A charge to the clergy and churchwardens of the Diocese of Salisbury : at his Triennial visitation, in August, 1864
;^ X . I ' V • ss s< -**f. L I B RARY OF THE U N I VERSITY Of 1LLI NOIS $tc ■ /P(Pf CHARGE TO THE CLERGY AND CHURCHWARDENS DIOCESE OF SALISBURY, AT HIS TRIENNIAL VISITATION, IN AUGUST, 1864. BY WALTER KERR, BISHOP OF SALISBURY. SALISBURY : BROWN AND CO., CANAL. LONDON: RIYINGTONS. OXFORD: PARKER. MUCCCl XIV, SALISBURY : BENNETT, PRINTER, JOURNAL OFFICE. TO THE CLERGY AND THE CHURCHWARDENS OF THE DIOCESE OF SALISBURY, THIS CHARGE IS AFFECTIONATELY AND l: T'.sl'KC: FII.I.V DEDICATED, BY THEIH FA IT II FT I. FRIEND AND SlillV.UT, \V. K. SARIM. Palace, Salisbury. August. I^:i4. uiuc TABLE OF CONTENTS. This Visitation Diocese — State of Diocese — Changes in Poor Benefice Augmentation Fund Faithfulness of Clergy Bishop's Duty with regard to the Discipline of the Real Question at Issue The Denial of the Supernatural How such an Opinion gained acceptance What done to defend the Faith My Own Conduct Its Result Process by which Result was reached Remedy of Present Grievance of the Church Relations of Church and State Re-union of Christendom Diocesan Synods Our Faith not a Matter of Opinion or Sentiment The Creeds The^Formularies are Dogmatic Theological College Retreats Sermons Missions Bishop of Capetown Pastoral Letters The Holy Sacraments The Order for the Burial of the Dead Subscription Book of Common Prayer Act of Uniformity Our Special Circumstances How the Clergy should Exercise their Ministry Clergy APPENDIX. Tabular Statement of Services, &c. &c. Pastoral Letters Training School Statistics Missions Parish Schools Churches Consecrated and Restored, &c. Result of Inspection of Schools Names and Benefices of Clergy who have died Diocesan School Prize Scheme Extract from Last Charge Answer to Address of Dorset Clergy Letter to the Archdeacons Mission House Statistics Letter from Rev. Prebendary Pavne PAGE 92 93 93 93 93 94 95 97 101 102 104 105 109 109 CHARGE, My Revekend Brethren and Brethren of the Laity, On most of the subjects with which my Visi- tation is concerned, I have received all the This information which I can need. Visitation. The answers to the questions which I addressed in the month of February to the Rural Deans and the Officiating Ministers of the Diocese have given me very many details of the state of that part of our Church of which I am the Overseer. The declarations made by the Churchwardens and Sidesmen are no less satisfactory, except in the case of those articles of visitation and inquiry which regard the morals of their fellow parishioners. In these excepted and most important particulars, the Presentments are not always, I am well aware, a full representation of all the facts of the case. But it could not, under present circumstances, have been otherwise. Not only is there at present no attempt in our Church to exercise discipline, but the very idea of discipline, as an appointment of our Lord, seems to have almost lost its place in our religious system ; and this being so I am not surprised that the Churchwardens and Sidesmen have not satisfied the demands which are made upon them at the time of their Bishop's Visitation for a report on these matters. I am not however on this account prepared to expunge these two Articles of Inquiry ; a for though we have been for some time under the necessity of foregoing the ancient discipline, my own wishes and hopes remain in entire accordance with the language of our Church on this subject; and I look to and desire the coming of the time when " faith in the reality and grievous effect of excommunication" will have been thus far restored, as to make it possible so to use Church Courts and Church Laws that " persons convicted of notorious sin may be put to open penance, and punished in this world, that their souls may be saved in the day of the Lord."b In the meanwhile, the Church must exercise the disciplinary and penitential power which our Lord has entrusted to her in the best way that circum- stances will permit, and the Bishops must at their Visitations be content to receive a declaration from the Churchwardens and Sidesmen which does not represent a perfect discharge of their duties. And this admission of failure — necessary failure — in one special branch of my inquiries, is only part of a more general admission which I am prepared to * Keble's Life of Bishop Wilson, vol. i., p. 202. b Comminution Service, make — namely, that Visitations, as far as the Clergy are concerned, have not the same influence which they once had in the effective administration of the Church of God. We must however thankfully retain and use them, as means of great indirect good, as acts of Church administration, which bear on them the mark of time-honoured sanction, and as instruments which may in contingencies possibly not very distant be employed with the important results which attended them in former days. In the meantime, some desirable changes may be made in the conduct of them, and on the present occasion I have, with a view to the convenience of the Clergy and Laity, made some new arrangements both for the discharge of my duties as Visitor, and for the celebration of the religious Offices which initiate them. Thus the celebration of Holy Communion is now separated from the Morning Prayer, and I have fixed the hour for calling over the names of the Clergy in my Court, and for addressing to them and the Churchwardens my Charge. I have also requested my Clergy to give notice in their churches of these appointments, as I was ad- vised on the occasion of my last visitation, that there were persons (as was most natural) who would have been thankful to join with their Bishop and Clergy in the religious Offices of the day, but who were un- willing to do so without some expression of welcome from me. The only other departure from my custom at my 10 three former Visitations will be found in my Charge. I have always tried to keep clearly before my mind the distinction between a Synod and a Visitation, and so have abstained from seeming to assume to myself the right of speaking in my Court as ex cathedra on points on which I might only rightly so speak in Synod. I have accordingly on these former occasions Diocese.— occupied your time mainly with such a state of. revjew 0f Diocesan and Church work, as your answers to my questions, and my own expe- rience enabled me to give you. And though I hope not to transgress to-day the limits which I have hitherto fixed for myself, I shall, with regard to the state of my Diocese, content myself with simply assuring you that, as far as I can rely on outward tokens, we have on the whole cause to thank God, and with thankful hearts to strive the more earnestly and hopefully to prepare ourselves and those committed to us for the account of the Great Day. And in giving you this assurance, both I who bear changes in this witness, and you who hear it, must at Diocese, ^g moment have present to our minds that in God's good Providence many of our brethren have been withdrawn from their service in the Church in this Diocese since my last Visitation. At that exact time, our hearts were sorely tried by the death of a layman, who, by his almsdeeds, and other good works — by his ever ready sympathy with everything that is lovely and of good report — 11 cheered on my Clergy and myself, to attempt an imitation of that unselfish, elastic, hopeful, un- flagging devotion to duty, which characterised the late Lord Herbert. But this was but the beginning of the changes which have since come upon us. Look only, my brethren, to a few of those which have taken place amongst the Clergy.a One part of my Diocese, Dorsetshire, has lost the services of two Archdeacons — of one, whose long experience, knowledge of Ecclesiastical law, cour- teous bearing, and particularly his able, vigorous charges, full of research, and important information, gave a special value to his ministrations ; and of another, who was welcomed by the Clergy and Laity of the Diocese, as the natural successor to Arch- deacon Buckle, but who, after having by his first most remarkable and valuable Charge confirmed the wisdom of my choice, and the justice of his brethren's anticipations, was obliged on the ground of health to tender his resignation of an office of so much responsibility. In the Archdeaconry of Wilts, the losses have been still more severe, for the changes have been there caused by death. By the death of that aged servant of the Lord, Archdeacon Macdonald, the Archdeaconry was de- prived of the guidance of one, who, by his prudence, integrity, strong common sense, kindness of heart, * See Appendix, p. 91. 12 and long-sustained loyalty to the Church, had gained and maintained the confidence of the Clergy and Laity in his Archdeaconry, and especially (as I am often told) of that most influential and attached body of Churchmen, the Yeomen of Wiltshire. On the occasion of his death, there was in that Archdeaconry, as in the Archdeaconry of Dorset, one man marked out, I rejoiced to know as his successor by the wishes and judgment of all its members, whether lay or clerical. This was Henry Drury, who had been associated with me as Ex- amining Chaplain to my revered predecessor, and to whom I was united, not only by an unvarying appre- ciation of the refinement, gentleness, and vigour of his mind, the unswerving constancy of his religious principles, and the power and grasp of his sympa- thies, but by an intense affection which we entirely shared for our common friend and patron, the late Bishop of Salisbury. You know, my Brethren, the result of this ap- pointment, and I cannot trust myself to speak of the weight of sorrow and anxiety which the death of one so dear to us all brought upon me. I was, perhaps, more able to measure the magni- tude of the loss from the fact that when this sorrow came upon me I was borne down by another most searching affliction-. One of the greatest friends of my early manhood, and for whose taste, judgment, theological instinct, and learning I had the most deferential respect and admiration — to whose example I was indebted as 13 words cannot tell — and to whose unvarying affection I could never appeal too much or too often, namely, William Beaclon Heathcote, had died on the 21st day of the preceding August. And in his case, as in that of Henry Drury, I feel that any words of mine must fail to do justice either to his lofty character or to my own estimate of the loss which the Church has sustained. The words in which Archdeacon Drury described his friend Precentor Heathcote on the occasion of his death, are equally true of them both : — " It was hard to say, whether we shall remember him most for the genial warmth of his heart, or for the richness of his intellectual gifts, or for his unwaver- ing reverence for religious truth, or for the meek- eyed integrity of his saintly life ;" and I would only add to such an expression of what I am sure I may say are our own thoughts, these words of faith, and hope, and love : — " They were lovely and pleasant in their lives, and in their death they were not divided. "a But in speaking of changes, we necessarily include not only those who have vacated their offices, whether by age, or infirmity, or death, but those also who have come into their places. And here I will not, for obvious reasons, speak directly of them, but of myself. My wish was to appoint to these offices men sound in the faith, wholly given to the work of the ministry, and to the exercises of our Holy Religion, 2 Sam. i. 23. 14 and who by the firmness of their principles, the moderation of their characters, their conciliatory bearing, and their seeming power to move the secret springs of men's minds and hearts, were qualified to attach others to the Church of God. And I feel that I have cause to thank G-od that He guided me to a right choice, and I have no fear that the successors of Archdeacon Huxtable and Archdeacon Drury will ever give you cause to question whether I acted under such guidance. In the Appendix to my Charge (a copy of which I Poor Benefice shall send to each one of you) there will be Augmentation. Fund, tables8 and other statistical information, which will enable you to test the truth of the favour- able report I have made to you of my Diocese; and amongst those tables there is one to which I would specially direct your attention, as the Society to which they refer has been founded since my last Visitation. I am speaking of the tables of the Poor Benefice Augmentation Fund. The Ecclesiastical Commisioners, with the view of increasing small endowments, have for some years appropriated part of their means to meet local benefactions raised for that purpose ; and there are, I am sorry to say, many cases in my Diocese which urgently require such augmentation. The following statement justifies my saying this. There are in this Diocese — 29 Benefices of between £13 and £70, gross annual value, averaging less than £55, " See Appendix, p. U'2. 15 40 of between £70 and £100, averaging less than £86, 56 of between £100 and £150, averaging less than £125, 55 of between £150 and £200, averaging less than £171: ii e., there are 180 Benefices whose average gross annual value falls short of £119, and net annual value of £100, though many of them require the services of one or two Curates, and there are also about 50 incumbencies without any suitable residence. Now, one way which has been successfully adopted in many dioceses of drawing forth a local bene- faction, and so qualifying the benefice for the help of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, is by making a grant out of a common Diocesan Fund towards such local benefaction ; and after a full consideration of the wants of this Diocese, and the example thus set us by others, we determined in November 1862 to form such a fund. You will see by the tables which give the amounts of our dona- tions and subscriptions, and the collections under my Pastoral Letter what success we have had, and I trust that at our first meeting to make grants, which is fixed for Tuesday, September 27, a still stronger interest may be excited about our Association. But in referring you to this and to the other tables which will be printed at the end of my Charge, I do not forget that in such a matter as the condition of the Church of Gon great caution should be used in 16 drawing conclusions from mere statistics. These may lead to either a too hopeful or a too unfavourable judgment. Many things must be taken into account in estimating their value, and especially in ascer- taining how far they may be accepted as an answer to that question which is a most vital one to the well-being of the Church — viz., the question of the faithfulness of the Clergy. It is this question which has, I would remind you, Faithfulness given a very special and peculiar interest of clergy. ^Q ^e controversies which had begun before my last Visitation, which are still going on, and which have not perhaps yet reached their height. The great excitement and alarm which have at- tended the re-opening of old questions, and the republication of old objections to part of the teaching of the Church of Christ owed much of its impulse to the fact, that some of the leaders in these assaults on the Faith were men who had before made an explicit profession of their belief, and had entered into en- gagements to keep their teaching within limits, which it was felt these revived opinions had ex- ceeded, and who upon the strength of such profession and engagements had been entrusted with the re- sponsibilities and privileges of Office in the Church. Many who could not appreciate the importance of the discussions which these Clergymen had raised were quite able to come to an indignant decision as to the honesty and faithfulness of those who claimed to themselves such unrestrained freedom from what were supposed to be their obligations. 17 With regard to my own Clergy, as a body, I have a ready and confident answer to any question which may be raised about them. You, my Rev. Brethren, by addresses to me in 1861, and again by your addresses to me this 'year? and by your forward liberality in helping to relieve me from the burden of the heavy costs attendant upon my endeavours to prove that the Clergy could not claim for the errors, which some of them were propagating, the protection of the law, have as a body placed yourselves beyond the reach of suspicion about your faithfulness and honesty. And I am the more satisfied of this, first, because usually nothing is more difficult than to obtain any united action amongst the Clergy. We are so accus- tomed to act as individuals (and I say this not as a matter wholly of either praise or blame), that any- thing like unanimity, especially when the character and interests of others are concerned, can only be the expression of a very deep and general con- viction; and secondly, because there were many motives besides that of sympathy with these errors, which might have made some of you unwilling to take an active part in such measures of condemna- tion, however just and well considered. And as I have referred to your readiness to show by deeds as well as words that in instituting B.gho ^ legal proceedings I had in your judgment Duty with regard to the done what was right, I think this a Discipline of natural opportunity of briefly stating what is the duty of a Bishop with respect to the discipline 18 of his Clergy. This question has of late years been much discussed, but it has, perhaps, been but im- perfectly understood. The Bishop is Judge "Ordinarius" or Ordinary of his Diocese. He has the cum curarum of all souls therein, but he has also the especial duty of enquiring into and of punishing the offences of the Clerks who are placed under his control. It is necessary that he should discharge both these func- tions. Criminal proceedings therefore against a Clerk in Holy Orders, according to the usage of the Church, require the sanction or permission of the Bishop. It is his office, to use the proper legal term, which is promoted. The Bishop proceeds against the Clerk either (1) ex officio mei'o, or (2) ex officio promoto. In the former case he originates the enquiry and assigns a particular proctor or person to bring the matter legally before him in his judicial capacity, but he himself in no way interferes with the conduct of the cause. In the latter case the Bishop does not originate the enquiry, but allows another person, who prefers the charge, to substantiate it by proper legal pro- ceedings before him. But any application of these principles is embar- rassed by the large expenses incident to enquiry or prosecution, and by the difficulty of defraying them. It must be clear to any one who is familiar with this matter, that it is quite impossible for any Bishop, however much he may desire to be faithful, to un- 19 dertake the charge of correcting his Clergy by legal process, if the expenses of such process are, in every case, to fall exclusively on him. On this point however you have anticipated my opinion by a generosity which relieves me from the necessity of saying more than that I thank you from my heart. But the question of the faithfulness of the Clergy which has led me to make these remarks is The Real Question at not after all of such moment as the truth Issue- or falsehood of those opinions, which some of them have claimed the right of propagating. It might have been that these Clergymen had passed the barriers within which they had solemnly engaged to the Church to exercise their functions, and that such conduct was accordingly unfaithful, but even in this case, if the barriers thus exceeded were such as to prevent them from leading forth their people to any parts of the green pastures and sweet waters of God's truth, all truth-loving men should join hand in hand to help to free them from such restraints upon the liberty of God's ministers. But I am also satisfied of our unanimous persua- sion that, should any persons desire to refer all God's dealings with man, and so those which are recorded in Holy Scripture, to the operations of some general and fixed law, which is not subject to any interference on the part of the author of such law, and so to eliminate from Holy Scripture the Supernatural, these would require not liberty but restraint. b2 20 And it is this denial of the Supernatural which The Denial has been a principal cause of excite- Supematurai. ment and controversy in the Church since the year 1861. This is the root of modern scepticism, as has been most ably shown by several recent writers ; this is the irpdrov 4>t.v§oQ, with which the faithful must do battle, if they would maintain the faith against the various errors which draw their virus more or less directly from it. In these days attacks on the faith mainly* take their rise out of this negation of God's supernatural interference. Whatever philosophical form a man's scepticism may assume, he begins and ends his assault by eliminating the Supernatural from both the moral and physical world. All consistent Rationalists alike exclude from our Holy Religion, from its history and its dogma, everything but that which may be evolved out of a sustained and unva- rying process of what is called law, and they admit into their account of men and things no special expression of a Supreme and Almighty Will. The question thus raised is, I need hardly say, most important, and may be thus stated : whether all that happens to man be not the result of certain fixed laws, which are not subject to any interference on the part of their Divine Author. It is indeed urged that such an opinion is in har- mony with the truest conception we can form of God's Almighty Power, and that in proportion as we discern more clearly this attribute of God, we shall be the less tempted to explain unusual pheno- 21 mena by any theory of the exercise of Super- natural Power. But it may be said, in answer to such a plea in behalf of such an elimination of the Supernatural, that belief in the being of a God in- volves belief in His Providence and interference — in other words, in the Supernatural. M. Guizota puts this with such inimitable clearness in a work winch he published last June, that I must quote his very words to you : — " "Whoever really believes in God takes Providence for granted. God is not an hypothesis, put forward in order to account for the origin of things. He is not an actor, summoned on the stage of thought, merely that He may open history by the scene of the Creation, and then be dismissed to a life of uselessness and inac- tivity. By the mere fact of His existence, God is ever close to His handiwork, and He upholds and rules it. Providence then flows naturally and by necessity from the Being of God : it is nothing more than the constant presence and uninterrupted action of God in His own Creation." And such an assertion may be strengthened, and the plea which it contradicts further weakened, by arguing that, though the provision and adaptation of means to an end, and the sustentation of them in an unbroken series, and the evolution through them of the most remarkable phenomena, are most evident expressions and exhibitions of Almighty Power, the interference with such a chain of causes and " See Appendix, p. 102. 22 effects, or, in other words, the interposition of some unprecedented exercise of will, is at least as clear a witness to the sovereignty of that will. It is not however by trying to place in the balance, and to estimate by a most careful analysis the precise value either of fixed law on the one hand, or of the interference with law on the other, as indicators of the power of the agent, that we shall find the surest help in resisting the spread and establishment of the opinion in question, which gives no place to the Supernatural in the dealings of God with man. Such help is, I believe, to be obtained by a much simpler and more reliable process. "We appeal against this opinion to the instinct of our common humanity. Men of all creeds, not only they who prostrate their souls when they tell out their belief in the words of the Council of Nicsea, "And was made man ;" but all men who hold any " positive, practical, powerful, lasting, popular religion, "a what- ever may have been their civilization, whatever the influences of climate in forming and modifying their moral and spiritual powers, have refused to allow the system of things which we call Nature to bound their powers of vision, but have, with more or less distinctness, looked beyond it to Him who is not merely Nature personified, but Himself the Person of the Supernatural. To believe in a Supreme Being is to be prepared at any time to witness " strange"b evidences of His Life and Presence. Even without a revelation man feels it to be his ■ Ouizot's " L'Eglise ct la Societe," pp. 20, 21. k irapdSofa, Lukf V. 26. 23 birthright to enter into an unseen Father's presence, and when there, to claim from this Almighty Being, under certain limitations, the inclination of His will towards that of His creature. Whatever then may be the success for a time of such an attempt to eliminate the Supernatural, it will, I am persuaded, not be able permanently to crush the natural instinct which is opposed to it, or to silence that voice of prayer which could find no utterance if man had no place in his creed for the interference of his God. More especially as regards this latter and more interesting point — the little child, who seems to have a peculiar facility for learning to use this power — the old man — those in any adversity — those in joy and gladness — all witness to their belief that they are in this sense " fellow- workers with God, "a and demand the removal of the barrier which the denial of the Supernatural places against the exercise of a right, which they cannot doubt is theirs. But if we have such confidence in the power of this instinctive belief in the Supernatural, How such an opinion gained that we believe it will m the end rise up acceptance, against, master, and extrude the opinion that has for the time gained some advantage over it, the question which is so commonly asked seems only a reasonable one : how did an opinion, embarrassed by such natural and obvious disadvantages, win its way however temporarily to the assent and homage however partial of modern thought ? • Guizot'e " L'Eglise et la Societe," p. 24. 24 And in answer to this question I would at once say that I have no theory of the oscillation of human opinions to propound whereby to account for the promulgation and ready acceptance of this and so many affiliated errors. Nor indeed is any such theory needed here. It is a matter of history that, long prior to that remarkable movement to which such a theory of intellectual oscillations is made to point, most unsound views, though they had not received such body as they have since acquired, were floating about the surface of society — as in the rest of Europe, so in our own country. It is within the memory of many of us, that even at Oxford, for example, there was much confusion of thought concerning the nature of good and evil, of true and false, and that many virtually denied the essential distinction between the two, while professing to find in everything a combination of both. Such confusion tended of course to reduce every- thing to a mere matter of opinion, or sentiment, and to destroy belief in any fixed truth whatever. What was then wanted was (it may be said) that intellectual or scientific exhibition of Divine truth of which it is really capable. It was for the Church to show, as she undoubtedly could show, that the Faith of which she was the expositor and guardian is a reasonable faith, as being welcome and obvious to the illuminated reason, and that the objects set before the eye of the soul — those spiritual things which must be spiritually received — are nevertheless susceptible of intellectual appreciation. This demand was in God's good Providence to a great extent answered, and this want was for a while supplied; and I can remember the time when the intellect of Oxford, rallying round the principles and and faith of the Church, seemed to have broken the power of those oppositions of science which Hegel and others had raised, and by which many men had been led almost to despair of attaining to the truth of God. But soon came a day of sad reverses, and the opinions which seemed for a while crushed regained not a little of their sway. The mind of England was again not trained to be loyal to God's Church. Liberalism in Religion — the tendency of thought to shake the basis of all revealed Religion, and so even- tually of all Religion — the disposition to regard all religious knowledge as a matter of opinion or senti- ment— again found favour with the educated classes of the country, and so, when the book entitled " Essays and Reviews " was published, the seed of its teaching was sown in ground already prepared for it. That book only expressed, and put into form, the doubts and misbelief of many, and of these — not a few, it may be feared — who had seemed at one time to have had a firm grasp of the creeds of the Church. But though there was and is a large sceptical tendency observable in the minds and hearts What done to defend of Churchmen, there also survived in them the Faith. a larger element of strong and undoubting faith, and the question was soon put to the Bishops of the Church with a force, -which made a reply unavoidable, 26 What can be done to stay the progress of such teaching? The disturbed and anxious convictions of both laity and clergy found utterance in warnings, that the very citadel of God's truth was in danger, and in demands that the members of the Church should all in their proper places do their duty to defend our Zion, and not allow the dictates of a worldly prudence to entail upon our children the curse of being able to claim the silence of their fathers, as an acknowledgment that opinions which, for example, eliminated the Supernatural, had a right to a place within the limits of the toleration of our Church. There were, of course, various ways in which men, who were loyal to God's truth, might act under such circumstances. Those in authority might express their disagreement with such teaching, either singly or in combination with one another. The Clergy in convocation, or in their Archdeaconries, or in their Ruri-Decanal Chapters, or as Members of the whole Church, might fix their brand of repro- bation upon it. Men of intellect and learning were bound to range their forces on the side of God's truth, and to shew that the doctrines, which had been assailed, had the sanction, not only of au- thority, but also of the regenerate reason of man. I say of man's reason, which, however impaired and weakened by the Fall, is restored by the incarnate Aoyoc to its original capacities for investigating and recognising the highest truth. The old pro- vision for protecting by legal proceedings and 27 their penal consequences the members of the Church from the false teaching of any of the Clergy, seemed still to exist. The Diocesan Courts, and the Archbishop's Court of Arches, were at any rate tribunals still in harmony with the precedents of Ecclesiastical History. And in the defence of the truth all these means have been used. The Bishops, out of Synod, with remarkable unanimity, and the majority of both the Upper and the Lower House of Convocation, have spoken in the clearest terms in condemnation of this free handling of Holy Scripture, and answers of great intellectual value have been given to the main questions which have been raised. If these questions were indeed such as could only be referred to the bar of the intellect, then such reference has been accepted, and answers have been given which make it the more easy to trace the finger of God's Providence in the whole controversy. It may well have been that the eye of the Church had become dim to many of the objects which God had placed before it — that faith was not being ex- ercised as earnestly and constantly as it should have been, and so was in a weakened state, and that thus God in mercy permitted it to be aroused and stimu- lated. It may have been that the very heart of the Church was becoming indifferent to the preciousness of its inheritance of truth, and required, and so re- ceived, a warning, that unless the treasure was prized and guarded, it would soon be withdrawn from it by the reckless ingenuity of irreverent thought. 28 And so, when it is enquired, what was the canse and origin of such an embodying of unsound views as we have witnessed within the last few years, I feel I can escape from the difficulty of giving any other or more precise answer to such an enquiry, by carrying it back to Him Who orders all things, and holds in His Almighty hands the Book of God's Sovereign Decrees. a Such is the account which I should from the first My own have given, and still give, of the trial Conduct, through which the Church is passing. Nor is my own conduct in this matter inconsistent with such convictions. The decrees of God do not interfere with man's responsibility as to his actions, and so when I had to decide whether I would avail myself of an instrument which God had placed in my hands, it seemed to me that it would be an act not of distrust in God's power and mercy, but of faith in the wisdom of the provisions of His providence for the preservation of the faith, that I should endeavour to arrest by process of law the progress of teaching, which in my deepest convictions I was assured had no sanction from the Church, and which teaching would, wherever appreciated and understood, weaken and even break off the communion of the soul of man with the truth of God. Of course I had to take into consideration the possible consequences of such an attempt. I had to set against the claims of my conscience urging me to shew in the use of the Courts of Law " my readiness with all faithful dili- ■ Rev. v. 1. 29 gence to banish and drive away all erroneous and strange doctrine contrary to God's Word," the various contingencies of such an appeal to law. I could not but foresee that I might become more or less respon- sible for a state of things, shocking to the moral sense, and weakening the foundations of ItsRegul(. right and wrong — that state, I mean, in which we now are, when a Minister of the Church may teach for doctrines of the Church, under the protection of the law, that which the language of the Church, as interpreted by her history and her tradi- tions, proscribes as error. Still, bad as such an issue is, and terrible as is the thought at times that I have not only been an instrument of placing the majesty of the law on the side of error, but even through the confusion which exists in men's minds between what the Church teaches and what it is not penal to teach, have been also a means of enabling men' to claim for such error, however mistakenly, the authority of the Church, I am prepared to assert that my present responsibility is nothing to what it would have been, had I allowed myself, by the dread of the evil possibly resulting from legal proceedings, to be deterred from the discharge of an act of duty, which the perplexities of simple minds, the waverings of weak believers, the bolder hopes of the promoters of error called on me, in the name either of truth or of justice, to undertake. What the evil is that has come upon us, I have, in part, already reminded you. It is simply this — that a Clergyman may now teach what is contrary to the truth, in some most important 30 instances, with perfect immunity, so far as any legal consequences are concerned. But this is not all. There is to my mind far greater Process by evil in the constructive process by which, which Result . L J Reached, as it was avowed, the recent judgment was reached, than in the judgment itself. It seems to me that if a like process is to be used in future questions of heresy, no statement of doctrine, what- ever the care used in the selection of words to guard the truth, can resist the ingenuity which is shewn in breaking down the strongest barriers. Words, however chosen to express and guard doctrine, whether it be, for example, the Divinity of our blessed Lord, or any other precious portion of God's truth, must crumble away under the crush- ing power of such a principle of construction as was applied to the word " everlasting." Theological obligations have, indeed, hitherto held in the history of the Church a fast hold upon the minds and hearts of men, but in these latter days an authority has been claimed and used which can open a way, through all such limitations of thought, into a state of unrestricted licence. With regard to the reasons which made it, I considered, my imperative duty to test the legality of the teaching of which I have been speaking, as I have already, in my last Charge,* and on two other separate occasions communicated them to you, I shall not now enter into details about them. I would See Appendix, p. 102. 31 only observe that, since I have known what was the process by which the final judgment was reached, I feel the more thankful that my own opinion accorded with that of a very large number of my Right Rev. Brethren as reported to me in 1862, and that I de- termined on the occasion of the Interlocutory Judg- ment not to appeal to a Court, the constitution of which I could not approve, but to be content with endeavouring to maintain the decision of the Arch- bishop's court. But, further, if both the result of these legal pro- ceedings and the process by which it was Remedy of secured, cause me many anxious thoughts, I Present ^ ° Grievance find great relief from them in the witness of church, of the old saying, that there is no evil without a remedy. This is a statement of a truth which has a most general application, and I know not why we may not believe that it promises a remedy for our present case, which is almost that of a Church when licence is amenable only to the civil sword. The remedy which seemed to be suggested by the Court itself, was the exercise by the Church of any powers which she might possess, and be at liberty to exercise, to guard and maintain the faith. JSTow, one of these powers is the condemnation by Convocation of a book which may contain false doctrine ; and you are aware that I am supported in making this assertion by the unqualified opinion given by Sir Hugh Cairns and Mr. Rolt, that Con- vocation is "not estopped by any statute from 32 expressing, by resolution or otherwise, its disappro- bation or condemnation of such a book." But such a remedy, however effective in a par- ticular case, is in its nature, merely a special one, and the only course which could be open to the Church with a view of creating permanent restraint upon the claim for undue liberty in teaching, would be by making new Articles. But is such a remedial measure, however adequate to the character of the evil, practicable ? Before we can give an answer to this question, there are others which must first be disposed of; such questions, I mean, as relate to the obstacles to be overcome before such new articles could be framed and gain authority — to the perils attendant upon such an attempt in the present divided state of Christendom, and to such facts as these, that this is not a learned, still less a theolo- gical age — that few escape the effects of the in- fluences which disqualify for precise and scientific treatment of intellectual difficulties — that such new definitions, however perfect and authorised, would, if we may judge from the past, be in their turn sub- jected to processes which could entirely nullify their force, and only give men an additional stimulus to desire to be free from all engagements, as not only wrong in themselves and tyrannical, but powerless also in their hold upon the conscience. And when we have considered these questions, we shall all, I think, come to the same conclusion ; we shall all be agreed that we should have to risk very much, in any attempt to introduce any new Articles 13 of Religion, any authoritative definitions, that is, not so much of the faith itself once for all delivered to the saints, as of those special aspects and relations of it, which present license had developed, and that, even if we had at such risks succeeded, we should on the first occasion when our new expositions were subjected to the destructive processes at the disposal of the Court of Final Appeal, find that our labour had been thrown away, and our risks run for nothing. But if the remedy which the Church requires does not lie in any attempt, however successful, to give more precision to her statements of Divine truth, is there any other means of escape from our difficul- ties ? I would suggest one — one which, though of a moral rather than an intellectual character, can only be applied by those who, on intellectual grounds, acknowledge its value and claim. The remedy I allude to is simply this : a forbearing and concilia- tory attitude maintained within certain limits on the part both of the Church and State in their relations towards one another. And now, before I explain to you how such for- bearance can be justified, and how it alone can relieve the Church from the grievance which is now felt to press so heavily upon it, I will first remind you what are the circumstances which suggest and recommend it. The grievance which I have described to you has arisen out of, and involves questions which Relations of Church touch both the authority of the Church and and state. State respectively, and the relations in which they :;i mutually stand towards each other in respect of such authority. " My Kingdom," said our blessed Lord, "is not of this world," and by these words He described the claim of Himself and His body to authority, and also denned the limits of the authority which He so claimed. Nothing can be clearer from the statements of Holy Scripture, than that our risen Saviour received, not as God, but as Mediator, a Kingdom — a body politic, organised, visible — and that He rules this Kingdom through His servants, "to whom," according to the parable, "He hath delivered His goods" — that He made His apostles His Viceroys, gave them the keys of His Kingdom, and delegated to them such authority in their use that St. Paul was bold to say of himself and of those who shared with him this com- mission, " He that despiseth, despiseth not man, but God, who hath also given unto us His Holy Spirit."* When then I speak of the Church, I am speaking of the visible Kingdom of the Mediator, and when I speak of its authority, I mean that it has the power and responsibility of defending the truth of God, and that this real since delegated, and inalienable power, is wholly spiritual, and owes nothing to any temporal source. 