subscriptions. + + +I think that I need add no more on this head: but I will refer to the +Subscriptions of Protestant Churches, before I pass on. It is very +commonly said at present that “Subscription” does not secure the +Uniformity of opinion which it aims at, and thus shows itself to be as +useless as it is vexatious,—(as if, forsooth, any one supposed that +absolute uniformity of thought could be attained by any means in the +world). Dr. STANLEY has not omitted this; but once more I must hold him +to facts. + +“It was one of the misfortunes,” (he says, p. 36) “incident to the +Reformation, that every Protestant Church by way of defending itself +against the enemies that hemmed it in, or that _were supposed to_ hem it +in on every side, was induced to compile each for itself a _new_ +Confession of Faith.”—This is scarcely doing justice to our Protestant +friends, _in limine_. They had to do something more than defend +themselves against enemies; they had to form some bond of union among +themselves. If they were not to be merely scattered units, to be +attracted in time to the largest bodies near them, they were obliged to +find some principle of cohesion among themselves; and they who refuse to +allow them to make “articles” or “confessions” ought in charity to +suggest some other plan. To have separated from a compact body like the +Roman Church and profess _nothing_ positive, was surely an impossible +course.—But Dr. STANLEY further says, “The excess of Subscription on the +continent over-leaped itself and has led to its gradual extinction, or +modification.” (p. 37.) + +It seems to me a very narrow philosophy which thus disposes of so great a +fact as this, that “_every_ Protestant Church” had this sort of instinct +of life and self-preservation. Is it not as legitimate at least to infer +that there may have been something in the very nature of things to prompt +this unanimity of action? And is there no lesson to be learned from the +undoubted fact that none of the Protestant communities have preserved +their original standard, but have descended towards neology everywhere in +proportion as “Subscription” has been set aside? and that the Church of +England has for three hundred years exhibited a singular uniformity of +belief, while maintaining her Subscriptions? Practically, I see nothing, +then, in the example of Foreign Protestantism to encourage the proposed +relaxation; but everything the reverse. Even the small and diminishing +bodies of Nonconformists in England have failed, (notwithstanding their +gaining in orthodoxy by their proximity to us), to keep up their +reputation,—as their ablest men allow. But what would have been their +condition, if, like ourselves, they had had no Discipline? {24} Surely +in their efforts at holy Discipline they all bear a witness for CHRIST +which puts us to shame. + +Let Dr. STANLEY, if he can, find any Christian body without +Discipline—without Confessions, without Articles, without Subscriptions, +which has been able to preserve itself at all; for until he does so, we +must tell him that _all_ the facts are against him. + + + +Alleged practical evils of Subscription. + + +III. I now, my Lord, must pass to the third topic, in the consideration +of which I thought to include all that remains in Dr. STANLEY’S pamphlet +which could be supposed by any to be of argumentative value—viz., the +alleged practical evils of “Subscription” in the Church and the +University. Here I feel that our English people will take a deeper +interest in the matter, than in any antiquarian or historical +disquisitions; and here Dr. STANLEY and his friends speak with a +confidence which with many will pass at once for demonstration. And if +there were grounds to suppose that a method of Subscription, like ours, +worked such mischief as they say who call for this change, no traditions +of the Revolution, or of the Reformation, or of the Primitive Church, +ought to tempt us to retain it. But let us not put the matter in an +unreal light, while pretending to go back to former and better days. +Freedom to think as you please in Religion, while retaining your place in +the Church, was never conceded at any of the times to which Dr. STANLEY +has appealed; but was foreign to the principles of every class of +Christians. Yet if the evils of Subscriptions are such as we are now +assured, things cannot be suffered to remain as they are. + +But broad assertions can frequently be only met by like broad assertions; +and I hope that I shall not be thought disrespectful if I thus treat some +now before me. + + +“Contradictoriness” of the Articles and Prayer-book. + + +(1.) It is said that the Subscriptions are made to documents +“contradictory to each other in spirit;” (p. 22) and that this is felt by +those who are called on to sign the Prayer-book, and the Articles;—the +former being devotional and sublime, the latter scholastic, and less +impressive;—the former emanating from ancient sources, the latter being +the product “of the Calvinistic, and in some measure even the Scholastic +period.” (pp. 16, 17.) This is popularly but scarcely correctly put; but +I would ask, whether the difference between the “two documents” is +greater than between Aquinas’ _Summa_, and his _Pange Lingua_?—or between +any man’s didactic statements and his devotional offices? And if not, +then how cannot the same man honestly sign both—each in its plain and +obvious sense? Personally, I do not feel the least difficulty in the +case; and I cannot recollect meeting with any clergyman who could sign +the one, and yet had difficulty about the other, except as to a few +phrases here and there. The general “contradictoriness,” which is +affirmed by Dr. STANLEY, I believe then is not commonly perceived by the +Clergy, and I do not myself perceive any other difference than the nature +of the case demands. The purely Theological language of the earlier +Articles—then the mixed statements of the “anthropology,” as it is +called—and the terms of the Sacramental Articles,—may almost in every +instance be traced in Catholic fathers, from St. Augustine to St. +Bernard. And yet they are not recondite, but so intelligible to educated +English people, that some years ago as a matter of edification I went +through them, with a class of fifty of the laity in my parish, and a few +clergy, who for several weeks were glad to devote attention to the +subject; and I venture to think that the idea never occurred to one of +us, that there was the least want of harmony between the two documents. +We really did not see the “calm image of Cranmer” reflected on the +surface of the “Liturgy,” as Lord Macaulay fancied he did (p. 18); and as +to the “foul weeds in which the roots were buried,” we did not discover +them there;—(nor did Lord Macaulay, I suppose, as it was not his custom +to go to these “roots.”) I think I am entitled, then, to meet the charge +of the “contradictoriness” of the Articles and the Prayer-book, with an +assertion that there is a thorough inward harmony, which not a few of us +feel; and we cannot be talked out of this conviction by the contrary +assertions of microscopic thinkers. I should grant, of course, that it +would be a “practical evil” of no small kind, demanding immediate +redress, if I could admit any real opposition between the Formularies +which we have to sign. But I unreservedly deny it. I know indeed what +objectors would mean when they say this: but I know also that the same +objectors would find “contradictoriness” in different parts of Holy +Scripture; and I am thankful that I do not find it, after many years’ +steady work at both Old Testament and New. + + +The early age of those who “subscribe.” + + +(2.) Another alleged grievance, or “practical evil,” is said to be the +age {28} at which young men are called on to make these important +professions of their belief. I had, many years since, to encounter the +same objection in another form. I met with some among the Baptists, who +objected to teaching children to “say their prayers,” on the ground that +they could not understand the mysterious subjects implied; and others who +would not ask them to believe any thing in Religion, until they had +proved it. The “practical evil” is—and I am sure that your Lordship will +agree with me—altogether on the side of those who leave the young thus to +make their own opinions, and find their faith how they can. The Bible +is, in many respects, a more complex book than the Prayer-book; and yet I +can ask my child to put entire faith in it, as God’s Word. Nor can the +faithful Churchman, I believe, feel any difficulty in giving into the +hands of young and old, the Formularies which have been his own comfort +and help hitherto, and asking their “assent and consent” to all that +which he knows to be true. + + +Men of ability will not take Holy Orders. + + +(3.) There is a “practical evil,” which has of late been greatly pressed +on public notice, which Dr. STANLEY thus refers to (p. 30)—“Intelligent, +thoughtful, highly educated young men, who twenty or thirty years ago +were to be found in every Ordination, are gradually withheld from the +service of the Church, and from the profession to which their tastes, +their characters, and their gifts, best fit them.” + +This is an evil, the existence of which I shall not question—it is indeed +too plain, and too alarming to admit of any doubt. But I deny that it +has any foundation in the practice of Subscription; which has not been +changed, or made more rigid, in our days. I have never known one +conscientious, thoughtful young churchman kept from Holy Orders by a +shrinking from Subscription. They who have shrunk have been persons who +_differ_ from the Church, and _acknowledge_ the fact. They have been +men, like my upright friend Mr. Fisher,—the author of “Liturgical +Revision,”—who would not, for all the temptations that might be offered, +use the entire Offices of our Church, even if ordained immediately +without Subscription. Subscription keeps them out, of course. It is +meant to do so, if it has any meaning at all. But if we look around us +at the state of things in the Church, during the twenty or thirty years +to which Dr. STANLEY alludes, we shall not find it difficult to ascertain +causes which have kept, and will keep, so many intelligent and +conscientious minds of the higher order, from entering the ministry of +the Church. Young men of ability in the last generation, if designed for +Holy Orders, gave themselves to Theological study. But we all remember +the panic which arose in consequence of the secessions to the Roman +Church. Public patronage and popular feeling were then so successfully +worked on, by the fanatical portion of the press, that the bare rumour of +“Theological learning” was enough to mark any Churchman for suspicion. +Parents who did not wish their more gifted sons to be victims, chose for +them other callings, and found a thousand new and attractive openings in +the Civil service. Youths of greatest promise saw encouragement in other +professions, and rewards in the distance for successful merit; but if +they began to read Theology, they soon found themselves obliged to pause. +To read St. Augustine, till you began to believe the ancient doctrine of +Baptism, was fatal: to study Church history, or the Liturgies, was still +worse,—if men did it honestly. Hundreds, I believe, were thus beaten +off. Parents and guardians and friends could not desire social and +professional neglect—if not worse—for those in whom they were interested. +They saw and said, that “there was but little chance for a clever man,” +if he had the stigma of high ability or learning. If such a man as Dr. +MILL—to whose writings men readily seek, now that the infidel is at our +doors—if he died in comparative obscurity and neglect, what could others +look for? The evil is done, and none now living will see it completely +undone.— + +To crush the principles of old Churchmanship was not, however, a task to +which the rising intellect of Oxford would lend itself; it retired and +left that work to others; or it strayed into German literature, whither +the popular hatred had not yet learned to track it: and now the wail goes +forth from “Charge” after “Charge,” that men of higher minds have fled, +or turned “neologians!” Is there no Nemesis here?—A few years since, the +Church’s rapid descent from her position of ancient learning was regarded +with a quiet despair by some even of our most thoughtful men. A late +dignitary even expressed “thankfulness” on one occasion at some +moderate-looking promotion that had been made in high places, and he was +remonstrated with by one who knew the entire ignorance of theology of the +clergyman who had just been honoured. “Why, he is wholly ignorant of +Christianity!” was, I believe, the exclamation. “Yes,” was the answer, +“but he is not _hostile_ to it.” + +But will any relaxation of “Subscription”—will the destruction of the +Articles, or the Revision of the Liturgy by “the Association” set up of +late, bring back Theological learning, or tempt the “higher minds” into +the Church’s ranks? No one can imagine it. A great misfortune has +happened to us, and the way to repair it is not easily seen; but it is +something to see the evil itself. The Romanizing movement was a great +misfortune: we all deplore it, even those who know that it was provoked +by the narrow-minded treatment which it received. But the loss of +Theology and high intellect is a greater misfortune by far; and this will +be yet found, when the dulness of a coming generation has to defend the +Bible apart from the Church. + + + +The Athanasian Creed. + + +(4.) In discussing the “practical evils” of Subscription, I observe that +Dr. STANLEY occasionally singles out parts of our “Formularies,” as +involving special difficulty, and embarrassing “subscribers” in a more +painful way than others. More than once he mentions the Creed of St. +Athanasius as a peculiar hardship. In the first place, he somewhat +roughly and unfairly charges _falsehood_ on the Article for calling it +St. Athanasius’s (p. 13); but surely he would not mean to charge +falsehood on the Prayer-book, for speaking of the “_Apostles_ Creed”—and +yet the Apostles did not write it,—or of the “_Nicene_ Creed,” although +the latter part of it be not Nicene? The meaning is so plain and easy, +that I own that I wonder at the tone of Dr. STANLEY here. {32} The Creed +“commonly _called_ Athanasian” is surely a good description of a document +which expresses well the truth which Athanasius defended, and the Church, +by saying “commonly called,” expressly refrains from certifying his +authorship. But the admission of the Creed itself is the evident +grievance, and so there is anger at the very name. To this, then, I will +address myself. + +“As a doctrine most explicitly asserted by the Liturgy,” Dr. STANLEY +mentions “the condemnation of _all members_ of the Eastern Church, as +maintained by the clauses of the Athanasian Creed, which appear to +declare that those who refuse to acknowledge the HOLY GHOST to proceed +from the FATHER and the SON, without doubt perish everlastingly.” An +“eminent prelate” twenty years ago, we are told, expressed a devout hope +that, “for the honour of human nature, no one now would deliberately +aver” this! I hope I shall not seem to be harsh if I say I would here +put in one word “for the honour” of common sense, which seems shocked by +such treatment of such subjects. We might as fairly say, that the words, +“Whosoever will be saved must thus _think_ of the Trinity,” consign all +infants, and persons of little understanding, to everlasting perdition, +because they cannot “think” of it at all. It is trifling to confound the +_intellectual_ reception of a doctrine with its _saving_ reception, and +it is saying that none but very clever people will be saved. Such +confusion is equivalent to a rejection of even the simplest form of +Creed. Take for example the Ethiopian’s confession, “I believe that +JESUS CHRIST is the SON of GOD,” on which he was baptized (Acts viii. +37). For the intellectual conception here demands explanation at once. +In what sense is He the SON of GOD? Are we not all “HIS offspring?” IS +JESUS the SON of GOD as man? or as GOD?—or both? If HIS SON, is He +Eternal?—and soon. Such questions are _inevitable_, if we would really +_know_ our meaning in saying, “JESUS CHRIST is the SON of GOD.” But +important as a right understanding of truth assuredly is, no Church ever +thus taught that intellectual reception of truth could be attained by the +multitude, for whose salvation we labour. If, indeed, we could look into +the mind of the majority of good Christians, and see the shape which +doctrines there take, we should often find the greatest amount of heresy +of the intellect co-existing with orthodoxy of heart. A statement thus +drawn out at length in a Creed is the Church’s intellectual exposition, +as far as it goes, of the Doctrine professed. The million may not know +this; but the Church tells them—“If you hold the true doctrine, _this_ is +_what_, consciously or not, you are holding.” The Athanasian Creed is a +_statement_ of that truth which dwells in every Christian heart. We know +that God’s grace in the soul is always “orthodox;” but “with the heart +man believeth unto righteousness;” but the Creed forbids the intellect to +misinterpret what the heart has savingly known.—The agreement with the +Eastern Church attempted at the Council of Florence illustrates this; for +it was evidently on this basis. The Greeks were not told that their +forefathers had all perished, but that their _expression_ of the truth +which they held was less perfect than the Latin. + +It may be very easy to misrepresent what is thus said; but few, on +reflection, will venture to say the opposite. Dr. STANLEY would not say +that _no_ truth in Scripture is “necessary to salvation?” He would not +say that _no_ doctrine of any Creed is “necessary to salvation?” But yet +he would not say that right intellectual conceptions of any truth, or of +any doctrine, are “necessary to salvation?” And as he _would_ own that +_some_ faith is necessary, or a “grace of faith” (the “Habitus Fidei” of +the Schools), he must own, therefore, that saving faith, however +unintellectual, is, as I said, orthodox. To “hold the Faith” is one +thing; to apprehend its intellectual expression is another. And if all +this be undeniable, what sad unreality it is, to write and speak, as so +many do of the Athanasian Creed, as if it required a comprehension of all +the terms which it uses!—instead of a pure “holding” of the TRUTH, which +it would explain to all capable of the explanation. + +I have dwelt at this length on a single point because, even in our +journals and periodicals, so much obstinate nonsense—pardon me, my Lord, +for such plainness—is frequently uttered against a Creed to which, under +GOD, England now probably owes her undeniably deep faith in the +TRINITY.—To sign the Athanasian Creed being thus beyond dispute to sign +the DOCTRINE, and not to say that each expression of it is infallible, or +_down to the level of all men_, there can be no more objection to +Subscription of that Creed, than of the Apostles’ or the Nicene. + + +Equivocal subscribing. + + +(5.) Yet one more “evil” alleged to flow from the present practice of +“Subscription” must be noticed,—the necessity which it throws on _all_ of +us to sign in a qualified, and therefore not straightforward sense. +“From the Archbishop in his palace at Lambeth to the humblest curate in +the wilds of Cumberland,” says Dr. STANLEY, “all must go out,” if only +the “obvious” and “natural” meaning of the whole Prayer-book be insisted +on.—I really feel, my Lord, on reading these words, very much as I should +on hearing from a foreigner anything very ultra and impossible about +England—_e.g._, that “we have no religion at all in England;” (we are +told, indeed, that in Spain we are thought to be an infidel people). The +only answer, in such case, is to inform the foreigner as to the facts; +point to our churches, our schools, our parishes, our homes. In truth, +Dr. STANLEY here seems to me to write like one who does not know us at +all. I say for myself (and I believe that thousands would do the same), +that I subscribe both Articles and Prayer-book in their obvious, easy, +and most congruous sense, and believe them to express, if not always in +the words which I should have chosen, yet always in suitable words, my +inward convictions of Christian truth. Indeed, my Lord, I can understand +nothing else. I have moved very freely for many years among my brethren, +and I can but say that my experience of them as a body does not in any +degree correspond with the representation which Dr. STANLEY makes, which +I think will surprise both our friends and our enemies. I can do no +more, of course, than simply protest {36} against it with all my heart; +believing fully that when the Articles and the Prayer-book are +interpreted, not with “Chinese” perverseness, but honestly and humanly, +they are ordinarily found accordant with reason, with Scripture, and with +themselves. + +The possible haste with which Dr. STANLEY seems to have written, may +account, perhaps, for statements so unqualified as these, and some others +that he has made. Indeed, there are things put out in _the Letter_ which +can only be thus explained. I refer, for instance, to such assertions as +that, (p. 4) which,—forgetting the whole calendar of Lessons, (and also +the Article vi.), says,—“The Articles and Liturgy express _no opinion_ as +to the authorship of _the disputed_ {37} or anonymous books of +Scripture,”—and then in a note mentions the “Visitation of the Sick” as +the only portion of the “Liturgy” (_sic_)—which refers a disputed book +(the “Hebrews”) to its author; though the service for Holy Matrimony +equally refers that Epistle to St. Paul. Or, as another instance, I may +name Dr. STANLEY’S conceiving the indiscriminate use of our Burial +Service to imply some theory about the happiness of all hereafter. (So I +understand him, at least, p. 19.)—Or, yet another; his supposing (p. 45) +that the description of our “Canonical Books” as those of whose authority +there was _no doubt_ “_in the Church_,” could possibly mean “no doubt in +the minds of any _individuals_!” But, my Lord, my object is not to find +fault with any one; I had to show, as I hope I have shown, the fallacy of +the grounds on which the surrender of Subscription to the Prayer-book has +been urged. + + + +Summary. + + +It has been seen that the “Comprehension” scheme of the Revolution,—the +design of the English Reformation,—and the custom of the Early Church, +which had all been appealed to, _all_ fail to give the least support to +the theory of license now put forward. It has been seen, that no real +argument against Subscription has been deduced from the practice of it +among ourselves, or from the character of our Formularies. I might have +gone farther. I might have marked the Providential nature of the events +which held our vessel by the anchor of Subscription, at a time when it +must have otherwise drifted on rocks. I might have pointed to the +unhappy results which thus far have attended relaxations of Subscription, +in a change of _tone_ among a large number of the younger members of the +Church and the University, and an acknowledged failure at length of the +supply of candidates for Holy Orders. But there is no need that I should +enlarge on details which are patent to all observation. It is becoming +that I should bring these remarks to a conclusion. + +I should be sorry, indeed, my Lord, if it could be thought from my +deprecating the proposed abolition of Subscription, that I regard the +condition of the Church among us as a normal or satisfactory one. But I +feel, as thousands do, that whatever changes may lie before us, they +should be towards increased _organization of_ our Body; while the present +proposal would disorganize us at once, and break away the traditions by +which, in an undisciplined age, Providence protected us. This proposal, +I am aware, unhappily falls in with the spirit of our times—a spirit of +independence and freedom, rather than of holiness and faith, and +therefore I fear that it will find a wide advocacy among those who desire +not the maintenance of our Church’s distinctive position among the +Churches of Europe. Your Lordship’s eloquent hope—admirable and +strong—that we may yet “maintain that Eternal Truth of which the Church +is the depository, and that Form of sound words in which that Eternal +Truth has been handed down,” I fain would share. But I stand in doubt. +I feel very much like one who is asked to take leave of a peaceful +abode—a haven of long Providential refuge; and I take, perhaps, a +partial, because parting look at the solid advantages hitherto +secured—the homely, perhaps, but very real blessings of a Fixed Faith for +our people in general, with Means of Grace, capable of enlargement +everywhere according to our need, venerable Traditions protecting our +noble English Bibles, our glorious English Offices, our restored English +Churches. The thought of turning one’s back on all, and pushing out on +the boundless ocean of opinion, may well fill the heart with +foreboding—if not for oneself, yet for others! + + + +Prospects. + + +A solemn future, it may be, is before us as a Church. You have come, my +Lord, to the government of this great central Diocese at a crisis +unparalleled in our history. The eighteenth century was a great truce of +principles. The truce was probably broken in 1829; efforts were made to +re-establish the truce once more, but not with much success. The +Established Church, seemed hastening to become an established theory +only. But new life from God entered into her. She again delivered her +message to the growing masses of the people,—and with an energy before +but rarely known. True, our “Discipline” is not restored; but the voice +of Worship is heard rising anew on every hand.—True, there is no +startling growth of Sanctity—(the special token of a Church’s life!); but +there is a very real zeal to do a work for CHRIST on earth. With all the +experience of an eventful Past to warn us, and the vast range of Sacred +Ministrations still remaining, might it not be the glorious distinction +of your Lordship’s Episcopate, that it gathered together all the +remaining elements of our Spiritual System, so that “nothing was +lost,”—and saved for posterity the grandest fabric of Faith and Truth +among the nations of Christendom?— + +But a darker alternative is possible—may Providence guide and protect +your Lordship, that so it may be averted!—A nation finally unchurched;—a +Bible keenly “criticised,” and unauthorized;—a Clergy descending to “use” +a Prayer-book which they will not affirm that they BELIEVE; a People +mainly divided between illiterate fanaticism and cold infidelity. + + I am, my Lord, + + Your Lordship’s faithful servant, + WILLIAM J. IRONS. + + + + +FOOTNOTES. + + +{3} See Mr. Oakeley’s Pamphlet with that title. + +{4a} In the original printing these sub-headings are side-notes. They +have been turned to headings (and in a few cases paragraphs split) in +order to make the text more readable.—DP. + +{4b} See his Lordship’s Speech in the House of Lords, May 19. + +{7} The term “High Churchmen” is, of course, quite ambiguous:—“At the +_instance_ of High Churchmen,” p. 33.—Yet the learned Editor of Beveridge +records that prelate’s “staunch opposition to Comprehension.” + +{18} Dr. Cardwell, with his great carefulness (_Synod_, i. 7), even says +of the Forty-two Articles, “It was certainly enjoined that they should be +_subscribed_ generally by the clergy throughout the kingdom, and this +design, carried probably to some extent into execution, was only +prevented from being fully accomplished by the death of King Edward, July +6, 1553.” + +{24} An intelligent Wesleyan was recently urged by a friend of mine to +return to the Church, and solemnly replied, “_Never_, till you have +Discipline.” But the attracting of non-conformists to the Church is not +what Dr. STANLEY proposes to aim at by his plan to abolish Subscriptions. +Certainly they have not been attracted to Oxford during the last nine +years of non-subscription there. + +{28} In other places, it is not the “early” age at which (p. 52) we are +“trapped into it” which is complained of, but the maturer time of “Holy +Orders” and “Mastership” (pp. 29, 30)—which, then, is the grievance? + +{32} It is worse than his very exaggerated contradiction of the saying +in the Twenty-ninth Article, that certain words were St Augustine’s. See +the reference in _Beveridge_. + +{36} Since writing this, I have heard that a protest of this kind has +actually been mooted at a meeting of clergy in this diocese. + +{37} It is not said _by whom_ now “disputed.” The Sixth Article says +that _we_, without dispute, take the books of the New Testament as +_commonly_ received. Dr. STANLEY does not seem aware of the distinction +between the “Canonical” and “Sacred” Books. See the _Reformatio Legum_, +chap. vii. + + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PROPOSED SURRENDER OF THE +PRAYER-BOOK AND ARTICLES OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND*** + + +******* This file should be named 49114-0.txt or 49114-0.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/4/9/1/1/49114 + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part +of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm +concept and trademark. 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Irons + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most +other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of +the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have +to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. + + + + +Title: Proposed Surrender of the Prayer-Book and Articles of the Church of England + A letter to the Lord Bishop of London + + +Author: William J. Irons + + + +Release Date: June 5, 2015 [eBook #49114] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PROPOSED SURRENDER OF THE +PRAYER-BOOK AND ARTICLES OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND*** +</pre> +<p>Transcribed from the 1863 Rivingtons edition by David Price, +email ccx074@pglaf.org</p> +<h1>PROPOSED SURRENDER OF THE PRAYER-BOOK AND<br /> +ARTICLES OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND.</h1> +<p style="text-align: center">A LETTER<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">TO THE</span><br /> +LORD BISHOP OF LONDON,<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">ON</span><br /> +PROFESSOR STANLEY’S VIEWS<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">OF</span><br /> +CLERICAL AND UNIVERSITY “SUBSCRIPTION.”</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="GutSmall">BY</span><br +/> +WILLIAM J. IRONS, D.D.<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">PREBENDARY OF ST. PAUL’S, AND +INCUMBENT OF BROMPTON, MIDDLESEX.</span></p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center">LONDON:<br /> +THEODORE WRIGHT, 188, STRAND;<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">RIVINGTONS, WATERLOO PLACE; AND PARKERS, +377, STRAND, AND OXFORD.</span><br /> +1863.</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page2"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 2</span><span +class="GutSmall">LONDON:</span><br /> +<span class="GutSmall">SAVILL AND EDWARDS, PRINTERS, CHANDOS +STREET,</span><br /> +<span class="GutSmall">COVENT GARDEN.</span></p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<h2><a name="page3"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 3</span>A +LETTER,<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">ETC.</span></h2> +<p style="text-align: right"><span class="smcap">Brompton</span>, +<i>Whitsuntide</i>, 1863.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">My dear Lord</span>,</p> +<p><span class="smcap">If</span> twenty years ago, soon after a +few of the clergy had asserted their “claim to hold all +Roman doctrine,” <a name="citation3"></a><a +href="#footnote3" class="citation">[3]</a> a proposal had been +made to abolish Subscription to the English Formularies, it would +surely have been thought to indicate very grave disloyalty to our +Church. And now, when others have asserted the right to +unfettered “free-thinking” within her pale, and +endeavoured to vindicate that right in our Courts of Law, can we +help being struck at the intrepidity of the demand to sweep away +at once the sober restraints of orthodoxy to which Churchmen have +been so long accustomed?</p> +<p>Your Lordship has been openly addressed, as we are all aware, +in behalf of this “Relaxation of Subscription;” but +as our Bishop—so deeply interested in the welfare of the +whole Church—I venture to believe that you will do justice +to opposite views, and in offering them to your attention, I rely +on that broad-minded charity to various schools among us, which +has marked your Lordship’s administration of this +diocese.</p> +<h3><a name="page4"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 4</span>Dr. +Stanley’s position. <a name="citation4a"></a><a +href="#footnote4a" class="citation">[4a]</a></h3> +<p>The eloquent advocacy of Dr. <span +class="smcap">Stanley</span> on the other side is, indeed, no +slight advantage to the cause of those who would now supersede +the Prayer-book by “modern thought.” In urging +the surrender of all Subscription to our Formularies, he can +speak, in his position, with a <i>prestige</i> and power to which +I can have no claim. His testimony as to the tone of mind +now prevailing in Oxford, or among the younger clergy of the last +few years, it is not for me to impeach,—I must leave that +to the Bishop of Oxford; <a name="citation4b"></a><a +href="#footnote4b" class="citation">[4b]</a> but certain of his +deductions from very limited facts, I may be permitted, I think, +to call in question at once. As one who, without belonging +to any party, has had the happiness of much friendship with +all—as a Churchman, I may add, who has kept steadily to the +old Prayer-book from very early childhood till now—I have +had large opportunities for many years of knowing the heart and +mind of my brethren the clergy, ten thousand of whom not long +since responded to an appeal which I and others had been invited +to make to them; and I confess that I am amazed at Dr. <span +class="smcap">Stanley’s</span> supposition that +Subscription is regarded as a “grievance” (p. 23), a +“perjury” (p. 24), an “absurdity” (p. +20), or an “imposition” (p. 7) by any considerable +number among us. Allowing for some irritable minds here and +there, the generality have seemed to me to have the deepest +appreciation of the “quietness and confidence” which +have been, in the main, secured for our Church by the present +laws, <a name="page5"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 5</span>which +simply bind the clergy to say that they <i>believe</i> the +Prayers which they use, and the Articles which they adopt as +their “standard.”</p> +<p>Thus much I have felt compelled to say at the outset, because +the opposers of Subscription assume that their clients are so +numerous that to refuse their demands may be to endanger the +Church herself. True, they generously disclaim all designs +“to revolutionize the Church of England” (p. 6 of +<i>The Letter</i>). This is well; but I am far more assured +by the belief that their power, as yet, is not so formidable as +their intentions. And with this preface, I would pass to +the subject-matter of Dr. <span +class="smcap">Stanley’s</span> <i>Letter</i>.</p> +<h2>Scheme of Comprehension.</h2> +<p>The point of departure taken for the discussion is the <span +class="smcap">Revolution</span> of 1688, and the attempt then +made at what was called “Comprehension.” It is +even suggested that the “High Churchmen” of those +days agreed that the “very being of our Church was +concerned” in abolishing “Subscription,” and +substituting for it a general declaration of conformity. +The several attempts at “Comprehension” almost seem +to be referred to as substantially one, and are recommended to us +as if originated by enlarged and exemplary views of the +Church’s calling. But, equivocations apart, (which +would be wholly unworthy here), will this be gravely +maintained? Did the “Comprehension Scheme” of +1674 receive no opposition from the Church? or will not every one +own that it was frustrated by the <a name="page6"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 6</span>resistance of the Bishops? Would +Dr. <span class="smcap">Stanley</span> really say that the Scheme +(not “Act”) of 1689 was founded on a philosophy which +would now command assent? I suppose that he must say it, or +how could he refer to it as our rebuke and pattern? Yet it +was, as he will not deny, a political effort directed against the +Roman Catholics; and the reluctance of the clergy (even under all +the pressure of the occasion) to fraternize with Nonconformists, +defeated the measure,—some of the principal Commissioners +who had to manage it, such as the Vice-Chancellor of Oxford, the +Prolocutor of Convocation, and the Bishop of Rochester, openly +withdrawing from it. I really can hardly conceive of a more +unfortunate appeal to history. To represent the clergy of +all parties, and especially “High Churchmen” (p. 33), +as approving, on liberal principles, of the proposed +“Comprehension,” and covertly to suggest that +“Subscription” was alien from the spirit of those +enlightened days, is, to speak gently of it, quite +“unhistorical”—(if I may so apply a now +familiar term); nor can I forbear to point to the fact that even +Dissenters were required, by the Act of 1 William and Mary, cap. +18, to “subscribe” a declaration that “the Holy +Scriptures of the Old and New Testament were given by Divine +Inspiration.” The parallel breaks down at every +point. Of course, if any one really thinks that England is +now in great danger (as in Sancroft’s days) from the Popish +encroachments of the <span class="smcap">Crown</span>, such an +one is free to argue as Dr. <span class="smcap">Stanley</span> <a +name="page7"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 7</span>does. If +any suppose that a Papal reaction among the populace is the +present peril (as it was thought to be in Burnet’s days), +let them by all means fly to the “remedial” measures +of that era. But for a philosophical historian to quote, +with admiration, Halifax or Nottingham, or refer to certain +“High Churchmen” with approval, can but cause a +smile. <a name="citation7"></a><a href="#footnote7" +class="citation">[7]</a></p> +<p>It was a popular beginning of this subject, doubtless, to +invoke the memories of 1688 and the “Toleration Act,” +in order to recommend to English people this proposal to destroy +“Subscription;” yet it was dangerous. For to +have pursued the subject fairly from this point would hardly have +assisted the views of the abolitionists. The course of +history would very soon have brought them to the great +<i>Arian</i> conspiracy of 1772, the next noticeable effort to +set aside the Articles of the Church. This, however, is +altogether avoided, as if it were unknown to Dr. <span +class="smcap">Stanley</span>; and he quickly goes back to the +Reformation, and even to the times of the Primitive Church, to +find arguments against “Subscription” in the +abstract, (as well as against our special Anglican form of +it,)—and, must I not say, to get out of the way of <span +class="smcap">Whiston</span>, and the “Feathers’ +Tavern”? Let us, then, be generous, and forgive the +allusions to 1688, and forget all that followed, and endeavour to +examine on its merits the substance of the +“<i>Letter</i>.”</p> +<h3><a name="page8"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +8</span>“Relaxation” a preliminary movement.</h3> +<p>The object, my Lord, of the rising movement against +“Subscription,” here appears to be of a purely +<i>preliminary</i> character. It is expressly cleared of +all connexion with special grievances. +“Revisions” are to stand over. These are +understood to be reserved for future treatment (p. 4). +Meanwhile, it is not against the “Articles” only that +the feeling is to be stirred, but “Subscription” to +the whole Prayer-book, and even to the Bible (p. 51), is gently +deprecated. Indeed, it seems to be maintained that our +present “Subscription” to the Articles does not +include, as we had supposed, Subscription to the Bible at +all. The objection, however, is scarcely raised in that +form. It is to “Subscribing” <i>per se</i> that +the repugnance is felt, as though there were a morbid dread of +“putting the hand to paper,”—such as we +sometimes find in the uneducated classes. And now it is not +so much “do not sign <i>these</i> forms,” as +“do not sign <i>any</i> thing;” and Dr. Whately, and +Archdeacon Denison, and the friends of Mr. Gorham, Dr. Rowland +Williams, and Mr. Bristowe Wilson, and Mr. Heath are, as I +understand, urged for once to agree to “relax all +subscriptions,” that they may so be set at more liberty to +fight their mutual battles without hindrance. Thus it is, +wonderfully, to be claimed for members of a Christian Church, +that they should be positively pledged to nothing!</p> +<h2>Revision of Prayer-book.</h2> +<p>Lord <span class="smcap">Ebury’s</span> measure in the +House of Lords did not go this length, because he had +“Revision” more definitely in view; but his arguments +against <a name="page9"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 9</span>one +form of Subscription are equally valid against all, so that its +entire abrogation is, on his principles, only a question of +time. There is, however, substantial agreement.</p> +<p>It is most important that this should be understood, and that +no false issue be raised: and this is why I speak of the present +proposal as one for the Surrender of the Prayer-book. Dr. +<span class="smcap">Stanley</span> would ask nothing so small as +<i>altering</i> Articles or Liturgy; a far simpler way he would +show us. Revision would be mere ‘nibbling’ +while Subscription remained. An Act of the Legislature +might just “prohibit,” he says, (p. 32) all +“Subscription.”—Are men, then, so eager for it, +that prohibition must be resorted to? He would not even +leave it open to any one to sign; for thus he triumphantly +proceeds:—“<i>Not a word</i> of the Articles need be +touched. They would still be left as the exposition of the +Faith of the <i>Church of England in the eighteenth +century</i>!—as the <i>standard</i> of its faith at the +present day. <i>Not a word</i> of the Liturgy need be +touched. There are, no doubt, changes which would be +acceptable to many, but <span class="GutSmall">THEY MUST BE +EFFECTED BY OTHER MEANS</span>,” (p. 33.)—Surely, +said the wise man, “in vain is the net spread in the sight +of any bird.” To tell us beforehand that we are to be +coaxed into a general movement to get rid of Subscription, and, +that being done, we must reckon on the subsequent change of the +Prayer-book “by <span class="GutSmall">OTHER +MEANS</span>,” seems so very like an insult to the +understanding of <a name="page10"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +10</span>men of all parties who believe anything, that I can only +explain it by calling to mind the proverbial blindness of genius +when hotly hastening to its own object, and forgetting how it +looks to all around.</p> +<p>But it may be said that I am overlooking that the Articles and +Prayer-book, though not “signed” or +“subscribed,” might still remain—at least, for +a time—as what is called the “standard” of our +doctrine. Let us inquire, then, what this means; for, +unless we look it steadily in the face, we shall be deluding +ourselves again by an ambiguous word. It is suggested by +the passage quoted from Burnet (p. 7), and in the argument of Dr. +<span class="smcap">Stanley</span>, that we English are generally +governed in other matters by Acts of Parliament,—and why +not in religion? We are not expected to +“subscribe” the law of the land, but simply to +acquiesce, and submit to it. It is not binding on the +conscience, but only on external obedience. A man may stand +up and read a Statute to others—and then argue against +it. While it exists as law, he must be judged and ruled by +it; but he is free to dislike it, and may labour to change +it. This is the parallel suggested, or if it be not, I have +no idea of what is intended; and I must say, that when thus +nakedly looked at, it is the most unveiled Erastianism avowed in +our times, if we except Mr. <span class="smcap">Bristowe +Wilson’s</span> in his Essay. It is what we might +expect of Burnet, but scarcely of Dr. <span +class="smcap">Stanley</span>, to make the Prayer-book “a +legal standard,” but not a matter of belief: it simply +astonishes us. When a great statesman of the last age <a +name="page11"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 11</span>told us that +our religion was but a “schedule of an Act of +Parliament,” we could at least reply that “ex +animo” Subscription makes it <i>our own</i>; but to ask us +now to take away even this, seems almost to sever all connexion +between the Church of England and the moral agency of her +Ministers. The Act of 1662, and its “schedule,” +the Prayer-book, might be our “standard” till the +next session, and might claim as much reverence as any other old +Act of Parliament,—but no more. Put the whole +proposal, then, of Dr. <span class="smcap">Stanley</span>, and of +Mr. <span class="smcap">Wilson</span>, and others into plain +English, and it is this—(and I ask to be corrected if I +misinterpret it)—“<i>Let the clergy in future +sign</i> <span class="GutSmall">NOTHING</span>, <i>but let them +consent to adopt and use what the</i> <span +class="smcap">Parliament</span> <i>may from time to time +authorise</i>.”</p> +<p>The object, then, being thus simplified, we need not here +pause to estimate the excellences or defects of any of the +formularies which we all alike have thought to be good enough to +<i>sign</i>. With more than judicial fairness, Dr. <span +class="smcap">Stanley</span> admits that the whole Thirty-nine +Articles are “incomparably superior” to the +“Nine Articles of the Evangelical Alliance” (p. 11), +or any that would be drawn up by “the dominant +factions” of our Church, <i>or Commonwealth</i>. But +this kind of criticism may well be postponed till the prior +question is disposed of—whether we should +“sign” <i>any</i> thing? When the Articles and +Prayer-book come to be hereafter discussed, these details may +have interest with some, as parts of the literature of the +“<i>Eighteenth Century</i>;” but at <a +name="page12"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 12</span>present might +it not be disrespectful merely to glance at them in a sketchy +way, to give pungency and interest to a somewhat barren +subject? I do not say that the highly rhetorical sentences +in which praise and blame are judiciously administered by Dr. +<span class="smcap">Stanley</span> to Article 1, 5, 9, or 34, +contribute nothing to the effectiveness of the pamphlet with the +“general reader;” but it is obvious that with the +argument, strictly speaking, they have nothing to do.</p> +<h3>Dr. Stanley’s Three Arguments.</h3> +<p>The Relaxation of Subscription appears, as far as I can +gather, to be urged by three arguments,—the first founded +the <i>origin</i> of the “Subscriptions” among us +after the Reformation; the second, on the alleged absence of +“Subscription” in the Primitive Church; and the third +on the practical evils of the present state of +“Subscription” in the Church and in the +Universities. If I examine each of these, I shall not, I +think, have omitted any point hitherto prominently alleged in +this controversy.</p> +<p>I. “The Church of England, as such, recognises +absolutely no Subscriptions.” Such is Dr. <span +class="smcap">Stanley’s</span> proposition (p. 38). +The tests of membership are “incorporated in the Services +to the exclusion, as it would seem, of all besides.” +It is added (p. 39)—“These other obligations were, in +fact, <i>not contemplated</i> at the time of the first +compilation of the Prayer-book and Articles, and have grown up as +a mere excrescence through the pressure of political and +ecclesiastical parties. The <a name="page13"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 13</span>Articles were not subscribed (by +anything like general usage) till the 12th year of Elizabeth; +they were then, after much hesitation and opposition, ordered to +be subscribed for a special purpose,” &c.</p> +<h4>The Reformation.</h4> +<p>Is it possible to suppose that Dr. <span +class="smcap">Stanley</span> means this for a fair representation +of the spirit and design of the Church of England, from the +beginning of the Reformation to the 12th year of Elizabeth? +He writes as though the Articles were all really to be signed, +and the Prayer-book all settled, and that the Church during all +that time deliberately intended to leave her members such freedom +of opinion as he and others would now restore. If he does +not mean this, his argument falls to the ground. But what +are the facts of the case?</p> +<p>Elizabeth ascended the throne at the close of the year +1558. Every position of trust throughout the country was +then held by Roman Catholics. The bishops and the clergy +were generally devoted to Rome. The Convocation met, in two +months, and drew up Articles presented to Parliament, which are +described as “flat against Reformation, and +<i>subscribed</i> by most of the University.” Even +Cambridge is said to have given her approval. At such a +crisis, it was evident that some years must elapse before any +such Revision of Edward VI.’s Articles could be hoped for, +as would obtain general consent. But to represent this +pause as a kind of freedom from “Subscription” +enjoyed in earlier and more liberal times, to say that “the +Church,” at least, was ignorant of this device, when +“Subscription” to <a name="page14"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 14</span>certain “Articles” was +the first step which the Convocation and the Universities +naturally took, immediately Elizabeth came to the throne, +surprises me beyond what I like to express. The +“general reader” is entirely at the mercy of so +eloquent a writer as Dr. <span class="smcap">Stanley</span>, and +it is not too much to ask that he use his power with a little +generosity; or if he will not, it becomes imperative that his +representations be translated into a humbler style, that the +world may judge how they look. The facts of the case are, +in truth, opposed to all that Dr. <span +class="smcap">Stanley’s</span> argument requires. +Instead of the twenty years and more, which preceded +Elizabeth’s 12th year, being years in which the Church of +the Reformation adopted laxity as its principle, the whole of the +period, from the beginning of the reign of Edward to the year +1571 (with the exception of the brief interval of Mary’s +government), was occupied in a careful effort on the part of the +Reformers to tie down both clergy and laity by the strictest body +of ecclesiastical law, perhaps, ever attempted to be enacted in +the Christian world.</p> +<h4>The Reformatio Legum.</h4> +<p>I refer, of course, to the “Reformatio +Legum.” The Archbishop of Canterbury, the +subsequently-elect Archbishop of York, and certain suffragans; +great Reformers, such as Peter Martyr and Rowland Taylour; known +scholars, such as Sir John Cheke and Dr. Haddon, were engaged in +this business, which was looked to as the crowning act of the +Reformation of Religion. Archbishop Parker took up the work +which Cranmer had <a name="page15"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +15</span>begun, and even pressed it on the reluctant Queen as far +as he dared.</p> +<h4>Subscription demanded in 1553.</h4> +<p>The connexion of the <i>Reformatio Legum</i> with the Articles +of our Church, and the light which they throw on each other, I +need not point out to any who are acquainted with the history of +our Church at that time. The Forty-two Articles, from which +our Thirty-nine were, ten years afterwards, derived, were first +published in 1553. In the November of the preceding year, +Cranmer proposed that the bishops should have them at once +<i>subscribed</i> throughout their dioceses. The death of +King Edward prevented this from being accomplished. They +were revised and subscribed by Convocation in 1563, in the name +of the whole clergy of England. The early chapters of the +<i>Reformatio Legum</i> contain the doctrine of the Articles, and +were, no doubt, intended to be an authorized exposition of +them. How strict a system was meant to be inaugurated by +the Reformers may be judged by even a superficial perusal of that +Book. Heresy and blasphemy were to be punishable by +death. Adultery was to be visited with imprisonment and +even banishment. Impenitent persons were to be +“handed over to the civil power.” All this was +the sort of Discipline which was waiting to be put in force as +soon as the Reformers could persuade the nation to bear +it;—and yet this is the supposed time when Subscription was +alien from the mind of the Reformed Church!</p> +<h4>Temporary restriction of the Clergy.<br /> +Subscription in 1564.</h4> +<p>But during this interval of twelve years, while <a +name="page16"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 16</span>the bishops +were doing their best to bring the clergy and people to +Uniformity, and preparing them for the “Discipline” +which was openly clamoured for, we find that immediately after +the Articles were published, “advertisements” came +out by authority further to restrain the liberty of the +preachers. In 1564, the clergy, who had by their proctors +subscribed the Articles in Convocation, were required “to +protest and <i>subscribe</i>” that they would not preach at +all without special license from the bishop, but “only read +that which is appointed by public authority:” and further, +that they would “observe, keep, and maintain, all the +rites, ceremonies, good usages and order” set forth by the +Act of Uniformity. Here then was “Subscription” +to the whole Prayer-book as it then stood. And, indeed, +even three years before, the “readers” in Churches +were obliged, by “Subscriptions” to certain +injunctions, to execute their office within prescribed and narrow +limits. The state of things doubtless was still felt on all +hands to be but provisional. The great Roman Catholic party +waited, without separating formally. The Puritans were +stirring themselves in the cause of “Discipline:” it +was hoped by both parties that some change might, from the lapse +of a few years, better their position. The latter reckoned +on the more aged of the old Popish Clergy dying out; the former +were encouraged by a fanatical prophecy to expect the death of +the Queen herself in the twelfth year of her reign; but after +that time the Puritan and <a name="page17"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 17</span>Popish parties became openly defined, +while the Church had as yet no such “Discipline” as +could hold her members together at all, except by the Court of +Commissioners. It was to restrain both parties, then, that +recourse was once more had to “Subscription.”</p> +<p>Can there be need, my Lord, to pursue any further an inquiry +into so well known a piece of history as this? I should not +have said so much, had not the Ecclesiastical History Professor +declared that Subscriptions and Declarations of Faith were +“not in fact <i>contemplated</i> at the time of the first +compilation of the Prayer Book and Articles;” that +Subscription is “superfluous,” +“needless,” “capricious,” +“extrinsic,” and “accidental,” (pp. 38, +39), “and that the Church of England, as such, recognises +absolutely no Subscriptions!” I submit to your +Lordship, that the Church of England “at the time of the +first compilation of the Articles and Prayer Book,” +encouraged no freedom whatever to diverge from the one or the +other—demanded Subscription (by Cranmer) in +1553—<i>obtained</i> it from all the bishops and +representatives of the clergy in Convocation in 1563—and +laboured to restrain both Papists and Puritans within more and +more rigid limits year by year, till by the thirteenth of +Elizabeth “Subscription” was universally enforced, as +the only practical substitute for that Ecclesiastical Discipline +which was refused.</p> +<p>I have purposely abstained from here noticing minor +inaccuracies which singularly abound in the <a +name="page18"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 18</span>learned +Professor’s letter, and have kept to the main point. +His position is that since the twelfth year of Elizabeth, a stern +and gradual growth of Subscription has superseded the liberal +system of the earlier years in which the tolerant Church +“knew <i>absolutely nothing</i> of +Subscription!” Without this, again I say, his +argument comes utterly to an end. It will be useless to +weigh syllables, and retreat upon the <i>ipsissima verba</i> of +the Letter. The broad representation means this, or it is +<i>nihil ad rem</i>. And the whole history of the period is +again, directly the reverse of the representation given by Dr. +<span class="smcap">Stanley</span>. <a name="citation18"></a><a +href="#footnote18" class="citation">[18]</a></p> +<h3>The Primitive Church.</h3> +<p>II. I pass, then, to the next point—the alleged +absence of Subscription in the primitive age. Not content +with the reference to the history of our own Church, Dr. <span +class="smcap">Stanley</span> says:—“I will not +confine myself to these isolated instances, but examine the +history of Subscription from the first. For the first three +centuries the Church was <i>entirely without it</i>.” +“The first Subscription to a series of dogmatical +propositions as such was that enforced by Constantine at the +Council of Nicæa. It was the natural, but rude, +expedient of a half-educated soldier to enforce unanimity in the +Church as he had by the sword enforced it in the empire.” +(p. 35). <a name="page19"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +19</span>Again, I am painfully compelled to meet the statements +of Dr. <span class="smcap">Stanley</span> with a direct +negative. The case is <i>not</i> as he states it. A +“rude soldier,” in those days—(when +comparatively few people <i>wrote</i> at all)—would not, I +think, have been likely to invent this “expedient:” +but, in fact, he <i>did not</i> invent it.</p> +<h4>Council against Paulus Samosatemus.</h4> +<p>I do not suppose for a moment that Dr. <span +class="smcap">Stanley</span> could care to make a merely +<i>technical</i> statement as to the mode in which adhesion was +signified to a dogmatic series of propositions. No merely +formal position of that kind could serve the argument. The +position which he lays down must be that, before the time of +Constantine, there was that <i>freedom</i> allowed which is +demanded by those who object to Subscription now,—that +people were not, in those days, called on to profess their belief +in any set of “dogmatical” statements as tests of +orthodoxy. If, then, he will look back sixty-six years +before the Council of Nicæa, to the Council of Antioch (of +which Constantine was quite innocent), against Paul of Samosata, +there he will find the copy of a letter from certain orthodox +bishops, Hymenæus, Theophilus, Theoctenus, Maximus, +Proclus, and Bolanus, setting forth a series of dogmatical +propositions, more minute and lengthened than those of +Nicæa, and concluding with these +words—Ταῦτα ἀπὸ +πλείστων +ὀλίγα +σημειωσάμενοι, + +Βουλόμεθα +μαθεῖν, εἰ +τὰ αὐτὰ +φρονεῖς +ἡμῖν καὶ +διδάσκεις, +καὶ +ὑποσημειώσασθαι +σε, εἰ +ἀρέσκη, +τοῖς +προγεγραμμένοις, +ῆ οὐ. If he would not write, he must +make his mark—give some <a name="page20"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 20</span>sign, at all events—whether he +“held and taught” as there set forth in writing +(προγεγραμμένοις)—yes +or no; or submit to lose his office in the +Church—(καθαιρεθῆναι.)—<i>Routh’s +Rel.</i> ii. p. 465, &c.</p> +<h4>Council against Noetus.</h4> +<p>A few years earlier, the case of Noetus was treated in a +similar way. The assembled Presbyters, after confessing the +orthodox faith, cast out the heretic for <i>not submitting to +it</i>. The Council of Eliberis, in Spain (before the +Nicene Council), put out eighty-one canons, or chapters, of a +mixed kind, dogmatical and disciplinary, “et Post +<i>Subscriptiones</i> Episcoporum in vetusto codice Urgelensi +leguntur sequentes presbyterorum,” +&c.—<i>Routh</i>, iv. 44. Doctrine of Novatian +severity is there put forth: I refer to it not for any other +purpose than to adduce the <i>fact</i> of Subscription—(and +Subscription, too, in the presence of the laity),—or at +least the fact, that there was no authorized laxity in those +days, such as Dr. <span class="smcap">Stanley’s</span> +argument requires.</p> +<h4>Discipline in the Church.</h4> +<p>And here I would remark, my Lord, on the obvious difference +between a state of the Church in which there was a system of +<span class="smcap">Discipline</span> holding together the whole +body, and a condition like our own, when Discipline is +acknowledged to be extinct among us. When bishops met +together periodically, as they then did, to regulate the affairs +of the Church,—and stood in mutual awe of each +other’s spiritual powers;—when dismissal from +Communion was a chastisement shrunk from, by laity and clergy, +with terror,—it might have been easy to do without such +Subscriptions as now attempt to guard the orthodoxy <a +name="page21"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 21</span>of our +people. So again in the Pre-Reformation Church; the +organization of the hierarchy, and the necessary submission of +the people, might often render Subscriptions more than +superfluous—unintelligible. Let those who would take +away the present Subscription to our Prayer-book, restore to us, +in a fair measure, the active Discipline of the Apostolic and +post Apostolic times, and I for one will thankfully hail the +change. But to ask to return to the “first three +centuries,”—bristling as they do with canons, +synodical and episcopal letters, and declarations,—because +a volume was not then presented for the signature of every +candidate for Orders,—is as reasonable as it would be to +propose now to abolish printing, and go back to the simplicity +and “freedom” of oral instruction and the scantiest +of manuscript literature. There is no fallacy more +glittering, but none more unworthy, illogical, and +self-condemning than that of false historical parallel. And +I again must ask your Lordship, whether Dr. <span +class="smcap">Stanley’s</span> appeal to the Primitive +History has not wholly failed?—I have briefly shown that +Constantine was not the originator of Subscriptions to creeds or +canons, but that subscribing or professing dogmatic assent was a +Christian custom of the earlier ages. It is plain to every +one who knows the history, <i>e.g.</i>, of a great bishop like +St. Cyprian or St. Irenæus, or of a great writer like +Tertullian or Origen, that to guard dogmatically against heresy, +by every means in their power, was the predominating idea of +their whole course, however <a name="page22"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 22</span>imperfectly attained; and they would +have been utterly astounded if any one had foretold that in a +future age of the Church, when all Discipline had been destroyed +among <span class="smcap">Christ’s</span> people, a +Professor of History would appeal to <i>their</i> example as a +justification of the proposal to excuse all ministers of Christ +from signing any Articles of Faith!</p> +<h4>Roman Catholic Subscription.</h4> +<p>But when we are even told by Dr. <span +class="smcap">Stanley</span> (p. 36, n.) that, “from the +clergy of the Roman Catholic Church no <i>declaration of +belief</i> is required at their Ordination,” we almost +cease to be surprised at his allegations respecting the +ante-Nicene age. One would have thought it very little +trouble to look into the present Roman Pontifical, and see the +service for Ordination of Priests, before making any such +statement. Unless Dr. <span +class="smcap">Stanley’s</span> copy is very different from +mine—(Antverpiæ <i>Ex-officina Plantiniana</i> +Balthasaris Moreti, 1663)—he will read thus:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“Pontifex, accepta mitra, vertit se ad +presbyteros ordinatos qui ante altare coram ipso stantes +<i>profitentur Fidem</i> quam prædicaturi sunt, dicentes +<span class="smcap">Credo</span>, &c., &c.”</p> +</blockquote> +<h4>Protestant Subscriptions.</h4> +<p>I think that I need add no more on this head: but I will refer +to the Subscriptions of Protestant Churches, before I pass +on. It is very commonly said at present that +“Subscription” does not secure the Uniformity of +opinion which it aims at, and thus shows itself to be as useless +as it is vexatious,—(as if, forsooth, any one supposed that +absolute uniformity of thought could be attained by <a +name="page23"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 23</span>any means in +the world). Dr. <span class="smcap">Stanley</span> has not +omitted this; but once more I must hold him to facts.</p> +<p>“It was one of the misfortunes,” (he says, p. 36) +“incident to the Reformation, that every Protestant Church +by way of defending itself against the enemies that hemmed it in, +or that <i>were supposed to</i> hem it in on every side, was +induced to compile each for itself a <i>new</i> Confession of +Faith.”—This is scarcely doing justice to our +Protestant friends, <i>in limine</i>. They had to do +something more than defend themselves against enemies; they had +to form some bond of union among themselves. If they were +not to be merely scattered units, to be attracted in time to the +largest bodies near them, they were obliged to find some +principle of cohesion among themselves; and they who refuse to +allow them to make “articles” or +“confessions” ought in charity to suggest some other +plan. To have separated from a compact body like the Roman +Church and profess <i>nothing</i> positive, was surely an +impossible course.—But Dr. <span +class="smcap">Stanley</span> further says, “The excess of +Subscription on the continent over-leaped itself and has led to +its gradual extinction, or modification.” (p. 37.)</p> +<p>It seems to me a very narrow philosophy which thus disposes of +so great a fact as this, that “<i>every</i> Protestant +Church” had this sort of instinct of life and +self-preservation. Is it not as legitimate at least to +infer that there may have been something in the very nature of +things to prompt this unanimity <a name="page24"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 24</span>of action? And is there no +lesson to be learned from the undoubted fact that none of the +Protestant communities have preserved their original standard, +but have descended towards neology everywhere in proportion as +“Subscription” has been set aside? and that the +Church of England has for three hundred years exhibited a +singular uniformity of belief, while maintaining her +Subscriptions? Practically, I see nothing, then, in the +example of Foreign Protestantism to encourage the proposed +relaxation; but everything the reverse. Even the small and +diminishing bodies of Nonconformists in England have failed, +(notwithstanding their gaining in orthodoxy by their proximity to +us), to keep up their reputation,—as their ablest men +allow. But what would have been their condition, if, like +ourselves, they had had no Discipline? <a +name="citation24"></a><a href="#footnote24" +class="citation">[24]</a> Surely in their efforts at holy +Discipline they all bear a witness for <span +class="smcap">Christ</span> which puts us to shame.</p> +<p>Let Dr. <span class="smcap">Stanley</span>, if he can, find +any Christian body without Discipline—without Confessions, +without Articles, without Subscriptions, which has been able to +preserve itself at all; for until he does so, we must tell him +that <i>all</i> the facts are against him.</p> +<h3><a name="page25"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +25</span>Alleged practical evils of Subscription.</h3> +<p>III. I now, my Lord, must pass to the third topic, in +the consideration of which I thought to include all that remains +in Dr. <span class="smcap">Stanley’s</span> pamphlet which +could be supposed by any to be of argumentative value—viz., +the alleged practical evils of “Subscription” in the +Church and the University. Here I feel that our English +people will take a deeper interest in the matter, than in any +antiquarian or historical disquisitions; and here Dr. <span +class="smcap">Stanley</span> and his friends speak with a +confidence which with many will pass at once for +demonstration. And if there were grounds to suppose that a +method of Subscription, like ours, worked such mischief as they +say who call for this change, no traditions of the Revolution, or +of the Reformation, or of the Primitive Church, ought to tempt us +to retain it. But let us not put the matter in an unreal +light, while pretending to go back to former and better +days. Freedom to think as you please in Religion, while +retaining your place in the Church, was never conceded at any of +the times to which Dr. <span class="smcap">Stanley</span> has +appealed; but was foreign to the principles of every class of +Christians. Yet if the evils of Subscriptions are such as +we are now assured, things cannot be suffered to remain as they +are.</p> +<p>But broad assertions can frequently be only met by like broad +assertions; and I hope that I shall not be thought disrespectful +if I thus treat some now before me.</p> +<h4>“Contradictoriness” of the Articles and +Prayer-book.</h4> +<p>(1.) It is said that the Subscriptions are made to <a +name="page26"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 26</span>documents +“contradictory to each other in spirit;” (p. 22) and +that this is felt by those who are called on to sign the +Prayer-book, and the Articles;—the former being devotional +and sublime, the latter scholastic, and less +impressive;—the former emanating from ancient sources, the +latter being the product “of the Calvinistic, and in some +measure even the Scholastic period.” (pp. 16, 17.) +This is popularly but scarcely correctly put; but I would ask, +whether the difference between the “two documents” is +greater than between Aquinas’ <i>Summa</i>, and his +<i>Pange Lingua</i>?—or between any man’s didactic +statements and his devotional offices? And if not, then how +cannot the same man honestly sign both—each in its plain +and obvious sense? Personally, I do not feel the least +difficulty in the case; and I cannot recollect meeting with any +clergyman who could sign the one, and yet had difficulty about +the other, except as to a few phrases here and there. The +general “contradictoriness,” which is affirmed by Dr. +<span class="smcap">Stanley</span>, I believe then is not +commonly perceived by the Clergy, and I do not myself perceive +any other difference than the nature of the case demands. +The purely Theological language of the earlier +Articles—then the mixed statements of the +“anthropology,” as it is called—and the terms +of the Sacramental Articles,—may almost in every instance +be traced in Catholic fathers, from St. Augustine to St. +Bernard. And yet they are not recondite, but so +intelligible to educated English <a name="page27"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 27</span>people, that some years ago as a +matter of edification I went through them, with a class of fifty +of the laity in my parish, and a few clergy, who for several +weeks were glad to devote attention to the subject; and I venture +to think that the idea never occurred to one of us, that there +was the least want of harmony between the two documents. We +really did not see the “calm image of Cranmer” +reflected on the surface of the “Liturgy,” as Lord +Macaulay fancied he did (p. 18); and as to the “foul weeds +in which the roots were buried,” we did not discover them +there;—(nor did Lord Macaulay, I suppose, as it was not his +custom to go to these “roots.”) I think I am +entitled, then, to meet the charge of the +“contradictoriness” of the Articles and the +Prayer-book, with an assertion that there is a thorough inward +harmony, which not a few of us feel; and we cannot be talked out +of this conviction by the contrary assertions of microscopic +thinkers. I should grant, of course, that it would be a +“practical evil” of no small kind, demanding +immediate redress, if I could admit any real opposition between +the Formularies which we have to sign. But I unreservedly +deny it. I know indeed what objectors would mean when they +say this: but I know also that the same objectors would find +“contradictoriness” in different parts of Holy +Scripture; and I am thankful that I do not find it, after many +years’ steady work at both Old Testament and New.</p> +<h4><a name="page28"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 28</span>The +early age of those who “subscribe.”</h4> +<p>(2.) Another alleged grievance, or “practical +evil,” is said to be the age <a name="citation28"></a><a +href="#footnote28" class="citation">[28]</a> at which young men +are called on to make these important professions of their +belief. I had, many years since, to encounter the same +objection in another form. I met with some among the +Baptists, who objected to teaching children to “say their +prayers,” on the ground that they could not understand the +mysterious subjects implied; and others who would not ask them to +believe any thing in Religion, until they had proved it. +The “practical evil” is—and I am sure that your +Lordship will agree with me—altogether on the side of those +who leave the young thus to make their own opinions, and find +their faith how they can. The Bible is, in many respects, a +more complex book than the Prayer-book; and yet I can ask my +child to put entire faith in it, as God’s Word. Nor +can the faithful Churchman, I believe, feel any difficulty in +giving into the hands of young and old, the Formularies which +have been his own comfort and help hitherto, and asking their +“assent and consent” to all that which he knows to be +true.</p> +<h4>Men of ability will not take Holy Orders.</h4> +<p>(3.) There is a “practical evil,” which has +of late been greatly pressed on public notice, which Dr. <span +class="smcap">Stanley</span> thus refers to (p. +30)—“Intelligent, thoughtful, highly educated young +men, who twenty <a name="page29"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +29</span>or thirty years ago were to be found in every +Ordination, are gradually withheld from the service of the +Church, and from the profession to which their tastes, their +characters, and their gifts, best fit them.”</p> +<p>This is an evil, the existence of which I shall not +question—it is indeed too plain, and too alarming to admit +of any doubt. But I deny that it has any foundation in the +practice of Subscription; which has not been changed, or made +more rigid, in our days. I have never known one +conscientious, thoughtful young churchman kept from Holy Orders +by a shrinking from Subscription. They who have shrunk have +been persons who <i>differ</i> from the Church, and +<i>acknowledge</i> the fact. They have been men, like my +upright friend Mr. Fisher,—the author of “Liturgical +Revision,”—who would not, for all the temptations +that might be offered, use the entire Offices of our Church, even +if ordained immediately without Subscription. Subscription +keeps them out, of course. It is meant to do so, if it has +any meaning at all. But if we look around us at the state +of things in the Church, during the twenty or thirty years to +which Dr. <span class="smcap">Stanley</span> alludes, we shall +not find it difficult to ascertain causes which have kept, and +will keep, so many intelligent and conscientious minds of the +higher order, from entering the ministry of the Church. +Young men of ability in the last generation, if designed for Holy +Orders, gave themselves to Theological study. But we all +remember the panic which arose in consequence of the secessions +to the Roman Church. Public patronage and popular feeling +were then so successfully <a name="page30"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 30</span>worked on, by the fanatical portion +of the press, that the bare rumour of “Theological +learning” was enough to mark any Churchman for +suspicion. Parents who did not wish their more gifted sons +to be victims, chose for them other callings, and found a +thousand new and attractive openings in the Civil service. +Youths of greatest promise saw encouragement in other +professions, and rewards in the distance for successful merit; +but if they began to read Theology, they soon found themselves +obliged to pause. To read St. Augustine, till you began to +believe the ancient doctrine of Baptism, was fatal: to study +Church history, or the Liturgies, was still worse,—if men +did it honestly. Hundreds, I believe, were thus beaten +off. Parents and guardians and friends could not desire +social and professional neglect—if not worse—for +those in whom they were interested. They saw and said, that +“there was but little chance for a clever man,” if he +had the stigma of high ability or learning. If such a man +as Dr. <span class="smcap">Mill</span>—to whose writings +men readily seek, now that the infidel is at our doors—if +he died in comparative obscurity and neglect, what could others +look for? The evil is done, and none now living will see it +completely undone.—</p> +<p>To crush the principles of old Churchmanship was not, however, +a task to which the rising intellect of Oxford would lend itself; +it retired and left that work to others; or it strayed into +German literature, whither the popular hatred had not yet learned +to track it: and now the wail goes forth from <a +name="page31"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +31</span>“Charge” after “Charge,” that +men of higher minds have fled, or turned +“neologians!” Is there no Nemesis here?—A +few years since, the Church’s rapid descent from her +position of ancient learning was regarded with a quiet despair by +some even of our most thoughtful men. A late dignitary even +expressed “thankfulness” on one occasion at some +moderate-looking promotion that had been made in high places, and +he was remonstrated with by one who knew the entire ignorance of +theology of the clergyman who had just been honoured. +“Why, he is wholly ignorant of Christianity!” was, I +believe, the exclamation. “Yes,” was the +answer, “but he is not <i>hostile</i> to it.”</p> +<p>But will any relaxation of +“Subscription”—will the destruction of the +Articles, or the Revision of the Liturgy by “the +Association” set up of late, bring back Theological +learning, or tempt the “higher minds” into the +Church’s ranks? No one can imagine it. A great +misfortune has happened to us, and the way to repair it is not +easily seen; but it is something to see the evil itself. +The Romanizing movement was a great misfortune: we all deplore +it, even those who know that it was provoked by the narrow-minded +treatment which it received. But the loss of Theology and +high intellect is a greater misfortune by far; and this will be +yet found, when the dulness of a coming generation has to defend +the Bible apart from the Church.</p> +<h3>The Athanasian Creed.</h3> +<p>(4.) In discussing the “practical evils” of +Subscription, I observe that Dr. <span +class="smcap">Stanley</span> occasionally singles <a +name="page32"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 32</span>out parts of +our “Formularies,” as involving special difficulty, +and embarrassing “subscribers” in a more painful way +than others. More than once he mentions the Creed of St. +Athanasius as a peculiar hardship. In the first place, he +somewhat roughly and unfairly charges <i>falsehood</i> on the +Article for calling it St. Athanasius’s (p. 13); but surely +he would not mean to charge falsehood on the Prayer-book, for +speaking of the “<i>Apostles</i> Creed”—and yet +the Apostles did not write it,—or of the +“<i>Nicene</i> Creed,” although the latter part of it +be not Nicene? The meaning is so plain and easy, that I own +that I wonder at the tone of Dr. <span +class="smcap">Stanley</span> here. <a name="citation32"></a><a +href="#footnote32" class="citation">[32]</a> The Creed +“commonly <i>called</i> Athanasian” is surely a good +description of a document which expresses well the truth which +Athanasius defended, and the Church, by saying “commonly +called,” expressly refrains from certifying his +authorship. But the admission of the Creed itself is the +evident grievance, and so there is anger at the very name. +To this, then, I will address myself.</p> +<p>“As a doctrine most explicitly asserted by the +Liturgy,” Dr. <span class="smcap">Stanley</span> mentions +“the condemnation of <i>all members</i> of the Eastern +Church, as maintained by the clauses of the Athanasian Creed, +which appear to declare that those who refuse to acknowledge the +<span class="smcap">Holy Ghost</span> to proceed from the <span +class="smcap">Father</span> and the <span +class="smcap">Son</span>, without doubt perish +everlastingly.” <a name="page33"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 33</span>An “eminent prelate” +twenty years ago, we are told, expressed a devout hope that, +“for the honour of human nature, no one now would +deliberately aver” this! I hope I shall not seem to +be harsh if I say I would here put in one word “for the +honour” of common sense, which seems shocked by such +treatment of such subjects. We might as fairly say, that +the words, “Whosoever will be saved must thus <i>think</i> +of the Trinity,” consign all infants, and persons of little +understanding, to everlasting perdition, because they cannot +“think” of it at all. It is trifling to +confound the <i>intellectual</i> reception of a doctrine with its +<i>saving</i> reception, and it is saying that none but very +clever people will be saved. Such confusion is equivalent +to a rejection of even the simplest form of Creed. Take for +example the Ethiopian’s confession, “I believe that +<span class="smcap">Jesus Christ</span> is the <span +class="smcap">Son</span> of <span +class="smcap">God</span>,” on which he was baptized (Acts +viii. 37). For the intellectual conception here demands +explanation at once. In what sense is He the <span +class="smcap">Son</span> of <span class="smcap">God</span>? +Are we not all “<span class="smcap">His</span> +offspring?” <span class="smcap">Is Jesus</span> the +<span class="smcap">Son</span> of <span class="smcap">God</span> +as man? or as <span class="smcap">God</span>?—or +both? If <span class="smcap">His Son</span>, is He +Eternal?—and soon. Such questions are +<i>inevitable</i>, if we would really <i>know</i> our meaning in +saying, “<span class="smcap">Jesus Christ</span> is the +<span class="smcap">Son</span> of <span +class="smcap">God</span>.” But important as a right +understanding of truth assuredly is, no Church ever thus taught +that intellectual reception of truth could be attained by the +multitude, for whose salvation we labour. If, indeed, we +could look into the mind of the majority of good Christians, <a +name="page34"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 34</span>and see the +shape which doctrines there take, we should often find the +greatest amount of heresy of the intellect co-existing with +orthodoxy of heart. A statement thus drawn out at length in +a Creed is the Church’s intellectual exposition, as far as +it goes, of the Doctrine professed. The million may not +know this; but the Church tells them—“If you hold the +true doctrine, <i>this</i> is <i>what</i>, consciously or not, +you are holding.” The Athanasian Creed is a +<i>statement</i> of that truth which dwells in every Christian +heart. We know that God’s grace in the soul is always +“orthodox;” but “with the heart man believeth +unto righteousness;” but the Creed forbids the intellect to +misinterpret what the heart has savingly known.—The +agreement with the Eastern Church attempted at the Council of +Florence illustrates this; for it was evidently on this +basis. The Greeks were not told that their forefathers had +all perished, but that their <i>expression</i> of the truth which +they held was less perfect than the Latin.</p> +<p>It may be very easy to misrepresent what is thus said; but +few, on reflection, will venture to say the opposite. Dr. +<span class="smcap">Stanley</span> would not say that <i>no</i> +truth in Scripture is “necessary to salvation?” +He would not say that <i>no</i> doctrine of any Creed is +“necessary to salvation?” But yet he would not +say that right intellectual conceptions of any truth, or of any +doctrine, are “necessary to salvation?” And as +he <i>would</i> own that <i>some</i> faith is necessary, or a +“grace of faith” (the “Habitus Fidei” of +the Schools), he must own, therefore, that saving <a +name="page35"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 35</span>faith, +however unintellectual, is, as I said, orthodox. To +“hold the Faith” is one thing; to apprehend its +intellectual expression is another. And if all this be +undeniable, what sad unreality it is, to write and speak, as so +many do of the Athanasian Creed, as if it required a +comprehension of all the terms which it uses!—instead of a +pure “holding” of the <span +class="smcap">Truth</span>, which it would explain to all capable +of the explanation.</p> +<p>I have dwelt at this length on a single point because, even in +our journals and periodicals, so much obstinate +nonsense—pardon me, my Lord, for such plainness—is +frequently uttered against a Creed to which, under <span +class="smcap">God</span>, England now probably owes her +undeniably deep faith in the <span +class="smcap">Trinity</span>.—To sign the Athanasian Creed +being thus beyond dispute to sign the <span +class="smcap">Doctrine</span>, and not to say that each +expression of it is infallible, or <i>down to the level of all +men</i>, there can be no more objection to Subscription of that +Creed, than of the Apostles’ or the Nicene.</p> +<h4>Equivocal subscribing.</h4> +<p>(5.) Yet one more “evil” alleged to flow +from the present practice of “Subscription” must be +noticed,—the necessity which it throws on <i>all</i> of us +to sign in a qualified, and therefore not straightforward +sense. “From the Archbishop in his palace at Lambeth +to the humblest curate in the wilds of Cumberland,” says +Dr. <span class="smcap">Stanley</span>, “all must go +out,” if only the “obvious” and +“natural” meaning of the whole Prayer-book be +insisted on.—I really feel, my Lord, on reading these +words, very much as I should on hearing from a foreigner anything +<a name="page36"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 36</span>very ultra +and impossible about England—<i>e.g.</i>, that “we +have no religion at all in England;” (we are told, indeed, +that in Spain we are thought to be an infidel people). The +only answer, in such case, is to inform the foreigner as to the +facts; point to our churches, our schools, our parishes, our +homes. In truth, Dr. <span class="smcap">Stanley</span> +here seems to me to write like one who does not know us at +all. I say for myself (and I believe that thousands would +do the same), that I subscribe both Articles and Prayer-book in +their obvious, easy, and most congruous sense, and believe them +to express, if not always in the words which I should have +chosen, yet always in suitable words, my inward convictions of +Christian truth. Indeed, my Lord, I can understand nothing +else. I have moved very freely for many years among my +brethren, and I can but say that my experience of them as a body +does not in any degree correspond with the representation which +Dr. <span class="smcap">Stanley</span> makes, which I think will +surprise both our friends and our enemies. I can do no +more, of course, than simply protest <a name="citation36"></a><a +href="#footnote36" class="citation">[36]</a> against it with all +my heart; believing fully that when the Articles and the +Prayer-book are interpreted, not with “Chinese” +perverseness, but honestly and humanly, they are ordinarily found +accordant with reason, with Scripture, and with themselves.</p> +<p>The possible haste with which Dr. <span +class="smcap">Stanley</span> seems to have written, may account, +perhaps, for statements <a name="page37"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 37</span>so unqualified as these, and some +others that he has made. Indeed, there are things put out +in <i>the Letter</i> which can only be thus explained. I +refer, for instance, to such assertions as that, (p. 4) +which,—forgetting the whole calendar of Lessons, (and also +the Article vi.), says,—“The Articles and Liturgy +express <i>no opinion</i> as to the authorship of <i>the +disputed</i> <a name="citation37"></a><a href="#footnote37" +class="citation">[37]</a> or anonymous books of +Scripture,”—and then in a note mentions the +“Visitation of the Sick” as the only portion of the +“Liturgy” (<i>sic</i>)—which refers a disputed +book (the “Hebrews”) to its author; though the +service for Holy Matrimony equally refers that Epistle to St. +Paul. Or, as another instance, I may name Dr. <span +class="smcap">Stanley’s</span> conceiving the +indiscriminate use of our Burial Service to imply some theory +about the happiness of all hereafter. (So I understand him, +at least, p. 19.)—Or, yet another; his supposing (p. 45) +that the description of our “Canonical Books” as +those of whose authority there was <i>no doubt</i> “<i>in +the Church</i>,” could possibly mean “no doubt in the +minds of any <i>individuals</i>!” But, my Lord, my +object is not to find fault with any one; I had to show, as I +hope I have shown, the fallacy of the grounds on which the +surrender of Subscription to the Prayer-book has been urged.</p> +<h3><a name="page38"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +38</span>Summary.</h3> +<p>It has been seen that the “Comprehension” scheme +of the Revolution,—the design of the English +Reformation,—and the custom of the Early Church, which had +all been appealed to, <i>all</i> fail to give the least support +to the theory of license now put forward. It has been seen, +that no real argument against Subscription has been deduced from +the practice of it among ourselves, or from the character of our +Formularies. I might have gone farther. I might have +marked the Providential nature of the events which held our +vessel by the anchor of Subscription, at a time when it must have +otherwise drifted on rocks. I might have pointed to the +unhappy results which thus far have attended relaxations of +Subscription, in a change of <i>tone</i> among a large number of +the younger members of the Church and the University, and an +acknowledged failure at length of the supply of candidates for +Holy Orders. But there is no need that I should enlarge on +details which are patent to all observation. It is becoming +that I should bring these remarks to a conclusion.</p> +<p>I should be sorry, indeed, my Lord, if it could be thought +from my deprecating the proposed abolition of Subscription, that +I regard the condition of the Church among us as a normal or +satisfactory one. But I feel, as thousands do, that +whatever changes may lie before us, they should be towards +increased <i>organization of</i> our Body; while the present +proposal would disorganize us at once, and break away the +traditions by which, in an undisciplined age, Providence +protected us. This proposal, I am <a +name="page39"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 39</span>aware, +unhappily falls in with the spirit of our times—a spirit of +independence and freedom, rather than of holiness and faith, and +therefore I fear that it will find a wide advocacy among those +who desire not the maintenance of our Church’s distinctive +position among the Churches of Europe. Your +Lordship’s eloquent hope—admirable and +strong—that we may yet “maintain that Eternal Truth +of which the Church is the depository, and that Form of sound +words in which that Eternal Truth has been handed down,” I +fain would share. But I stand in doubt. I feel very +much like one who is asked to take leave of a peaceful +abode—a haven of long Providential refuge; and I take, +perhaps, a partial, because parting look at the solid advantages +hitherto secured—the homely, perhaps, but very real +blessings of a Fixed Faith for our people in general, with Means +of Grace, capable of enlargement everywhere according to our +need, venerable Traditions protecting our noble English Bibles, +our glorious English Offices, our restored English +Churches. The thought of turning one’s back on all, +and pushing out on the boundless ocean of opinion, may well fill +the heart with foreboding—if not for oneself, yet for +others!</p> +<h3>Prospects.</h3> +<p>A solemn future, it may be, is before us as a Church. +You have come, my Lord, to the government of this great central +Diocese at a crisis unparalleled in our history. The +eighteenth century was a great truce of principles. The +truce was probably broken in 1829; efforts were made to +re-establish the truce once more, but not with much <a +name="page40"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +40</span>success. The Established Church, seemed hastening +to become an established theory only. But new life from God +entered into her. She again delivered her message to the +growing masses of the people,—and with an energy before but +rarely known. True, our “Discipline” is not +restored; but the voice of Worship is heard rising anew on every +hand.—True, there is no startling growth of +Sanctity—(the special token of a Church’s life!); but +there is a very real zeal to do a work for <span +class="smcap">Christ</span> on earth. With all the +experience of an eventful Past to warn us, and the vast range of +Sacred Ministrations still remaining, might it not be the +glorious distinction of your Lordship’s Episcopate, that it +gathered together all the remaining elements of our Spiritual +System, so that “nothing was lost,”—and saved +for posterity the grandest fabric of Faith and Truth among the +nations of Christendom?—</p> +<p>But a darker alternative is possible—may Providence +guide and protect your Lordship, that so it may be +averted!—A nation finally unchurched;—a Bible keenly +“criticised,” and unauthorized;—a Clergy +descending to “use” a Prayer-book which they will not +affirm that they <span class="GutSmall">BELIEVE</span>; a People +mainly divided between illiterate fanaticism and cold +infidelity.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">I am, my Lord,</p> +<p style="text-align: right">Your Lordship’s faithful +servant,<br /> +<span class="smcap">William J. Irons</span>.</p> +<h2>FOOTNOTES.</h2> +<p><a name="footnote3"></a><a href="#citation3" +class="footnote">[3]</a> See Mr. Oakeley’s Pamphlet +with that title.</p> +<p><a name="footnote4a"></a><a href="#citation4a" +class="footnote">[4a]</a> In the original printing these +sub-headings are side-notes. They have been turned to +headings (and in a few cases paragraphs split) in order to make +the text more readable.—DP.</p> +<p><a name="footnote4b"></a><a href="#citation4b" +class="footnote">[4b]</a> See his Lordship’s Speech +in the House of Lords, May 19.</p> +<p><a name="footnote7"></a><a href="#citation7" +class="footnote">[7]</a> The term “High +Churchmen” is, of course, quite ambiguous:—“At +the <i>instance</i> of High Churchmen,” p. 33.—Yet +the learned Editor of Beveridge records that prelate’s +“staunch opposition to Comprehension.”</p> +<p><a name="footnote18"></a><a href="#citation18" +class="footnote">[18]</a> Dr. Cardwell, with his great +carefulness (<i>Synod</i>, i. 7), even says of the Forty-two +Articles, “It was certainly enjoined that they should be +<i>subscribed</i> generally by the clergy throughout the kingdom, +and this design, carried probably to some extent into execution, +was only prevented from being fully accomplished by the death of +King Edward, July 6, 1553.”</p> +<p><a name="footnote24"></a><a href="#citation24" +class="footnote">[24]</a> An intelligent Wesleyan was +recently urged by a friend of mine to return to the Church, and +solemnly replied, “<i>Never</i>, till you have +Discipline.” But the attracting of non-conformists to +the Church is not what Dr. <span class="smcap">Stanley</span> +proposes to aim at by his plan to abolish Subscriptions. +Certainly they have not been attracted to Oxford during the last +nine years of non-subscription there.</p> +<p><a name="footnote28"></a><a href="#citation28" +class="footnote">[28]</a> In other places, it is not the +“early” age at which (p. 52) we are “trapped +into it” which is complained of, but the maturer time of +“Holy Orders” and “Mastership” (pp. 29, +30)—which, then, is the grievance?</p> +<p><a name="footnote32"></a><a href="#citation32" +class="footnote">[32]</a> It is worse than his very +exaggerated contradiction of the saying in the Twenty-ninth +Article, that certain words were St Augustine’s. See +the reference in <i>Beveridge</i>.</p> +<p><a name="footnote36"></a><a href="#citation36" +class="footnote">[36]</a> Since writing this, I have heard +that a protest of this kind has actually been mooted at a meeting +of clergy in this diocese.</p> +<p><a name="footnote37"></a><a href="#citation37" +class="footnote">[37]</a> It is not said <i>by whom</i> now +“disputed.” The Sixth Article says that +<i>we</i>, without dispute, take the books of the New Testament +as <i>commonly</i> received. Dr. <span +class="smcap">Stanley</span> does not seem aware of the +distinction between the “Canonical” and +“Sacred” Books. See the <i>Reformatio +Legum</i>, chap. vii.</p> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PROPOSED SURRENDER OF THE +PRAYER-BOOK AND ARTICLES OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND***</p> +<pre> + + +***** This file should be named 49114-h.htm or 49114-h.zip****** + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/4/9/1/1/49114 + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part +of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm +concept and trademark. 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You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of +the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have +to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. + + + + +Title: Proposed Surrender of the Prayer-Book and Articles of the Church of England + A letter to the Lord Bishop of London + + +Author: William J. Irons + + + +Release Date: June 5, 2015 [eBook #49114] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PROPOSED SURRENDER OF THE +PRAYER-BOOK AND ARTICLES OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND*** + + +credit + + + +Transcribed from the 1863 Rivingtons edition by David Price, email +ccx074@pglaf.org + + + + + + PROPOSED SURRENDER OF THE PRAYER-BOOK AND + ARTICLES OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. + + + A LETTER + TO THE + LORD BISHOP OF LONDON, + ON + PROFESSOR STANLEY'S VIEWS + OF + CLERICAL AND UNIVERSITY "SUBSCRIPTION." + + * * * * * + + BY + WILLIAM J. IRONS, D.D. + PREBENDARY OF ST. PAUL'S, AND INCUMBENT OF BROMPTON, MIDDLESEX. + + * * * * * + + LONDON: + THEODORE WRIGHT, 188, STRAND; + RIVINGTONS, WATERLOO PLACE; AND PARKERS, 377, STRAND, AND OXFORD. + 1863. + + * * * * * + + LONDON: + SAVILL AND EDWARDS, PRINTERS, CHANDOS STREET, + COVENT GARDEN. + + * * * * * + + + + +A LETTER, +ETC. + + + BROMPTON, _Whitsuntide_, 1863. + +MY DEAR LORD, + +IF twenty years ago, soon after a few of the clergy had asserted their +"claim to hold all Roman doctrine," {3} a proposal had been made to +abolish Subscription to the English Formularies, it would surely have +been thought to indicate very grave disloyalty to our Church. And now, +when others have asserted the right to unfettered "free-thinking" within +her pale, and endeavoured to vindicate that right in our Courts of Law, +can we help being struck at the intrepidity of the demand to sweep away +at once the sober restraints of orthodoxy to which Churchmen have been so +long accustomed? + +Your Lordship has been openly addressed, as we are all aware, in behalf +of this "Relaxation of Subscription;" but as our Bishop--so deeply +interested in the welfare of the whole Church--I venture to believe that +you will do justice to opposite views, and in offering them to your +attention, I rely on that broad-minded charity to various schools among +us, which has marked your Lordship's administration of this diocese. + + + +Dr. Stanley's position. {4a} + + +The eloquent advocacy of Dr. STANLEY on the other side is, indeed, no +slight advantage to the cause of those who would now supersede the +Prayer-book by "modern thought." In urging the surrender of all +Subscription to our Formularies, he can speak, in his position, with a +_prestige_ and power to which I can have no claim. His testimony as to +the tone of mind now prevailing in Oxford, or among the younger clergy of +the last few years, it is not for me to impeach,--I must leave that to +the Bishop of Oxford; {4b} but certain of his deductions from very +limited facts, I may be permitted, I think, to call in question at once. +As one who, without belonging to any party, has had the happiness of much +friendship with all--as a Churchman, I may add, who has kept steadily to +the old Prayer-book from very early childhood till now--I have had large +opportunities for many years of knowing the heart and mind of my brethren +the clergy, ten thousand of whom not long since responded to an appeal +which I and others had been invited to make to them; and I confess that I +am amazed at Dr. STANLEY'S supposition that Subscription is regarded as a +"grievance" (p. 23), a "perjury" (p. 24), an "absurdity" (p. 20), or an +"imposition" (p. 7) by any considerable number among us. Allowing for +some irritable minds here and there, the generality have seemed to me to +have the deepest appreciation of the "quietness and confidence" which +have been, in the main, secured for our Church by the present laws, which +simply bind the clergy to say that they _believe_ the Prayers which they +use, and the Articles which they adopt as their "standard." + +Thus much I have felt compelled to say at the outset, because the +opposers of Subscription assume that their clients are so numerous that +to refuse their demands may be to endanger the Church herself. True, +they generously disclaim all designs "to revolutionize the Church of +England" (p. 6 of _The Letter_). This is well; but I am far more assured +by the belief that their power, as yet, is not so formidable as their +intentions. And with this preface, I would pass to the subject-matter of +Dr. STANLEY'S _Letter_. + + + + +Scheme of Comprehension. + + +The point of departure taken for the discussion is the REVOLUTION of +1688, and the attempt then made at what was called "Comprehension." It +is even suggested that the "High Churchmen" of those days agreed that the +"very being of our Church was concerned" in abolishing "Subscription," +and substituting for it a general declaration of conformity. The several +attempts at "Comprehension" almost seem to be referred to as +substantially one, and are recommended to us as if originated by enlarged +and exemplary views of the Church's calling. But, equivocations apart, +(which would be wholly unworthy here), will this be gravely maintained? +Did the "Comprehension Scheme" of 1674 receive no opposition from the +Church? or will not every one own that it was frustrated by the +resistance of the Bishops? Would Dr. STANLEY really say that the Scheme +(not "Act") of 1689 was founded on a philosophy which would now command +assent? I suppose that he must say it, or how could he refer to it as +our rebuke and pattern? Yet it was, as he will not deny, a political +effort directed against the Roman Catholics; and the reluctance of the +clergy (even under all the pressure of the occasion) to fraternize with +Nonconformists, defeated the measure,--some of the principal +Commissioners who had to manage it, such as the Vice-Chancellor of +Oxford, the Prolocutor of Convocation, and the Bishop of Rochester, +openly withdrawing from it. I really can hardly conceive of a more +unfortunate appeal to history. To represent the clergy of all parties, +and especially "High Churchmen" (p. 33), as approving, on liberal +principles, of the proposed "Comprehension," and covertly to suggest that +"Subscription" was alien from the spirit of those enlightened days, is, +to speak gently of it, quite "unhistorical"--(if I may so apply a now +familiar term); nor can I forbear to point to the fact that even +Dissenters were required, by the Act of 1 William and Mary, cap. 18, to +"subscribe" a declaration that "the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New +Testament were given by Divine Inspiration." The parallel breaks down at +every point. Of course, if any one really thinks that England is now in +great danger (as in Sancroft's days) from the Popish encroachments of the +CROWN, such an one is free to argue as Dr. STANLEY does. If any suppose +that a Papal reaction among the populace is the present peril (as it was +thought to be in Burnet's days), let them by all means fly to the +"remedial" measures of that era. But for a philosophical historian to +quote, with admiration, Halifax or Nottingham, or refer to certain "High +Churchmen" with approval, can but cause a smile. {7} + +It was a popular beginning of this subject, doubtless, to invoke the +memories of 1688 and the "Toleration Act," in order to recommend to +English people this proposal to destroy "Subscription;" yet it was +dangerous. For to have pursued the subject fairly from this point would +hardly have assisted the views of the abolitionists. The course of +history would very soon have brought them to the great _Arian_ conspiracy +of 1772, the next noticeable effort to set aside the Articles of the +Church. This, however, is altogether avoided, as if it were unknown to +Dr. STANLEY; and he quickly goes back to the Reformation, and even to the +times of the Primitive Church, to find arguments against "Subscription" +in the abstract, (as well as against our special Anglican form of +it,)--and, must I not say, to get out of the way of WHISTON, and the +"Feathers' Tavern"? Let us, then, be generous, and forgive the allusions +to 1688, and forget all that followed, and endeavour to examine on its +merits the substance of the "_Letter_." + + + +"Relaxation" a preliminary movement. + + +The object, my Lord, of the rising movement against "Subscription," here +appears to be of a purely _preliminary_ character. It is expressly +cleared of all connexion with special grievances. "Revisions" are to +stand over. These are understood to be reserved for future treatment (p. +4). Meanwhile, it is not against the "Articles" only that the feeling is +to be stirred, but "Subscription" to the whole Prayer-book, and even to +the Bible (p. 51), is gently deprecated. Indeed, it seems to be +maintained that our present "Subscription" to the Articles does not +include, as we had supposed, Subscription to the Bible at all. The +objection, however, is scarcely raised in that form. It is to +"Subscribing" _per se_ that the repugnance is felt, as though there were +a morbid dread of "putting the hand to paper,"--such as we sometimes find +in the uneducated classes. And now it is not so much "do not sign +_these_ forms," as "do not sign _any_ thing;" and Dr. Whately, and +Archdeacon Denison, and the friends of Mr. Gorham, Dr. Rowland Williams, +and Mr. Bristowe Wilson, and Mr. Heath are, as I understand, urged for +once to agree to "relax all subscriptions," that they may so be set at +more liberty to fight their mutual battles without hindrance. Thus it +is, wonderfully, to be claimed for members of a Christian Church, that +they should be positively pledged to nothing! + + + + +Revision of Prayer-book. + + +Lord EBURY'S measure in the House of Lords did not go this length, +because he had "Revision" more definitely in view; but his arguments +against one form of Subscription are equally valid against all, so that +its entire abrogation is, on his principles, only a question of time. +There is, however, substantial agreement. + +It is most important that this should be understood, and that no false +issue be raised: and this is why I speak of the present proposal as one +for the Surrender of the Prayer-book. Dr. STANLEY would ask nothing so +small as _altering_ Articles or Liturgy; a far simpler way he would show +us. Revision would be mere 'nibbling' while Subscription remained. An +Act of the Legislature might just "prohibit," he says, (p. 32) all +"Subscription."--Are men, then, so eager for it, that prohibition must be +resorted to? He would not even leave it open to any one to sign; for +thus he triumphantly proceeds:--"_Not a word_ of the Articles need be +touched. They would still be left as the exposition of the Faith of the +_Church of England in the eighteenth century_!--as the _standard_ of its +faith at the present day. _Not a word_ of the Liturgy need be touched. +There are, no doubt, changes which would be acceptable to many, but THEY +MUST BE EFFECTED BY OTHER MEANS," (p. 33.)--Surely, said the wise man, +"in vain is the net spread in the sight of any bird." To tell us +beforehand that we are to be coaxed into a general movement to get rid of +Subscription, and, that being done, we must reckon on the subsequent +change of the Prayer-book "by OTHER MEANS," seems so very like an insult +to the understanding of men of all parties who believe anything, that I +can only explain it by calling to mind the proverbial blindness of genius +when hotly hastening to its own object, and forgetting how it looks to +all around. + +But it may be said that I am overlooking that the Articles and +Prayer-book, though not "signed" or "subscribed," might still remain--at +least, for a time--as what is called the "standard" of our doctrine. Let +us inquire, then, what this means; for, unless we look it steadily in the +face, we shall be deluding ourselves again by an ambiguous word. It is +suggested by the passage quoted from Burnet (p. 7), and in the argument +of Dr. STANLEY, that we English are generally governed in other matters +by Acts of Parliament,--and why not in religion? We are not expected to +"subscribe" the law of the land, but simply to acquiesce, and submit to +it. It is not binding on the conscience, but only on external obedience. +A man may stand up and read a Statute to others--and then argue against +it. While it exists as law, he must be judged and ruled by it; but he is +free to dislike it, and may labour to change it. This is the parallel +suggested, or if it be not, I have no idea of what is intended; and I +must say, that when thus nakedly looked at, it is the most unveiled +Erastianism avowed in our times, if we except Mr. BRISTOWE WILSON'S in +his Essay. It is what we might expect of Burnet, but scarcely of Dr. +STANLEY, to make the Prayer-book "a legal standard," but not a matter of +belief: it simply astonishes us. When a great statesman of the last age +told us that our religion was but a "schedule of an Act of Parliament," +we could at least reply that "ex animo" Subscription makes it _our own_; +but to ask us now to take away even this, seems almost to sever all +connexion between the Church of England and the moral agency of her +Ministers. The Act of 1662, and its "schedule," the Prayer-book, might +be our "standard" till the next session, and might claim as much +reverence as any other old Act of Parliament,--but no more. Put the +whole proposal, then, of Dr. STANLEY, and of Mr. WILSON, and others into +plain English, and it is this--(and I ask to be corrected if I +misinterpret it)--"_Let the clergy in future sign_ NOTHING, _but let them +consent to adopt and use what the_ PARLIAMENT _may from time to time +authorise_." + +The object, then, being thus simplified, we need not here pause to +estimate the excellences or defects of any of the formularies which we +all alike have thought to be good enough to _sign_. With more than +judicial fairness, Dr. STANLEY admits that the whole Thirty-nine Articles +are "incomparably superior" to the "Nine Articles of the Evangelical +Alliance" (p. 11), or any that would be drawn up by "the dominant +factions" of our Church, _or Commonwealth_. But this kind of criticism +may well be postponed till the prior question is disposed of--whether we +should "sign" _any_ thing? When the Articles and Prayer-book come to be +hereafter discussed, these details may have interest with some, as parts +of the literature of the "_Eighteenth Century_;" but at present might it +not be disrespectful merely to glance at them in a sketchy way, to give +pungency and interest to a somewhat barren subject? I do not say that +the highly rhetorical sentences in which praise and blame are judiciously +administered by Dr. STANLEY to Article 1, 5, 9, or 34, contribute nothing +to the effectiveness of the pamphlet with the "general reader;" but it is +obvious that with the argument, strictly speaking, they have nothing to +do. + + + +Dr. Stanley's Three Arguments. + + +The Relaxation of Subscription appears, as far as I can gather, to be +urged by three arguments,--the first founded the _origin_ of the +"Subscriptions" among us after the Reformation; the second, on the +alleged absence of "Subscription" in the Primitive Church; and the third +on the practical evils of the present state of "Subscription" in the +Church and in the Universities. If I examine each of these, I shall not, +I think, have omitted any point hitherto prominently alleged in this +controversy. + +I. "The Church of England, as such, recognises absolutely no +Subscriptions." Such is Dr. STANLEY'S proposition (p. 38). The tests of +membership are "incorporated in the Services to the exclusion, as it +would seem, of all besides." It is added (p. 39)--"These other +obligations were, in fact, _not contemplated_ at the time of the first +compilation of the Prayer-book and Articles, and have grown up as a mere +excrescence through the pressure of political and ecclesiastical parties. +The Articles were not subscribed (by anything like general usage) till +the 12th year of Elizabeth; they were then, after much hesitation and +opposition, ordered to be subscribed for a special purpose," &c. + + +The Reformation. + + +Is it possible to suppose that Dr. STANLEY means this for a fair +representation of the spirit and design of the Church of England, from +the beginning of the Reformation to the 12th year of Elizabeth? He +writes as though the Articles were all really to be signed, and the +Prayer-book all settled, and that the Church during all that time +deliberately intended to leave her members such freedom of opinion as he +and others would now restore. If he does not mean this, his argument +falls to the ground. But what are the facts of the case? + +Elizabeth ascended the throne at the close of the year 1558. Every +position of trust throughout the country was then held by Roman +Catholics. The bishops and the clergy were generally devoted to Rome. +The Convocation met, in two months, and drew up Articles presented to +Parliament, which are described as "flat against Reformation, and +_subscribed_ by most of the University." Even Cambridge is said to have +given her approval. At such a crisis, it was evident that some years +must elapse before any such Revision of Edward VI.'s Articles could be +hoped for, as would obtain general consent. But to represent this pause +as a kind of freedom from "Subscription" enjoyed in earlier and more +liberal times, to say that "the Church," at least, was ignorant of this +device, when "Subscription" to certain "Articles" was the first step +which the Convocation and the Universities naturally took, immediately +Elizabeth came to the throne, surprises me beyond what I like to express. +The "general reader" is entirely at the mercy of so eloquent a writer as +Dr. STANLEY, and it is not too much to ask that he use his power with a +little generosity; or if he will not, it becomes imperative that his +representations be translated into a humbler style, that the world may +judge how they look. The facts of the case are, in truth, opposed to all +that Dr. STANLEY'S argument requires. Instead of the twenty years and +more, which preceded Elizabeth's 12th year, being years in which the +Church of the Reformation adopted laxity as its principle, the whole of +the period, from the beginning of the reign of Edward to the year 1571 +(with the exception of the brief interval of Mary's government), was +occupied in a careful effort on the part of the Reformers to tie down +both clergy and laity by the strictest body of ecclesiastical law, +perhaps, ever attempted to be enacted in the Christian world. + + +The Reformatio Legum. + + +I refer, of course, to the "Reformatio Legum." The Archbishop of +Canterbury, the subsequently-elect Archbishop of York, and certain +suffragans; great Reformers, such as Peter Martyr and Rowland Taylour; +known scholars, such as Sir John Cheke and Dr. Haddon, were engaged in +this business, which was looked to as the crowning act of the Reformation +of Religion. Archbishop Parker took up the work which Cranmer had begun, +and even pressed it on the reluctant Queen as far as he dared. + + +Subscription demanded in 1553. + + +The connexion of the _Reformatio Legum_ with the Articles of our Church, +and the light which they throw on each other, I need not point out to any +who are acquainted with the history of our Church at that time. The +Forty-two Articles, from which our Thirty-nine were, ten years +afterwards, derived, were first published in 1553. In the November of +the preceding year, Cranmer proposed that the bishops should have them at +once _subscribed_ throughout their dioceses. The death of King Edward +prevented this from being accomplished. They were revised and subscribed +by Convocation in 1563, in the name of the whole clergy of England. The +early chapters of the _Reformatio Legum_ contain the doctrine of the +Articles, and were, no doubt, intended to be an authorized exposition of +them. How strict a system was meant to be inaugurated by the Reformers +may be judged by even a superficial perusal of that Book. Heresy and +blasphemy were to be punishable by death. Adultery was to be visited +with imprisonment and even banishment. Impenitent persons were to be +"handed over to the civil power." All this was the sort of Discipline +which was waiting to be put in force as soon as the Reformers could +persuade the nation to bear it;--and yet this is the supposed time when +Subscription was alien from the mind of the Reformed Church! + + +Temporary restriction of the Clergy. +Subscription in 1564. + + +But during this interval of twelve years, while the bishops were doing +their best to bring the clergy and people to Uniformity, and preparing +them for the "Discipline" which was openly clamoured for, we find that +immediately after the Articles were published, "advertisements" came out +by authority further to restrain the liberty of the preachers. In 1564, +the clergy, who had by their proctors subscribed the Articles in +Convocation, were required "to protest and _subscribe_" that they would +not preach at all without special license from the bishop, but "only read +that which is appointed by public authority:" and further, that they +would "observe, keep, and maintain, all the rites, ceremonies, good +usages and order" set forth by the Act of Uniformity. Here then was +"Subscription" to the whole Prayer-book as it then stood. And, indeed, +even three years before, the "readers" in Churches were obliged, by +"Subscriptions" to certain injunctions, to execute their office within +prescribed and narrow limits. The state of things doubtless was still +felt on all hands to be but provisional. The great Roman Catholic party +waited, without separating formally. The Puritans were stirring +themselves in the cause of "Discipline:" it was hoped by both parties +that some change might, from the lapse of a few years, better their +position. The latter reckoned on the more aged of the old Popish Clergy +dying out; the former were encouraged by a fanatical prophecy to expect +the death of the Queen herself in the twelfth year of her reign; but +after that time the Puritan and Popish parties became openly defined, +while the Church had as yet no such "Discipline" as could hold her +members together at all, except by the Court of Commissioners. It was to +restrain both parties, then, that recourse was once more had to +"Subscription." + +Can there be need, my Lord, to pursue any further an inquiry into so well +known a piece of history as this? I should not have said so much, had +not the Ecclesiastical History Professor declared that Subscriptions and +Declarations of Faith were "not in fact _contemplated_ at the time of the +first compilation of the Prayer Book and Articles;" that Subscription is +"superfluous," "needless," "capricious," "extrinsic," and "accidental," +(pp. 38, 39), "and that the Church of England, as such, recognises +absolutely no Subscriptions!" I submit to your Lordship, that the Church +of England "at the time of the first compilation of the Articles and +Prayer Book," encouraged no freedom whatever to diverge from the one or +the other--demanded Subscription (by Cranmer) in 1553--_obtained_ it from +all the bishops and representatives of the clergy in Convocation in +1563--and laboured to restrain both Papists and Puritans within more and +more rigid limits year by year, till by the thirteenth of Elizabeth +"Subscription" was universally enforced, as the only practical substitute +for that Ecclesiastical Discipline which was refused. + +I have purposely abstained from here noticing minor inaccuracies which +singularly abound in the learned Professor's letter, and have kept to the +main point. His position is that since the twelfth year of Elizabeth, a +stern and gradual growth of Subscription has superseded the liberal +system of the earlier years in which the tolerant Church "knew +_absolutely nothing_ of Subscription!" Without this, again I say, his +argument comes utterly to an end. It will be useless to weigh syllables, +and retreat upon the _ipsissima verba_ of the Letter. The broad +representation means this, or it is _nihil ad rem_. And the whole +history of the period is again, directly the reverse of the +representation given by Dr. STANLEY. {18} + + + +The Primitive Church. + + +II. I pass, then, to the next point--the alleged absence of Subscription +in the primitive age. Not content with the reference to the history of +our own Church, Dr. STANLEY says:--"I will not confine myself to these +isolated instances, but examine the history of Subscription from the +first. For the first three centuries the Church was _entirely without +it_." "The first Subscription to a series of dogmatical propositions as +such was that enforced by Constantine at the Council of Nicaea. It was +the natural, but rude, expedient of a half-educated soldier to enforce +unanimity in the Church as he had by the sword enforced it in the +empire." (p. 35). Again, I am painfully compelled to meet the statements +of Dr. STANLEY with a direct negative. The case is _not_ as he states +it. A "rude soldier," in those days--(when comparatively few people +_wrote_ at all)--would not, I think, have been likely to invent this +"expedient:" but, in fact, he _did not_ invent it. + + +Council against Paulus Samosatemus. + + + + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PROPOSED SURRENDER OF THE +PRAYER-BOOK AND ARTICLES OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND*** + + +******* This file should be named 49114.txt or 49114.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/4/9/1/1/49114 + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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