'lished laws both ecclesiastical and civil, and, if they were active, 'it was to prevent the other two from destroying what was by 'those known laws happily established to them and their 'posterity.' 2 To this class belonged, in his rustic retirement, the great Hooker; to this class, in a later age, Isaac Walton himself; to this class, in our own time, the great mass of the nation, rich and poor, male and female, who are members of the Church of England, because they wish to be religious without being members of a party or a sect. More speculative minds may long for the professorial chairs of Germany, or the elaborate systems of Aquinas or Bellarmine; more resolute minds may long for greater simplicity of principle, for greater vigour in the enforcement of ecclesiastical discipline. But those of whom we just now spoke-the little ones, whom to offend is to incur a greater penalty than to be drowned in the depths of the sea, who in Protestant Germany might have been driven to distraction by the unbounded liberty of speculation, or, in Roman Catholic Italy, have been driven to infidelity by the iron yoke of authority, these are the very persons who seek and find in the bosom of the Church of England the very refuge they want. Let anyone look at a rustic congregation, and ask what it is which is expected from the Church of England by the rude farmer, the simple labourer, the hard shopkeeper, the timid woman, the ignorant child, that come to worship under that sacred roof. Do they wish to know whether their pastor has authority to teach them dogmatically the doctrines of Absolution and the Real Presence? Do they wish to be told whether Regeneration takes place in, before, or after Baptism?-—whether their children have been regenerated by prevenient grace or by the sprinkling of water?—whether the 'Decades of Bullinger' or the 'Savoy Conference' contain the truest exposition of Christian doctrine? Everyone knows that they want no such thing. Everyone knows that a clergyman who was constantly insisting on such matters in his pulpit would be regarded as hardly in his right mind. Everyone knows that what they desire, and what from any good pastor they will receive, is the permission and the help to worship God as their fathers worshipped Him-to serve Him truly in those various stations in which He has placed them-to be strengthened and built up in that holy faith which is indeed, in every sense, beyond and 'without controversy.'

Such is the true end of a Church Establishment,—such is the end which, even after the disastrous secession of many of 2 Walton's Lives, i. 354.

3

its most distinguished members, is still to a great extent answered by the Established Church of Scotland,—such is the end which, down to this time, has been, with more or less effect, answered by the Church of England, and which might be answered with still greater effect if it would, in the solemn language of its Ordination Service, 'wholly apply itself to this one thing, ' and draw all its cares and studies this way;' but such is not the end which is either pursued or attained by convocations and synods, by dogmatic statements and stringent subscriptions, by furious letters to the Archbishop of Canterbury, or by a hundred and forty questions to aged Calvinists. We know how the Hampden controversy, even at the very height of its terrors, withered and died in a moment before the blaze of the Revolution of February. We know how the Gorham controversy would be extinguished, in like manner, by any similar catastrophe, whether at home or abroad. Would that the greatness of our daily duties, of our ordinary dangers and privileges, could reveal to our clergy what the sudden convulsions of public life always do reveal,-the nothingness of these verbal disputes, when compared with the stirring interests of national and individual welfare. It may be the sign of a healthy political state that our only revolution, as a French traveller is said facetiously to have expressed it, is the revolution of 'le père Gorham.' It is not the mark of a healthy moral state that 'le père Gorham' should concentre upon himself and his doctrine that energy of hatred which we have been taught by our baptismal vows to reserve for moral evil, or that we should labour to turn our artisans into dogmatic theologians more than to make them good citizens and good Christians.

We have dwelt on the historical certainty of the fact that the Church of England was meant to include, and that it has always included, opposite and contradictory opinions, not only on the point now in dispute, but on other points, as important or more important than this. We have dwelt also on the in

estimable value, if not absolute necessity, of maintaining this position, as the best means of dealing with the peculiar mission of a National Church, especially of a National Church in England, above all of the Church of England in these times. But we feel that there is a yet higher ground to be taken-that there is a sanction and an example of our position almost too solemn to be insisted upon in a temporary argument, were it

3

[The opposition to the appointment

of Dr. Hampden to the see of Hereford,

which began in November 1847, and ended in February 1848.]

not for the greatness of the interests at stake, and for the sincerity, in many instances, of the scruples which such a position excites in those who have not considered it from its true point of view.

In the second of those vigorous, though mistaken letters, which have drawn down upon Mr. Maskell the anger of

Example
of the

Apostolical
Church.

hundreds less plain-spoken or less clear-sighted than himself, after an examination of the various points on which he truly conceives the Church of England to have expressed no dogmatic opinion, there occurs this (in his view) final and fatal question,- Has the world ever 'before seen,-does there now exist anywhere-another example of a religious sect or community which does not take one side or the other clearly and distinctly, upon at least a ' very large proportion of the doctrines of which we have been 'speaking ? 4

Yes the world has seen one example, at least, of a religious community, whose highest authorities did refuse to take one side or the other clearly and distinctly on the questions which were brought for their decision. There was once a council, in which, after much disputing,' it was determined not to 'put a 'yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither their fathers 'nor they were able to bear ;' and to whom 'it seemed good 'to lay upon the Church no greater burden than these necessary things, from which if the brethren kept themselves they should 'do well.' 5 There was once a conference of those who 'seemed 'to be the pillars of the Church' to decide the claims between the two rival sections of the Christian community, of whom we are told, that' when they perceived that He who wrought effec'tually' on one side, 'the same was mighty' also on the other side, they 'gave' to both 'the right hand of fellowship,' that each should go unto' his own peculiar sphere. There was once a controversy which distracted the Church with doubtful disputations,' and the answer which came from an authority, now revered by the whole Christian world, was a decision which decided nothing, except that each party might be left to its own convictions, however opposite and contradictory they might be. 'Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind. ' that regardeth the day regardeth it unto the Lord, and he that ' regardeth not the day, to the Lord he doth not regard it; he 'that eateth, eateth to the Lord, for he giveth God thanks;

6

6

He

⚫ A Second Letter on the present Position of the High Church Party in the Church of England, p. 40, by the Rev. W. Maskell.

Acts xv. 7, 10, 28.

• Gal. ii. 8, 9.

15

C

and he that eateth not, to the Lord he eateth not, and giveth 'God thanks.' 27 It is to the principle, not the subject-matter, of such decisions, that our attention is directed. The controversy to which they related, different as it was from those of modern times, agitated the Apostolical Church no less fiercely, and was invested by the contending parties with no less importance. It is enough for our purpose to learn that the Church of the first century gloried in the freedom which is now regarded as a disgrace, and directed its earliest and most energetic efforts, not to the enforcement of a rigid conformity, but to the toleration of wide diversities. It was, indeed, no empty figure of speech which in that early age of Christianity recalled the image of the ark prepared against the flood. It is not an empty boast, that we have now within our reach—and it will be no imaginary guilt if we, of our own accord, refuse. to maintain a system which shares, in however imperfect a measure, one characteristic attribute of that perfect Church which was to float visibly upon the stormy waters, and gather within itself the characters of various conditions, opinions, and tempers, who fled to it for shelter from the waves of this troublesome world. The Church of England, however, in this respect, unlike the Churches of Rome or of Geneva, may console itself with the reflection that it presents a likeness, however faint, of the Church of the Apostolic age.

It is with reluctance that we descend from that sacred atmosphere to the earth-born mists of modern controversy. We might well be content to leave the question as it reposes on the general principle so amply justified by the most solemn precedents which the world can furnish, and in this particular case so clearly enunciated by our highest legal functionaries, so wisely sanctioned by the silence of our highest ecclesiastical authorities, so irrefragably justified by the facts of history, so directly applicable to every party in the Church of England. We feel that, whilst taking the question on this its highest ground, we are not only occupying a position impregnable in the present controversy, but that we are defending interests far wider and far more sacred than those which that controversy involves, and are resting under the shade of an authority which the Bishop of Exeter himself will not dare to excommunicate. Long after the Gorham Case has been forgotten, the Church and nation will, we confidently trust, reap the fruits of that calmness and moderation which serve to protect from persecution

Rom. xiv. 1, 5, 6.

tion.

Its am

the very party which is now indignant at being restrained from persecuting others. 'Old religious factions,' according to the felicitous image of Burke, 'are volcanoes burnt out; on 'the lava and ashes and squalid scoriæ of old eruptions grow the peaceful olive, the cheering vine, and the sustaining corn.' But a few words must, before we conclude, be devoted to the subject of the controversy itself, which has given rise for the present to so much unhappy division,-for the future Controversy on Baptismal let us trust to so happy a prospect of ultimate union. Regenera- Into the details of the question it is not our intention to venture. Of this, with perhaps even greater truth than of the kindred controversy on the Eucharist, we may well say, with Jeremy Taylor, 'Men have turned the key in this lock so often, till it cannot be either opened or shut, and they have 'unravelled the clue so long, till they have entangled it.' In the present instance such a task is rendered doubly biguity. hopeless by the shifting character of the dispute in its various stages. No sooner do we grapple with an argument or a statement in this Protean contest, than it suddenly turns into something else. Down to the moment of the Judgment, 'Regeneration' was the word on which the whole question hinged. The moment that the Judgment was pronounced, 'Regeneration' was discarded, and a totally different phrase and idea,-'the Remission of Sins,' was substituted for it. When we ask what is meant by 'Remission of Sins?' that expression itself changes into the 'Remission of Original Sin ;' and if we ask further, whether that phrase is used in the sense of the early Church to imply the everlasting loss of unbaptized infants, we are warned that it means no such thing, and some equally ambiguous test is given us in its place. Again and again the statements crumble in our grasp. Again and again we find that they are either so unmeaning that all parties alike conform to them, or so revolting that all alike repudiate them. Or if from words we turn to persons, the chase is still after a phantom. The conflict is like the midnight battle at Syracuse, where each party mistakes the watchword of the other, where Ionian pæans and Dorian pæans are heard alike on either side, where no one is able to draw the line between friends and enemies in the shadowy strife. The extremes, no doubt, differ from each other, but the intermediate stages which unite the extremes are absolutely indistinguishable. Can Mr. Gorham fall without involving Mr. Goode in his ruin? And yet, if Mr. Goode is to be lost, how shall we save the venerable Primate, who has so conspicuously marked him out for honour, and who