any

of these. There we may learn some of the blessings of ecclesiastical discipline and of ecclesiastical courts. There we may learn how the meanest secular aids were invoked to assist their operations and secure their triumph. There

-or anywhere else-we may learn what came of such experiments-what cause the Crown and the Church had to be thankful for them.

Dreary as it may be to repeat the old story about the way in which the monarch and the ecclesiastics after the Restoration profited by the divine lessons which had been read to them during the civil wars, the lesson can never be obsolete, and is surely wanted now more than ever. As illustrating the vitality of the Church, in spite of all that those who tried to regulate its doctrines did to destroy it, the contemplation must be a cheering, as well as a humbling one, to every serious English clergyman. He cannot wish to exaggerate offences into which he may so easily fall, or to assume the office which the Judge of all claims for Himself of determining the amount of guilt in one party or another. Many of us feel, and have expressed our conviction, that the Act of Uniformity had this compensation for the many evils which flowed from it, that it asserted worship to be the bond of fellowship to a nation; whilst the Westminster Assembly had tried—with what success we know-to hold it fast by dogmas. But, the more strong this conviction is in our minds, the more it must oblige us to regard the measures of restraint upon the preaching and meetings of the Nonconformists as a miserable adoption and imitation of the maxim upon which they in their hour of triumph had acted-a vulgar and suicidal proclamation that the Episcopalians were a vengeful sect, exulting in the possession of revenues, and in the favour of a Court which they could not hinder from being a scandal to the land, whilst they were boasting that they constituted a National Church. Was that the way to teach men that worship binds men into one as members of God's forgiven family? Was that the

way of leading Englishmen to claim their privileges of confessing their sins against truth and charity to the Father whom they have grieved? Was it not the way to convince Protestant and Romish Nonconformists, that the Anglicans were trying to make their Church the exponent of a system which was neither national nor catholic?

That such a system must merge in a system more complete, more exclusive of all light and air, in a polity sustained by French money, and at last doing homage to a foreign ecclesiastic, the next reign showed conclusively. The Religio Laici, which Dryden wrote in Charles's day, the Hind and Panther which explains his conversion, are faithful documents respecting the vibrations of men of cultivated minds and somewhat loose morality between the two systems-exhibitions not of the mean dishonesty which Lord Macaulay unfairly imputes to the poet, but of the natural gravitation of troubled consciences and wearied intellects to repose. For the nation, if not for the individual man, the shock of the Revolution disturbed this gravitating tendency. However speculative philosophers in later times have interpreted that event, the authors of the Act of Settlement, embodying the deepest convictions of their time, read in it a sentence of God upon a monarch who had broken his covenant by seeking to set himself above laws. They felt that the supremacy of the monarch gave him no right to be absolute over the consciences of his subjects, but took away from him, as well as from all priests, native or foreign, any such right.

All such notions undoubtedly were much forgotten in the eighteenth century. Both in England and France theocracy began to mean the govern ment of priests, not the government of a just God, and was hated accordingly. Both in England and France the belief in God was chiefly the recognition of an Opifex Mundi. Our first two Hanoverian princes partook of these feelings. The English Church as well as the English nation had some reason for regarding them as strangers ignorant

of our habits, institutions, language; inclined to involve us in Continental quarrels, not the least able to create in us any cordial Continental or human sympathies. But these sovereigns had surely their redeeming points. I cannot but regard that act of theirs, which English clergymen have been most disposed to denounce, as one of those redeeming points. Whatever motives led the first of them to close the doors of the Convocation, I question if an Alfred could have done a greater service to the nation, if a St. Louis could have promoted the interests of Christian life, more than he did by that suspension of the powers of the ecclesiastical synod. I say nothing against its revival in a later time. If it proves itself worthy of its faculty of speech, it will no doubt continue to exercise the faculty. But this I cannot doubt, that, if Convocation had been sitting when Wesley and Whitfield began their preaching, all the efforts of both Houses would have been exerted to silence that preaching and expel the preachers from the Church. More they could not have done at that time. Had the Star Chamber been at work, had Laud's spirit been prevalent in it, the noses of the Methodists would have been slit, their ears would have been cut off. What were the transgressions of the Puritans whom he silenced compared with theirs? or what denunciations against the entertainments of a Court and the upper classes to which Leighton or Prynne gave vent were more earnest and extravagant than those which proceeded from adherents of theirs? On both pleas they would have been condemned. If they escaped with only the reproofs and scorn of the Bishops and the brickbats of mobs, that was due to the suspension of ecclesiastical discipline through the influence of the sovereign. I do not say that if the Methodists had been ever so much fined or imprisoned their permanent influence would have been less; perhaps it would have been greater. But the Church was at least saved by the mercy of God from committing itself

to some great cruelty, probably to some fierce dogmatic conclusions against the spiritualism of the Methodists, which must have involved the materialism that was then so prevalent.

This last remark especially applies to the question of the present day which has tempted me into this long historical statement. The Court of Appeal which exists amongst us may or may not be the best possible. Any suggestions for its improvement should, of course, be patiently considered. But the charges which the Bishop of Capetown and Dr. Pusey bring against it-the evils in its administration which they hope to see corrected by the Court, whatever it be, which they will substitute for itare, it seems to me, if the history of England is something better than "an old almanac," the merits which shall endear it to our people generally, and to theologians and ministers of the Gospel especially, provided they derive their ideas of theology and of the Gospel from the Bible and the Catholic creeds. I will add, provided they desire a real union of the most earnest forms of belief at home; provided they wish for such fellowship, either with Protestants abroad or with Christians of the Latin and the Greek communions, as shall not rob us of our own English position. The accusation against the Privy Council is strictly and literally that it has not compelled Englishmen to accept a negative theology-a theology which consists in contradicting certain positions which different parties in the Church have put forward, which are very dear and sacred to those parties, but which are certain to become exclusive and contradictory if any of them were in the ascendant.

Let me explain myself. Feeling as strongly as you know that I do about the force of the words in the Catechism, making them the very ground of my preaching, you may imagine how little sympathy I felt with Mr. Gorham; how likely I should have been, if I had unhappily had the opportunity, to have condemned him, and with him all that large and valuable body of men who

have succeeded to the great awakeners of the Church out of its slumbers in the eighteenth century. Thank God! the case was taken out of the hands of such fanatics as I am. The Privy Council Court refused to pronounce a negative opinion upon the question which was submitted to them. They refused to say that the convictions of Mr. Gorham and of those who agreed with him were not consistent with honest adherence to our formularies, with continuance in the Church. They took away no right from us to express our convictions as earnestly and vehemently as we chose. It seems to me that they gave us a great encouragement to put them in a positive form, that they discouraged us from merely turning them into questions of controversy, from denouncing others who do not accept them. If what we hold is true-if it is connected with the life and education of our people--this must be a great advantage. And it must give us a courage and security in announcing what we believe. For a man may know what that is. And he cannot know what his opponents mean; he can only guess at that; he may make the most prodigious mistakes in judging it or setting it forth. His opponents' maxim may be actually necessary for the full statement of his own. It may fill a blank which his own partial apprehension has necessarily left.

Again, you will not suspect me of any special affection for those theories respecting the Eucharist which came forth from Archdeacon Denison, and were condemned by the Court of the Archbishop of Canterbury. But I cannot help rejoicing that Archdeacon Denison sought relief from the present Court of Appeal, and that, acting upon its habitual maxim-though in this instance upon a bye-point-in consideration of the time during which the suit had been kept pending-it saved the defendant his living and his dignity. That by doing so it gave him an opportunity of abusing it, and of seeking to crush any of his brethren whom it may protect as it protected him, appears to me a very trifling

matter indeed. In no way does it signify greatly what becomes of individuals except that every wise man would wish his opponents to escape the honours of martyrdom. But the interests of theology were saved, I believe, in Archdeacon Denison's case and in Mr. Gorham's, from a purely negative decision -one which is never so mischievous or fatal as in a question respecting the sacraments, which, if they mean anything, must transcend all theories, and may, as Hooker has taught, commend themselves to the deeper heart and spirit of those who are clinging to any theory.

The last decision of this Court of Appeal is quite in the spirit of its predecessors. It merely refuses to endorse a negation. It merely refuses to say all persons must reject a particular notion about inspiration or a particular notion about the punishment of the wicked hereafter. It is conceived in a temper of excellent modesty. Instead of being an assumption on the part of lay judges to decide what formulas are right on subjects so vast, reaching so high, descending so low, it is a distinct disclaimer of any such assumption. We do not see, it says, that such or such a mode of speaking about inspiration is condemned by the Articles; we do not see that such or such a mode of speaking about eternity is condemned by them. It may be a very inadequate mode; it may be a wrong mode. We decide nothing about that; if it is inadequate let it be filled up by other statements; if it is wrong let the right meet it and drive it out.

Is not that what a theologian who believes that he and his fellows are baptized into an infinite eternal Name immeasurable by human plummets, who accepts a creed which is the declaration of that Name, and a Bible which speaks of a love which passes knowledge, would desire? Can he wish that the convictions of particular men or par ticular ages should be used to destroy the mystery, and contract the revelation? Must he not count it safer and more pious to confess that God is taking the best and wisest methods of

discovering to us that we want a home and dwelling-place? If we had that faith, how much less we should rebel against what we must see is the order of His Providence! How ashamed we should be to wish that we could arrest the vicissitudes and perturbations of human opinions, or compel them to obey our direction! How sure we should be that they must be removing some obstacles which have hindered the full discovery of God's truth to the sons of men !

Dr. Pusey requires an Ecclesiastical Court of Appeal which shall do exactly the reverse of that which the mixed Court of Appeal already existing has done; which shall decree exactly where it has refused to decree, which shall condemn those whom it has refused to condemn. Imagine that! He calls for a Court of Justice which shall decree, which shall condemn. There is no mistake about it. He solemnly denounces and anathematizes all who shall not come to the conclusion which he affirms and determines to be the only right one. Can there be a better or more complete reductio ad absurdum of the notion of ecclesiastical justice?1 I say of ecclesiastical justice, for I think Dr. Pusey faithfully represents the spirit. that is in us all. There must be in every priest who is sitting to judge in a case of doctrine an arrière pensée that he is meant to do something else, that he has another function-a higher function-than that of the judge. The thought that he is entrusted with a Gospel will intrude itself into his mind when he is exercising the office of a lawgiver and a law administrator. The two offices will mingle together in his mind; and he will be spoiled for both by the mixture. In a very strict-and not an untrue sense-Jura negat sibi nata, and the consequence is that he does in the worst sense throw off the obligations of justice for himself and refuse

1 Oh no! Dr. Pusey will say. I admit an examination into the fact. That is to say, he allows his tribunal to inquire whether a certain man wrote a certain book; which no Englishman could deny if he would, or would deny if he could.

But there are two or three reasons given us why we must have this kind of negative theology established among us, why no other is safe. The first and most commonly urged is this. If there is not a distinct religious system recognised among us, if departures from it are not visited by ecclesiastical censure, the laity can have no security whether they shall not hear one doctrine in one week from one preacher, a quite different one from another preacher, or from the same, a year after. I have heard this argument from a distinguished layman. I quite understood what he meant. His mode of dealing with his minister was the approved one.

"I thowt a said what a owt to a said, and I comed awaay."

Of course I sympathized with him. It was very hard for him if at any time a preacher should disturb him in his pew with some words which "A thowt he

2 It may be thought that a cloistered divine is more prone to this kind of injustice than one who moves in the world. Recent experience does not confirm the distinction. Last session, a prelate-certainly not the one who has the least acquaintance with the habits and maxims of ordinary society-denounced from his place in the House of Lords a set of clergymen who could not reply to him, as men who had broken their engagements-though they had been absolved from that charge in the Queen's Court. Mr. Windham's celebrated phrase about Horne Tooke, which always excited astonishment in a gentleman of such breeding, was scarcely a precedent for a Christian Bishop. But the most remarkable part of this story has no parallel in the "acquitted felons." The Bishop was defending a vote of Convocation which rested on the ground that a book might be condemned without condemning the persons who wrote it!

owt not to 'ave said;" but there are two points ever to be taken into consideration. The first is, whether there may not be a worse calamity than this; whether it might not be sometimes good for a hearer to ask himself, "What does that man mean?" if it only led him back to ask himself, "What do I mean?" whether an ecclesiastical court which made such self-questioning impossible would not insure great quiet to the laity by insuring a quiet infidelity, a quiet death to them. And, secondly, let it be inquired whether laymen are exempt from this danger of hearing different doctrines preached even in the same pulpit, even from the same person, and whether they are more likely to be exempt from it if our clergy are taught that they have a system of religion set down for them in the Articles. On this last point I must tell a story I have heard of a man of the highest logical power, who started with that very hypothesis, who would have had it most rigorously enforced. I have been told that his place was once in a great University, and that he exercised an influence there which was unprecedented. I have tried to ascertain whether he was able to follow the system to which he bound himself, whether those who heard him did gather the same lessons from his lips one year and in the year following. I would not have received any testimony on the subject but his own. On that I can rely implicitly. I find that he began by learning the profoundest truth concerning himself through Mr. Scott, the commentator; a truth which he has never forgotten, and hopes never to forget. But Mr. Scott's system does not satisfy him. The highest divines of the seventeenth century give him hints of something less merely personal, more concerning the body of the Church. Their system he endeavours to follow. It has antiquity for its basis. He is vehement against those who oppose it. Scotchmen resemble the Ten. Dissenters must be left to uncovenanted mercies. Liberals are his abomination. Romanists he shrinks from with terror. He will not hear of any relaxation in

Subscription to the Articles. Still this Anglican system does not content him. He wavers in his statements about it, in his methods of defending it. His followers waver still more. He finds he has not the sympathy of the Bishops. His countrymen evidently do not understand their own treasure. Is it a treasure? An article of Cardinal Wiseman shakes his opinion that it is. A half sentence of St. Augustine convinces him that it is not. The house of cards tumbles down. It must have a larger system, a worldwide system, an all-embracing system. His heart lingers over old times, old associations. But they must all be severed. Only a universal bishop can give him the universal system.

Now here is a record manifestly true, profoundly interesting; the record not merely of the experiences of a man, but of a movement which affected a number of men, which is affecting them still. Surely it comes with an overwhelming force to meet that argument of which I have spoken. You want a system, and ecclesiastical courts to enforce a system, that the laity may always have the same doctrine, that they may be disturbed with no new opinions. Mothers, we are told on high authority, tremble for their sons. Possibly: it is certain that numbers of them did tremble while Dr. Newman was preaching in Oxford. Did his fervent belief in a system allay their terrors? Did it secure them against vicissitudes of opinion in their children? Did not every Long Vacation show them a new phase of opinion?

But then-this is the second great reason the English Church has chosen to enforce Articles upon us; while we are faithful to it, we must be faithful to the system of the Articles. It is nothing for me to say-for a number in every age to say "We do not find a system in "them. They have kept us from follow"ing systems; that is a reason which "makes us feel grateful to them." such language is treated with contempt. We are charged with direct dishonesty for using it. Be it so. Will you listen, then, to this testimony? Here is a man who longed for a system, longed to find

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