Possible

useless, so also would be their removal; that other obstacles would be left, which would still render the entrance difficulties to graduation in the University and to the ministry

still remaining.

of the Church too narrow for those whom we should wish to include.

4

It may be urged, first, that the candidates for Orders would still stumble at the questions put to them in the Ordination Ordination Service. No doubt some would. But anyone who Service. will read the seven questions addressed to Deacons, and the eight addressed to Priests and Bishops, will see their wide difference from the present terms of subscription. They are almost entirely practical, bearing on the moral or spiritual condition of the candidates themselves. The only questions which can be construed as requiring a profession of intellectual belief are the third to Deacons and the second to Priests and Bishops. Of these, the latter, if for a moment it might seem to press hard on anyone who attached much importance to Tradition, yet probably would not of itself even exclude a Roman Catholic or a Greek, however much they might be dissatisfied with its purely negative character. The third question addressed to Deacons, if taken in the sense which alone the words will bear when applied to the immense variety of books and styles contained in the Bible, and viewed in the light of Dr. Lushington's recent judgment, which is now the only legal interpretation of it, is such as most reasonable Christians would at once answer in the affirmative.5

It is urged, secondly, that conformity would become a burden equal to that of subscription, and that there would be an inconsistency in reading or reciting that to which Conformity. we have refused to express our assent. I do not deny that difficulties would arise. But they would be much less than they are at present. It is obvious that conformity must always be wider than exact belief. A single instance will suffice both as an illustration and as an argument. The whole ministry, not merely of the Church of England, but of all English Churches and sects throughout the world, use the Authorised Version of the Scriptures. They use it, although they are aware that it contains innumerable errors. They use it, although they know that in many instances these errors are such as convey to their hearers a sense exactly the contrary of the original, and a belief in the genuineness of

Authorised
Version.

* [The wide generality of these questions was strikingly exemplified by their confessed inadequacy to satisfy the demands of eager agitators for a more strin

gent declaration in a late well-known Episcopal appointment. 1870.]

5 See Note at the end.

passages which they themselves know to be spurious. In the minds of the most enlightened of the clergy these variations may be of trivial importance. But to many, perhaps to a majority, they are of the very highest importance, inasmuch as they give to our congregations a totally false impression of words, and lines, and sentences of that Sacred Book, concerning which at least one distinguished Prelate has hazarded the remarkable statement, probably endorsed by a large section of the religious world, that 'the very foundation of our faith, the ' very basis of our hopes, the very nearest and dearest of our 'consolations, are taken from us when one line in that Sacred Volume on which we base everything is declared to be un'faithful or untrustworthy.'

This Version we read in spite of its imperfections, in spite of its errors, because of its general excellence, because of its antiquity, because of the difficulty of changing it, because of its value as a bond of union with all English Protestants, because of the confusion which might possibly ensue if each clergyman availed himself of his liberty to alter it at his own discretion. But all this we do, without subscribing to it. King James I. might have ordered a subscription of 'unfeigned assent and consent to all and every part of it,' and a declaration that we believed it to contain 'nothing contrary to the Word of God,' and 'that all and every' chapter and verse was agreeable' to the original. No doubt this subscription, like those which now exist, would have been explained away. But how greatly would it have increased our difficulties, what insinuations of dishonesty and bad faith would it have bred against every inquiry into the text, against everyone who endeavoured to defend (as recently) the details of the Pentateuch by arguing that every word complained of was a mistranslation ! What heart-burnings in students, what scruples in preachers! From these we are happily delivered. No subscription has ever been required to the Authorised Version; and yet it remains, as the Liturgy would remain, a lasting bond of our religious unity, and as both would remain, if they were altered in conformity with increased knowledge and increased piety.

But even if conformity be of itself a burden on some consciences, this can be no reason why the burden should be increased by subscription. The difficulties of revising the Liturgy are great; the difficulties of removing subscription are small. Let us, at all events, relieve the Church where we can and as we can.

It is also urged that the reluctance to enter Holy Orders

age.

is deeply rooted in the theological unsettlement of the age, State of the combined with the narrowness of ecclesiastical parties. I acknowledge this fully. I acknowledge that, if the present ardour for inquiry on the one hand, and the present disposition to narrow the boundaries of the Church on the other hand, were to continue, the advantage gained by the abolition of subscription would be very slight. The tolerance with which, as was noticed in your Lordship's Charge, the scruples of Arnold about the canonicity of the Epistle to the Hebrews were treated by Archbishop Howley, would be now, if I mistake not, comparatively rare. The tenderness with which, thirty or forty years ago, the consciences of young men were soothed and encouraged in their difficulties at taking Orders, has (perhaps with the best intentions on the part of our rulers) not increased in proportion to the needs of the case, or the wants of the Church. This more stringent view which (in consequence, it may be, of the changed circumstances of the time) so many have felt it their duty to adopt, I fully and mournfully acknowledge. Still the very gloom which this state of things casts over our prospects makes it the more necessary for the Legislature to do what it can to remove these (as they may be called) mechanical hindrances to the efficiency of the Church, the removal of which is within its own power. And the support given to such a relaxation, even by a single member of the Episcopal Bench, would be hailed by the rising generation at least as a sign that their case was not altogether overlooked by those whose office it is to heal the sick, bind up the broken, bring again the outcasts, 'seek the lost.'

May I conclude by repeating a well-known story, of which I will not vouch for the exact accuracy in detail, but which is sufficiently correct on the whole to justify the moral to be deduced from it?

Conclusion.

There was, till within our own times, in the Turkish Empire a law-of high importance in the eyes of the ecclesiastical and civil authorities-which guarded the established faith by inflicting capital punishment on any convert to Islam who was found guilty of relapse to his former religion. An instance of such a relapse was detected in the person of an Armenian Christian. The Council of State considered his case, and he was sentenced to death. The great English Ambassador, whose name is still so renowned throughout the East as a terror to evil-doers and as a refuge of the oppressed, delivered his earnest remonstrance against the execution of

the sentence. The Council persisted, and the headless trunk was that same day exposed in front of the Sublime Porte. The Ambassador heard of the disregard of his warning. He instantly sent to the Ministers of the Sultan the announcement that part of his effects were already on board the steamer moored beneath his palace, on the Golden Horn; and that, unless he received an assurance of the repeal of the obnoxious law, he and all his suite would instantly take their departure from Constantinople, and that the whole diplomatic body would rapidly follow.

The Council of State met. The terror of this great defection had at last awakened them to the gravity of the situation. Divided between the awe of the impending calamity, and the reluctance to part with a time-honoured bulwark of their ecclesiastical constitution, they knew not what to do. In this extremity they sent for a venerable ex-Minister, whom they were wont in severe emergencies to consult as an oracle of wisdom. He came, and they expounded to him their difficulty and entreated for a solution. The aged counsellor answered, 'You have asked me a question. Allow me to reply by asking you another. Do you wish to lose the whole of your religion, or only a part? They replied, 'A part.' 'Then,' he continued, 'I advise you without a moment's ' hesitation to repeal this law, against which the Ambassador of England has raised this formidable complaint. It is possible 'that our religion may subsist without it; but it is certain that, unless you repeal it, our whole Empire and Church will, by the alienation of this great power, be brought to the ground.' They listened-they were silent. The law was repealed. No relapsed Mussulman has ever since been executed. The Turkish Empire and the Mussulman hierarchy and faith still remain, not weakened, but strengthened by the removal for ever of so terrible a scandal.

6

I do not press the application of this apologue in all its parts. We have no monstrous individual grievance to provoke the anger of powerful statesmen. The Church of England is, we may confidently trust, in spite of all its dangers, far more secure than the tottering Empire and hierarchy of Turkey. But the danger which threatens us is analogous to that which threatened the Sublime Porte, the danger, namely, which the Bench of Bishops, with one accordant voice, has pointed out, in the gradual withdrawal of the highest and most cultivated minds in the country from the ministry of the Established Church. They have already begun to move; they are but

waiting the signs of the times to withdraw in yet larger and larger numbers to a further and further distance.

In this crisis the advice of the aged counsellor at Constantinople is the best that we can follow. The question is constantly arising in ecclesiastical legislation, Will you lose the 'whole of your religious system, or a part?' There is always a disposition in the first instance to say that, if we lose a part, we shall lose the whole, and that the only means of saving any part is to keep the whole. Yet it may truly be said, not only that all experience proves the futility of this alarm, but that the whole is best saved by abandoning those parts which can no longer safely be retained. What Paley says of the advantage afforded to the Christian Religion itself by the relief from any one Article which contradicts the experience or the reasoning of mankind, is no less true of the relief afforded to any particular branch of the Christian Church by the removal of any unnecessary burden which has been fastened upon it. 'He who dismisses from the system' any such useless appendage 'does more towards recommending the belief, and, with 'the belief, the influence of Christianity, to the understandings ' and consciences of serious enquirers, and through them to universal reception and authority, than can be effected by a ' thousand contenders for ordinances of human establishment.' My Lord, I leave the matter in your hands and in the hands of the Legislature. Subscription and abolition of subscription are alike only means to ends. If the end can be accomplished in any other way, if the comprehensiveness, the influence, the truthfulness, and the faith of the Church of England, if the interests of learning and religion at Oxford can be better maintained by retaining subscription than by removing it, then by all means retain it. But if, on the other hand, it shall seem that the time is at last come when that which the great statesmen and divines of the Revolution so nearly carried into effect may be safely accomplished, it will be one of the best signs which could be given that the Church of England is still alive, still able to meet the requirements of our age, still vigorous enough to bear the removal of an excrescence that drains instead of nourishing its strength.

One word in conclusion. It is my earnest hope that in nothing which I have said I shall appear to have been unmindful of the extraordinary anxieties and perplexities which beset the position of those who hold the high office of Bishop in this trying time. If I have ventured to address your Lordship at all on this subject, it is because I know what those difficulties