IN these “last days,” in which “perilous times” have “come,” it seems a duty, to be somewhat less nice and scrupulous as to any charge of presumption or lack of modesty to which a man may lay himself open by making known his thoughts upon the great matters which now agitate us, than would be the case at another time. One whose name will add no weight to any thing he may say, might well shrink under ordinary circumstances from commenting upon your recent letter, and appear, even to himself, over-bold in supposing he can add any thing to the views therein expounded. But the very pain with which we approach these topics is some warrant to express our thoughts; inasmuch as it is, I think, something of a guarantee that whatever is said, will be, at any rate, not said lightly. Most heartily do I desire to adopt and echo your words “that the enquiry on which we are all engaged is far too great to admit of any personal consideration; and our aim is not to win a victory, or to prove that we ourselves are in the right, but to discover the truth, and point it out to others.”
If then I imagine a line of argument tending to elucidate this truth, has been partially overlooked in the expression of your views, I trust I shall stand excused, both by yourself and any others who may read this letter, from the charge of a too great boldness in writing it. The crisis and exigence of the time is, as it appears to me, too great to allow us to stand upon niceties, or permit any thing to be kept back which may even by possibility be found of service in indicating the line of duty.
Let me, however, here say in the very outset, I am not by any means about to attempt an answer to your letter; a task for which I am, in the first place, not qualified, and in the second place, not disposed. I feel the difficulties you bring forward too much myself to be prepared to ignore them, though I will not say I go with you in the whole of the positions you are concerned to establish. But it is became I feel the pressure of many of them so strongly; because, much as the names of Mr. Keble and of many who take the same line of argument with him, are to be revered, nevertheless, I am at a loss to make up my mind that they have established an unassailable position in denying the competency and authority of the court of the Committee of Privy Council, that I am the more anxious to say a few words upon one point which appears to me to have escaped your notice.
Let me come at once to this point: and to do so I cannot, perhaps, proceed more conveniently than by making a quotation from your letter. At page 54, you say:—“No doubt this court,” (The Judicial Committee of Privy Council,) “nor any other court cannot make canons: but, as has been before said, this is a question, not of new canons and formularies, but of the right construction of old ones. Now, in such a cause, either the court of the Judicial Committee has authority or it has not: . . . If then the decision of the court is to be listened to at all, it is not easy to discover how one will be able to draw distinctions, and place limitations upon the extent to which it reaches. There seems to be no middle way between accepting and acting upon it, and repudiating it altogether as if it had never existed. I mean, repudiating it in every other respect than in the one point, comparatively unimportant and trivial, of the institution of a certain person to a certain benefice.”
You say, it is not easy to discover a middle way. I would hope, though not easy, it may be not impossible.
Let me however here, and in the first place, clear myself from any suspicion, if you should be inclined to attach it to me, that I am about to seek a middle course by softening the amount of error contained in a denial of the exclusive doctrine of regeneration in baptism. Let me not be deemed guilty, even in thought, of doubting that such denial is a denial of the “one baptism for the remission of sins,” and is absolute unmitigated heresy; being such as would have shut out any Church permitting its profession, from the communion of Christendom in the primitive ages; such as no Church can maintain, and remain a living branch of the one Body of Christ. I cast to the winds and repudiate with all my soul, that spurious charity of our day, which would seek to “please men” at the expense of God’s truth; which would recommend the Gospel by denying the Faith; which would render it more popular or palatable, by explaining away the Creeds; and all, to be able to include the more within the Church’s pale, under the plea of an extended usefulness. Such liberality (with what is not our own to give,) is, in my estimation, a giving away God’s honour, and so, mere and absolute treason against HIM: therefore is a giving away our place in His Church, and a blotting out it’s name from the book of life.
Let me explain further: that in what I am about to write, I am going to admit, at any rate for the sake of argument, the authority and jurisdiction of the Committee of Council as a tribunal in this case. I may, and indeed do think, that in your letter, you have allowed too little for the difficulty in which the Church has been placed as to making her voice heard: too little therefore to the circumstances which have hitherto trammelled her, as accounting for and excusing her silence, especially in later times: as for example in the changes made in 1832, and perhaps in other instances. Still I am not concerned in what I am about to write to controvert your positions on this matter, because for the present purpose of my argument I am going to admit the competency, i.e. the authority as distinct of course from the fitness, of this tribunal to try the issue, between Mr. Gorham and the Bishop of Exeter.
Still, as it seems to me, both these points may be conceded: first that the court is sufficient: and secondly, that to deny unconditional regeneration in the case of infants, is heresy; and yet, it may be reasonably maintained, that whatever the decision in this trial shall be, The Church of England may not stand committed to heresy thereby.
No doubt, at first sight this will appear a paradox; and the interpreter the harder to be understood of the two, in thus imagining it not impossible to find a middle way between “accepting and acting upon this court’s decision, and repudiating it altogether as if it had never existed.” But I mean, not impossible to find a point of view, regarding the tribunal from which, we may be able justly and reasonably to allow it’s competency for the present judgment on doctrine, and yet to repudiate, not exactly the decision itself, but the effect of it as committing the Church at large: repudiate it, in your own words, “in every other respect, but the one point comparatively unimportant and trivial of the institution of a certain person to a certain benefice.”
Now the only postulate I ask for this conclusion, is, that the Church shall not, and cannot, stand committed to heresy without proof that her crime is something not accidental, but wilful and deliberate; something more than a mistake, which she is ready and willing to clear up the moment opportunity is given her to do so. In short that as a man is not a liar, without the intention to deceive; so a Church is not heretical, unless the animus of heresy be proved against her.
If you will concede me thus much, I think I may be able to shew that there is a middle course between denying the jurisdiction of the Court, and admitting the weight even if I allow the justness, of the sentence: that is to say, the sentence may be such as under the circumstances, the judges were bound to give, (I am not conceding but supposing this:) and it may therefore carry the conclusion that the Church’s formularies on the subject in question are indistinct; still without proving also that the Church ever intended them to be so; and therefore without affording ground to say that, though her words are ambiguous, her heart and mind have ever been heretical. Of course upon the strength of the sentence, if thus given, Mr. Gorham would gain his institution; but I say again, I do not think the Church would be committed to his heresy.
Let us consider again, what it is precisely which the judicial Committee of Council are about to do. {8} It cannot be stated more entirely according to my sense, than in your own words. You say (page 7) “The question is one simply of interpretation of the Law of the Church of England . . . It is not a question of what is in itself true or untrue, agreeable or not agreeable to the Holy Scriptures, but solely whether a certain doctrine has or has not been clearly defined to the exclusion of some other statement about the same doctrine, which would seem to deny it or explain it away.” Again in the passage already quoted (p. 54) “This is a question not of new canons and formularies, but of the right construction of old ones.”
Then if this be so: though the Decision should affirm what shall be in its form, heresy, may there not still be a limitation as to its effect: rather perhaps I should say, a suspension of the actual heresy altogether until some further condition shall be fulfilled to give it life: that is to say, though the decision may affirm that the formularies of the Church of England do not so clearly define the faith on this point, as to preclude the words admitting an uncatholic, nay an heretical interpretation, does it follow that the animus of the Church is therefore even in the least degree shown to desire or intend to teach such error, nay even to allow it to be taught; and if there be no heretical animus, can She be pronounced herself to have incurred the guilt of heresy? I answer, (and I hope safely) to both questions; No! because all that will be brought out, even in the event of the decision of the court of appeal being to reverse the judgment of the court below, will be merely that there is an ambiguity of language, in the documents on which that court had to found its judgment; and this, an ambiguity, it may be, unintentional on the part of the Church, though really inherent in the wording of her formularies, acting therefore imperatively on the judges in the case (if so,) and obliging them to give a decision such as shall leave the point at issue, an open question. Let me be well understood. If such ambiguity of language be intentional on the part of the Church; if she can be proved to have desired in drawing up her articles and services to admit two interpretations on baptismal regeneration: if it be her view and plan to include two such opposite parties within her as those represented by Mr. Gorham and the Bishop of Exeter, by such ambiguous, and therefore comprehensive language, I most fully admit she stands convicted of unpalliated heresy both in form and matter. But if it be lawful without violence to reason or conscience to believe she had no such view, but meant to assert the undoubted ancient catholic faith on baptism, I do not think we are bound to make her answerable, as if she had knowingly and wilfully assented to uncatholic doctrine, though as it turns out (if so it be) the wording of her formularies is inadvertently insufficient to protect the one truth. I cannot but think that though the misfortune of such inadvertence is not to be denied, its guiltiness is not lightly to be admitted; and that we are bound in all reason, (and I am sure if so, in conscience and loyalty) not to consider her chained by such ambiguous language to the denial of God’s truth, and the catholic faith.
