DELAY MORE DANGEROUS THAN ACTION.

43

"While I sympathise with my brethren in the wish that we could see the Common Prayer-book handed down intact to our children, I differ from them as to the fact of the present time being so unsuitable for revision. I am more afraid of delay than I am of action. There is excitement enough to make men take up the subject in earnest, but I do not think there is so much excitement as that party spirit will blind men's eyes, and a violent partisanship destroy their zeal for truth."

His lordship quotes in support of his views no less an authority than the Bishop of Oxford! Tell it not in Gath; whisper it not in Askelon. Yes; the BISHOP OF OXFORD has discovered, "after having thought over the matter, that this is a time in which to be bold is to be wise to be bold is to be safe."t

To this testimony we may add the published sentiments of another Master in Israel: not indeed a bishop-because he has been a consistent Church Reformer for a quarter of a century-but not the less an authority for all that.

The Rev. Charles Girdlestone‡ writes as follows, in reply to the circular of the Westminster Divines :—

"TO THE VERY REV. THE DEAN OF WESTMINSTER (TRENCH).

"DEAR SIR,—In reply to a circular, signed by yourself and others, inviting me to join in deprecating a revision of the Prayer-book at the present time,' I take the liberty of asking

When, except in times of comparative excitement, are any reforms undertaken? The Revolution in France carried the English Reform Bill of 1831-2. The Potato Famine in Ireland accomplished the long-agitated Repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846-7.

† It is on this principle, we suppose, that the Bishop of Oxford sets the example to his clergy of a breach of the Act of Uniformity. See opinions of Messrs. Jebb and Stephens, on a case put by Mr. Henry Seymour, M.P. for Poole, August 16, 1862.

Of this gentleman see more in Vol. I., Letter xxxII., pp. 209-13.

at what time, past or future, you and they would judge it more expedient than now? For my own part, I think the present the best time that ever was or ever will be. My reasons for so thinking are as follow:-First, it never was so obvious as now that our Liturgy, in its present state, admits of being interpreted in harmony with that spurious Christianity called Popery, against which the Church of these realms is pledged to protest. Secondly, the danger never was so imminent as now, that if temperate revision be frustrated, we shall have in its stead a sweeping revolution. For such a calamity I dare not in anywise make myself responsible by signing the proposed declaration."

Let us hope that, at the mouth of these three witnessesthe Bishop of Oxford, the Bishop of Carlisle, and the Rector of Kingswinford-this word may henceforth be looked upon as established, and that we shall hear no more of the argument drawn from that stereotyped phrase, "not at this time."

In conclusion, the Right Rev. Montagu Villiers signifies his intention of supporting "any temperate proposition that may be made for the removal of existing difficulties."* More than this; he adds

"If a Commission were appointed to examine and report upon the question of Rubrics, I do not feel that I could deny the propriety of the step. But I shall offer the strongest resistance in my power to any attempt to force changes in the spirit of party; or to make changes for mere love of change; or to any narrowing of the basis of the Church of England, so as to exclude men who are prepared to say they honestly and ex animo can give in their adhesion to the doctrines of the

* His lordship, nevertheless, was silent in the House of Lords when Lord Ebury made his motion of May 8, 1860. Such, alas, is the wide difference between words and deeds. "Don't mind what he says:-look to what he does," said the present Lord Derby (when Foreign Secretary) of the Emperor of Russia (according to Punch!). This deponent sayeth true.

THE HIGH CHURCH "PARTY."

45

Thirty-nine Articles in the true, usual, and literal meaning of the said Articles; not putting their own sense or comment to be the meaning of the Article, but taking it in the literal and grammatical sense."

That such a COMMISSION may speedily issue is the earnest prayer of

March 13, 1860.

Yours, &c.,

"INGOLDSBY."

LETTER LXXVIII.

66 THE CHURCH CAUSE AND THE CHURCH PARTY."

"High Church and Low Church,

Is a Church and no Church."-ANON.

SIR,-The above are the title and motto of a tract of some fifty pages recently reprinted from the Christian Remembrancer,* in which allusion is made to Lord Ebury's threatened motion, now become the bête noire of the High Church PARTY.

I don't like the word. We don't read in the New Testament of Christ's party, or Paul's party: at least, if we do read of the latter, it is only in order to be emphatically condemned by the adopted leader. "Every one says, I am of Paul; and I of Apollos; and I of Cephas; and I of Christ. Is Christ divided?"-And if not Christ, why his Church? Why these divisions and sub-divisions ?—High and low, narrow and broad, Catholic and Evangelical ;-this man after the use of Salisbury, with its dogma of Apostolic succession; that man after the use of Exeter, with its dogma of Baptismal Regeneration; a third after the use of

* London: Mozley, Paternoster Row, 1860.

See Vol. I., Letter LXI., p. 369.

Oxford, with its dogmas of private Confession and Priestly Absolution?

Not that we anticipate that millennium of "one use" which the enthusiastic writer of the article before us seems to have pictured to his mind's eye; wherein "the patriarchs of Rome, Constantinople, and Canterbury should worship together at the same altar, and separatists flock in by shoals to the one true Church."-" Happy dreams," indeed!—But we do believe, and are confident, that much might be done to widen those portals which now manifestly increase, if they do not cause, separation; and we therefore hail Lord Ebury's proposition as directly tending to this consummation so devoutly to be wished.

The writer of the tract, whose style savours strongly of the classical language and well-known sentiments of the late M.P. for Maidstone* (and who, being now released for a season from his parliamentary engagements, doubtless finds more leisure for the use of his pen), characterises Lord Ebury's movement as one whose object is "to expunge Church doctrine from the Prayer-book," citing in support of such view the petition of the 463 clergy which Lord Ebury circulated last autumn amongst the London churchwardens.

Now, it is no part of our business to defend Lord Ebury. But we have said before, and we repeat it, that if every Member of Parliament is to be bound by every petition he presents, you will either get no petitions presented at all, or you will convert your representatives into mere nominees of so many cliques, instead of being, as they are theoretically supposed to be, free to hear and determine, to the best of their judgment, upon each point in debate as it arises.

But, supposing Lord Ebury to have stated it as his

* Alexander Beresford Hope. See Vol. I., Letter XLVII., pp. 306-7.

RETENTION AND LOOSING OF SINS.

47

opinion that "the Absolution in the Visitation of the Sick," for example, had better be omitted from our Prayer-book ;* what of that?-Has no bishop done the same? We shall quote an authority which the (supposed) author of our tract will not readily reject-as the same writer was a decided advocate for those church decorations in which the ex-member for Maidstone takes so much delight, and in which his pure soul sees nothing but "the beauty of holiness," though weaker minds are apt to pervert them to purposes of idolatry and superstition :—

What says the late Bishop Stanley on the point which is now charged against a Lay Peer as a proof of his desire to "expunge Church doctrine from the Prayer-book?"

"With reference to the retention and loosing of sins, unless a qualified interpretation and considerable latitude be generally understood, we, the clergy of the Reformed Protestant Church, assume a right of tremendous responsibility, more becoming the character of the Roman Catholic priesthood, in saying that unless we, as ministers of the Church, do forgive and absolve, the sins of the dying man must descend with him to the grave with all their fearful pressure; and that if we choose to retain them, he cannot escape their fearful consequences."+

I am aware that it is the fashion with the "party" to which our assumed author belongs to decry such writers as Arnold and Stanley; but we are by no means, therefore, persuaded that these latter are wrong, and that all wisdom lies with the doctors of the High Church school. That Bishop Stanley was successful as a practical administrator of the affairs of his diocese, stands on record in the words of one‡

See "The Church Cause and the Church Party," p. 55. + Bishop Stanley, of Norwich, "Notes on Subscription," 1840, p. 111. See a Sermon, entitled "The Faithful Steward," preached at the funeral