THE Executive of the Brighton Branch of the English Church Union, through you, sir, their Chairman, have, too rashly, I fear, as well as too kindly, supposed that I might have something to say upon the above subject which may repay this assemblage of Churchmen for their trouble in coming here this evening. It is certainly not for me to say you have deluded them, but rather, without wasting time in apology, to do my best to save (if it may be so) your credit and my own; and, what is of more consequence, to throw some light upon the very important matter to which my remarks are to be directed. At any rate, the great importance of the subject itself and the imminent likelihood of some action being taken to disarrange or subvert the present standing of the Church of England by an alteration in her Book of Common Prayer will ensure your deep interest, and, I do not doubt, secure me an indulgent hearing; whilst the very large and influential, and,—I think it will be on all hands allowed,—most successful meeting held last week in London, gives an additional reason for strengthening, if it may be so, the action then taken by diffusing as widely as possible information as to the dangers apprehended, and the means of resistance to be used in order to preserve its integrity.
It is a trite saying just now that there is a great crisis in Church affairs; but I think it must be allowed to be not less true than trite, even after making all allowance for the magnitude with which the time present always invests things present. In secular and material warfare it may be that sometimes an underrating difficulties, a blindness to the peril, is the very cause and means of safety or success. But in assaults like the present, where the battle-field is the Law and Order of the Church, where the contest is carried on not with sword or spear, but with the keen weapons of intellectual and moral contention, where very much turns and must turn upon the enlistment of public opinion upon this side or that; where prejudice, and ridicule, and sneer, and scoff, appealing constantly to the irreverence and perverseness of the evil side of human nature, backed up in large measure, as might be expected, by a licentious and unbelieving press, adapting itself to a licentious and unbelieving age; where these things are the daily engines of assault, there would seem to be no safety in shutting our eyes to the danger, merely hoping that all “will come some strange way right at last.” Especially when the assault is made upon doctrine, either directly or indirectly, (for if it be upon ceremonial representing doctrine it is indirectly upon doctrine itself,) when it takes the form of assault upon the integrity of the Prayer Book, and the Catholic status of the Church of England in connection with it, we must be wise, and wary, and far-seeing to the utmost of our vision, if we would duly organize our defence and fight well the battle for God’s Church and Gods Truth. We must indeed try not to exaggerate anything, but we must also endeavour not to underrate any real danger which exists, and especially not suffer our citadel to be undermined, whilst we are merely regarding a plausible or fair surface.
There seems, too, to be a peculiar and apt propriety in this term crisis, as applied to the present aspect of Church affairs. It is not merely that there is a great danger, but a danger coming to a head, which, if happily now overcome, will again subside. Johnson gives as the first sense of crisis, “The point in which the disease kills or changes to the better;” and, as the second, “The point of time at which any affair comes to the height,” according to the exact use of the word by Dryden:—
Now is the very crisis of your fate, And all the colour of your life depends On this important Now.
And we may well believe that if the present dangers which beset the Church of England be overcome, God may have in store for her a very glorious future indeed, even to her being a great instrument in His hand, not merely for the spreading His Kingdom here at home, but also (may He in mercy grant it) for the restoration of the Unity of Christendom, and thereby for the Evangelization of the world. As our hopes of this must, however, depend upon her being able to maintain her Catholicity, so must we watch with the most jealous care, and resist with the firmest constancy all which shall impair, her maintenance of Catholic truth and that position which God of His mercy has hitherto permitted her to hold.
One great means of her maintaining this position is the maintaining untouched her Book of Common Prayer, and therefore there is and must be need of the most careful watchfulness as to every threatening of assault upon it.
Now I affirm without hesitation that the first Report of the Royal Commission, appointed, to use its own terms, “to enquire into the Rubrics, Orders, and Directions for regulating the course and conduct of public worship, &c., &c., according to the use of the United Church of England and Ireland,” threatens, and even leads, such an assault. And this gives the connection of the two parts of my subject as announced to you in the title of this Lecture.
As to this threatening or assault contained in the Report, take a witness the most unexceptionable perhaps of any who may be found anywhere, and one whose testimony is only the more convincing as to the danger because he himself does not see it at all, so that it is impossible to suppose him to be straining anything to make a case. Nay, he does not consider what he himself suggests or advocates as a measure carrying out the recommendations of the Report, or as a means to remedy certain embarrassments, to be an alteration in the Prayer Book at all. In his recent Charge, the Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol (himself one of the Commissioners), after considering and dismissing as useless or dangerous, or otherwise inadmissible, several other plans, recommends this:—“A simple and positive enactment declaring what shall be, and be considered to be, the ministerial dress, until further order be taken concerning the same by lawful authority.” And he adds;—“This of course must be by direct legislation. We may shrink from it,” he continues, “but in my judgment it is now inevitable. The very appointment of the Commission seems to involve it, and the general temper of the country will demand it.” {6} If the Bishop’s witness is that the mere appointment of the Commission seems to involve a legislative measure touching the Prayer Book, how much more does its Report—leading even such a man as the Bishop on to advocate it—shew that here is more than a threatening of assault upon it!
Perhaps we shall have something by and by to add upon the views and recommendations of the Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol’s Charge. At present I merely cite this passage as an evidence that the appointment and work of the Royal Commission tend directly to an alteration in the Book of Common Prayer, because such an enactment as is here contemplated would be, I must venture to affirm, whatever his lordship may suppose, a repeal of the Rubric on Ornaments as it stands, and has stood since the last revision. To this, however, I shall have occasion to refer again in the sequel.
But now let us turn for a little while to the Report itself, as issued by the Commissioners on the nineteenth of August, 1867. After reciting the matters for enquiry contained in their appointment, the Commissioners say:—“We, your Majesty’s Commissioners, have, in accordance with the terms of your Majesty’s Commission, directed our first attention to the question of the vestments worn by the ministers of the said United Church at the time of their ministration, and especially to those the use of which has been lately introduced into certain churches.” They proceed:—“We find that whilst these vestments are regarded by some witnesses as symbolical of doctrine, and by others as a distinctive vesture whereby they desire to do honour to the Holy Communion as the highest act of Christian worship, they are by none regarded as essential, and they give grave offence to many.”
From this premiss they arrive at the following conclusion:—“We are of opinion that it is expedient to restrain in the public Services of the United Church of England and Ireland all variations in respect of vesture from that which has long been the established usage of the said United Church; and we think that this may be best secured by providing Aggrieved Parishioners with an easy and effectual process for complaint and redress.” They then state that they have not yet arrived at a conclusion how best effect may be given to this recommendation, but they have (they say {7}) “deemed it to be their duty in a matter to which great interest is attached not to delay the communication to her Majesty of the results at which they have already arrived.”
Now from this, which is the whole substance of the Report, it is evident that the conclusions of the Commissioners are wholly based upon the ground that the vestments are “by none regarded as essential,” whilst “they give grave offence to many.” And of course the stress of the argument, such as it is, rests upon their being admitted to be non-essential; because, if they were essential, the consideration of their giving grave offence to however many would be no reason at all for restraint in the matter. A thousand things give offence to a world lying in wickedness which are only all the more to be proclaimed and declared on that account. The “offence of the Cross” has not “ceased” now any more than it had in S. Paul’s day. It is well known and widely spread, but this affords no reason for restraining the preaching of the Cross.
But it may be said, admitting all this, yet as these vestments are confessed to be _un_essential, the conclusion is very sound that their use should be restrained; and, in fact, a great deal has been made on all hands amongst the advocates of restraint of this the solitary argument of the Commissioners. There is often a sort of triumphant appeal:—“The Ritualists themselves admit the vestments to be non-essential. What can be the hardship or evil of compelling them to give them up?”
Let us examine this view a little more closely, and see whether there be not a lurking fallacy running through the whole argument.
In the first place, more than one of the witnesses has repudiated the admission of the non-essentiality of these things; and even granting that the term may have been used, it is a further question in what application or connection. Essential is a relative term, depending as to its sense on the context in which it occurs, or the subject matter upon which it bears. It needs, therefore, in each case to be asked, Essential to what? To the being or to the well-being? There is here a great and important difference. It is quite true that no one maintains that the vestments are essential to the office of the priesthood, or to the validity of any priestly act. But they may be essential to the giving due expression to the act; and to give this due expression may be essential to the salvation of many. Or yet further, the thing itself may be unessential as to the validity of acts done, and yet the liberty to use it may be of essential importance—aye, even though it may give grave offence to some, perhaps to many.
