66 doctrine is the true doctrine, when it is thus deliberately overlaid by the Fathers" and by the Councils of the fourth century? The Protestant Church of England has committed precisely the offence which Protestants impute to Rome, of overlaying the "word of God" by tradition and by human authority. It is better to stop at the fourth century, than go on to the sixth or tenth : it is better to take the First Four Councils than all the Councils down to Trent (especially if "heretical" Councils are arbitrarily weeded out); yet, in principle, to do one or the other is equally irrational, equally unequitable; and equally overthrows the professed object of recovering Apostolical doctrine. In passing, we may observe how dependent on the National Church has been the theology of our most numerous dissenters, -Independents, Baptists, and Methodists. They have taken the "Canonical Books" on trust, they fear to abandon the "Creeds" or to swerve towards "Pelagius;" have gone beyond Judaical error with Puritanism and the Low Church, and have quarrelled with Anglicanism on precisely its least important and most innocent points,-mere forms of government. They have done much service in zeal for morality and for freedom, when the hierarchy had lost the former zeal with the latter; but towards solving the real problem of the Reformation they have done little or nothing. The reason of this we take to be, that so soon as any system of doctrine is pronounced authoritative, the very fact gives prominence and importance to precisely its weakest or falsest parts. A verse pregnant with noble, holy, and clear sentiment, gives nothing to a commentator to say; but a dark, paradoxical, or unsound doctrine, affords not only abundant exercise for ingenuity, but also a test of faith (!) When Paul says, that there is no difference between Jew and Gentile, but the same Lord over all is rich to all that call upon him; there is no merit in believing what so commends itself to the conscience. But when he argues, that God hated Esau before he was born, irrespective of his works, and has power, like a potter, to make out of man, as out of clay, vessels of wrath, fitted to destruction; there is merit in believing what sounds so shocking. Hence so many minds gravitate towards the Rabbinism of Paul, so long as they hold it a duty to submit to him without inquiry; thus also they fail of doing justice to that good and wise man, nor ever see his grand doctrines in their full significance. When to this was added a bowing of the intellect (quite un-Pauline) to the Pentateuch as authoritative, our popular Dissent, called Evangelical, became substantially nothing but a mean Rabbinism. We should be glad to believe that the National Church is waking out of these dreams. Messrs. Jowett, Wilson and Rowland Williams have caused an excitement at once wholesome and hopeful. The phenomenon of Bishop Colenso is still more startling. His position is essentially different from theirs in this respect: that they do not profess to be consciously out of harmony with their subscriptions; they endeavour to show that the bands of the Church are elastic enough to include them: but he distinctly avows that the enactments are improper, that he cannot conscientiously use one at least of the prayers; and he implores the laity to relieve the clergy from the unjust restrictions. This is so very novel a fact, that, although in our last number we dwelt on many topics suggested by his first volume, much still is left even from the general question, besides the special matter of his second volume. Before we come closer to his subject, we wish to pass in review some broad aspects of the National Church as the history of the past exhibits it. Long experience proves undeniably, that the position of the Anglican bishops (and of the clergy in proportion to their dignity) tends to emasculate good men. To stand up for ceremonies, for sanctimony, for church fees or other gains, for church power or episcopal privilege, is not at all uncongenial to the Episcopate; but how many bishops ever yet have been champions of righteousness? To humanize and christianize the nation, was, as Dr. Arnold judged, the proper function of bishops in the House of Lords; and on this account he defended the principle of lord-prelates. But when we look back through the last two centuries (a time long enough to test an institution), we find a terrible contrast of fact to theory. In this period the nation has been afflicted by profligate courts, venal statesmen, flagitious drunkenness in all classes, corrupt constituencies, oaths multiplied so as to ensure perjury, and worst of all, very many unjust wars. The criminal code was long cruel in the extreme, the prisons were a torture, and a fountain of moral leprosy,—as we fear they still are. Lotteries demoralized the people; the fairs and wakes were scenes of profligacy. An inhuman slave-trade shipped off captive negroes as unceremoniously and as regularly as cargoes of cattle. Colonial slavery was in vigour, and its horrors were no secret. In India our arms and our government were stained with cruelty, avarice, and treachery. But we are not aware that the bench of Bishops ever distinguished themselves by zealous exertion against such things: nay, not that so much as one bishop has ever become signal for active zeal against even one of these glaring moral evils. To fix ideas, take two topics, War and Slavery. What unjust wars have they collectively opposed ? What part against the slave-trade or against slavery have they played, whether in regard to our own colonial struggle, or now in the crisis of America? And yet a Wilberforce is on the bench. We are aware, that it is a hereditary rule of statecraft to appoint a timid man to be Archbishop of Canterbury; but among the lords all are peers. Experience seems to prove, that as the man who becomes a slave loses (according to Homer) half his virtue, so the man who is enslaved to Articles generally loses half his moral courage:-exceptions are rare, nor need we here analyse such. But the virtue which is so racy and full of life that Priests' Orders cannot extinguish it, is exposed to a still worse blight under the formula of Consecration. Ceremonialism, after this, (with the labour of laying-on of hands and perhaps of signing leases superadded) dries up the juices of a heart previously bursting with philanthropy or keenly craving for truth. : One may even see the unsoundness of Anglicanism in the phenomena of recent ecclesiastical writing. Any ecclesiastic may sap the foundation of Biblism to any extent, by accurate criticism, by local comments on Egypt and the Holy Land, by geological and ethnological discussion; and so long as he does not distinctly avow any conclusions, though all see and know them, a decorous silence is preserved or if the writer purposely underdraws the conclusions, he may even gain credit for learning and discretion. But the instant that the simple truth is spoken, a cry of indignation arises. One most disgraceful topic, urged recently before an immense circle of readers, may be briefly expressed in the popular words: "Why cannot you hold your peace, and not frighten the bigots? Of course we all know that you are right; but you are a fool to speak so plainly." Simultaneously, all the organs of Ecclesiasticism and Biblism give tongue and their topic is, not to disprove the facts, nor to disconnect them from their alleged conclusion, by any learned and thorough treatment; but, either to assail the writer as violating his subscriptions, or to urge the further dreadful results which they will inconveniently have to admit, if what he says be true. It has been said, not more caustically than truly, that there are three stages of ecclesiastical argument, when any scientific truth is developed offensive to them: first, it is said, that it is not scientifically true; next, when that fails, it is said to be impious, and a storm of indignation follows; lastly, when the laity show that dust cannot be thrown into their eyes, it is said, that it is true, but very unimportant, very old and notorious. Now (we venture to assert) that which draws towards Bishop Colenso sympathy and admiration, is, precisely the frankness which has raised this storm. Men are delighted, that at last a Bishop does speak out. The wise and welcome sentiments of the Bishop of London, excellent as far as they go, are too trimming and apologetic. They gain approval, rather than applause. They may be just, but they do not meet the exigency; and have nothing brave, where bravery is chiefly needed. The Bishop of St. David's speech is interpreted simply to mean, that he remembers the peccadillos of his youth, conceived by the layman, brought to the birth by the clergyman, and disclaimed by the bishop; and that he does not like the annoyance and discredit of punishing a brother bishop for literary judgments which all the world must believe Bishop Thirlwall to hold, until he solemnly recants and refutes his own book. If the nation is to have a warm, practical, religious faith, it must have religious leaders whose hearts come out to the surface of their lips. It suspects, it pities, or it despises religious teachers who are evidently less vehement to know or to tell the true creed, than anxious not to clash with that which is enacted. Secresy, reserve, dissimulation, esoteric meanings, may be pardonable in statecraft; but in religion are detestable. favourable contrast is drawn for the Bishop of Natal, even at the expense of the "Essayists," for his honourable downrightness. Besides his earnest desire to warn his readers of his conclusions, (so far as he clearly sees that his arguments must carry them,) he has introduced the novel and important method of giving the counter-arguments of the ablest, most learned and esteemed champions on the other side. This is perhaps the most effective peculiarity in his book. The public, many of whom would else say, "Perhaps this might be answered, if any one equal to the task would take the trouble," see what is the strongest thing which the opposite side can say, and what striking admissions they find themselves constrained to make. Colenso is at the same time forward to avow his consciousness, that his conclusions are inconsistent with certain details of the Liturgy; but with the simplicity of an upright conscience, he implores of the laity aid to alter the formulas. Fully aware that his good faith is unimpeachable, inasmuch as he believed when he subscribed, he proclaims at once his submission to authority, if enforced against him, and his resolution to follow truth, whithersoever it may lead. When this unshrinking and avowed willingness to follow the indications of truth draws upon him violent animosity from the real clerical party, and from hypocritical churchmen, but gains for him warm applause from millions outside; we find herein a signal mark of the gulf which has opened between the intelligent part of the nation and the church which calls itself national. In the nation is truthfulness, in the church is a dread of the light. The moral summary of Bishop Colenso is contained in the following, p. 371:— "He [the God of Truth] calls upon us now in this age, as He did in the days of the Reformation or of the first publication of Christianity, to make a complete revision of all our religious views in this respect. We shall best serve Him by giving ourselves piously and faithfully to the consideration of this great question of our day. . . A true Christian is not at liberty to lay aside, as inconvenient or discomforting, any single fact of science, whether of critical or of historical research, or of any other kind, which God in His gracious providence is pleased to bring before him." He adds, that especially those who have leisure, talents, and the office of teaching, are bound to enter such critical inquiries, and to accept whatever is established by them as true. Again, p. 381: "It may be, rather, it is, as I believe, undoubtedly-the fact that God himself, by the power of the Truth, will take from us in this age the Bible as an idol, which we have set up against His will, to bow down to it and worship it. But while He takes it away thus with the one hand, does He not also restore it to us with the other, not to be put in the place of God, and served with idolatrous worship,-but to be reverenced as a Book, the best of books, the work of living men like ourselves; of men, I mean, in whose hearts the same human thoughts were stirring, the same hopes and fears were dwelling, the same gracious Spirit was operating, three thousand years ago, as now?" Thus we are brought back to the point from which we started. Bishop Colenso puts his finger on Bibliolatry as the cardinal error which it is the duty of this age to abandon. This was the critical mistake of the first Reformers, the evil legacy they have left to us. Its mischief is not to be measured by the definite misguidance of single texts, but by the moral paralysis it has induced. Take any of the monster evils of the world, as slavery, political tyranny, war, pauperism, and ask how they are dealt with by the clergy in general. You will find that the argument concerning them is made one of text-weighing. Words which were wise and just in their day are adopted as an eternal law, to the paralysis of the moral sense, and the depression of human welfare. The character of the clergy and credit of the Church |